/nwg/ - Naval Wargames General

Shakedown edition

Talk about botes, bote based wargaming and RPGs, and maybe even a certain bote based vidya that tickles our autism in just the right way.

Games, Ospreys and References (Courtesy of /hwg/)
mediafire.com/folder/lx05hfgbic6b8/Naval_Wargaming

Models and Manufacturers
pastebin.com/LcD16k7s

Rule the Waves
mega.nz/#!EccBTJIY!MqKZWSQqNv68hwOxBguat1gcC_i28O5hrJWxA-vXCtI

Previous:

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=zNpWBMNyC0w
murdoconline.net/archives/10864.html
thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11821/the-crazy-aircraft-carrier-hangar-catapults-of-world-war-ii
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

USS Connecticut on sea trials.

...

BACK TO THE TOPIC OF GAMES INSTEAD OF NAVAL WAIFUS

What would your ideal model size be? Some of the existing ones lack details that'd be distinct for ships, where small things like rangefinders or AA mounts really do have an effect on how a ship looks beyond it's broad silhouette.

If you could have an ideal naval game for WW1/WW2ish era Pacific-style engagements between forces of ~12-20 ships (so all major size classes are represented), what would it be?

...

...

...

...

It still looks like they cut it in half and only let the fore half sail around.

That is part of the NelRods' charm.

Yeah, just that whole thing if they tuck their tails and run, it cant shoot its pursuers. Also cant fire all 3 turrets forward and lose 1/3 of your firepower even though all are front mounted.

Not on my list of favorite designs, certainly. To each their own.

Also, 3-2-2-3 layout a best. Most aesthetic.

3-3 3-3 is better desu.

>not 2-2-2-2-2-2-2

Lies. 2-2-2-2 or go home.

What's the notation for symmetrical wing turrets (e.g. Dreadnought as opposed to non-centerline like Seydlitz)?

1/1800 is what I game/collect in, and I probably wouldn't go any larger than that for WWI and after. Even a 4x6 starts to get pretty crowded with the number of ships you're asking after. 1/2400 GHQ or Shapeways or a combination of the two is probably going to give you your best compromise between detail and the table not feeling cramped.

>Agincourt's theme song
youtube.com/watch?v=zNpWBMNyC0w

...

There really isn't any.

The RN designated them as P and Q, the HSF designated turrets A through F, clockwise starting with the foremost turret.

No idea what the French used, and I don't think the USN or IJN ever had wing turrets.

Would turboelectric SoDaks and Iowas have been more futureproof?
Also, I've heard that electric motors are better than shafts are better for damage control due to compartmentalization: given that high-voltage lines are necessary nowadays regardless of propulsion, should future ships steer away from direct drive?

Looks like a World of Warships game. Fucking team is grouping around the islands and about to eat torps from those Jap TBs.

I laughed on the outside, but cried on the inside.

Settsus sorta had wing turrets but they mounted 305/45s instead of 305/50s like the centerline turrets.

You mean like this?

The ABDA DD's had been attempting to circle around and cut off a Japanese convoy when the IJN close support arrived in a very bad place. It was also a night fight, so anything beyond knife fighting range was somewhat ineffective, leading to huge furball.

Is it time for torp spam?

I really should get some more naval gaming going again. I've never even fielded that Ooi mini I have...

It's always time for torp spam.

>Would turboelectric SoDaks and Iowas have been more futureproof?

No. The primary issue is cost/manning while secondary issue was role/use. After WW2 and into the 60s the USN was the only navy left standing. The Jap's navy was gone, the Kraut's navy was gone, the UK and France could no longer pay for their navies, and the minor powers never counted. The only navy which was expanding was the USSR's and it was building subs more than anything else. Battleships need to be protected from subs, not the other was around.

There wasn't anything for the battleships to really do and it cost a lot for them do to nothing.

...

Those wacky brits.

...

Everyone built at least one of "cruiser" sub between the wars; UK, France, US, Japan, you name it. Only Germany didn't and that's only because they had to hide their sub program in Holland and Finland until '36.

...

...

>Only Germany didn't and that's only because they had to hide their sub program in Holland and Finland until '36.
Which I find somewhat strange, as they already built some during WWI and they were considered pretty successful despite being converted cargo subs.
God, I love subs with 6" guns. U-Kreuzer, Narwhals, the Argonaut, you name it.

Huh, apparently they actually did start building some, just way too late like the other user a few posts above said.
>The Type XI U-boat was planned as an artillery boat; its main armament would have been four 127-mm guns, in two twin gun turrets. It would have also carried an Arado Ar 231 collapsible floatplane. Four boats (U-112, U-113, U-114, and U-115) were laid down in 1939, but cancelled at the outbreak of World War II. Had the Type XI U-boat been constructed, it would have had a completely new hull design and a submerged displacement of 4,650 tons – she would have been by far the largest of the U-boats and the second-largest diesel submarine after the Japanese I-400-class submarine.

You gotta remember that nobody really expected air power to advance at the exponential rate it did in the late 30s and throughout the 40s.

Against 20s or early 30s aircraft, surface raiders and especialy submarine commerce raiders were a very real threat, and countering them required task forces spread around everywhere.

what the fuck is this bow design

The bow shield and crest?

No the hydrodynamics

It's the normal late 19th/early 20th century ramming prow., in combination wih the relatively low forecastle on USN ships of that time.

The shape probably creates a slight drag downwards.

Just seems extremely severe and inhibiting there

Perspective, plus the USN's low forecastle I guess.

...

...

>Huh, apparently they actually did start building some, just way too late like the other user a few posts above said.

Yup, buy the time they could design & build openly, the idea was no longer a "hot" one. They began building a few examples only to stop when the war meant they needed more real subs.

>You gotta remember that nobody really expected air power to advance at the exponential rate it did in the late 30s and throughout the 40s.

Which is something I find rather puzzling. They had already seen the rate at which aircraft developed between 1914 and 1918. What was it that convinced them that rapid development wouldn't still occur?

I love that guy's work, but did the SMS go in for buff and white color schemes?

>What was it that convinced them that rapid development wouldn't still occur?
They saw how things were developing, and everybody did develop planes, carriers, seaplanes, seaplane carriers, blimps, zeppelins, every kind of ship including submarines with catapult planes,

But navies are almost by default traditionalists, and conservative.
And on top of that, aircraft development really took off in the 30s.
Given that it takes half a devade to go from a ship design to a warship on the ocean, aircraft development and the strategical, tactical and doctrinal implications just overtook ship design.

On cruisers deployed to colonial stations before WW1, yes.

There's still a world of difference between 'flying kite contraption' to 'wooden flying contraption with a vickers', and 'being able to sink the mightiest artifice of man, which is immune to payloads comparable to the entire weight of the aircraft'.

Mitchell's inability over the course of an afternoon to bomb to death an unmoving, unarmed, zero damage control old battleship was a huge argument for Planes simply not being ready.

Mind you, the first instance of any modern capital ship being sunk in fighting condition was Prince of Wales.

...

Would the early CVs with a separate lower forward flight deck have benefited from a catapult mounted there?
It would take advantage of the low bow many of them had due to being BB/BC conversions...

Checked. I see you're a man of culture.

Which also leads me to notice that this is the same picture. Looks like the 2 Scharnhorst Class cruisers were slightly larger versions of the 1 Roon Class. Appears that the Roon had two turrets on the top deck in the center while Scharnhorst had casemates.

Love the look of the larger Imperial German cruisers before the Blucher. American Cruisers from the same era too looked great. Obviously style matters little.

anyway, here's an american cruiser from the same era.

Olympia should host naval tabletop gaming event with admission $$$ going to maintenance of the ship. Maximum wood panel, brass & riveted comfy.

...

I'd pay to play on-board for sure..

...

For what it's worth, have a terribly grainy picture of Roon.

What nationality is this, French?

Yes.

...

...

murdoconline.net/archives/10864.html
thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11821/the-crazy-aircraft-carrier-hangar-catapults-of-world-war-ii
HIVA catapults weren't all that useful, but they took up hangar space amidships and didn't face the direction the ship was steaming for extra airspeed-a lower forward catapult utilizing otherwise empty space might have been neat...

They're just so damn heavy(catapults that is) that concentrating any amount of them any particular place is likely to throw thing out of whack.

As wasteful as they were ive always loved the idea of CAM ships myself.

Actually after looking it up again it seems it was actually a very successful system. 9 combat launches, 9 aircraft shot down, 8 hurricanes ditched, and only one pilot lost. That's pretty good actually. And the Brits were never very short on aircraft, just pilots.

>murdoconline

Uh, that link made my anti-virus program crazy.

...

>clearly superfiring aft turrets, but also asymmetric wing turrets and no secondaries
wut.???

>no superfiring turrets forward
>only two rifles per turret
>redistributed armor scheme
>need to balance weight of propulsion and magazines
>sixteen 4-inch secondaries you don't see because the picture dates from her service as a gunnery training ship

You know, real world shit that real world naval architects had to take into account and which playing RtW doesn't "teach" you.

I just don't get why the early British dreads kept the A turret on a strip of elevated hull flanked by wing turrets-they could have dropped it a deck and had a B turret superfiring over A when they did the same for X and Z...

They had their reasons and they didn't have hindsight. Read Friedman. He'll explain using small words what their concerns were at the time. While those concerns may have later proved to be overblown or groundless, they were still concerns that influenced the choices made.

Something as seemingly odd and minor as small boat handling effected mast and turret layouts.

>Friedman

Not that user, but any books you'd recommend?

Let's see... We're talking about Friedman, the UK, and battleships so how about "The British Battleship: 1906-1946 by Norman Friedman"?

Or was that line of thought too hard to follow?

>Or was that line of thought too hard to follow?
Kindly fuck off back to /b/ until your balls drop and you're ready to stop shitting up threads.

...

...

You'd think the first French dreadnought would be a bit wackier, but the Courbets were superficially reasonable (wing turrets are forgivable this early on, and still an improvement over the hex arrangement of their predecessors)...probably rife with Gallic weirdness inside, though.
How did the Frogs beat Britannia's Hearts of Oak in the race to reach the final conventional big-gun design (and yet somehow detour into all-guns-forward aviation battlecruisers)?

...

the french dreadnoughts were actually pretty good looking boats. They looked a bit like the british ones but were more compact due to smaller slips and drydocks at the time in france.

...

>How did the Frogs beat Britannia
They didn't, Britain built the Orions before the French built the Bretagnes.

The Germans were almost a year behind with their König class. On the other hand, the Germans built two full clases of dreadnoughts to the French one, plus a squadron of battlecruisers.

Also, let's be honest here: The Bretagnes were not well protected.

...

...

>Bretagne
I'm saying that the Courbets were close to the mark (barring the wing turrets) and that the Normandie class were somehow a return to the weirdness

Can anyone point me at a good (preferably free online) resource for naval liveries in the 1870-1890 era?
I’m particularly looking for early German pre-dreadnoughts/late ironclads.

Normandie (and Lyon) were all centerline designs, of the same school of thought as the Orions, Iron Dukes, Königs, etc.

They were only special because they had those quad turrets.
And that design actually worked fine when they finally implemented it in the 30s.

The Courbets were maybe marginally better than the original Dreadnought, but they were built half a decade later.

...

...

How did submarine deck guns work? It seems like they would have a billion issues with drag and hydroacoustic noise, and saltwater erosion of all the surfaces, and so forth. But they were obviously widely used.

kindly learn to do things for yourself kiddo

>dat aft

>drag
That was an issue, but most subs were really pretty slow underwater. Top speed was less than 10 knots, and mostly subs really just crawled along at 2 or 4 knots when submerged.
The drag from teh deck gun was really just a relateively small part of teh total drag of a hull that was mostly built for surface movement.
>hydroacoustic noise
The low speed meant that flow noise was pretty much zero, and at higher speeds propeller cavitation was far louder then flow noise because the hydrodynamics of cavitation were simply not understood well enough.
They knew it made noise, and even why it made noise, but didn't really have a way to reduce taht noise apart from 'make prop turn slower'
>and saltwater erosion
The deck gusn were called 'wet mounts' because they were designd to be completely submerged, and they had a bunch of changes compared to normal mounts of that type.
Also, saltwater corrosion is a problem on every part of a ship, but that is what the zinc anodes are for.

...

>How did submarine deck guns work?

Like any other naval rifle. has already explained that your worries about drag, noise, and corrosion are far overblown. The biggest problem associated with deck guns was ammo storage and ammo passing, especially passing.

Getting the dozen or so shells required for a "normal" attack by a deck gun was nothing compared to the ammo needs of the AA/flak guns subs also carried. The ammo for those guns was often stored in ready use lockers in the flooded portions of the conning tower/sail and passed to the gun crews via a number of scuttles.

I understand the forward elevator being where it is assuming she had a cat, but why would the aft one be in the middle of the landing zone-wouldn't it be safer and easier to have it on the starboard edge of the deck behind the superstructure?
Also, how does it not interfere with the arresting gear?

>Also, how does it not interfere with the arresting gear?

How would an elevator interfere with the arresting gear? And why wouldn't a mid-deck elevator somehow be "safe"? Do you think the men who designed this ship were retards?

>How would an elevator interfere with the arresting gear
My bad, I'm asking how the arresting gear doesn't get in the way of the elevator: surely there are several cables crossing the deck almost on top of it?
>Do you think the men who designed this ship were retards?
The Royal Navy's engineers have made some odd decisions over the years...