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stoat

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Everything posted by stoat

  1. The US navy isn't really a green water navy. That limits the exposure to small craft, and it's not like "a few thousand speedboats" is a realistic threat. Speedboats can't carry much by way of weaponry, so you must be talking about suicide attacks, a la Cole. A "few thousand" such targets is folly, and the only time the gray ships would really be in danger would be in port or in very constricted waters, like the Strait of Malacca. CIWS would destroy any speedboat, and the 5 in guns now carried by the light escorts are ridiculously effective. A larger threat would be a small fleet of missile boats. 5-6 boats launching Exocets or C-802s in the closed confines of the Strait of Hormuz or any of a number of East Indian passages would be more dangerous than your speedboat armada.
  2. India and Spain are building new carriers. If France follows their tradition of maintaining a two-carrier navy they'll add something to supplement de Gaulle. Italy will commission her second next year. I'm sure India could find someone to fight without looking very hard, but who are France, Italy, and Spain going to fight or even deter with these platforms. There's just something about a warship that focuses nationalistic pride into a tangible thing. South American nations are always on the lookout for new ships, and hell, Peru has more cruisers afloat than any nation other than the US, the UK, and Russia. Naval spending worldwide does not seem to be jeopardized to any great extent.
  3. Area air defence was to be the purview of the CG(X). I never really understood the point of the DD(X), and now it will be interesting to see what happens to the CG(X) and CGN(X) families as well. In my opinion, fewer larger and more expensive ships are not necessarily better than more smaller and cheaper ships, especially when the small ships are more effective.
  4. That's because you're drinking isopropol.
  5. Embalmers can do some crazy things. Eva Peron and Lenin are still looking fairly lively. Perhaps the ceiling dancer sipped from the same julep?
  6. Admittedly, the 60mm is not a very potent weapon. It has a blast rating of 9 as opposed to the British 2 incher's 7, the German 50mm's 6, and the Italian 45mm's 3, but while an improvement over the others, a '9' is still not a very large explosion. In terms of ammo the 60mm comes with around 35 shells, usually 30 HE and 5 smoke (max of 52 shells, but this only happens when a player edits the loadout). These numbers are rarely exact multiples of five, but rarely deviate by more than two shells. The 2 inch comes with 20 shells, and an even HE/smoke split (max 30). The German 50mm comes with 30 HE shells, no smoke (max 45). The Italian 45mm comes with 80 HE shells, no smoke (max 120). The 60mm has a range of more than three times any of the other mortars listed, so it can hit farther away targets. But that only tells you how its stats compare with other light mortars. In my experience, the 60mm is best employed against troops in the open and against guns. It will have little effect when used against troops in foxholes, trenches, rubble, and buildings, and though it can and has taken out halftracks, this is a rather spotty endeavor. I usually use the 60mm's in groups of three, combining the firepower of all three mortars in a company's heavy weapons platoon to attack guns. Three tubes have more effect than one, and more often than not do more damage than a single tube could. Still, expect no more than a gun or 2-3 infantry casualties per battle from each tube. Your own experiences will guide you better than my advice. If you want to test 2 inchers and 60mm's head to head, the French at the end of the African campaign have both types in their support column.
  7. 16th SS Panzergrenadier was in Italy from May '44 to February '45. How hard is it to guess and check in the editor?
  8. Of course there are a heck of a lot of great museums and monuments, and my advice is to walk your way around the city. The Metro works quite well, though was a tad dirty (I was there in '04), but you find interesting things when hoofing it that you might otherwise miss. The FDR memorial, the WWI memorial, and Pershing Park all come to mind, though the first two are near the Tidal Basin.
  9. Squalus and Sculpin were Sargo class submarines, not 'S' class boats. Likewise, Roncador was a Balao class boat, not an 'R' class sub. Having a name starting with an 'S' or 'R' does not put a boat into the 'S' or 'R' class. Those two classes were distinguished with the class letter and then the numeric identifier of each sub. The only named 'R's and 'S's were those that were named after being transfered to foreign navies.
  10. I agree. But when you have to name 238 Gatos, Balaos, and Tenches, with a fair number of fish names already having been used, you have to dig deep. I'm impressed that they stuck with the system instead of naming some after battles or mountains or notable actors or somefink.
  11. Certainly, but if you call me a yellowhammer, I'd take it as an insult, being as that I'm not from Alabama, and the word has another connotation here.
  12. Not every letter of the alphabet before 'S' was used, but a majority were. So it depends on how far back you want to go. In terms of WWII, only 'S' and 'R' boats conducted patrols, though the R's only patrolled in the Atlantic, I believe. As soon as larger boats slipped off the ways, they were relegated for training. However, the only 'S' and 'R' class subs to be named would have been those that were transfered to other navies. The distinction isn't all that pertinent , as it turns out that some of the names I thought to be non-fish-related are infact the names of fish. So it could be said that all subs after the 'S' class were named after aquatic creatures, real or imaginary, with the vast majority being fish.
  13. Kudos for going through the list, but Corsair, Unicorn, Cutlass, Paddle, Barb, and Permit are all types of fish. The US Navy certainly did dig up a heck of a lot of fish names, including some weird ones. Who knew a Sea Robin was a fish? There are probably more non-fish names in the Tenches than in the Gatos, and of course the S class only had alpha-numeric designators.
  14. I haven't a list of all the US subs, S-class to Tench-class, but off the top of my head: Harder, Walrus, Sea Lion, Kraken. They were certainly more.
  15. I suppose these types of nicknames aren't all that common outside of national borders. As I haven't heard of 'Geordies' or 'Taffs,' you are clearly uneducated when it comes to state nicknames. A lot of times the official or unofficial state nickname(s) don't apply to the citizens of the state (you'd never call a North Dakotan a Flickertailer), or apply only to graduates of a college (all Michiganders aren't Wolverines, only grads of UM). However, some nicknames do carry over: Connecticut-Nutmeggers Alabama-Yellowhammers (btw, "yellowhammer" means an incestuous fellow as well) Illinois-Suckers (after a fish, not a spate of gullibility) Indiana-Hoosiers Iowa-Hawkeyes Ohio-Buckeyes Missouri-Pukes Tennessee-Volunteers Kansas-Jayhawkers Nebraska-Cornhuskers North Carolina-Tarheels South Carolina-Sand Lappers Oklahoma-Sooners West Virginia-Mountaineer Massachusetts-Bay Stater Maine-Down Easter I'm sure there are more, but they wouldn't be ones that I have heard commonly used, and indeed some of the above aren't used very frequently at all.
  16. A lot is wrong here. After a brief interlude of naming ACRs after states, those 48 names were reserved for battleships, be they B's (gone before the AC's) or BB's. This should say that "most cruisers were named after cities." Yes, Marblehead isn't that big, but surely Cincinnati and Memphis are larger than Huron and Pueblo. And that only applies to most cruisers, because the Alaska class were named after then-territories. Of course, these were neither CA's or CL's, and I'll let you debate whether they should have been classified as BC's rather than CB's. True to an extent, but not in its entirety. Ships laid down after the initiation of hostilities certainly were, as the war created no shortage of posthumous namesakes. But the prewar destroyer classes were rife with ships named after generals, politicians, and even some other odds and ends, such as Filipino patriots. True, until they ran out of fish. Thus, not all subs were quite so fishy. I'm guessing the last two are supposed to by CVL and CVE. Your statement is true regarding the large and small carriers, but not entirely for the escorts. Many CVE's were originally named after bays, sounds, inlets, and islands, but quite a few had their names changed to WWII battles, though battles from other conflicts were included, as were other names that I can't really place in a category, such as Pybus and Core.
  17. If we're making fun of Royal Navy names, I might as well mention my personal favorite, HMS Cockchafer. An Insect class gunboat that I promise I did not make up.
  18. Yes, because the British planes didn't have numerical designators and the American ones didn't have more common names.
  19. Like I said, hidden guns will almost always be able to do some damage with their first few shots, and your only real recourse is to keep your units spread out to minimize this damage. You could push ahead with only infantry and hope that these units would spot and destroy the gun, but though this would likely save your armor, it leaves your infantry unsupported and may slow up your attack. I've never been a big fan of Commonwealth pattern infantry. Smaller squads, and less firepower per capita. PIATs can be effective, but are less so than bazookas, and I agree that 2 inch mortars are worthless beyond laying down very small smokescreens. Motor rifle squads only exacerbate the small squad/low firepower problem. I understand that a motor rifle squad will fit into a universal carrier, but I don't like to use them either, so the utility is lost on me. Recon platoons also consist of small squads and lack hitting power. Engineer squads are often seen in QB play, and while they are large and pack demo charges, their firepower isn't great, consisting of 11 rifles and 1 Bren. All commonwealth countries (and Poland) follow the British pattern. So South African, Polish, New Zealanders, Canadian, and Australians when available (not '45) are all loaded out like British units at the platoon level. If you don't like what you see, all of the above countries will likewise be poor options. Two choices remain: French and American. You'll obviously see a lot of American troops used either do to player bias or because they are the heaviest squads that the Allies have (American armored infantry is lower in firepower than British infantry). American infantry also has useful organic heavy weapon platoons and bazookas attached to each platoon. It's a popular choice. But the French are very frequently overlooked. They more closely pattern American troops than British, but retain some differences. Late war, they have Springfield rifles mixed in with Garands and BARs, which results in lower firepower output than American squads, but still higher than Commonwealth units. Their organic heavy weapons are perfectly usable as well (60mm mortars like Americans, not 2 inch). And I know you aren't talking early war, but if you were Foreign Legion units pack two LMGs to the British units' one, making them preferable in the desert.
  20. The downside of facing a 150mm is that its shells will knock out anything you bring to the party. It'll disable or blow up tanks, and has been known to wipe out whole platoons of infantry. That means that until you locate the gun, you will have to operate in fear of the damage that first shell will wreak. That being said, your opponent should only be able to get off one or two rounds at the most. The 150mm has a very slow rate of fire, and is also very slow to turn and nearly impossible to move. Therefore, once the first shell hits you should be able to either move your armor away from the focus of the blast in opposite directions, to allow them to fire while forcing the gun to turn, and thus preventing it from firing; or you can pull everything back and wait for onboard or offboard mortars or offboard arty to pull the coup de grace, knowing that the gun will still be where it was previously after the 3-4 minutes this will take. So if you stay spread out before finding the gun, its first strike should inflict only moderate damage at the worst, and you will then be able to fire and maneuver against it. Expect to lose a vehicle, though, as hidden guns will generally always do at least some damage before they succumb to your forces. Like the other wise gentlemen before me have said, onboard mortars with an HQ spotter are the preferred antidote of choice. 81mm mortars will do the trick quickly, and 3 inchers are only slightly less effective. The trio of 60mm organically located within the standard US rifle company will also knock out a gun in a turn or two. 2 inch mortars are not so great. Halftracks with 81mm mortars mounted can be excellent on-board artillery assets, depending upon the terrain. They have a very high ammo loadout, armor, and a turret-ring .50 cal for self defence. A halftrack mortar with a good spotter and advantageous terrain can be more accurate and effective than an offboard four-tube 81mm spotter. 150's are expensive in terms of points, and given their short combat lifespan, few players purchase them with regularity. They can do quite a bit of damage if employed well, but usually the German player would be better served with another veteran platoon of infantry.
  21. People were worried about the whole black hole genesis thing when RHIC was fired up. It was stated that A) the likelihood of actually creating a blackhole was very small, if a black hole was created it would likely evaporate within milliseconds, and C) isn't a man-made blackhole one hell of a badass way to go out?
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