Surface Fleets

[Hamstersss]

Why would anyone buy any surface fleets? Carriers are too expensive, battleships and cruisers are right up there with Axis and Allies (Cool, I start with them, never ever buy them).

I'm asking this not as a game issue, but from a historical standpoint. How'd these huge surface navies get built if they're so damned expensive in the first place? Why would Germany build the Bismarck, why not use those resources for more fighters or infantry?

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Why would anyone buy any surface fleets? Carriers are too expensive, battleships and cruisers are right up there with Axis and Allies (Cool, I start with them, never ever buy them).

I'm asking this not as a game issue, but from a historical standpoint. How'd these huge surface navies get built if they're so damned expensive in the first place? Why would Germany build the Bismarck, why not use those resources for more fighters or infantry?

In Germany, Hitler was always having to 'play off'

various competing ministries against each other.

Hence by c. 1942 the Germans had a bewildering

array of weapon types of all kinds, and no

central agency to focus on the best ones (until

Speer came along). So the Bismarck and Tirpitz

were partly made to placate Raeder.

Plus, unlike in SC, building a capital ship

doesn't take overnight: the keel of the Bismarck

was laid down in 1937 IIRC. Hitler (and Raeder)

were planning to fight c. 1943-by which time the

Germans would have had a pretty decent navy.

But other events speeded things up, and most of

those ships (the 2 CVs for ex) never went into

operation.

JD

[Old Patch]

JD makes some excellent points. Most specifically, very few battleships were started and finished during the war. All five of Britain's new battleships were laid down in 1937. The Bismark and Tirpitz were laid down in 1936. The French Richelieu was laid down on 1935. Italy's Roma was laid down in 1938. Aircraft carriers were much easier to build (no armor plate, small guns) but, as many nations found out, developing a naval air arm was not simply a matter of putting a tail hook on a plane! For the allies, the vast navies were built to stop the U-boat menace and defeat Japan. Since it is very difficult for the Germans to conduct an effetive U-boat war, the Allies have little need but buy huge fleets - Europe was primarily a land war in any event.

[Bis71]

I would only add that many of the UK and US capital ships were built for the First World War (eg Hood and the several BBs raised and repaired from Pearl Harbor) and upgraded over the decades. They did pretty good service.

Germany, OTOH, had to start from scratch in 1933.

[gunnergoz]

I'm beginning to appreciate the elegant simplicity of SC more and more. At the same time, it would appear that efforts to make SC "more realistic" and to "fine tune details"

as we have often seen in this forum, are mostly not practical given the existing engine and design. You can't turn checkers into chess, it seems...

Personally, I'd like to see Hubert go next to the design of a more "heavyweight" grand strategy game that would include many of the neat and imaginative concepts that forum members have brought forward in the past months.

While some more tweaking of SC is probably forthcoming, I suspect that there are limits to the design. It could be that the engine could be re-scaled and optimized for a different level of play (e.g. individual ships and subs, movement after combat, more detailed terrain, etc).

I eagerly await developments!

[Sir Whiskers]

To follow up on Old Patch's observations, the US and UK naval planners also thought that they could produce smaller, escort naval units fairly quickly once any war began, so they concentrated their pre-war building on the larger ships (besides, it was easier to get funding from Congress/Parliament for big ships). Both countries found out, however, that the needs of the Battle of the Atlantic were much greater than anticipated and they did not have near enough escorts available for convoy duty until 1943. Even then, a lot of production capacity was being used to add new escorts and replace operational losses. Without the advent of long-range air, better sonar, escort carriers, Huff-Duff, and other advances, the Allies may never have won that battle.

If Hubert ever designs on "off-map" box for the Battle of the Atlantic (where players place subs, escorts, and air units to simulate the convoy war), then building cruiser and carrier fleets, as well as long-range aircraft, could become critical.