[TrashMan]

I won't spare you the analogies - oh, the Iowa was left in service for quaite a while after it was upgraded with missile launcher. It's still listed in the reserve fleet.

But regardless of that, you have to have in mind that balance is a very shaky issue. What kind of balance? Gameplay balance? Game universe balance? or some other type?

for you see, from the game universe perspective, it is balanced if we take fighters into equation. 100 bombers with Helios bombs adds up to quite a lot of firepower, which the Arhcy doesn't have.

mind you that the Colossuss is bigger and far less blanced, as it had far mroe fighters.

for hte strict game balance it's irrelevant though, as ANY ship with a fighterby (even a cruiser) can launch as many ships as a FREDer want regardless of the limitation in the description. Someone might make a mission with the Arhcy or a cruiser that launches  wave after wave after wave of fighters. Isn't it allso somewhat redicolous that the Sathanas (that can supposely carry 960 fighters) launched only ONE wing in high noon?

sure, enine limitations. But for that same reason the power of fighter is much greater then it would normally be (balance-wise).
you can destroy a cruiser witha fighter and a destroyer with a single bomber for crying out loud.

So conclusion:
I don't regard it as unbalanced.
It has less turrets than the Colossuss, but greater anti-cap firepower. AF defences are roughly the same. It allso has great fire arcs, which only makes sense. What idiots would construct ships with so bad fire arcs?

What? I'm supposed to remove beam cannons on purpose to make a blind spot on it's belly?
I don't care about "balance" in that sense anyway.

Kit said it nicely - "WWII engineers didn't care about balance, they cared about winning the war."

[karajorma]

It's pretty easy if you just cut and paste the Quote bit from a post. I've nearly made the same mistake myself a couple of times

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by karajormakarajorma

I've nearly made the same mistake myself a couple of times
How did you mix TrashMan up with Karajorma? [/B][/quote]

Originally posted by karajormakietotheworld

How did you mix Fade Rathnik up with Karajorma?
It's pretty easy if you just cut and paste the Quote bit from a post. I've nearly made the same mistake myself a couple of times
 [/B][/quote]

Dunno what you guys are talking about. [

Originally posted by Trash Man

But regardless of that, you have to have in mind that balance is a very shaky issue. What kind of balance? Gameplay balance? Game universe balance? or some other type?
for you see, from the game universe perspective, it is balanced if we take fighters into equation. 100 bombers with Helios bombs adds up to quite a lot of firepower, which the Arhcy doesn't have.
mind you that the Colossuss is bigger and far less blanced, as it had far mroe fighters.[/B][/quote]

Phew, where to begin ? Game play balance is what people mean. Ie, an unbalanced mission gets real boring real quick. As the FRED2 Docs say, Fighters & bombers must make the difference. Saying it's balanced when equated with 100 Helios Armed Bombers is just bollocks. Have you ever wondered why the Sath and Colossus did very little Fighting in the FS campaign ? There's a reason for that.

quote]Originally posted by Trash Man
[/quote] *all the rest*[/quote]

Engine limtations have little to do with gameplay. Idiots make ships with blindspots 'cos it's interesting. Single Bombers can kill Cruisers 'cos that's their job and you need a threat for the Player to counter in Escort missions.

WW2 didn't care about balance 'cos they weren't making computer games. Anyway, a supa dupa battleship is pretty redundant against Fighters and modern long range missiles.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TrashMan
I won't spare you the analogies - oh, the Iowa was left in service for quaite a while after it was upgraded with missile launcher. It's still listed in the reserve fleet.

Do you see anyone building battleships now? Thought not.

Anyway I'm getting sick of trying to reason with you about balance. We'll let the players decide when you release your campaign.

[Boomer]

@Kara:  
Technically, no one is building them because there is no reason too.  No big Naval Wars going on.  Think about it:  Two most Bad ass navies in the world: U.S. and Britain.  Both on the same side.

Now if, let's say, China began to get uppity and built up bigass navy to attack U.S. and Britain, you can bet your ass that the U.S. will start making modernized Battleships again.  If China lasted long enough anyway.  [Nukes anybody? ]

@Trash:  Just make sure the uber Ion Whatever the Fudge turrets cannot target Fighters and Bombers.  There's your weakpoint.  A little Flak and some AAA's aren't going to provide the perfect defense against all situations.  The funnest part about ubership construction isn't found through deliberately putting in weaknesses.  Its finding the weaknesses.  I can guarantee you, no designer ever plans for every situation.   Every Ubership can be beat, it just takes an intrepid mind to find the weakness.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Boomer

Now if, let's say, China began to get uppity and built up bigass navy to attack U.S. and Britain, you can bet your ass that the U.S. will start making modernized Battleships again.  If China lasted long enough anyway.  [Nukes anybody? ]

I, respectfully, disagree.

Modern naval power is about force protection and power projection. The modern carrier IS the modern battleship. Instead of giant cannons, they deploy aircraft, which are far more flexible and have greater range. Aircraft being smaller tend to be easier to replace than a great sodding turretbottom.

I suppose that if the Chinese were to build battleships, other's might consider building something to counter. Of course, there's no compelling reason to deploy battleship in the absence of battleships.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by Boomer
@Trash:  Just make sure the uber Ion Whatever the Fudge turrets cannot target Fighters and Bombers.  There's your weakpoint.  A little Flak and some AAA's aren't going to provide the perfect defense against all situations.  The funnest part about ubership construction isn't found through deliberately putting in weaknesses.  Its finding the weaknesses.  I can guarantee you, no designer ever plans for every situation.   Every Ubership can be beat, it just takes an intrepid mind to find the weakness. [/B]

Umm..they can't target fighters/bombers. Hell, Terrna Huge Turrets and Medium Turrets can't either (in my campaign). I made a clear distincion between big guns and smaller guns.

And the Archangel can be beat. What would you do in Rl if hte enemy brough a uber-warship to bear' Send a even bigger warship after it!
Don't have a bigger warship? Swarm it witl smaller ones...or with fighters!

See, there's your balance.  Just throw more enemies at it.

[Fade Rathnik]

Originally posted by Roanoke


I think I read in a game manual for something like Rainbow Six that the .50 cal was considered nolonger powerful enough for Anti Aircraft.
 

It wasn't the .50 cal round that was ineffective, it was the gun that fired it. Fast moving targets have only short period of ballistic contact( IE short time that you are likely to hit the target) and thusly the shooter needs to pump out as many rounds in a short time as possible.  
a .50cal gatling gun(they do exist) can pump out more lead than the 6 machine guns of WW2 fighters. There for insuring enough hits in the short time the target is likely to be actually in the line of fire.
 Much like the stream effect.

[TrashMan]

I wonder how would carriers fare agains a battleship aremed with 100 gattling cannons and a score of missile launchers?

Come to think of it, if you have many long-range missile launchers, why build cariers at all?
Missiles are cheaper then aircraft anyway...

[NGTM-1R]

A missile is a one-shot weapon.

Actually, the Iowas were valued for a long time as pretty much the only NATO ship that could laugh off (or indeed, even remain functional after) a hit from the average Russian air-to-surface or surface-to-surface missile. They would have formed the centerpieces of surface-action groups in the Norwegian Sea had a NATO-Warsaw Pact war ever occurred. The refitted version has excellent surface-to-surface missile armament, making it ideal for that role. And firing subcalibur rocket-assisted rounds, they can reach almost as far as a Harpoon surface-to-surface missile, with no chance of interception by enemy AAW defense.

[Fade Rathnik]

Missiles aren't creative

[TrashMan]

Yeah, the Iowas were used in Deset storm and several other operation. Tehy bombarded shore targets with missiles or thier 406mm cannons. It's should be noted that US battleships had the best targeting devices by far.
So you have a accurete weapon of great power that can't be intercepted. The range (40km) is the only thing that realyl limited the deplyment.

[StratComm]

The use of Iowa-class battleships in Desert Storm is hardly a useful thing to bring up.  The Missouri, the only active battleship by that time IIRC, was being "combat tested" as a CnC vessle more than a line warship, and there was hardly anything capable of shooting back.  So the blinding weaknesses of a battleship in a modern navy are not brought out.  The last Iowa was retired not more than a couple of years after that, so I don't think it even did very well as a CnC platform.

Sure, you can cover a battleship with point defenses and missile launchers, but in doing so you are rendering the only reason for having such a large ship in the first place obsolete.  Those turrets are only useful for shore bombardments when the forces on-shore don't have SSM cababilities of their own, and that's hardly an excuse for building the things.  A smaller ship designed for missile/antimissile warfare will inherently have a much better cost/effectiveness ratio, will be less man-intensive, and will be faster, more flexable, and less likely to be the glory target that a battleship presents.  Don't get me wrong, I think a 15" gun foring a shell over the horizon is pretty cool.  It just has no place in the modern naval arsenal.

And for whoever brought up battleships still being listed in "reserve" clearly has no idea what "reserve" fleet implies.  Most of the ships listed as reserve in the US Navy are aging, rusted-out and non-maintained relics.  The big fuss over those tankers that Britain was supposed to be decommissioning and rejected was over WWI tankers, finally being removed from "reserve" status and being scrapped.  So listing them "reserve" means "we haven't gotten around to sinking it yet"

[Fade Rathnik]

A true battleship should represent the most cutting edge in naval artillery, right now that is missiles and 5 in gun. So modern warships are designed accordingly.  If modern naval atillery was based off of Rail guns and Plasma morters warships would be designed around those weapons and how best to protect against them.

[TrashMan]

It shoudl be noted the Iowa is rather fast - 35 knots and can take more beating than namy current naval vessel. Cost effectivness is the issue. I look forward when railguns or plasma guns or something similar pops up in military use - then the BB's would caome back in style.

Have you ever passed near a battleship?
Thos those thing are awe-inspireing and freighterning to look at at the same time.
Carriers just look like big floating bath tubs. tehy don't have the "ow" factor.

[mikhael]

Wow factor be damned. Its not there to impress, its there to put power where its required.

An Iowa is fast, but modern CVNs have been clocked going faster.

Finally the reason a CVN is a better investment than your "battleship aremed with 100 gattling cannons and a score of missile launchers" is that the BB can only project force in its own vicinity. The CVN can put planes much farther inland than 40km. More importantly, the pilot of a plane can go to a different target grid if the enemy has moved. A shell cannot. Flexibility trumps raw power unless you can manuever the enemy into a face to face slugfest--exactly the sort of thing any enemy fielding a modern navy is going to avoid.

[StratComm]

Originally posted by TrashMan
It shoudl be noted the Iowa is rather fast - 35 knots and can take more beating than namy current naval vessel. Cost effectivness is the issue. I look forward when railguns or plasma guns or something similar pops up in military use - then the BB's would caome back in style.

Ummm, no.  A railgun can be effectively mounted in the bow cannon of a destroyer, and there is certainly no reason to put them in a 3x3 linked configuration as you have with a battleship turret arrangement.  The reason battleships bristled with weapons is that those weapons were quite inaccurate; if you can place one shell on the deck of an enemy ship with precision, why point three barrels at it?  But if you've got a 1-in-10 chance of hitting your target given your current aiming and fire-control technology, shooting in volleys of three makes sense.  They serve no practical purpose in a modern navy.  Period.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by StratComm


Ummm, no.  A railgun can be effectively mounted in the bow cannon of a destroyer, and there is certainly no reason to put them in a 3x3 linked configuration as you have with a battleship turret arrangement.  The reason battleships bristled with weapons is that those weapons were quite inaccurate; if you can place one shell on the deck of an enemy ship with precision, why point three barrels at it?  But if you've got a 1-in-10 chance of hitting your target given your current aiming and fire-control technology, shooting in volleys of three makes sense.  They serve no practical purpose in a modern navy.  Period.

Why 3 barrels? Triple damage maby?

It's worth noting that Iowas percision was excellent - the best targeting mechanism in the world. It's so good they havent changed it years later.

[StratComm]

THEY HAVEN'T USED IT "YEARS LATER"!

Iowa-class battleships date to late WWII.  And during WWII, there were no computers, no calculators, nothing to account for target and origin drift, weather conditions, or anything of that sort besides human interpretation.  So the mechanisms that controlled the targeting may have been quite accurate but the ultimate chances of hitting a target were still not good.  Having 9 or 12 main guns on a ship made the chances of landing a fatal blow on an opponent that much higher.  If one shell will do the job, why shoot 9?  Nevermind that railgun-based slugs are devistating without the explosive aid, and my point is that with a modern railgun you wouldn't need multibarreled turrets but rather a single barrel on a single turret to inflict the necessary damage.  Sure, that turret can be taken out.  But with the efficiency of anti-ship weapons these days, it's not worth putting all of your eggs in one basket.  WWII ended almost 60 years ago.  If battleships were as effective in modern naval warfare as you seem to think they are, SOMEONE would have built ONE in the time since.

[Admiral Nelson]

Originally posted by StratComm
THEY HAVEN'T USED IT "YEARS LATER"!

Iowa-class battleships date to late WWII.  And during WWII, there were no computers, no calculators, nothing to account for target and origin drift, weather conditions, or anything of that sort besides human interpretation.  

Absolutely untrue.  The Iowas used the Mark 8 Rangekeeper mechnical computer in its fire control system.  The Mk 8 automatically accepted the course, speed and inclination of the firing vessel. The target's course, speed etc were then entered from the ship's rangefinders. Other input included meteorological data like wind speed and direction, stabilization data, shell type, charge type, and individual gun ballistic data, and the mechanical computer even takes into account how far the Earth will rotate while the shells are in the air. This was an amazing system, more remarkable for the fact that all the calculations were done with cams.  It is surely a great deal easier to program a system with code than cams!!  The B-29 also had a very sophisticated electromechanical fire control system.