Gentlemen,
The past year has gone well for us. We were able to continue our construction program, commissioning 4 DDs and 2 CLs, as well as making substantial progress on our BCs and BBs. We remain just ahead of the Germans in terms of budget, and renewed international tensions have allowed us to break even financially. We have also made several important technological advances, most notably the development of depth charges. As a result, we have begun refits to all of our 600-ton destroyers to convert them into ASW escorts.
We are only a few months away from completion of Nancy and Nantes, so now is the time to think about replacements for them on the slipway.
Our current fleet
Ships under construction
Our current aircraft
March 1916
Battleships Trident, Redoubtable, Friedland and Ocean scrapped. CL Jean Bart begins conversion to AV. Breakthroughs: Ladder shooting, Medium range submarine. US laid down an AV. Many nations are scrapping ships.
April 1916
AV Linois finishes reconstruction, 2 DDs commission. Fighter Breguet 54 selected to replace Potez 45. Germany commissions 3 KE, US 1 BC, UK 1 CL, Italy 1 CL, Japan 1 BC.
May 1916
2 DD commission. Germany lays down 4 DD, commissions 1 KE. AH commissions CL.
June 1916
Great Britain has crushed the rebellion in Zanzibar. CL D'Entrecasteaux commissions. We refuse to participate in a peace conference held in the Hague. Germany commissions 3 DD, Italy 1 CL, US 2 DD.
July 1916
CL Destrees commissions into the navy. We agree to sell the British quadruple turrets. Breakthroughs: Improved shell quality control, depth charges, Aircraft bombing of ships. Germany lays down 2 DD, commissions 1 BB, 2 KE. UK commissions 1 BC, US 3 DD.
August 1916
Rebuilds of Mosqueton class DDs into escorts begins. AV Jean Bart finishes her reconstruction. We recommend the government increase our budget to ensure peace. Germany lays down 1 CL, 3 DD, commissions 1 DD, 1 KE. US commissions 1 CL, 3 DD.
September 1916
Rebuilds of Carquios class DDs into escorts begin. We extend our security arrangement with Great Britain. The Breget 54 enters operational service. UK lays down a BC, Germany commissions 1 BC, 2 DD, 1 KE, AH 1 BB, 1 CL.
October 1916
We steal plans for American BB Arkansas, currently under construction. Germany lays down 1 BB, 3 DD. AH and Italy lay down AVs. UK commissions BC, Germany KE, US 4 DD.
November 1916
2 DD finish reconstruction. One of our agents is caught in Japan, and we make him a national hero. Germany lays down 1 CL, 2 DD, commissions 4 KE, 7 DD. UK commissions 1 BB, Italy 2 AV, US 2 DD.
December 1916
The Obusier class DDs begin reconstruction. 5 DDs finish reconstruction. Our spies get hold of the plans for BB Ise, currently under construction. Breakthroughs: Horizontal turbines, Improved airship engines. Germany lays down a BB, as does the UK. Germany and US each commission 1 DD.
January 1917
1 DD finishes reconstruction. Germany lays down 1 BB, commissions 1 KE.
February 1917
We sell High Capacity Pumps II to the US government. Germany lays down 1 BC, Italy 1 CL. US commissions 3 DD.
RTW2 will take a break next week, but will return on 1/3.
Comments
What would a war with Japan look like? So far we've only been fighting in and around Europe, I'm curious how well we'd be able to project force further away.
The biggest concern there would be port facilities. It would make a lot of sense to spend some of our budget surplus expanding the SEA bases to support a bigger fleet.
Unless our budget increases further, we won't be able to afford another two Saint Louis, since we'll have to cover the maintenance of the new BCs. If we make do with one more BB for now we can spend the rest on more port facilities (including a further increase in dock size) and some new cruisers. That should leave us in a position to lay down a pair of battleships in late 1918 as Saint Louis and Charlemagne come into service. It might be worth thinking about what we want from those ships too, e.g. how big do our docks need to be, is the 14" +1 sufficient, so we can build and direct research appropriately. The cruisers could free up more modern vessels like Friant, Lavoisier and Descartes, to replace the Bruix class which lack colonial facilities. We should also consider the future of the Duquesnes, now the 'resistables' they were built to hunt are disappearing. Could they be better suited for a carrier conversion than the D-Ts?
Interesting to see the battleships the other powers are launching - we should definitely avoid any conflict with the US if they have another 6 ships like (an probably superior to) Arkansas under construction. Slightly concerned about those three BBs the Germans are building too.
Glad that we've got some counter to all those submarines (over 80 and climbing) filling the med. I still think that some patrol bombers might be useful here. Would a D41 successor with a pair of 100lb bombs be a threat to subs? Perhaps look into aerial depth charges, in case they manage to submerge before we reach them.
The Duquesnes are right on the borderline of CV and CVL. In theory, I think we can get one to be our initial CV conversion, and it will need 6" guns instead of 8". But we could probably get one classified as a CVL, too. The other option is to reserve them or maybe send one or two to the Far East to protect our presence there.
All of the US battleships under construction are the same class as Arkansas, except for one that is significantly smaller for reasons I can't explain.
I can start a new patrol bomber competition, to get something with a bombload.
If the IJN's best ship is the Ise, we should do alright in a battle line engagement. 9 inches of belt and 2 of deck are paper compared to the best French BBs. Fighting Italy over and over again has been fun but has gotten a little repetitive, so maybe it is time to pick a bone with the Samurai.
I'm a bit cautious about starting hostilities with Japan. In addition to the issues with port facilities in the area, we would also want to be confident that things in Europe would remain calm while much of our fleet was away. Sending any significant force east would leave us weak in the Mediterranean, or unable to significantly support Britain against the High Seas Fleet, or both.
I agree that Ise doesn't look too impressive next to our City type BCs, and the rest of their capital ships that we've seen (the Kurama BCs and Satsuma BBs) are exactly the sort of ship they were built to kill, but we haven't yet completed five, while the Japanese have at least double that number of irresistible type BB\BCs in service, and they would meet us with everything they have, while we wouldn't send the whole fleet even if we could support it. If we did end up going to war I wouldn't bet against us, but I'm not eager to start one (unless perhaps they have any oil producing colony we could take). Would our arrangement with Britain allow us to operate forces from Singapore if our own bases in Indochina are insufficient?
About the Duquesnes - the class boundaries in the game strike again! In what different ways do CVs and CVLs get used? Are we trying to squeeze into the CVL category so as appear in smaller battles as well? Is there an incentive to create Deutschland like heavy cruisers to game the classification system rather than a treaty? Because we have a good 11" gun design available if we wanted to.
I vote we go ahead with the patrol bomber competition. We've got airbases that give us good coverage of at least the western Med where submarines look like a threat, and keeping them either submerged or in fear of one of our aircraft appearing should make it harder for them to hunt our merchantmen. The weather there is nicer than over the north sea too, so starting there will be easier for an inexperienced service than running patrols over the Skagerrak.
It's not that the game treats CVLs and CVs that differently, it's that the first CV conversion has a bunch of restrictions, including 8" guns, unless it's under a certain size, possibly 17,000 tons. Getting those out of the way on a vessel like the Duquesnes is a good idea.
I definitely favor some base buildup in SEA, just in case, but my main concern about fighting Japan is that we have no bases in Northeast Asia. Not sure what to expect from the AI here but if the Japanese fleet just stayed home we'd have a tough time engaging them.
I suppose it might come down to how effective commerce raiding in SEA would be.