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Kensai
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Fri Oct 17, 2014 10:03 am

DrPostman wrote:Reminded me of that scene in Das Boot when they try to transit the straights on the
surface. Gawd how I love that movie.


It's an impressive movie indeed. More because it was a German production and they did a really good job into showing how life was probably on the boats. Do you know if any movies or documentaries exist regarding U-Boat activities in the FIRST World War? I haven't been able to find anything so far.
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Johnny Canuck
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Fri Oct 17, 2014 2:41 pm

Kensai wrote:Guys, coal could have been replenished en route by escorting coal barges/cranes or whatever if they were desperate enough not to stop. They could have taken off guns and unnecessary combat equipment to fill the smallest ships with coal if the goal was to travel. The abstraction's most serious issue is the 15-day turn which disallows for rapid reactions in such cases. The game cannot simulate everything. Not even HOI3 does that for WW2 (for example submarines moving into the Mediterranean through Gibraltar were forever locked in there due to undersea currents and it was almost impossible to go back to the Atlantic in front of the Rock in the surface).

In 1905 a much older fleet went from the Baltic all the way to Port Arthur, only to be defeated by the Japanese in Tsushima. Watch the first leg of this journey. It's a decade before WW1, in an era we had huge improvements in naval tech, and in just a fortnight it's almost the distance the Austrian-Hungarian fleet has to do to reach Wilhelmshaven. The next leg in Western Africa (2 turns in game) is even bigger. You can argue all you want it was "only battleships", but I think it can be done.


No, it realistically couldn't be done. If they brought colliers with them, it would have lowered the fleet's speed, and would have put the Austro-Hungarians in an impossible tactical position - if attacked and outnumbered, they cannot retreat since that would mean having to abandon their colliers. Plus, coaling is a very lengthy & labour-intensive process - one can take a look at Spee's progress across the Pacific to get a sense of how much time this can take. To coal the Austro-Hungarian fleet would require it to be stationary for at least 24 hours, and would require a port, cove, or other coastal location - coaling cannot be done on the open sea (again see Spee's voyage). Where would the Austro-Hungarians find such a place? Everything past Cattaro is either Entente-controlled or neutral, and no neutral is going to allow the Austro-Hungarians to stay for any period of time to coal - legally, after 24 hours a belligerent can intern any warship in territorial waters. Plus, the neutrals would know that allowing the Austro-Hungarians sanctuary would mean a British naval blockade and the end of all overseas commerce - no neutral is going to take that risk. If the Austro-Hungarians do anchor somewhere to coal, I'd bet even money a sizeable French or British fleet is offshore within 24 hours, ready to annihilate it the moment it goes back to sea. Even if they miraculously solve the coaling issue, the end of the voyage would come in the English Channel, where they would find the Grand Fleet crossing their 'T' & inflicting a Tsushima-like defeat - unlike 1942, there is no risk of German airpower sinking the Grand Fleet if they operate at the western exit of the Channel. Plus, again unlike 1942 the British would have plenty of warning of the Austro-Hungarian approach - even if they make it out of the Mediterranean (doubtful), one can't sneak a fleet past Gibraltar, even at night (due to their complete unfamiliarity with Gibraltar, the Austro-Hungarians would need running lights on to make sure they didn't run into the Rock itself).

The reason the Russian fleet was able to make the voyage during the Russo-Japanese War was that they knew beforehand they had locations where they could coal (such as Cam Ranh Bay) and that combat would occur only at the end of the voyage. Any admiral seriously advising sailing the Austro-Hungarian fleet to Germany would have been courtmartialed for incompetence, and for all intents and purposes it should be impossible in the game. The simplest solution IMHO would be to simply prevent Central Power warships (other than submarines) from transiting into or out of the Mediterranean unless they control Gibraltar (thus giving them the coaling station they would need to undertake such a surface voyage).

This, IMHO, is separate from the issue of interception, whereby fleets in port should be able to have a chance to intercept enemy fleets that are sighted within range, as opposed to just in adjacent coastal zones. Realistically speaking, if the High Seas Fleet sortied against the blockade line, this would have meant sailing as far as a line from the Shetlands eastwards, in which case the British would have had more than enough warning to not only sortie but cut off the line of retreat of the Germans. In game, a German sortie into the blockade box should be intercepted on the same turn the Germans arrive in the box - i.e. the British player should not have to wait until the next turn to go after the Germans in such a case. There were very good reasons why the High Seas Fleet never went after the blockading warships - they knew they'd be intercepted long before they could ever get there & home again.

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caranorn
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Fri Oct 17, 2014 5:44 pm

Hundred percent agree with Johnny Cannuck's post!
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Kensai
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Fri Oct 17, 2014 6:41 pm

Johnny, you don't want colliers with you, fair enough, but you ignored completely the second option I posted. Disabled some defensive structures in the smallest of ships, added more coal instead of food, ammo, etc for a normal patrol, travel with a skeleton crew, the rest could have been railed by train, etc. It could have been done. Moreover, my mention of the 1904-5 expedition was to show up the distance that had to be covered and the time needed to do that. Where it had to recoal is insignificant, given that according to the map the Austrian-Hungarian fleet could have done a similar feat without recoaling. Moreover, the time scale shows possibly less than 20-25 days of voyage. So yeah, it definitely could have been done and you are already disproved by the Russian Navy's feat a decade earlier. But what would the point have been? It makes no sense to risk the entire A-H Navy (that can be intercepted in both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic), abandoning the operations in the Med against the blockade of the imports for the A-H population.

The problem is that the game has chunks of 15 days action which are too big to be of comfort for fast reaction moves such as naval interceptions. But fortunately, if a player plots interception sorties that start and end in a port, it could be done, albeit the micromanagement for the WE player. The CP player has simply to plot the movement from Pola to Wilhelmshaven and cross fingers he is not intercepted. But I think it's too much of a risk, honestly. The A-H's fleet first turn ending would be with very little cohesion, risking tons. If I were WE I would do sorties every darn turn in order to disallow such movement and be done with the enemy's (smaller) navy.

In the future we could add something like automatic bombardment (could be done with a special locked "unit-structure" in Gibraltar that opens fire on enemy ships passing through there, giving hits and cohesion losses).
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Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:38 pm

Kensai wrote:It's an impressive movie indeed. More because it was a German production and they did a really good job into showing how life was probably on the boats. Do you know if any movies or documentaries exist regarding U-Boat activities in the FIRST World War? I haven't been able to find anything so far.

Morgenrot 1933 is notable. Unfortunately I've been unable to find any subtitles
(thought I found the film on Pirate Bay). I did find a short clip from the film
that looks rather good, so I hope some day I can find subs for the movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMWsbm8NBFg

I also came across this list of WW1 submarine films, most of them probably
silent.
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/6133-ww1-and-ww2-submarine-movies-excluding-documentaries/
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Sat Oct 18, 2014 8:57 pm

I do not think the issue is so much whether you could move the Austrian fleet to Germany, as whether the Austrians would ever have attempted to do so, which they never did in the real war.

When you consider the importance of battlefleets to national prestige, the fact that the Ah empire would want to retain the fleet in the Adriatic to protect against a possible war with Italy, which became a reality in 1915, and the fact they would be totally at the mercy of the Germans for supplies at the end of the voyage, I think such a voyage would never be attempted.

The second alternative described by Kensai, of stripping the ships to skeleton crews, and storing coal on the ships themselves, would have left them helpless against any allied fleet that managed to intercept them, and no admiral would take such a risk.

Finally, all navies of the time had a large logistics and support component that was located at their bases, and which they relied on to maintain, supply, and support their fleets. It would have been a huge undertaking to move the support forces to german ports, even by rail, and it would leave no support at the Austrian bases. Again, I do not see this ever happening. None fo the central powers had established a network of their own naval bases outside of Europe, though the English had, and to a lesser degree the French and the Americans.

The voyage of the Russian Baltic fleet in 1905 was a very different situation. The Russians were not in danger of attack until they reached the vicinity of the conflict, and were able to coal at the bases of other nations. Nevertheless, the fleet was worn out by the time it reached the warzone, the ships were in very bad shape, and this was a huge factor in the disaster at Tsushima.

I do think it would be more in keeping witht the mindset of the times to not allow such a move. Perhaps the battlefleets of the Central powers should be restricted from moving out of support range of their naval bases, though individual raiders and small squadrons would have the option of doing so, though they would be very vulnerable to cohesion loss. Just my two cents.

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Kensai
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Sat Oct 18, 2014 9:24 pm

vaalen wrote:The second alternative described by Kensai, of stripping the ships to skeleton crews, and storing coal on the ships themselves, would have left them helpless against any allied fleet that managed to intercept them, and no admiral would take such a risk.


That admiral's primary goal would be to reach Wilhelmshaven and unite with the German fleet. To reach that goal it would need some sacrifices. After all, honestly we rarely see "destroyer action" in this game when there are larger ships in the combined stack due to how the engine treats battle with closing distance. Surprisingly, this is a rather accurate approximation for this case. The A-H fleet, if intercepted, would have probably lost before the distance was close enough to have the minor ships firing.

Anyway, we could this discuss this for hours and hours and still not get a definite conclusion. The important lessons are two: (1) in reality it could have at least be done, since it was done more or less for the same distance and time frame a decade earlier and (2) it is unfortunate gamey movement that the game allows which, however, is not definite in its success probability.
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Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:45 am

Kensai wrote:That admiral's primary goal would be to reach Wilhelmshaven and unite with the German fleet. To reach that goal it would need some sacrifices. After all, honestly we rarely see "destroyer action" in this game when there are larger ships in the combined stack due to how the engine treats battle with closing distance. Surprisingly, this is a rather accurate approximation for this case. The A-H fleet, if intercepted, would have probably lost before the distance was close enough to have the minor ships firing.

Anyway, we could this discuss this for hours and hours and still not get a definite conclusion. The important lessons are two: (1) in reality it could have at least be done, since it was done more or less for the same distance and time frame a decade earlier and (2) it is unfortunate gamey movement that the game allows which, however, is not definite in its success probability.


Kensai, so far you are the only one who thinks it could have been done. But yes, no point in continuing to discuss this as all the points have been made by now...

This move could easily be prevented by restricting the Austro-Hungarian fleet to the Mediterranean and Black Sea as long as Gibraltar is neutral or hostile...

For the longer term it might be interesting to looking into coaling issues which were a big limiting factor in WWI. That is whether we can implement limited ranges for ships, respectively limit operations to within range of coaling stations. I think I might have a couple of books with additional data on this (just recalled I should have pre-WWII Janes, plus another book I bought for CW2 alpha which might cover as far as WWI), I will look into that in the coming days...

Does anyone know of a working website to calculate distances between ports? All I've found online seem to be broken and the tables I've found read like Klingon to me...
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Kensai
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Sun Oct 19, 2014 10:18 am

Yes indeed. But so far I have been the only one that has brought some hard evidence (a map of actual fleet movements without recoaling of a decade EARLIER) as well. :)

Restricting fleet movements through Gibraltar is way too harsh. In Suez, I can understand it, but Gibraltar cannot be closed. It would be too unrealistic the other way. As I said earlier, there could be a solution such as some special code to deal automatic hit/cohesion damage to any hostile fleet that passes through it.
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Sun Oct 19, 2014 5:46 pm

Exhibit number 2. :)

Steam ships of the period, which burned coal to fire their boilers, were naturally tied to coaling stations in friendly ports. The German Navy lacked sufficient overseas bases for sustained operations, even for single ships operating as commerce raiders. The Navy experimented with a device to transfer coal from colliers to warships while underway in 1907, though the practice was not put into general use. Nevertheless, German capital ships had a cruising range of at least 4,000 nmi (7,400 km; 4,600 mi), more than enough to operate in the Atlantic Ocean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Seas_Fleet#Logistics_and_personnel

So the colliers-to-warships reloading mechanism I envisioned before reading the possibility of such device existing is there. Now, the question is, would the Germans pass to the Austrians the know how if they were to be helped by the latter's fleet directly?
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Sun Oct 19, 2014 6:30 pm

You'd have to make that a decision with a refit period for the Austrian fleet.

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Thu Oct 23, 2014 3:50 pm

For the record, I was the Entente player in the PBEM game Ringhloth was referring to and I can vouch for everything he said. If there was some way intercept could be changed to include provinces more than one away, with a decreasing chance of interception at further distance, that would solve a lot of the problems in the system at the moment. Other things like speed of the ships involved in both the pursuit and evasion as well as number of screens available to both parties could affect the chances as well. It would give Britain an incentive to create Battlecruiser fleets like it did historically or for Imperial Germany to leave its Pre-Dreadnoughts at home like it often did historically because they are too slow.

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Thu Oct 23, 2014 9:36 pm

Hey, did you try to do sorties? Having a nice fleet in Southampton and doing interception sorties in offensive from port to port (looking to be in sea for 10-12 days) really helps a lot not to lose cohesion as well as upping the probabilities of intercepting a rival movement. An ideal sortie goes from Scapa Flow to Southampton and back.
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Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:29 am

Kensai wrote:Hey, did you try to do sorties? Having a nice fleet in Southampton and doing interception sorties in offensive from port to port (looking to be in sea for 10-12 days) really helps a lot not to lose cohesion as well as upping the probabilities of intercepting a rival movement. An ideal sortie goes from Scapa Flow to Southampton and back.


I have tried that before as the Ottoman Empire, bizarrely. Long story as to exactly why. It didn't work despite passing the enemy fleet by.....twice....and entering the same province as it. Maybe it was a fluke, but since such a fleet would need to be on offensive posture it still seems to me that you would burn cohesion like a madman.

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Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:46 am

Hi everyone

very interesting thread!

I'd like to throw in my two cents and echo a concern voiced by Haresus earlier on. It was already a problem in La Grande Guerre, the brilliant wargame that inspired TEAW, ( and I remember discussing rules with Phillipe at the time, some of them related to naval warfare). The penalty for lost naval battles should only be significant in case of sinkings of capital ships. Indeed, certain ships were quite emblematic and nations staked their pride on them, but nobody really cared about the outcome of marginal and relatively unconclusive battles, specially if they feature no prestigious ships. WWI was, fundamentally, a land battle. Everybody knew that is where it would be won or lost. The naval battles morale loss/gain should only approach significant land defeats/victories in the most extreme cases.
This problem can be for TEAW, as it was for La Grande Guerre, detrimental to the game, especially because of the highly volatile "make it or break it" nature of naval warfare. Naval victories/defeats can be a morale boost or penalty to be reckoned with, but by no means should they impact the course of the war to the extent currently possible in the game.

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Kensai
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Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:25 am

Projekt Pasha wrote:I have tried that before as the Ottoman Empire, bizarrely. Long story as to exactly why. It didn't work despite passing the enemy fleet by.....twice....and entering the same province as it. Maybe it was a fluke, but since such a fleet would need to be on offensive posture it still seems to me that you would burn cohesion like a madman.


Burn it, no worries. Once in port (if you turn back by the 10th day or so) you will be regaining cohesion.
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Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:25 am

Kensai-

As with Vallen, I also would like to express my sincere appreciation for your well written, informative posts regarding EAW and PON. As a new player, I have found this thread to be most helpful and informative.

Ace- my appreciation for your contributions to this and other EAW threads.

My respect to both of you for the time and effort you have contributed to the AGEOD beta teams.

Gents- an excellent discussion that has helped me, a newbie, much.

Also: Loved the clip from "Morgenrot"; as a naval gunner (1971-1981) and another 10 years in Marine Corps, starting with Artillery (1982-1992), I felt that the representation of manning and firing the U-Boat's main cannon (either a 10.5cm 10.5 cm SK L/45 naval gun or 15cm) very realistic- right down to recoil, sight setting and loading fixed ammunition (at least from my perception).

Mac

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