Tech

[Dibo]

Yay....A coastal defense battleship
AFAIK CORE has added some new ship classes such as sloops So it appears possible to add in TGW the Gunboats for example - it is an important class of warships by 1914

 

[Allenby]

Pre-Dreadnought (eg HMS King Edward VII) In TGW currently. 1890-1905
Dreadnought (eg HMS Dreadnought) Called 'Basic Dreadnought' in TGW currently. 1906-11
Battlecruiser (eg HMS Indefatigable) In TGW currently. 1907-12
Superdeadnought (eg HMS Orion) Called 'Improved Dreadnought' in TGW currently. 1912-14
Improved Battlecruiser (eg HMS Renown) Not in TGW currently. 1913-
Battleship (eg HMS Queen Elizabeth) Called 'Advanced Dreadnought' in TGW currently. 1915-19
Improved Battleship (eg HMS Rodney) Not in TGW currently. 1920-

....I think the following should be added to that list:

Advanced Battlecruiser (eg HMS Hood) Not in TGW currently. 1920-

 

[StephenT]

Not sure that a ship that blows up its first time in combat can really be called "advanced". But sure, why not. It gives Britain two battleship models still left to research, rather than just the one.

Coast defence battleships are mostly classed as armoured cruisers in the current OOBs.

As a rough layout, how does this sound?

Level 1 (1890)
Old Cruiser
Torpedo Boat Destroyer

Level 2 (1900)
Pre-Dreadnought

Level 3 (1905)
Armoured Cruiser
Basic Destroyer

Level 4 (1908)
Dreadnought
Battlecruiser

Level 5 (1911)
Superdreadnought
Light Cruiser
Improved Destroyer

Level 6 (1914)
Improved Battlecruiser
Seaplane Carrier

Level 7 (1916)
Battleship
Improved Cruiser

Level 8 (1918)
Advanced Battlecruiser
Aircraft Carrier
Advanced Destroyer

Level 9 (1920)
Advanced Battleship
Advanced Cruiser

Level 10 (1922)
Modern Battleship
Modern Cruiser
Modern Destroyer
Improved Aircraft Carrier

(Alternatively, you could split level 10 into 10 and 11, and divide the 4 models between the two).

It might be objected that Britain will have already reached level 7 and the other major naval powers level 6 at the start of the mod, leaving not much to research. The problem is that the great period of naval development was 1905-15, and not much new or interesting was done then until the late 1920s/early 30s...

 

[Gwalcmai]

Maybe the splitting of 10 and 11 would be better. At least it gives you one more tech to research in the naval tree. Besides, it should be hard to get a functional Carrier.

 

[Allenby]

Might I ask what an 'Improved' or 'Modern' Battleship (Level 10) would be? You've listed HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson as prime examples of that, but I tend to see these as a somewhat hopeless class of ship: restricted in displacement and gun size in a way that would not have happened if the Washington Treaty had never been thought of.

The HMS Furious had an 18 inch gun - is it therefore concievable that a ship with the armaments of the Yamato would have been comissioned in the early 1920s, but for the Washington Treaty?

 

[StephenT]

Battleships (Queen Elizabeth, Royal Sovereign, Bayern and Sachsen classes) had 15" guns. (You might also include the later US 14" gun ships like the New Mexico and Tennessee in that category.

Improved battleships like the Rodney and Colorado had 16" guns.

As for advanced/modern battleships, the British N3 class designed in the early 20s and cancelled after the Washington Treaty were to be armed with nine 18" guns

 

[Dibo]

Not sure that a ship that blows up its first time in combat can really be called "advanced". But sure, why not. It gives Britain two battleship models still left to research, rather than just the one.

Coast defence battleships are mostly classed as armoured cruisers in the current OOBs.

As a rough layout, how does this sound?

Level 1 (1890)
Old Cruiser
Torpedo Boat Destroyer

Level 2 (1900)
Pre-Dreadnought

Level 3 (1905)
Armoured Cruiser
Basic Destroyer

Level 4 (1908)
Dreadnought
Battlecruiser

Level 5 (1911)
Superdreadnought
Light Cruiser
Improved Destroyer

Level 6 (1914)
Improved Battlecruiser
Seaplane Carrier

Level 7 (1916)
Battleship
Improved Cruiser

Level 8 (1918)
Advanced Battlecruiser
Aircraft Carrier
Advanced Destroyer

Level 9 (1920)
Advanced Battleship
Advanced Cruiser

Level 10 (1922)
Modern Battleship
Modern Cruiser
Modern Destroyer
Improved Aircraft Carrier

(Alternatively, you could split level 10 into 10 and 11, and divide the 4 models between the two).

It might be objected that Britain will have already reached level 7 and the other major naval powers level 6 at the start of the mod, leaving not much to research. The problem is that the great period of naval development was 1905-15, and not much new or interesting was done then until the late 1920s/early 30s...

Problem is I listed the Coastal Defense Battleships as Pre-Dreadnoughts in the Models.csv o
Can we include Gunboats, Small torpedo boats in 1890, Minelayers in 1900, Scout cruisers in 1905, Destroyer Leaders in 1911? CORE proved it possible

 

[ptan54]

After reading a what if thriller by the name of The Traitor by Guy Walters, I came up with an idea as an ultimate for the gas tech tree.

Namely sarin gas.

Sarin, a colorless and odorless gas, has a lethal dose of 0.5 milligram for an adult. It is 26 times more deadly than cyanide gas and is 20 times more lethal than potassium cyanide. Just 0.01 milligram per kilogram of body weight a pinprick sized droplet will kill a human. The vapor is slightly heavier than air, so it hovers close to the ground. Under wet and humid weather conditions sarin degrades swiftly, but as the temperature rises up to a certain point, sarin’s lethal duration increases, despite the humidity.

Since it was invented in the 30s it would make sense for this to be at the very end of the tech tree. Initially I thought of this as a potential dumbed down version of the A bomb for TGW but you cant actually defend against A bomb attacks......

If there were a way to alter the effect of an A bomb I would propose this - sarin gas shells loaded on bombers, dropped on troops would result in severe damage to soft targets with no effect on the province.

I think however its hardcoded. As this is an "ultimate weapon" it would also make sense that one could only employ this upon the completion of other tech trees. What about dropping gas by aeroplanes? The tech would boost tactical attack of bombers and zeppellins by 7 (??) and makes it possible to defend troops by getting the planes. This would also add a new element in the air war which is non existent even in late game so far.

 

[Junkyard_Pope]

Alright- an air tech- Aircraft mounted gun turrets= for Zeppelins and Bombers, it would give them air attack and defense increase, and more viability- after all, Zeppelins were tricked out by the end of the war with Mg's

 

[Allenby]

After reading a what if thriller by the name of The Traitor by Guy Walters, I came up with an idea as an ultimate for the gas tech tree.

Namely sarin gas.

Sarin, a colorless and odorless gas, has a lethal dose of 0.5 milligram for an adult. It is 26 times more deadly than cyanide gas and is 20 times more lethal than potassium cyanide. Just 0.01 milligram per kilogram of body weight a pinprick sized droplet will kill a human. The vapor is slightly heavier than air, so it hovers close to the ground. Under wet and humid weather conditions sarin degrades swiftly, but as the temperature rises up to a certain point, sarin’s lethal duration increases, despite the humidity.

Since it was invented in the 30s it would make sense for this to be at the very end of the tech tree. Initially I thought of this as a potential dumbed down version of the A bomb for TGW but you cant actually defend against A bomb attacks......

If there were a way to alter the effect of an A bomb I would propose this - sarin gas shells loaded on bombers, dropped on troops would result in severe damage to soft targets with no effect on the province.

I think however its hardcoded. As this is an "ultimate weapon" it would also make sense that one could only employ this upon the completion of other tech trees. What about dropping gas by aeroplanes? The tech would boost tactical attack of bombers and zeppellins by 7 (??) and makes it possible to defend troops by getting the planes. This would also add a new element in the air war which is non existent even in late game so far.

Could you tell us a bit more about it? When it was 'made' (if that's the correct word), how expensive it would be to produce a lot of this, if it's only lethal via inhalation, and so on

 

[ptan54]

Sarin was first produced in 1938 as a pesticide (bit late maybe, but if HOI has ICBMs, then TGW could include this), and the materials needed for production are not hard to come by. However since it took a lot of research to get there and the Nazi industry was ruined by allied bombing, not much was produced and in any case Hitler seemed to have "qualms" about using it on the battlefield. Importantly, although the raw materials needed are cheap and easily found, it takes a very sophisticated laboratory for production, especially mass production.

More information from http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sarin/basics/facts.asp

* The extent of poisoning caused by sarin depends on the amount of sarin to which a person was exposed, how the person was exposed, and the length of time of the exposure.
* Symptoms will appear within a few seconds after exposure to the vapor form of sarin and within a few minutes up to 18 hours after exposure to the liquid form.
* All the nerve agents cause their toxic effects by preventing the proper operation of the chemical that acts as the body’s “off switch” for glands and muscles. Without an “off switch,” the glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated. They may tire and no longer be able to sustain breathing function.
* Sarin is the most volatile of the nerve agents, which means that it can easily and quickly evaporate from a liquid into a vapor and spread into the environment. People can be exposed to the vapor even if they do not come in contact with the liquid form of sarin.
* Because it evaporates so quickly, sarin presents an immediate but short-lived threat.

"Case Study" from http://www.terrorismanswers.com/weapons/sarin.html

Have terrorists ever used sarin?
Yes. It was used in 1995 by Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese doomsday cult, in a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 and sent more than 5,000 people to hospitals. A year earlier, the cult killed seven people in a sarin gas attack in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto.

How deadly was the sarin used in Aum Shinrikyo’s 1995 attack?
Not very. Just prior to the attack, Aum hurriedly produced a low-lethality batch of sarin. Moreover, the sarin was disseminated poorly; the perpetrators left punctured packages of liquid sarin in subway cars and stations, which gave officials time to seal off the affected areas. If purer sarin had been released, particularly as an aerosol, the attack might have been much worse.

It makes sense that if produced on a state level, the resources required for a purer form of the gas would be greater and the gas could be produced in greater quantities. We'll want to make this absurdly expensive of course, say 60 IC for 700 days so the incentive for going down the gas tree is low, since one would be more inclined to research all the artillery and land doctrines first. If we were keeping gas artillery, we might want to boost hard attack by 1 (doesnt really affect non organic things) and soft attack by 6. We have scrapped the idea of gas artillery but to apply these bonuses to all infantry would be silly - it was expensive to produce the gas and not every private would have been equipped with a gas canister. Next option is dropping the gas canisters from planes, but again we wouldnt expect all planes to be gas dropping aircraft. Perhaps we can make a new model of bomber for this purpose, with very high tactical attack? This aircraft would be expensive to produce to model the high cost of equipping a plane with enough gas for the attack to be "worthwhile".

Best option would be to alter the effects of a nuclear bomb and call it massive gas shell or something, and set it to produce 2 per year so these attacks are rare. However I suspect the effects of nukes are hardcoded in HOI and we cannot alter it.

The deadliest gas used in the war was mustard gas.

How does mustard gas compare with other deadly chemicals such as sarin and VX?
Mustard gas is a blister agent, less likely to kill large numbers of people than such nerve agents as sarin and VX. It would take vastly more mustard gas than nerve gas to kill the same number of people, limiting mustard gas’ appeal to terrorists. But depending on the level of exposure, mustard gas could leave victims with more lasting injuries than nerve gases. Dr. Jean Pascal Zanders of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says that terrorists might consider using mustard gas to cause economic or social disruption—for example, by contaminating a transportation route—than to try to cause mass casualties.

Is mustard gas exposure fatal?
Not usually. Extreme concentrations of mustard gas can cause fatal lung damage, but victims exposed to low to moderate concentrations typically recover within about 4-6 weeks, although some types of eye damage, such as keratitis, may not be evident for years.

 

[ptan54]

I dug up a very very interesting idea on the very first TGW thread, page 6.

Von Moltke says:

Perhaps gas should work like tac bombers? Mostly organizational damage, only a bit of str. loss. If it had very high soft attack, you could get it early on and use it to create a breakthrough before any anti-gas techs are researched by the other side. I also dont see how you could represent your forces taking losses when gassing the enemy. Best solution I can come up with on short notice would be replace V2's with gas. Give them a decent Tac Bombing value, but they would be one shot like V2's. Gas mask tech could increase air defence, would that make a difference against gas(rocket) attacks? I don't think that the air defence increase to ground units would effect the early fighters of WWI, as they aren't doing any real bombing.
If you don't like that they're only one use, replace a normal plane with gas, and give it a VERY low ground defence value. You would then need to reinforce the gas units after most attacks, representing the need for more gas, just gotta be sure these units dont use very much manpower!

I entirely agree that gas artillery should be disbanded since normal artillery is better in every way and gas wasnt important in the war as a means of attack. However they did have organisational effects, and the idea that they should act as rockets/bombers with low tactical attack is very good. I favour rockets, so that any techs that add gas damage only affect gas shells (rockets) and not aircraft at large. Since we arent using rockets anyway I dont see why not.

I propose activating this unit type once industry level 2 is fully researched and the player is pretty advanced on the gas tree (mustard gas?). Earlier gases were so useless they aren't worth simulating. Gas defence techs would give defence against air to all ground troops. Research down this path would eat up many ICs, so players wouldnt have much incentive doing so, and would go for the land or naval techs first.

And if we're going to have this as a new unit type - we'll need a sprite. In the build screen, a shell with skull and crossbones in the background. On the map, maybe a big gun firing a yellow shell.....can Gwalcmai can pull this one off?

 

[StephenT]

Gas attacks, although they could be very effective when used in conjunction with other forms of attack, tended to be one-off, special-occasion things. So using one-shot weapons like V-weapons sounds good.

However, having gas masks increase anti-aircraft defence isn't such a good idea, since this will obviously mean that aircraft units suffer the effects... Another possibility is for gas masks to increase organisation, so you need more powerful gas attacks to have the same effect on the troops?

 

[ptan54]

I'd agree with you here actually, wouldnt want anything related to gas to affect aircraft in general.

Giving an org boost would lessen the effect of the gas attack. I suspect we'll need various levels of gas masks as defence against the ever improving gas tech (especially the last one I intend to include, sarin).

 

[Allenby]

Sounds like a good idea. It shall require a name though - I suggest 'Wide frontal gas attack'

And someone will need to write the unit attributes for the first model - whatver gas people think would be used for a very wide frontal attack.

 

[ptan54]

For some odd reason - Russia can build transports, but Soviets cannot, even though Soviets inherit all the Russian techs.

 

[ptan54]

Made the following change to the very first industry tech.

This should solve the problem of revolter nations being unable to convert resources.

technology = {
id = 4
category = industry
name = TECH_INDUSTRY_NAME #Localized name
desc = TECH_INDUSTRY_DESC #Localized description

level = { # 1 - Basic Industrialization
id = 4000
name = TECH_LEVEL_INDUSTRY_1_NAME
desc = TECH_LEVEL_INDUSTRY_1_DESC

cost = 20
time = 200
neg_offset = 50
pos_offset = 100

application = { # Modern Raw Material Knowledge
id = 4001
name = TECH_APP_INDUSTRY_1_1_NAME
desc = TECH_APP_INDUSTRY_1_1_DESC

required = { }
chance = 90
cost = 14
time = 140
neg_offset = 45
pos_offset = 90

effects = {
command = { type = industrial_multiplier which = coal_to_oil value = 1.0 }
command = { type = industrial_multiplier which = oil_to_rubber value = 1.0 }
}
}

 

[ptan54]

application = { # Advanced Cruiser
id = 6806
name = TECH_APP_NAVAL_9_6_NAME
desc = TECH_APP_NAVAL_9_6_DESC

required = { 6803 6601 14027 }
chance = 90
cost = 10
time = 120
neg_offset = 20
pos_offset = 40

effects = {
command = { type = new_model which = cruiser value = 4 }
}
}

Tech 14027 is a requirement, and it doesnt actually exist. This should be the reason why advanced cruiser cannot be researched!

 

[Allenby]

Time to look at the artillery tech tree...

I think the following should be put in somewhere, although I wouldn't be entirely sure of their exact place:

- Shrapnel shell
- Graze fuse
- High explosive shell
- 16" Naval Gun (400mm+)
- 18" Naval Gun (450mm+)

This is the tree as it stands:

# 1 - Modern Artillery
		# Unitary Ammunition
		# Field Artillery Gun 50mm+
		# Howitzer 70mm+
		# Pack Artillery 50mm+
		# Shrapnel Grenade
		# Mechanical Recoil Absorption
# 2 - Basic Artillery Development
		# Ballistic Triangulation
		# Naval Gun 4" (100mm+)
		# Railway Artillery
		# Artillery Optical Sights
		# Artillery Field Carriage
# 3 - Hydraulic Recoil Absorption
		# Quick-Firing Artillery
		# Infantry Gun 30mm+
		# Field Artillery Gun 70mm+
		# Howitzer 100mm+
		# Pack Artillery 70mm+
		# Naval Gun 6" (150mm+)
		# Naval Gun 8" (200mm+)
# 4 - Artillery Multi-Purpose Usage
		# Concealed Firing Positions
		# Howitzer 150mm+
		# Indirect Fire
		# High Explosive Grenade
		# Flare Grenade
		# Smoke Grenade
		# Naval Gun 10" (250mm+)
		# Naval Gun 12" (300mm+)
# 5 - Heavy Siege Artillery
		# Howitzer 200mm+
		# Siege Artillery 200mm+
		# Anti-Air Machinegun
		# Anti-Air Gun 20mm+
		# Naval Gun 14" (350mm+)
		# Infantry Gun 50mm+
		# Siege Artillery 250mm+
# 6 - Counter-Artillery Development
		# Range-Finder
		# Flash Spotting
		# Sound Ranging
		# Artillery Aerial Photography
		# Anti-Air Ranging
# 7 - Tank Gun Development
		# Tank Gun 20mm+
		# Siege Artillery 300mm+
		# Naval Gun 15" (375mm+)
		# Timed Fuse
# 8 - Anti-Tank Development
		# Anti-Tank Gun 20mm+
		# Anti-Air Gun 40mm+
		# Siege Artillery 400mm+
		# Tank Gun 40mm+
		# Armor Piercing Grenade
# 9 - Advanced Artillery Innovations
		# Anti-Tank Gun 40mm+
		# Anti-Air Gun 70mm+
		# Artillery Prime Mover
		# Mobile Anti-Air Gun
		# Tank Gun 70mm+
		# Tank Gun 100mm+
		# Anti-Tank Gun 70mm+
		# Tank Gun Ammunition
# 10 - Extra
# 11 - Extra
# 12 - Extra

Get thinking everybody!

 

[StephenT]

Initial thoughts:

The references to "grenades": should these actually be "shells"? (or "rounds"?) HE rounds, Smoke rounds, Flare rounds? (or "Star Shells"). This would answer the HE and shrapnel question. I note that granat is Swedish for "shell", and didn't Johan write these descriptions?

I'd move all the naval guns to earlier positions in the tech tree - 12" guns were commonplace before 1900, even 15" guns were under construction by 1914 (although not actually equipped in any active-duty ships yet).

Conversely I'd move anti-aircraft guns up to a later date, and perhaps require "deflection shooting" as a prerequisite. Hitting fast-moving targets was more luck than skill in WW1...

Tank guns - if these are too late in the tree, it will throw a big spanner in the works for anyone trying to research tanks. Although you could put tank MGs and primitive guns fairly early on, then have lots of more advanced stuff later.

Pre-registration of guns should be a late development, increasing attack factors and/or oranisation of artillery brigades. Another suggestion (perhaps a prerequisite for it) would be calculating the effect of weather on fall of shot.

Flash spotting and sound ranging are too early. Also, flash-ranging should come first; sound ranging was developed once flash-suppression countermeasures were developed. Sound ranging equipment included microphones with heated platinum wires to respond to the low-frequency noise of a gun firing; banks of microphones were linked to galvanometers where the movement of a wire was recorded on cine film. This was accurate to within 0.01 second, and comparing the films from all six microphones enabled the position of the enemy gun to be determined to within 25m using trigonometry. As you can imagine, this was seriously bleeding-edge-of-technology stuff back in 1916... It should increase both the attack factors and the defence factors of artillery brigades by a large amount (say, +1 for flash, and an additional +2 for sound) as suppressing the enemy artillery removed the most important weapon in their arsenal. It shold, however, be an extremely expensive tech to develop, with plenty of electronic and industrial prerequisites. The aerial photography tech should probably also be a prerequisite, both for this and for the pre-registration tech.

'Graze fuse' - is that the one developed in late 1916/early 1917 for cutting wire?