On ships and ship design
First off ships of this period should be notoriously vulnerable to torpedo hits whether they're dreadnoughts or destroyers. Not many ships had good torpedo defenses, the nets were virtually useless and could not be deployed past a certain speed and all had relatively poor compartmentalization.
The armoured cruisers and battlecruisers suffered so much because they were attempting to fulfill a task they were terribly unsuited for - slugging it out with big guns! Scharnhorst and Gneisenau of Von Spee weren't any better than Defense, Warrior or Black Prince when faced with Invincible and Inflexible yet would anyone say they were lesser warships?
Cruisers were designed and meant to a) show the flag, b) raid commerce c) protect commerce and d) reconnaisance en force NEVER to fight battle line actions.
Simply these ships, like all other weapons of war, were trumped when they came up to doing things they could not do well.
Relative to this, I was just thinking that for the tech trees we should develop along the main historical lines - gunnery, armour, propulsion, torpedoes and there will be advances that affect some ships and some which affect others, for instance advances in torpedoes would affect more the submarine or destroyer types. This would be the main differentiation between ships. I'm saying that perhaps we should think of ships as bare-hulls almost and whatever course your naval development has taken will determine what their strengths and weaknesses are. For instance Britain concentrated more on gunnery ("Gunnery, Gunnery, Gunnery, what else matters?") and to a lesser extent, speed hence their ships, particularly their battlecruisers were fast and well armed but not as well protected as the Germans who concentrated on torpedoes and protection. Reinhardt Scheer was a torpedo specialist hence his aggressive use of U-boat traps and torpedo boat attacks (I suspect Togo would be one too). This would mean that depending on the course you take, British and German or French or Italian or Russian ships would not be the same at all because one power would focus on one thing, another on a different thing. So from a base strength of X=attack Y=defense, the choices that your nation's naval thought will take (or have been made for you as of 1914) will determine your warship's strengths or weaknesses (a reason perhaps to have started the war a bit earlier?)
On scrapping destroyers and cruisers or post-1900 ships.
How about if instead of destroyers, we convert destroyers into a combined destroyer/light cruiser qualification under the name of the light cruiser or destroyer leader that was the flagship of the flotilla? Some cruisers were really designed as flotilla leaders and functioned as such like the British C's or the German Rostock and some large destroyers approximated light cruisers such as the late war Campbell or Scott classes.
Also, I guess I didn't notice it that much before, but under the main classes of battleship, cruiser, destroyer, etc. the sub-divisions w/c are grouped as classes of ship remain distinct right? I mean when you get to build battleship level 2 all your battleship level 1's don't automatically upgrade right? This is getting better all the time.
BTW I checked the doctrines and techs out and I was thinking, perhaps a FEW pre-1900 doctrines and techs should be available for the more 'undeveloped' countries? For instance coastal nations with small budgets should subscribe more to the so-called 'jeune ecole' w/c saw the development of light coastal forces and submarines instead of a true blue water fleet as well as coast defense battleships.
Will have a look at Britain and will give my two cents for whatever it's worth as soon as practicable. But it's looking great so far!
BTW, if I want to add events are there still event numbers available? Event numbers and leaders available? I'd like to try and work in some of the suggestions I posted if I can.
Best regards all,
Richmond
