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Question for those who know naval history better than I do:

Given that CAs were built partially as a result of treaty limitations, would it be fair to say that no major power would have bothered with building significant ships in the tonnage category that includes CA if there were no treaty limitations? From what I read, and what I saw here, it seems like CAs are a response to the naval treaties the big boys were a part of (Soviets are an exception). Does that mean that CAs are largely or exclusively a response to treaty issues?

Do we have any naval plans that were cooked up with the idea of completely disregarding the treaties? (More so than even Italy's "we're pretending to abide by the treaty when we really aren't" naval plan.)
 
The Soviets and Spanish weren't treaty signatories but had plans to build a few CAs. After the war started, only the US built CAs in large numbers (and even then only finished 6); Japan had a few built immediately prior to Pearl Harbor but canceled construction on the ones not finished. For the most part, CAs existed as a way for treaty nations to circumvent the limitations on battleship and battlecruiser numbers, which was put to an end by the 1932 naval treaty. After the 1932 treaty, the nations that hadn't hit their CA limit yet built more in the pre-war years to reach their ship limits then stopped. For the most part, CL's did just as well in the roles CA's were intended to fill, and were much cheaper and faster to build.

You may find these articles on the Washington Naval Treaty and the 1st London Naval Treaty worth reading, as they discuss why the world's navies in WW2 were mostly composed of WW1-era ships, and why heavy cruisers came into existence then were abandoned once the war started.
 
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The Soviets and Spanish weren't treaty signatories but had plans to build a few CAs. After the war started, only the US built CAs in large numbers (and even then only finished 6); Japan had a few built immediately prior to Pearl Harbor but canceled construction on the ones not finished. For the most part, CAs existed as a way for treaty nations to circumvent the limitations on battleship and battlecruiser numbers, which was put to an end by the 1932 naval treaty. After the 1932 treaty, the nations that hadn't hit their CA limit yet built more in the pre-war years to reach their ship limits then stopped. For the most part, CL's did just as well in the roles CA's were intended to fill, and were much cheaper and faster to build.

You may find these articles on the Washington Naval Treaty and the 1st London Naval Treaty worth reading, as they discuss why the world's navies in WW2 were mostly composed of WW1-era ships, and why heavy cruisers came into existence then were abandoned once the war started.


Yeah, I read those, but I wasn't 100% confident in the content of those pages. They actually prompted my question. :)

It occurs to me that perhaps we have been looking at CAs incorrectly in terms of game mechanics. Maybe CAs should share all techs with BCs and practicals with BCs/BBs. Right now, in FtM, there is no point in building a single CA. But if they shared techs and practicals with BCs, then building a few CAs would represent a continuation of treaty build programs until a major power was ready to design and build real BBs again. And they could keep BB practicals warm. Otherwise, I can't see a real in-game purpose to them.

And the major powers didn't really see a big use for them, either, once treaty limitations were not a consideration.
 
Well, CAs basically were CLs with more armor (hull) and slightly larger main guns (8" instead of 6"), but slower. They had the exact same roles as a normal CL too, aside from Germany's focus on using them as commerce raiders.

On a side note, I added some background info to Germany's entry and added some more historical fleet builds, this time from the UK and Italy during the 1st Battle of Sirte.
 
Well, CAs basically were CLs with more armor (hull) and slightly larger main guns (8" instead of 6"), but slower. They had the exact same roles as a normal CL too, aside from Germany's focus on using them as commerce raiders.

Exactly. In HOI3 terms, they would be worse than CLs because of cost and hull values, which is what I'm getting at. If you make them screens, there still would be no real reason to build them, because their higher hull values would invoke the positioning penalty sooner, and their cost is higher than a CL.

You might argue that if you just turned CAs into screens and changed nothing else, they could be a kind of high-firepower screen. But the problem there is that CAs have almost no ASW capability and worse all around detection than CLs. Furthermore, while their sea attack and hull is better than a CL, their air attack is worse, making them a lot less useful overall.

If they were turned into screens, they would need some other changes, too.
 
I agree with Secret Master. I did turn them into screens (very easy, just change the right "yes" into a "no"), but they didn't work for me for some reason.
 
Exactly. In HOI3 terms, they would be worse than CLs because of cost and hull values, which is what I'm getting at. If you make them screens, there still would be no real reason to build them, because their higher hull values would invoke the positioning penalty sooner, and their cost is higher than a CL.

That's exactly why everyone stopped building them (ok, the US didn't, but they didn't need to worry about cost or shipyard capacity). The UK didn't even want to build them at first because CLs were more economical, but "felt compelled to" because the other treaty signatories were.

You might argue that if you just turned CAs into screens and changed nothing else, they could be a kind of high-firepower screen. But the problem there is that CAs have almost no ASW capability and worse all around detection than CLs. Furthermore, while their sea attack and hull is better than a CL, their air attack is worse, making them a lot less useful overall.

If they were turned into screens, they would need some other changes, too.

Well, for starters if they turn into screens they should be affected by the Spotting tech. Off the top of my head I don't recall reading about CAs being used to hunt subs, but that doesn't mean they never did. They have 1 sub attack at the start, which while not good is better than nothing, and they could be affected by the ASW tech too, but with half the bonuses as CLs.
 
that seems to be THE problem with CA overall: not fast enough for some duties, not sturdy enough for others, AA, ASW... all of them so so. a faulty design, that much is obvious. but the naval treaties and conceptions of the time imposed certain things to work out the way they did. we have the option to say: "oops, wrong choice, where is my old save from a year earlier?". they did not. for instance, I once read about the US Army wanting to go for something like (in game terms) mech/mech/TD/TD. it works in-game. it did not RL.
 
That's why I would want them to be merged into the BC tech and practicals tree, not the CL tree. In my view, it is historically correct that CAs suck in several fields and excel in none in the game. But instead of making them screens, they get turned into "treaty ships" that represent capital ships made under treaty limitations. If they shared techs and practicals with BCs, you would might have a reason to build at least one or two as a way of warming practicals while getting ready to build your BCs or BBs.

However, TheBromgrev brings up an interesting point. You could make them screens and give them some additional techs from the screen side of the tech tree. They could lead ASW groups and hunt convoy raiders. You could even leave them as capital ships, but have them be the only capital ships with spotting and ASW techs. They wouldn't group well with other capital ships, but they could lead smaller groups effectively.

The ultimate problem is, of course, what do you do in game to represent technological or doctrinal dead ends that existed historically, but that we know are garbage? It's the same problem with SHBBs. I mean, why bother with SHBBs if I can build regular BBs that have better stats in all categories by 1942? Well, it's because Yamato was built at a time when no one else was really building ships like that. Again, treaty issues precluded a more natural naval arms race, resulting in a weird in-game designation of what was essentially a ship anyone might have built if the major powers weren't mostly signatories to the arms treaties.
 
The ultimate problem is, of course, what do you do in game to represent technological or doctrinal dead ends that existed historically, but that we know are garbage? It's the same problem with SHBBs. I mean, why bother with SHBBs if I can build regular BBs that have better stats in all categories by 1942? Well, it's because Yamato was built at a time when no one else was really building ships like that. Again, treaty issues precluded a more natural naval arms race, resulting in a weird in-game designation of what was essentially a ship anyone might have built if the major powers weren't mostly signatories to the arms treaties.

Most people either forget or don't know about the later German H-class iterations (which would've been bigger than the Yamato), the US Montana-class (bigger than the Yamato, canceled after Japan surrendered), or the Soviet Sovetsky Soyuz-class (same physical size as Yamato, construction actually started on several of these) ships. The SHBB unit shouldn't exist IMO, and the big ships like the Yamato should just be 1942 model BB or so to represent the fact they are the natural evolution of battleships without any limitations. Those naval treaties are extremely important when it comes to ship design, and are the reason why the UK didn't build any new capital ships between 1918 and 1937, a period of 19 years!
 
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Exactly.

And if you made SHBBs disappear, the game rules would support that paradigm, too. Japan would just have nice BB techs. :D

And that's what TZoli and I did for the HPP mod; remove SHBB from the game and give Japan better BB techs than everyone else. In fact the mod's entire naval tech tree has been remade to better reflect how ships are actually designed. We also made the adjustments to CAs I mentioned earlier in regards to spotting and making it be a screen.
 
I know that you have moved on from the USA but i noticed that you are missing one class of Heavy Cruisers. The Baltimore class came around in 43 and was a smaller version of the Alaska class BC and they resembled the Cleveland class CL except with 9 8" main guns and 12 5" secondary guns. 14 Baltimores were planned and built during the war and many of them served in Korea and even into the 70s as redesigned into missile cruisers. Only 9 were ready in time though to see service as the others were still fitting out. The were preceded by the Oregon city class. They weighed in at 14,500 tons, adding another 203,000 long tons to the US Fleet tonnage.
 
Thanks for spotting my mistake! I've updated the US entry to include those ships. The bigger navies had so much going on that it's easy to miss a class of ships, so thanks for pointing out what I missed.
 
Most people either forget or don't know about the later German H-class iterations (which would've been bigger than the Yamato), the US Montana-class (bigger than the Yamato, canceled after Japan surrendered), or the Soviet Sovetsky Soyuz-class (same physical size as Yamato, construction actually started on several of these) ships. The SHBB unit shouldn't exist IMO, and the big ships like the Yamato should just be 1942 model BB or so to represent the fact they are the natural evolution of battleships without any limitations. Those naval treaties are extremely important when it comes to ship design, and are the reason why the UK didn't build any new capital ships between 1918 and 1937, a period of 19 years!

Err you are wrong the UK built the two Nelsons: they are commissioned in 1927 and 1930, the HMS Hood completed in 1920 and the G3-s got 4 months of construction time from 1921 October to 1922 February before cancelled by this treaty..
 

Spanish State

For all versions of Spain's "Plan Imperial", the battleships would've been Spanish-built copies of Italy's Vittorio Veneto-class BBs, and the destroyers, submarines, and light cruisers would've also been copies of their Italian counterparts. The carriers would've likely been Spanish-built copies of the Graf Zeppelin-class CV. The heavy cruisers would've been improved versions of the Canarias class. The ships listed under the "Plan" tags are new ones to be built, and the numbers don't factor in the ships that survived the civil war. None of the ships in the build plans were actually built, and each build plan is a revision of the previous one rather than additional construction.

Spain, 1936 Fleet
* 2 Espana-class dreadnoughts (I hesitate to call these BBs, because they were very short; when designed, Spain didn't have shipyards large enough to construct full-sized BBs. 3 were built in total, but the original Espana was lost in a storm before the war)
* 2 Canarias-class heavy cruisers (3 planned, 2 completed)
* 3 Cervera-class light cruisers
* 1 Méndez Núñez-class light cruiser
* 1 Reina Victoria Eugenia-class light cruiser
* 14 Churruca-class destroyers
* 3 Alsedo-class destroyers
* 6 B-class submarines
* 6 C-class submarines
* 5 torpedo boats

Spain, ships lost during the Civil War
* The dreadnought España (ex-Alfonso XIII), struck by a mine
* The dreadnought Jaime I, sunk by an internal explosion
* The heavy cruiser Beleares, sunk by the destroyer Lepanto and light cruiser Libertad
* The destroyer Almirante Ferrándiz, sunk by the heavy cruiser Canarias

Spain, '38 Plan
•4 battleships
•4 heavy cruisers
•2 aircraft carriers
•12 light cruisers
•48 destroyers
•48 "torpederos" (small destroyers)
•50 submarines

Spain, '39 Plan (revision of '38 plan)
•4 battleships
•2 heavy cruisers
•12 light cruisers
•54 destroyers
•36 "torpederos" (small destroyers)
•50 submarines
•100 torpedo boats

Spain, '43 Plan (revision of the '39 plan)
•4 battleships
•4 aircraft carriers
•8 light cruisers
•12 "exploradores" (kind of fast cruisers)
•72 destroyers
•36 small destroyers
•50 submarines
•100 torpedo and anti-submarine boats

I got my sources for Spain's Plan Imperial from here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=131453


Okay I add the info on Franco's New Armada ships:

The Battleships would be very similar to the Italian Littorio class except No secondary guns and Spanish 120mm AA instead of Italian 90mm ones, every other aspect would be the same.
I made a Line drawing from the Littorio one showing how would this ship looked like:
http://www.deviantart.com/download/263005098/spanish_littorio_battleship_by_tzoli-d4cl416.png

Also Spain make design studies of both heavy and light cruisers and thus these ships were born:

Project 124 Light Cruiser Designed in 1936:
Displacement: 10500 tons
110K shp with 69km/h max speed
Armour would be 75mm both Belt and 50mm Deck
Main Armament: 2x3 and 2x2 152mm Guns
3x2 90mm, 8x2 40mm and 2x1 20mm AA guns

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/7622/n124acy4.png

Project 131 Heavy Cruiser Designed in 1937:
Displacement: 10000 tons
80K shp with 59km/h max speed
Armour would be 90mm both Belt and Deck
Main Armament: 3x2 203mm Guns
6x2 120mm, 2x2 75mm and 8x2 25mm AA guns

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/1291/n131ms2.png

Project 138 Heavy Cruiser Designed in 1939:
Displacement: 17500 tons
170K shp with 67km/h max speed
Armour would be 150mm Belt and 100mm Deck
Main Armament depending on variant
6x2 90mm, 2x2 75mm, 8x2 25mm and 10x2 20mm AA guns
3 variants made:

Variant A with 4x3 203mm Guns:
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2852/ccn138.png

Variant B with 2x3 305mm Guns:
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/1250/ccn1386x280mm.png

And Variant C with 3x2 280mm Guns:
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6803/ccn1386x305.png

Also in 1921 Britain proposed a Battlecruiser design for Spain but it was rejected, no drawings were made but this ship would be a repeat of the HMS Hood, this design called Design 788
 
Does anyone have any ideas for a Mexican Naval Plan? For me I usually end up just building transports, but it would be interesting just to see if anyone had plans nay wise. it would be nice to go toe to toe in the naval area against other powers. :)

I doubt they had any, the only increase is the buy of fletcher and gearing class destroyers from the US in 1970 and 1982. Smaller ships like frigates bought after the war. But Mexico is no naval power, not have the economy of that time to maintain a fleet. This applies to all central american and northern south american countries. The only countries which maintained a sizable navy on that two continent are Canada, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru