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The very first post has an index of links every nation covered. Some links cover more than one country, so if you don't see an entry either read the entire link or the nation didn't build its own ships and thus doesn't have an entry.
 
Has anybody ever sunk a capital ship with their subs? This has never happened to me in my HOI3 adventures.

Yes I have, lots since I employ super large concentrations of Subs as a main battles groupment of up to 30 Subs! (As Germany I station one huge stack of Subs in the Skagaarick sea tile for the length of the game with land based air cover and usually sink most of the RN there including Capitals.

I have also had odd little convey raiding subs join a naval battle in a sea tile and actually sink capital ships too. This does happen, but it just means that the sub was the last ship to fire a successful hit against them. Not sure about this happening in circumstances with any small subs on their own sinking Capitals, at least full strength and org in a chance meeting though.
 
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You've started a very interesting thread. Thx.
 
Hi,
and some notes to this nice thread!

On a side note, PI decided to leave out the O-class BCs and instead made the P-class CA's be the BC model after the Scharnhorst. Not sure why they did that. To compare, the P-class was to have 6 11" guns and 120mm belt armor, while the Scharnhorst had 9 11" guns and 350mm belt armor, and the O-class battlecruisers were to have 6 15" guns and 190mm belt armor. In terms of armor and firepower, the P-class shouldn't be a battlecruiser. The only reason I can think of to justify classing the P-class as BCs is their sheer size. The previous CA class, the Admiral Hipper, was 202m long, while the P's were to be 230m long. In comparison, the Scharnhorst and O's were 235m and 256m long, respectively, making the P-class be about the same physical size as the Scharnhorst, despite having much poorer "specs".

The P-class was the planned successor for the Deutschland-Class Superheavy(in terms of guns) CA.
Initially they should get the 6*28cm but it was also planned to fit the 38cm double turrets into them.
P-class should get some better protection but much more speed, initial designes varied:
displacement: 20000-21000 tons
side armour : 120mm
speed: 34-35knots
range: 15k nautical miles
armament: 6*28cm in doube or triple turrets..

Planning started '37 and in '39 over 20 different construction plans were made and varied again from 21k tons up to 31k tons from length of 206-235m..
Constrcution problems:
For the usage of 2 triple turrets you need at least a lengt of 218m. but would have to drop the underwater protection because you would else scarifice the speed("Schlankheitsgrad des Schiffes" would be to bad.) as the width for that speed shouldn't exceed 25m..

So to get the needed amount of engine power for that speed would need a width alone of 19m(length 92m), plus underwaterprotection of 4m sums up in the end to ~27width and leads to a length of 237m..
But a ship of that size would have also exceeded the naval treaty with the amount of needed displacement..
All that problems led to the planings(!) that 3 of the 12 planned P-class ships, 3 should be the O-class with the 2*3 38cm guns.
Notabel design speciality was that these ships should get transom sterns.


Scharnhorst was the planned answer for the french Dunkerque-Class and started with a planned tonnage of 19000 in '34 with just 2x3*28cm! A third turret was only planned..

The plans were based on ideas from 1928.
Construction plans from 1928 for new german BC:
length: 206
width: 25
depth: 7,8
engine: 160k horsepower
speed: 34knots
Armor:
side 100mm(note! less than for the later p-class..)
deck 25mm
armor deck 30/20mm
aft/bow 80mm
turrets 250mm
Armament: 8*30,5cm(SK L/55 in 4x2)
9*15cm
4*8,8cm

Construction weight/displacement: 19192 ts..

But noone was happy with that plans back then and also not for the new Scharnhorst-class and the weight raised up to 26k tons to have more armor and more guns(9*28cm).
Now the old plans of Mackensen Class and Ersatz York Class were taken into consideration and the weight raised again for 6k tons..

That raised protection lvl now brought up a discussion about the main armament from 9*28cm and to raise it to 9*35cm or 9*38cm.
But some artillery officers favoured the 28cm guns for their higher rate of fire.
In the end Hiter decided to only use the 9*28cm beacuse of the estimated reaction of the UK if they had choosen a higher calibre.
All in '34..

In '35 it was then examinated if the class could use also the bigger 2*38cm turrets with slight modifactions. That was possible but not planned initially.

Also notabel for the weight of a ship. Most ships used still bolted armor.
But the Scharhorst Class also used new alloys called "Wotan hart" and Wotan weich"(Hart=hard, weich=soft) wich could be used with a new welding technique and had a much better protection with the same thickness of its armor!

In the end the Scharhorst-Class construction weight raised to 34841 tons! ~15k tons more as initially planned..

Bismarck and Tirpitz wer planned in '35 and had an intiall construction weight of 35k each.
Changes in the building phase made a raise of 10k tons neccessary, wich were still in the limits of the GER-UK treaty..
38cm were choosen, because this guns seem to be quite sufficient and could be also used later in other designs.
(Funds savings in mind, no need to build bigger guns then needed..)
In the end combat displacement was in the 50k+ tons.

H-Class is a diferent topic.
I'll add some more info maybe.
For now I just want to add that thise class also had still most a max calibre of 40,6cm initially in mind but also a displacement up to 80ktons.. The later designs with bigger calibres are a another different story..

I still think that a SHBB is right in the game, as the Yamato was planned in '34 and after ~23 different construction plans and ~50 model trials the final construction plan was done in '37.
Construction displacement was 68000 tons in '37. That is nearly double as much as other designs of that time!
And even the later planned Montana-calls had a planned construction displacement of "only" 58000 tons(with 12*40,6cm in 4 tripple turrets). And that already 6 years later.
Also the Montana-Class wouldn't fit anymore through the Panama-Canal wich was one goal of the Japanese. That the uS would have to build so big ships that wouldn't fit through that canal.
The big main armament of 46cm guns was also unmatched of that time and the protection of vital parts planned with 40,6cm munition in mind.

In the game it would be "hard" to simulate the design apprach of the Yamato or later H-Class designs with only one BB type unit.
As we see, navies would tend to still build maybe not so big ships at the same time.
You would need to have already researched up to 46cm guns in '37 to be able to build such a ship. And the engine would then only build such SHBB etc..

Cheers,
Chromos
 
Adjusted a few entries. The Japanese entry had some duplicate classes that I removed and I shifted most of their capital ships into the "launched by 1936" entry because they were all undergoing reconstruction between 1935 and 1936, and the French and UK entries were each missing a destroyer class.
 
Hell this thread really needs to be stickied.

Now some new things.
Recently find about this Coastal warship design or Denmark from Sweden:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/9346/dkproj.jpg

It dates back to May 1936. Standard displacement 5730 tons, speed 30km/h with steam turbines. Armament two twin 254mm, three twin 150mm, three twin 40mm AA and two twin 25mm AA, all presumably from Bofors except for the Madsen 25mm's.

From:
Vore Panserskibe 1863-1943 R. Steen Steensen, Marinehistorisk Selskab, Skrift Nr 10, 1968, p447.

EDIT:
I forgot to add the drawings of the two small Danish cruiser designs of PG 225 and PG 237
They were designed by the Naval Dockyard in Copenhagen.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u309/Chrthiel/Danish%20Cruisers/scan0006.jpg

They are from Vore Krydesere by R. Steen Steensen.

From a danish-languaged article in the "Tidsskrift for Søvæsen" (transl. Paper for Naval affairs) Dec 1980 (p417-446)
Article: The Danish Navys struggle 1932-1940 for rebuilding.

According to this article the in 1938 proposed "Øvelses- og Inspektionsskib" PG 237 (Transl. "Training and inspection vessel") was in February 1940 approved by the danish government. This project was surely halted after 9/4 1940.

Also it is known that the German naval architects keep designing new ships so they can be worked and not to throw to the eastern front.
From these I represent the Carriers both regular fleet carriers, Light carriers Merchant raiding carriers aka cruiser carrier hybrids.

Drawings:
A-I:
http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/aJax2547/GerCar/CarrierA-I-b.jpg
21K ton carrier:
http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/aJax2547/GerCar/21000Carrier-b.jpg
18K ton carrier:
http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/aJax2547/GerCar/18000Carrier-b.jpg
Small 15K ton carrier:
http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/aJax2547/GerCar/15000Carrier-b.jpg
Small 13K ton carrier:
http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/aJax2547/GerCar/SmallCarrier-b.jpg

A-II, A-IIa, A-III, and A-IV:
http://www.navyfield.com/Community/Forum/Old/View.aspx?num=168009&searchtype=1&searchvalue=&sort=6&category=D08&thread=20&page=111

Note the casemate guns!

Data Pages:
http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/aJax2547/GerCar/CarrierData-b.jpg
http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/aJax2547/GerCar/Hybrids-Data.jpg

They dates back to 1941-1942

They are from:
Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer, 1921-1995
Siegfried Breyer's Graf Zeppelin published by AJ Press
The Hybrid Warship by Layman & McLaughlin

A reply to these:
"Two types of cruisers/carriers emerged from these studies, Grossflugzeugtragers and flugzeugtragers of normal size. Only the latter designs are shown this far on this post. The much larger, 40,000 and 70,000 ton grossflugzeugtrager are shown and can be found in the same section as this post.
Of course, German naval architects knew little of about modern carrier design, they included 4-8 (1x4), and 6-11.1inch (2x3) in these drawings. Heavy secondaries (16-15cm (8x2) and 12-10.5cm flak were also included. Protection was to be very heavy with 9 inch belts and speed high 34.5 knots.
Aircraft complements were to have been from 32-42 aircraft which seems very low for these sized vessels.
The intended operational employment of these hybrid ships was to have been as independent merchant raiders, perhaps with SP CL screen or with some Kreuzer P designs for their gunpower for use against liners and other large targets.If ou cannot find the pictures located elsewhere on the site I will try to find some to include."

"These ships were quite large and fast and weighed up to 70,000 tons, carried 6-283mm guns, 16-150mm,
16-105mm and carried 32 aircraft. With 9inch belts their protection would have been adequate against many battleships and their speed of 33-34 knots would have allowed escape. No doubt, they would have been centerpieces for raiding groups of OPQ class battle cruisers, P class cruisers, KW45 battlecruisers, light cruisers and screens of SP scouts. If confronted with groups such as the Home Fleet, they could retire to cover provided by their own main bodies of 3-4 H class battleships.
These designs came about after the H39 class had been cancelled and probably were intended to operate with the very large battleships designed from 1942 onwards."
 
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Awesome TZoli! Seen alot but never those


Are those support to be later (more modern) than the Graf Zeppelins?
 
Awesome TZoli! Seen alot but never those


Are those support to be later (more modern) than the Graf Zeppelins?

Well as the reply I posted in it shows there are to support the commerce raiding cruisers of the Z plan, while the fleet carriers like the Graf Zeppelin are to give air support for the task force of the H class battleships.
 
Some more info on the "Flugdeckkreuzer"(Hybrid-BB/CA).
During the year 1942, the idea of a hybrid warship appeared in the constructions department of the Kriegsmarine. The idea was to build a ship that could provide both, air cover for other Kriegsmarine units (including themselves) and were still usable for conventional commerce raiding. Therefore, a combination of an aircraft carrier and a cruiser/battleship was thought to be a solution for this task. Although these projects never had a high priority and never came even close to a possible realization, several design studies for this kind of ships were made. Two different types of ships were examined, a battleship sized "Grossflugzeugkreuzer" (Project A) , armed with 28cm (11") guns and a battleship protection system and a cruiser sized "Flugdeckkreuzer" (Project E) armed with 15 cm (5,9") guns and a cruiser like protection system.

www.german-navy.de - "Z-Plan - Flugdeckkreuzer"

Cheers,
Chromos
 
I have not played HOI3SF for several months after getting sick of it but had a go on FTM a few weeks ago and it has me interested again.

With HOI3SF I always played as the UK and a few times as the USA. I had MNIP installed for better representation of the ship classes. I would always attempt to build ships historically at least until the beginning of hostilities.

MNIP required very high tech levels to build some latter classes of ship that were actually laid down quite early, so my install was adjusted so the models were more closely graduated and representative as much as possible of their various capabilities. This way, the ships were able to be built with current techs for the period or with techs only slightly ahead, eg USS North Carolina should be able to be built with something like 1936 techs. The other thing I did was triple or even quadruple build times based on the average times nations would take to complete a ship from being laid down to being commissioned, but reduce IC cost by a similar factor. This would mean that the KMS Bismarck for instance could be laid in 1937 and be ready for the player to use in early 1941 but still only require the same total IC cost that Paradox intended.

I got to have a run on FTM recently and was surprised that I very quickly lost both HMS Hood and HMS Repulse. I then realized that BCs have less hull points than BBs and armour tech also adds less extra, while the whole naval combat system has changed too. I am interested in the game again after playing FTM but regarding BCs I will be modding them to have the same base hull points as BBs but the amour techs do not add as many extra.

Using the models files and techs to model the actual capabilities of each ship class is quite tricky. For instance, it is simple to make a Revenge class BB slower than the preceding QE class as is correct, but then there are problems like the Town class cruisers being in most ways more powerful than the following Dido and Crown Colony classes, which is very tricky to model. Seems sometimes it pays not to get too fussed about fine details and just play the game, because the game just is not yet good enough to model those things. (Sometimes I consider much adding more specific ship classes/models to help with this and using interface mods like ICE does to fit them all in)

IC and build times for CAGs seems really high as well. It was something like 11 IC for a CAG and 14 IC for a NAV in FTM, which eats up most pre war IC for countries with high consumer goods requirements and leaves little no or IC for the other military build stuff. That makes historical fleet builds much harder to achieve.
 
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Some added information on the Japanese ships:
Kai Agano
7 Improved Agano were ordered in 1942 They would be slightly larger then the previous ones and have more armament:
184x16,4x5,9m
9760 tons
70km/h
4x2 155mm Guns
2x4 610mm Torpedoes
4x2 76mm AA Guns
3x3 25mm AA Guns
Armour would be the same as the Agano but bigger 120.000shp Engine
It's Design name was C-44
Ships number Nos 810 to 814 and No. 5037 and No. 5038
The Agano's design number was C-41

The sixth one:
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/7293/ijncruisers.jpg

Oyodo:
8 ordered 1 laid down and launched

AA Cruiser Design

4 ships were ordered they are like the Japanese Atlantas

Standard displacement of 7,150 tons
Maximum displacement of 9,200 tons
Overall length of 172.0 metres
total width 15.8 metres
draught 5.7 metres
power of engines 103,000 hp
speed 63km/h
crew is unknown
the armament of 12 twin 10cm anti-aircraft gun installations (with length of barrel of 65 calibers)
4 triple 25-mm automatic gun mounts
depth charges 100 rounds

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/bk/NWS/Imperial_Japanese_Navy/images/IJNAACruiser2.jpg

Kai-Taiho

7 ordered basically repeat of the Original Tiaho

Design B-65

Essentially a smaller Yamato and this was the main reason the USN built the Alaska class Large / Battlecruisers
6 ordered info can be found on the net

Sources:
Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War

http://www.alternatewars.com/WW2/IJN_Programs.htm

Also here is the strategy the Japanese estimated in the mid 40's the Peace Goddess Strategy:

Posts discussing this strategy:

"There were to be five with 9-18" and two with the 20" rifles (2X3).
With both Yamato & Musashi available at the end of 1941, then next two in 1943 (Shinano & 798?), the idea was to compel the US to match armament which would presumably mean an additional four to five years for response.

The problem is that the enemy does not respond unless he knows of the ships! The facts are that the US has a program of 2+4 battleships (NC, South Dakota 1)+ the 6 Iowas and in 1940 is "sealing" the drawings on a Montana, for a total of 17 ships which will be available by 1946 at latest.
So the IJN modern battleline adds in 1941 two ships, in 1943 two ships.
In all we're assuming flat-out building times.

Again, Congresional authorizations are public. The only way for the program to work is to have the enemy know of the move to 18" and 20" in order to cause the enemy to stop building and instead plan bigger ships. Instead the end result is to recede further behind in numbers.

The addition of older ships makes things worse. The IJN can add the Nagato and Mutsu, but then the US counters with the three West Virginias. Add the Hyugas and Fusos? Then the USN counters with the California class and the New Mexicos, gaining overall two ships.

Add in the four Kongos, a risky proposition for the battleline, and the US has the Arizona/Pennsylvania and the Nevada (as the Oklahoma's engines are doubtful). You've evened out the numbers with the older warships but only through use of battlecruisers in the line, not in the van.

The idea of the strategy requires a dynamic which assumes the USN will stop and build bigger ships instead of building those already planned AND adding more.

Note, too, that there is an implicit assumption that the USN will have some Atlantic committment. This is laughable as such assumes more of the German navy than clearly capable of, indeed, assumes that the Germans and Italians will be in a shooting war with the USN. The British and French navy balance off both and the Brits can devote some resources to the Pacific - which one has to assume in symmetrical argument."

IT a few words out gun and out armour any US battleship they could encounter while the USN have the numerical superiority, IJN have the firepower and defence.
 
I left the Commonwealth nations out because the ships they built were far too small to represent in the game. Canada ended up having the third largest navy by the end of the war, but that statistic is very misleading. When taken into context, the Axis navies were utterly destroyed, and Canada's expansion was almost exclusively on what the game would call escort destroyers (aka the escorts used to protect convoys rather than the on-map destroyer unit), with no larger warships being built. Canada jumped to the #3 spot because the former #3 and #4 were destroyed.

Likewise, Australia did build some warships, but they were all smaller than destroyers. Australia's cruisers were built in the UK; see the Royal Navy entry for details on the ships the UK built then lent to Canada and Australia.

EDIT: Someone posted about Canada, Australia, and India here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?529044-Naval-Plans-for-the-World-s-Naval-Powers&p=12247427&viewfull=1#post12247427
 
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Thanks :)

Here's an interesting thing to try. Go to Google and look for "naval plans", "naval expansion ww2", or any other search term along those lines and see what comes up on the first page of results :D
 
For Britain, if playing 'The Finest Hour', add a Super Heavy Battleship, and make a Super Heavy Battleship group, with four Destroyers, and 4 light cruisers. You must have radar, and anti- submarine warfare, in the escorts. It seems easy and no bother, to make such a ship for Britain. I think, the Bismark, Graf Spee, and other capital ships will be destroyed in one encounter, with this group. The German Capital Ships aren't going to cross the English Channel. They will have to go past Scapa Flow. Make the Battleship Group patrol a small area of about two nautical regions north, north-east of Scapa Flow. Then, make the fleet engage in the rest of the North Sea.