WesWorld

So question for the board regarding the Saint class armored cruisers. "Historicly", the class was built in violation of Cileto and then refited to be legal. Details are in this thread. As far as we have been over, its the Ceaser class that played a major roll in the colaps of Cileto, not the Saints (tho the Saints might have given the already rolling ball some more push). Since I need to resim the design to take care of gun changes, would there be any issue with me cutting some more tonnage by recasting the Saints as Improved Zaras? Tonnage would come both from the original build (about 2500t per ship) and the 25% refit. Your thoughts?

At this point, I would defer to the opinions of the mods. I would prefer to see this matter deal with as expeditiously as reasonable, in order that Italy can get caught up.

That said, if they are built in the Cleito period, they ought to conform to Cleito limits, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

I poised the question to Brock and he refereed me back to the board.

Quoted from "snip"

I poised the question to Brock and he refereed me back to the board.

<shrugs>

Then as I say - if the ships were to have been built in the Cleito period, they should conform to Cleito requirements.

Quoted

Then as I say - if the ships were to have been built in the Cleito period, they should conform to Cleito requirements.

... but they weren't build to Cleito requirements by RA. IIRC he built them and then still tried to get them to fall into the Heavy Cruiser category and even tried to correct them post construction for free by removing a turret (which would not have helped much anyway as I indicated back then) . To me this class is one of a number of reasons the CT collapsed... although I do not really have too much of a problem with rewriting that mess slightly so it is the fact that those two fake signatures on the CT in a sense made the CT invalid and worth less than the paper it was written on.

I think it's a design that needs to be kept as-is. A less blatant over-build might not have triggered the fuss that the original did.

Quoted from "Rooijen10"

Quoted

Then as I say - if the ships were to have been built in the Cleito period, they should conform to Cleito requirements.

... but they weren't build to Cleito requirements by RA. IIRC he built them and then still tried to get them to fall into the Heavy Cruiser category and even tried to correct them post construction for free by removing a turret (which would not have helped much anyway as I indicated back then) . To me this class is one of a number of reasons the CT collapsed... although I do not really have too much of a problem with rewriting that mess slightly so it is the fact that those two fake signatures on the CT in a sense made the CT invalid and worth less than the paper it was written on.

Yes, the Cleito Treaty collapsed in many mutual recriminations. Do you suggest that someone (a) build a series of non-conforming vessels and (b) then refit them to conform? I think that is asking too much to ask for someone who is trying to do the right thing.

I know that snip is trying to do his best as well as trying to do the right thing. The problem is that RA did NOT do the right thing when he built those ships (and with a sneaky and questionable way tried to correct it) and that is part of the history of Wesworld. Changing those ships so they conform to Cleito requirements means changing part of the history. That to me is where the real problem lies with the Saints.

Quoted from "Rooijen10"

I know that snip is trying to do his best as well as trying to do the right thing. The problem is that RA did NOT do the right thing when he built those ships (and with a sneaky and questionable way tried to correct it) and that is part of the history of Wesworld. Changing those ships so they conform to Cleito requirements means changing part of the history. That to me is where the real problem lies with the Saints.

Then how do you propose to resolve the issue?

In this case, the resolution is status quo. From a technical standpoint, there's nothing wrong with the design. They were just too treaty-non-compliant for others, including myself, to ignore, and they need to remain so in order for anything that happened afterward to make sense.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

I think it's a design that needs to be kept as-is. A less blatant over-build might not have triggered the fuss that the original did.

I think I probably agree with this.

Tonnage saving compromise, I keep them as is with the historical refit to hit treaty legality, but I make it a class of two instead? Also, does this mean that the board feels that the Saints are moreso at fault then the Ceasers for the Italian part of Cileto collapsing? If so, does that mean the Ceasers fall out of the "keep exactly as is catagory and into "modafiable"?

My thought is the following.

IF Saint class is more to blame then Ceaser THEN Saint class stays as is (three with refit), Ceaser's become repeat Saints (savings of ~12,000t overall) [This is my preferred solution, the Ceaser's size means that with the refits locked in many ships in the 1932-1934 range will need to be cut due to lack of funds. The tonnage difference per quarter (~100 per hull at fastest build speed) and the one less quarter of build time is more beneficial then the overall savings from what I have laid out so far.]
OR
IF Ceaser class is more to blame then Saint THEN Ceaser stays as is (three), Saints become class of two (savings of ~16250t overall)

I see Rocky's point. Perhaps keeping the designs intact and building fewer vessels is the better way to go.

Quoted

IF Saint class is more to blame then Ceaser THEN Saint class stays as is (three with refit), Ceaser's become repeat Saints (savings of ~12,000t overall) [This is my preferred solution, the Ceaser's size means that with the refits locked in many ships in the 1932-1934 range will need to be cut due to lack of funds. The tonnage difference per quarter (~100 per hull at fastest build speed) and the one less quarter of build time is more beneficial then the overall savings from what I have laid out so far.]
OR
IF Ceaser class is more to blame then Saint THEN Ceaser stays as is (three), Saints become class of two (savings of ~16250t overall)

I don't know what aspects of the Caesar class violated the CT other than being laid down while Italy was already at the maximum number of hulls in the capital ship category due to the Saints.

Looking at the ency, the Caesars were a 1932 design and the Saints are listed as 1933 designs (although they are really a 1931 design and for some reason changed to 1933). The Saints go 1931 vessels with a range of 6,540nm at 20.00 kts to 1933 vessels with a range of 9,500nm at 20.00 kts. Changes to bunkerage is a 50% job and I cannot remember Italy ever having paid partial reconstruction (IIRC "rebuild" back in those days) costs for the design. Now I do not know if the sim is a 1931 one which RA changed to 1933 or a 1933 sim but if it is the latter, it would also require a 50% Partial Reconstruction due to changes to the machinery. Main belt changes as well and as the discussion back then indicated, due to the decapping plate, the main belt being changed would be an internal belt which also requires 50%...

Looking at the encyclopedia stuff and from what I can remember, the Saints became operational in 1933 when the Caesars were still under construction. RA wanted the Saints counted as heavy cruisers and the Caesars as capital ships, but due to the displacements both classes would (and should) be counted towards capital ship tonnage. At that point the Caesars were violating the CT (as Italy already had the maximum number of hulls when it comes to capital ships due to the Saints).

Now comes another problem. If you change the Saints so they are CT legal as heavy cruisers, then the Italian treaty violations never happened because the Caesars are counted as capital ships. If you change the Caesars so they are CT legal as heavy cruisers, then the Italian treaty violations never happened either because the Saints would be counted towards the capital ship tonnage (and no messing around with the design would be needed either). Therefore making changes to either one of the two classes is going to change the whole early 1930s situation IC.

Man! I'm sure that back then, we would never have realized how big an OOC mess those Italian ships would make in the future...

Quick! We must go back in time in order to spank RA for all the illegal construction stuff he is doing and change everything immediately so there is no need for Snip to go thought all this mess today !!!

If the Ceasers are recast as slightly improved Saints, the same issue of both counting to capital ship construction stays because the Saint design is overweight anyway. The situation would play out like this, First three Saints are laid down in 1931, second three in 1932. Come 1933 when the first three complete, the whole dustup over whether they are cruisers or capital ships occurs as historical. They are refitted to make them compliant, with the idea that the second three will be refitted in the same way on completion. The Treaty collapses before the second three complete, so they remain unaltered from there original design.

Did you look at the CT whether that idea is possible? Because I do not think it would be.

Italy is allowed 280,000 tons of cruiser tonnage. Of those 280,000 tons, a maximum of 84,000 tons can be used for heavy cruisers. If we add the tonnages of the Zaras, Saints and Caesars together, you will have a total of 117, 258 tons meaning that Caesars would be counted towards the capital ship tonnage anyway so refitting them at that point to try and make them heavy cruisers seems to be a bit useless and a waste of materials when all three of them would still remain capital ships...

Should be noted that the 117,258 ton value is based on the 13,667 ton figure of RA's "Final Design, 1933" for all six vessels.If I calculate it correctly, when you want to stick to 6 hulls, the maximum tonnage per hull would be 8,551 tons in order to fit them into the heavy cruiser category and when you want to go for 4 hulls, that value would be 12,827 tons.

It seems to me that player base would prefer to see the ships built to their original designs, and subsequently refitted, and in their original numbers. This would be a burden, as RA was only able to scrape up the tonnage to build these sort of ships through his creation of bogus factories. It would limit what Italy could build in the post-Cleito period, when some of RA's more avant-garde designs appeared. Am I correct in my interpretation?

In this case, burden=cutting every non-mandatory ship that crosses into 1933 for construction. Something has to give here, especially considering there is no way to refit the Saints into compliance without a 50% job. It seems to me like the Saints are the most important class in this case, as long as something that only fits into capital tonnage is laid down in 1932. Since the original Saint design itself fits into capital tonnage, a repeat in place of the Ceasers makes the most sense to save tonnage without cutting numbers.

Urg.

Let me see if I can sum up the issues:
- The Saints were laid down in 1931 and refitted in 1933 to conform with the CT. Original tonnage was 13,874 tons; their revised design tonnage was 13,005 tons.
- The Caesars were built in 1932 in violation of the CT.
- You want to recast the Caesar class as repeat Saints.

I'm... not fond of the concept of recasting the Caesar class as repeat Saints. Looking over the rough draft spreadsheet I made up for you, I really don't see a problem making it work. If tonnage is a problem, there are five factories producing infrastructure in 1933 - just flip some or most of them back to tonnage, and flip a later year (say, 1937 or 1938) to infrastructure instead of tonnage to make up the difference.

I'm following the events of 1931-33 with regards to these two classes as follows.

1931: The Saint class cruisers are laid down. If the design specs are known, it is assumed by treaty members they will count for the last bit of Capital Tonnage allotted to Italy. Italy (wrongly) claims they are heavy cruisers per the treaty.
1932: The Ceaser class is laid down. It is clear these are going to be capital ships and take up the remainder of the tonnage.
1933: The Saints complete, and it is now clear they violate the heavy cruiser section the treaty. Italy refits the Saints to meet the restrictions of the Heavy cruiser category. [Rather then the historical 25% job they will likely need a 50% refit to get under tonnage, still fiddling with it]
1934: The Ceasers complete and take up the remaining Capital ship tonnage allotment.

So if the following is right, as long as the Ceasers meet the definition of Capital unit the broad issue still remains. This understanding is why I am wondering if cutting tonnage for the Ceasers is a possibility. I had originally thought (see second quoted bit of text) on using the Saints as a way to cut overall tonnage expenditures, but that is clearly not an acceptable solution.

Regarding the draft spreadsheet, there are a couple differences between it and mine. First, it does not account for the construction and refit of the Saints. Also, it treats the Saints as a 1933 new build, which takes less tonnage overall and leaves a stockpile from 1931-32 to pick up any slack during 1933. Second, I have the factory increases coming in the windows where RA had them (1933-34, 1938-39 and 1940-41 respectively) rather then the more drawn out increases in your sheet (one every 4 years with a year gap). I recall that one of the locked items I was working under was that the factories were built in the same window as RA's factories, if this is wrong I can correct it.