Re: 2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1
Posted: 2014-06-25 06:57am
Yet we can afford more of those since we don't have to spend cash on keeping an old ship active.
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The Umerians would probably limit themselves to 6" or 155mm guns if it weren't for the fact that their artillery calibers are weird for historical reasons. The 180mm gun is their traditional land-based heavy artillery caliber, so it's what they had tooling to equip, so they put it in turrets on the Guard-the-North-class atomic rocket cruisers.Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Sure hope not. It's like a circus of freaks out there.Beowulf wrote:I don't think we're that few. I have no battleships, or guns bigger than 155mm on escort ships.Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I must be one of the few that has altogther scrapped all the battleships and big gun cruisers and gone for rocketry.
I am so happy to hear you say that.Siege wrote:Look, I get that people are invested in having a large navy as a deterrent to other players getting fancy, or simply because it makes sense for their nations to have one, and I don't mind this per se. But if this is going to turn into an SDNW#3 style naval arms race where people obsess endlessly over warship minutiae then the moderatorship will be forced to put hard caps on carrier numbers to put a stop to that. I'm guessing nobody wants that, so kindly work a reasonable and acceptable solution out amongst yourselves.
See, this makes sense, of sorts. I'd actually be willing to say that 8" guns makes perfect sense. The USN even evaluated the idea of sticking 8" guns onto destroyers. They didn't actually do so, since they couldn't solve the accuracy problems... But sticking a pair of twin turrets at the bow of a 40kton "atomic rocket cruiser" does actually make sense to me.Simon_Jester wrote:The Umerians would probably limit themselves to 6" or 155mm guns if it weren't for the fact that their artillery calibers are weird for historical reasons. The 180mm gun is their traditional land-based heavy artillery caliber, so it's what they had tooling to equip, so they put it in turrets on the Guard-the-North-class atomic rocket cruisers.Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Sure hope not. It's like a circus of freaks out there.
Since the Guard-the-Norths weigh forty thousand tons, an armament of 180mm guns isn't exactly impressive or 'big;' in objective terms the atomic rocket cruisers probably have a lower weight of broadside than most interwar treaty cruisers from real life. They shoot faster and more accurately using modern technology, but it's still not a "big-gun" ship as we traditionally understand the term.
My listing of 9 active carriers is the sole number actually done on my orbat. There'd probably be a 10th in refueling and overhaul at any given time, and so stripped of the vast majority of personnel. I'd be willing to accept a cap, if we can agree on an in game reason for such a cap. A Naval Treaty, like the Washington and London ones, but on carrier numbers instead of battleships.I am so happy to hear you say that.Siege wrote:Look, I get that people are invested in having a large navy as a deterrent to other players getting fancy, or simply because it makes sense for their nations to have one, and I don't mind this per se. But if this is going to turn into an SDNW#3 style naval arms race where people obsess endlessly over warship minutiae then the moderatorship will be forced to put hard caps on carrier numbers to put a stop to that. I'm guessing nobody wants that, so kindly work a reasonable and acceptable solution out amongst yourselves.
I hope my three/four (relatively small) carriers (with not-stellar fighters to fly off them) and five heavy missile ships aren't part of the problem; if they become such I'd be willing to engage in an arms reduction. I hope the naval big boys are prepared to do the same; I'd like to think that of them because they're all people I respect.
If I might lay out an opinion:
I think we need to have an open discussion about this, in which we list all the highly prosperous 'major' nations that are trying to have world-class navies (the ones who want like nine or ten carriers), and do some considerable thinking about why. So far the big-navy people I've heard of are:
Thanas (who wants... I'm honestly not sure how many operational carriers anymore, 9, 10, 13?)
Steve (who wanted 9+1* at times, and has also said he's scaling down to 6+1)
Beowulf (who wants I think 9, but I'm not sure where he said so, I'm getting this secondhand from Thanas)
RogueIce (who wants I think 9)
Now, large navies are a major strategic interest for all these people. That is worthy of respect. So we need to think about who is spending roughly how much money to make it happen, and whether it's reasonable for the nations in question to get highly competitive. After all, none of these countries have any history of fighting each other as far as I can remember, and many of them were allies within living memory.
*9+1 means one of 10 carriers is permanently in servicing at all times as I recall. Realistically any large nuclear carrier force is going to have one carrier down at all times because refueling the nuclear reactor is very difficult and takes one or two years in drydock.
If they'd had to choose between 8" and 6" they would probably have gone six-inch. As it was they had to choose between, roughly speaking, 107mm (land-based field artillery caliber), 130mm (naval light artillery caliber) and 180mm (land-based heavy artillery caliber). Or making up a completely new gun not compatible with any of their existing ammunition.Beowulf wrote:See, this makes sense, of sorts. I'd actually be willing to say that 8" guns makes perfect sense. The USN even evaluated the idea of sticking 8" guns onto destroyers. They didn't actually do so, since they couldn't solve the accuracy problems... But sticking a pair of twin turrets at the bow of a 40kton "atomic rocket cruiser" does actually make sense to me.
Well, as I see it, we have at least two major powers (Cascadia and Rheinland) that have strategic need for very strong navies, but for separate reasons would want to limit the naval budget: Cascadia because they have a powerful land-based rival to glare at which has invaded them in the past, and Rheinland because the country was economically devastated by the War and has only begun to recover in the present day.My listing of 9 active carriers is the sole number actually done on my orbat. There'd probably be a 10th in refueling and overhaul at any given time, and so stripped of the vast majority of personnel. I'd be willing to accept a cap, if we can agree on an in game reason for such a cap. A Naval Treaty, like the Washington and London ones, but on carrier numbers instead of battleships.
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Sure hope not. It's like a circus of freaks out there.Beowulf wrote:I don't think we're that few. I have no battleships, or guns bigger than 155mm on escort ships.
I think that would be going about it the wrong way because the answer can be any number of things. Instead you should be asking yourself first and foremost what your military is set up to do. And then get stuff that lets you do that. Don't worry about the cost until you're hitting multiple carrier groups because frankly nobody would be able to tell you what anything would realistically cost in this brave new world anyway.madd0ct0r wrote:can anyone point to a place where I can estimate what equipment I've got from my known annual military budget?
So It is actually 10 active carriers then, as I would expect that my 9 carriers include those in refueling and overhaul as well.Beowulf wrote:My listing of 9 active carriers is the sole number actually done on my orbat. There'd probably be a 10th in refueling and overhaul at any given time, and so stripped of the vast majority of personnel. I'd be willing to accept a cap, if we can agree on an in game reason for such a cap. A Naval Treaty, like the Washington and London ones, but on carrier numbers instead of battleships.
I haven't decided yet. At some point it gets silly if I focus too much on carriers, but considering I am about the only one who has released what precisely he spends on the GDP while everybody else has not done so I will reserve the right to revise my numbers. It is kinda funny how everybody is suddenly using my Orbat as a baseline.Thanas (who wants... I'm honestly not sure how many operational carriers anymore, 9, 10, 13?)
Activation time per CVN is not less than 900 days (based on activation time estimated for Oriskany in the 1980s). In a time of war you might get that down to 450 days. Activations would have to be conducted sequentially (discerning why this is and what other effects are made by this cause I leave as an exercise for the reader*). Also, keeping CVs (much less CVNs) in good reserve condition would likely cost a significant fraction of the cost of keeping them active (seriously, a CVN in reserve is likely to cost a low single digit fraction of an active one).Thanas wrote:Rheinland might live with having only 9 active carriers considering we got the large carrier reserve force (the 4 CVNs and a lot of older conventional ones), but I will have to do some more research how quickly a CVN in reserve could get activated in time of war. Any help on that would be appreciated.
After procurement a wing of fighters costs the same to maintain as a wing of bombers. Over the life of the wing it is this continuous cost that is dominant, not the initial procurement.Thanas wrote:In light of the recent numbers by Steve on his air force I will also probably scale my air force up, as we got about the same number of planes while he also has strategic bombers included in that. The money saved on strategic bombers will go to larger Interceptor forces.
Oriskany was Essex class and had been inactive for several decades, so I fail to see how she could be any sort of baseline for a CVN. She also had no airwing. None of that applies here. I am talking about activating the reactor, restocking her with fresh produce (can't eat canned food) and getting fuel onboard. How long does that take?TimothyC wrote:Activation time per CVN is not less than 900 days (based on activation time estimated for Oriskany in the 1980s). In a time of war you might get that down to 450 days. Activations would have to be conducted sequentially (discerning why this is and what other effects are made by this cause I leave as an exercise for the reader*). Also, keeping CVs (much less CVNs) in good reserve condition would likely cost a significant fraction of the cost of keeping them active (seriously, a CVN in reserve is likely to cost a low single digit fraction of an active one).Thanas wrote:Rheinland might live with having only 9 active carriers considering we got the large carrier reserve force (the 4 CVNs and a lot of older conventional ones), but I will have to do some more research how quickly a CVN in reserve could get activated in time of war. Any help on that would be appreciated.
Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh harder.Thanas wrote:Oriskany was Essex class and had been inactive for several decades. She also had no airwing. None of that applies here. I am talking about activating the reactor, restocking her with fresh produce (can't eat canned food) and getting fuel onboard. How long does that take?
Doesn't matter. A wing of fighters costs the same as a wing of bombers (of the same level. F-100s vs. B-52s, F-22s vs. B-2s, ect.)Thanas wrote:As to bombers - right, we'd have purchased more fighters. Also, fighters need less crew.
I don't care specifically if you carrier folk settle this OOC or if you agree there's some kind of IC treaty in effect, but whatever you work out, please do it within this context. Also keep in mind that Steve and I basically told Thanas that he couldn't have more than 9 active carriers in rotation. Thanas was allowed to have his mothballed fleet; I'll happily grant Beo his long-term core refuelling 10th carrier if the same conditions apply to it and I'm open to other suggestions, but the chances we'll agree to someone having more than 9 active supercarriers are slim to minimal at best. Because I like to be consistent, and frankly what I quoted up there is simply better for the game than a situation where we can walk from Orion to Corona over the decks of one long parade of supercarriers.The Siege of Christmas Past wrote:Thirteen Nimitz-class carriers does make me raise my eyebrows though. To put it simply, if you don't plan on using those carriers, there's no point to having them. If you have them, then as one of the people who'll be expected to moderate this game I have to assume you're going to use them.
As far as I'm concerned everyone's free to have a few carriers, but they should be hugely important white elephants whose presence can shift a situation, but whose loss would be catastrophic. 'But Siege!' you may say, 'the US losing a single carrier would be catastrophic!' Yes, but this is a game and not real life, if you have more than a dozen carriers and lose one you could just dispatch another and justify it in whatever way suits your fancy. I don't want that at game start. If you really want a big carrier fleet then you can embark on a project to build it in game, and other people can develop armored ramming whales or whatever in response, and at that point the moderators will judge your ideas on their merits. But you don't get to have more than a handfull of giant supercarriers at the start, just like you don't get to have orbital death satellites.
I did not mean reactor refueling. That would be done before putting her in reserve. I meant getting aviation fuel onboard. As to your source, I am not impressed with you using the Oriskany as a baseline here, as what is being proposed in there is not the same as an activation, but a complete rebuild of the air wing and fixing up a 50 year old carrier. Meanwhile, Saratoga only cost 280 million to overhaul her, which again is not the same as reactivating a ship for combat in the time of war.TimothyC wrote:Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh harder.Thanas wrote:Oriskany was Essex class and had been inactive for several decades. She also had no airwing. None of that applies here. I am talking about activating the reactor, restocking her with fresh produce (can't eat canned food) and getting fuel onboard. How long does that take?
To maintain a ship in the condition you just described would cost not less than three fourths of the cost of an operational ship, and even then activation for the CVNs would take not less than 600 days. Each. Sequentially. Why? Because refueling work means cutting the deck open, same as on a RCOH. That sets the base for how long. Start thinking through what I've just said and the implications of it.
So basically the larger GDP doesn't matter and you'll impose 9 carriers as a hard limit?Siege wrote:I don't care specifically if you carrier folk settle this OOC or if you agree there's some kind of IC treaty in effect, but whatever you work out, please do it within this context. Also keep in mind that Steve and I basically told Thanas that he couldn't have more than 9 active carriers in rotation. Thanas was allowed to have his mothballed fleet; I'll happily grant Beo his long-term core refuelling 10th carrier if the same conditions apply to it and I'm open to other suggestions, but the chances we'll agree to someone having more than 9 active supercarriers are slim to minimal at best. Because I like to be consistent, and frankly what I quoted up there is simply better for the game than a situation where we can walk from Orion to Corona over the decks of one long parade of supercarriers.
Oh God, that's very likely the most stupid thing I've seen you type. Your 'reserve' carriers are not 'reserve', but 'active, only I'm not using them right now.' I should have known you'd try and cheat your way to a bigger force. To maintain a force in that condition would cost the same as having them in an active condition.Thanas wrote:I did not mean reactor refueling. That would be done before putting her in reserve. I meant getting aviation fuel onboard. As to your source, I am not impressed with you using the Oriskany as a baseline here, as what is being proposed in there is not the same as an activation, but a complete rebuild of the air wing and fixing up a 50 year old carrier. Meanwhile, Saratoga only cost 280 million to overhaul her, which again is not the same as reactivating a ship for combat in the time of war.
I don't have the sources in front of me, but the total number of personnel for any wing stays about the same no matter the number of crew on the aircraft (the 509th Bomb Wing of the USAF has 40 aircraft and about 4000 personnel).Thanas wrote:Also, what are your sources for the cost of bomber and fighter wings over the course of their lives? Personnel costs alone would suggest one to be lower than the other.
Go fuck yourself if you think I am trying to cheat anybody. I clearly outlined that I expected several months before either of them would get active in a war.TimothyC wrote:Oh God, that's very likely the most stupid thing I've seen you type. Your 'reserve' carriers are not 'reserve', but 'active, only I'm not using them right now.' I should have known you'd try and cheat your way to a bigger force. To maintain a force in that condition would cost the same as having them in an active condition.Thanas wrote:I did not mean reactor refueling. That would be done before putting her in reserve. I meant getting aviation fuel onboard. As to your source, I am not impressed with you using the Oriskany as a baseline here, as what is being proposed in there is not the same as an activation, but a complete rebuild of the air wing and fixing up a 50 year old carrier. Meanwhile, Saratoga only cost 280 million to overhaul her, which again is not the same as reactivating a ship for combat in the time of war.