Could some one please clarify for me what can and cannot be upgraded on BC,CL and SS because I have just started to build some of the mentioned ships but at the moment I have no radar and I assumed it could be added on later, am I right?
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The thing is, a ship can't be replaced piecemeal and doesn't have any 'attrition' values on it, either.
As one light tank breaks down, it's replaced with a medium tank. Over a period, there are a preponderance of medium tanks in the unit. Also, as was posted above, all of the support equipment for the light armored division would not have to be re-done, at a vast savings of materiel for the same division even if all of the tanks get swapped out at once as a part of an upgrade plan.
What you're talking about would be if a PKwI got sent back to the yard and was re-worked and voila, you have a PKwIV from the same base chassis, etc. The replacements in the divisions are new tanks, just that the cost of creating a whole division from scratch is reduced because they are not the whole thing. (Though, I will admit, the shorter time seems to be interesting - with concurrent processes, it does seem as though you can make a tank faster when you upgrade a division than you can by creating a whole division from scratch - I know that there are other factors in there, just seems that way in practice)
What I might like to see, though, is a slight combat effectiveness drop if a unit were going through upgrade. (sorry, off topic?)
To me, although it might not be the best decision all the time in all cases, it clearly was an option in reality and therefore should be in the game. If you know how capital ships are constructed, upgrading the engines, armor and guns is trivial compared to creating the hull and superstructure. The Italian examples are there for completeness, but the time it took to upgrade them is more of a political issue than a shipyard issue. The Japanese example of the Kongo is more illustrative, as it took less than 2 years to completely upgrade the ship.
However, I understand the game mechanic issue. As of now, units are upgraded "on the fly," which works for tanks and air units. There should be some downtime for training and workshop changes, but the way it works now is accurate enough. (Maybe an upgrade means units lose Org for a short time? Does that already happen?)
Ships need to be offline while upgrading. But, shouldn't that mechanic already be in the game for repair? As of now, all you have to do is sit in port and your ship repairs. You can sail it out unfinished to do battle at a moment's notice. This is *not* realistic, and if they fix that, then they can put in ship upgrades.
Another problem solved!
BB
PS And please don't bring up the Yorktown as a counterexample to ships being able to go back to sea while under shipyard repair. That was an extreme case.
However, I understand the game mechanic issue. As of now, units are upgraded "on the fly," which works for tanks and air units. There should be some downtime for training and workshop changes, but the way it works now is accurate enough. (Maybe an upgrade means units lose Org for a short time? Does that already happen?)
Ships need to be offline while upgrading. But, shouldn't that mechanic already be in the game for repair? As of now, all you have to do is sit in port and your ship repairs. You can sail it out unfinished to do battle at a moment's notice. This is *not* realistic, and if they fix that, then they can put in ship upgrades.
Another problem solved!
BB
PS And please don't bring up the Yorktown as a counterexample to ships being able to go back to sea while under shipyard repair. That was an extreme case.
This is silliness to the extreme. Saying that upgrading tanks represents changes to the individual vehicles and not their wholesale replacement is... there are just no words. It's like saying that upgrades to infantry techs means that the Karabiner 98 Kurz rifle is being physically retooled into a Gewehr 43. This is obviously not the case. Individual planes, tanks, rifles and people are below the scale of this game. Upgrades in their case mean either the wholesale or partial replacement of their equipment. This is confusing because you don't get to keep the obsolete stuff that's thrown out, but that's a different problem.
Ships (with the exception of subs and destroyers), due to their low (relatively) numbers, are represented individually. On that scale, significant upgrade means "replacement."
Kalzakath says it right.
Interesting, but there are all sorts of complicated cost issues. For instance, the US didn't find it worthwhile to re-arm West Virginia even though it was undergoing a major reconstruction and its 16" guns were now two generations behind.
And while we're on the subject of wish lists, it'd also be nice to change a design while under construction.
I can't tell if you're trolling, being deliberately obtuse or just that stubborn.
Aircraft and tanks wear out, they get shot to pieces and written off as not worth the effort to repair, they get cannibalized for parts and abandoned when they run out of fuel at inopportune times. A fighter aircraft in consistent use would last about a year, maybe a few months longer, just from the wear and tear on the airframe and moving parts. That's planes that never took a hit. Ships routinely stayed in service for multiple decades, generally getting fixed after anything that didn't manage to sink them (and a few things that did).
The game may say the division is 'Panzer IV' or 'Spitfire Mk V', but all that means is that the better part of that division uses that equipment, there's probably still some particularly plucky Pz IIs left in that Pz IV division and plenty of Hurricanes mixed with the Spits. Calling a division "6%Pz 38(t)/8%PzII/32%PzIII/54%PzIV" seems unnecessarily pedantic.
While we're at it, planes were frequently retrofitted in the field. The Ju87G-1 'Kanonenvogel' were Ju87Ds fitted with a pair of 37mm cannon for antitank use (the Ju87G-2 came from the factory so equipped, with other modifications). There were other kits for adding firepower to Bf109s. On the other side, most of the Allied ground attack aircraft were repurposed fighters with modifications for the role such as bomb racks. The 'Firefly' was a Sherman with a better gun stuck on it. We can go on. . .
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The game allows us to start in 1936, a full year before the Italian Navy began to modernize her WW1-era battleships.
So yes, I'd argue that it should entirely be possible to upgrade the primary armament, the secondary armament, and the armour of a battleship in-game.
Now actually upgrading the hull and even the engines, I'm not so sure about, although more efficient boilers were often installed on older vessels as they aged to try and bring their speed up.
So yes, I'd argue that it should entirely be possible to upgrade the primary armament, the secondary armament, and the armour of a battleship in-game.
Now actually upgrading the hull and even the engines, I'm not so sure about, although more efficient boilers were often installed on older vessels as they aged to try and bring their speed up.
To reflect actual history, it should be possible to upgrade warships... but it should take just as long as it would to build a brand new ship.
Cesare - 4 years to build (1910-14), 4 years to refit (1933-37).
Cavour - 5 years to build (1910-15), 4 years to refit (1933-37).
Duilio - 3 years to build (1912-15), 3 years to refit (1937-40).
Doria - 4 years to build (1912-16), 3 years to refit (1937-40).
Kongo - 2 years to build (1911-13), 4 years to refit (1929-31 & 1935-37).
Hiei - 3 years to build (1911-14), 4 years to refit (1936-40).
Haruna - 3 years to build (1912-15), 2 years to refit (1927-28 & 1933-34).
Kirishima - 3 years to build (1912-15), 5 years to refit (1927-30 & 1934-36).
Conclusion: in game terms, you can represent upgrading a warship by disbanding the unit and building a new one in its place. It has exactly the same effect in practical terms.
(And the reason why countries upgraded their battleships like this between the wars has nothing to do with how useful it was from a military point of view: it was all to do with naval treaties and budget cuts and politics, making it easier to justify the Navy spending public money on "modernising" existing ships rather than on building new ones.)
Cesare - 4 years to build (1910-14), 4 years to refit (1933-37).
Cavour - 5 years to build (1910-15), 4 years to refit (1933-37).
Duilio - 3 years to build (1912-15), 3 years to refit (1937-40).
Doria - 4 years to build (1912-16), 3 years to refit (1937-40).
Kongo - 2 years to build (1911-13), 4 years to refit (1929-31 & 1935-37).
Hiei - 3 years to build (1911-14), 4 years to refit (1936-40).
Haruna - 3 years to build (1912-15), 2 years to refit (1927-28 & 1933-34).
Kirishima - 3 years to build (1912-15), 5 years to refit (1927-30 & 1934-36).
Conclusion: in game terms, you can represent upgrading a warship by disbanding the unit and building a new one in its place. It has exactly the same effect in practical terms.
(And the reason why countries upgraded their battleships like this between the wars has nothing to do with how useful it was from a military point of view: it was all to do with naval treaties and budget cuts and politics, making it easier to justify the Navy spending public money on "modernising" existing ships rather than on building new ones.)
Look, the only blatatly obtuse person in this thread is you. Have warships been upgraded in real life ? Yes. Is it possible to do it ? Yes.
The techs in HoI3 regard PARTS of equipment. Therefore if you develop a better engine for your tanks, you are NOT developing a new tank model as you ridiculously keep stating, and this is clear from the game infos as well since you need to develop a new level of all parts of a tank to obtain a new model, and you are NOT replacing anything out of service when you upgrade units; in fact these two actions have two separate sliders: reinforcements and upgrades. If a tank division has losses in battle plus you developed a new engine, you will spend production points to reinforce them and production points to upgrade them, in clear contrast with what you say. Moreover and most importantly, you haven't explained why this is possible for tanks and planes but not for ships, when in reality it is the exact contrary.
I'll also add that nowhere the game specifies that a Spitfire Mk2 wing is actually a mixed wing of mixed models with a majority of Mk2s, the game actually tells us the contrary, so I'd be glad if you didn't draw your own conclusions and assume they are facts, and instead stick to the game infos for a fair discussion.
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You need to go more into details. If you look at the dates, it is obvious that those warships were built during WW1, and upgraded during peace. I would take into account that the workforce invested would be quite different given the different need. Not to mention that HoI3 research system isn't the same of HoI2, when you research a new tech you only develped a new part of the ship/vehicle/plane/infantry equipment, hence implementing it is not equivalent to a refit. Since all categories are pretty much split into 4 (or 2) techs, you can however make so that each upgrade costs 1/4th or one half the production costs, except for infantry.
Posters have come up with a handful of examples as justification for upgrading a battleship in-game. I think they are missing the point. Those upgrades took years to do, yet they want it to happen in the game instantaneously. One day you have one type of battleship, then the next it is suddenly a totally new and improved class? That makes no sense.
If it was to be realistic to any degree, that ship would have to be pulled out of operation and laid up for at least a year, maybe more. And during that time it would be vulnerable to air attack or supply difficulties. It would be a huge capital expenditure in man-hours and materials. In other words, pretty much the exact same thing, in game terms, as building a new one. With the added bonus of not leaving it vulnerable to attack during all that time in drydock, and another bonus of not tying up one of your ports to some degree.
It should be telling that these sort of massive refits were not done during the war, and were usually done by countries that had more difficulty in building a ship from scratch so they sought a shortcut, though in the long run the improved ship was no better than a new design and probably worse.
I do note somewhat of an exception in adding torpedo bulges which almost everyone did, but they weren't massive re-designs, just add-ons to the existing hull.
If it was to be realistic to any degree, that ship would have to be pulled out of operation and laid up for at least a year, maybe more. And during that time it would be vulnerable to air attack or supply difficulties. It would be a huge capital expenditure in man-hours and materials. In other words, pretty much the exact same thing, in game terms, as building a new one. With the added bonus of not leaving it vulnerable to attack during all that time in drydock, and another bonus of not tying up one of your ports to some degree.
It should be telling that these sort of massive refits were not done during the war, and were usually done by countries that had more difficulty in building a ship from scratch so they sought a shortcut, though in the long run the improved ship was no better than a new design and probably worse.
I do note somewhat of an exception in adding torpedo bulges which almost everyone did, but they weren't massive re-designs, just add-ons to the existing hull.
No it isn't. They were almost all of them built in peacetime, before WW1 - which started in 1914, not 1910. For that matter, remember Italy didn't go to war until 1915. As for Japan, they were hardly in total war mode in 1914-18; they sent exactly one division overseas for a few weeks, and sent a few destroyers to Europe, and that's it.Performing this sort of refit on a warship's main systems - its engines, armour or guns - isn't a simple workshop job. It means tying up a dry dock for years as you practically strip the ship down to its keel and rebuild it again from scratch. They even lengthened the ships - which means cutting them in half, building a new section of hull, and fastening the old bow and stern back on!
really ? And can you quote anyone that have said that the upgrade to ships should happen instantly ? The upgrading system in HoI3 is already implemented for taking time and cost production to happen, it isn't instant at all hence none could have even thought about such a feature.
exactly, because they weren't ready. And wars like World Wars don't really break out from one day to the other
But yeah you are right, still doesn't mean that ships can't be upgraded during wartime. If they can be repaired, I don't see why they can't be upgraded. The processes involved are pretty much the same.
upgrades would have to mean the ship stuck in port with zero org for some length.
but all unit upgrades should really suffer some kind of org hit and immobilisation during the upgrade.
afaik this isn't the case currently.
but all unit upgrades should really suffer some kind of org hit and immobilisation during the upgrade.
afaik this isn't the case currently.
It seems as though there is a disconnect between what 'upgrading' a unit really is.
In tank terms, it is not the swapping out of an engine for a bigger, faster, engine - the variants of the PzKW IV, for example, were re-tooled and built from scratch at the factory level and sent out. It's not them sending new engines or armor plating to the field to be replaced on the fly.
The Ausf A-Hs of the model are really a pretty standard base chassis with different armor, gun, and engines put in it - it's not that the tanks got retrofitted with them, one production run stopped, and the next one started - after they re-engineered the product.
With a ship, we're talking about a singular unit. Yes, there are some parts you should be able to modify by taking the unit out of commission for however long the upgrade takes (and this should be a LONG time, looking simply at the times for refit that the actual ships were out for). These should be smaller things though - not re-doing the ship to make it a different class.
Repairing a ship and upgrading it required completely different things - ships were designed with certain parameters in mind: How much deck armor can we put on it without being top-heavy? What is the recoil of the guns, and how do we have to design the rest of the ship to handle the stresses? Many things were delicately balanced in order to make the ship as seaworthy and as powerful a platform as possible. Changing just one of the variables (i.e, upgrading a turret to a larger gun) would most likely upset the balance that the ship needed, so another change to strengthen some other part would be needed, then more power to keep up the speed, then larger tanks somewhere to hold extra fuel, etc. Changing a single piece of something as complex as a warship simply was not feasible to be done without a complete re-building of the ship - which took years.
With the tanks, again, it's not like you are taking a PZKwI chassis and continuously building on it til you have the Panther. It's replacing the individual tanks with the latest model coming off your production line. The PZKwIs eventually gave way to IIs, IIIs, IVs, etc, but it was entirely new tanks coming off the line rather than those tanks being re-fitted with the new stuff in the field or sent back to the Krupp plant (or the Daimler plant later on for the later Mark IVs) to be retro-fitted with new stuff. The tanks in the field just stayed there and fought alongside the later models until they were attritted out (or were sent elsewhere)
In tank terms, it is not the swapping out of an engine for a bigger, faster, engine - the variants of the PzKW IV, for example, were re-tooled and built from scratch at the factory level and sent out. It's not them sending new engines or armor plating to the field to be replaced on the fly.
The Ausf A-Hs of the model are really a pretty standard base chassis with different armor, gun, and engines put in it - it's not that the tanks got retrofitted with them, one production run stopped, and the next one started - after they re-engineered the product.
With a ship, we're talking about a singular unit. Yes, there are some parts you should be able to modify by taking the unit out of commission for however long the upgrade takes (and this should be a LONG time, looking simply at the times for refit that the actual ships were out for). These should be smaller things though - not re-doing the ship to make it a different class.
Repairing a ship and upgrading it required completely different things - ships were designed with certain parameters in mind: How much deck armor can we put on it without being top-heavy? What is the recoil of the guns, and how do we have to design the rest of the ship to handle the stresses? Many things were delicately balanced in order to make the ship as seaworthy and as powerful a platform as possible. Changing just one of the variables (i.e, upgrading a turret to a larger gun) would most likely upset the balance that the ship needed, so another change to strengthen some other part would be needed, then more power to keep up the speed, then larger tanks somewhere to hold extra fuel, etc. Changing a single piece of something as complex as a warship simply was not feasible to be done without a complete re-building of the ship - which took years.
With the tanks, again, it's not like you are taking a PZKwI chassis and continuously building on it til you have the Panther. It's replacing the individual tanks with the latest model coming off your production line. The PZKwIs eventually gave way to IIs, IIIs, IVs, etc, but it was entirely new tanks coming off the line rather than those tanks being re-fitted with the new stuff in the field or sent back to the Krupp plant (or the Daimler plant later on for the later Mark IVs) to be retro-fitted with new stuff. The tanks in the field just stayed there and fought alongside the later models until they were attritted out (or were sent elsewhere)
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Just a fun thing to throw in.
How much, does anyone here think, of the IC spent on a Panzer division goes into the tanks itself? Remember this is an entire panzer division so one would assume it also has a command staff, small amounts of infantry, support, refueling, engineers, logistical supplies, jeeps and most of all the training of all the personell.
I'm really asking. Because that's the only IC an upgrade represents even if the tanks are completely replaced?
How much, does anyone here think, of the IC spent on a Panzer division goes into the tanks itself? Remember this is an entire panzer division so one would assume it also has a command staff, small amounts of infantry, support, refueling, engineers, logistical supplies, jeeps and most of all the training of all the personell.
I'm really asking. Because that's the only IC an upgrade represents even if the tanks are completely replaced?
No, I think there is a disconnection between reality and the game. In the game, it is exactly the engine that is upgraded. It's not the panzer being retooled and made lighter or given different wheels or whatever else. It's a new engine. In game. What we should look at is the game because that's what we are playing.
But the funniest thing is that people keep taking tanks as example while we are talking of ships, thinking that the german tank upgrade methods should prove that ships shouldn't be upgraded in the game (?!) while demonstrating the exact opposite at every post.
Panzers were taken from battlefield, retooled and built from scratch for improvements ? Fine. In REALITY mind you. IN REALITY. And how is this different from draining a ship in a port and refit it ? I don't see any difference from a strategic POW, it has been done, and even if it never happened it would still be possible to do it.
Now let's move to our GAME ABSTRACTION. Those same panzers that you say IN REALITY would be taken to a workshop, dismantled and reassembled, are upgraded on the field investing IC\days. Then why, pray tell, can't the same happen for ships ? Why for ships the upgrading system but be totally realistic while for all the rest the game abstraction is accepted with no problems ?
Btw, in reality there would be a reason to upgrade vehicles and ships this way: because what costs more are resources, materials, not "IC days". But ingame you don't directly spend materials/resources to build stuff (big flaw IMHO), hence recycling has no meaning in game and one might think that it's better to build a ship brand new because hey, it doesn't actually cost you more materials than refitting it if it will cost the same amount of IC days.
But replacing entire divisions of armour and the old stock/vehicles just vanishing into thin air is realistic? It isn't in the slightest.
If the ingame upgrading costs stay as they are in the current patch RC, building an entirely new ship would be better.
Your examples are well researched but we should not forget that the components weren't upgraded by just one or two levels. With the replaced parts entire tech levels were skipped and not only AA or such were improved. The ships got anti-torpedo belts, additional belt and deck armor, new engine/propulsion systems, new targetting systems for the gunnery, munitions storage and transportation systems and so much more.
Despite all this, the resource and industrial savings in the process were immense in comparison to building entire ships from scratch.
Upgrades for divisions are incremental, i.e. they are 20% upgraded, 78% etc. Ships would be the same, they would take a certain number of IC/days to upgrade and you would get an announcement at the end (as you currently do with land divisions).
That is not the same thing as them upgrading instantly as you suggest. As for your comments about the building of ships...do you think new naval units are built in the clouds, or an underground fortress? No, they are built in drydock, so in reality new ships should be vulnerable during build too. That they are not is just evidence of how limited the game is.
Rather than arguing about the ship upgrade system within the context of the land upgrade system, we need to face something: the land upgrade system is WAD, but not working particularily well. You older equipment is apparently melted down and scrapped (not realistic), your units are upgraded wholesale whilst at the front (not realistic), and your units are apparently completely hetergenous in equipment composition (not realistic).
So we are all arguing the toss. The reality is: the knowledge required to build an adequate and fully realised WW2 grand strategy game does not yet exist.