WesWorld

Adressing it is not a bad idea.

Adressing it by changing the fundamental way of building ships in Wesworld is a bad idea, though.

I made a counter-proposal. If you think there is a loophole as people can use free ships and transform them easily for little costs - increase the costs. Adding a bow ramp is a major change of a ships construction.

"Train ferries" make a very weak compensation for true LST. The Germans had plenty of them available, many of them French, but they never would have been capable enough to allow an invasion. Neither their number nor their technical stats would have allowed it.

It is also interesting to note that many of the ferries were in fact used as mine or net layers - as they had their decks adressed over the stern. Only those had an enclosed bow and could take the weather and sea in the Channel. Open deck, roll on roll off ferries would not have been able of this - and hence would not have made good LST.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Adressing it is not a bad idea.

Adressing it by changing the fundamental way of building ships in Wesworld is a bad idea, though.

I do not believe it changes any fundamental means of building ships according to our rules. It merely redresses what I feel was a fundamental error in the original setup of the rules, and I wish to see it fixed.

You are picking out a single statement.

I have raised several points above that speak against such change of rule. I also explained why it is a fundamental change of rules - or opens the door widely for one. And that will cause much more problems than what we might face today.

You have not yet adressed my arguments.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
You are picking out a single statement.

I have raised several points above that speak against such change of rule. I also explained why it is a fundamental change of rules - or opens the door widely for one.

As I've already said, I think this rule ought to be applied to all auxiliaries, not just landing ships - so I don't believe the rule goes far enough, and setting this precedent is not a bad thing in my opinion.

Cargo ships and other merchants are, as pointed out before, not built out of our production. Yet we can purchase them, at no cost, and turn them into auxiliaries for the price of a refit. They feature civilian-grade hull construction, and unless reengined in their refit, civilian engines, as well.

Springsharp, as we have pointed out many times, does not assume civilian construction standards, but rather military construction standards, with reinforcing bulkheads, significant compartmentalization, and particularly oversized crews (as would occur on a warship). Civilian freighters instead have long open holds in the decks - basically, open air - matched with higher block coefficients for more cargo capacity. Yet if we attempt to sim these in Springsharp, the program presumes it is a military-style ship and calculates volume and displacement based on what the program was designed to simulate - warships.

Landing ships may be warships in use, but at least in this era their design is civilian for all practical intents and purposes. They featured civilian engines, civilian hull construction, and by their very nature they have long, open holds necessary for stowing tanks.

I've simmed most of the historical classes of landing ship, and I can tell you that almost without exception, the historical ships usually come out heavier in displacement by a margin of approximately the amount of miscellaneous weight I need to add in order to trim the ship down to 1.00 strength. In at least two cases, the "raw" ship sim I put together had .38 BC, all dimensions the same, and was over 200% heavier in displacement.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
The old rules that come with the original SpringStyle define how we design ships, including civilian and military vessels.

These rules, also we later started to use SpringSharp for technical reasons, define how to make use of misc weight as an integral part of a ship in case we want cargo to be carried. Such misc weight has an influence on the ships stats, including light displacement.

Except when that miscellaneous weight is used by the Springsharper to represent cargo that can be carried rather than actual gear added as part of the construction of the vessel itself. In the case of a merchant vessel such as a freighter or refrigerator ship, I presume that the shipwright counts that into his design calculations, but doesn't build and launch a ship with it's cargo already aboard. To me, that holds true for landing craft, as well. There are certain items that are integral to a landing ship - things like boat derricks, workshops, and a bow ramp; and then there is the cargo intended to drive off the vessel onto the shore. In my proposed rule, I divided those into deductible and nondeductible weights, which I specified ought to be posted so that people can see the others are not "cheating" and deducting more weight. So far as I'm aware, this proposition is acceptable to the majority of players who have commented here. Our one remaining issue of contention was whether or not rebuilds should be priced according to the proposed system.

Fuel is one thing that Springsharp DOES understand being deducted in order to reach light tonnage, and I have not seen anyone complain that we build ships without their fuel figuring into the light displacement price. I've commented elsewhere that I have, on many occasions, simmed merchant ships with extremely high ranges so the weight represents cargo, rather than using miscellaneous weight to do so. This method works even better than using miscellaneous weight, because Springsharp 2.0 presumes that weight to be at deck level or higher (as catapults, radars, masts, or such) rather than below the waterline as cargo or ballast, and it determines the stability and steadiness rating more appropriately.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
In WesWorld we pay for warships we want to add to our nation’s order of battle.

The price to be paid for a warship is defined by the designs light displacement. The percentage of total displacement distributed to misc weight has no influence on the price other than influencing the ships stats in general.

I agree completely - but the point where we diverge comes in our different understandings of how we need to measure that light displacement for certain types of vessels. As I'm trying to prove, landing ships do not have the damage-control subdivision and compartmentalization of regular warships, and instead have a long, empty deck for receiving tanks.

I think it'd be easy to compare this idea to an aircraft carrier's internal hanger, but I think this would be a grave error. I presume the miscellaneous weight assigned for the simming of an aircraft carrier does not account for the weight of the planes, but rather for the flight deck and its supports, elevators, and construction workshops needed to support the planes. If we paid for the planes themselves, then why do we not have to pay more every time we change out an airgroup? Why do we not have to pay every time we refurbish the parts in their part bins? Do we magically receive tonnage back if the planes depart for land bases, never to return?

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
A landing craft is a warship. In that, it is not different to a cruiser, carrier or submarine.

Except, as I'm endeavoring to prove, in its manner of design and construction, where Springsharp adds extra weight that should not exist in a landing ship design's light displacement, but DOES exist in the construction of a cruiser, carrier, or - according to some interpretations - submarines (but that's a ball of wax we'd best not get into).

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
This is not about thickness of steel or the number of joints and watertight compartments. This is also about bow ramps, gear to move heavy equipment, armement, military radio equipment, crew quarters, ammo storage, handling and ventilation, fire and damage control systems etc.

All of those will still be present under the terms of my proposed rule amendment, as they'll be counted either in the initial sim of the ship, or in the non-deductible weight which we shan't permit to be subtracted from the build cost. The munchkin alternative, however, would be to take a civilian ramped landing ferry and do a 5% refit to stick some 40mm AAs on it. I see what we've proposed as a means of providing a more historically-accurate cost to build landing ships without resorting to mass appropriations and conversions of civilian ships.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
We've made two:
- Landing ship docks are simmed with miscellaneous weight representing a flooded aft well, but that is not counted in the construction costs. There were no objections when we discussed this rule.

If there is a special rule for landing ship docks that we have agreed on, I am currently not aware of it. I have to check. Can you present me a link please?

Yes, we discussed it here.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Anyway, I still don´t see how this affects our current discussion. For the "mother ships" the full prize is paid. Calculated against the misc weight on a mother ship is the light displacement of the light landing craft carried. 400ts misc weight make up for four 100ts infantry landing crafts for example. We never said one has to substract the misc weight of the small landing craft from the small vessels light displacement and charge what is left against the mother ships misc weight capacity.

So in fact, what you raise as an argument to support your position here, just tells the opposite. It is not a valid argument to support any change of rule on LST.

I beg to differ! It sets the precedent for the rule I've proposed quite well, as we're paying for entire landing craft using the miscellaneous weight of another vessel. If you drop that tonnage from the miscellaneous weight which we paid for in the construction or rebuilding or the ship, then those boats disappear, correct? If we follow this to it's logical conclusion, you can alternately view this as subtracting the weight of the landing boats from the weight of the ship, then building them individually. We've thus made the precedent that we can construct entire new ships out of the miscellaneous weight of another, and by logical penumbra we implied - inadvertently or not - that detachable gear may be subtracted from the light displacement of a vessel. Whether you wish to admit it or not, the precedent has already been established by that decision.

We have a rule over at Navalism, where you pay for the ship's "Light Displacement minus Nonfunctioning Misc. Weight". Nonfunctioning Misc. Weight would be defined as stuff like cargo, and fuel oil simulated as misc. weight, and etc. In the case of the Russian Atlantic Class , for example, and assuming a generous 2,000 tons as radio and cranes and such, the cost, if built within the context of our sim, would be 7,000 tons, a much more reasonable assesment of how much the ship would cost. I think that is where Brock is going with this.

In comparison, aircraft carriers and troop transports would qualify as "Functioning Misc. Weight", as the aircraft carriers weight serves to be as the flight deck and other materials that is part of the basic structure of the ship, and the troop transport weight consists, as well as the trooper himself, of the reenforcement needed for him, the extra toliets, the extra galley's, the extra stores....so on, and so forth. Submarines are a special case, because while we do pay for the 'water', submarines are significantly more expensive, by nature, to produce.

It doesn't make sense to pay the same price for a ship that isn't built to fight in a battle, such as an tanker, coiler, etc., because the grade materials are different, and the coilers and tankers aren't built with the same reenforcing bulkheads as warships. By charging the same price, you give an advantage to those who 'power-game' and build only vessels of war, and you give a disadvantage to those who try to build a realistic fleet.

....and the oposite end of that argument is that larger nations would rather build more warships that can acctually fight then spend the same tonnage on a ship that can support the fleet but will not be able to fight any battle.

And which is more realistic, building a all warship fleet or a fleet that includes tenders, oilers, ammunition supply ships, etc?

This isn't stopping you from building, as you say "more warships that can actually fight", it just provides incentive to build a more historically accurate fleet with tenders, oilers, ammunition supply ships, tugboats, etc.

Quoted

Originally posted by TexanCowboy
And which is more realistic, building a all warship fleet or a fleet that includes tenders, oilers, ammunition supply ships, etc?

This isn't stopping you from building, as you say "more warships that can actually fight", it just provides incentive to build a more historically accurate fleet with tenders, oilers, ammunition supply ships, tugboats, etc.

People who want to build auxiliaries will find a way to build them regardless of the price; those who disdain the fleet train will not, regardless of the price. This issue is about realism of ship designs, not the composition of a fleet.

Landing Ship, Tank, United States LST laid down 1938

Displacement:
1,783 t light; 1,834 t standard; 2,023 t normal; 2,175 t full load

Dimensions: Length overall / water x beam x draught
330.01 ft / 328.00 ft x 50.00 ft x 5.50 ft (normal load)
100.59 m / 99.97 m x 15.24 m x 1.68 m

Armament:
2 - 1.50" / 38.1 mm guns (1x2 guns), 1.69lbs / 0.77kg shells, 1938 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mount
on centreline aft
8 - 1.10" / 27.9 mm guns (4x2 guns), 0.67lbs / 0.30kg shells, 1938 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts
on side ends, evenly spread
8 - 0.50" / 12.7 mm guns (4x2 guns), 0.06lbs / 0.03kg shells, 1938 Model
Machine guns in deck mounts
on centreline ends, evenly spread, all raised mounts - superfiring
Weight of broadside 9 lbs / 4 kg
Shells per gun, main battery: 1,200

Armour:
- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 0.50" / 13 mm 0.50" / 13 mm -
2nd: 0.50" / 13 mm 0.50" / 13 mm -

- Conning tower: 1.00" / 25 mm

Machinery:
Diesel Internal combustion motors,
Geared drive, 2 shafts, 1,667 shp / 1,244 Kw = 12.93 kts
Range 8,000nm at 10.00 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 341 tons

Complement:
150 - 196

Cost:
£0.393 million / $1.573 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 1 tons, 0.1 %
Armour: 7 tons, 0.3 %
- Belts: 0 tons, 0.0 %
- Torpedo bulkhead: 0 tons, 0.0 %
- Armament: 3 tons, 0.2 %
- Armour Deck: 0 tons, 0.0 %
- Conning Tower: 3 tons, 0.2 %
Machinery: 46 tons, 2.3 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 950 tons, 47.0 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 240 tons, 11.9 %
Miscellaneous weights: 780 tons, 38.6 %

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
8,984 lbs / 4,075 Kg = 5,323.8 x 1.5 " / 38 mm shells or 2.4 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1.18
Metacentric height 2.4 ft / 0.7 m
Roll period: 13.6 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 76 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0.00
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 1.53

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has a flush deck
Block coefficient: 0.785
Length to Beam Ratio: 6.56 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 18.11 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 27 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 50
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 5.00 degrees
Stern overhang: 0.00 ft / 0.00 m
Freeboard (% = measuring location as a percentage of overall length):
- Stem: 23.00 ft / 7.01 m
- Forecastle (20 %): 16.00 ft / 4.88 m
- Mid (50 %): 16.00 ft / 4.88 m
- Quarterdeck (15 %): 16.00 ft / 4.88 m
- Stern: 16.00 ft / 4.88 m
- Average freeboard: 16.56 ft / 5.05 m

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 51.3 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 287.5 %
Waterplane Area: 14,153 Square feet or 1,315 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 228 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 52 lbs/sq ft or 254 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.94
- Longitudinal: 1.81
- Overall: 1.00
Hull space for machinery, storage, compartmentation is excellent
Room for accommodation and workspaces is excellent
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Excellent seaboat, comfortable, can fire her guns in the heaviest weather

Note: draft is average at light ship, with the ballast tanks pumped out. With those tanks full, average draft increases to 11 feet, while speed decreases to 12 knots and sea-keeping drops to 1.35.

It seems to me, now, that there is a general misunderstanding or different interpretation of our rules and sims, but probably I am wrong. I will thus give a general description of my point of view, and by doing so I will also address your points.

In general, Wesworld rules are meant to be as easy and basic as possible. Of course this means we had and have loopholes and exploits to deal with. As the sim grew we addressed some of these points but by concept we will never be able to fix them all – except we turn Wesworld into something completely different than what it was for the last 7 years. I take it as granted that this is not what we want. However, once big issues are uncovered, they need to be addressed.

As you pointed out, because of the loophole of transforming civilian ship into warships at very low costs, we might have an issue here, at least for landing ships. The question is, how to address that?

Up to this point it was a given to me, that the ships we build bring everything with them they need to be used for what they were build. That is, a battleship brings its shells, fuel and floatplanes, a carrier brings its aircrews and planes, a large landing ship (“mother ship”) its infantry, equipment and boats and finally a LST its tanks. Misc weight is used to define what these ships carry and you have to pay for the capability to carry something in general. Commander Green seems to agree (see above).

So with this in mind, please check the Indian Amphibious Warfare vessels for example. The General Munaf Bindra Class Landing Ship brings its own complement of different boats to fulfil her task. These boats are part of the initial design and paid for in misc weight. It does not make sense to remove them, other than for roleplaying purpose, as the ship would otherwise not be able to fulfil her main task – act as a landing ship. Details of those 13m infantry landing crafts are not given. But of course you could sim them, providing more details – including how much misc weight they actually include to carry troops. We will keep that in mind.

IIRC, it was never questioned these Indian ships (still just an example, we could use others) were build to our basic rules. That is, the player in question devoted material according to the light displacement given in the sim file. So I assume they are build to full warship standards – whatever that actually means for a landing ship. As Commander Green pointed out, we have no rule, no mechanism that allows us to benefit from ships build to different standards. You can only make use of this from a roleplaying point of view – but as there are no restrictions for roleplaying in general, this is of little use. You can script what you want anyway.

Now we also have civilian ships that are most likely build to lesser standard. Here we agree. But how does a LST compare to a normal freighter? Because of the heavy gear and special features needed, such as the bow ramp, lift or ammo storage, I would rate a landing ship like a LST a mix. It is more complex than a simple freighter but probably less so than a purpose build surface warship, e.g. a cruiser. So I agree, we should check if we need to address this special nature of landing ships. And if we address it, how can we do so?

You say such landing ships are transporters first place, in use filled with removable cargo, e.g. tanks. As such cargo is not part of the ship initially, you say the ships misc weight is actually air alone, for which you do not want to pay. This contradicts with my understanding of a ship bringing with it what it needs, and when you look at the diagram I posted above, you can also see that there is much more on a LST that you will not find on a normal freighter – like a lift for vehicles etc. So it is not only a large empty hold, it is also enlarged crew quarters, magazines, lifts, holds, spare parts, weapons, electronical gear etc.

Your solution would be to use deductable and non-deductable weights that are listed in detail as part of the designs misc weight. The deductable weights, e.g. tanks or trucks, would be allowed to be removed from the sims light displacement to reduce the costs of the landing ship. However, I see a problem with that as there is no guideline to define how much of the misc weight is deductable. It would be left to the player alone to define that, based on his experience and knowledge about these things and his will to “play” fair.

And there is a second problem with that. Remember the Indian ships I mentioned above? They had small landing crafts as part of their misc weight. You take this a precedent that cargo can be removed from a ship and simed separately. I reply that by removing such crafts you render the whole design useless so it does not make sense to remove them. However, I am pretty sure you will not consider this a “no” argument. And actually, that was not even the point I tried to make in my earlier post. Probably my fault, so I try again. I meant to say, that with your rule, you will have a problem with reverse engineering and very complex calculations. As an example we take that Indian landing ship again. It carries eight infantry landing crafts plus some smaller boats. Smaller boats we usually do not pay for as they are considered part of a ships design in general (something to question, btw, if we follow down this road). They are left our of the misc weight break down. But the 8 LCI are listed at 50 tons each, light displacement according to the way we simed ships yet. Now, I cannot find a sim of them but from my own experience I would say about a fifth of their weight is dedicated to the cargo they are designed to carry. That would be 10 tons then. So according to your proposed rule, we would be able to subtract those from the vessels 50 tons, in case we decide to not pay for them with the mother ship and build them separately instead. The total amount of material to be spent on those eight LCI is 320 tons then. But as 400 tons of misc weight are dedicated for LCI on the mother ship, she can actually carry ten of them – two more than originally planned, two more than there is deck space for (but that is only a matter of altering the drawing, isn´t it – there are no rules for drawings anyway). Putting landing crafts on landing crafts, which is not unusual, will be quite tricky.

Finally, once you have addressed landing crafts on basis of “deductable weights”, you will also have opened Pandora’s Box. Why should players not leave out deductable weights on all their designs? The springstyle design rules say a floatplane on a surface warship is calculated with 25 tons each. Now, a floatplane of that era only weights 5 tons usually, the rest is probably dedicated to catapult, spares, fuel, aircrews etc. But if we consider every cruiser or battle ship in a fleet to carry two floatplanes average, then this frees us a lot of tonnage we could spend otherwise. It buys you a flotilla of MTBs for free easily. And I am sure, spirited or tricky participants like Walter ;oP will soon find more options for “deductable weights” than just floatplanes…

In the end, any such rule that deals with the misc weight of landing crafts would make it more difficult to calculate and handle things in general and opens the door for new exploits. It rattles the fundaments of WesWorld. So I think it is easier and better to keep the rules as is, pay for every ships light displacement and beat those with big sticks that pop in a fleet of civilian “train ferries” out of the blue. ;o)

Btw, somebody questioned the SAE would be affected by such rule modifications as they build no landing crafts. Better go and check the last reports again. ;o)

Examples:

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
It seems to me, now, that there is a general misunderstanding or different interpretation of our rules and sims, but probably I am wrong. I will thus give a general description of my point of view, and by doing so I will also address your points.

In general, Wesworld rules are meant to be as easy and basic as possible. Of course this means we had and have loopholes and exploits to deal with. As the sim grew we addressed some of these points but by concept we will never be able to fix them all – except we turn Wesworld into something completely different than what it was for the last 7 years. I take it as granted that this is not what we want. However, once big issues are uncovered, they need to be addressed.

As you pointed out, because of the loophole of transforming civilian ship into warships at very low costs, we might have an issue here, at least for landing ships. The question is, how to address that?

Up to this point it was a given to me, that the ships we build bring everything with them they need to be used for what they were build. That is, a battleship brings its shells, fuel and floatplanes, a carrier brings its aircrews and planes, a large landing ship (“mother ship”) its infantry, equipment and boats and finally a LST its tanks. Misc weight is used to define what these ships carry and you have to pay for the capability to carry something in general. Commander Green seems to agree (see above).

So with this in mind, please check the Indian Amphibious Warfare vessels for example. The General Munaf Bindra Class Landing Ship brings its own complement of different boats to fulfil her task. These boats are part of the initial design and paid for in misc weight. It does not make sense to remove them, other than for roleplaying purpose, as the ship would otherwise not be able to fulfil her main task – act as a landing ship. Details of those 13m infantry landing crafts are not given. But of course you could sim them, providing more details – including how much misc weight they actually include to carry troops. We will keep that in mind.

Those are landing craft, not landing ships; and they cannot be adequately simmed by Springsharp. Our system demands that 2 tons of miscellaneous weight is required per trooper... okay, for a metal deck for him to stand on, and a buddy for him to hold onto as they run in towards the beach? Maybe a wooden bench so he doesn't arrive at the beach tired? Better to build these craft according to the same rules we use for MTBs, which I think everybody already does. Trying to sim them to subtract from their light displacement is ludicrous in the extreme.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
IIRC, it was never questioned these Indian ships (still just an example, we could use others) were build to our basic rules. That is, the player in question devoted material according to the light displacement given in the sim file. So I assume they are build to full warship standards – whatever that actually means for a landing ship. As Commander Green pointed out, we have no rule, no mechanism that allows us to benefit from ships build to different standards. You can only make use of this from a roleplaying point of view – but as there are no restrictions for roleplaying in general, this is of little use. You can script what you want anyway.

Now we also have civilian ships that are most likely build to lesser standard. Here we agree. But how does a LST compare to a normal freighter? Because of the heavy gear and special features needed, such as the bow ramp, lift or ammo storage, I would rate a landing ship like a LST a mix. It is more complex than a simple freighter but probably less so than a purpose build surface warship, e.g. a cruiser. So I agree, we should check if we need to address this special nature of landing ships. And if we address it, how can we do so?

You say such landing ships are transporters first place, in use filled with removable cargo, e.g. tanks. As such cargo is not part of the ship initially, you say the ships misc weight is actually air alone, for which you do not want to pay. This contradicts with my understanding of a ship bringing with it what it needs, and when you look at the diagram I posted above, you can also see that there is much more on a LST that you will not find on a normal freighter – like a lift for vehicles etc. So it is not only a large empty hold, it is also enlarged crew quarters, magazines, lifts, holds, spare parts, weapons, electronical gear etc.

Your solution would be to use deductable and non-deductable weights that are listed in detail as part of the designs misc weight. The deductable weights, e.g. tanks or trucks, would be allowed to be removed from the sims light displacement to reduce the costs of the landing ship. However, I see a problem with that as there is no guideline to define how much of the misc weight is deductable. It would be left to the player alone to define that, based on his experience and knowledge about these things and his will to “play” fair.

And there is a second problem with that. Remember the Indian ships I mentioned above? They had small landing crafts as part of their misc weight. You take this a precedent that cargo can be removed from a ship and simed separately. I reply that by removing such crafts you render the whole design useless so it does not make sense to remove them. However, I am pretty sure you will not consider this a “no” argument.

And actually, that was not even the point I tried to make in my earlier post. Probably my fault, so I try again. I meant to say, that with your rule, you will have a problem with reverse engineering and very complex calculations. As an example we take that Indian landing ship again. It carries eight infantry landing crafts plus some smaller boats. Smaller boats we usually do not pay for as they are considered part of a ships design in general (something to question, btw, if we follow down this road). They are left our of the misc weight break down. But the 8 LCI are listed at 50 tons each, light displacement according to the way we simed ships yet. Now, I cannot find a sim of them but from my own experience I would say about a fifth of their weight is dedicated to the cargo they are designed to carry. That would be 10 tons then. So according to your proposed rule, we would be able to subtract those from the vessels 50 tons, in case we decide to not pay for them with the mother ship and build them separately instead. The total amount of material to be spent on those eight LCI is 320 tons then. But as 400 tons of misc weight are dedicated for LCI on the mother ship, she can actually carry ten of them – two more than originally planned, two more than there is deck space for (but that is only a matter of altering the drawing, isn´t it – there are no rules for drawings anyway). Putting landing crafts on landing crafts, which is not unusual, will be quite tricky.

I'm sorry, I don't agree, and I don't feel I need to repeat my arguments again, as I've previously addressed these comments to my satisfaction. Can we disagree as gentlemen?

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Finally, once you have addressed landing crafts on basis of “deductable weights”, you will also have opened Pandora’s Box. Why should players not leave out deductable weights on all their designs? The springstyle design rules say a floatplane on a surface warship is calculated with 25 tons each. Now, a floatplane of that era only weights 5 tons usually, the rest is probably dedicated to catapult, spares, fuel, aircrews etc. But if we consider every cruiser or battle ship in a fleet to carry two floatplanes average, then this frees us a lot of tonnage we could spend otherwise. It buys you a flotilla of MTBs for free easily. And I am sure, spirited or tricky participants like Walter ;oP will soon find more options for “deductable weights” than just floatplanes…

As I've argued before, I don't believe that miscellaneous weight assigned for planes (either aboard carriers or for floatplane cruisers) should be deductible, as it represents solid, bolted-to-the-ship gear to support the plane. As I've said before, I don't believe miscellaneous weight assigned for aircraft includes the aircraft themselves, *only* the facilities for them.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
In the end, any such rule that deals with the misc weight of landing crafts would make it more difficult to calculate and handle things in general and opens the door for new exploits. It rattles the fundaments of WesWorld. So I think it is easier and better to keep the rules as is, pay for every ships light displacement and beat those with big sticks that pop in a fleet of civilian “train ferries” out of the blue. ;o)

We proposed our rule modification as a means of eliminating this ad absurdio possibility, and it's a bit laughable in my humble opinion to cling to it when we have a chance to fix it.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Btw, somebody questioned the SAE would be affected by such rule modifications as they build no landing crafts. Better go and check the last reports again. ;o)

Examples:

These are landing craft, not landing ships.

-------------------------------------------------------

This argument is getting old to me, and I think we've said everything that needs saying. Currently, we've got the following rule proposed:

Quoted

- Purpose-built landing ships of 3,001t or greater light tonnage shall be built to light tonnage minus miscellaneous weight of cargo. [1] [2]
- Landing ships and landing craft of 3,000t or less shall be built to 75% light tonnage minus miscellaneous weight of cargo.
- Conversions of existing civilian ships to landing ships shall be priced according to pre-existing rules.

[1] Including, for example, tanks, or water in flooded well decks; but not including things like radar, workshops, cranes, etc.
[2] As we've discussed here and in the Landing Ship Dock thread.
[3] In this case, Hrolf's LST would be (1,789 - 780) * .75 = 757 tons to build.

And the following votes:
Yea:
- Brock
- Wes
- Hrolf
- Red Admiral
- Hood
- AdmKuznetsov

Nay:
- Hooman
- Commodore Green
- BruceDuncan

Abstain:
TexasCowboy

Yea

Quoted

Originally posted by AdmKuznetsov
Yea

Got it.

I have given some thought to the rules change, and there are valid arguments on either side. However, I find myself more against than for the proposed change. My vote is not on technical merits alone, but on the potential downside impact on the game.

As I understand it, Wesworld is a naval sim, and it has specific sets of rules for a nation's infrastructure and available naval budget. Everything else is rather free-form. What the proposed rule would do is take ship tonnage 'out' of the naval budget (i.e. - you pay less for the ship) and use the 'free-form' economy to account for it. While any nation can benefit from this saving, I feel it works disproportionally to the benefit of larger nations.

I recognize that the real building time, and cost, of constructing a WW2 vintage LST or LSM was far less than a warship of similar size or displacement. They were also, for the most part, build by wartime shipyards designed and built for churning out LSTs or LSMs. Those yards, by our rules, would be part of the free-form 'civil' economy; and we have no rules to control what comes out of that sector.

A similar situation prevails in the construction of merchant tonnage in peacetime with the purpose of having merchant hulls available for refitting as naval auxiliaries. The US Maritime Commission's formation in 1936 and its peactime program of construction - high speed cargoliners and tankers - was aimed at doing precisely that. And it was successful. However, by our rules, all that civil construction would come out of the free-form 'civil' sector and would be paid for with 'naval budget' funds upon refitting. This I could live with - as we do have refitting rules.

But an amphibious landing ship - one capable of beaching - is not a civil ship by any reasonable standard - it is clearly an offensive military vessel designed to land troops and equipment on a hostile shore. To be built in peacetime they would need to be viewed not as throw-aways but as regular naval vessels. And some powers have already done so, paying full cost.

The proposed rule change - if adopted by the majority - should come into force at a fixed date, preferably in advance of the current sim timeframe of 3Q39.

Got it.

Quoted

Originally posted by BruceDuncan
The proposed rule change - if adopted by the majority - should come into force at a fixed date, preferably in advance of the current sim timeframe of 3Q39.

That was my presumption.

I vote to abstain, even if my tendacy is to lean toward the side of approving.

Honestly, my believe is that those who have already paid for LSTs and such in the (throws out a random number) past 10 years should get an additional bonus that is equal to the amount of tonnage they would not have spent over the past few years, in say Q1/1940....but I can see the reasons to objecting to that, and I can see why people wouldn't like the idea.

As people like Brock have been saying, up to this point, Amphibious Warfare has been a mostly expierimental art. I believe two nations have built these ships in number, and both of them agree this price reduction, for a more reasonable ship, is for the best. This issue is only going to grow if it isn't addressed now, just because this is the time when LSTs and LSIs began to be produced in large numbers.

Quoted

Originally posted by TexanCowboy
I vote to abstain, even if my tendacy is to lean toward the side of approving.

Got it.

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Btw, somebody questioned the SAE would be affected by such rule modifications as they build no landing crafts. Better go and check the last reports again. ;o)

Examples:

More accurately the second design is an LCT and not an LST. That said small craft of this type are just as difficult to design with SS as the larger ones.

Oh.....it also might be good to put those designs in the SAE encyclopedia, which is where most people look to see a nations capability's.

There are certain *cough* other nations *cough, cough, Mexico, cough, cough* that could do that *cough* as well.

The SAE also has three landing ships - but I have no picture of these. So I posted what I had to show the SAE is moving...

Btw, as you are differing between landing craft and landing ships - where is the difference (I guess I know but I like to hear)?

And how does the whole discussion touch only one of these types while it should affect both - just in different size?