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Author Topic: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]  (Read 136497 times)

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Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
I can't help but have this nagging feeling about all these capitalships becoming obsolete before even leaving the docks.

I can't quite put it into words, but it bothers me.

 :lol:

Welcome to the 1900s, where every passing month can mean your entire fleet may become obsolete.

So Bayern or Derfflinger to satisfy the Kaiser?

*snip*

What good are four centerline turret designs if you won't build them, after all.....

Guys. This is 1907. And Germany still has no superfiring B turrets...or any gun bigger than the new 12" rifles... :p

You're going to see a lot of crazy designs before things start to make sense again.
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Backwards Tone? :lol:
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Backwards Tone? :lol:

Brilliant! [/Guinness] :drevil:
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 
Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Hey, at least you're going to have a lot of weight saved by those tiny main batteries to put towards speed and armor. :lol:
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[21:51] <@Droid803> this will be SLIIIIIGHTLY awkward
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[07:57:32] <Caiaphas> inspired by HerraTohtori i built a supermaneuverable plane in ksp
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Offline Mika

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
At least those crew member have those funnels to keep them cool



Funnels do not work that way!
Relaxed movement is always more effective than forced movement.

 

Offline crizza

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Excuse  me, but:
Quote
In early May, new docks were completed in Wilhelmshaven and Köln. Germany could now build 29k ton capital ships and her ship designers rubbed their hands together in glee.
Köln? AFAIK there were no shipyards that size, but ok^^

Can you cancel and scrap ships during their construction?

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Excuse  me, but:
Quote
In early May, new docks were completed in Wilhelmshaven and Köln. Germany could now build 29k ton capital ships and her ship designers rubbed their hands together in glee.
Köln? AFAIK there were no shipyards that size, but ok^^

There are now. We've poured more than twenty million Goldmarken into them. :P

This Germany's shipbuilding infrastructure is considerably more advanced than OTL Germany.  We can build bigger ships than the OTL Kaisers two years before the first Kaiser was laid down...

Quote
Can you cancel and scrap ships during their construction?

Yes. You'll get some of your money back in scrap steel. Note that the Kaiser/Ministry might veto the scrapping of ships under construction, unlike ships in service .

Also:
Hey, at least you're going to have a lot of weight saved by those tiny main batteries to put towards speed and armor. :lol:

This. But less of this than you think.
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline The E

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
There are now. We've poured more than twenty million Goldmarken into them. :P

This Germany's shipbuilding infrastructure is considerably more advanced than OTL Germany.  We can build bigger ships than the OTL Kaisers two years before the first Kaiser was laid down...

Yes, well, that doesn't really change the fact that Cologne is a really bad place for a major capital shipyard. Unless you're also paying to dredge up the Rhine so that capital ships can pass through it, and have reasonably good relations with the dutch to do the same on their end :P
Germany's shipbuilding is concentrated, for fairly obvious reasons, in Bremen, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Kiel (the latter being the traditional home of the german submarine fleet)

If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
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Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Holy crap, I just realised. Kiel, not Köln. WTF, Enioch?

Blame the typographer demon and the fact that I am currently more than a little tipsy.

Χριστός Ανέστη, everyone and Happy Easter. Lamb-on-a-spot-spit is particularly tasty this year. :p
« Last Edit: November 03, 2018, 09:24:10 am by Enioch »
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Mika

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Holy crap, I just realised. Kiel, not Köln. WTF, Enioch?

Blame the typographer demon and the fact that I am currently more than a little tipsy.

Χριστός Ανέστη, everyone and Happy Easter. Lamb-on-a-spot is particularly tasty this year. :p

Aaargh, guys, you are making this too easy!

Must... resist.... temptation....








Die Deutschen und Ihnen wunderbare Eisenbahn!

Bitte alle einsteigen zu dem Zug von Köln nach Kiel!

The front part of the ship is actually near to the scale of the train. It does make me wonder if the guys who took the original photos ever thought they could be used to create an abomination art like this :lol:
Relaxed movement is always more effective than forced movement.

 

Offline Enioch

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The final plans for the Schlachtkreuzer SMS Wittelsbach, before her keel was laid down

"We were drunk on the spirit of our successes. The Wittelsbachs would usher in a new age of German supremacy on the oceans.

"We overcommited. We failed. There is no putting it gently.

-Vizeadm. Galster K (post mort.) 1956, The Naval Question: Collected Papers and Letters, edited by Dr. Ernst Jablonka, Universitätsverlag Heidelberg.



The Admiralität was ambivalent with regards to the Kaiser's demand. On the one hand, the Brits were well on the way to strengthening their nascent battlecruiser fleet, in response to Germany's escalation. On the other, the Naval budget was strained already; and there was considerable discontent among the population regarding the armament expenditures, so long after the end of war (you try to convince those damn socialists that si vis pacem, para bellum. Bismarck was right in trying to eliminate their ilk from politics...)

With the admirals vaccilating, the R & D department submitted designs for naval-scale oil-fired boilers. Now, if only Germany could secure a domestic oil production sufficient to fuel her fleet...

Until she did, her ships would have to remain coil-fired.



January comes and Germany rejoices. As part of the Neujahr celebrations, Goeben returns from her shakedown cruise and fires a gun salute in honour of the imperial family in Wilhelmshaven. Germany now posesses the two most deadly ships in the world and they are ready for active duty.



The festive mood is somewhat ruined when emissaries from Japan arrive, requesting to buy a license for the German torpedo-belt pattents. They are quietly shown the door. Germany doesn't even have a ship with these belts in production yet - she's not about to allow a third-rate Power to outbuild her.



In February, the Kaiser requests an update from the Admiralität on their plans for the construction of new Schlachtkreuzer. He is incensed when von Tirpitz and Galster inform him of the budgetary concerns. After a short discussion with von Mecklenburg and representatives of the DKP and FKP (boosted to particularly high levels after the wars), he set in motion the necessary procedures for increasing the Naval budget.

The Admiralität knows a lost fight when they see one and, in all frankness, they're interested to see what the engineers will draw up. Planning begins on the third class of German battlecruisers, for now referred to as SK-E



**** you 'Murica, we need the money.



German fixation on quality munitions delivers again. AP 'caps' are added to German shells as an experiment, although extensive live-fire tests are postponed for now.



See 'Muricans? The Italians are nice people. And they don't bear a grudge, apparently. They can have this insignificant ROF tech for a good sum of money.



April arrives - and the designs for the SK-E-class battlecruisers are presented to the Admiralität. The SK-Es are everything the Moltke-class are, just better in most conceivable ways.

For one thing, they are truly massive ships - at 31k tons, they set a new standard for warships. They're almost half again as big as the Moltkes and it shows. They are armed with the new 12-inchers, in a five-turret, cross-deck-fire, AFKXY configuration; their armor is an inch thinner in the belt, but they have an extra inch on the turrets, they implement a torpedo belt, and they can reach the 25 knots that are, by now, standard for German Schlachtkreuzer.



Three are ordered, immediately, from the Blohm & Voss shipbuilders. They are to be named Wittelsbach, Derfflinger and Lützow...



...and the downpayment takes up more than a third of the Admiralität budgetary reserves. Ouch.



****. That could have been helpful a month earlier. That's another inch of belt armor right there.



This is both bad and good. On the one hand, having the option to build light cruisers with the sloped deck armor scheme is a huge advantage over the earlier 'protected' scheme. On the other hand, the frozen Arcona is now utterly obsolete and unlikely to be completed anytime soon, given the massive drain on the budget that the Schlachtkreuzer represent.

And the R & D breakthroughs just keep coming.











Holy crap, guys. All this in one month?



Yes, indeed.



Well, the writing's on the wall for poor Arcona. She's been cluttering up the docks for more than a year now, and she's going to be quite outdated by the time she's complete. Time to scrap her and use her steel on the Schlachtkreuzer. Sad, but necessary.





Well, crap.





Ahahaha. Battlecruiser operational, mother****ers.





The news hit the Admiralität like thunder out of the blue. Counterintelligence reports that British spies have, somehow, gotten their grubby mitts on the new AP cap designs. The ensuing investigation sees the end of the careers of seven officers, who, apparently, thought that security rules were guidelines. The Kaiser is livid and, this time, for good reason. A communiqué is drafted and sent to His British Majesty's Government in the strongest language von Mecklenburg can muster; and the Kaiser's rants almost peel the paint off the walls.



His Majesty's mood darkens even further when he visits the shipyards in June and finds the works on the Moltke and the three Wittelsbachs frozen for the month, as the Admiralität is desperately trying to scrounge up the necessary funds. Admirals and engineers scramble for cover in the face of his wrath.





Yeah, uh-huh. A fishing boat. In German territorial waters. Near our Naval Bases. An American fishing boat. In the Baltic Sea. Uh-huh. Sure, 'Muricans. Get the **** out.



July comes - and finally, some good news. Never mind the 700-ton torpedobats the French are building - Germany can build bigger! If we ever find the funds to build anything but bloody capital ships.



Also - and this really helps the Kaiser perk up: Blohm & Voss are equally embarrassed about the June fiasco as the Admiralität. They propose to lay down a fourth Wittelsbach-class ship, as an apology - with a 10% discount.

Welcome to the family, Hindenburg! You're going to make us all so proud one day!



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Also come to experience ship battles IN SPACE and the glory that is Spoon-sempai's WoDverse.  :p

« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 10:19:07 am by Enioch »
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]


"While I deeply appreciate the thought of naming a ship after me I don't think I have quite accrued the career achievements to warrant it at this point in the timeline?  Perhaps the esteemed von Blücher maybe a more august hero of the Empire deserving the honor?"

-Paul von Hindenburg
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
"Typical Hindenburg. We named her after the place, not you.

It's not like I want to give you something nice. You egocentric D-dummkopf!"

-KaiserWilly
« Last Edit: April 20, 2017, 02:29:42 pm by Enioch »
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
The village of 428 souls in Saxony-Anhalt? :P
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
S-shut up!  :nervous:

"Dear diary, today Hindenburg beat  me in manoeuvres. He is so inconsiderate. I don't get why everyone likes him, I really don't. And all that after I named the latest battlecruiser after him..."

Love,
-W

Seriously, though, Germany has gone through two wars she DIDN'T go through in OTL, one of which with Russia. You can safely assume he more than distinguished himself as a Lieutenant General in the Russian front and maybe Italy as well. The problem is that we are following the accomplishments of the German Navy, not the Army... :doubt:
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]


Oberste Heeresleitung, we plan massive ground campaigns as a calling and cause the Admiralstab to flip the table for fun!
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]

Necessary musical accompaniment to the above .gif. ;)
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Torchwood

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
I can't help but notice that some of those random events are a little too eurocentric and don't really fit the US at all...

Sooo, here's hoping the Hindeburg doesn't blow up from a random flash fire or magazine explosion. IRL, having TNT primers (which the British lacked at WW1) helped. That, and the German emphasis on keeping their ships armored which British battlecruisers often sacrificed to have speed and big guns. Incidentally, those had a history of dying to catastrophic magazine hits.

 

Offline niffiwan

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
I thought that the points expressed here were most accurate as to the reasons for British BC's blowing up. Namely:

1) poor magazine safety procedures (which IIRC the Germans also had problems with, after Dogger Bank they learned their lesson & fixed procedural laxness, whereas the British did not)
2) stability of the cordite (which I think you're referring to with TNT primers?)

The difference in armour is less significant to their survival.
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Offline Enioch

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The launching of the Brazilian battlecruiser 'Minas Geraes' in Wilhelmshaven

"It was clear to me that the increased tensions with Russia were due to no small degree to the covert interference of the British.

"It was my opinion that an eventual war with the British was unavoidable. It was, therefore, imperative that we prepare the international scene. We had, therefore, to secure our eastern borders once and for all."

-From the private writings of Herzog Johann Albrecht von Mecklenburg, Reichskanzler 1902-1920.



July 1908: Brazil approaches the European market with the intention of commissioning a total of three modern capital ships for her growing navy. The British firm Armstrong-Whitworth submit a design for 22k-ton battleships; the Germans counter with a licence to modified Moltke-class 25k-ton designs, with an added torpedo belt and 12-inch main batteries. The Brazilians, to the surprise and horror of the British, go for the more rugged, tough German designs despite their smaller guns and Blohm & Voss lay down the keels in August with a wide smile, filled with Shadenfreude. The Admiralität graciously take their cut.



In August, the Reichsministerium der Finanzen publishes their statistical findigs on the German economy. The integration of Sicily into the Bund has added a Mediterranean harbor, with all its benefits, to the German economy; as a result, industry and finance are booming.

Von Mecklenburg notes a considerable reduction in the influx of raw resources from Russia. The Russians are stalling and, in some cases, outright sabotaging the German industrialists' attempts to harvest the Russian mineral wealth. He is savvy enough to realise that 'cousin Nicky' has been talking to people he shouldn't have.



A few months later, R & D submit their designs for submarine Diesel engines. This is a groundbreaking development and Galster does not miss its implications. Germany begins to stockpile Diesel fuel for her submarine fleet; and Galster orders the design of a larger U-boot class, built from the keel up to incorporate all the latest developments in submarine warfare.



Tirpitz, on the other hand, releases more funds for the expansion of Germany's drydocks. By the end of 1909, Germany will be able to build ships of at least 35k tons.



Ahaha. Ger-money. All the Ger-money. With the Russian faucet drying up, German industrialists focus on improving their infrastructure and seeking new markets in the Mediterranean - and it works.



And then, on the 24th of January 1909, little Hela runs aground on the shores of Romania, less than three miles off the Russian border. The Russians squeal and write Romania a white check from a diplomatic standpoint. Von Mecklenburg and Tirpitz, on the other hand, respond immediately. The Ottoman Empire is contacted; and the Sublime Porte graciously grants permission for the Schwaben and the Mecklenburg, with a small escorting force of Zerstörer to travel through the Hellespont and put pressure on the Romanians. They eventually back down and release Hela; but Russia grumbles and von Mecklenburg formally advises German nationals to leave Russia.

Also, this perceived bit of interventionism has Turkey explode in a semi-coup; the so-called "Young Turks" make their move. Germany observes the developments with some concern.





Ahahaha. AHAHAHA.

Triple turrets. In 1909. Oh my God, Germany can build a Scharnhorst right now.



But priorities, priorities. The Russians are making noise and Germany needs to have a response ready. First - make certain that the Alliance with France is still solid. Second - start up training the fleet. If the worst comes to happen and there's war, it will be imperative to utterly crush the Russian forces. This will clear up the eastern front and allow Germany to focus all of her forces on the war with Britain.

The Admiralität freezes the construction of the Derfflinger and Lützow. Enough funds are economised to begin live-fire training again.



That proves to be for the best as February rolls in. German agents report that the Russians are pouring more money into their fleet as well.



R & D delivers again, with a new generation of analog, mechanical fire-control systems. These are easily and quickly retrofitted into the fleet.



March 1909. A sekrit secret folder finds its way to the Admiralität thanks to moles in the Russian shipyards. The German Admirals pore over the Russian designs with trepidation, eager to plumb the minds of the enemy.





They quickly come to the conclusion that if this is what the Russians are building now, there is nothing to worry about.



...and then Counterintelligence reports that, apparently, somebody left the designs cabinet unlocked again, because the Russians are experimenting with triple turret designs that look remarkably like the German ones. Argh. Find the ****ing leak and plug it, now.



PLUG THE ****ING LEAK.

And as for you, Italy -

Italy. Look. We've just had a scrap. Don't make us come over there.

In fact, you know what? We need to send a message.



Yes. By all means.



That is not a capital ship, you Dummköpfe. Still, no reason to overdo it. That's suitable payback for the V1.



Oh, no, Russia. You are weak and we've outgrown you. And you insist on stealing from us. There will be no peace, until you're no longer a threat on our backdoor. All German officers now know this.

So, when asked by a reporter from the Morgenpost, Tirpitz says so. On record.



« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 10:18:39 am by Enioch »
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)