Or it can be done by using variant system, just like for other units. That way you can reprocess them, but would not gain completely modern ship.
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Modernizing Older Ships
- Thread starter alp177
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As a Navy Veteran who sat through 3 years of dry dock time and 3 years in a shipyard but not dry docked in my career (on a ship that was launched many years before), I can defiantly speak to the length of the process of upgrading a ship. While not in a world war situation obviously, the upgrades my carrier were primarily in the command and control and anti aircraft departments (along with normal refurbishing of the ship in general). Upgrades of this sort took about a year, but more difficult ones like refueling the reactors take about 5 years.
So for the game itself there most certainly should be upgrading of vessels as it in fact happened throughout the war on both sides. Generally there were few changes made to capital ships propulsion systems or hull (aside from adding torpedo blisters in some cases) as the time required was quite lengthy and required a dry dock (which were generally reserved for repairs of damaged ships). So the game can safely ignore speed and hull upgrades and focus on what was normally changed during a upgrade cycle, the armament both Anti Aircraft and Anti Surface, installation of Radar/Sonar, fire control systems, communications, damage control and aircraft handling capability's.
As for the time to upgrade, after watching the install of a new anti aircraft system take 11 months on a carrier that originally took 4 years to build and a C&C upgrade take 9 months on a cruiser that took 2 years to build. I would say that for Capital Ships upgrades should take 1/4 of their original build time, cruisers both light and heavy should be 1/3 of build time and DD size and below take about 1/2. Material cost should be negligible, perhaps 1/10 of the original cost of the ship, as your not rebuilding the ship, just replacing a few of the lighter components. The real cost to the country is the unavailability of the ship for the duration of the upgrade.
So to sum up, upgrades yes but not propulsion or hull.
So for the game itself there most certainly should be upgrading of vessels as it in fact happened throughout the war on both sides. Generally there were few changes made to capital ships propulsion systems or hull (aside from adding torpedo blisters in some cases) as the time required was quite lengthy and required a dry dock (which were generally reserved for repairs of damaged ships). So the game can safely ignore speed and hull upgrades and focus on what was normally changed during a upgrade cycle, the armament both Anti Aircraft and Anti Surface, installation of Radar/Sonar, fire control systems, communications, damage control and aircraft handling capability's.
As for the time to upgrade, after watching the install of a new anti aircraft system take 11 months on a carrier that originally took 4 years to build and a C&C upgrade take 9 months on a cruiser that took 2 years to build. I would say that for Capital Ships upgrades should take 1/4 of their original build time, cruisers both light and heavy should be 1/3 of build time and DD size and below take about 1/2. Material cost should be negligible, perhaps 1/10 of the original cost of the ship, as your not rebuilding the ship, just replacing a few of the lighter components. The real cost to the country is the unavailability of the ship for the duration of the upgrade.
So to sum up, upgrades yes but not propulsion or hull.
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No one was making new 1914 era battleships (jokes at German naval engineering aside). The only ships they had to upgrade were the ones they kept through the naval treaty era. Most of the dreadnoughts were decommissioned.
Blasphemy. Typical supermarine privilege.
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There were some propulsion and armour upgrades (the Queen Elizabeth had her engines and armour upgraded between August 1937 and January 1941, for example, and Italians and Japanese also did some substantial upgrades to their ships during the period), but it took years for the capital ships. We've got a number of actual times it took for capital (and other) ships to upgrade during the period (pretty much all the times for capital ships, and enough for other vessels), and the time tended to vary substantially by what was happening. Putting on a few more 40mm Bofors might be done in a month or less, but ripping out the engines and putting in new ones, as well as other substantial changes, could (but didn't always) take around as long as building the ship in the first place. If we get a system in place, I'm happy to gather and collate indicative times for different types of upgrades for different classes of ships.
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It would make sense to refit ships. Likewise, I am very curious to see what you can do with outdated equipment sent back to depot. I'd rather be able to turn my early Pz IIIs into upgunned variants with 50mm guns and later Stugs than have to scrap them, or just have them sitting in storage.
Similarly, I'd rather be building new destroyers as well as updating older ones and not have to replace all my DDs with newer models year after year.
Similarly, I'd rather be building new destroyers as well as updating older ones and not have to replace all my DDs with newer models year after year.
Which is why I said generally, and most of the major overhalls involving propulsion replacements began before the war began and continued into the war years simply because they couldent just stop halfway. (Exception being the japenese who started some upgrades when at war with china who was not a naval threat.)
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Aye, absolutely, although because HoI4 covers a few years before the war as well, there were a number of large conversions that commenced after the start of the game, but before late 1939 - and you did say in your post "upgrades yes, but not propulsion or hull". I'm also not sure (I'm not saying they're wrong, they just feel a bit long for some - but not all - of the changes that were made) the indicative figures you've provided for upgrade times would necessarily be as applicable to AA or C&C/radar upgrades during the period - I haven't crunched the numbers, but they 'feel' a bit long unless it was a case of a capital ship swapping out their whole DP batteries or similar.
There should be limits however. The main guns can be slightly updated (change a 5" gun mount to a more up to date 5" gun mount), the electronics yes, hull no (even then there were upgrades to some ships in belt armor, in all major countries), the propulsion plant is more or less fixed, anti-aircraft is a wonderful tinker, smaller caliber guns can be played with (small dual purpose, 76mm, 40mm, 20mm).
I was on destroyers... didn't take us that long for an overhaul (gas turbine propulsion). I'd have to look in my books to see how long it took to upgrade an Essex class...
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I think time of uprgarding ships could be made gamey at least for example as the USA game starts 1936 you have got 8 1922 class battleships you can upgrde them till 1941. As the Americans did in real life too.(Wyoming class,New York class,New Mexico Class,Colorado Class)They did not change hull just add some torpedo bulks for protection but they have done a massive upgrade AA, Radar and Fire Control stystems.It is a common thing in that era then why not implement this into the game at least i will try this by modding if the vanilla does not have this option
It's possible the radar and AA upgrades are rolled into naval doctrine research - we haven't seen much of that side of the game yet.
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I'll quote the wiki, to give an idea to how much a ship could be changed via modernization:
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I agree, that at least equipment like AAA, radar etc. should be upgradable.
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How would that be gamey? You take a ship out of service for years if you want to change the engines, a significant trade-off. The USA didn't refit said ships because they can just roll out new battleships continuously while keeping the old ones in service, something most others definitely couldn't afford to.
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Modernization, while it was common in real life, it may be tricky to balance and may make large starting navies to strong.
That is one thing I missed about the original Hearts of Iron, how over the game years, as you researched tech, you could pull old ships into drydock to get retrofitted with some of it. No other HoI game has taken it that far again.
You have to decide for example 1/3 time for refitting your ship or 3x more time for constructing a new one. I think it is quite usefull and also devs mentioned a full upgraded variant of equipment or ship will not be much better than new one
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Only a few minor components. Not main armament, hull, or engines. You can upgrade AA, RADAR, ASW, and torpedoes on submarines.
Let's not confuse the issue by making it seem like you could upgrade everything in HOI3.
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You have to remember that the extreme modernizations of the 1930s (like Caio Duilio that you list) were carried out because of the various naval treaties that prohibited constructing new ships. Without those treaties, nations would have constructed new ships and scrapped the old ones, because the extensive modifications required were more expensive (and almost as time-consuming) as building a new and better ship. Note that these extensive modifications were not carried out on cruisers or destroyers, just on the capital ships that could no longer be built.
HoI4 does not, so far as I know, have the Washington Treaty or any of the subsequent ones) so these major remodels should either be set up at game start or built as new ships.
Minor upgrades like additional AA and radar should be allowed (for destroyers, better sonar and ASW, too). Every ship (in my opinion) should be permitted one 'upgrade' to a variant with better fire control, AA and - for smaller ships - ASW. These should be reasonably expensive and take a few months to complete. I don't think HoI4 permits this and I'm not sure how you would mod it in since it would require a change in mechanics.
The US Navy did significantly modify its battleships, it just did so after Pearl Harbor and not during the 1930s as other powers did. Some of the post-PH reconstruction ships got new superstructures, an entire new secondary battery, torpedo bulges and so on. They weren't modern ships - but they were useful, and the US had shipyards, workers and materials to spare.
HoI4 does not, so far as I know, have the Washington Treaty or any of the subsequent ones) so these major remodels should either be set up at game start or built as new ships.
Minor upgrades like additional AA and radar should be allowed (for destroyers, better sonar and ASW, too). Every ship (in my opinion) should be permitted one 'upgrade' to a variant with better fire control, AA and - for smaller ships - ASW. These should be reasonably expensive and take a few months to complete. I don't think HoI4 permits this and I'm not sure how you would mod it in since it would require a change in mechanics.
The US Navy did significantly modify its battleships, it just did so after Pearl Harbor and not during the 1930s as other powers did. Some of the post-PH reconstruction ships got new superstructures, an entire new secondary battery, torpedo bulges and so on. They weren't modern ships - but they were useful, and the US had shipyards, workers and materials to spare.
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In fairness, some of those ships had been sunk and were raised from the ocean. You might as well throw in some upgrades while you refit the damn things. USS California was a great example of this.
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