Rollcall and Other Misc. Statistics

[The Rock Doctor]

I've got some names to assign to ships, but reckon I'm generally ready to rock and roll.

[Kaiser Kirk]

I have in mind three measures:
1) Reduce cost of new BP
2) Increase BP of nations in question
3) Have some modifiers for rising nations.
Now, I'm open to other suggestions on how to model this behavior, at the moment it is not.

My choice of periods was based on the book I've been using as a mouse pad being Prestons BBs of WWI. Hence no cruisers/DD/Subs... and few vessels before 1890.

Italians : You see British guns on the Italian pre-dreads, but from Dandolo to Regina Elena they are built in Italy...slowly. They also built in the 1890s- looks like 19 protected & armored cruisers, several for export. I expect that means a larger BP base than simmed.

Japan : Nice that you've modeled that period, good information point.  Overall, for Japan to go from 2/3rds the Spanish 5, - call it 3, to 5x ...or 25, would take 20*$50= $1000.

At Japan's $28.61 that would take 100% of the budget for ~35 halves, or 17 years, 30% longer than the 1897-1910 period. In that period they bought from Britain until 1905 - draining their $, when the Tsukubas, Kuramas, & Satsumas were laid down - taking BP & $, with the Kawachis in 1908. Obviously, OTL they did not devote nearly all resources to building BP. :) 

As to the options presented,
I'd go with #2 so they can be closer to OTL in production, particularly for Japan. I'm just looking at what the options for mid-rank and minors are, but Japan is supposed to be a major, and certainly demonstrated a competitive fleet.

I'm trying to envision how #3 would work. The first BP would represent the best mines/transport/power source/milling site combinations. However, there were economies of scale with being larger, then you would get into diminishing returns with the lesser ores requiring more transport and power to utilize, more impurities making the products less useful for military applications, etc.  Not sure a reasonable means of implementing that.

[Darman]

Scaling the cost of BP might work for #3 but I'd much prefer to keep the costs of IC and BP as static and easily predictable as possible. 

[snip]

Stuffs

Part of the issue is we really tried to tie the numbers to OTL economies as a whole rather then shipbuilding ala WW. Seeing as we track more than just ships, we felt it was the best course of action.

[Kaiser Kirk]

As I said, wasn't sure if it was a deliberate choice or not, but once I found you couldn't recreate the historical buildouts, I figured I'd draw attention to it. In many ways, WW has the opposite problem of too much production .

[snip]

So here is the deal, on July 5th at 23:59 PST we will be locking the startup process and beginning normal play. At that time, the following needs to be accomplished from each player.

1) Some sort of summary of items for startup needs to have been posted with enough time for a checkover. Directly providing your spreadsheet works for this. Give us at least 48h to do this, so we should have one for each nation posted by then.
2) All ships need to be at least given an allotted tonnage and approximate characteristics. We, however, would highly prefer if all were simmed.
3) Information on starting military units and infrastructure needs to be posted to your national encyclopedia. If it is not in the ency by this point, it does not exist pre-start and must be constructed starting with the first report.
4) All changes from our PoD to December 31st 1899 need to be cataloged here. It is ok if some minor things are still being worked on, but anything effecting international relations should be finished up.

If getting any of this done by the time we lock it is an issue for you, please PM Logi and I so we can work the issue out.

[Logi]

After some discussion, I've decided to boost Japan and Italy's figures to bring it more in line with their historical capabilities.

Japan: 11 IC -> 14 IC, 6 BP -> 12 BP
- Originally Japan had a $/BP ratio of 2.38, with the new BP it drops to 1.19. With the boost in IC it rises back to 1.44.
- 12 BP gives Japan the (very) marginal ability to construction the ships it did historically in the period Kirk mentions.
- The boost corrects Japan from being the lowest BP major to mid-range, equivalent to China and Russia.

Italy: 9 IC -> 10 IC, 3 BP -> 8 BP
- Originally Italy is to have a roughly $/BP ratio of 3.56. With the new BP, it drops to 1.33. With the boost in IC it rises to 1.46.
- 8 BP gives Italy the marginal ability to construction it's historical ships (using Kirk's figures).
- 8 BP puts Italy in the major status, being 1 BP behind the Ottomans and having roughly equivalent income.

If there are other minors with issues, please mention them.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Glad the data was useful,
as for the other minors, I can't say, haven't dug into them.  I did look into the Spanish fleet, oddly even after 1898 it was running 107,000 tons, but it had a great number of older vessels which were disposed of in 1900-1902 while others continued in service until the 1930s.  Overall Spanish forces seem to have been badly prepared, suggesting they spent their life in "Navalism" reserve.

[snip]

I've got some names to assign to ships, but reckon I'm generally ready to rock and roll.

Im going to requote this for pun use.

[Kaiser Kirk]

I've got some names to assign to ships, but reckon I'm generally ready to rock and roll.

Im going to requote this for pun use.

A buddy and I once made a list of ship-related puns. Perhaps I'll post it schooner or later.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Hiya All,

So, I've been poking about with the Spanish and Italians some, seeing where my interest is.
I at least have the interest/time and energy to commit to build & keep positions.  Neither of them is really standing out for storylines at this time. Spanish a little more, but they have less to work with. Perhaps since I had idled my thoughts with Dutch/AH/Ottoman/Russ/Germany, perhaps because I'm really not up on Spanish/Italian history/culture.

I've made up 1900 navy lists from on-line sources. Tonnage is probably "normal" in most cases.
Spanish : 107,008 tons in service, none building, 80 vessels in service, 34 for 23,416 tons of which were to be disposed of in 1900-1902.
Italians : 227,551 tons in service, 74,678 building.  212 vessels in service, of which 130 were torpedo boats.
Interestingly, simply dividing the tonnage under construction / #halves from laid down to completion = ~7600tons/half, so 8BP does look appropriate for Italia. Granted, they lack the Navalism revenue to achieve that, but that's because 50% of the budget goes to civilian use.

For armies, forts and coastal artillery, I had little success for 1900, more success earlier.
I figure ~250,000 troops for the Spanish and ~325,000 for the Italians. About 1.5 & 1% - both nations have good natural barriers...and are kinda poor.

There's some decent info on where the Italian Naval bases were, in some cases the #docks/slips are available, for example LaSpezia in 1897 covered 629 acres and had 5 dry docks, 2 slips.   Size & number can be surmised from when & where vessels were built.  Overall, the Italians farmed out a great amount of construction to civilian slips, while the seem to have used naval bases as repair & maintenance facilities.

I also have a book called {i]Coaling, Docking, and Repairing Facilities of the Ports of the World[/i] which gives info for about 1885-86 as to bases, drydocks and coaling facilities.

For both, I lumped the historic provinces and then prorated today's population numbers by the 1900 population to get provincial pops for the budget.
IC and BP were allocated by which areas seemed more important.


So,
This brings me to a couple questions.

1) Is everyone ok if I do go ahead and play?
That said...the 5th might be a little hard. I've done some prep on both nations though.

2) Is there a preference for which nation I play?
By that I mean if there's a clamoring for the Dutch or other nation to get filled, it's not out of the question.
As far as I know there's no pressing need right now.

3) Folks don't seem to be clinging exactly to the historic fleets. So I would intend on vessels similar to, but not duplicates of, the Original timeline, with more departures post 1895.
The Italians liked fast overarmed ships, which SS3 isn't coping well with, presumably the engine technology, so their OTL Normal weight is winding up NTL Light, or I trim something somewhere.

Also, on the larger vessels, they went really slow- up to a decade sometimes, with the result the armor deck wasn't closed and the vessel launched for 4-5 years. So I'm using launch date as the reference point for which engine tech goes in before the armor deck is closed up. This is a departure from what most are doing, but makes a great deal of sense...is it Ok?


4) I'm suggesting a starting BP for Spain of 180 and for Italy of 300. Alternately +60 each. 
To explain :  I don't know how the starting BP allowance is factored. For China  it's 10x BP, for Turkey 33x, for France 36x
Spain has 5BP, Italy 8.  I know roughly what the historic navies were.

The Historical Spanish fleet - normal tonnage-, after the 1898 losses was 21x   BP, if that's 80% then 107/0.8= ~134 would be starting, yielding 27 BP for Ports and docks and slips.

The Historical Italian fleet - normal tonnage-, was ~28x   BP, and if that's only 80%, then 285 would be starting, yielding 58 BP for ports and docks and slips.
Counting- as best possible given poor data, the historic Italian facilities, I came up with something around 63BP, which could be modified down.

Since multiples of 60 are generally used I'd advocate giving the Spanish 120BP, counting the 34 to-be-scrapped as off the books, and the Italians 300BP....or 180 and 360 respectively.

I've worked out Italian Naval ports & facilities to hit 60BP.  That would leave 240BP for the Navy, vs the 227 existing + 75 (and part of 1 Drydock) partially built pre-game.
Shouldn't require much work to get the 227 + tonnage expended on construction (prorates at ~ 35.5)to = 300BP.

5) So, tell me what I'm doing wrong as well as any other questions/comments/incendiary projectiles ?

[snip]

1) Absolutely. We are likely going to blow right past the 5th (why did I think the long weekend would be a good time :o), so will most likely be pushing things back bit.

2) I would say out of the nations listed, Italy would be my choice for next filled as Italy is really the only Dreadnaught building power without a player. Then we have all the major OTL naval powers plus Ottomania and China covered.

3) There is no requirement to cling to OTL practices. Honestly, I think I came the closet with the USN but that most likely comes from the USN's historic buildup in the 1890-1899 era. Keeping national flavor is nice tho.

4) The starting BP...well I don't recall exactly how we arrived at it. Logi can share more on that. I think the 300BP figure for Italy is a very good starting point for a in-total number, maybe even prefect.

5) Nothing jumps out at me yet. I will note that while we are trying to keep things close to OTL, we have been putting more focus into making sure that everyone is in the approximately right position with regards to eachother rather then as close to OTL figures. Given the historical butterflies we have introduced, some revision is needed and any small errors can be flapped away. So while the OTL data is helpful, it most likely will not get exactly replicated. Be sure we are doing our best to have each nation be playable and fun.

[Walter]

why did I think the long weekend would be a good time :o

Yes. How could you forget that all the American players will be properly and patriotically wasted around that date. :D

[snip]

why did I think the long weekend would be a good time :o

Yes. How could you forget that all the American players will be properly and patriotically wasted around that date. :D

Well I will be spending most of the 5th in a pool building. So no real drinking for me on the 4th

[snip]

Continuing from here.

We have decided to revise the Mine tech slightly to allow for a more historical progression. It will be changed to the following. First sentence describes the type of Mine available at that tech level, the second describes the sweeping method available. It is assumed that once a mine is sweeped, it will ether be disarmed or disposed of in a non-destructive way tho accidents do happen.

1880: Hand detonated mines. Running into mines with ships.
1897: Primitive Horn Mines
1900: Reliable Horn mines. Primitive paravanes and dragged booms behind small vessels.
1908: Early antenna mines. Advanced paravanes, active charges.
1918: Reliable antenna mines.
1922: Unreliable magnetic mines & countermessures.

We are also considering giving each nation access to one 1900 level tech of the players choosing. The tech would be available for use starting with the first turn. The available options would be the following techs.

Naval Guns: 1900

Miscellaneous Propulsion: Underway Recoaling

Light Cruiser Architecture: Ammunition hoists, deck torpedo armament, superfiring mounts

Mine Warfare: Reliable Horn mines. Primitive paravanes and dragged booms behind small vessels.

Armor: Krupp Cemented

Submarines: 1900

Army Reserves: Can maintain one reserve unit per one active strength unit

Railway Guns: Railway guns of up to 150mm, armored trains

Signals/Intelligence: Ability to use and break simple codes, bored crews at wireless stations listening to radio traffic

Thoughts?