2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[Thanas]

@Siege: Interesting where this will all go, so far I got no clue.

@Eternal_Freedom and Simon: Good news, vulkanwerft just proposed a 70kt ton battleship designed to defeat any incoming missile (or so they claim). I wrote that before you posted. But yeah, the sort of huge anti-ship missiles your Guard -class or my Derfflingers Carry are really a huge pain to deal with.

But hey, if EF wants to mortgage his nation to Vulkanwerft we are happy to oblige.

[Thanas]

Anyway, I'd like to get back to Champa - madd0ct0r, what are your plans for the Rhenish contingent? We airlifted an engineer bataillon but nothing has been done wiht them so far, so what can they do? (Even if it is just building roads or stuff, we'd be happy to help).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh dear lord...thank you for the designs Thanas, although it is somewhat scary to realise I could purchae three standard Derfflingers and two of the Proposal 4's for land-attack for only £1 billion more than buying one of Vulkanwaft's ships.

twenty four billion dollars for one hull. Yeah, I think I might finally acknowledge that the age of the Big Guns is sadly over.

Incidentally, Thanas, I thought your Navy didn't like the Derfflinger's very much?

EDIT: Despite the cost, the 70kt Derfflinger variant is interesting.

[madd0ct0r]

Anyway, I'd like to get back to Champa - madd0ct0r, what are your plans for the Rhenish contingent? We airlifted an engineer bataillon but nothing has been done wiht them so far, so what can they do? (Even if it is just building roads or stuff, we'd be happy to help).

I can write them in as working on the seawall. Out of all the nations present, I'd guess they'd be the ones with the most deep water engineering experience. The Belkans and Umerian's got a specific mention cos they'd invade if it wasn't the case

I was going to do something with Church of the Beached Whale providing food support to the (now permently dislocated) refugees. This might mean Champan whaling boats trying to sneak back in through the 400 odd nazy craft that still seem to be parked off shore. I guess that was an opportunity the Rehnians were looking for?

[Thanas]

Oh dear lord...thank you for the designs Thanas, although it is somewhat scary to realise I could purchae three standard Derfflingers and two of the Proposal 4's for land-attack for only £1 billion more than buying one of Vulkanwaft's ships.

twenty four billion dollars for one hull. Yeah, I think I might finally acknowledge that the age of the Big Guns is sadly over.

Want to know the really scary thing? In all likelihood, all of that armor probably is still not enough to survive multiple hits from those really huge anti-ship missiles multiple nations are using. Sure stealth is great, but the guns are just a massive waste of space and potential.

EDIT: Even funnier is what happens if the main armor deck gets warped by fire or else twisted by missile impacts. Have fun trying to repair that, you'd probably would have to replace the whole upper structure and armored deck. (this is what did in the British carriers after WWII who became to expensive to repair and thus were scrapped).
Oh, and good luck with future updates and installing additional systems. Have fun trying to bore through 8" of armor plate/composite armor (this is why the Iowa was never really upgraded even though she didn't even have 8 inches of armor).

Incidentally, Thanas, I thought your Navy didn't like the Derfflinger's very much?

We like the design. The problem is each costs half a carrier and 2-3 of the universal surface combatant, which means that for each of them other stuff is being sacrificed which we might not be comfortable sacrificing. A Derfflinger is good for killing ships, operating as a lone wolf or battle management.

Problem is, in a carrier group it would be the secondary battle management, only to work when the carrier is lost. At that point, this means enemies have overwhelmed the defences, meaning the Derfflinger has probably already expended all of its armament or has been sunk already. As a lone wolf, its great, but we already have ships fulfilling this role and this ship is so expensive that it doesn't make much sense to send it when you already got destroyers who can do it. So it only makes sense in a surface action group. Okay, but do you really want to spend six billion on that, especially when you got the Universal Surface Combatant which does the same for much less money? Or would you rather send one Derfflinger or 2-3 Universal Surface Combatants?
So in our doctrine it is mainly used to counter the really huge missile cruisers the UOCSR is building and even there it might be superfluous. So...great ship that hasn't gotten much to do. Aside from its bombardement potential and missile defence everything it does is done by carriers and much better at that as well.

Of course, this does not apply to nations who don't have a great carrier force or manpower concerns. Such nations might find a Derfflinger to be great for their needs, especially if they are the sort of nations who need battle management coupled with hilarious firepower.

Anyway, I'd like to get back to Champa - madd0ct0r, what are your plans for the Rhenish contingent? We airlifted an engineer bataillon but nothing has been done wiht them so far, so what can they do? (Even if it is just building roads or stuff, we'd be happy to help).

I can write them in as working on the seawall. Out of all the nations present, I'd guess they'd be the ones with the most deep water engineering experience. The Belkans and Umerian's got a specific mention cos they'd invade if it wasn't the case

I was going to do something with Church of the Beached Whale providing food support to the (now permently dislocated) refugees. This might mean Champan whaling boats trying to sneak back in through the 400 odd nazy craft that still seem to be parked off shore. I guess that was an opportunity the Rehnians were looking for?

Church of the beached whale? You champans have funny religions. But sure, go for it. Though we won't do much against your ships until they leave your EEZ.

[Simon_Jester]

The Umerian atomic rocket cruisers present a similar difficulty to the Umerian Navy; they were a gigantic rampaging elephant tearing apart the procurement budget for nearly two decades, and to this day they cost eight times as much as a Perpetual Spring would.

On the other hand, I have a specific mission in mind for them which nothing else, including carriers, can easily fulfill. The only non-carrier solution I can think of would be damn near as expensive as the atomic rocket cruisers in their own right, and much much less capable of looking after themselves against an enemy battlefleet.

[Thanas]

The Umerian atomic rocket cruisers present a similar difficulty to the Umerian Navy; they were a gigantic rampaging elephant tearing apart the procurement budget for nearly two decades, and to this day they cost eight times as much as a Perpetual Spring would.

On the other hand, I have a specific mission in mind for them which nothing else, including carriers, can easily fulfill. The only non-carrier solution I can think of would be damn near as expensive as the atomic rocket cruisers in their own right, and much much less capable of looking after themselves against an enemy battlefleet.

Which is? I am somewhat skeptical about that as nobody has ever come up with a mission carrier aircraft can't fulfill (except for launching ballistic missiles but they aren't as important in this world).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Right, I shall write up a response to the various proposals this evening, but I can say now that I will be accepting offers from Rheinland to purchase five Derfflinger class battlecruisers, as standard, no mods. This will free up our own docks to begin building the new carrier Reaper and a possible fourth Lucifer-class carrier as well to further improve our fleet.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Arcadia is, as likely as not, to build BCs with more missiles than guns (say a small battery of 10-12in guns) instead of BBs when we need to replace the older design. If only because, even thick-headed Arcadians can acknowledge that they are more useful.

Expecting us to totally ditch guns probably won't happen though


(Side-note: Arcadian proposal would have come but my laptop decided it would be a wonderful time to stop connecting to the internet. Until that is fixed...I'm somewhat limited in activity.)

[Thanas]

So while redoing my Orbat I decided that keeping the Luftmiliz around would be
a) unfair, as no other nation keeps close to a 1000 planes around for ready mobilization in times of war (OOC reason)
b) unnecessary as old planes don't survive long on a modern battlefield. (IC reason)
Thus they get scrapped/put into storage.

Before this the Luftmiliz looked something like this:

120 Rheinland RFW Walküre (A-10 Thunderbolt)
240 Rheinland JHD Tornado (Panavia Tornado) - formerly the top fighter-bomber of Rheinland, now relegated to reserve role. This aircraft was developed in partnership with San Dorado, who provided most of the Electronics, thereby leading to it being the first Rheinland fighter aircraft not being named after a bird.
120 Rheinland Foxhound (Mig-31)
480 Rheinland RFW Falke (F-16)

I expect the Migs and Tornados to be scrapped, the Falken and Walküren to be put into deep storage and used for spare parts. Maybe I'll keep them in storage if other nations have a massive air reserve they mobilize in time of war, but so far no nation has indicated that they do the same.

[Simon_Jester]

How many operational aircraft do you have? Because I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like 3000-4000 in the air force alone; mine came out like that, although admittedly my country spends heavily on its air force.

Also, in my opinion the MiG-31 is only something that should get scrapped if you have another aircraft that can do its job. Umeria is still using an updated version of a fifty-year-old interceptor design that it first procured in 1971... because nothing else can do what it does.

[Thanas]

How many operational aircraft do you have? Because I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like 3000-4000 in the air force alone; mine came out like that, although admittedly my country spends heavily on its air force.

Combat aircraft? about 1800 or so and another 600 in the Navy. Total operational aircraft, including transport, AWACS, Sea Patrol, Refueling, training, helicopters etc. probably about 3000 in total.

As to the Mig-31, I got 36 or so of them operational to patrol the North, other interception can IMO easily be handled by my F-22 analogues. (I'm assuming you mean shooting down strategic bombers).

EDIT: oh, and did you miss my question about what role they can do that carrier aircraft cannot?

[Simon_Jester]

No, but while I didn't miss the question, you didn't miss the answer either, so I figured I didn't need to elaborate something you'd deduced for yourself.

In the interests of clarity, I will simply state that the Guard-the-North-class atomic rocket cruisers are armed with a battery of six chain-cell launchers for MRBMs, three port and three starboard, each launcher having the capacity to store (and fire sequentially) up to eight missiles. The launchers are sized for a missile of 7-8 tonnes and 10-11 meters in length.

For reasons of its own, the Umerian Navy considered this a capability worth pursuing. As to the question of whether they were correct to do so, I will make no comment. Certainly they could have afforded half a dozen or so AEGIS ships of considerable firepower for what it cost them to build a single Guard-the-North; I am painfully aware of the math.

[TimothyC]

Hey Thanas, This:

- Main gun battery: 6 12" guns on vertical mounts below deck, covered by the deck to maximize stealth (Hatches will be opened before firing). Guns can be rotated and elevated to allow shells to hit targets in case of guidance failure and to lessen stress on guidance systems. . Guns fire gliding or rocket-assisted projectiles as well as subcaliber rounds for greater range. Heavily armored magazine carrying up to 200 shells (12" main caliber as well as 8" subcaliber) per gun replaces sockets 3&4. - Replaces sockets 1&2

Doesn't make any sense. At all. Are they vertical guns or are they trainable?

[Thanas]

First, deleted the wrong post as per request.

Hey Thanas, This:

- Main gun battery: 6 12" guns on vertical mounts below deck, covered by the deck to maximize stealth (Hatches will be opened before firing). Guns can be rotated and elevated to allow shells to hit targets in case of guidance failure and to lessen stress on guidance systems. . Guns fire gliding or rocket-assisted projectiles as well as subcaliber rounds for greater range. Heavily armored magazine carrying up to 200 shells (12" main caliber as well as 8" subcaliber) per gun replaces sockets 3&4. - Replaces sockets 1&2

Doesn't make any sense. At all. Are they vertical guns or are they trainable?

Yeah, sorry, language confusion and bad German/English translation on my part. I am struggling to find the english words for the technical terms. Basically, they are normally stored in a vertical position but can be moved to some degree (obviously not full depression as a turret/barbette mount would allow (as that would mean they would shoot into the bow, nor full rotation / depression backwards towards the superstructure as that would obviously conflict with recoil-handling systems and the superstructure might be in the way).

[TimothyC]

Yeah, sorry, language confusion and bad German/English translation on my part. I am struggling to find the english words for the technical terms. Basically, they are normally stored in a vertical position but can be moved to some degree (obviously not full depression as a turret/barbette mount would allow (as that would mean they would shoot into the bow, nor full rotation / depression backwards towards the superstructure as that would obviously conflict with recoil-handling systems and the superstructure might be in the way).

No, I got that. The gun you are describing is highly unlikely to work the way you are thinking. VGAS [Vertical Gun for Advanced Ships] (which Beo based his proposal off of, and you obviously took and tried to run with), can't train or change elevation at all. Now, there are guns where the barrel goes vertical to load the round and then depresses to the proper elevation to fire, but those look a lot more like a regular gun than what you are talking about.

[Simon_Jester]

On the other hand, the odds of the guidance system failing are pretty low, and if the guidance on one round fails you can always chamber the next round and fire again, so it's not like it matters much.

You could build a VGAS-type gun that was slanted to point at an angle, I think, but you'd have to accept a fixed, permanent bias in favor of making the ship able to shoot in only (more or less) that direction- if the gun slopes forward you are committed to firing at targets in front of your ship.

Plus, isn't part of the point of VGAS to get the round above the bulk of the atmosphere? Which is a great way to extend range, see the Paris Gun.

[madd0ct0r]

at those sort of parabola ranges, he'd only need to wiggle the gun barrel by a few degrees to 'point' it. I don't know wether the extra mechanisms needed on the ship would cost/wear more then the self guiding shells though.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, basically, the point of VGAS is that the round climbs out of the thick lower air in a few seconds, then "flips over" using the guidance fins and steers in whatever direction you please, still having a high enough velocity to glide to the target at very high speed.

If you try and treat the thing like a mortar (a cannon fired almost straight up) with the shells coasting ballistically back down to Earth, well... the biggest problem is that at the muzzle velocity of a modern gun, the rounds will take a very long time to come back to Earth (say, 2-3 minutes), and they won't actually go very far because you're firing almost straight up.

So an unguided round fired from a near-vertical cannon is a terrible idea unless you want the shells to come down right next door... in which case firing the same round sideways at the target is almost always more efficient, unless you're designing a dedicated bombardment platform that only needs a short-ranged mortar.

If the gun barrel is vertical and you want to hit targets at ranges competitive with 'normal' artillery, then you need guided shells whether you like it or not.

[Thanas]

On the other hand, the odds of the guidance system failing are pretty low, and if the guidance on one round fails you can always chamber the next round and fire again, so it's not like it matters much.

This is a salesman trying to sell something. It is not as if we actually have those systems active or anything, so if it is unlikely to work that way then I might just as well rationalize it as overblown claims.

No, I got that. The gun you are describing is highly unlikely to work the way you are thinking. VGAS [Vertical Gun for Advanced Ships] (which Beo based his proposal off of, and you obviously took and tried to run with), can't train or change elevation at all. Now, there are guns where the barrel goes vertical to load the round and then depresses to the proper elevation to fire, but those look a lot more like a regular gun than what you are talking about.

I was thinking about it being this system scaled up., just not having turrets due to stealth reason. The launchers/gun barrels are vertical in their standard position but can be changed in position if one wants to fire unguided munitions, which is the main selling point. It does not have the capabilities of the VGAS as it sacrifices range for a wider array of available munition and submunition, guided, rocket-assisted etc.

Alternatively, if it has to be a VGAS it might work the way madd0ct0r suggest. Though really, it is not intended to be one. It is intended to be a further development of the guns already in use.

[Simon_Jester]

Eh, well, if they were trying to sell it to me, I'd be suspicious. Anyone who seriously thinks I think being able to shift a cannon from vertical down to, say, 85 degrees elevation makes it a viable artillery piece for unguided shells...

Well, they're trying to sell me something and they're not being very respectful of my intelligence.

[Thanas]

Eh, well, if they were trying to sell it to me, I'd be suspicious. Anyone who seriously thinks I think being able to shift a cannon from vertical down to, say, 85 degrees elevation makes it a viable artillery piece for unguided shells...

No, but an elevation form 90 to 55 just might be.

[TimothyC]

I was thinking about it being this system scaled up., just not having turrets due to stealth reason. The launchers/gun barrels are vertical in their standard position but can be changed in position if one wants to fire unguided munitions, which is the main selling point. It does not have the capabilities of the VGAS as it sacrifices range for a wider array of available munition and submunition, guided, rocket-assisted etc.

The AGS barrels actually lay down in their gun house when not being loaded or firing. Also, while there are guns that load with the barrel at 90° elevation [Link], vertical guns like VGAS are something else entirely.

[Thanas]

Ah, so that is my mistake. Hmmm. Not sure if there is actually space for them lying down horizontally then.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Not that it matters, since Your proposals were convincing enough that i'll just be ordering a few standard Derfflingers rather than any of the expensive custom loads. Although the 70kt super-Derfflinger design is pretty damn cool, I will admit.