WesWorld

Considering I'm not enthused with the idea of maintenance in the first place, I really don't know why I spent the time to come up with this- must be my "talent" for long, overly complex and wordy documents coming to the fore.

I've went and muddled this up, but here's a short summation, followed by a long, and overly elaborate explanation as to why. Sometimes I dare people to ask me to explain things, consider yourself warned....

Presuming that everyone has a spreadsheet they use to track ships, whether Open Office, Lotus, or Excel.

You'd need Normal (tonnage), Category, Status and "Maintenance" columns

First - I think there should be several 'categories' of ships, with different maintenance rates. Rates are examples.

A) 5.0 Example vessels : Submarines- I've read several times that Subs cost as much as a cruiser to run, because of the engineering, machinery and training. 6 x 1500= 9000, so that seems about right.
B) 1.0 Example vessels : Destroyers- Lightly build, delicate machinery, Carriers in the case of carriers, not only do you need a responsive powerplant, but there are planes to maintain.
C) 0.75 Example vessels : Cruisers- Economical, solidly built, well armed; Escorts heavily armed escorts. Seaplane tenders. again due to aircraft support.
D) 0.6 Example vessels : Battleships- Robust, powerful machinery and hulls Escorts : lightly armed & overbuilt escorts
E) 0.20 Example vessels : Support vessels, minelayers, tenders, subchasers- pretty much minimum crews and power plants.

Second that there should be several "Status" levels
A) 1.2 Combat : Manned, extensive sea time, expends ammo. Note this is 1.5 * operational, though I am still not sold on this number.
B) 1.0 Active : Manned, extensive sea time and training munitions expenditure.
C) 0.8 Operational : Manned, limited sea time and training round expenditure.
D) 0.20 Reserve. Tied up at dock, skeleton crew ensures maintained, engines run, manned by naval reserves.
E) 0.1 Laid up. Mothballed, annual inspections, no crew. Needs minor refit to activate.

Maintenance would be
Light * Category*status*0.054 = tons/year.

So, the USS South Dakota at war would run : 36,367 * 0.6 * 1.2 * 0.054 = 1,414 tons
The French Algerie would absorb : 9,485 * 0.75 * 1.2 * 0.054 = 461 tons
a Destroyer Squadron of Anderson Class DDs would run : (1425* 8 ) * 1 * 1.2 * 0.054 = 752 tons
and a squadron of Polish Orzel class submarines would take about (1487* 8 ) *5.0 * 1.2 * 0.054 = 3,854 tons (482 each, a touch more than Algerie)

How to pay for it?
Call it maintenance points, MPs
Factory output as maintenance is one method, and allows stockpiling = 1,000 MPs / Q or 1,250 MPs / Q if dedicated.

Under the category and under the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
Drydocks should produce some maintenance as a representation of repair facilities = 110 MPs / IP invested.
Dedicated tenders should produce some as well, as another form of repair facility = 28 MPs / 1,000 tons light displacement

Conversion to Normal tonnage- Normal seems to run 10-20% more than light. Using 15% more the guide, then :
Normal * Category * status * 0.047 should yield similar results.

Now, since I've proposed this, I went through the exercise of doing my fleet.
The difference between escort and heavy escort seems valid- the heavily armed S19 class costs 25% more to run than the FF1 class. I ran into issues with my habit of recording things like MAS 1000 as 12x MAS 1934. etc. So it's not entirely accurate, but close. Most combat vessels are active (to reflect a high state of training), most support in reserve, with patrol being operational or active.

Total required : 31,684 maintenance points.
Tenders : 1,114 mps
Drydocks : 37 IPs = 4,070 mps
Annual deficit : 26,500 MPs.

(We can always add Factories and Slips if we so choose. )
This deficit can be made up by 5.3 factories being dedicated to maintenance, or slightly over 1/3 the Dutch manufacturing base.

Since most of my combat tonnage was Active, going to wartime appears achievable without collapse, though 7-10 factories might need to be committed.

It's a little more complex than desirable, but feels decent. I don't like the result, but I don't think I was supposed to given I am not agitating for maintenance in the first place.

WHY???

Well I was working from a couple of data point and a ton of wishful thinking work.

This 1950 article is interesting

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl…13416-3,00.html

The bit about a 1940 destroyer costing $293,000 / year is especially interesting.
By 1940 the USN was prepping for war, and engaged in North Atlantic "Nuetrality" patrols, so this likely represents a fairly active vessel, not one laid up.

But for what destroyer class? or is that an average? We don't know.
If we use a 1,500 ton destroyer, the cost works out to $195.33/ std. ton.

Using an 1935 (completed 1939-40) Anderson Class, 1,570 standard ton DD as a base, we can put it in SS2.
SS2 does not like it, gives it a 0.09 hull str), and it comes to 1425 tons light, while it costs about $4.723mil in 1935, or 5.477mil in 1940 to construct. Interestingly, Jane's states they cost $7,000,000 each, but American construction was comparatively expensive.

IF 1487 tons (light) = $5.477 million for construction.
Then 1 ton (light) = $3,663 for construction.

Given that Operations is $293,000 / year, this gives worth (293,000/3663) of 80 light tons worth of material.
This is 5.38% of the ship's material value, for an expensive to operate vessel likely engaged in active open sea service.

So this made the baseline value to work off of 5.4%.

There seemed to be two main variables- type of vessel and type of use. So I made up categories and assigned values for those.
For type, there seemed some logical groupings
Destroyers would be the baseline 1.0 value. Cruisers should be cheaper. Subs reportedly cost as much to run as cruisers, but the latter are usually 6-8 times larger than subs. 3/4 * 6= 4, 3/4 * 8 = 6, and 5 is in the middle. Fancy, no?

Active was my presumed operational level. Since ammo is not being expended, I put combat above that. Presuming that this represents more than simple peacetime service is less I placed operational below. Since others wanted combat to be 1.5 * operational, I made that work. Since the 1946 USN budget was about 1/6 of the 1944, I put reserve as 1/6 of combat. Also that 1950 article puts the maintenance part of the budget at 26%, but not all the USN was laid up, so 20% seemed ballpark. Terribly scientific.

The factories as maintenance
As for the drydocks and tenders-
A previously floated idea included drydocks at 2,000 tons * IP /year, so 2,000 * 0.054 = 110 * IP = # MPs
I don't include slips, but it could be done.

Tenders should also be useful, and don't do anything but support the fleet, while drydocks are useful for other things. So I think Tenders should be twice as valuable.

So it takes a minimum of 8,000 "lost" factory output to yield 1 IP, taking 2 years at 4,000 a year. So 110/8 = about 13.75 per 1,000 tons , but double that = about 28 MPs for every 1,000 tons of tender.

We can always add Factories and Slips if we so choose.

I ran India through the paces:

Tenders contribute 964 MP
Drydocks contribute 3080 MP

Assuming everything's "Active", the BNS needs ~29,000 MP

Shortfall: ~25,000 MP, or 5 factories (of 11) dedicated to maintenance.

I find it curious that there's only a difference of 2,000 MP between India and the Netherlands, as I wouldn't think having all auxiliaries at Operational status would make such a difference, and (I thought) the Dutch fleet was substantially larger...maybe I should check my math.

From Pugh's Cost of Seapower

Life cycle cost can be summarised as:

Life Cycle cost per quarter = (Outlay x 3)/80

(80 being 20 years X 4 quarters)

In service is 100% and laid up is a 60% saving (fuel, crew reduced maintenance etc.)

Cheers,

Kirk,

I like your idea for several reasons:

1.) It´s easy enough to understand and it helps you´ve kept the number of categories and status levels at a minimum.
2.) It doesn´t change any other rules we have.
3.) It raises the value of tenders which might make some players build a few for realisms sake which in return costs material not spend for more fighting units otherwise.
4.) It is not necessary to have another source for material (maintenance or other) as your idea is entirely based on current factory output.

On the other side I predict discussions regarding ship categories bur if players are willing to accept the idea of yours I hope those discussions will calm down soon.

I may favor a moneytary system for WW2.0 as I originally build my fleet that later became the RSAN to a money based rule but of all proposals seen here yours´ the one I favour most even though I hadn´t time to run a large navy like the RSAN through it.

EDIT: For those thinking factor 1.2 is too high for war time service keep in mind you can also run your nation with wartime economy adding quite some "money to play with" to your bucket.

It gets the tick from me.

Mine requires too much change and I'm tired of discussing it.

Cheers,

time to hit the spreadsheets.

I'm suspecting we'll see a lot of countries that can't afford both their current fleet AND their current building plans (just like the Dutch example showed). I know Germany can't or won't soon, for example, since Germany is not overly blessed with drydocks.

I expect we'll want to give factories some MP output without having to be dedicated, something like this:

Factories can produce per quarter:
(Construction materials/IP as normal) + 250 MPs
1250 MPs (not sure about a bonus for commitment).

I'm inclined to agree - India is relatively well endowed with drydocks for its fleet and still comes out in a rather precarious position. The question is whether this means the BNS is excessively large for India's industry, the dryodck/tender side has been neglected too much, or that those two factors are fine and it's the interlinking math that needs adjusting.

I think I see an error in my math in my spreadsheet: Kirk, is it supposed to be (Normal)*(Status)*(Condition)*(.047)? I think I used the 0.054 from the light displacement version...

Looks like I have Zero spreadsheet capability's on my computer, looks like I'll have to get one.

I just want to get one thing straight, we pay the actual maintenance costs with MP's, 1.0MP=1,000 tons?

Quoted

Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
I'm suspecting we'll see a lot of countries that can't afford both their current fleet AND their current building plans (just like the Dutch example showed).

Well that´s why we went for maintenance after all because realism tells us there has to be a natural limit to fleet size for every country, big or small.

So yes, I expect several players to learn their current navy is larger than they could affort (if keeping all units active) and others will learn they have some leeway to play with. Those with navies too large will have to mothball some of their units or downgrade some units´ readiness and training. I can´t see what´s wrong with that (could even mean the RSAN is one of those navies too large too, haven´t calculated it yet).

IMHO standard factory output should be used to pay maintenance costs. Everything else doesn´t make sense to me and just adds another source to feed the fleets. Dedicating factories thus brings the well known bonus so no new rules necessary which is most important at least to me.

Do we agree on using standard or light displacement? I favour standard as this already includes material necessary for a ships active carreer.

Kirk,

Although the technique you propose makes sense, and is easy enough once the spreadsheet's set up, I've looked through the numbers and have found two issues, each of which suggests that tenders and drydocks are under-rated.

First is the tender's ability to generate MP, versus the amount of MP required to maintain the craft the tender supports. A tender that is 8,000 t light can generate 224 MP, using maybe 24 MP to maintain itself. This leaves 200 MP. However, a Cleito-compliant(ish) Miraj class destroyer is 1,951 t, and at "Operational status" uses 73 MP. So the tender can maintain, at most, ~2.5 destroyers, less than its own displacement.

The situation is worse with submarines; an I-6 class submarine is 1,748 t normal. At Operational status, it requires 329 MP per year - so the 8,000 t tender can not maintain the one submarine on its own. Intuitively, this does not make sense - the tender should be able to support several destroyers or submarines. Either the tender's capability is being underrated, or the tendees' requirements are being over-estimated.

Second, you've noted that a tender would generate 28 MP per 1000 t of light displacement, or 224 MP for 8,000 t of light displacement. A 1 IP drydock, which takes the same amount of factory time to construct, produces 110 MP, because it is, as you note, not focussed on maintenance.

When there's a shortfall, a factory can produce 5000 MP per year if dedicated to the function. A factory costs 10 IP; therefore, a factory can produce 500 MP per IP. This more than twice as effective as a tender, and almost five times more effective than a drydock. This is a strong disincentive for players to build dedicated tenders and drydocks.

Consequently, I think we need to re-visit the capability of the tenders and drydocks...

Rocky,

I think your logic is flawed regarding tenders maintaining DD or sub flotillas.

A tender helps in a moment, it helps were no yard is available but no tender can maintain a flotilla on its own. As I see it a tender helps to distribute maintenance and provides it where necessary but the material a tender puts into subs, DDs etc. has to come from a factory. It´s factory output.

So I think a tender should add a bonus but should not be used for a factories job.

That being said it might well be true we need to fiddle around with Kirks values to make them fit but not by factor 4-5.

My two cents...

Using the numbers as proposed, and the rough conversion from standard to normal tonnage, Germany ends up with a maintenance bill (with all ships at Active status) of approximately 13110 tons. With 27 IPs worth of docks, this results in a maintenance bill of 6360 MPs (I don't know if the Dithmarschen-class tankers would count as tenders or not). So if we adopt this idea, I'll need to devote a factory or two to maintenance, not a large problem.

Note, though, that the KM is a pretty small force: 2 old (small) battleships, 2 large cruisers, 4 heavy cruisers, no fleet carriers at all, etc.

Quoted

Originally posted by The Rock Doctor

I think I see an error in my math in my spreadsheet: Kirk, is it supposed to be (Normal)*(Status)*(Condition)*(.047)? I think I used the 0.054 from the light displacement version...

Hrolf had made the suggestion that using Normal as a basis might be more appropriate. I used the sim'd Andersons normal to make an alteranate formula with 0.047, the 0.054 is for Light.

As for the difference between the Indian and Dutch fleets- a fair number of Dutch ships are escorts/minewarfare vessels with a 0.6 or 0.75 category, and those are in reserve. Plus RAM endowed the Netherlands with a good number of Drydocks.

Several different comments / critiques.

1. Standard or Light or Normal- up to the players.
The formula (0.054) put forward was cobbled together based on Light. Hrolf had previous suggested Normal, so provided 0.047 as an alternate. This was based on the Light:Normal range (being ~1.11  1.17 , compromising at 1.15) of the stock ships provided with SS2.

2. The values for the Drydocks and Tenders was put forward to achieve several goals, but were simply based on values in the Adapting Roger's Old Maintenance Idea.... thread. That postulated a value of 2500t per IP, and misremembered it at 2000 (whoops) and worked from there.

Since that proposal had a 1 IP drydock supporting 2000 tons (as I recalled), this is the equivalent of 1 IP supporting (2000 *0.054) = 108.

Revised for 2500 tons per that thread the numbers would place Docks at 135 / IP, and Tenders at 35 / 1,000t light

Since I was trying to cobble together the various things people were trying to achieve, that thread seemed a good start point, but I really do not mind modifying it.

3. Inclusion/non inclusion of Docks/Tenders.
I opted for inclusion because
1) docks and slips were in the Adapting Roger's Old Maintenance Idea....,
2) that access to frequent light maintenance facilities as they represent, should decrease annual costs.
3) produced more value for players to build these facilities- particularly tenders- and allowed them to supplement normal maintenance. Something of a RP fudge.
4) Tenders were not (again up to the players) meant to replace annual maintenance for subs/DDs, merely aid.

4. Yes, this is going to be painful for the Dutch. Not only will it disrupt current production plans, but I would need to check what the fleet costs when all on Combat status. I expect I will not like the answer. Personally, I still dont like maintenance, in large part for this same reason.

5. I dont know why the Indian & Dutch fleets were close. I took about ½ hour to modify my spreadsheet, so I may have missed something, RAM endowed the Dutch with a fair number of Drydocks, and quite a large number of vessels are minesweepers/layers/escorts in reserve- which really decreases costs.

Factories produce their output of MP every quarter. Do docks and tenders do so as well, or is it 135/35 pts total for the year?

My understanding is most of these proposals are to be calculated on an annual basis.

The dock MPs were meant to support the same amount of shipping as in the Adapting Roger's Old Maintenance Idea...., which would make the 135 / 35 an annual supplement.

It really does not amount to much in the current form on an individual basis, but does en masse.
For example the Netherlands has 37(?) IPs in drydocks, generating 4,995 Mps and supporting 92,500 "active" tons of Category 2 (1.0 DDs/CVs)- which is helpful.

The 4x 5,111 ton Hermann and 2x 9,674 ton Zuiderkruise class tenders for an additional 1392 MPs supporting another 25,778 tons of "active" category 2.

Those two resources pretty much cover my destroyers and carriers right there, so they do add up.

As a side note to Rocky, if the example tender can support 2.5 "operational" DDs, that means it can support 4x that of "Reserve" DDs- which would be of benefit, perhaps too much

I also think tenders and docks should provide anual bonus as maintenance should be calculated and paid per anual too.

If a ship is lost/sold mid-year calculation can be individually done per month.

I prefer using standard displacement.

Note: I´d also like to see us focusing on one solution now instead of coming up with more and more options every day.

Kirks idea seems to offer a maintenance rule without changing other rules thus with little disturbance of ongoing actions. It´s also easy enough to adopt and already gained some applause.

Here's my reasoning behind why normal displacement makes more sense for determining maintenance than light or standard.

1 - Normal displacement includes fuel loading, the others don't. While a ship operating in peacetime may well not take on a full fuel and ammo load, it will take on a partial load of both at least while it's going to sea for training. A ship that cruises at a higher speed will burn more fuel over a given distance than the same size ship that cruises at a lower speed, so maintenance on the faster ship should be higher. This is even more true in wartime, where the ship is much more likely to be carrying a full load of both fuel and ammunition.

2 - Normal displacement is no more difficult to use, it's provided by SS just like standard is. Just add the entry into the spreadsheet once and you're done.

3 - Normal displacement better covers some designs. Ships with very long ranges, or long ranges at high speeds, will be much cheaper to maintain using light or standard tonnage when they would never be able to leave dock in that condition.