Most protected cruisers had a main armament of 5 inch guns or 6 inch guns primarily in casemates, but sometimes located in dual mounted turrets (one bow, one stern) on the ship. They were typically medium to heavily armored for their time and could hunt destroyers and rain down high explosive fire on larger fleet units to cause fires. This version of the cruiser is before the designations of cruisers varied between "light" and "heavy" cruisers which were popularized by the Washington naval treaty set forth after World War I. Summer Class by the US Navy and the Fubuki Class of the IJN. Common designs include the Fletcher and Allen M. Never underestimate the destroyer as it can surprise you and your fleet as it can the enemy with your own destroyers. Such a tactic was used to great effect in the WWII Battle Off Samar by Destroyer USS Johnston. This classic defensive tactic is used to follow the columns of water from impacting enemy shells gambling that the enemy gunners do not shoot in the same place twice and instead adjust their rangefinders which impedes their accuracy. Although a support craft by designation, it can do combat against light cruisers and larger units as long as a tactical maneuver is used called "chasing splashes". Like the torpedo boat, a destroyer's speed and maneuverability, in addition to being able to smokescreen a battleship or larger fleet unit makes it a very versatile ship class, built to adapt to most situations. Destroyers have much more bulkheads than the Torpedo boat, due to its larger size and added armor, however a destroyer's armor is inadequate against even some light cruisers sporting 6 inch guns. They are slightly less maneuverable and fast than a torpedo boat, but they still inherit a strong torpedo armament from the torpedo boat, both as a center-line design and like cruisers, sometimes port and starboard mounted. They are typically armed with large numbers of 5 inch guns in up to dual mounts. They are more armored than a torpedo boat and are also a direct descendant from the previous ship class. They were also used historically for anti-submarine warfare (commonly abbreviated ASW). The Destroyer is a very effective tool to attack larger surface ships and raid convoys. The modern torpedo boat is often armed with depth charges for anti-submarine duty. The disadvantage is being that they are not armored and have minimal bulkheads, any larger ship that has accurate cannons should be able to send a torpedo boat to the bottom in only one or two hits due to the over-penetration and flooding that occurs because of it. The main advantage of such a craft is its speed and maneuverability to stay out of trouble and its strong torpedo armament and also they can be made very cheaply in a relative sense. Early technology will let you access single center-line torpedoes, but later technology will allow you to mount more intimidating numbers of torpedoes. These auxiliary armaments are sparse, usually only a few turrets, because the main job of a torpedo boat is to deliver large spreads of torpedoes to the target while under fire. The general design schematics of torpedo boats is that they are armed primarily with torpedoes and their auxiliary weapons are guns of a caliber of 5 inch or less.
In early technology this little boat can knife through the water faster than a destroyer while still delivering a fairly devastating payload of torpedoes to even the largest ships. This will cycle from the smallest ship to the largest of them all.īeginning with the humble torpedo boat we see it is a very small maneuverable craft with no armor to speak of. This may not represent how the mechanics are in the actual game yet or by release.įirst off, let us talk about the general characteristics of the existing ship classes available to design in the current version of Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts. This information comes from years of obsessive research into the subject and lots of reading on the subject which may have some inconsistencies. It is simply a primer to introduce you to how ships were historically designed and also pros and cons of each design decision so you can make more informed decisions with your own fleets when the campaign releases. This will be a general guide and thus will not be specific to any particular era of ship design. I have been fascinated with Naval Technology since my grandfather told me the stories from his WWII service in the US Navy. Hi, I am BattleshipofDestruction and welcome to this guide on historical ship design.
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