Naval tech and ship template inconsistencies

[CameraGenie]

(Originally this was a Suggestions thread, but then I saw the missing ships thread and thought effectively duplicating that would be better for what I was trying to do.)

The goal of this thread is to list all of the inconsistencies or historical inaccuracies in the naval technology and ship templates of the various powers at the start of the game, primarily in the 1936 start. This doesn't cover missing ships.
Feel free to contribute inaccuracies you've noticed.

General:
Every major should have the secondary turrets module researched at the beginning of the game; every capital ship built after the Nelson class featured them, and all of the majors who have BBs under construction at the start of the game should have them researched and on their templates. (none currently do)

There needs to be a "light heavy battery" tech unlocked from the 1936 Basic Heavy Battery tech, to represent smaller-caliber weapons like the Scharnhorsts' 283mm guns, Dunkerque's 330mm guns, or Alaska's 305mm guns. Additionally, the French 380mm/45, the German 38cm/52, the Italian 15in/50, and the American 16/45 mk 6 should be folded into the 1936 tech, to allow the ships armed with those weapons to be laid down at the times they were historically.

In order for the WNT limits to make sense, there needs to be a difference between "weight" and "production cost." An advanced FC system may cost more than an older one, but it shouldn't weigh that much more, which is what the treaty counted. (etc. for secondary turrets vs casemates, radar, so on.)

The following should be researched and/or on ships at the 1936 start:

FRA:

• The Dunkerque class template should be outfitted with their historical 330mm/50 guns, and the corresponding tech researched. (Additionally, the Dunkerques were outfitted with secondary turrets historically, and those should be researched + equipped)
• Based on how all of Britain's 8" CAs have the 1936 gun equipped, all of France's should to, given that the British and French 8-inch guns were comparable historically and France has it researched.
• The 1936 cruiser hull should be researched, and Algerie and the La Galissonnière class should use that hull. (both comparable to other classes that use that hull, like New Orleans)
• Same situation as above w/ the 1936 cruiser armor tech

ITA:

• The reconstructed battleships at the beginning of the game should have the 1936 main battery tech, turreted secondaries, and the 1936 armor scheme.
• The Zara class should have the 1940 armor tech ahead of time (best-armored cruisers built until the Des Moines)
• The Italian CAs should have the 1936 medium battery tech.
• modern CLs should probably have the 1936 CL gun tech, debatable as the Condottieri class outside of the Duca degli Abruzzis performed very poorly.
• 1936 DD gun tech should be researched and on the Navigatori and Maestrale classes.

GER:

• The Scharnhost class should have turreted secondaries and the 1936 battleship armor scheme. (very well armored irl)

ENG:

• The UK is ok here actually
• The 1936 torpedo tube tech should be researched and on the E/F/G/H class DDs, as well as the Leander class.
• maybe have DP secondary battery researched ahead of time.

USA:

• What differences there were between the various kinds of 8-inch guns on the US CAs from the Pensacolas to the Wichita aren't really significant in game terms. They should all be the 1936-tech medium battery.
• Speaking of the Wichita, the US should have the 1940 cruiser armor tech ahead of time (for the Wichita class.)
• DP guns definitely should be researched ahead of time. (NC class were the first BBs to have a genuinely effective DP secondary battery)

(I realize this is mega-level wishlisty, but I think there's some things in here that are genuinely important)

 

[Brooklyn666]

Someone is probably going to have to end up modding this. I think there's very little chance of PDS fixing any of these things

 

[TheNexxus]

The whole thing is a mess, to be honest. And this whole turret = 6 guns really doesn’t work well for most ship designs and layouts. You have to fix all the issues and discrepancies with the ship modules, technology and then redesign all the variants for each major power.

And then Paradox will just break most of it (or force you to redo a lot of it) with the next patch.

 

[Ringwraith_JP]

The whole thing is a mess, to be honest. And this whole turret = 6 guns really doesn’t work well for most ship designs and layouts.

This baffles me. Really curious on what was the train of thought that led to this decision.

 

[Brooklyn666]

The whole thing is a mess, to be honest. And this whole turret = 6 guns really doesn’t work well for most ship designs and layouts.

Honestly that's the one thing I don't mind that much. Different countries had different designs with different numbers of guns per turret, and it's be a pain in the ass to have every possible gun caliber/guns per turret combo modeled. As long as tier of the turret and number of barrels per turret is a correctly modeled abstraction of the power of the turret as a whole, I think it's fine. I don't care about building an exact copy of an Iowa or Yamato or King George V. The one thing I will concede is that it would give us more control if they had fewer barrels per turret but gave us space for more turrets, so we could have more granular control.

 

[CameraGenie]

Honestly that's the one thing I don't mind that much. Different countries had different designs with different numbers of guns per turret, and it's be a pain in the ass to have every possible gun caliber/guns per turret combo modeled. As long as tier of the turret and number of barrels per turret is a correctly modeled abstraction of the power of the turret as a whole, I think it's fine. I don't care about building an exact copy of an Iowa or Yamato or King George V.

It still looks off in the designer graphic though. From what I can tell, two gun modules represent standard eight or nine gun layouts, but that's not obvious.

 

[Brooklyn666]

It still looks off in the designer graphic though. From what I can tell, two gun modules represent standard eight or nine gun layouts, but that's not obvious.

Yea but again, that's just an interpretation. The sprites and 3d models don't look like the ships we design anyway. At the end of the day this isn't a naval and shipbuilding simulator, so I'm ok with the image in the ship designer not looking exactly right. I just wish it was more clear what each thing represented. It's confusing to have the BB main gun to have 2 barrels in the image, 6 in the mechanic, and not say that anywhere. You could easily end up thinking you need 5 turrets to match an Iowa when 2 is already more guns than an Iowa had.

I think there are way more pressing problems for PDS to fix though.

 

[Pied-Noir]

Yeah, you're going to have mod stuff like this.

 

[Axe99]

General:
Every major should have the secondary turrets module researched at the beginning of the game; every capital ship built after the Nelson class featured them, and all of the majors who have BBs under construction at the start of the game should have them researched and on their templates. (none currently do)

There needs to be a "light heavy battery" tech unlocked from the 1936 Basic Heavy Battery tech, to represent smaller-caliber weapons like the Scharnhorsts' 283mm guns, Dunkerque's 330mm guns, or Alaska's 305mm guns. Additionally, the French 380mm/45, the German 38cm/52, the Italian 15in/50, and the American 16/45 mk 6 should be folded into the 1936 tech, to allow the ships armed with those weapons to be laid down at the times they were historically.

In order for the WNT limits to make sense, there needs to be a difference between "weight" and "production cost." An advanced FC system may cost more than an older one, but it shouldn't weigh that much more, which is what the treaty counted. (etc. for secondary turrets vs casemates, radar, so on.)

The following should be researched and/or on ships at the 1936 start:

I'd suggest making the suggestions a bit more 'suggesty' (rather than 'this must') and also explaining them rationale behind them more clearly. I'm currently modding the ship designer (my thoughts are to have each 'battery' be a separate mount, a la A B X Y, for example) and even with me thinking all about guns at the moment, I can't tell you off the top of my head what all the modules you're talking about are - the devs will be doing a bunch of other things as well, and it's not practical to expect them to remember everything off the top of their head.

I'd also recommend being a bit more suggesty with suggestions that are far from cut-and-dried (for example, suggesting the Italian reconstructed BBs have the 1936 armour scheme is a pretty big call - they still had WW1-levels of subdivision, and a 250mm main belt is relatively thin for a WW1 BB, let alone WW2 - this isn't to say there weren't improvements, but given the relatively broad-brush nature of the ship designer, to say they unequivocally should is to overstate the case, at least in my view). Thoughts to keep in mind are:

• This is a game and balance is important.
• Not unlike the rest of the tech trees, the years and models and localisation for the various modules is a balance between history and flavour. Guns, torpedo mounts and similar weren't researched in chunks as per a tech tree with year-gated techs, and there's a lot of abstraction going on. We can always go nuts and mod in more detail if we want .
• That said, the devs have limited time to research everything, and with something as complex as the ship designer there will inevitably be a few things that could perhaps be better. That said, I'm a bit crook at the moment and not in the zone to go through all your suggestions. Some look to be sound, but I wouldn't want to say it categorically without hitting the books. There also may be issues of trade-offs (for example, the Scharnhorsts were indeed well armoured, but does the 1936 armour scheme mean they won't be able to reach their historically high speed?)

 

[TheNexxus]

A single turret can represent as few as 3 or as many as 6 guns, so there’s not really any rhyme or rationale (regardless of the number of guns on each turret). Basically, once you remove the fixed prerequisites - you have enough empty slots for 1-2 main turrets per hull. Anything more than that has an immediate impact on speed and survivability.

 

[Pied-Noir]

ENG:

• The UK is ok here actually
• The 1936 torpedo tube tech should be researched and on the E/F/G/H class DDs, as well as the Leander class.
• maybe have DP secondary battery researched ahead of time.

Well, there are a few things...

• The "York Class" template exists but is not assigned to the correct ships in either scenario (HMS York, HMS Exeter)
• The "Nelson Class" and "G3 Design" should both have ship_heavy_battery_3 (for the UK this means 16" guns)
• The "Emerald Class" cruisers should all use the "Leander Class" template, except for HMS Emerald and HMS Enterprise
• There seem to be some discrepancies between heavy cruiser turret sizes between ENG, FRA, ITA, etc. [you've mentioned this in another thread so it is something you are aware of]
• There are discrepancies/typos between the MtG and Legacy OOBs for ENG (and FRA), and we still have bizarre things like "Home Command Legacy Test" being the name of the main UK naval theater if MtG is disabled

There may be other things, but they'd be minor. That's the main list of issues I'm aware of.

Personally I think the "N3 Design" should have been added as well, but that's personal taste (and consistency), and perhaps the devs have their reasons for not doing so.

 

[Grimsley]

USA, UK and France (at least, possibly more) should all start with dual purpose guns tech in 1936.

USA had the 5"/38 in the early 30s, UK had designed the 5.25" DP gun by 1935 and France was designing the 130mm/45 model 1932 in... well... it's in the name.

Funny that you have to wait until 1940 to research a tech giving 1930-1935 guns without penalty.

Really they should have split the tech up into levels and/or made the DP secondary guns distinct to the DP guns on destroyers if they wanted to reflect things better.

 

[ivhokie]

I can live with it if the model in the ship designer doesn't look right. Really I think its cool that there is a model that I can see with the stuff I put on my ships at all, but it would be nice that if I add one turret in the designer and it represents two actual turrets than it is represented properly in the model. Maybe you even make a compromise and have the main one on the bottom left be represented by two turrets on the 3D model and the optional ones be one turret. Realistically its a long way down my wishlist though.

 

[Pragmatic]

The one thing I will concede is that it would give us more control if they had fewer barrels per turret but gave us space for more turrets, so we could have more granular control.

Would they have to designate those slots as ONLY main batteries, or will they have to rebalance for more secondaries, anti-air, floatplanes, etc.?

 

[TheNexxus]

You just have to try and ignore the graphical representation in the Equipment Designer and focus on the stats instead.

 

[CameraGenie]

I'd suggest making the suggestions a bit more 'suggesty' (rather than 'this must') and also explaining them rationale behind them more clearly. I'm currently modding the ship designer (my thoughts are to have each 'battery' be a separate mount, a la A B X Y, for example) and even with me thinking all about guns at the moment, I can't tell you off the top of my head what all the modules you're talking about are - the devs will be doing a bunch of other things as well, and it's not practical to expect them to remember everything off the top of their head.

Sorry about the tone; I wrote this in a rush on Monday evening

Not unlike the rest of the tech trees, the years and models and localisation for the various modules is a balance between history and flavour. Guns, torpedo mounts and similar weren't researched in chunks as per a tech tree with year-gated techs, and there's a lot of abstraction going on. We can always go nuts and mod in more detail if we want .

I think the techs we have in-game right now are mostly enough to represent ships as they were historically capable already; it's just that some of them are in weird years (it's impossible to lay down Bismarck and Tirpitz in 1936, for instance) and some ships are stronger/weaker than their historical counterparts in other countries; for instance the Richelieu class in the 1939 start has a worse main battery tech than the Bismarck class does. (I realize that the French 380mm gun had teething problems, but they were eventually resolved and things like that aren't represented anywhere else in the game that I can think of.)

I'd also recommend being a bit more suggesty with suggestions that are far from cut-and-dried (for example, suggesting the Italian reconstructed BBs have the 1936 armour scheme is a pretty big call - they still had WW1-levels of subdivision, and a 250mm main belt is relatively thin for a WW1 BB, let alone WW2 - this isn't to say there weren't improvements, but given the relatively broad-brush nature of the ship designer, to say they unequivocally should is to overstate the case, at least in my view).

Some look to be sound, but I wouldn't want to say it categorically without hitting the books. There also may be issues of trade-offs (for example, the Scharnhorsts were indeed well armoured, but does the 1936 armour scheme mean they won't be able to reach their historically high speed?)

I agree with the points you're making, but just to be pedantic:

• The poor internal subdivision of the rebuilt Andrea Doria and Conte di Cavour classes is represented in-game by them using the early heavy ship hull, meaning worse HP and reliability. Also, the flavor name for the Italian 1936 BB armor module is "250mm belt/100mm deck, almost exactly the armor that they had after their reconstruction. (I do in retrospect agree that they probably shouldn't be particularly well-protected.)
  
• The Scharnhorst-class template already goes slower than historical; 28.8 knots.

 

[TheNexxus]

(I realize that the French 380mm gun had teething problems, but they were eventually resolved and things like that aren't represented anywhere else in the game that I can think of.)

This is actually easily represented in-game: training. If you take something like the Battle of the Denmark Strait, you have Hood (fully-trained) with POW (little if any training) vs. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen (both fully-trained). Instead of looking at "training" as simply relating to manpower, just view it as also working out the majority of teething issues with any new hull. Sometimes you have time (Bismarck) - and sometimes you're thrown to the wolves (POW).

 

[Axe99]

(it's impossible to lay down Bismarck and Tirpitz in 1936, for instance)

Thanks for your very reasonable reply . In terms of the Bismarck class, this is another situation (that's existed since the game released) where I'd argue Bismarck was closer to a 1936 BB, particularly given the tonnage required to acheive it, than a 1940 model (in as much as these things can be split into models) - so I'd say that it's possible to have a Bismarck class in 1936, but we have to name it ourselves as due to the devs wanting to case Scharnhorst as a battleship, and 1922 would have been too early, the name had to be shunted to 1940 - and a name as famous as the Bismarck Class could hardly be left out.

The poor internal subdivision of the rebuilt Andrea Doria and Conte di Cavour classes is represented in-game by them using the early heavy ship hull, meaning worse HP and reliability. Also, the flavor name for the Italian 1936 BB armor module is "250mm belt/100mm deck, almost exactly the armor that they had after their reconstruction. (I do in retrospect agree that they probably shouldn't be particularly well-protected.)

I'm not surprised there are some issues marrying up the localisation with the in-game designs. Given the designer only has one tech year for everything prior to 1936, that tech year has to do a lot of work, so a bit like Bismarck, described above, names get pushed to models that aren't as representative of the name as they could be.

The Scharnhorst-class template already goes slower than historical; 28.8 knots.

Which was my point . Bulk the armour up further and Scharnhorst might end up too slow to be an effective raider.

Note I'm not suggesting you shouldn't argue for improvements or changes to the ship designer - you're absolutely entitled to (and no-one other than the devs or moderators would be entitled to tell you that you couldn't), just to argue for the changes with an understanding of the other limits on them.

So, for exaple, I'm personally going to spend a few months re-doing the ship designer, with a whole bunch of modules, a different approach to what modules mean (ie one main battery mount = 1 module) and a few other things (I want to see if I can get the designer to show things in profile rather than plan view) - this will take me months noting I've already got a spreadsheet with the data from the various tables in Campbell's Naval Weapons of World War II in it that I can mine for info quickly, another spreadsheet that's got the shell weight and rate of fire so I can quickly and easily calculate the average of the salvo weight and throw weight/minute (my current measure of gun effectiveness use to balance modules) and the general understanding that comes from reading a number of books and periodicals looking at naval warfare and ship design in the period. Even then, in looking at the guns, without creating multiple modules per tech year, there's a heap of compromises that have to be made in terms of balancing the effectiveness of particular guns with the broader trends in gunnery that should drive the tree.

A dev, however, is given a set amount of hours they can spending researching and building a feature, they'll usually come from a less-researched position just because they have to have their head around everything (I haven't read a single book on the politics of Germany during the period, or tank warfare, or a whole bunch of other things devs are expected to be familiar with), and their overarching goal is quality gameplay rather than historical plausibility for historical plausibility's sake.

I'm also not suggesting I don't personally like your ideas - I likes me my naval details, and was impressed by your reference to the French 380mm/45's teething troubles .

 

[Roostergod]

A few additions to this list I can think of off the top of my head.

• Richelieu and Littorio classes should be in french and italian production queues
• Deutschland (cruiser) and Scharnhorst class should both have tier 2 secondaries.
• Dual purpose guns should be available much earlier (1936 tech at least, since by then the US, UK, France, Italy, and Japan all had DP guns)
• Brummer and bremse should not be cruisers, as they had displacements of 3,000 and 1,800 tons respectively. Would be a better fit as 1936 light hulls.

 

[Tonaris]

This might be just me, but I honestly think that secondaries shouldn't be their own research branch, since the current model leads to some very strange setups. For example you can have multiple 150+mm secondaries on CLs. In some cases (for example with the Japanese 14cm main gun) that can lead to ships whose secondaries are larger than their main guns.

My proposal is that researching Destroyer batteries unlocks small caliber secondaries (of equal tech level) that can be mounted on all hulls (exept DD hulls ofc). Additionally all small caliber guns start getting (very minor) DP capabilities in 1936 which improve on the subsequent 1940/44 models.
Researching cruiser batteries would unlock medium caliber secondaries you would be able to mount on Heavy hulls and the Converted Battleship CV hull.

So:
DD: Light guns (Researching light guns also unlocks small secondaries)
CA/CL: Medium guns + small secondaries (Researching medium guns also unlocks medium secondaries)
BB: Heavy guns + small and/or medium secondaries
CV: small secondaries (+ Medium if BB convert)

So what do you guys think about my idea?