WesWorld

Hi all!

I just read the latest report from Atlantis with that small OOB at its end and some questions were sparked.

Please note that it is not my intention to focus on Atlantis especially. I just use Atlantis as an example because Wes just posted his report.

How to man and maintain a fleet of about 1800 small crafts? I know we have no rules for maintenance so the question is invalid, actually. But it is a numerous fleet of small vessels that raises some questions, so I will tackle the issue from a different perspective, adding some input regarding my own SAE stuff.

Give peace time conditions, how do you satisfy, froma role playing point of view, a large fleet of small crafts? AFAIK, OTL many small crafts were build on demand in times of crisis. And while wartime production in WW2 resulted in several hundred German, British, Italian or American motor torpedo boats, coastal minesweepers and similar vessels, I do not see that such massive fleets would to become reality without a huge war.

How do you decide which areas of your sphere of influence are potential battlefields for small crafts? For example, I think the seas around South Africa are too heavy and a potential enemy is too far away to justify the deployment of small crafts in large numbers. In South America on the other hand coastal forces can be used against potential enemies - and they were in the latest war - but the situation cannot be compared to the Channel or other confined European waters. Central West Africa (Cameroon) probably offers the environment for small crafts, would you agree? Why build hundreds of small crafts for Atlantis´ coast? Or the USA coasts?

How long is the active career of your small crafts (peace time conditions)? How long until a small craft is worn out or obsolete? I thing the life span of such (wooden) vessels is remarkable shorter than that of a large cruisers. The investment also is different and life extending refits or rebuilds are unlikely on a 30ts motor torpedo boat. Would you agree?

What about block obsolesence? I build most of my small classes in few years and with relatively large series. So actually, if a design reaches the date where it must be considered outdated or worn out, a whole class with several dozen units has to be removed from active service. How do you deal with that? And do you seriously consider scrapping such fleet of obsolete vessels according to our scrapping rules?

(More questions later probably....)

Cheers,

Stephan

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn



How do you decide which areas of your sphere of influence are potential battlefields for small crafts? For example, I think the seas around South Africa are too heavy and a potential enemy is too far away to justify the deployment of small crafts in large numbers. In South America on the other hand coastal forces can be used against potential enemies - and they were in the latest war - but the situation cannot be compared to the Channel or other confined European waters. Central West Africa (Cameroon) probably offers the environment for small crafts, would you agree? Why build hundreds of small crafts for Atlantis´ coast? Or the USA coasts?

The question of deployment is one that I will speak to. I can see the usefulness of coastal forces in confined areas - the Black Sea, the Adriatic, the Aegean, the Persian Gulf, or the Caribbean. These are the sort of areas where coastal forces operated historically.

I can also see the usefulness of coastal forces in places where there is a long coastline and small density of population. Western Australia comes to mind; there may be areas of Atlantis - which has very extensive coasts - its mainland, its African territories, and its South American territories - where the population is similarly light.

I am not a fan of coastal forces, particularly for some of the very small coastal motor boats that are in service. But I do recognize that they have their usefulness in certain circumstances. One of the reasons I designed the new German Mehrzweckboot was to obtain a more capable littoral combatant.

I do not really want to offend one, I only express my thoughts.... so please don't take it personally.

I think, the main problem is, that we didn't have any maintenance rule AND that nobody wants to loose material.

In everybodys brain come one thought .... I CAN BUILD IT - I SHOULD BUILD IT - SO I WILL BUILD IT !!! Because my shipyards must be running and i don't want to loose material. No thoughts spend on things like ..... do my country really need such a huge carrierfleet - like Greece ..... or do my country really need a huge small vessel armada like Atlantis ....these are ONLY EXAMPLES !!!

When I look at the OOBs of the various countries, i have some other thoughts .....

- Does the nations really has the economical background, to maintain such a huge fleet ? One point - manpower. Ships must be manned. So could i really build all these ships and hold them in service ??? Another point - FUEL. Does my country really has enough capacity to keep all my ships running ? And IS THERE REALLY A NEED for the fleet ???? For example, does Greece really NEED six carrier as a mediterranean focused country, where nearlly the whole place could be reached with landbased aircrafts.

- is there really some water on planet earth where no ship is placed

I think the "main problem" for all this is really that no one have to pay for a ship to keep it in service, once it is built. But how such a rule could look like ??? I don't know

Don´t focus too much on the size alone.

How did the USN use their PT boats in the Pacific? I have to admit, I know little about the USN small crafts in action (Good book around?). How did the Americans deploy their forces and keept them running? How useful were they for island hopping?

How long after the war until the UK or USA or Russia reduced their small craft forces? Are there numbers for peace time and war time for comparison?

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Don´t focus too much on the size alone.

How did the USN use their PT boats in the Pacific? I have to admit, I know little about the USN small crafts in action (Good book around?). How did the Americans deploy their forces and keept them running? How useful were they for island hopping?

How long after the war until the UK or USA or Russia reduced their small craft forces? Are there numbers for peace time and war time for comparison?

I have a good book at home, though I'll have to look to find the title.

The USN put together a few hundred PTs and primarily used them for night harassment of Japanese coastal communications. They'd attack coastal supply dumps, supply canoes (and assorted light craft) and also vessels ranging from the ramped lighters up to the size of freighters and cruisers. By 1945 they really didn't have much of a job any more, so the USN stripped and tossed a bunch of them up on a beach in the Philippines and lit them on fire. I forget how many - I have a list in one of my books - but a sizeable minority/majority were just burned at the back end of nowhere. (That's why there aren't many surviving PT boats.) Ditto the subchasers, Patrol Gunboats, wooden minesweepers, yard minesweepers, etc etc etc.

I know much less about what the Russians did with their boats, but I understand most of it was on the Black Sea.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Don´t focus too much on the size alone.

How long after the war until the UK or USA or Russia reduced their small craft forces? Are there numbers for peace time and war time for comparison?

The coastal forces of the Western navies were pretty much a wartime phenomenom. The Germans pioneered with small numbers of Schnellboote in the 1930s - progressively building larger and more capable vessels in small series. Compared with the Allies, their overall numbers were much smaller. It was the same with the Raumboote motor minesweepers - construction of progressively larger vessels in small series before the war, then a war construction program of some size, but smaller than the Allies.

The British had begun to build a small number of MTB, Motor Gunboats and Motor A/S Boats before the war, but once the war was under way they built them in huge numbers and in a plethora of types. The Fairmile Type B motor launches were used as local AS craft, and the Fairmile Type D was a rather large multi-purpose platform and adapted as MTB or MGB as required.

But few survived the war, as they were specialist craft for the narrow seas.

This is one of the reason the RCN hasn't really built large numbers of small craft; It stands to reason they can be churned out when circumstances demand them. In the meantime, the RCN has produced the larger, longer lead-time items.

For smaller powers that are mass producing small craft, it stands to reason a lot of them could be comissioned right into a reserve status (Unmanned, reduced maintainance, etc), and rotated around every few years, while remaining capable of surging a large force during a crisis.

Quoted

Originally posted by ShinRa_Inc
This is one of the reason the RCN hasn't really built large numbers of small craft; It stands to reason they can be churned out when circumstances demand them. In the meantime, the RCN has produced the larger, longer lead-time items.

This is a very cogent point. Given the constraints of building times in mechanics of the sim, in real time of war construction of major units would be suspended and tonnage diverted to smaller ships, and small craft, or to carrying out repairs or refits to existing ships. This is where a "Mosquito Fleet" can come into its own. It may make sense for a navy to build and test designs in small numbers, but in peace time I see them as a diversion of tonnage better used elsewhere.

Quoted

Originally posted by ShinRa_Inc
For smaller powers that are mass producing small craft, it stands to reason a lot of them could be comissioned right into a reserve status (Unmanned, reduced maintainance, etc), and rotated around every few years, while remaining capable of surging a large force during a crisis.

That's quite probable, I'd say, particularly using historical examples; at the start of a war, you'd promote a hatfull of junior officers to command the boats, send them a couple of old salts to provide experience, and then fill out the remainder of the boat crews with greenhorns. Replace with recruits and ninety-day wonders as required.

Quoted

Originally posted by BruceDuncan
This is a very cogent point. Given the constraints of building times in mechanics of the sim, in real time of war construction of major units would be suspended and tonnage diverted to smaller ships, and small craft, or to carrying out repairs or refits to existing ships. This is where a "Mosquito Fleet" can come into its own. It may make sense for a navy to build and test designs in small numbers, but in peace time I see them as a diversion of tonnage better used elsewhere.

Yup.

The US has always been loath to use small craft, even when experience seems to show their worth, so I've steered clear of them, though I should probably build some PT prototypes, or at least have private industry produce some models and market them.

Some sort of upkeep system would be a good idea. Alt Naval was a strong proponent of such a system but there was concern about how to implement it without messing up the sim. I think its something we should seriously look at if we reset to Wesworld 2.0, along with the construction system, which breaks down once you pass 40,000 tons.

I wouldn't terribly mind some maintenance rules myself. My only requirement is that they be simple and easy to incorporate.

Believe it or not, refit rules should do that quite nicely, if they were finer. You really need to be bringing a ship into drydock every 30 months at least - probably annually - for the WesWorld timeframe. This is the real reason we have so many docks, and none (few?) of us bother. A minor refit (2.5%) every 2.5 years, else the ship has performance and reliability issues, would cover upkeep quite nicely.

Quoted

Originally posted by RLBH
Believe it or not, refit rules should do that quite nicely, if they were finer. You really need to be bringing a ship into drydock every 30 months at least - probably annually - for the WesWorld timeframe. This is the real reason we have so many docks, and none (few?) of us bother. A minor refit (2.5%) every 2.5 years, else the ship has performance and reliability issues, would cover upkeep quite nicely.

I wouldn't object to that - it sounds pretty workable to me. That way, we'd be forced to balance a bit more on replacing aged units, rather than just collecting a dozen generations of ships to inflate our orbats.

If I'm working my math right, that means that Chile would spend around 4,750 tons per year to maintain my current force level (presuming 2.5% refits every 2.5 years).

I'm just hazzarding a guess but I'm fairly sure the countrys with 30+ factory will be paying 1/3rd of their tonnage output for one quarter to perform maintinence, perhaps more. I don't even want to know what Britains maintinence costs will be!

Latvia's policy on small craft is to build them in moderate quanities, (Is fifty excessive?) and to use them for the missions of coastal defense, general fishing patrol work in littoral waters, and for, in wartime, support of the main fleet in littoral waters. Policy regarding MTBs is somewhat summed up in BFE' 39.

Good to see I'm not the only one who wonders why Greece needs 6 CVs. Unfortunately most were either commissioned or rebuilt in the mid 30s.

Ouranos (converted to aircraft carrier 30/Apr/37)
Thaumas (converted to aircraft carrier 30/Apr/37)
Promethios (converted to aircraft carrier 01/Aug/39)
Arkadia (entered service 24/Mar/34)
Thermopylae (converted to aircraft carrier 11/Aug/38)

The only exception is Anatoli (entered service 09/Jun/27)

And I can't even reassign Anatoli to training since Alt_Naval built Astraios (refitted 12/Oct/33). How, IC, would I, as the Gov't of Greece, explain to the people of Greece that ships less than 10yrs old, most less than 4yrs old, are worthless and should be sold or scrapped? I realize Greece is a Monarchy, but I'd still think that it would be hard cheese to swallow to admit that all those funds were wasted.

There's always the "dramatically appropriate accidental BOOM" option.

Quoted

Originally posted by CanisD
There's always the "dramatically appropriate accidental BOOM" option.

To "Tex"ish.

I was thinking more Swampy-ish. Its a time-honored Wesworld tradition. Have a plot hole, pack it with TNT and BOOM!

Quoted

Originally posted by CanisD
I was thinking more Swampy-ish. Its a time-honored Wesworld tradition. Have a plot hole, pack it with TNT and BOOM!

I followed Swampies footsteps, blew up a city. Smh.

http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=…g56944#msg56944

Well, 4,000 tons of ammo had to go somewhere...