WesWorld

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
One last word about ships being "disposable" for story reasons - this is too easy. If you´re only willing to loose the old and worn out you will not be able to set up interesting stories. Why shouldn´t a navy use its most modern and most capable units to great extend when those units are those most likely to cause harm to the enemy? So you´ve got to risk them, meaning you can loose them. It will also be too predictable for readers to be really interesting, IMHO. So for good story reasons you should probably not think about what is "disposable" but what asset makes for an interesting read.

In this particular case, I will admit my own bias as a player has played a very definite role. When we started scripting this, I suggested a list of Peruvian ships I wanted to see survive the war. I approached it from the point of view of a new player coming in to play Peru, and I wanted that prospective new player to have a fairly strong starting starting hand, and not have a fleet completely neutered by the war. Wes and CG agreed on this count.

This is not to say the ships with "character shielding" will lead charmed lives.

There's an IC reason the Peruvians did not send the old Koenigs, though we'll be posting on that later. You can see that part of the reason for Huascar's assignment was her captain's relation to President Diaz: it lends an air of family loyalty to the ship.

In some ways, Huascar was actually better defended than the ex-Koenigs: while her AA battery is a bit lighter, her deck armor and TDS were both heavier than the larger, newer ships, probably because she got a 50% rebuild before her delivery from India. So while sending her off was risky, there is some reason to the choice (besides the loyalty angle).

One question I have is the use of 1000 pound bombs. Aren't we a bit early for those off most single-engined dive bombers? The Aichi D3A carried a 250 kg bomb, the (brand new in WW 1937) Douglas SDB can carry them but at a cost in range, the same is true for the Ju-87, etc. 500 pounders are more period….

Quoted

Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
One question I have is the use of 1000 pound bombs. Aren't we a bit early for those off most single-engined dive bombers? The Aichi D3A carried a 250 kg bomb, the (brand new in WW 1937) Douglas SDB can carry them but at a cost in range, the same is true for the Ju-87, etc. 500 pounders are more period….

Um. I didn't think much about that, honestly, so thanks for pointing it out. The reason I used a 1,000-pound bomb was because that's the number used on the DBN-1 Banshee specs; but all things considered, I expect a 500-pound bomb would be more likely. Will the 500-lber be sufficient to cause the necessary damage, though?

The Nanchan N1-D1-A1 could carry up to 900lbs (400kg). But may be i'm wrong, because you mean it's a problem for a carrier based aircraft (the N1-D1-A1 is a landbased dive bomber).

Quoted

Originally posted by parador
The Nanchan N1-D1-A1 could carry up to 900lbs (400kg). But may be i'm wrong, because you mean it's a problem for a carrier based aircraft (the N1-D1-A1 is a landbased dive bomber).

Parador, what I understood Hrolf to say was that, while the bombers can carry a 1000-pound bomb, it is more regular for them to carry 500-pound bombs.

Did a little looking, and it appears that AP bombs were primarily a mid-WWII development. Most all of the bombs used into the 1942-43 timeframe were SAP or HE, it was only in that timeframe when AP bombs came into service. Given this, even a 1000 pounder isn't likely to penetrate into the engine spaces on Huascar. See the damage taken and survived by IJN Mogami and the damage taken by IJN Mikuma at Midway (Mikuma sank, but because of damage caused by her torpedoes detonating and subsequent fires, not because her deck was holed).

The only reasonably likely way, at this period, to puncture the engine spaces with a SAP/HE bomb would be to hit the funnel itself and puncture the armored gratings there.

Quoted

Originally posted by parador
As i thought he thought about a carrierbased dive bomber

Essentially, yes. Some period aircraft could carry bigger bombs (Ju-87, SDB, etc), but often at a cost in their range or of being overloaded (or having to leave their observer home, in the case of the Ju-87). That's where I was going, the bomb seemed..... large for the period for a carrier-based dive bomber.

MORE! MORE! I NEED MY FIX!

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Originally posted by perdedor99
MORE! MORE! I NEED MY FIX!

I yam workink onit!

The just-posted piece is the closest I intend to come to mocking the Peruvians. In general, I'm trying to portray the Peruvians as proficient, honorable officers who got stuck being led by a madman; you'll see a few more officers who I point out for being outstanding folks. Commodore Rufino (victor of the Battle of Ilo) is one of them; you'll see another very competent and honorable officer before we're done posting.

Captain de Soto of the Almirante Grau is not one of these officers: future generations will not be naming warships in honor of him.

Must be me but I dont see what was wrong with his actions... Starting a war with Argentina probably isn´t in the best interest of Peru.

Well, yes. The Argentineans know how to use their guns, I can tell you....

(PS: They sank about 99 RSAN warships during that war of 35/36. These are testemony of the Argentineans skills...)

Quoted

Originally posted by Vukovlad
Must be me but I dont see what was wrong with his actions... Starting a war with Argentina probably isn´t in the best interest of Peru.

That's very true; but the thing which embarassed his bridge officers was his panicky behavior and his rather precipitous "turn-and-run" maneuver. You'll note that from the time he turns away from the Argentines to the moment Grau reaches Pisco, Peru (576 miles) is eighteen hours. Average speed? 32 knots. de Soto basically got sent out to raid commerce, ran into a neutral warship squadron, wet himself and ran straight for home at his ship's flank speed, having accomplished absolutely nothing.

Granted, he was at least competent enough to avoid getting sunk on the way home, which, considering the numeric imbalance, I suppose is at least a "draw" for Peru...

Not to mention he didn't draw in yet another country against his. [Not that the Argentines are by any means nuetral, they wouldn't be there behaving that way if they were, but still.......]

Convoys are very very bad in this scenario. You immediately lose about 10% of your shipping capacity due to convoys. If losses are fewer, it makes no sense. Given the limited likelihood of successful attacks it is much more sensible to continue individual sailings which can be handled more efficiently by port facilities.

Heh, from the Peruvian standpoint, if the allies want to hurt their own commerce in an overreaction to the Peruvian submarine force, let them! Of course, we haven't yet heard from that submarine force, either.....

Given the fact that its anticipated that the conflict will be very short I don't think the loss of capacity will be significant. Once FAR looks at the stats reguarding sub attacks (or lack of) they will likely resume normal shiping.

Then again the convoys pose tempting targets for larger raiders so its a sure fire way of drawing them out. The Peruvian navy can't hope to stand against the combined Colombian/Chilean/Atlantean fleet and win the day so they would have to resort to attacking convoys or just act as a fleet in being.

I tend to agree that the level of shame on De Soto might be exagerated a bit, the Argentinian force was clearly capable of inflicting serious damage on the Grau and once De Soto realised it was the Argentinians he could count on a very well thought out attack from an experienced navy who, as Hoo admited, is capable of inflicting losses on larger navy's.

Overall this should serve as another demoralising event for the Peruvian navy. Grau couldn't attack any enemy shiping and ran into another navy clearly hostile towards Peru while being simpathetic to Colombia's plight.

Brock I edited the last news report slightly as Eumelos is currently undergoing trials post refit. She's been replaced in that fleet temperarily by the Emathion.

Quoted

Originally posted by thesmilingassassin
Brock I edited the last news report slightly as Eumelos is currently undergoing trials post refit. She's been replaced in that fleet temperarily by the Emathion.

Oh, okay. I guess I missed that...