WesWorld

Gentlemen,

Several weeks ago, the moderators were alerted to a situation that developed in the late 1920s and 1930s regarding the Italian factory count. To make a long story short, it appears that Red Admiral helped himself to a number of factories without ever paying any IP for them - and played pretty fast and loose with a few other of infrastructure projects. We alerted Snip about the issue, and after some discussion about what actions would be appropriate, Snip offered to redo the Italian sim reports from 1929 onward.

This redo will not take the form of the traditional sim reports due to the scope of the undertaking. Rather, Snip is putting together a spreadsheet indicating how Italy spent the tonnage it actually should have had, rather than what was incorrectly gained.

Given that snip will be redesigning to a lower budget, the design and quantities of certain Italian warships will be altered. In general, the goal is to maintain the "feel" of the current Italian Navy while not exceeding the budget, although some changes (potentially major) may be necessary. I believe Snip is planning to begin posting revised ship designs in order to achieve general community buy-in and transparency in the rework process.

Thank you,
The Mods.

Phew, can finally talk about this publicly.

First, a thanks to the modos for handling the situation the way they did. Highly reasonable and open to hearing multiple suggestions.

Brock covers the basics of what happened. Due to rather underhand manipulation by RA, Italy ended up with 25 factories when it should have only had 21. Additional, there was some infrastructure that was similarly willed into existence. If there is interest in what occurred when, I can post the reports that highlight the issue.

Some notes on the reconstruction process on my end so far.
---During the period in question, there were three factories that were built correctly (barring one small hiccup). Seeing as these factories could have been reacted to according to there building, I have included them in the plan.
---Any and all ships that were sold to or built for other nations in the timeframe have already been budgeted for along with any refits to get them into the condition they left Italian service in. Tonnage from such transactions have been tabulated from the paying country's reports.
---Any ships deemed " of great significance to the history of WW" have been built in exacting condition of RA's sims as posted by him. So far the list contains only the Ceaser class Armored Cruisers.

If any of you have any questions/comments about the process or anything that I might have missed when covering the above, please let me know.

Designs and other more ship-centric information will be posted here.

After that was mentioned I took a quick look at the early reports...

1921 Q3
5 Factories produce 0.5pts
0.6pts spent on new factory. 7.8pts needed to complete.

Varese, Vircelli (DL 01/02) => no tonnage used

1921 Q4
Type 3 port at Mogadishu needs 8.0pts to complete => should be 9 pts

Varese, Vircelli (DL 01/02) => launched without any tonnage put into ships

1922 Q1
Varese, Vircelli (DL 01/02) => no tonnage used

1922 Q2
Varese, Vircelli (DL 01/02) => completed no tonnage used

1922 Q3
5 fixed factories produce 0.5 pts => were listed as unfixed in Q1 and Q2

0.6pts spent on factory no. 18
Factory No. 18 needs 5.7pts to complete => in Q2, it was given as 5.8 (should be 5.9). Should be 5.3 needed for Q3.

1.5pts used from 3 Regina Elana class ships.
Type 3 port at Mogadishu needs 6.5pts to complete

Not sure about scrap material being converted to IPs. Can't remember about the rules back then.

1923 Q1
6x General class DDs completed, each 26 tons short

1923 Q3
5x FL01 class completed, each 1 ton short

1924 Q1
Telemachus completed 3001 tons short
Ulysses and Pallas completed 1 ton short

2 fixed factories produce 0.2pts
4 unfixed factories produces 0.4pts

0.9pts spent on type 3 port

1924 Q2
Tonnage needed is 13536. Only 13464 available.

1924 Q3
Mogadishu port indicated as complete. Still needs 1 pt or 2.5 (if the 1.5 from the Regina Elanas are invalid)

1924 Q4
2 fixed factories produce 0.4pts
6 unfixed factories produces 0.6pts

0.3pts spent on Factory No. 18
1.0pts spent on Type 1 Drydock at Mogadishu

Total spend is 1.3. Only 1.0 available.

Great...

*sound of head hitting desk*

Clearly the curl vector of Italy isn't 0. Seems they've broken the spacetime continuum over there.

What a mess!

I wonder if RA ever factored in ships built for NPCs. The two Almirante Brown cruisers and the two Patagonias were built while Argentina was still an NPC. I wonder how much, if anything went into Italian coffers from that deal? Technically Argentina would have paid those costs but I wonder how much profit there was...

I would caution going back too far into WW history. The early 1920s seem to have been very fluid and fast and loose. Doing my recent Iron Duke piece it seems the first Australian player had gotten his hands on two Iron Dukes and a sixth Queen Elizabeth called HMS Australia, then when he left Gravina had the two IDs with the RN still, the two RAN ships became two battlecruisers and finally when Foxy took over the IDs were retransferred and Iron Duke became HMAS Australia. There may have been an RAN carrier floating around too. God knows if anyone paid for this stuff or not.
I suspect much of the early history of Wesworld is corrupted in this way and there are probably a fair few ships (as I and other players have found) which were lost or disappeared.

I will say though, there is a difference between confusion between the eras of different players to Snip's problem given RAs reign of Italy was long. Some may be spreadhseet or rounding errors, but some must have been duplicitous. Surprising none of this was noticed at the time.

As Hood has noted, early on in Wesworld, there were some things done that might not pass muster. Also, there are the occasional rounding and typographical errors that fall through the cracks.

Italian Factory No.18 is a case in point – sometimes factories there unfixed and then fixed, and the decrements in the IP remaining might not match the IP reported as expended, but overall, Factory No.18 received as close a total of IP that it ought that it makes little matter. The Italian factory count has other problems.

As for the use of the Regina Elenas, that was raised for discussion and comment, here. No one objected at the time.

As the mods have indicated, the serious problems arise in 1929, with the construction of EAS Factory No.3 (yes, there was such a beast). The problem is that IP from Greece were used to construct it, but Greece spent those very same IP on other projects. Also, if you tote up the IP allocated the construction of this factory – even allowing for the appropriated Greek IP – it comes up short.

What is truly egregious occurs in 4Q32, when EAS Factory No.3 disappears from history and three factories magically appear in Italy – raising the home total from 18 to 21.

This is why the moderators have wisely chosen to specify 1Q29 as the cutoff point for the work Snip has to do. While there could be small issues prior to that date, one has to draw a line in the sand.

Hood, I can understand your surprise. I was around at the time and never noticed anything. I can't recall if that's because I was cherry-picking what I read, or because I just assumed everybody was on the up-and-up and so didn't check data.

A reminder, Snip, that I still "EAS" to build CV Abaywenz...

Quoted from "BruceDuncan"

This is why the moderators have wisely chosen to specify 1Q29 as the cutoff point for the work Snip has to do. While there could be small issues prior to that date, one has to draw a line in the sand.

That is correct. The mods are aware that other problems occurred with Italian sim reports prior to 1929, but we are drawing the line at 1929. What is before is done - otherwise snip just might as well re-start Italy at 1920.

Just checked Patagonia and Pampas.
It seems no tonnage was listed for these vessels while they were built, they appeared on the slips but now accounting was done. So it seems nothing was subtracted or added to RA's tonnage totals.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

A reminder, Snip, that I still "EAS" to build CV Abaywenz...

I have some tonnage set aside to get a good sized (18,000t light) CV floated out to allow you to sink it. Depending on how bothered I am I might actually sim the ship.

Quoted from "snip"

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

A reminder, Snip, that I still "EAS" to build CV Abaywenz...

I have some tonnage set aside to get a good sized (18,000t light) CV floated out to allow you to sink it. Depending on how bothered I am I might actually sim the ship.

No worries - and remember she's only got to be about 40% complete to be floated out.

Quoted

Some may be spreadhseet or rounding errors, but some must have been duplicitous.

Well with rounding, I can understand if the error is that you were to make 0.2 ton to be 1 ton with scrapping or 406.7 tons into 406 tons with refits/rebuilds. But to make 1526 tons into 1500 with normal construction where you only use whole tons from SS sims? Even a 8001 ton ship being rounded down to 8000 I find very questionable, even if it is just 1 ton.

I usually do rounding as I was taught with math. That means that with everything between 0 and 0.4999... is rounded down and everything between 0.5 and 0.9999... is rounded up. There are a couple of exceptions:

1) Miscellaneous weights I round up all the time so if for example I need a minimum of 262.1 tons for ballast on a sub, I make that 263 minimum.
2) With scrapping I add up the tonnage of multiple hulls of the same class and then round up or down the total I get, but I only do that for same class hulls when the materials become available in the same quarter once processed.

Quoted

What is truly egregious occurs in 4Q32, when EAS Factory No.3 disappears from history and three factories magically appear in Italy – raising the home total from 18 to 21.

Sounds more like all three EAS factories were absorbed by Italy, but at the same time two of them got cloned and stayed with the EAS.

Quoted

I have some tonnage set aside to get a good sized (18,000t light) CV floated out to allow you to sink it. Depending on how bothered I am I might actually sim the ship.

If you don't want it, I don't mind buying an unfinished CV for $1.99 and complete it.