WesWorld

In the interwar period there were two dominat shools of thought.
The USN shool of thought with favored a fleet that was design to fight as a single large unit.Were every ship had a job to do and everybody had there place in line.
The navy was more that just sum of its parts
The other shool of thought was that all warships had to be able to figth in every concivable situation.
Battle ships had weapons that were specificly place to battle destroyers and CL.
Each single ship was a hunter that was design do stock its pray.
Looking on the navys in Wesworld the latter is the dominat aproche to ship building we all build best posible designs on there own while there value comperd to previous design is a secondary concern.
Egasample like Pisa or Erzatz A stand out but this are the more brigth designs.

Some time ago Some one posted a tread regarding that for him the navys are a group of fevorite design and anot real fleets in the sense that there are design to work together as whole.I see no problem whith that as its a delibrete aproche as all of us(I think) decided that this is the way for there respective fleets.


Asking for You advice time and time again You were pointing out that this or that design in given scenario will be show inferior qualities.

So my question is what are You view on the matter is the aproche of individualy superior platforms better over building a superior squadron.
Yes I know that it is beat to have a squadron of superior platforms one have to compromise some whare.

Regards Marek.

Italy has completely rethought the strategy of the 1920s with a view to reducing costs. Building and maintaining 9 large, modern battleships would be nigh on impossible.

Instead squadrons are centered around Armoured Cruisers, with light cruisers and destroyers in company.

Indian Ocean, deploy 2 SAG(Surface Action Group) which are able to resupply and repair from Mogadishu and Massawa. Made up of 1-2 ACRs, 2-3 light cruisers and 6-8 destroyers. Bear in mind the long range of more modern destroyers in order for them to be effective for oceanic escort. The SAG gives reasonable firepower against larger ships with torpedoes and excess speed, effective AA defense due to increased training and good positioning, some anti-submarine capability from the modern destroyers, good range of operations from seaplanes onboard the cruisers. Also probable to combine two SAGs to act enhance the ability of a battleship/carrier.

Carriers, the large carriers are strike-heavy, with about 4:1 in favour of the strike aircraft. This may not provide adequate defense or scouting ability, so the much smaller carriers which only operate a handful of fighters or scouts.

It all ties together reasonably well, it just hasn't happened yet.

The example of Pisa is bad. Italy didn't want to build heavy cruisers with 203mm guns so instead built a massively gun-heavy light cruiser class to do the same job on less displacement. The other light cruisers are better suited to scouting roles, or acting as flag units for overseas operations.

Quoted

The USN shool of thought with favored a fleet that was design to fight as a single large unit.Were every ship had a job to do and everybody had there place in line.

The problem with that is that the USN had a fairly clear enemy, so they thought up a way to beat him. When the IJN didn't line up nicely to be blown out of the water the US planning sort of went to pot. What sounds more threatening?:
"Attack me and I'll come kick your ass."
"Attack me and I'll go away to build some more ships for 6-12months, then come and kick your ass."

Interesting question. For my part I’m trying to make the Dutch fleet more capable of operating as a unit while also moving towards a Hi/Lo concept, where the “Hi” ships are individually superior, while the “Lo” round out the fleet. This is in large part due to the broad responsibilities the Dutch navy faces.

I find myself attempting to define the likely future opposing force and tactics and build to meet that need. The Netherlands Capital ships thread I had was about different ways of approaching such problems. I would of course prefer to have each individual unit somewhat superior to it’s foreign opposite, but the treaty makes this difficult. However my first consideration is to have sufficient units to fill the needs for them. This is why I’m trying to use the unlimited category for patrol and commerce protection duties.

Those “Lo” designs are intended to free fleet units while being adequate for dealing with a limited threat envelope. One of the considerations in the future employment of my CDS tonnage is how big to make that envelope, and if crippling, or threat of same, an enemy BC is adequate compensation for the potential loss of that ship. Another is to move into the MAS-type offensive ships.

This should free the “Hi” designs to concentrate and act as a fleet. There are some legacy issues with this due to different cruising speeds and ranges, I’m trying to move towards a more unified future with cruising at 15kts, minimum range 8000 (Matadi to Jakarta), preferred 12,000, and for the big ships a maximum range 16,650 (Amsterdam to Jakarta the long way).

Right now I’m struggling with my future cruisers. I have 20,000 in CA tonnage left, but that’s only 1.5x 13,000 ton units. So..how to dice it up?..but I haven’t come up with a doctrine for the CAs, which is making it harder to decide what’s needed for the job. Then I have the light cruisers- replace the old little ones with even more new little ones as DDLs? Or fewer larger ones?

Chile would like to go with the American practice, but does not have the funds nor manpower to put such a force in action.

This issue sprung too my mind when working on my fleet tactic website.The popular opinion is that the battle line tactic of the US Navy interwar period was a correct one.
"A Survey of the American Standard Type Battleship" by Joseph Czarnecki on navweaps.com have also given me some thought.
However I am not too certain that this particular view is a correct one.
The biggest treat to the USN was (teoreticly)the RN.
Althou on paper US had advantage with is homogenus Battleline RN had the other advantege.Althou there battle line was inferior they were able to pick the time and place of the battle.USN was able to presshome there advantege but attacking a place the british had to defend.But attacking a high value target gives the british other benefits.

RA Your aproche is a sound idea, there are ofcoure ways to conter act it but all tactics have them.
I am not attacking Pisa Im just saying that she stands out in its own fleet not fast enought for a CL and not big enougt to be cosiderd a big CL like the early mogami and brooklyn

KK a core fleet and a large number of small sopport ships has merits, but personaly I think this plan has it down side Your losses in the smaller ships will be overwhalming using smaller ships as cannonfother is not my cup of tea.


Ithekro smaller navys can go the american way offcorse on a smaller scale building a navy that is design to act as a single task force is not prohibited by the economy base You will just have to make a smaller navy.

Atlantis favors the American strategy as well albeit in a more flexable form.

Battleships particularily the newer ships are designed to be individually superior and deploy in 2 ship divisions as part of a squadron (4 ships). The current order of battle prevents this setup and leaves some squadrons understrength but once the Memnon and Philomedes class BB's are in service this issue will be delt with.

As with the Italian fleet, Atlantean carriers for the most part are slightly topheavy on strike craft due to the current deployments and designs. The Arrogant class ships for obvious reasons have a much larger AC capacity than the Alioth and as such can carry a heavier strike force. The Alioth by contrast ships more fighters.

Heavy cruisers like the battleships are assigned to 2 ship divisions while light cruisers are often assigned to 4 ship divisions. These two divisons are joined togeather to form the standard cruiser squadron assigned to a main fleet while a single CL division will be tasked with trade protection or scouting.

The Atlantean fleet takes a more defensive posture given the fact that its SLOC's are reasonably short, consintrating its fleet in important area's and letting the enemy come to them.

In reguards to subs they take a more offensive role.

In Turkeys case consintrating its assets into large fleets is the only way to go, having less ships of slightly inferior designs to its likely advasary forces this.

India has grappled with the problem that its apparent needs outstrip its capacity (and Treaty allotments). It has a larger coastline than some nations with much larger allotments. So compromises have been required.

The most basic issue was how to allocate capital ship and aircraft carrier tonnage. It was concluded that three units of each were desired, so that a two-ship force could be fielded while a third vessel was off doing other things (such as refits or other deployments).

This placed constraints on how large the ships could be. The three battleships were to be similar in capability so no one unit would be penalized for features it couldn't use in conjunction with the others. I chose to emphasize sturdy armor and speed at the expense of firepower, to give the ships a good chance of avoiding undesireable combat or at least surviving the event. I don't think the Akbars are great ships, but I do think any smaller than a 40,000 t ship will have difficulty dispatching one.

Carrier design was predicated on the notion that one ship would be dedicated to operating with the battleships in an air defence/scouting role, most likely in the Bay of Bengal region. Two others would be dedicated strike platforms for the Indian Ocean. It made more sense to build the one-off first. That's why Urumi is the way she is; Talwar will be somewhat different when I build her next year.

BB and CV numbers then meant that I needed a certain number of cruisers and destroyers to escort them, in addition to needing a few other cruisers and cans to do other jobs. So that's fixed the tonnage limits, plus I've tried to keep my light cruisers small enough to fit a T2 drydock since my facilities are limited.

The end result, ideally, will be a fleet that can:

-Defend Indian possessions and trade routes

-Work effectively with allied forces to the west or east

-Undertake limited power-projection missions

-Be a credible threat to those nations I want to influence (such as the Netherlands).

Them's my thoughts - are they relevant?

The RSAN uses a mixed approach. The navy is split into several fleets which would imply a unit based organisation. But each part of the RSAN is in itself build like an individual fleet including all elements and can thus be used to fight a decisive battle against an enemy in the area deployed to.

Germany's intent is to build a fleet, rather than a collection of individual units. This is made slightly easier in that good sized chunks of the existing fleet are old enough to be replaced under the Treaty, which allows some sort of coherence to be planned for. In a way, similar to the circumstance that confronted the USN at the time the "standard"-class DNs were built.

That said, of course there are advantages if the individual ships of a fleet are superior to many of their opposite numbers in an enemy's fleet. Admiral Hipper is, for the moment, a world-class CA design, Germany only hopes that this translates into steel.

Quoted

Originally posted by Marek Gutkowski
KK a core fleet and a large number of small sopport ships has merits, but personaly I think this plan has it down side Your losses in the smaller ships will be overwhalming using smaller ships as cannonfother is not my cup of tea.

Well I may have mispresented my ideas. The "Lo" small ships are not meant for cannon fodder unless times are desperate. "Historically" the Netherlands lost the Andamans in large part because they ran out of smaller craft- in that case the sloops and other craft would be used.

As I indicated, the Netherlands has a broad range of responsibilities, a large number of which require a large number of dispersed hulls. Rather than drain my treaty-limited strength, I have turned to the lighter ships with the goal to free my fleet destroyers and light cruisers from defensive and escort roles so they can focused on offensive matters.

Canada seems rather well off compared to other nations; It has a fairly generous treaty allotment, and while it has two oceans to defend, they're not overly large coastlines to defend, and Canada has no overseas territory to defend, only the possibilities of assisting fellow commonwealth members, and the US.

As such, Canada is currently focused on cruiser building, and is prefering to build 'superior' cruisers, as opposed to more cruisers of lesser ability.

R&R are still in service, and will either need extensive modernization or complete replacement in the coming years. Retaining R&R means having capital ships that would work well with carriers, but will need decent escorts, I'd think. If replaced, the new ships will probably be two more balanced 30k designs.

Canada's carrier allotments means either 3 Wasp-like designs, or more likely two larger ships.

Nordmark has the minor problem of needing to protect South Georgia, but while also keeping her shipping safe in between there and her possesions in the North Atlantic/Artic.

Nordmark now also faces the situation of being built up nearly to her limits on cruisers and destroyers, thus meaning that the emphasis is now turning to unlimited ships, while reconstructing the proportion of the capital ship force, while reducing the number of hulls to eight in the process.

Also, with the Baltic, I have recently returned to Peng's school of thought about it being a subsiduary command, with all the CDS ships included in it. Also the Cruisers now migrating to the Baltic are the older Tampere class ships including the 6 unrebuilt examples.

Escort ships that are unlimited by the treaty will have to start appearing like wildfire in the fleet in order to release Destroyers for front line duties, and several designs have been mooted, though many of the ships under the 1931-33 plan are going to be proved too small for the Atlantic, and will be relegated to work in the Baltic, and also coastal work.

As far as where the fleet is based, all capital ship units (barring Oscar II awaiting scraping in Karlskrona), are part of the Home fleet based in Trondheim, while cruiser squadrens are based at other strategic points around the empire.

For Greece there are a variety of scenarios. The worst case is a sea borne invasion by an obviously stronger navy. For this they would have to bring a considerable force (at least 4 modern BB) to counter Greece's 3 ship battlefleet (2 30k ton and 1 40k ton ships). Only the largest powers could afford to do this, provided they had no other commitments at the time.

For the most part, Greece depends on light forces but these are limited by treaty so the large Type E ships (2000ton frigates and gunboats) make up the 'B' team. The scouting forces have a strong focus too. In a Greek-Turkish war the navy's roles would be to empty the Med and Aegean of Turkish ships as quickly as possible. This would depend on the ability to track and hunt down Turkish ships in groups or individually. Fair fights? If Megas Alexandros encounters Osmaneh(sp?) then it's just too bad.

Cheers,

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If Megas Alexandros encounters Osmaneh(sp?) then it's just too bad.

Not likely to happen, but keep wishing ;-)

You fight with the navy you have, not the one you 'wish' it to be...

This is true, you also deal with the battles handed to you not the ones you wish for. Its not likely the Turks will hand you a one on 1 battle as you suggested.

There are cheaper ways of tackling a lumbering Megas Alexandros, hopefully she's prepared for those.

Cheaper yes, but it depends if you can 'afford' to loose a war at sea.

Counting chickens before they hatch?

Indeed, as neither chicken has hatched ; )

According to Manhan a navy has two roles: The protection of your merchant marine and destruction of that of your enemy, and the defense of your country.

It is practicly impossible to protect Australia from invasion as SATSUMA, AANM, FAR, and SAINT all vastly outnumber the RAN. On the other hand the threat of invasion is nil. The logistics make it extremly difficult to succesfully invade and hold Australia. That leaves my navy with one major role: the protection of my SLOC.

Australia is connected to GB via very vulnerable sea lines of communication. As such the RAN will be geared toward the mantaining of said lines open in case of war.

My plans are to field the following forces:
2 Carrier groups with 1 Carrier, 1 Light Battlecruiser (after treaty ends)

1 Battle group with Tiger, PR, possibly a light carrier

Each will also have:
1 Cruiser squadron with 1 Heavy Cruiser, 1 Heavy Light Cruiser, 2 Light Cruisers, 1 Seaplane Cruiser

1 Destroyer squadron with 1 Destroyer leader, 1 Heavy Destroyer, 5 Destroyers (2 squadrons after treaty ends)

Each of these groups should be capable of dealing with surface raiders. The carriers will carry mostly fighters and scout bombers. These groups will provide the fast wing for the RN battleline once it arrives to help (at least in theory)

In reserve will be:
2 Cruiser squadrons with, 1 Light Cruiser, 1 Destroyer, 5 Light Destroyers

1 Battle squadron with, Australia (ID), Canberra (Argus), 4 Light Destroyers

Finaly there will be another important element. Im planning two escort groups built around slow Heavy Cruisers (CDS) and escort carriers. These will free the main warships for more important duties than escorting merchants.

That pretty much sums up my plans for the Royal Australian Navy. Some ships especialy the heavy cruisers will be built to be individually superior to other heavy cruisers. Also my ships are designed with range and seakeeping in mind. I figure most ships will spend most of their lives in peacetime duties and even when at war will spend most of their time patrolling. Thats why my destroyers are the slowest in the world.



Mexico, here the panaorama is different. There are no SLOC to guard and the threat is single axis. On the other hand I have two coasts to guard and the Panama canal is in the hands of my potential enemy #1. So Im going to have to build two seperate fleets, one for each coast untill the canal is finished.