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Which team did you play in the last game?

Glorious Arstotzka
- 17 (16%)
Glorious Moskurg
- 13 (12.3%)
Ingloriously Didn't Play
- 76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106


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Author Topic: Intercontinental Arms Race: Finale  (Read 599918 times)

Khan Boyzitbig

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #105 on: May 01, 2017, 08:24:48 am »

Seriously? Our air dropped ordnance is artillery shells? That does need fixing.
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andrea

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #106 on: May 01, 2017, 08:25:25 am »

That is a good point, actually. I think I am convinced.

VoidSlayer

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #107 on: May 01, 2017, 12:34:40 pm »

Seriously? Our air dropped ordnance is artillery shells? That does need fixing.

Look, the war was long and weird.  We made a lot of weird decisions on both sides to try and win.

We have the flamethrower, we could also modify the eventual dedicated bombs to have napalm or something.  Firebombing locations would be nice. I mean evil but good for the generals.

Zanzetkuken The Great

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #108 on: May 01, 2017, 01:15:16 pm »

Seriously? Our air dropped ordnance is artillery shells? That does need fixing.

The thing is, in our game, bombs were implied to be designed alongside the Bombers, and in their game they purposely developed bombs.  We were listed as dropping bombs, so we didn't seem to NEED to develop bombs.
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Mardent23

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #109 on: May 01, 2017, 01:25:06 pm »

What's our ground support looking like?
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Baffler

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #110 on: May 01, 2017, 01:28:58 pm »

We have a long range strategic bomber, and a divebomber. We could probably do with a good twin-engine airframe to fill the medium bomber/ground attack role (it'd be good for a torpedo bomber too,) but it isn't really pressing IMO.
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andrea

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #111 on: May 01, 2017, 01:33:37 pm »

the bomber we have is a tactical bomber, not a strategic one. its range is not actually higher than that of the dive bomber and it only carries 4x the payload ( 2 tons). the dive bomber is actually longer ranged when it mounts drop tanks instead of bombs.

Khan Boyzitbig

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #112 on: May 01, 2017, 01:35:08 pm »

Well we could continue as we are with "bombs" and simply design specialised munitions for killing ships (such as the ones dropped by Lancaster Bombers to sink the Tirpitz, I think they were called "Tallboys" cannot remember) or other special purposes (nukes/bunker busters/guided bombs etc.).
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3_14159

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #113 on: May 01, 2017, 04:20:39 pm »

Well we could continue as we are with "bombs" and simply design specialised munitions for killing ships (such as the ones dropped by Lancaster Bombers to sink the Tirpitz, I think they were called "Tallboys" cannot remember) or other special purposes (nukes/bunker busters/guided bombs etc.).
Do note that the Tallboys, fitting their intended use of anti-Uboat-pen ordnance, were also extremely heavy at almost 5.5 tons. None of our bombers can loft them.


Anyway, time to state a few thoughts of mine before leaving for about two weeks.

1) First-Turn Design
There have been quite a few discussions on that both here and on the Discord. The question is whether we should design a radar or a destroyer first.
Proponents of the Radar assert that this is a good choice because it will allow us to achieve early warning, allows us to redirect our convoys, and to launch pinpoint attacks. However, it is a risky project due to difficulty, the chances of getting it small enough to put on a ship right away are small, and the main utility is defensively.
The destroyer, on the other hand, would give us a capacity to at least contest the seas, to protect our convoys, and to threaten their own. It will also give us experience with ships. However, it is rightly pointed out that a single destroyer design will not allow us to reach parity on the seas.

My own preference is with the destroyer design. This has mainly two reasons: 1) The difficulty radar is facing to be deployable on ships, which we can assume will take at least one revision. 2) The difference between them being able to run merchants unprotected (which is far more effective) and them having to invest both in trade protection and raiding.
Essentially, my argument goes like this: Assume we are designing a radar in turn 1. If it is completely successful, we can design the destroyer in turn 2, and deploy them. That's the (very) optimistic case. However, even in this extremely optimistic case, we still leave the seas uncontested in the first turn. While we might be able to guard the seas close to our own islands, the range of our bombers is too small to effectively contest their ability to move wherever they want. This leaves them with at least a Large Advantage, reducing our supplies etc.
Designing a destroyer, on the other hand, allows them and our planes to be used in mutually-supporting recon groups. This uses our available radios.

2) On hybrid carriers
Another argument we had was about building hybrid battleships/carriers or cruiser/carriers, i.e. armoured carriers armed with large cannons.
In my opinion, this fails due to multiple issues. First of all, the range. A carrier wants to keep the range to the enemy large, relying on superior range and superior recon capabilities. This means it cannot use the guns. If, on the other hand, it closes range to use the guns, it cannot launch planes anymore and the weaker armour than a proper cannon-armed ship will make it extremely vulnerable - though far less than the large tanks of AvGas required to fill the planes [1]. At the same time, the tonnage needed for armour and weaponry will greatly cut into the available plane capacity. Compare, for example, the japanese Akagi class carrier and the hybrid carrier Ise.  The latter carries only 22 planes, instead of Akagi's 66, and less than 20% of the former's fuel.
In summary, a hybrid design leaves more than half of its tonnage unused, the ship hugely vulnerable, and highly inefficient.

Do note that I am not advocating to leave it unarmed; indeed it should be liberally armed with anti-aircraft guns.

3) On our carrier design
The current carrier design specifies medium armour for ships. What I instead suggest is to follow the US fleet's design plans, and leave the flight deck completely unarmoured, and the hangar unenclosed. My argument can be nicely summarized by this quote from Shattered Sword, page 761 on my ebook [2]:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
In summary, an unarmoured and unenclosed hangar deck maximizes the air wing size, allows for faster launches, and makes repairs and damage control easier.



[1] Refer to the Battle of Midway to an example of what happens if a carrier handling avgas gets hit - imagine it like the memetic British battlecruisers at Jutland, except worse.

[2] Parshall, Jonathan B., and Anthony P. Tully. Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. Potomac Books, Inc., 2005.
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Sensei

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Pre-Game)
« Reply #114 on: May 01, 2017, 10:41:54 pm »

Pre-Game Summary

The people have spoken! United Forenia shall fly the Stars and Swords as her flag!

Flag by NUKE9.13

General Tereshkova will lead her armies to victory! "I thank you for choosing me to lead our armies. I will now demonstrate to all of our pilots how to bomb a ship full of pirates, personally!"

In preparation for war, our engineers have already prepared a weapon specialized towards oceanic brigands.


Hard: 2
TPD 'DOLPHIN' 38-1: This is an aerial torpedo, weighing in a bit more than half a ton. It is powered by a wet heater motor, and stabilized by a gyroscope. Both of these have proven to be delicate and finicky devices, and so much time was spent getting them to work that a planned magnetic detonator was never implemented, so it sits close to the surface and detonates on impact. Both the wet heater and gyroscope are delicate, so it must be dropped close to the water and at a low speed. [2 Ore, 1 Oil]

Current Equipment:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alright, I don't think I forgot anything, so...
Turn 1 Commence!
It is now the Battle Phase for Summer, 1938. You must decide which two fronts your armies will advance upon. For this turn, ignore the islands to the east of Forenia.
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NUKE9.13

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Battle Phase)
« Reply #115 on: May 01, 2017, 10:51:29 pm »

Ah, we don't get a design phase before the first battle phase. Fair enough then.

So, clearly attacking the archipelago would be a waste of time. Their superior navy (superior in the sense that they have one) will wreck our shit there. We only really stand a chance on the two larger islands, and even then, I only really like our chances on the north island.

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Attack Jungle & Taiga: (1) NUKE9.13
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Mardent23

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Battle Phase)
« Reply #116 on: May 01, 2017, 10:52:11 pm »

Ah, we don't get a design phase before the first battle phase. Fair enough then.

So, clearly attacking the archipelago would be a waste of time. Their superior navy (superior in the sense that they have one) will wreck our shit there. We only really stand a chance on the two larger islands, and even then, I only really like our chances on the north island.

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Attack Jungle & Taiga: (2) NUKE9.13, Mardent23

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evictedSaint

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Battle Phase)
« Reply #117 on: May 01, 2017, 10:54:32 pm »

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Attack Jungle & Taiga: (3) NUKE9.13, Mardent23, evictedSaint

Mardent23

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Battle Phase)
« Reply #118 on: May 01, 2017, 10:55:46 pm »

Let's get to it. Time to kick some invader ass.
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Baffler

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Re: Intercontinental Arms Race: Summer 1938 (Battle Phase)
« Reply #119 on: May 01, 2017, 11:12:42 pm »

Maybe we should focus on the NPC ore island instead? Occupying them shouldn't be too much trouble and that's a pretty big bonus.
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Even if you found a suitable opening, I doubt it would prove all too satisfying. And it might leave some nasty wounds, depending on the moral high ground's geology.
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