61 Rule the Waves 3 | Germany 1935 | Planning the Missile Age fleet

[@ClarkyKenty72DailyP]

Possible the best RtW episode ever! Oh, don't get me wrong... I love the fighting but I love the thinking more!

[@RvTWargames]

Me too. I very much enjoyed thinking it through, putting out, and then getting so much rich feedback I'm going to have to revisit my plans!

[@rbfishcs123]

Oh boy here we go - saving this video to watch later this week.

[@RvTWargames]

Get your fine tooth comb ready!

[@b1laxson]

Recommend capital ships as for every cv division of 2-4 cv to have one BX ship. The bx anchors the forward destroyers in how formations get organized. The dd do a ssm exchange with dd ahead to protect the bx from incoming ssm. Then you may get into torp and gun ranges. There even an older bx can slap around an aluminum fleet. Remember aluminum ships are at more risk of fires so don't use it on BX or heavy CA.

[@RvTWargames]

I'll have a look what other countries are doing with their BX builds but my fear is they could get very expensive quickly, not to mention being a long build.

[@b1laxson]

Don't need super Bx just a decent 12 to 14 inch, forward only so rear can carry asm. Converting works. It gives something tough for a tactical command ship away from cvs

[@jaywerner8415]

@@RvTWargames Well you don't need a BIG battleship/Battlecruiser. Something like the Alaska Class would do (basically a super heavy cruiser killer/carrier Escort) 12 Inch Guns or so should be sufficient for bullying a Modern "Early Cold War" Fleet. Heck the Iowa Class always suppresses me at 35,000 Tonnes of ship.

[@b1laxson]

@@jaywerner8415 Correct. You don't need monster BBs. Its something to keep that asset of "combined arms" of big gun with decent armor. In large battles SSMs get used up then you go do a gun fight on someone without guns.

[@uefkentauroi]

You meant 4 BXs every 2 CVs, right? Fire spreading due to aluminium superstructure is such a rare event it's not really worth thinking about. That said, BXs and CVs don't really need any extra topside load or weight, and their fires rage out of control before the ships sink due to flooding, so I don't put aluminium superstructure on them. DDs and CLs absolutely get it once available though. Big BXs with thick armor should be put on the first 3 slots of each BX division. Alaska-class cruisers displace 34800 t. You can build 21000-25000 t BCs with 8 forward-firing 17 in guns and put them on the fourth slot of a BX division: the AIs will rarely target them.

[@uefkentauroi]

32:35 Aircraft squadrons take time to increase their quality... I would probably construct the CVs first. Either that, or make use of the extra carrier training slots that the other carriers allow to establish carrier-capable fighter squadrons before those carriers are complete.

[@RvTWargames]

Yup. Plan to very much squash down the land-based air and keep the CV-air in good nick.

[@pocheesy73]

Some good news on the carrier issue: the actual tonnage requirement to operate heavy jets without penalty is 36000 tons with steam catapults (also requires jet capable and angled flight deck). That means the Strassers can still be useful while their replacements are being built.

[@RvTWargames]

Excellent news! I'll have to check when, notionally, those techs are due to arrive.

[@stevejones5824]

@@RvTWargames Manual page 104 states > 40000t to avoid 1.5x hangar penalty. Page 110 says for 30-40K tons, you must have steam catapults to be jet capable - the 1.5x hangar penalty IS STILL ACTIVE

[@pocheesy73]

@@stevejones5824 The manual is wrong. I found out accidentally with a pair of 37800 ton carriers that had no penalty back in 1.00.40 and I've tested it again in 1.00.52 to prove it on the RTW3 Discord. A 35900 ton carrier gets the penalty, a 36000 ton carrier does not. The only thing I'm unsure of is if Steam Catapults changes the displacement requirement. Presently the tech description doesn't make any sense since carriers below 30000 tons can operate heavy jets, so I don't know what Steam Catapults actually does.

[@b1laxson]

Ssm fighting is heavily about the destroyers. The amount fired is limited by firecontrol to about 4 per ship so you want lots of ships to attack. Defense is in part about the number of small ships put ahead to guard high value ships. Losing a few dd is way better than losing a cv.

[@RvTWargames]

OK, so maybe explore smaller SSM DDs as a front line screen division for high value ships.

[@akarinnnnnn]

@@RvTWargames I'm inclined to agree about smaller DDs. In my last run I stayed below 3k tons for fleet DDs well into the 1970s. Less potent, but more numerous DDs seemed to work very well compared to past playthroughs where I just kept going with bigger and bigger destroyers. In one of my Germany campaigns I was able to afford to experiment with a mix of these smaller DDs and few larger jack of all trade DDs that had helos and were above 3k (at the point I was well into the missile era). I concentrated them on directly supporting the BXs directly but I would have liked to see how they performed if they had been mixed into divisions with the smaller DDs sort of like division flagships. Unfortunately I designed them with different enough speeds that the battle generator would have thrown a fit.

[@RvTWargames]

OK, so keep speed standard for interoperability and see if a high-low mix works. I was also wondering about having a scouting force to help protect the carriers.

[@akarinnnnnn]

​@@RvTWargames Had to edit my comment, my memory had failed me until I looked back at my saves. It was actually my Germany game I tried the high low mix in. In my USA one I only fielded 4 3600-ton jack of all trade DDs (my smaller DD's never topped 2300 tons). Their speed did match the other DDS, but I had them scouting for my main BX division instead of intermingling. Their performance was decent but I handled them very carefully. The thing with scouting forces in the missile age is that the AI will tend to target and fire on the first thing they see. This makes it very tempting to keep ancient protected cruisers around to serve as sacrificial pickets. The purposes of my USA jack of all trade 3600-ton DDs was to serve in that role, just not sacrificially.

[@b1laxson]

@@akarinnnnnn Agree on the more moderate destroyers. In the torpedo age you might look at cost/torp and now its cost/missile. Since it maxes out at 4 SSM the effeciency point isn't at the max build but somewhere around 2,500 (like his 2,300) tons. 4 SSM, a torp rack of 3 or 4 torps, some radar MAA, some DP main guns, then other things are optional.

[@jaywerner8415]

Very Good Planning Segment. Their is ONE major Tech Advancement that I feel I should mention, depending on how quickly you get to refitting your CLs. Eventually you will research a Tech that lets you build Light Cruisers without Armor, Zero, Zip, Nadda. As you can imagine this saves a HUGE amount of weight in addition to a Aluminum Super Structure. I ASSUME this is supposed to Represent Modern Frigate class ships But not quite sure. Feel free to correct. ALSO, while you do not have them YET. In addition to Radar guided Medium AA, their is also CIWS that replaces your Light AA that you will get eventually. (but that will probably come later, after the refits) And yes Torpedoes will eventually gain ASW capability, which is nice.

[@uefkentauroi]

CLs with no armor... I miss the time when SAMs were OP and I could use such CL designs... I hope I can get JAs to work well enough, but until then building CLs with no armor is like begging your enemy to sink them. And even if I get JAs to work well enough, I remain skeptical that such CLs will be worth building.

[@jaywerner8415]

@@uefkentauroi JAs? Jet Attack Planes ya mean? But Yeah its a Weird Tech, I assume its just cus missiles have so much pen, what little armor you can fit on a CL is kinda pointless. I assume they are supposed to Missile Frigates or Missile Cruisers, cus not having armor saves ALOT of weight which you can spend on more Missile Reloads. Buy yeah, you are kinda asking for the enemy to sink them even with a good crew. Cus they are just GIANT Destroyers at that point.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@jaywerner8415 Yes, JA stands for Jet Attack. The only two acronyms I know that can stand for more than one thing are DE (Deck Extended / Destroyer Escort) and SSM (minelaying submarine / ship-to-ship missile).

[@RvTWargames]

Good tip about the Missle Cruiser tech. Thanks

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames Missile cruisers' nominal research year is 1956 and has a 100% research rate. In addition to allowing to build missile-equipped CLs without armor, it also increases the maximum displacement for CLs to 14000 t.

[@uefkentauroi]

Part 1 2:44 After the SAM quantity and precision were nerfed, late game battles in game are still fought with guns, with some initial kills and damages done by missiles - both when missiles are launched against an enemy ship and hit it, and when missiles explode on ship (e.g. a SAM launcher being hit). 3:41 As you said, you launch a volley of missiles, 5%-10% of which are going to hit, then a second volley some time later, again some 5%-10% will hit... and then it's back to gunfire. Think of missiles like an addition to guns can replace some tertiary and secondary guns, not a full replacement to guns in general. Missiles have a lot of damage variability, so even DDs can survive a couple of missile hits, let alone bigger ships (CVs excluded, as they are very flammable). 4:09 About sonar, jet attack, dive bombers and torpedo bombers for now I'll redirect you to the text file on googles drive. The short version is: sonars are useless, though I think it's fine using them if you think not having them is too game-y; JAs cost too much for what they are worth (missiles aren't really precise); DBs are useless; TBs are actually good if you launch 240 of them in a single strike (60 from each carrier, of which there can be 4 in a battle, divided in two divisions of 2 carriers each), first with missiles, then with double torpedoes - though pulling this off requires some skill as you have to manually send the fighter escorts in a separate strike timed so that they arrive simultaneously with the TBs. This strategy requires building carriers with 119 planes though (121, if you fear possible future changes: nothing prevents the developers from rounding the number of planes in a special squadron up rather than down in a future patch). The value of TBs is not in torpedoing and sinking enemy ships, but in making them evade and disrupting their formation, which will make it easier for your surface force to close in and attack them. 6:13 CVs can displace at most 69000 t, while BXs can displace at most 90000 t. Building bigger docks won't allow you to build bigger ships. 6:51 While it is true that the message "fire spreads due to aluminum superstructure" (I don't remember the exact wording) is rare, I don't know if it influences the chances of a fire to start. Therefore, I would suggest to put it on ships that are lost to excessive flooding (i.e. DDs and CLs) and not put it on ships that are lost to excessive fires (i.e. BXs and CVs). 6:54 Fast ships with reliable engines (and long range for DDs) was the solution I came up with to deal with the increasing battle distance. Since I wrote that post, I learned that there is another way to deal with that problem: apparently (I haven't tested this yet) attaching CV divisions to BX divisions (not the opposite) will make the two fleets spawn closer. The advantage is that you can put more armor and weapons on your ships (especially DDs), the disadvantage is that it's game-y. Your choice will shape your doctrine in ship design going forward. 6:56 Crew quality is very important, but it's equally as important to save money wherever possible. You mentioned that you'll cover the latter topic in the next video, so I'll leave some considerations for the next video. 7:26 You said that heavy guns are useful particularly in nighttime and in poor weather... but those are niche occasions. Where heavy guns are going to be particularly useful is after you run out of missiles. Don't think that missiles are wonder weapons: they can be considered an addition to them, but not a substitute. 8:14 The technology that adds ASW capability to torpedoes is improved ASW torpedoes, a 1950 tech (nominal research year). I sent you a mail in which I corrected the misconceptions I had about HAA and LAA. The technology that adds ASW capability to mines is ASW mines, a 1908 tech (nominal research year - you started the game with this technology already researched). 9:45 Given that CVs are a "must" to prevent being blockaded and initiating blockades, practically speaking, I see two options: 1. Build fewer but bigger carriers (119 or 121 air capacity): the advantage is that these will help you decrease the enemy's blockade strength via disruptive air strikes, but they will not give you a big blockade strength from the get go; 2. Build smaller but more numerous carriers (72 air capacity): the advantage is that these will give you a bigger blockade strength from the get go, but will not help you to decrease the enemy's blockade strength via disruptive air strikes. I don't know which option is ultimately better, but again: air strikes in RtW3 late game should not be associated with sinking enemy ships, but with making them evade to "fix" them in place as your surface action group closes in. (Of course there's the cheesy option of building many cheap 14100 t CVs with no aircrafts assigned to them whatsoever - or just a token amount to get rid of an annoying message at the end of the turn - just to increase the blockade strength more than one would have the right to.) 10:03 See 6:54. 13:14 I'll go into more details about the battle generator later, but to quickly answer your question about whether you should build more fleet BCs or not: if you have 12 or more fleet BCs, then no, I don't think it's worth it (BCs built specifically for trade protection don't count, obviously). If you have between 8 and 11, then you might consider building a few more to get to 12, and if you opt to build more then I'd say it has a fairly low priority. If you have between 4 and 7, you should really consider building a few more to get to 8. If you have 3 or less then definitively it should be a high priority building up to 4 BCs. 13:24 What do you mean by it "helps to trigger battles"? The battle generator works with what you (and the enemy) have, and it's quite happy to generate a small destroyer or cruiser engagement if there are no bigger ships available. 13:34 HSAMs don't inherently have a surface-to-surface mode. They will acquire it later on after researching the "anti surface capability for SAM" technology. MSAMs will acquire the surface-to-surface mode with the same technology. MSAMs and HSAMs should deal the same damage per hit and have the same range in anti-surface mode, but MSAMs are lighter, cheaper, and take less topside load, so they are better than HSAMs in this role. MSAMs will also acquire an anti-missile mode, which HSAMs will not have. HSAMs do have a point in their favor, however, but I'll mention it once you actually unlock them. Also, why removing SSMs to mount HSAMs? You might be able to carry both. 13:54 I might be wrong on this, but probably CAs don't trigger battles with enemy BBs; at most they can trigger battles with enemy BCs. Again, I might be wrong. 14:47 Another advantage of DEFG positions is that they are all forward-facing, and "forward" is usually where the enemy ships are going to appear on radar. Not "protecting", rather "not occupying". 15:06 I'll write another post about CLs and DDs, and I'll mention floatplane scouts there, but for now, just briefly: floatplane scouts should not go on CLs, they should go on special DD designs. Helicopters as ASW tools are ineffective on ships other than dedicated helicpter carriers (AVs). They could be used on certain designs as scouts if you aren't in a carrier battle and are distant enough from friendly air bases (though I wonder whether floatplane scouts are cheaper in this role - helicopters have the advantage that the ship doesn't have to stop as helicopters can land while the ship is moving). Another way they are useful, and this is most likely the biggest point in their favor, is once they will gain the ability to extend the radar range of of the ships once you research radars for helicopters. However this is only useful is the front-most ship(s) have helicopters, not the ones in the rear; if one wants to use helicopters to extend the radar range and hopefully fire the first shot, then helicopters should be added, at the minimum, to the lead ship of DD divisions, as they should be the front-most ships in the formation. The downside is that this requires to make the most vulnerable destroyers, those that have the lowest chances of surviving and therefore have to be replaced most often, bigger and more expensive.

[@pocheesy73]

I really have to push back on your stance on attack jets (JA). I think people on the discord get some sticker shock about the price of them, but they generate real value when used effectively. You said the value of TB is disrupting the enemy, to me the value of JA is the outright deletion of enemy ships. Right now the advantage is with the offense, there is no SAM shield that can keep properly coordinated strikes of JA from hitting valuable targets. After 1960-ish you won't even lose enough planes for the low replacement rate to be an issue because of the plane survivability techs. You recommend throwing 240 TB at the enemy but I wager better results could be achieved with 120 JA (which cost about the same as 240 TB). "air strikes in RtW3 late game should not be associated with sinking enemy ships, but with making them evade to "fix" them in place as your surface action group closes in" Again I don't understand this perception. Late game I routinely send multi-hundreds of thousands of tons to the bottom in a single battle with air power. I never have to chase enemy carriers with my battleline in the late game, I just surgically remove them with air strikes. If the enemy battleline looks threatening I can drop a few hundred missiles and bombs on them in addition to the regular SSM spam and gunfire. A fully JA equipped carrier force has insane flexibility in the application of its considerable firepower. Typically I roll 33% JA by deck size, 50% fighters (HJF and LJF), with the remaining being the special squadron. That usually gives me 2.5 strikes with HASM (G loadout, don't use G2 unless going after extremely hard targets, it can result in massive overkill). Coordinated strikes, escorting fighters, veterancy, and ECM support from special squadrons are all critical to letting the JA get through CAP and SAM, but the end result is often devastating. JA are also absurdly effective against airbases. One carrier division can instantly remove an airbase from the battle by sending JA with 4x bomb load. Doesn't even require valuable ASM stocks to accomplish and you can fight smaller cruiser or destroyer actions near the former airbase without being harassed by planes for a few turns. I agree that JA are expensive, but the lethality absolutely scales with the cost. Being able to reliably destroy enemy capital ships in the middle of their defensive formations at huge ranges is a capability that I am more than happy to pay for, and my tool of choice for that is JA.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@pocheesy73 I wish I had your same experience with JAs... If I had, I would have suggested the same. A few questions for you, because it's probably just a skill issue on my part: which nation(s) did you successfully use JAs with? Against which nations? What technologies did you and the AI have (e.g. low altitude attack profile, long range air-to-air missiles, etc.)? Which squadrons, exactly, do you set to be night-capable? Do you use elite pilot training? From what you wrote, I assume you're coordinating from multiple CVs with 40 JAs + 20 L/HFJs per carrier. The more info I have, the more I can replicate your starting conditions. You seem to run CVs with 60 L/HFJs, 40 JAs and 19 special. I don't remember exactly the cost of all the air units and can't double check right now, but let's assume you're right and that JAs cost double than TBs. If I were to convert the aircrafts on my CVs I would go from 40 L/HFJs, 60 TBs and 20 special to 40 L/HFJs, 30 JAs and 19 special. On a 119 CV, that's 30 empty spots, to be filled partially with L/HFJs (20) and partially with JAs (10). HFJs costs as much as JAs... so while 2 TBs cost as much as 1 JA, I'd have to switch to 2 L/HFJ/JAs... which actually cost double. And that is not all about costs. You said that your pilots are veteran... which means that you keep JA squadrons in active status in peacetime. That's going to add to their cost. But, again, I'll test JAs the next war I'll have (I just finished one).

[@pocheesy73]

@@uefkentauroi The campaigns that brought me to my current position were: USA to 1970 in patch 1.00.24, Japan to 1990 in patch 1.00.40, and Austria-Hungary to 1990 in patch 1.00.52. Note that the USA campaign was before the SAM accuracy nerfs and the Japan campaign was during the era of horrible ASM penetration. Countries fought: everyone. As Japan I fought a war against communist USA in 1985 with their 50 carriers, unlimited budget, and SAMs fully proliferated. Worst case scenario but the strat I'm trying to outline still prevailed. As Austria-Hungary I mostly fought Italy, France, and Great Britain during the jet era. For tech, everything important is researched by 1962. I use a lot of night capable squadrons, 3-4 per carrier, both JA squadrons and 1-2 HJF. Elite Pilot Training: as Japan yes, as Austria-Hungary, no, doesn't really matter. Typical opening strike from a 2 carrier division is all four JA squadrons with missiles, 2 HJF escorts, and extra spot value is used for LJF either on escort or with rockets. When attacking enemy formations always use coordinated and almost always with multiple divisions striking together. You want to swarm in, do massive damage, and get out quickly. Sending planes in piecemeal over long periods of time is how they get butchered. JA strikes take fewer losses proportional to their number the more of them there are. I suspect its because HASM have such a high priority in the attack/defense sequence that the few HSAM/MSAM that are allowed to retaliate get their control channels maxed out when there are a lot of JA attacking at once. Once the enemy are scattered you can hunt down stragglers with smaller strikes. Target priority is usually CV>BX>CVL>anything else. Floatplane/helicopter search priority is turned off because I want jets out scouting. Faster reports = faster strikes. Cost of running a 119 capacity CV with 20 HJF(N), 20 HJF(N), 20 LJF, 20 JA(N), 20 JA(N), 19 Special is 3766 per month on AF in 1990. A 100 capacity carrier with 17 HJF(N), 17 HJF(N), 16 LJF, 17 JA(N), 17 JA(N), 16 Special is 3387 per month. Believe me, I know I am advocating for an expensive force structure. I'll use Austria-Hungary (super large fleet size) as an example because of the budget limitations. I could field 548 jets on 6 carriers in the 1950s, 780 on 8 carriers by 1960, and 1018 on 10 carriers by 1980. Naval aircraft were about 25 to 30% of the budget. Carriers went into RF between wars, trying to bring 2-4 carriers to AF before wars broke out. I was also able to maintain a battleline of about 10 BX with enough CL and DD to fill screens. The battleline was employed very defensively during battles where I had carriers present. The end result of that A-H campaign: by tonnage sunk between 1955 and 1990, JA were easily the winner, claiming nearly every CV/CVL kill and some of the BX/CA kills as well. The entire reason I played Austria-Hungary this way was to test the cost effectiveness of a carrier focused strat on a smaller nation. It certainly was challenging to manage the budget but every single battle my carriers spawned into was won easily. Enemies would lose multiple CV by turn 150 of a battle. France and Italy were reduced to zero capital ships, Great Britain nearly so. JA losses never rose to the point of squadrons being short. JA losses in general were in the range of single digit per capital ship destroyed, even against post 1970 SAMs. To sum up: JA are incredibly lethal when properly integrated and supported by your force structure, and are very sustainable during high intensity combat, but it does put a lot of pressure on the budget. My next set of experiments are going to be finding out the minimum viable number needed to achieve these effects. Fielding 260-ish JA across 8 carriers as Austria-Hungary was definitely enough to have them do everything I wanted them to do and then some. Can it be done with half that many? A quarter? I'm not sure.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@pocheesy73 Thank you, I hope I'll get the same results as you once I have a war after converting everything and letting the pilots get their initial experience up. If it works as well, then I'll have to revise my entire fleet next, as I build heavily armed and armored CLs with fewer missiles rather than the opposite. EDIT: That said, what if I can't decline a battle where I don't have any CV support? I'd need my CLs to hold their ground, so making them armorless is a bit ehh...

[@pocheesy73]

@@uefkentauroi Build your cruisers however you feel you need to in order to win cruiser actions. Early in wars I do often decline them to try and force bigger battles but when the enemy runs out of capital ships the battle generator rolls mostly cruiser and destroyer actions.

[@darthteej1]

At 29:34 I always put on DC training on Frontline ships. The missile age is all about combating fires and flooding. It is critical that crews can mitigate structure damage and live yo fight another day.

[@RvTWargames]

Good point that makes sense. I'll be keeping damage control.

[@uefkentauroi]

"I always put on DC training on Frontline ships" thanks for the chuckle, though I'm sure you know that damage control training applies to _all_ ships, including those in mothball and on TP (i.e. you pay extra maintenance for ships for which damage control is useless).

[@darthteej1]

@@uefkentauroi yeah but the training cost is percentage increase to maintenance. You Def pay less for the mothballed ships. This might be bosses coming from a Japan playthrough though cause of cheap training

[@rbfishcs123]

I have equipped my fine tooth comb. Everyone has already said everything there is to be said about the transitionary period from big heavy guns into missile era. I would like to say a few things about the strike matrix you have shown / discussed at 12:00. The bastion concept will only work mostly if you have territory in a concentrated area. If you need to project power, say into the carribbean or the far east, not having cv assets will mean you have to build up your own land-based air power in those areas. There is a cost analysis to be done here. I suspect that land-based air assets are cheaper than CVs, but less flexibility. You will have to be OK either accepting or declining engagements, outside of land based range full knowing the enemy may be able to deploy their own air power. Keeping in mind, you did have issues at various times with public unrest and thus declining battles may cause that issue to resurface in future wars. For this save I am GLAD you have opted to not use bastion defense strategy. Helicopters - super interesting concept. I think early helis aren't worth it, but later on once they get ranged and armament, they will become fully capable of dishing out the damage. Nothing a floatplane would be capable of. Honestly there is so much to fully understand, the missile age is a new game in a way. Looking forward to seeing how your save unfolds here. BTW I really appreciate your presentation in this video, the numbers and analysis were fun to listen / watch through.

[@uefkentauroi]

There are two hidden problems with a no CV run: 1. sometimes it's not possible to decline battles, and 2. CVs have a high blockade strength value. When was the last time that you used helicopters in an offensive role and they did a number on the enemy fleet with their LASMs?

[@rbfishcs123]

@@uefkentauroi Last time was in my 1970s save that a helicopter was capable of becoming an offensive weapons platform to augment my own air assets. Nothing to really build a fleet around, but just enough to warrant some attention for my save. I do not min/max my saves, I just play with whatever is fun to do.

[@uefkentauroi]

​@@rbfishcs123 You said "was capable of becoming an offensive weapons platform to augment my own air assets", which is not "they are very effective / cost-efficient at crippling/sinking enemy ships" (or something along those lines), therefore you could have answered my question "when was the last time that [...] helicopters [...] did a number on the enemy fleet [...]?" just with a very simple "never".

[@rbfishcs123]

@@uefkentauroi chill man, this isn't a competition. Take a breather.

[@RvTWargames]

I would like the baston concept to work better, but I suspect it's only viable for the Soviet Union who can't avoid being blockaded and probably have no hope unblockading themselves.

[@rendellbyrd2597]

The peacetime periods are the best part of the game and love your peacetime videos. I agree with what some others said that in the missile age a lot of missile armed destroyers seem to be the most effective. I would go so far as to say might even consider scrapping your BCs or just leave them in mothballs. I know it’s hard, but I refitted mine to be missile platforms that I thought would be hard to sink but found that one missile hit could still send them to the bottom because of the fires that I couldn’t control.

[@RvTWargames]

But but but my beautiful battlecruisers 😟 I'm hoping that retaining damage control and a well balanced fleet and crossed fingers will carry me through. Though I might just run the numbers on what scrapping the BCs gives me in terms of extra DDGs.

[@rendellbyrd2597]

@@RvTWargames I know the feeling which is why I retained mine. You won't get much from scrapping them, but as you pointing out in your video the monthly cost is the most important thing and you can maintain a whole flotilla of destroyers holding several times the missiles for the cost of one BC. The other issue is probably the AI's targeting priority. You might as well have a bullseye painted on them. Other than CVs I didn't build much bigger than a CL in the modern age and they were mainly to hold the SAMs to protect the CVs.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@rendellbyrd2597 It is clear you don't know how the battle generator works: it is not just the BXs you're getting rid of, but also of its accompanying CL division and the 2 escorting DD divisions. Losing a BC to a single missile is quite the feat. It's very likely that you're doing your screen, maneuvering, LSAMs (depending on technology), above water torpedoes, SSM reloads, HSAMs, MSAMs and/or crew quality wrong. CLs assigned to a CVs are just there for moral support: LSAMs in practice can't intercept missiles that are heading toward a ship different that the one the LSAM launcher is installed on, MSAMs can intercept missiles but only from 1970, HSAMs can't intercept missiles, and HFJs get LRAAMs in 1966 anyway, while CVs have CAP and LSAMs. 2 DD divisions as decoy are more than enough, and they can still contribute to the front line with SSMs.

[@Tom-pt5wm]

I love your graphics, numbers, statistics🥰

[@RvTWargames]

Thank you 🤗

[@FoxxofNod]

For CVs do not be scared of compliments larger or even much larger than 100. If there is a handling penalty (I haven't seen one in RtW3) it is smaller than the benefit of the larger air group. For reference my first German super carrier carries 140 aircraft.

[@RvTWargames]

That's an interesting idea.

[@pocheesy73]

From my testing of 100 jet CVs and 119 jet CVs, strikes from the larger depart about 10-15 minutes later, but I think that's a good trade for the extra capacity.

[@RvTWargames]

@pocheesy73 yes, that does sound worth having.

[@katrinapaton5283]

@@pocheesy73 I KINDA solved this problem by adding a ninth and tenth carrier, but then I'm at the mercy of the battle generator to actually allow me to use them. Thanks for the info, maybe next time.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@katrinapaton5283 On a large battle you can have 4 CVs and 2 (or more, untested) CVLs split in 2 division. I don't remember if it's possible to have 3 CVs on the same division in some battles, but if it is they are few enough in number that most of the time you'll end up with your 3 CVs division split in 2 CVs and 1 CV in two separate divisions, so 1 less CV than you would have had otherwise.

[@kalashnidoge]

One way a missile age fleet to be built is to concentrate on DDGs to carry anti ship missiles, CLGs for fleet air defence and carriers for CAP and surgical strikes. BBs take a backseat, while they are giant targets and sticking defence systems on battleship can turn out rather costly in the long run

[@RvTWargames]

Probably true in the long run, but in this awkward in between time the big gun is not dead yet. The tricky question is: how long will this transition phase last (bearing in mind I have varied technology on).

[@b1laxson]

One bx per cv division is an anchor ship for the dd formations. Do hold the bx back and have the dd forward during the ssm exchanges. Then use conventional role of bx big guns pounding amid dd torp runs

[@walkerhartge9177]

2 things I just learned, the sub 40k ton storage penalty only applies to Heavy and Attack jets, 2 you can drop that to 30k tons w/ steam catapults(1952)

[@RvTWargames]

Didn't know about the steam catapults. Thanks

[@walkerhartge9177]

Ya someone created a spreadsheet listing all of the technologies. I think the base year for the tech is like 1954 or something, so you get a research debuff if you are researching it prior to that.

[@darthteej1]

The ASW design is beautifully optimized damn

[@RvTWargames]

Thank you, I was advised well!

[@TheMouseMasterYT]

15:07 so I admit to not knowing the missile age in rtw3 as well as the guns/carriers ages... But why 6" for the new cl's instead of 5?

[@uefkentauroi]

...Being in the missile age has nothing to do with using 6 in guns on CLs. You should be using 6 in guns on CLs since 1890 (unless you want to use protected cruisers with 7 in guns main battery to then use 6 in guns in the secondary battery). In addition to doing much more damage than 5 in guns and penetrating thicker armor (BXs' BE can be 4 in thick - thus 6 in guns can cripple BXs if you manage to get your CLs close enough), they allow you to use (read: spam) 5 in guns in the secondary battery and 4 in guns in the tertiary battery. If you start with 5 in guns in the main battery then you'll end up with 3 in guns in the tertiary battery... which isn't good because 3 in guns have only HE shells, no AP shells.

[@RvTWargames]

It is a bit unsatisfactory, especially on DDs (though the late 40s DDs have grown to the size of 1890s CLs!)

[@darthteej1]

You're so right about the need for spacious accommodations and WHY like GO OFFF

[@RvTWargames]

We modern people like our personal space

[@uefkentauroi]

Part 2 (CLs and fleet DDs skipped for now - they'll be in two separate posts) 20:19 TP DDs (DEs, if you will): Extremely important things: Minesweeping gear: it's a must-have. Very important things to change before committing the design: Increase the displacement to 1000 t: this will maximize the minesweeping value. Aluminium superstructure: don't put it even after you'll research it: this ship design doesn't need the weight saving or extra topside load that aluminium superstructure grants, so there's no reason to pay extra (aluminium superstructure costs a fair amount). Things that don't matter, they are there just to minimize cost: Speed: these ships won't chase anyone around, they are just there to lay mines, clear enemy mines, deterrence and bodyguard duties (please refer to the mail I sent yesterday about what these things mean). There's nothing certain, but someone on the forum speculated whether 25 kn was the maximum speed for a 1000 t DD to be considered a DE by the battle generator and thus being unlikely for the battle generator to include it into battles... except maybe convoy defense? And I don't think the developers are really going to disclose the details of this game mechanic. Engines: as long as they are reliable, the type doesn't matter; cheapest recommended, but diesel is fine (eventually you'll unlock gas turbines, but those are really expensive, so I'd recommend to stick with diesel for this kind of ship). Long range: these ships will operate mainly in your home zone, possibly in the Mediterranean, so I don't see the need to put long range on them. 22:52 AF ASW KE: don't build: KEs don't provide deterrence on AF (I mentioned this in the mail I sent yesterday, but it's worth repeating because it's an important point); this means that they won't do anything to prevent enemy submarines from torpedoing, and possibly sinking, your bigger ships. Additionally, DDs have a gun precision malus because DDs aren't a stable firing platform, so guns on fleet DDs aren't as effective as on CLs, for example, so it's fine to remove some of them to put the whole suite of minesweeping, minelaying and ASW equipment. I'll talk about the battle generator in another post, but you can have battles with some 60 fleet DDs. Even you make each one of them less effective in surface action by reducing their guns, you can make up for it with numbers. By the way, RtW3 has some "hidden" ship classes other than the ones displayed to players. For example, 1000 t DDs with 21 kn speed are considered as a different class that bigger and faster DDs, so the battle generator won't pick them even if they are in active fleet (though it might there aren't enough DDs to fill all the available slots - not that you should keep these DDs, or rather, DEs, in AF, mind you). There might come a time later in the game where you might want to remove these specialist equipment from your fleet DDs to make room for more missiles. This reduction in specialist equipment can be made up for by building more of those 1000 t DEs: all ships with mines and minesweeping gear contribute to minelaying and minesweeping efforts in the sea zone they are in, no matter if they are in AF or TP. And since, as I said in the mail, deterrence and bodyguarding are not affected by the ASW value, your fleet DDs will still protect your bigger ships from submarines. 24:11 MCM KEs: don't build: if you put minesweeping gear on DEs and DDs you won't a different ship class for this role. 27:19 Motor torpedo boats (MTBs) don't add defense points to a possession. See the text file on googles drive for further detail, but, just briefly, even 5x 4 in coastal batteries grant 3 defense points to a possession. 29:22 To keep it short, no training doctrines are worth having for you right now: night fighting because you have quite advanced radars and can blind fire, the other ones because your nation does not have the "poor education" trait. See the text file on googles drive for more details. Use the saved money to build and maintain ships in AF. If you really want a training doctrine active, then do so when tensions are at 8 or so, but here are a few questions for you: how many ships would you actually have lost in the last war if you hadn't had damage control training active? And were they worth more or less than the money spent on damage control? If they were worth more, would it have been possible to save them by using the extra funds to build extra/better ships to bring into battle that would have helped sinking the enemy faster, thus saving those ships not via damage control, but via them staying less time in the line of fire? 29:56 Intelligence is relatively cheap, takes long to increase, and is very important in war. I'd suggest keeping it at maximum against all possible enemies. 35:49 About you actively trying to keep tensions low... I think it'll backfire: I can say from experience that low tensions trigger events about the government reducing budgets due to low tensions. If, on top of that, you actively take tension reduction options during events you will further incentivize the government to keep cutting the budget. As if that wasn't enough, half of the time tension reduction options come with a budget reduction attached to them. My suggestion therefore is to take all budget plus events whenever they appear, even if they increase tensions. If there are multiple choices that do both, then pick the one that increases tensions less. When unrest becomes 2 or 3 then I'd suggest choosing the middle option when possible, in order to not increase the budget further but not to decrease it either. If unrest becomes higher, then yes, choose options that decrease the budget. When tensions become 6-7 or so, or when you see that the government increases the budget due to high tensions, I'd suggest choosing tensions reduction options. The goal is to maximize the number of months you spend with high budget without it becoming a war or generating too much unrest, though this will probably mean a war breaking out earlier than what your plan accounted for. I said this somewhere else, but it's worth repeating here: as you progress through the game, each budget up or down event will increase or decrease your funds by an increasing amount; so if now a budget modification event will add or remove 1000/month (number completely made up), then next decade it might be 1500/month (again, number completely made up). That's why I suggested to keep an eye on the minimum (and possibly maximum) monthly budget from now till next war, so after the next war you'll know more or less how much you'll have available for peacetime fleet maintenance and other expenses that one simply can't do away with.

[@RvTWargames]

You seem confused: TP DD destroyer escorts cannot provide deterrence and bodyguard duties because they are not part of the Active Fleet. They are treated completely separately while on trade protection. Are you suggesting only building destroyer escort and putting some on TP and some on AF, as KE take losses vs submarines so are sub-optimal on TP and KEs cannot bodyguard or act as deterrence so are irrelevant on AF? And of course, adding minesweeping to the destroyer escorts halves their ASW value, so better to specialise?

[@RvTWargames]

Re: Damage control, it has cost something like 225k over the past 13 years, which is slightly less than the cost of a new BX. Has it saved that much in value. It's hard to know. Have several ships been 'lucky' to get home despite very heavy damage, certainly. Much hunch is that it is at least cost nuetral and probably it has been a positive. Several people argue it is becoming more important as missiles do enough casuing fires so being better at fire fighting would seem to be an asset.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames My understanding is that TP DEs do, in fact, provide deterrence and bodyguard duty, in some ways similar and in some other ways different that fleet DDs. TP DEs deter enemy submarines from attacking enemy merchant ships (and, possibly, even the TP ships themselves), and they should still provide bodyguard for your bigger ships (CL+) against mine events, as minelaying and minesweeping efforts of all ships in each sea zone are taken into account in that particular sea zone. Fleet DDs deter enemy submarines from attacking all your ships in AF (this includes your fleet DDs), and they provide bodyguard for your bigger ships in AF against torpedo events and mine events. My suggestion is to build a lot of DEs to put all on TP, and to build a lot of fleet DDs to put all on AF. The two reasons why I'm withdrawing my suggestion to build AF ASW KEs is that they can not sink submarines this late in the game (being KEs has nothing to do with this, but it's the fact submarine reliability is too high vs a normal ship's ASW value - patrol bombers and helicopter AVs are an exception) and they can not provide deterrence (they should still provide bodyguarding, but it's much better to prevent attacks than paying for building KEs with the stated intention of having them sink). When I suggested this design I was not aware that ASW value on things other than patrol bombers and helicopter AVs was completely useless after a certain point in time, I was not aware that they provide deterrence, and I was not aware that the battle generator doesn't pull small enough and slow enough DDs (i.e. DEs) into battle (unless you don't have enough fleet DDs for the battle generator to fill all the DD slots, I think). The two reasons why I'm withdrawing my suggestion to build MCM KEs are that, again, KEs don't provide deterrence in AF and that both TP DEs and fleet DDs should have minesweeping gear. Why this shift from ASW value to minelaying and minesweeping? When you analyze the war you just had, please look at the end of turn messages and count how many times you got the message "your DD or KE has sunk an enemy submarine" or its opposite "your sub was sunk by an enemy DD or KE". These are submarines sunk by a ship's ASW value and the ones of interest. If you want to / have the time to, please do it for the war before this one, or the one before that, too. You'll be surprised by how rare these messages become after submarines get to a certain reliability value. Ignore other messages like patrol bombers sinking submarines or submarines failing to return from a patrol (which means that either they had a failure of some kind or, I think, hit a mine). Minelaying and patrol bombers (and helicopter AVs, though I don't know what an optimal design looks like), are your tools to get rid of enemy submarines. Minesweeping is how you protect your submarines and ships from mines (unfortunately you can't protect submarines from patrol bombers, unless you actively send air strikes against enemy airfields - if you do, remember to change the squadron roles from N strike (naval strike) to G strike (ground strike) (and to give them bombs, I think) when you prepare the strike). So the ASW being halved by the minesweeping gear is irrelevant: you could only build designs that maximize the ASW value and the enemy submarines won't even notice. Regarding damage control, I'm aware that many people suggested you to keep it. Fires are not a problem on DDs and CLs, flotation is, and it's much cheaper to mitigate it by increasing the TPS level than to keep damage control on. I won't argue further (though I will reply to a comment about this topic that I found funny), but please remove it for now and activate it back only when tensions start to rise.

[@RvTWargames]

So, summarise: TP DEs provide ASW to Trade and provide mine protection to both Trade and the Active Fleet. AF DDs and DEs provide ASW and mine protection to the Active Fleet. DEs, being slow, won't get called into battle unless they are not in home areas or they happen to be in the coatal area of a battle in the home area, but then they won't be part of the fleet directly, unless perhaps you have no proper Fleet DDs afloat - in which case you have bigger problems than escort optimisation 😀. Note that the number of enemy sub losses in the last war are probably a poor guide, as they had so few subs (about 10 in the later war). I realise that since I was blockaded and so had no merchants to protect, I probably should have redeployed anything above the minimum required to the Active Fleet. TP ships are: 1. A global pool so far as reaching the minimum requirements is concerned 2. Will not be involved in fleet actions in home areas 3. Might be present in battles in non-home areas 4. Do not protect against submarine attacks on warships and so not probide deterrence or bodyguarding to warships 5. Do protect against submarine attacks on merchants on an area basis during the submarine 'strategic turn'. I am not sure this strategic turn models deterrence or bodyguarding as it is a mass area calculation and not a one-to-one sub vs merchant protected by escort one (from what I've see in the manual - but it is a bit opaque) "For the purposes of submarine attacks on merchant shipping, the numbers of ASW capable ships assigned to trade protection in the area the submarine operates will be used as a modifier." I think this means KEs do contribute to protecting subs as it is an area effect. How enemy sub losses are calculated is a mystery. I had a look at a couple of vidoes and it is true that CV, CVL, AV(!) and planes did do well in sinking subs. So if TP is done on an area basis then they are not 'useless' in killing submarines. Even CVs, AVs and patrol bombers do not have +100 ASW value. The current reliability of my subs is 122. So I do not think their loss is a man-to-man single fight. My hunch is that the individual sub loss messages are misleading people and creating a false sense of an individual battle. 6. Larger numbers than TP requires will hamper sub operations (both allow fewer sub attacks on merchants and cause more attacks on subs). KEs contribute to this too, even if they are not necessarily the killing agent. So that might mean KEs are still effective: - Spirited gun duels shouldn't be a thing in 48 as subs should have lost their deck guns - Submarines are fought in TP on an area basis, so KE ASW is merely added to the pot. There isn't a one-to-one fight. Deterrence and bodyguarding do not apply in an area calculation. It is just an ASW pot. (Note, in support of this, from the last war, my SSs deployed out of the Northern Europe suffered fewer loses than my SSCs deployed in Northern Europe in part because the vast majority of Britian and Frances TP was based in Northern Europe.) I do still very much like the design of the DE, though it is more expensive (225/m vs 150/m). Looking at the new buiild of my old plan, I would get: 240 ASW Fleet DD (20 ships) (AF) 180 ASW KE (18 ships) (AF) 192 ASW DE (16 ships) (TP) 12 ASW MCM = 624 ASW + 120 MCM minewseeping If I put sweeping gear on everything and so halve both ASW *and* sweeping values, and just built Fleet DDs and DEs, I'd get: 120 ASW Fleet DD (20 ships) (AF) 228 ASW DE (38 ships) on TP and AF = 348 ASW Not sure what the minesweeping value would be, but it would be greatly expanded. Now, I think you can certainly make a case that 120 is too low for minesweeping in the home area. But halving ASW values across the board seems to much IF TP ASW is done on an area basis, not an individual basis, as the manual suggests. CVs and patrol bombers notwithstanding. (Note that currently the air ASW value is 154). So, it seems the nexus is: is TP ASW an area calculation or a sub vs merchant vs escort one. I think the manual is quite explicit about it. I suspect that the sub loss messages are more for role play colour than they are a representation of a sub battle that took balance. As ever, the developer likes to keep things opaque to put off the number crunchers from coming up with a game breaking meta.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames The answer is too long to post here, so I sent you an electronic mail.

[@FoxxofNod]

I would not build any ASW at all for now. If I remember correctly, enhanced sonar and towed arrays can not be retrofitted on to ships that were not designed with them.

[@RvTWargames]

Right. Thanks.

[@akarinnnnnn]

Towed sonar can be retrofitted, it's just enhanced sonar that cannot be retrofitted (or removed). I believe the enhanced sonar system is part of the hull construction but it's a nice way of forcing players to move on from ancient TP ships either way

[@uefkentauroi]

When was the last time that, after unlocking enhanced sonar system, any of your ASW ships actually sunk a submarine _with their on board ASW weapons_ ? So not mines, not aircrafts, not helicopter AVs.

[@katrinapaton5283]

Can certainly confirm the mass missile strategy and the slim chances of surviving a hit. Two examples, first being eight destroyers encountering an enemy battlecruiser with support elements. I fired 32 missiles at the battlecruiser for ONE hit! It survived that but the return fire scored a single hit on one of my destroyers which sank. On the flip side, in another battle I ravaged a German fleet, doing heavy damage to two battleships and a battlecruiser while sinking three carriers, a light carrier, and two destroyers without our fleets ever seeing each other, relying almost entirely on ASMs. Heavy AA...yes, well. I've kept a screenshot of a single jet attack aircraft glide bombing one of my battleships. It missed but so did ALL of my heavy AA. Four battleships, a battlecruiser, four light cruisers and 11 destroyers with a total of 306 heavy AA factor and NOTHING. My battleships medium, radar guided AA at least managed to wing it. Would have been spectacular to watch! It's a good plan! But as they say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. In my case the enemy was a new socialist government which cut my naval budget by 40,000 a month! It was a disaster, I had to stop work on two helicopter carriers, eight new light cruisers and five new destroyers. Fortunately I still had enough money to continue with my two new 64,200 ton carriers. Just one question with your intended sub hunters, do you think 21 knots is fast enough to catch modern subs? I don't know if the game takes it into account but, for example, a Barbel class sub of 1959 could do 18.5 knots submerged leaving you with quite a small margin of superiority. Having said that, I might have to steal some of your ideas for my own fleet!

[@uefkentauroi]

Missiles have huge variability in the amount of damage they do, and this is intentional. HSSMs deal more damage than MSSMs, and MSSMs, MSAMs and HSAMs should deal the same amount of damage. Small DDs don't have much flotation points, but good crew quality and TPS1, if you can afford it, will increase DDs survivability by a noticeable amount. About HAA go to the NWS forum, RtW3 general discussion section, and read the thread titled "Repost: A Statistical Evaluation of CAP and AA Effectiveness, 1947 - 48" - particularly what a NWS team member had to say on the topic. That said, HAA is not completely useless: _some_ HAA value (I don't know how much exactly) could help in disrupting enemy aircraft attack runs. The higher BaseResources + resources from possessions is, the higher the budget variation with constant BudgetModifier changes are. BudgetModifier is the only parameter you have some control over (budget +/- events, and, indirectly, via tension +/- events). Search for one of my comments under this video that starts with "Part 2 (CLs and fleet DDs skipped for now - they'll be in two separate posts)" and read the last section. When was the last time that, after unlocking enhanced sonar system, any of your ASW ships actually sunk a submarine _with their on board ASW weapons_ ? So not mines, not aircrafts, not helicopter AVs. Those TP ASW ships are there for deterrence, bodyguarding, minesweeping and minelaying purposes (in addition to filling the numbers of TP ships required). Submarine sinking from mid-game onward is done through mines, NPAs/PBs and helicopter AVs.

[@RvTWargames]

A change of government type is a fascinating challenge / pain in the arse for upsetting your plans. You are quite right that 21kn 'should' be too low. But my understanding is that the game calculates trade protection submarine warfare on an area basis. So speed isn't a factor in this. Nuclear submarines can, of course, go very fast. But very rarely want to draw that much attention to themselves! And being 1948, we are still half a decade away from nuclear submarines.

[@b1laxson]

Damage control is a fleet multiplier. I now favor it over offensive options.

[@RvTWargames]

It's my favourite too, but difficult to assess how many ships it's saved versus how many might have been built from the money saved.

[@b1laxson]

@@RvTWargames If it saves even one CV its worth it.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@b1laxson CVs saved by damage control that would have otherwise sunk / (CVs saved by damage control that would have otherwise sunk + CVs that could have not been saved even with damage control). 1. How high is this ratio? 2. Is it high enough to make it worth the _20% maintenance increase on all ships_ , not just on CVs?

[@darthteej1]

I always ripple fore missiles at start. Reloads will have volleys on key targets later

[@RvTWargames]

I've yet to actually look at missile firing. But reloads seem essential.

[@uefkentauroi]

Part 3 (battle generator and CL design) Knowing how the battle generator works, the types of battles it can generate, medium, large and fleet sized battles in particular, will allow you to determine how many BXs, CLs and fleet DDs you need ready for combat when war breaks out. To keep things short, here I'll just summarize the important parts (see the text file on googles drive for the rest). A full task force, which if I'm not mistaken is what you can have on a medium battle, comprises of the following divisions and ships: 1 division of 4 BXs set to independent; 1 division of 2 CVs and 1 (or more, unconfirmed) CVLs set to support the BX division (or the opposite, if you think smaller battle distances is cheesy); 1 division of 5 CLs set to screen the BX division (before the missile age it would have been 4 CLs); 1 division of 6 DDs set to screen the BX division; 2 or 3 divisions of 6 DDs set to screen the CV division; 1 division of 6 DDs set to screen the CL division. For a grand total of 4 BXs, 2 CVs, 1 CVL (or more, unconfirmed), 5 CLs and 24-30 fleet DDs. Let these numbers sink in for a moment. And if you thought that reducing battle distances is cheesy, imagine 24-30 fast DDs with reliable engine and long range... how much are they going to cost? In large battles you can field two such task forces. As if that wasn't enough, add another half or another entire task force to cover for losses and damaged ships. Scary, right? Well, I would suggest focusing on one task force at a time. I would advise against scrapping old ships if you need them to fill at least two task forces. I.e. if you have 9 CLs keep them all, if you have 11 scrap the smallest (not the oldest, the smallest). I would not suggest to rebuild their engines either as that would cost a lot; just refit their weapons. If you scrap everything old now, you'll have to build more new ships to compensate, and I don't think you can afford the cost of building many new ships (especially if you keep non-essential things active, like training). Sure, you'll lose a few more ships this way, but if you scrap them now then later you would lose more expensive ships instead because there's such a thing as strength in numbers, not only in quality (that is to say, if you scrap 5 old CLs you might have enough funds to build 2 new CLs... but if you do a light refit on those 5 CLs, since it's cheap, you'll end up with 7 CLs total - 5 old and 2 new). And DDs are essential in this role, as letting the enemy sink your old DDs with missiles is better than scrapping, them, building not enough newer, bigger, and costlier DDs, losing them to missile volleys... and possibly losing some CLs, too, because it's possible you didn't quite manage to build enough newer DDs to cover your ships, given how expensive they are. DDs are more important than CLs, but I find it easier to design a new CL than a new DD, so I'll present my suggested CL design first. Notice how much it's different compared to your proposed CL despite them having the same displacement. 12000 t, normal freeboard, 30 kn, medium range, normal engines, whichever propulsion type is lighter for you, no unit machinery, 4 in belt, no magazine box, normal belt coverage, inclined belt, 4 in belt extended, 0 in upper belt, 1 in deck, 1 in deck extended, 6 in conning tower, 6 in turrets, 3 in turret top, 1 in secondary guns, all or nothing armor scheme, torpedo defense 2, spacious accommodations, no colonial service. 6 in main battery in A and B triple turrets, 155 rounds per gun, best fire control you have, 2 fire control positions, increased elevation, no DP, no cross deck fire, no autoloader. 0 LAA, 6 medium AA guns with radar director, 0 AA directors. 24x 5 in secondary guns in single turrets, 1 gun per turret, 155 rounds per gun, no autoloader, yes director, no DP. 8x 4 in tertiary guns in triple turrets (fine, make them double turrets if you don't like it), 175 rounds per gun, no autoloader, no DP. 5 submerged torpedo launchers in positions 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 (submerged launchers can only be single tubes), 120 mines, all ASW weapons (again, the two sonars are not useful... but put them if you think it's cheesy), max radar limit, no aircrafts, no catapults, single-tube HSSM launchers in DEFG all of them with reloads. If, with your current level of technology, my design has a topside load greater than the topside load capacity, even slightly, then reduce the number of RMAAs (radar-directed MAA). If it's lower instead, then increase the number of RMAAs but without making the design topside heavy, not even if by 1 over. If it is overweight instead, even slightly, then do the following in this order: reduce the turret top armor to 2 in, remove the torpedo launcher in 5, restore the torpedo launcher in 5 and remove either those in 6 and 7 or in 8 and 9, remove the torpedo launcher in 5 (you should have gone from 5, to 4, to 3, to 2 torpedo launchers), change the armor scheme to flat deck on top of belt, change the belt coverage to narrow, set the upper belt to 1 in, decrease the belt extended to 3.5 in, decrease the belt to 3.5 in, decrease the belt extended to 3 in, decrease the belt to 3 in. If you still can't get at least 0 t of weight remaining, then reduce the number of 5 in guns by 2 while simultaneously increasing the number of 4 in guns by 2 (keep the secondary battery in single turrets, but change the tertiary battery to triple turrets if you were using double turrets and the number of guns can be divided by 3 now); keep repeating this till you reach 8x 5 in guns and 24x 4 in guns (same considerations for turrets per gun as before). If that's still not enough, then reduce the number of 5 in guns to 6 and make them double turrets (this will result in 1 centerline turret and 2 wing turrets). If that's still not enough, then reduce the number of 4 in guns (same considerations for tertiary guns turrets as before: triple if it's fine, double otherwise). If my design is both topside heavy and overweight, then reduce the number of RMAAs to reduce the topside load first, then reduce the weight like explained above. If my design is not overweight, instead, then increase the speed as much as you can. If there's still weight remaining available, then increase the conning tower and main turrets armor from 6 in to 7 in. Please send me a screenshot of the design via mail after you've tweaked it, if you think there's value in such a design, just to confirm that I didn't forget anything. If you have any questions about particular things that are different from your design, please ask.

[@RvTWargames]

Emailed you the design. It was massively over on topside space.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames I answered that, but I forgot to mention two important things: 1) if you decide that your doctrine will be to send your ships rushing against the enemy fleet to force a surface action and the distance between your fleets is high, then I would suggest to sacrifice something (e.g. reduce the belt and belt extended armor thickness from the current 4 in to 3.5 in or even 3 in (although 3 in is kind of thin vs 6 in AP shells) and/or reduce the weapons) in order to increase the ship's speed (and possibly engine reliability); 2) SAMs, contrary to SSMs, take more weight to add than they take top load value, so one could argue that reducing the belt and belt extended armor thickness to 3.5 or, possibly, 3 in, would increase the weight available for missiles. This, however, means making a worse ship now for fewer better ships later. Why fewer? Because if you make a worse design now, then it's logical to expect that a few more ships will be lost. And who knows when SAMs will become a viable weapon to be had in numbers... While I'm against this second point, I'm mentioning this anyway just to give you some food for thought.

[@RvTWargames]

The speed thing is interesting - 30kn feel a tad slow but the benefits of going faster are marginal. To travel: 200nm @ 30kn = 6.66 hours 200nm @ 32kn = 6.25 hours 200nm @ 34kn = 5.88 hours 34kn would be useful in the short nights in summertime in the northern waters, but irrelevant in the long nights of wintertime. The main downside is in station keeping. With no extra margin of speed it would be very hard for the cruisers to get back ahead of the CV/BXs if the latter changed course significantly. The CV/BX would have to slow down in order for the cruisers to get back into place properly.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames I don't remember exactly how much is the distance between two carrier fleets (with carrier divisions set to independent), but it should be greater than 200 nmi. With regards to speed, I'm not sure of anything I'm about to say but: I would think a ship with 30 kn speed and reliable engines can go at 28-29 kn all the time no problem; I would think a ship with 30 kn speed and normal engines can go at 26-27 kn all the time no problem; I would think a ship with 30 kn speed and unreliable engines can go at 24-25 kn all the time no problem. I would like to be educated about the exact values, to be honest. Oh, also, don't ships with unreliable engines get more "this ship has condenser problems and has to spend time in the dock" (or whatever) events?

[@darthteej1]

This is one of my favorite parts of the game. Tactically you can let battles autorun sometimes cause it's all about "rates" of missiles but u can only make 2nd rate ships with 4 tubes and 3rd rates with 2 tubes Which is why I rebuild until I find myself digging 5000 up when I scrap. Think the viewers voted right

[@RvTWargames]

It my favourite part too. And yes, the poll got it spot on.

[@xxxm981]

If this game handles it kinda like IRL, i would go for a big swarm of Trantul style missile boats, basically small DDs with big SSM one autoloading main gun and maybe a couple light AA, and then cruisers with Autoloaders and SAM. Definitely concentrate on fewer but larger carriers. You could try giving your BCs Iowa style makeovers, that might be cool.

[@RvTWargames]

Big on firepower but low on networked air defence, electronic warfare, and C3I, as it was called back then.

[@uefkentauroi]

Autoloaders weight and cost too much on main battery guns for what they are worth (and are useless on secondary and tertiary guns as they are stuck to deliberate fire - with one exception). Guns on DDs have a precision malus since DDs aren't a stable firing platform (guns on DDs are more often than not just there to dissuade enemy DDs from doing a torp run by increasing the volume of fire; if you want them to damage enemy DDs, you want to put them on CLs). I wonder whether fewer but bigger carriers are better than smaller but more numerous carriers. The latter option has initial blockade points to its advantage.

[@akarinnnnnn]

Honestly, I would consider a no carrier or at least a CAP-only carrier option for my own run. However I need to play in the missile age some more on the most recent versions because I am told SAMs are less effective. Last time I was in the era, aircraft were pointless outside of destroying bombardment targets, gun batteries during invasions, and airfields since land targets don't have SAM protection. For the light cruiser I'm of the opinion of keeping the armor. It does give you more options, mainly if you need to get into a surface scuffle or if you need to ravage a convoy. AI seems to lean heavily on 6" gun DDs in the late game. As for the ASW ships, I would advise trying to hold out until the enhanced sonar tech gets unlocked because that cannot be refitted onto existing ships. If you're going to go heavily on the aluminum superstructures, I would keep the DC training. But you could probably drop it for a few years, maybe start it again in 53/54

[@RvTWargames]

Interesting about the enhanced sonar not being retro fitted. I'm leaning towards a fighter only CV until jet attack planes become a thing. Also interesting support for CL armour.

[@akarinnnnnn]

@@RvTWargames I forgot about, as others already pointed out, the magazine box option. That is probably a better option. I wouldn't forgo armor on CLs until I have no intention of putting them into gun fights - so basically when you can start building actual missile cruisers.

[@RvTWargames]

Yes, ammo boxes and perhaps unit machinery too

[@uefkentauroi]

When was the last time that, after unlocking enhanced sonar system, any of your ASW ships actually sunk a submarine _with their on board ASW weapons_ ? So not mines, not aircrafts, not helicopter AVs. Fire spreading due to aluminum superstructure is so rare and the number of ships abandoned due to fires raging out of control is small enough that this is not a concern. To be precise, I would still not put it on ships that burn down (BXs and CVs) rather than sink through flooding (DDs and CLs), but it's fine to put it in the latter. The vast majority of friendly ships sunk are DDs, and as they sink rather than burn, adding damage control to mitigate the extra (extremely small) fire hazard is just a waste of money IMO. Magazine box reduces the protection to the engines, which is more important than protecting the magazines. Magazine detonation events are so rare that protecting the engines is far more important: a crippled ship with lower speed has fewer chances of disengaging, thus is much more likely to be lost. Unit machinery is important on DDs and CVs as they are unarmored, but the engine room and BE/DE can be armored enough on CLs and BXs that the extra protection that unit machinery gives is not really worth the extra weight.

[@michaelwilson5866]

How does special squadrons work? How do the increase the electronic warfare? I thought they were a catch all unit for old equipment.

[@RvTWargames]

Special squadrons are a portmanteau of all the niche things that non-fighter / attack aircraft do. So no, not old. They do electronic warfare. Early warning. Search and rescue. Anti-submarine. Possibly even logistics.

[@michaelwilson5866]

@@RvTWargames tell me more. How do I use them and are some aircraft better at it than others?

[@RvTWargames]

You don't 'use' them. Just create one special squadron per carrier and the rest is abstracted out by the game for you. You may decide not to have a special squadron on some of your carriers but I've never risked that.

[@uefkentauroi]

30:51 Let's do the math for SSCs. Our objective is to calculate the minimum number of months in peacetime that will make scrapping and building SSCs cost overall less than paying their maintenance. SSCs have a maintenance cost of 26/month, and take 18 months at 165/month cost to build, for a total of 2970 cost. I'm going to define two variables: x: the number of months that need to pass before we can start building a new SSC (to make it worth it); y: the number of months in peacetime that need to pass to make scrapping and then building a SSC worth it. It follows that y is equal to x plus the number of months that it takes to build a SSC, i.e. y = x + 18; or, conversely, x = y - 18. Let's pretend we have two games running in parallel, one where we keep the SSC and the other where we scrap it and then build it anew. The total cost in the first game is 26*y. The total cost in the second game is 0*x + 165*18 = 165*18 = 2970. To find the breaking point, these quantities should be equal, therefore: 26*y = 2970 y = 2970/26 = 114.2 That is 9 years and 6.2 months in peacetime. x = y - 18 = 114.2 - 18 = 96.2 That is 8 years and 0.2 months before having to build a SSC. Thanks to how rounding works, that's 115 months (9 years and 7 months) total in peacetime for it to be more cost-effective to scrap SSCs and build them anew rather than keeping them. Maintenance costs are relatively low, and that's why I suggested to keep even the older CLs: you don't get much value from scrapping them and you'll grow old before the funds from the maintenance and light weapon and accommodation refit costs will equal the cost of a modern, properly built CL.

[@RvTWargames]

I can see that is true as a general principle. You'd need to have a decade long peace to make any life-time savings. It's the new build that is so expensive. Thanks for working through all the maths. Currently I'm spending 4,370 out of 6,928 on building 19 SSs that finish in the next 5 months. So the FIRST question is do I spend the 13,340 over five months to finish them, as they are already largely paid for, or scrap them (which yields nothing). If I keep them they will cost an extra 760/m maintenance. The current sub mainteance bill is 3,000/m for 105 subs. Which is too much unless I'm going to be at war with Britain again soon. Against the Soviet Union (currently the most likely) they are irrelevant and against France and Italy they are helpful but not in these numbers. So the SECOND question is, how far do I cut the current submarines? Options per reliability level will save: 1,480 cutting 47 (25 SS and 22 SSC) 91-112% reliability 800/m cutting 40 SSC 115-118% reliability - which is quite a lot of cheap subs 160/m cutting 4 SS 118% 560/m cutting 14 SS 122% I'm thinking for PLAN A "Keep Half". Cut out the old 47 subs and scrap the subs under construction (painful I know). That will cost 1,520/m, saving 2,240/m in maintenance plus 13,340 in construction costs. Together in five months that would save 20,740 in total. Though it's really that 2,240 a month freed up that affects the monthly balance and I like to keep an eye on. For PLAN B "Keep the Best", just keep 122% subs (current and new builds) = 33 SS = 1,320/m maintenance, saving 2,440/m for a lot fewer subs, though better subs. For PLAN C "Keep None", be bold and just scrap the lot. Wait for the Improved submarine electronics and sensors tech (c.1952 but who knows) and missile submarines (c.1956) and start to build a new sub fleet with the level of investment dependent on who the likely next enemy is. (BTW the maths in my game are quite different to mine, I get: 130 a month x 14 months to build an SSC (1,820) with a maintenance of 20 per month - anyhow the principle will be much the same.)

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames About the Soviet Union being the most likely enemy... it could be, but at the same time remember that during the following several months you will get tension reduction events with all nations due to the war having just ended. That, I suspect, will bring the tension on par with other nations, so you might end up fighting against someone else. SSGs are an "I win" button. It's not fun using them at all. If you check the Screenshots folder on my googles drive folder, you'll see what I mean (all my submarines are SSGs). Interesting discrepancy in the build cost and time of SSCs. I wonder what causes it. As for the main topic of how many submarines to keep and how many to scrap... I didn't realize just how many submarines you have. I went back to your previous video and I see 105 submarines in service + 39 building. I think that is, indeed, a bit too many submarines. Quite a while ago you made a poll asking your viewers how many submarines you should have in your fleet, and the majority voted for 60. Given that you're not playing with the largest fleet setting possible and that you already have a sizable submarine fleet, I'd say to keep your 40 SSCs with the highest reliability and your 40 SSs with the highest reliability, and scrap the rest (starting from those currently building). In war time I would keep the SSCs in Northern Europe and deploy the SSs in the enemy's home waters, if possible (i.e. either Northern Europe the Mediterranean, depending on who your enemy will be).

[@kilianortmann9979]

I think your Cl design is very appropriate for 1948, but with a bit of hindsight it is going to look old fashioned quite soon. The 6in guns are not a preferred choice against large enemy ships and vs smaller vessels, 5in would be enough. 5in are also better DP guns and faster firing vs small units. I would build the Cls with 4 or 5 double 5in turrets with the provision to replace the two super firing turrets with SAM launchers. I am talking more from a real life perspective, haven't gone beyond 1950 yet. Maybe also look into something like the German Gepard class (quite a lot later, I know), a very small ship with four SSMs, light SAMs a small gun and speed. Heavy SAMs are incredibly versatile, but they need a lot of heavy radar and FCS equipment. For the offense Heavy SSMs and CIWS or light SAM can sometimes get you a lighter ship.

[@uefkentauroi]

6 in guns deal a considerable amount of damage compared to smaller 5 in guns; the gap is probably wider than 5 in vs 4 in guns. 6 in can penetrate thicker armor, too. They just can't be compared. The only DP guns should be 2-6x 3 in guns in single turrets on the tertiary battery of DDs, with 200 or 300 rounds per gun depending on whether it does not have autoloader or it does, respectively. Everything else leads to halved damage potential on all 4-6 in guns on the fleet, as you'd force them to carry HE shells. 4 or 5 double turrets with the superfiring turrets later replaced with SAM launchers translates to 4 forward firing guns that later become 2. That's too little firepower and wasted mass on 2-3 turrets that aren't as useful as A and B turrets.

[@RvTWargames]

Heavy AA has past its day with the advent of jets (as well as light AA). Radar directed medium AA and (when it comes along) close-in weapon systems are the future of gunnery ship-based air defence. Space will be made for SAMs when they come along, of course.

[@stevejones5824]

About your 39600 ton CVs - bit of a long-shot question - would 'bulging' (+500t) get you out of the HJF/JA hangar capacity malus? Would definitely require an engine refit to get the speed back up! Below 40K tons all jet aircraft are 1.5x capacity - see page 110-111

[@pocheesy73]

The manual is wrong, carriers only have to be 36000 tons to avoid the penalty.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@pocheesy73 That is true... for this version of the game. These kind of undocumented values are susceptible of being changed in a future patch, undocumented. Btw, the minimum requisites to operate HJFs/JAs at all are 30000 t displacement, jet capable, angled flight deck and catapults. I don't know what limitations LJFs have though.

[@pocheesy73]

@@uefkentauroi Currently there is no tonnage limit to operating HJF/JA. You can add them to a 15k ton CV if it has jet capable, angled flight deck, and catapults (though at 1.5x penalty for being under 36000 tons). You can even put them on a CVL that fits those requirements. The crazy part is if you try to change the role of an existing squadron to HJF/JA it won't let you citing the 30000 ton limit. I think I just found a bug. LJF don't have a lot of requirements. 1.5x deck space penalty if not jet capable is pretty much the only thing.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@pocheesy73 Funny. I would have said that changing the role of a squadron to HJF/JA on a CV that displaces 29900 t and getting the error was the intended behavior, while being able to add a HJF/JA squadron in the same conditions was the bug. And, yeah, I got that error as I tried to change the role of a squadron and assumed it couldn't be done via adding a squadron either, until I read your post. LJFs don't even need catapults? Just out of curiosity, not that it'll actually matter anyway.

[@pocheesy73]

@@uefkentauroi I phrased that poorly, I was thinking that HJF/JA on carriers under 30k might have been intended behavior until I saw that error message, the "add air unit" button definitely should be throwing errors for illegal planes. I found an old save file from 1.00.19 showing that this bug has been in game since at least that far back. Bugs that last that long often become features after all. LJF do not require catapults. The only exception is CVL under 10k tons require catapults to launch fast planes (over 120 knots) with anything heavier than light load, but that applies to prop planes too.

[@emmy8517]

just an idea to un-gamify the 900 tonne trade protection destroyers, adding anti-air weapons would add some more realism to the class

[@RvTWargames]

It would make it less tailored to only do trade protection work, but there is no air element to trade protection, the likes of FW200s notwithstanding.

[@pterrok5495]

I use magazine box on CL with armor. Will get you back a lot of tonnage. Check to see if Diesels save you weight yet. If they do, it should work on DDs and CLs, and sometimes even CAs. (The game never suggests them even when they are better. ;-p) WAIT! You HAVE diesels and are only using them on the ASW one? Revisit the weight savings on the others, I don't think they were a lot more expensive. Maintenance cost is tied to class, and then COMPLEMENT! If you watch how many men you add with various things, the maintenance goes up per man. (As well as the gear itself.) OK, that was cool, having the 1948 cost reduction program laid out as a master plan. I would KEEP Damage Control, as missiles are NOT usually fatal at the start--but you have to put out the fires they cause. Your 1955 Fleet Budget graph is missing a HUGE expense: MISSILES. Check your Doctrine page to see what you have now. I've not been able to do it, BUT, a theory is to have DDs all forward of everything, to be targets for the 1st enemy missiles. Even if your DDs themselves just have torps--they are bait so need to be fast.

[@RvTWargames]

Thanks. I like the armour box. Also unit machinery while I think about it. I think the diesels on CLs were more expensive. Good tip to watch the crew size. Thanks for Damage Control top. Perhaps having a good old fashioned scouting force would help push the screen well forward.

[@uefkentauroi]

Magazine box is like asking your ships to get hit in the engine room, disabled, prevented from escaping and sunk. Fires are a problem only on BXs and CVs. DDs and CLs are sunk through flooding. That's why TPS (torpedo protection system) is important on these small ships: even TPS1 on DDs makes them more survivable. And slightly increasing DDs displacement so that they can fit TPS1 is way cheaper (and likely more effective) than maintaining damage control. How many ships (and of which type) does damage control actually save on your playthroughs? That is, I'm interested only in those ships that in the same situation would have sunk without damage control training. Missiles aren't a huge expense. If they are, all you have to do is set the peacetime missile storage to minimum. Problem solved. DDs so small that they can't carry missiles are to be put on TP. Fleet DDs are to be retrofitted with missiles and built in adequate numbers to fill all the spots available on any particular battle (fleet battles should be declined unless you have the advantage in number and quality of ships - large battles should be declined if you can't field the required number of ships, i.e. 8 BXs, 4 CVs, 10 CLs (since missile age), 48-60 DDs; plus replacements). Unit machinery is important on DDs and CVs as they are unarmored, but the engine room and BE/DE can be armored enough on CLs and BXs that the extra protection that unit machinery gives is not really worth the extra weight. I would not recommend using a scouting force: you're just going to be defeated in detail. You want mass missile spam and CAP cover and as many DDs in front of your bigger ships as the battle generator allows you to put to save as many of your ships as you can. I don't think that being able to send air strikes against the part of the enemy fleet with fewer carriers makes up for the shortcomings though.

[@pterrok5495]

@@uefkentauroi Well, thanks for pointing out that TPS can go on DDs, never knew that or thought about it at all! That said, I was assuming that fire and flooding are BOTH affected by Damage Control--the crew has to know HOW to do all the counter-flooding and such you get in tech along the way to STOP the flooding, right? Does ANYONE have any idea on how many ships Damage Control saves, though? I can say that DC says 20% increase to Maintenance Cost which for me right now in 1925 now is 1571 a month. The 2000 DDs (with no TPS) I am building are 537 a month. So I could always be building an extra 3 DDs, BUT, I've had BBs and BCs be on fire that got put out and would hate to see one burn out of control. As for the magazine box, Check that box then INCREASE the amount of armor you want on belt a bit--you've now greatly increased the box armor and possibly only slightly decreased it elsewhere. Add a bit more deck back too. Obviously you are trying to save some tonnage for other things, but depending on what you've working with, it's not an instant death box. (And no spreadsheet numbers for you, I just don't feel I've lost more using it than those without it.)

[@uefkentauroi]

@@pterrok5495 Damage control training works for flooding too, of course. I was just pointing out what causes ships to be lost for the greater part. TPS and good crew quality have greater impact on damage control effectiveness than training (though you might consider it when playing nations with the poor education trait). If you can't readily say "damage control training saves way more ships than not having it!" then you know it probably isn't worth the cost. Everyone's had BXs on fire. How many of those had a fire level of 8 or 9 before the fires were eventually extinguished? It's likely that such a ship would have been lost without damage training. Did you have any such cases? If not, then damage control is useless. Damage control training helps containing flooding, sure... so what? You had a CL with 90% flooding that was saved only thanks to damage control training? You would have lost it and, with the extra funds coming from not having damage control training, you would have built a new, more modern one. A fair trade at worst, a boon at best. What about the opposite? You're playing without damage control, and you lose a ship. Can you say with certainty that damage control training would have saved it? Maybe it was doomed from the start, or maybe it was crippled by the many shots it received, making it an easy target to hit, and you'd have lost the ship to subsequent hits anyway. Why would I certainly pay for something if it is uncertain how much of an effect it has? It's not like without damage control training the crew becomes monkeys. Good quality crews and TPS is cheaper to achieve, maintain, put, and has a tangible effect on damage control (and all other aspects covered by the other training programs, except for night training). "possibly only slightly decreased it elsewhere" - Did you read the tooltip? It _halves_ B and D armor everywhere else that's not the magazine. Hits on the magazine are rare. What you want it to protect the engines so the ship is harder to cripple and can flee if the battle's outcome is not very in your favor (if it's slightly in your favor you would probably lose many ships to win the battle... but that's not a win - that's intentionally crippling your fleet). If you feel the need to put magazine box on a ship you're designing that ship wrong: choose a better armor scheme (e.g. UNF/UNS), reduce the speed... and if that's still not enough to have a passably armored ship, then reduce even the caliber/number of guns carried. Deck is the least weight-efficient armor type on a ship: the ratio of ship's survivability per ton of D is very low. It's even worse than B. 1 in on CLs, 2 in on pocked BCs, and 3.5 in on BXs is all you need, really.

[@RvTWargames]

BTW my missiles are only 900/m at the moment. That will go up, obviously.

[@jaywerner8415]

Given your playing as Germany, their is certainly a argument to be made to Scrap your CV fleet and only fight in "home waters". BUT, the Battle Generator is not always so generous, Medium Bombers have the most range of any Aircraft shortly followed by Jet Attack Craft and Jet Heavy Fighters/Jet Fighters. So your Medium Bombers Range basically Determines your Fleet action range along with your Jet Fighter Range. 3 Other Small notes to consider: 1. SSM Submarines replacing your current Submarine fleet, eventually. Curious to see how SSMs preform Vs normal Medium subs or Long Range Subs. (their missiles do make them slightly more effective in combat actions when present, but not by much.) 2. Not sure if its really worth doing or not, but you may want to consider replacing your aging Costal Batteries with Missile Shore Batteries. (EXPENSIVE they are at 1000 bucks a pop when building) 3. Eventually you will get a tech (if you don't have it already) that lets you put Missiles on your Corvettes, these WILL participate in Combat actions. (just something to think about.)

[@uefkentauroi]

There are two hidden problems with a no CV run: 1. sometimes it's not possible to decline battles, and 2. CVs have a high blockade strength value. SSGs are so broken OP that the developers removed the ability to build them from the AI in one of the first few patches after the game released. They carry only 2 HSSMs though, so they are useless in combat. Coastal missile batteries, as you said, cost a lot, but you can't move them, so either you decline all battles that don't happen where you put the fortifications or you're wasting money. And the portion of possession defense points that comes from coastal battery doesn't care about what types of battery you build, just at how many you have. 5x 4 in coastal batteries is the most cost-efficient way of getting all 3 defense points that coastal batteries can add to a possession's total defense points. Missile corvettes in active fleet _may_ participate in battle. They don't always do. You can achieve the same effect as missile corvettes just by building small DDs with missiles as their primary armament - and DDs are guaranteed to appear on any battle.

[@RvTWargames]

As @uefkentauroi says, you need the big ships to keep up your blockade strength. It took a LOT of work to unblockade Germany in the last war.

[@jaywerner8415]

@@RvTWargames Indeed.

[@weatherwaxusefullhints2939]

Now, maybe this is one of these mathematical paradoxes, but I'm pretty sure that you should focus on the total cost, not the monthly cost. This might make it more difficult to manage your budget, but since the game conveniently stores all your unused money without penalty, even that should not be a problem. This becomes particularly obvious if you build ships in parallel and in sequence, like you did with the U-boats.

[@weatherwaxusefullhints2939]

Let's assume that you can build for the same monthly expense either 4 subs in parallel in four years each, or three in partake for three years each. Both will come down to one sub per year on average. In your estimation, the ones that need four years are better to buy. I disagree even for the same price, but you are going so far as to claim that, even if the three by three version were slightly cheaper, you would take take the four by four. That seems very off to me.

[@weatherwaxusefullhints2939]

The only thing would be, if you have to delay some construction initially in order to save up money, but that would theoretically only once and would be outweighed by the constant savings you make by optimising for the right kind of cost.

[@weatherwaxusefullhints2939]

Your kind of thinking would make sense for maintenance costs, but not for construction costs. The fact that construction is permanently going on and spread over time does not turn it into maintenance.

[@weatherwaxusefullhints2939]

I don't know how maintenance costs for the shops are calculated. That would be an interesting optimisation problem, where you have to estimate the service life of your ship, the bake that it brings to the table over time, the upgrade costs and the impact of upgrades on value and service life, the likelihood of getting sunk and so on, to then get factor to multiply the actual maintenance costs by and add them to the construction cost, so that you can make actual comparisons. Might be overkill, but would be fun

[@uefkentauroi]

Agreed. By that logic, it's really hard to afford building (converting from civilian to military use) 25500 t AMCs. What one has to do, instead, is to wait for the funds to raise enough so that you can afford to pay the total cost in 4 months. Just don't start constructing additional ships till you know you can afford them. That said, I think only that particular sentence was off. I don't have an issue with the graph itself, as it makes visualizing monthly build costs as time progresses easy and the construction queue easy to mange.

[@thomasmorganjr7267]

How can MTB's and Airships be scrapped?

[@uefkentauroi]

Coastal fortification and base overview tabs, respectively. Right-click what you're interested in scrapping.

[@thomasmorganjr7267]

@@uefkentauroi Thank You!

[@RvTWargames]

Sad to see old tech go!

[@MyBlueZed]

Just an idea for another video: Are you able to perform an analysis of the effects of ‘the war’ on Britain and France? Given the game is called Rule The Waves, do you indeed have naval dominance in your part of the globe? 🤔 Perhaps your goal now is the knock the USA down a few pegs.

[@uefkentauroi]

Dickie already explained in his last video why knocking the USA down a few pegs is not his goal (he did so when choosing which possessions to take).

[@RvTWargames]

The only think I can think of is to: 1. Look in the Almanac at each individual country each month, and record the 'base resources' and 'from possessions', to see if there is any change - but there is a gradual increase in economic prosperity over time, so you would need to be able to discount that. 2. Record how many months an enemy is blockaded, how many 'shortages' and 'low fleet morale' messages you see, and prestige points gained or lost. The blockade must equal growing unrest, though the rate is unknow. The messages must equal being at a high number. Prestige lost will make it work. Prestige gain will halt or bring down unrest and fleet morale. Either way, there would be quite a lot of inferring.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames I know it's unrelated to the topic at hand, but regarding unrest of enemy nations I notices that sinking many, many enemy merchant ships (hint: SSGs) increases the enemy unrest much more than blockading, i.e. it takes less turns for them to surrender. I didn't do enough tests to rule out the possibility that it was just a fluke, but someone else might have.

[@pterrok5495]

Since I brought up the missile cost, and you don't have data yet: For a game just finished in 1970 a couple of weeks ago, my expenses as Russia were: Monthly Budget 55,435 Maintenance 13,294 Construction 22,731 Naval Aircraft 3,871 Research(10%) 5,544 Extra Training 1,688 Intelligence 1,680 MISSILES(ships) 2,467 MISSILES(air) 317 MISSILES(tot) 2,784 -- 5% of monthly budget This is at ADEQUATE storage, and I can tell you, I had many battles where I was getting the message that some DDs did NOT have the full complement of missiles for the battle. My Air missiles are so very low since I have just 32 jets carrying them. ;-p That's 38 DDs and 2 CLs using HSSM it looks like. So your milage will vary based on how many DDs you can pump out, OR if you have a larger Air Wing. I MIGHT use Plentiful Storage in my current game as GB to stop that message about not having missiles. Oh, lol--Just realized I could click on Plentiful to get the number: 4,180 total. Or 7.5% of my budget. (Ships 3,699 and Air 481. Meaning Air went up ~52% and ships up ~50%) Minimum missile storage numbers: Ships 1,235; Air 158; Total 1,393 or 2.5% So rule of thumb, 2.5% per storage level for missiles at end game. No idea if missile cost changes over time, but obviously at the start you have less ships using them so have to ramp up your budget allocation as time goes on and more DDs get built. (And in a prior game finished before all the recent changes, Spain had a 6.5% missile budget at end game. NEVER got any messages in that older game about not having enough missiles at Adequate storage, despite having more DDs. So probably a recent game change.)

[@pterrok5495]

NOTE!!! This cost will be in your Ship Maintenance on the main page when you hover over it. So it's just to know that your overall missile expense is non-zero and could be up to 7.5% of your overall budget when all is said and done.

[@uefkentauroi]

With all technologies researched, I currently have (in parenthesis the amount that the game might think I have): * 5 ships with 20 (36) MSAMs, 40 (136) LSAMs and 8 MSSMs, 2143/month maintenance in AF in peacetime; * 3 ships with 78 (288) LSAMs, 928/month maintenance in AF in peacetime; * 2 ships with 24 (72) LSAMs, 301/month maintenance in AF in peacetime; * 9 ships with 172 (334) MSAMs, 602/month maintenance in AF in peacetime; * 5 ships with 44 (84) MSAMs and 16 (40) MSSMs, 429/month maintenance in AF in peacetime; * 29 ships with 30 (56) MSAMs, 161/month maintenance in AF in peacetime; * 26 ships with 27 (38) MSAMs and 6 MSSMs, 146/month maintenance in AF in peacetime; * other ships without missiles that I won't consider for this analysis. Total on ships: 3726 (6218) MSAMs, 482 (1688) LSAMs and 276 (396) MSSMs, 30129/month maintenance in AF in peacetime. My missile maintenance cost for ships are 6187/month at minimum peacetime missile storage, 12373/month at adequate (i.e. double the cost), and 18560/month at plentiful (i.e. triple the cost). I play with minimum peacetime missile storage, which means I can maintain 100% of my ships at 36316/month. At adequate I would have to pay 42502/month to maintain 100% of my fleet... which means that at 36316/month I can maintain 85.4% of my fleet. At plentiful I would have to pay 48689/month to maintain 100% of my fleet... which means that at 36316/month I can maintain 74.6% of my fleet. I usually don't run out of missiles in battles, so even if all my ships had 75% of their nominal amount of missiles I wouldn't feel their absence. I did not check the actual numbers, but I think that, on average, my ships carry more than 75% their nominal amount of missiles in battle, so...

[@RvTWargames]

Very useful, and who knew about the hover feature!

[@jacobmartin1100]

Having 21 kt "destroyers" with no guns for ASW/trade protection is odd imo (I get the exploit reason but still). They'll get pulled into fleet battles by being in the area (convoy defense comes to mind) and they're too slow to be useful in any capacity other than the strategic anti-sub stuff and TP value- which the ASW KEs already cover (not to mention that they're basically dead if they're engaged). I understand the exploit rationale, but these things will be sitting ducks in convoy battles when even a single autoloading DP 5" with appropriate fire control for a few hundred extra tonnes (not even bumping the speed) could do wonders. Radar level also affects topside space (higher radar level means more topside space) meaning more room for ASW equipment, mines, AA, and even a helipad, so limiting it to 2 seriously hampers their future utility and refit capacity. Also, if you want unarmored "cruisers" right now and are willing ro bend game balance a little, build really big AVs and mount AShMs and SAMs on them: I built a monstrously sized helicopter carrier one game in the 50s-60s loaded with every missile position I could cram in and it was surprisingly effective (Helis locate target and spot for missile launches from the "AV", AV means no armor meaning more weight for missiles, the AI doesn't realize what it really is and dies horribly even when it is outnumbered, and the Helis also have a limited strike capability). I find it funny that I basically developed a Mosvka-class independently, but it works pretty well. Also has a bonus of having a busted ASW value with all those Helis (providing you mount the right sonar equipment). Anyways, just some thoughts

[@jacobmartin1100]

Additionally, I would not remove DC training: in my late game experiences, I've found ships can often be saved even if they're massively aflame (particularly your more heavily armored legacy hulls since missiles tend to only cause superstructure damage/fires). Fire-fighting ability is the number one preserver of ships in the late game since flooding is comparatively rarer in the missile age.

[@uefkentauroi]

As far as I know, TP ships can't spawn on fleet battles. Only ships in active fleet can. They can spawn in large and medium battles if they are in active fleet, but only if if you don't have enough fleet DDs to fill the available DD slots. In addition to that, there are hidden ship classifications in game, and 1000 t DD with 21 kn are treated differently by the battle generator. I don't know if the same apply to 1100 t DDs or 22 kn DDs. Regarding being useful in "anti-submarine stuff" they are only useful for deterrence and bodyguarding, primarily. Given the year, mines are their only effective tool against submarines. You can build 36 kn DDs and they won't be any more effective - they'd just cost more and, maybe, being considered full fledged DDs rather than DEs. KEs provide no deterrence in active fleet. If you made these ships capable of surviving encounters with enemy ships, you'd end up with a full DD to replace when hit by a torpedo or mine, rather than a relatively inexpensive DE (Destroyer Escort / Ocean Escort / Frigate). And if some of them get pulled from TP into a convoy defense mission and they die, so be it (btw, the convoy's speed is 10 kn, give or take). If they die it means the transport ships will soon follow. 5 in DP autoloader main battery guns are not good. DP guns other than 3 in guns are not good because it decreases the damage output... of your CLs. DD guns have a precision penalty compared to CLs and above because DDs are not stable firing platforms. CLs suffer from 5 in DP guns on DDs because of shared ammo doctrine, which means your CLs will carry useless HE ammo (and your ships take the target type vs weapon caliber vs range vs ammo usage doctrine... as a suggestion, rather than an order to follow to the letter). Autoloaders weight and cost a lot, plus increase the ammo consumption, which forces you to increase the rounds per gun... which means that shells past a certain number will weight double. That's an inefficient waste of weight and cost. Radar level does not increase deterrence and bodyguarding, and it also increases cost and weight. You don't need them on a pure TP vessel. ASW and mines can be maximized without increasing the radar limit, AA does not increase deterrence and bodyguarding, and each helicopter costs 8/month in peacetime and 10/month in wartime without being useful whatsoever on ASW duty on all ships except helicopter AVs (which, rather than just scaring submarines away and sacrificing themselves to mines and torpedo events like DEs do (and are optimized to do), actually sink submarines - though I'm not too sure how effective they are in this role; I just use mines and NPAs/PBs). The only "strongly recommended" piece of gear they are missing is minesweeping gear. They don't even need any type of sonar to perform their job (they probably don't need any actual ASW equipment either, but they are so light and cheap that we can gloss over their inefficiency). About your oversized helicopter AV filled with missiles... was this before or after the SAM number nerf and the SAM hit chance nerf patches? Did you try _not_ mounting sonars on the AVs and see how they perform? I often find that ships either don't receive nearly enough damage to be lost, or they receive a lot more than it would have taken for them to be lost. Let's say a ship needs to take x damage to be lost without damage control training and y (greater than x) damage to be lost with damage control training. How wide is the gap between these two values? How many of your ships can be saved only by damage control training, and without it would have been lost? Are the ships saved enough to justify the cost of running damage control? Flooding vs fire... that's not my experience at all. Most of my ships sink, they don't go up in flames. You know what goes up in flames rather than sink? BXs and CVs. And if you lose more ships to fires raging out of control than to flooding, then I have to conclude that you're doing your escorts wrong, i.e. you're not building enough ships to keep in active fleet to fill the ship slots granted to you by the battle generator (ignore fleet-sized battles, they are just a death trap unless you are confident you can crush the entire enemy's fleet). I play without damage control training, missiles set my ships on fire... and then my good quality crew extinguish the fires just fine, assuming the ship does not sink first. And I limit the number of DDs and CLs that sink by adding TPS to them (though I only add TPS1 to 3000+ DDs, not to the smaller sacrificial ones).

[@RvTWargames]

I don't disagree that it is odd. The game has always used KE as a portmanteau for destroyer escorts, frigates, corvettes, sub-chasers, minesweepers, and more exoctic classes. It is the least well narrated part of the game, but then it is probably the least interesting for many players.

[@julianc3682]

I have a feeling your BC updating cost of 750 per month is a bit optimistically low, but we shall see. Enhanced sonar is the really big tech in a low key fashion. Without it, your ASW becomes really bad so it is a tech area to push for.

[@uefkentauroi]

When was the last time that, after unlocking enhanced sonar system, any of your ASW ships actually sunk a submarine _with their on board ASW weapons_ ? So not mines, not aircrafts, not helicopter AVs.

[@RvTWargames]

I'm trying to keep the BCs as low as possible. It might well not be there only refit, depending on when SAMs come along (c.1956). I'm interested to see what the enhanced sonar does to the overall ASW values. I suspect the submarine loss messages are for colour as in trade protection ASW is caluclated on an area basis, not on a platform vs platform basis.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames Enhanced sonar system adds 2 ASW value (doesn't matter whether the ship has minesweeping gear or not), weights 100 t and costs 100. Towed array sonar adds 2 ASW value (doesn't matter whether the ship has minesweeping gear or not), weights 50 t and costs 100.

[@dutovdevlich3781]

The CL should really be auto loading DP 6 inch. Remove all med aa as Allies were already moving away from 40mm in 45'. 4 or 5in DP auto loading for DD as 6in is just too large for good effective use. Again no med aa.

[@katrinapaton5283]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I have found heavy AA to be all but useless in 1956 and that included 6" and 5" DP autoloaders vs enemy jet attack aircraft. The radar guided medium AA were marginally better but a good CAP has been my best friend. Your experience may differ.

[@uefkentauroi]

The only DP guns should be 2-6x 3 in guns in single turrets on the tertiary battery of DDs, with 200 or 300 rounds per gun depending on whether it does not have autoloader or it does, respectively. Everything else leads to halved damage potential on all 4-6 in guns on the fleet, as you'd force them to carry HE shells. Autoloaders aren't worth on main battery guns because of their weight and cost, and on secondary and tertiary battery guns because they are stuck to deliberate fire. The only exception being the one mentioned above, as for whatever reason autoloaders are cheaper and lighter on tertiary battery than secondary battery, and are cheaper on secondary battery than primary battery, assuming same number of guns and same caliber. RMAA (and sacrificial DDs, decoys and missiles missing on their own) are the only anti-missile defenses right now. Whether 5 in or 6 in are better for main battery guns on DDs depends on how much the DD displaces. 3000+ t DDs should have 6 in main battery guns. 2900 t or lower should have 5 in main battery guns. That's because 3000 t is the minimum required to have 6x 5 in guns without ROF penalty, which allows you to put 1 double 5 in guns turret on the centerline and 2 double 5 in guns turrets in wings.

[@uefkentauroi]

Regarding HAA, go to the NWS forum, general discussion section, and read the thread titled "Repost: A Statistical Evaluation of CAP and AA Effectiveness, 1947 - 48".

[@RvTWargames]

I think that autoloaders are 'too good'. They smash there way through your ammo stocks leaving you are risk of having to leave the battle early.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames Regarding autoloaders, I found this on p. 43 of the manual: "Autoloaded guns will have a 10% higher ROF. When the ship is straddling the target and going to rapid fire they will give a 30% boost to ROF. They also have better AA performance. They are about 25% heavier than usual guns". Missing from the manual are the facts that 1. weight and cost depend on the battery you put the autoloader on (autoloaded main battery guns weight a little more than and cost a lot more than the same number and caliber of autoloaded secondary battery guns, and these weight a little more and cost a lot more than the same number and caliber of autoloaded tertiary battery guns), and 2. secondary and tertiary batteries are stuck to deliberate fire (i.e. partial lock, in-between "ranging" and "on target", the latter of which is what you get when you're straddling the enemy), so they won't get any benefit from autoloaders when shooting against surface targets. By far, the best use of autoloaders is on 3 in DP guns on single-turrets on the tertiary battery of DDs, and 2-6 guns at that. There could be some niche cases where autoloaders can be used on the primary battery, but I don't know any of them.

[@xxxm981]

Your probably want to keep at least splinter resistant armour.

[@uefkentauroi]

On which ships and on which armor categories, precisely? Because in certain cases even 1 in is more than enough, e.g. D/DE on CLs, secondary gun turrets with at most 6 in caliber, and upper belt with flat deck on top of deck and sloped deck armor schemes (don't know about protected cruisers).

[@RvTWargames]

Inclined 1in armour = 1.5in uninclined, I believe. So that should do to some extent. But will probably revisit the protection scheme of the CL.

[@uefkentauroi]

@@RvTWargames Inclined belt adds 10% apparent thickness (p. 45 of the manual).

[@matthumpage8159]

Can you not invent V/STOL, invent ski Jump and somehow call the resulting host vessel a corvette if it means avoiding using the the CC, CVL, CA, CL, or DD monikers? I forgot you're playing fascist Germany so such quibbles don't matter😊😊😊😊

[@RvTWargames]

No ski jumps. No V/STOL to play with😀