Rule The Waves: Admiral Stolichnaya Rides Again

[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]So in preperation for the great big naval hullabaloo that is Rule The Waves 2, it looks like I've finally worked up the technical skill to do a playthrough of Rule the Waves 1.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Dear lord.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Instead of a flashy and kinda painful writeup of what Rule the Waves is, I'll just say that we're in the most accurate big guns battleship simulator in the world with the same graphics team that brought you successes like MS Paint and Railroad Tycoon 2000. More important, though, is what my settings are.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Russia. Medium fleet size. Manual historic fleet build. Varried Technologies. Fox only, no items, final destination.[/font]

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seize Kaliningrad

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Pamyat Azova, a fine and dandy ship which will patrol our colonial possessions, and more importantly smack insolent asshole raiders in the face! Again, there are four of these wonderful ships: Paymat Azova, Rossiya, Gromboi, and Bayan.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Then there's Pallada, which is the light destroyer leader and enemy raider puncher we all know and love. Due to suprise budget cuts, we only have two: Pallada and Diana, who will naturally get more sisters later.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Then there's ol' Destroyer Prime, the Bunyi. Lightly armed and reasonably fast, it'll probably get put on costal patrol the skinny minute I can churn out something better. Also there are only four or them, sadly. We'll build more soon. Promise.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]no we won't the Tzar will want more battleships or some shit[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Either way, it's time to show the world what we're made of! Russian Navy, it's time to move out![/font]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]January, 1900[/font]



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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]There we go! Now I can set my intel (High on everyone who isn't ROASBIEF GET OUT and the Burgers, who get low and medium respectively) and max out my research budget. Somewhere in Ukraine, a monistary just started shoveling rubels into a giant censor to get the proper air of technological development down, while Brother Martin gets to work theorizing about how to best deal with the Muckle Damn Germans.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Febuary, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Nothing of interest has happened globally, so naturally I lay down four more ships: the Avrora-class, which will serve as raiders and literally nothing else because they'd get eaten alive.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]They might also land on an island or something, I don't know. Probably Madagascar knowing my luck. I pour out a shot for them, and then consign the Avrora, Flora, Svetlana, and Vesta to construction. 0 months down, 22 to go. Christ. At least they're dirt cheap, and for good reason: at 414,954 Rubles a month, they barely dink my monthly positive balance. After laying down two more Pamyat Azova-class ships, to be known herafter as Varyag and Bogatyr, I'm at a much more reasonable 792k Ruble monthly gain. Which is good- I need to hoard money against the next big thing to make me build more battleships.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I also dispatch about half my ships to the new hell that is Northeast Asia, to make sure the Japanese have a roadblock in case they declare war over Sakhalin, or something. Gettoff my island. Mine.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]March, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Nothing happened, month slept through. I do queue up a publicity move, though, and expand the docks in Finland so they can take battleships, while studiously ignoring the fact my battleships would probably end up built in Ukraine.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]April, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Somehow, my scientists cannot figure out how to cram an extra hundred tons into a destroyer. I look into hiring some nice young Georgians to sort the matter out, until I realize I'm still hoarding money for the next battleship class.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]May, 1900[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Fuckoff, Japan. My "tourists" are not looking for the best way to steal all your Koreas. You only have one Korea. In my rage, I lay down four destroyers, running my black budget line tighter- 170~~~ spare rubles a month now.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]June, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Japan gets the memo and fucks off to drink tea and discuss the practicality of fighting China in a Pan-Asian Land War. I am, naturally, not invited, and must sit in my office chair in Sankt-Petersburg and spin.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Except it's 1900 and I don't get a spinning office chair yet.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]July, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Holy shit, my "tourist" department has pulled in a big'un! Via the power of the family vodka stash and good teleoptic lenses, we now have examples of the new Asama-class Japanese battleships![/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]On one hand, I want to call it a turd. My ships have more large caliber guns and tertiaries, but that increase in throw weight in the secondary battery worries me- if the damn thing didn't have a six inch belt! At 5000 meters, I can blow through that without blinking, and conversely my own eight and a half inch belts will shrug off their ten inch guns without major issue. Hell, let me check my own ten inch tables, it might not get through my cruiser belts either![/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Nope! My cruisers are in large part safe from the enemy battleships. Good job, ramens. Good job.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Also my budget went up by 100~~~ rubles somewhere, but I am not touching the Rainy Tsar Day stash yet.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]August, 1900[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The Useless Fuckwit Brigade tells me that apparently making metal hard is hard, gib money pl0x. I yell and grab my Nagant, which does not solve the issue but makes me feel better.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]September, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Once again, I sleep through a month of nothing happening except vodka production. The Stockpile Grows.[/font]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]October, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Much like my Weaboo Research and Tourism department, I also have a Beer Research and Acquisition department. And boy howdy, have they reaserched me a decent looking draft of beer.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]On the face of it, this is a Problem. It's not significantly slower than my main-line protected cruisers, but it'll probably be able to keelhaul my raiders. I don't think I'll be able to get through that belt with my current guns, either, so that forces an engagment to torpedoes and boarding parties. Blyat.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Nothing else really comes through the grapevine, so I get back to snoozing.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]November, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I really gotta stop sleeping on the job, because the Beer Aquisition Team just keeps delivering. This time, though, we're looking at something a bit more dangerous than a protected cruiser- we're looking at a second rate battleship.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]That ship's not gonna look too good in a few years in my opinion. That four and a half inch belt is already pentratable by my current guns, and more importantly bringing two ten inch guns against me is a bit of a joke since they won't be able to get a good salvo to sight in off of. The secondaries are bad, but I am a firm believer that fire control will get better.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]We just need to throw enough monks at it.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]December, 1900[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]January, 1901[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]HELLO, WORLD![/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]First order of buisness, the Almanac. Where, exactly, are we now?[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]We're not bad. Gonna need a new battleship sooner or later, but I want to pack in some improvements under the hood, so I'm waiting for something to force my hand. Otherwise, we're actually a peer power![/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Somehow![/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]In the meantime, though, might as well put on some nice music and keep on napping![/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Febuary, 1901[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Just as I start sleeping, some asshole chucks a baguette through the window with a drawing on it. After cleaning up my desk and unrolling the note from my Bureau of Wine and Cheese Investigation, I realize I'm looking at the plans for the newest French battleship.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Good news, though, the Clockwork Monks have developed a new thingy at the low cost of only two lay-brothers of the order going insane![/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]We have now taken the triangle and the dark mathematics therin and applied it to gunnery! It will do great things! Eventually![/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]March, 1901[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]My public works project in Finland has paid off! Excellent! Time to do it again, since it takes so bloody long! But first, I need to check in on my informants in the Department of Motor Vehicles-[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]-holy fuck that's a lot of six inch guns. More importantly, that's a lot of six inch guns in a really beefy hull. Did someone in Belarus find a stash of "secret Hamburger documents" to design this thing off of for their absurd game or something? Madness. Still, I would not like to fight one of those up close, because it will cause a lot of damage before something finally gets a good hit through that belt.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]April, 1901[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]After taking a sip of my post-commissioning champagne for three destroyers, I take a look at the newspaper.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Fuck. Rule #1 of being an Admiral: if nothing merits your existance, make something that merits your existance. I fire off a barrage of angry telegrams full of illegible code to my elite provocateurs to begin operations. The telegraph operator looks confused when my message consists of |=(_)(|< |3!7(|-|35 937 /\\/\\0|\\|3`/ but duly sends the transmission.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]In passing news (that I missed getting screencaps for) my Metallurgic Deacons managed to figure out the secrets of Krupp Ceramit, and the Clockwork Monks came through with the advent of the Cockburn Safety Valve, which is not for the safety of the crew but the safety of the engine. Engines are expensive! I can't even get mad about the inability to mount a heavy secondary battery right now![/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]May, 1901[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]After finishing another Bunyi-class, I approve the construction of an extra one to keep the yard workers in buisness. Can never have too many destroyers with those damn Ocean-classes rolling around. That's when I get a too-tidy notice from the Beer Aquisition Department.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Remembering the threat of economic woes on my navy and the thought we might snap those islands up later, I order the minions to start spiking the beer barrels and introducing Fraktur as the font of choice in order forms to maximize confusion. It's time to wreck havoc![/font]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]June, 1901[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Aside from another destroyer rolling off the yards, the only thing of note is the French offering the tech to get hardened AP caps off them. Sitting on an unusually large pile of rubles in the shape of an office chair, I generously offer one arm of the chair in exchange to get that one damn monk from looking at me funny as he does witchcraft in the corner. Euck. Can't get rid of the fucker, since he reports directly to the Tsar. Oh well.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Plus side, though, the Sisters of Swimming have delivered us another upgrade to our torpedo design! I generously offer their Abbess a raise, which probably gets turned into a new cushion for her and a lot of gifts for small starving orphans or something. They should just join the navy as coal stokers, it at least feeds them.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]With the new docks done, though, I feel the urge to compensate for the small size of the average vodka bottle in my office. More importantly, the magazines are complaining at my lack of battleship. Fine. Let me check the construction boards.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Yeesh, everyone's taking vodka breaks ain't they. Still, checking the Giant Money Vault, I've got eight mil and change sacked away, and 763~~~ coming in over the operations costs a month. I can afford to go in the red a while, or at least until the unprotected cruisers finish up. Time to design.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]First up, weight. I've got 17,000 tons of potatoes to play with, which is a pretty good size advantage over the rest of the world right now. The best gun in the world is the British 13 inch gun, and uh...[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]We don't got one to proof against. So in exchange, we're gonna design against our own 12" guns, and add some healthy threat margin to the armor as a just in case measure. Our best penetration is 7.1" at 5000 meters, but I don't like that. I think everyone else, especially the Baugettes and Sauerkrauts, have better penetrators than me, so I'm gonna assume normal 12" gun pen at brawling range is 8" of pen. For future proofing, I'm gonna look at a minimum of 9" of belt armor, and I want to hit at least 20kts of speed so the battle line GO FAST and not be totally at the mercy of destroyers.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]She's more than proof against her own guns on the primary and secondary batteries, a heavier secondary battery, a (unpictured) shore compliment, and more tertiary guns to REMOV TORPEDOBOOT. She might not be a revolution, but she's an evolution, and a pretty solid one. I'll lay one down now, and maybe a second if nothing keeps advancing.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Limping away from the torched pile of my chair made out of rubles I sit down in the regular one and get ready to grin and bear it when the Assembly hears the navy isn't in the red. No rest for the wicked, neh?[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]July, 1901[/font]



[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]August, 1901[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]September 1901[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Literally where? Some godforsaken island in the South Pacific? Snore. More importantly, though, the Monastic Order of Hydraulics has failed to understand "PUSH SHELL WITH RAM" as evidenced by their guilty faces as seen so:[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]So I don't care. I just need to stop hemorhaging money. Excuse me.[/font]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]October 1901

Ten thousand tons gets me two more knots, a half inch more of belt, five more rounds per gun, a few more anti-torpedoboat guns, and some more survivability when it inevitably gets torpedoed. Thus, the first Voin-class is laid down.

And then I'm in the red to the tune of 57~~~ rubles a month. Fuck.
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[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]May, 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Gentlemen.[/font]



[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]...in other news, we now have double bottoms for our ships, and increased tesnsions have gotten us back in the black by a good ammount. This will now be spent on destroyers, because we're low on disposable torpedo throwers. Stolichnaya out.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]June, 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]It's just not a Russian campaign if there's not adventuring in the darkest depths of China, is it? I order the fleet out, and naturally tensions spike high enough to make me lay down nine new Vesseli destroyers and bribe the boys working on my battleship and armored cruiser to tell the union to fuck off and just get the fuckers done.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]July, 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The tech team reports better riviting techniques, six foot coincidence rangefinders, and reliable bursting charges to help deal with the Other Guys. I throw a thouand rubles in the plate at the cathedral, and get back to work. Tensions down with the Ramens, bad. Tensions up with the Sauerkrauts, also bad. Fuck. Time to politic.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]August 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Apparently the shipbuilding industry in Finland grows stronger. Excellent! More importantly, the guys at the Baugette Reaserch Institute finally found a way to duplicate the enemy's submersible designs, and even get them back up to the surface again![/font]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]September 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]More than a few destroyers finish construction, and the armored cruisers finish their working up. I cackle, right up until this point.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I can be a chicken, or I can be a man and more importantly look good. I think on this, shot glass in hand, for a minute. Then the glass comes down.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Telegraph officer, mark my words carefully: "Who the hell do you think I am?"[/font]



[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]October, 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Another month, another report from the Hamburger Reaserch Institute. I sit down, break open the stylized M that serves as the seal, and get to reading.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]It's a decent light cruiser, and fairly analogous with ours. I'm neither worried nor fearless. That's the issue with light cruisers though- they all look very similar until they're screaming down on you with murder in their eyes.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]November, 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]December, 1902[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]For Christmas this year I get the plans to a Ramen raiding cruiser who's going to be so much floating scrap metal in a war if I get lucky.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]In other news, I'm still in the red versus the Giant Money Pile, the new non-religious non-secretarian Nerd Pit has failed to deliver a 700 ton DD and I am deeply ashamed at their efforts, and nobody looks like they want to fight a war anytime soon.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]January, 1903[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Ahh, that New Year smell. No, wait, that's the smell of lyddite filled shells getting shipped out to the fleet, so as to better blow our enemies into tiny little pieces. In other news, ol' Almanac is taking up the picture slot[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]We need more tonnage of battleship in my mind, and more importantly we need more destroyers. We always need more destroyers though, but with eleven under construction that number's not going up. When the Voin finishes, though, I'll look at putting down a new battleship for construction.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Febuary, 1903[/font]



[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Nah. They're good.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]March, 1903[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]This hurts me. I can make an ally, except tensions are too high IMO. I could call a disarmament conference, and lock in the status quo for a while while I ramp out a ton of light stuff. Or, I could hike tensions. This really hurts me, because I have to call the conference. If I can make sure I enter the next big arms race on an even footing, it'll be huge. The difference between wars won and lost. I pull the trigger on the conference.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Fucking diplomats.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]April 1903[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]May 1903[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]If this is war, then so be it! Germany, go the fuck back to sleep![/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]...[/font]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

January, 1904

Winter intensifies into a storm, as the last of my destroyers come off the blocks, private ventures expand the docks in Finland again, and our Scientist Relocation Program strikes again.

Once again, the Goulashes choose to donate a piece of technology to our cause, this time being the techniques as how to build medium caliber wing turrets. This will be incredibly useful, and now I don't need to keep using bloody casements. Casements look terrible, and worse have the chance to explode more easily. More importantly, the Hamburger Reaserch and Development Institute has some juicy info for us tonight.

With just a central rangefinder, you have a lot of yelling involved. Now that we have central firing- that is, the gunnery officer on the bridge pushing a button and the guns firing themselves, or failing that yelling "FIRE" down a telephone- you see a marked improvement in accuracy since this eliminates the demon lag in the command loop. I have so many ships to refit it's not even funny. This is essential. AHHHHHHH

March, 1904

The Imperator Pavel launches before we can cram in a set of telephones, and is promptly discovered to be too fat anyway. More importantly, however, the Clockwork Monks have improved our boilers to include these side drums, so as to allow us to do something that lets us use less machinery for more horespower down the engine shaft. Good work, boys. With this all done, I can start taking the armored cruisers in to get the new fire control, and hopefully things stay calm.

If I pull the engine and a pair of torpedo tubes, I can get these ships up to twenty knots and refit the fire control along the way. It'll work well enough. I bring two ships in for the refit, and get on with life.

April 1904

The Wine and Baugette Imports Office chimes in for once with a new French Cruiser design, and I dutifully look at it.

Come and get me, motherfuckers. Development costs force some delays, but when this thing leaves the dock in three years it will kick so much ass!
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[Tabac Iberez]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]After pausing construction on the Latnik super-cruiser to keep the deficit spending reasonable against my miniscule footstool-sized horde of rubles reasonable, I breathe a sigh of relief.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]NEVER MIND THAT. TIME TO GET OUR SHIT TOGETHER! GO GO GO![/font]



[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Looks like they're starting out with a suprise attack at Port Arthor. They have me in CLs and DDs, but I have them in CAs and hopefully skill. For battles in general, I run the game at Slow or Very Slow and only pause as needed to actually click the wee little bastards icons to give orders, and to type this out. Time to rock.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]First contact made, eighteen minutes until we can raise steam. God damn it, we need to be moving now! Move, move, move! They're getting closer, and I can smell the fish they're gonna be throwing at us any second now. The first identified contact we get is a Shimikaze-class: 1x 3", 4x 2", and 2x 18" torpedoes. This is a Problem. We're shooting back, though, and their first pass has been nothing but whiffs if they dropped fish.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I countercharge with my own destroyers, and hope gun line superiority will hold them off and keep them from launching torpedoes. I also positively ID the Minekaze class, with 2x 3" guns, and 4x 18" torpedo tubes with two centerline and two forward wing tubes.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I've got them running, now- but the question is can they run before I get my pound of flesh and the destroyers and their knives come into play? I've got a plan, though, and I think it'll work.[/font]

 

[Tabac Iberez]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The plan, as it stands, is pretty shit. Run east, dogleg around the headland to get into the Bay of Dalny, and then go hide in the port. There's three important things it relies on, though.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]1: My close in fire superiority over the Asama-class dreadnoughts.[/font]
[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]2: The fact the destroyers speed advantage won't help them get into bearing around the dogleg[/font]
[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]3: Trailing target torpedo shots are ass, especially with early slow torpedoes.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]If this plan works, it nullifies the enemy destroyer advantage, lets me bully the battleships, and hoepfully let my disconected main fleet get it's shit in the sock. Here we go.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I loose a destroyer fairly early in, but I don't care too much. I have to push further.[/font]
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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Their battle line looks like it wants to break contact: I'll let them. If they call it off, it's still a tie for me, and therefore a win in the long run. Half an hour until dawn remains.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The Destroyerblob is letting my ships past, in what looks to be a manuvere to perserve lines of command. I decide to close the range a little on the Ramen battle line. The CA in the back resolves itself into an Iwate-class (2x 10", 10x 7", 10x 3", 2x 18" tubes) which is plinking away with it's main battery futilely. I keep manuvereing aggressively until I pass the headland.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Dawn breaks, and the guns open back up as the Ramen fleet disengages right into the rays of the rising sun. I actually have an advantage here- I outrange them. I can force them to press in close to me, or get picked to death.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The irony of using the rising sun at this and my endless store of spite and vodka make me do it. I then realize this is fucking moronic, because it'll make me overshoot the headland more than I've already done and will give the Destroyerblob a chance to up and shank me.[/font]

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Spoiler: The average Japanese Destroyer

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I slow down slightly to force the Ramens to remain in contact; I'm not so worried now that I have the headland between me and the damned destroyers. Diana, continuing her streak of misfortune, eats a torpedo, and I finally bite the bullet and admit I can't try to sink a Ramen battleship today, so I might as well hit the port and let my flag transfer over. Diana starts sinking first, though, and I wince.[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Then I realize it's a sneak attack and I need to break contact to end this. Motherfucker.[/font]

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]RAMEN FLEET GO HOME WE'RE A HALF HOUR OVER THE BATTLE CLOCK ALREADY![/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I go up to Fast Speed, since we're both circling angrily around in circles, but it is to no avail. Finally, sweet finally, the scenario ends.[/font]

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Spoiler: BATTLE OF PORT ARTHUR: ANALYSIS

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Spoiler: BATTLE OF PORT ARTHUR: ANALYSIS

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[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Admiral Stolichnaya's Take[/font]

[font=tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]So, tactically, this was a loss. Two reasonably matched forces entered, and we lost one light cruiser and a destroyer to the enemies' one destroyer. Practically, though, this is a strategic victory. By not getting my fleet kicked in by night torpedo attacks- and with sixteen destroyers they could have pressed very terrifying torpedo attacks!- I managed to buy time for reinforcments to show up. More importantly, I learned that my battleships are ton for ton incredibly superior to theirs, and that means I can trust a decisive battle to be in my favor if I have a way to handle the damn escorts. I got lucky that they didn't end up turning the meat of my fleet up. Ideally, I won't need to get lucky twice.[/font]

 

[Remass]

Is this posting on a time delay compared to the SB one? since I notice this post here was put on SB... 43 and a half hours ago, for a time difference of ~35 hours.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Is this posting on a time delay compared to the SB one? since I notice this post here was put on SB... 43 and a half hours ago, for a time difference of ~35 hours.

It's cross-posted over when I get the time and energy.