The Revenge of the Bear! A BeAARhug just for you!

[Mishgan]

The second photo is Cradle of Filth. I guess Brits just love zombie/skeleton mascots... Iron Maiden has its Eddie, CoF has it's... Filthie?

Anyway, I don't listen to that kind of metal music usually. I much rather prefer Nightwish and Sonata Arctica style trend. Keep listening to the old Stratovarius classics all the time, for example, and did not shy away from a trip to the Netherlands to see Within Temptation live in october last year. But on this occasion Turisas and Cradle of Filth, along with Moonspell (haven't ever heard of those, though) were in Switzerland. So me and a couple friends decided to go and see.

[Herbert West]

You went to see Moonspell, Crate of Shit and Turisas, and you have chosen to listen to CoF rather than Moonspell?

Bad Mishgan, bad.

For the uninitiated: Turisas is a solid/good finnish viking metal band (I wholeheartedly recommend The Varangian Way), Moonspell are one of the kings of gothic metal and hail from Portugal, while the Dany Filth&Co Erotic Vampire Cabaret Ensemble are the wort kind of "underground" "metal" ever to crawl forth for Albion.

On a brighter note go Rus, go!

[Mishgan]

I did not boycot Moonspell's performance during the show. It's simply that I've never heard of Moonspell before going to the concert, as opposed to Turisas, which I like, and Cradle of Filth which I heard of on numerous occasions before the concert. As said, I am not much into gothic/black metal.

There's one song of Moonspell's I loved in particular, the Scorpion Flower.

A Ports, specially for Herbert West!

Oh, also!

On a brighter note go Rus, go!

You forgot to add: \\o \o/ o//

[Mishgan]

The Revenge of the Bear

Chapter 30: Catching up with the Naval Lag

“Have toured the Admiralty Wharfs today to observe the progress on the new line of battleships that are expected to compete with the British and German dreadnoughts. The keels were laid down in January already, so work has been progressing.”

“With me was Rear-Admiral Sims of the United States Navy, who amongst his credentials had a lengthy stay in St. Petersburg as Naval Attache of the US Embassy. Sims was quite interested in our adaptation of US techniques and designs for our own Dreadnought equivalents and was himself quite active in offering assistance with improving our gunnery training.”

- St. Petersburg, 16th June 1909

It became clear by late 1908 that the Russian battleships were made obsolete in a matter of years by the frantic speed of naval buildup and improvements in Britain and Germany. Norhtern Europe was frantically arming itself not only on land, but also on sea. Germany maintained her status as the world’s first and foremost naval power by continuously laying the keels for new dreadnoughts and light cruisers every passing year. The Kaiserliche Marine already counted thirty dreadnoughts in her arsenal and was laying the keels for more each passing year.

A dreadnought detachment of the Hochseeflotte on the move

France and Britain maintained dreadnought parity, each navy fielding sixteen battleships of this class. However, overall in terms of numbers of ships, the Royal Navy was considerably more powerful than their French counterparts. Even Scandinavia had already commissioned eight ships of the dreadnought class. Russia, if she wished to maintain her status as an overall world superpower would have to increase her naval capacities in the coming years or be forever left behind.

Another worrisome fact was the complete lack of submarines in the Imperial Navy of Russia. This put Russian battleships in the Baltic Sea at the full and complete mercy of German submariners. The Russians would have not only to build up a proper dreadnought fleet, but also proper screening ships in the shape of light cruisers and also build a submarine fleet to complement the picture.

The Four Year Naval Armaments Plan foresaw that by 1913, Germany would field no less than fourty dreadnoughts. The Russians would, thus, aim to produce a total of twenty dreadnoughts over the four coming years, along with thirty submarines and fourty light cruisers. The heavy surface ships would be complemented with destroyer screeners. The initial plan foresaw the supply of ten submarines to each of the Baltic (based mainly in St. Petersburg), Black Sea (based mainly at Constantinople) and Pacific (based in Port Artur). As far as the surface ships were concerned, the Baltic fleet would get the bulk of the new force, with ten dreadnoughts and twenty light cruisers and their assorted screeners. The remaining planned ships would be split equally between the Black Sea and Pacific fleets. However, the possibility of regrouping the ships destined for the Pacific fleet with the Baltic fleet and instead retiring pre-dreadnoughts from Europe to Russia’s Asian possessions was also carefully considered.

Keel of the Alexander Nevski at the Admiralty Wharfs, St. Petersburg

As such, if all estimates proved correct, Russia would still be severely outnumbered by Germany in the north. Taken into consideration the formal alliance between Germany and Scandinavia, as well as the cordial relations between Germany and Britain which both saw Russia as a rival and threat, in the worst case scenario the Russian Empire would have to deal with overwhelming odds in the Baltic Sea, possibly also in the White Sea.

This led some in the Admiralty to suggest allocating all of the modern ships to the Baltic Fleet. The very idea was met with hostility by the officers and commanders of the Mediterranean Sea, who recalled that an insufficient naval defence of Russia’s southern seas could prove catastrophic of the British or Germans decided to secure the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles and, thus, cut Russia’s south from communications with the outside world.

All in all, Russia’s naval strategies in the Baltic Sea relied extensively on using her heavy surface ships in defensive operations and interdicting the Gulf of Finland to the Kaiserliche Marine. In the Mediterranean the Imperial Navy ruled the waves for in as long as the British or the Germans did not redeploy important naval assets to the region. In which case, the Black Sea Fleet would also be used in a defensive role.

The contracted wharfs expected to finish the four year plan in about three and a half years.

To realize the plan, the full capacity of Russian wharfs and extensive American assistance was called upon. The Americans were one of the leading designers of dreadnought ships, fielding twenty six themselves and their expertise in the matter was invaluable to help advance Russia’s naval programs further. There was nothing shameful in this, for just as Russians called upon Americans for help in the naval domains, so did the Americans call upon Russians for help in the land forces domain. The exchange of experience and knowledge was mutual and benefited both nations equally.


To conclude, the four year plan of naval armament was in no way the final point in Russia’s naval growth. It was a starting plan that would, in four years, reduce Russia’s naval lag in comparison to other European powers. Already plans were drawn for a new batch of surface ships to be laid in the next year, and the year after the next, which would, depending on the speed of the buildup, close the naval gap between Russia and Germany towards or even before 1920.

[demokratickid]

Well, it's good to see the navy highlighted, and a very proud Russian one at that...

[RGB]

Aha!

So you finally got the BB technology. Well, about time.

And Britain must be feeling very insecure on their island a a fleet half that of Germany's.

[robou]

Highly surprised at Britain, but I suppose Germany is likely to have huge amouts of resources to spam out Dreadnoughts. Russia will need to start somewhere, and twenty dreadnoughts is hardly a small number. If enough power is put into this naval scheme for a long enough period of time, it will be no time at all before Russia is caught up. She has done it before, she can do it again, albeit with American instead of Dutch support this time round

[asd21593]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBXu-iY7cw

[Mishgan]

demokratickid: A powerful navy is important. If I go to war with Germany without a proper navy, I shall be barred from carrying out land operations along the coast. And since St. Petersburg is a coastal province…

RGB: Yep, finally got Steam Turbines. I have a lower research rate than the other Europeans, and I concentrated on army techs for a while, but it's balanced out now. As of Britain, imagine how it shall feel once Russia begins stamping out dreadnoughts and a random battlecruiser on a yearly basis.

robou: Unfortunately for the Dutch, their AI is not building dreadnoughts.

asd21593: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERRnmiF8zlQ

* * *

I hereby take the present opportunity to congratulate you all with Victory Day!

[Ahura Mazda]

Ah, the naval Race of Arms...

[salidas16]

I'm not really worried if Russia Goes to war. Brusilov showed what The Russian Empire was capable of when it got it's act together and used it's manpower disparity intelligently instead of simply zerg rushing the enemy. And you have definitely got the Empire's act together. Plus The Americans can be a very dangerous enemy and you just so happened to have them as a friend. On that note how is the US militarily, economically, and politically speaking?

[Mishgan]

Ahura Mazda: Oh no! Races! Russia must take the lead before Germans get Schumacher

Salidas16: Do you mean from a gameplay perspective, or do you wish a storyline description, like I did for Italy, Germany, etc? If it is the former, then I can do it rather quickly, if the latter, I’ll need to do some thorough reading and research first.

[Maximilliano]

Wow, is there any way anyone can really bring down Russia at this point?

[4th Dimension]

Simply trough war, probably not, but Russia is an multietnic beast, and could easily fall as AH/USSR/Historical Russian Empire/Yugoslavia fell.

[Mishgan]

Maximilliano and 4th Dimension: Indeed. Ethnic minorities are a problem, especially when they are acting all illogical.

Socialist aristocrats drowning in money decide to take up arms in the name of the glorious Worker's Revolution. How am I supposed to preempt revolts of that kind? I didn’t even artificially increase their militancy!

[Eams]

Socialist aristocrats drowning in money decide to take up arms in the name of the glorious Worker's Revolution. How am I supposed to preempt revolts of that kind? I didn’t even artificially increase their militancy!

Clearly, they're Shiites who take the social aspect of Islam very seriously.

[Mishgan]

Hm, I didn't think there was a logical explanation to what I saw just as a "game quack". So Shiites would be more involved in social aspects than Sunnis?

[Eams]

Hm, I didn't think there was a logical explanation to what I saw just as a "game quack". So Shiites would be more involved in social aspects than Sunnis?

Hmm... my attempt at dry humour seems to have failed
Though it might be possible, there were Georgian communists around earlier than 1908 (though I don't know about Mongols) and I'm guessing that socialism is provocative enough for a bunch of rich guys with nothing better to do to decide that socialism will lead to Arab (?) independence. It's unlikely anything more that highly improbable, but we'd accept it if it had actually happened, which is the annoying bit about real history

[Mishgan]

Hmm... my attempt at dry humour seems to have failed

Oh noes, I have missed a sarcasm!

At any rate, some sort of Arab independence is not improbable. Aravia's main purposes are: providing access to the Indian ocean and to the Ottoman backyard. The former is no longer of actuality as Karachi is the new port of call of the Indian Ocean Fleet. As of the latter purpose, as the Ottomans and Egyptians are allied, Aden and Soccotra provide advantageous spring bases to deal with both. But Oman itself can be made a sattelite/dominion without damaging my position.

EDIT: Actually, through a reasoning chain, this made me think that I was a tad too hasty in renaming the Baltic Fleet to Northern and Black Sea Fleet to Mediterranean. So I've edited the AAR post with the appropriate names. Eventually I plan on creating a proper Northern Fleet in Murmansk. As of the Black Sea Fleet, the name does not prevent it from carrying out operations in the Mediterranean.

[salidas16]

Do you mean from a gameplay perspective, or do you wish a storyline description, like I did for Italy, Germany, etc? If it is the former, then I can do it rather quickly, if the latter, I’ll need to do some thorough reading and research first.

Both if possible but if not then just the gameplay perspective will suffice.