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Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids

 
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Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/22/2008 6:31:09 PM   
OrvalB

 

Posts: 29
Joined: 2/15/2003
From: Canada
Status: offline 		What is up with the Austro-Hungarian navy? Every single time I start up in 1914 as Entente, those bastards show up in the Eastern Med and beat the snot out of the British Fleet. Fine, those are only PDs after all, I'll re-start and send the French with their DNs in too. Fine, the Austrian DNs beat the crap out of them too. Fine, start it again, this time with reinforcements from the mother country as well. The Austrian DNs laugh at that too, proceed to beet the crap out of the Eastern Fleet, beat the crap out of the French, and then give a very warm welcome indeed to the squadron from Scapa. And this keeps happening.

What is up with the Austro Hungarian navy? Is this why the Nazis wanted Von Trapp so badly? Because Austrian naval officers are like sea-gods?
Post #: 1
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/22/2008 7:07:15 PM   
arichbourg


Posts: 32
Joined: 7/2/2005
Status: offline 		When I get a battle report involving the Austrians, most of the time it reminds me of that movie where a modern carrier showed up at the battle of Midway. The Austrians clearly have nukes and are running on nuclear power.

(in reply to OrvalB)
Post #: 2
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/22/2008 10:21:38 PM   
FrankHunter

 

Posts: 2111
Joined: 3/26/2004
Status: offline 		You know I actually agree with this. Having played this game more times than I can count I have often found myself checking the data to find out what makes the little Austrian fleet so tough. I can see no reason why they often tend to punch above their weight.


(in reply to arichbourg)
Post #: 3
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/22/2008 11:45:00 PM   
Harrybanana

 

Posts: 4097
Joined: 11/27/2004
From: Canada
Status: offline 		Well you may be interested to know that it doesn't always work this way. In my recent game as the TE my French Navy just demolished the Austrian Navy in 2 rounds of combat. Thank god I didn't read this post until after I Ordered my fleets to the East Med or else I might have been too scared to.

(in reply to FrankHunter)
Post #: 4
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 12:24:00 AM   
FrankHunter

 

Posts: 2111
Joined: 3/26/2004
Status: offline 		You're a lucky man. Friday, while testing CA searches, I lost 1 British PD and 1 DN as well as 1 French DN to the Austrians while only inflicting minor damage. Where I went wrong was first sending the Brits to battle them and then sending the French. Perhaps the key is concentration of force against them right off the bat or waiting for the Italians.



(in reply to Harrybanana)
Post #: 5
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 1:06:11 AM   
OrvalB

 

Posts: 29
Joined: 2/15/2003
From: Canada
Status: offline 		All Hail the Invincible Austrian Navy! That long and heroic seafaring history, the ancient traditions of the (very) junior service, the efficiency and perspicacity of Austrian naval infrastructure, as opposed to just the opposite in the military arm, I am in awe!

I've run 1914 about 17 times in the last 24 hours, hotseat and AI, and yep, every time the Austrians, at a minimum, go toe to toe, and most of the time, kick Entente asses up and down the block and send them crying home to mummy wahwahwah, no matter what the Entente does. There was only one fluke where they came out behind,  and it wasn't that far behind. Does this strike anybody else as just a teeny tiny little bit ahistorical? What is going on here?

And no I don't think having the Eastern Fleet hide for a few turns (!no Eastern Trade?!?!) until the Italians and reinforcements show up is a realistic response. A gamey response, maybe, but pretty hard to square with history. And I have no idea if it would work anyway, and don't really care to try, a major shift of British naval power to the Eastern Med to deal with Austrians is so far from any historical reality that it should be laughed out of the house.

Incidentally, does anybody know what those Austrohungarian dreadnaughts actually did during the war? I can't remember reading a single thing about them after I dunno 1911 or so.

(in reply to FrankHunter)
Post #: 6
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 3:20:55 AM   
Mike Dubost

 

Posts: 273
Joined: 8/24/2008
From: Sacramento, CA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: OrvalB

All Hail the Invincible Austrian Navy! That long and heroic seafaring history, the ancient traditions of the (very) junior service, the efficiency and perspicacity of Austrian naval infrastructure, as opposed to just the opposite in the military arm, I am in awe!

I've run 1914 about 17 times in the last 24 hours, hotseat and AI, and yep, every time the Austrians, at a minimum, go toe to toe, and most of the time, kick Entente asses up and down the block and send them crying home to mummy wahwahwah, no matter what the Entente does. There was only one fluke where they came out behind,  and it wasn't that far behind. Does this strike anybody else as just a teeny tiny little bit ahistorical? What is going on here?

And no I don't think having the Eastern Fleet hide for a few turns (!no Eastern Trade?!?!) until the Italians and reinforcements show up is a realistic response. A gamey response, maybe, but pretty hard to square with history. And I have no idea if it would work anyway, and don't really care to try, a major shift of British naval power to the Eastern Med to deal with Austrians is so far from any historical reality that it should be laughed out of the house.

Incidentally, does anybody know what those Austrohungarian dreadnaughts actually did during the war? I can't remember reading a single thing about them after I dunno 1911 or so.



I remember reading about some successful MTB (Motor Torpedo Boat) actions, but I do not recall anything about dreadnaughts. Admittedly, I am hardly an expert on The Great War, but I figure I would have read about major victories, if nothing else in a book my father got from my grandfather. I don't know where he got The Nations at War, but it is a WWI book which ends with something to the effect of who knows what will happen now that the US is in the war. That's right, it was written in 1917! It gives a much differnt picture of the causes of the war than modern histories do, talking about the competing "visions" of the ideal Europe (Pan-Slavic for the Russians, versus greater Germany for Germany and AH).

Back to the topic, in my games against the AI, I found that the AH navy can take control of the Eastern Med on any one or two turns they want to, until the Italians join. At that time, the Italians plus the Brits smash them. How come the minor naval powers are so successful? Is there some factor for "target profile"?

(in reply to OrvalB)
Post #: 7
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 7:49:30 AM   
FrankHunter

 

Posts: 2111
Joined: 3/26/2004
Status: offline 		Here's a link to some Austrian naval history.

quote:

The results of the Naval race had little impact on the conduct of the war. The Austro-Hungarian fleet was eventually to be faced by the combined weight of the French and Italians, and Admiral Haus kept his battleships safely in Harbor. However, using their few submarines and light ships, the Habsburg fleet was able to effectively control the Adriatic, bombarding the Italian coast in tip and run raids similar to the Germans in the North sea with their raids on the British coast. The difference was that a pursuit by the allies could lead to potential disaster as the Austrian submarines proved several times. Meanwhile the Italians and the French could never shake off the mood of cool relations and never agreed to joint command or a joint fleet, much to the chagrin of the British who were junior partners in the Adriatic.


http://www.worldwar1.com/tlainr.htm

(in reply to Mike Dubost)
Post #: 8
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 7:51:16 AM   
FrankHunter

 

Posts: 2111
Joined: 3/26/2004
Status: offline
quote:

How come the minor naval powers are so successful?


They did have some good ships

quote:

Is there some factor for "target profile"?


No, there's no special rules.

(in reply to FrankHunter)
Post #: 9
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 10:18:57 AM   
vinnie71

 

Posts: 964
Joined: 8/27/2008
Status: offline 		Well in 1917 the Italians did in fact inflict a defeat of sorts on the Austrians, but only through their light forces which are more adaptable to the indented coastline of what today is Croatia.

Incidentally I normally find that employing the AH navy in the Western Mediterranean is more profitable. They rapidly destroy the PD (French) and other ships plus the transports. It also makes it impossible for the Etente to move forces from France or Britain to knock out the Ottomans.

One thing that seems to make the AH navy so good is its small size (ironically). Since they basically operate as one unit (most of the time), they tend to take on allied forces bit by bit, destroying or damaging them in penny packets. At least that's my impression.

(in reply to FrankHunter)
Post #: 10
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 1:29:00 PM   
ILCK

 

Posts: 422
Joined: 6/26/2004
Status: offline 		The Austrians are monsters in the Med for me. They maul that UK fleet in alexandria and then will do in any French ships so bold as to wander into that area. The "little" French fleet isn't nearly as effective. 

(in reply to vinnie71)
Post #: 11
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 4:31:00 PM   
FrankHunter

 

Posts: 2111
Joined: 3/26/2004
Status: offline 		By the way, naval strengths were taken from the Paul Halpern book, "A Naval History of WW1".

He gives Austrian strength as 3 dreadnaughts, 3 Radetzky-class semi-dreadnaughts and 6 pre-dreadnaughts.

Italian strength as 3 dreadnaughts and 6 pre-dreadnaughts

The French strength is listed as 4 dreadnaughts, 6 semi-dreadnaughts.and 9 pre-dreadnaughts.

The British on the other hand had 22 dreadnaughts and 9 battlecruisers, the German numbers being 15 and 5.

Being as the naval game is abstracted I didn't want a TE player having to give orders to 50+ battleships a turn so what I did was reduce the numbers but try to keep the same ratio.

(in reply to ILCK)
Post #: 12
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 6:23:17 PM   
EdinHouston

 

Posts: 100
Joined: 7/26/2008
Status: offline 		I havent seen this at all. If the French send their DNs and PDs and CA to the East Med, and the UK sends its two PDs from Alexandria plus the cruisers, they should be able to more than hold their own against the Austrian Navy. When italy enters the war, it becomes even more lopsided.

Sure, if the UK sends only its two PDs, then Austria will win handily, but thats like the UK sending two DNs into the North Sea and expecting them to defeat the German fleet. I just dont understand why the French and British would not want to concentrate their Med fleets in the East Med. Sending them separately, at different times, is just inviting disaster.

(in reply to FrankHunter)
Post #: 13
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 6:47:14 PM   
boogada

 

Posts: 353
Joined: 8/17/2007
From: Germany
Status: offline 		Having two navies work in close combat together without having reliable codes and means of communications would ensure a disaster as well. In "Castles of Steel" in one episode the author mentions that even the British had trouble because some commander used some old style flag system and then a new squad was set under his command and they always had trouble with the signals. Imagine that at a Jütland scenario. I can't remember the details and the book is too big to just look it up right now. 

(in reply to EdinHouston)
Post #: 14
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 6:54:40 PM   
EdinHouston

 

Posts: 100
Joined: 7/26/2008
Status: offline 		I agree that in the real world it would be problematic. But in the game, even though the fleets fight separately, it comes down to numbers: 2 French DNs + 3 French PDs + 2 British PDs + 3 CAs > 2 AH DNs + 1 AH PD + 1 AH CA. I am not saying that AH might not win that battle, or more than hold their own, but more often than not, the TEs will win.

Also, the TE has a much better ability to repair their ships. AH has about half the production points of France or the UK, and Germany is in bad need of some of those in order to strike the decisive blow on land. AH could win that navy battle, but lose the naval war, because after that turn, it will be problematic for them to repair their ships and get them back into action.

Now the CP could wait to strike with the AH navy until the Ottomans enter the war, but the Ottomans usually get only zero or 1 production point, and they badly need that point for trenches and other things. A point spent on their navy so it can join the AH in the east med, is a point that could be decisive on their land frontiers.

There are just so many options in this game, and because of the production system, doing one thing means not doing others.

(in reply to boogada)
Post #: 15
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/23/2008 7:14:26 PM   
boogada

 

Posts: 353
Joined: 8/17/2007
From: Germany
Status: offline 		In reality Germany could have never gone to the North Atlantic and AH never to an open battle in the med just because both would lack any port facilities to help them at all. They would run out of ammo and coal quickly. The ET can always just use any harbour, the CP have almost none outside of Adriatic sea except Turkey. Not to mention the complete lack of those in the Atlantic. 

(in reply to EdinHouston)
Post #: 16
RE: Austrian Dreadnaughts on Steroids - 9/24/2008 2:31:14 AM   
Mike Dubost

 

Posts: 273
Joined: 8/24/2008
From: Sacramento, CA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

quote:

How come the minor naval powers are so successful?


They did have some good ships

quote:

Is there some factor for "target profile"?


No, there's no special rules.




Thanks for the response. I only wondered because it appeared so consistent.

(in reply to FrankHunter)
Post #: 17
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