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Ian R -> RE: Cruiser Replacement Dates (3/22/2016 3:02:59 PM)
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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
If you really want this feature against the AI , you can select it on the editor.
Interesting feature, but really you need to reduce the number of reinforcement ships in stock scenarios to match.
Having said that, I have always been, and remain, an adherent of the original Grigsby modelling of this, which goes all the way back to Pacwar v1.0 in 1992. If anything, the 500 odd days delay in WitP was too long, and GG should have retained the 34 week period from Pacwar (or perhaps something in between). I wrote a long post in another forum explaining why, pasted below.
Suffice to say that I think the label 'respawned' is childish, and deprecatory of what GG set out to do (very elegantly, IMHO) to model the US wartime system of accelerating, suspending, or cancelling more-than-adequate already funded building programmes as circumstances warranted. It was not a case of miraculously & instantaneously producing a slipway, and laying a keel, as one mis-informed poster on this forum once asserted in the course of criticising this game mechanism back in the original WitP days. The irony of this is that by disabling the GG replacement mechanism, and including all the war built ships as reinforcements - including those arriving on accelerated delivery dates - you may well, subject to losses, end up with an accelerated US building programme that exceeds the historical.
You guys do know that 11 of the 14 Essex class carriers operational during the war had already been voted by the US Congress into funded building plans (starting with CV9 in 1938), and contracted by September 1940, right?
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... you could have a maximum total of USN 17 CV on the map (or building), and no more. The figure of 17 active CVs is, historically, quite supportable - see below. The CV airgroups were hardwired to the carrier in the particular line on the ships database, so their CAG came back with them (sans any aircraft).
Someone at Matrix - probably Joel - once explained that GG was of the view that the US ship building capacity was, for practical purposes, historically unlimited in terms of how many hulls it could build and complete, subject only to shipyard priorities .... If they had more losses, they would build accordingly.
This IMHO has the advantage of being historically accurate. There are long lists of ordered, stopped, and ultimately cancelled ships, including several Essex's, many cruisers and DDs (and a couple of repeat Iowas that were contracted in 1940, and suspended in June 1942 after Midway). If the situation demanded, they could accelerate a building hull and commission it.
Taking the Essex class as an example, the funding for the lead ship was voted in 1938 (with the Hornet to build to the previous design first). Eventually 32 were ordered, and 24 completed, the Oriskany to a modified design years after the war. The first 3 were ordered in early 1940, and 8 more were ordered in September 1940. 2 more were ordered on 15 December 1941. 10 more orders were placed in mid 1942 (for 23 total), and another 3 in 1943. 6 ordered in the 1944 funding programme were canceled in 1945 pre actual construction. 9 were part built in September 1945, 7 of those (including Oriskany) were later completed, 2 scrapped on the slips.
So, as at January 1942 there are 11 Essex's under contracted upwards of 15 months before, with the first keel laid in 4/41. If the Allied player manages not to lose any carriers, ever, then they only get the 6 pre-war carriers (I'm omitting Ranger from consideration) and, in effect, the 11 pre war ordered Essex, total = 17 - in the game. Any you do lose are replaced, so the later arrivals are coming from from the 12/41 'war-emergency orders' or the 1942 building program. Notably, the peacetime fleet (6) + pre war Essex orders (11) + war programs (21) = 38 - enough to lose every CV once, and 4 twice.
As for the mechanics of accelerating carrier construction, CV 9 was laid down 28/4/41, launched 31/7/42, commissioned 31/12/42. - 20 months from keel laying to commissioning. Yorktown II this reduced to 16 months, while Intrepid, building at the same yard (Newport News), was laid down the same day, but launched 3 months later (10 days after Y2 commissioned) and commissioned 4 months later. Looking at the progression of launchings and commissionings at NN, they timed it over the first 6 ships so that a new hull would be ready for launch as the previous ship commissioned. With Hornet II they got this down to just under 16 months, and Ticonderoga (2nd 1940 programme) just over 15 - keel laid, 1 February 43, commissioned 8 May 44. Bennington (one of the war emergency orders of 12/41) was laid down in December 42 at NN, but did not commission until August 1944.
The gold medal however goes to Bethlehem Steel. Hancock was the last of the 1940 orders, laid down 26 January 1943 & completed 15 April 1944 in a mere 14 months & 20 days; the Shangri-La, ordered in the 1942 program, was laid down at Norfolk Navy Yard before Hancock (15 Jan 43), but was not commissioned until 15 September 1944 (21 months).
So it can be seen that construction could be accelerated where needed if the resources were thrown at it, bearing in mind that 11 ships had been ordered pre-war (and two on 15/12/41, and 10 in mid 1942), meaning the paper-work and funding was in place, materials gathered, ship builders (and their suppliers) tooled up, etc.
The replacement mechanism in the game was a very elegant design for effect solution to the question of how many carriers (and escorts) the USN could operate, crew, furnish CAGs for, maintain in theatre, etc. Looking at the commissioning dates in Conways (and it takes further time to work up the ship for combat after that) 14 Essexes commissioned by the end of 1944, followed by CV36 Antietam on 28/1/45, CV21 Boxer on 16/4/45, and CV39 Lake Champlain on 3/6/45, with the others post war. Antietam completed work up at Hawaii and sailed for Eniwetok on 12-August 1945. The latter two were not ready for deployment when the war ended, so there are 15 CVs available including Antietam. If you add those 15 to the 2 survivors of the pre-war fleet (Enterprise & Saratoga) you get the maximum 17 ships programmed by GG.
Edit - spelling
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