Ironclads suck

[roguepro92]

they should have a buff like enemy naval/embarked units can't enter adjacent hexagons if a iron clad is there in defense or hold position type thing so iron clads can be used much more efficiently as defensive unit even if it can't enter ocean. being able to enter ocean be an upgrade maybe lvl4? after 3 initial chain.

 

[Polycrates]

The shift from coal to oil happened simultaneously for both types.

First oil-powered destroyer was in 1911, first oil-powered battleship was in 1913.

By WWII, no front line battleships were coal fired. (ie, none in USA, GB, Germany, Italy, France, etc, etc, etc.)

This isn't a history lesson, this is game-relevant. The coal-powered ships were a well-defined generation. That generation spanned from 1860's to 1910's. That "Ironclad" we're seeing there represents all ships up to Dreadnoughts - the defining factor of which wasn't power-plant, of course, it was all-big guns - but the point stands. If the unit is representative, it's underpowered.

Cool, a boat discussion! The RN's Tribal-class were oil, from 1905, and the majority of RN destroyers after that were oil. Might have been earlier ones I don't know about. Makes sense, of course - destroyers most needed the high speed, made less risky experiments, and didn't use as much of the stuff, which was in very short supply at the time. With the result that at Jutland there was a significant percentage of oil-powered destroyers, but only a couple of battleships (the Queen Elizabeth class). Even most of the WWI BCs were coal. I know the Americans had the first fully-oil battleship; but I don't know to what extent they switched their destroyers to oil around then. Much of a muchness, I guess, but it strikes me that destroyers have a better claim as a primarily oil-based class than battleships do.

But I really have to disagree extremely strongly on your break-point for ironclads-to-battleships. HMS Dreadnought utterly obsoleted everything built before it overnight - just as surely as La Gloire and HMS Warrior obsoleted everything before them to usher in the ironclad era. It was such a completely superior class of ship from everything before it (and not just because of its guns), and it was because it rendered entire navies so completely useless at a stroke that it spurred such an immense kick to the ongoing naval arms race as it did; which ended up being a fairly significant contributing factor to WWI. From Dreadnought up to the Iowa-class, there was no similar breakpoint but really more a smooth continuum. Even coal-to-oil really wasn't such a significant change at that point, arguably less so than the introduction of steam turbines (on Dreadnought). I'm entirely cool with battleships in-game requiring oil, I think that's a perfectly sensible game mechanic and I wouldn't change it, but I don't think there's any basis for not including dreadnoughts into the "battleship" category.

If there was ever a heyday of the battleship, it was around WWI when they actually did rule the waves and actually fought a real engagement. By WWII they were pretty much obsolete as fighting ships; good for coastal bombardment, sitting in port looking menacing in a fleet-in-being waiting to get bombed, or just tooling around wasting prodigious amounts of fuel and manpower while subs, destroyers and planes did all the hard yards.

I would consider "ironclad" as perhaps starting with the French armoured floating batteries, but really kicking in with the revolutions that were La Gloire/HMS Warrior, then going through all the weird and wonderful mixed bag of crazy and often horribly clumsy designs (masted and mastless) in the latter 19th century up to and including all the "pre-dreadnoughts" with their ridiculous assortments of mixed-calibre guns. Included in this were a bunch of ships that were seaworthy, and a bunch that had such low freeboard or such short operational range or some other ridiculous fault that you'd really have to call them coastal. And all the crazy naval doctrines about ramming and sabres and paintjobs and whatnot that went with it. Hence why I'm cool with the coastal-only thing for the ironclad as a cool mechanic with a vaguely historical basis to give it a bit of legitimacy.

Errr anyway, shoving this back into a game mechanics thing, I totally agree with the need to improve ironclads but I do think that a straight buff doesn't necessarily address the major problem that destroyers in this game pretty much obsolete every other ship. I'd be more inclined to first nerf destroyer strength/toughness and see whether ironclads (and other naval units) then come into their own. And if that didn't work, then I'd start buffing ironclads, first by giving them range 3 and then thinking about strength/toughness increases (though I still wouldn't get rid of their coastal thing - I think it's cool and interesting).

 

[Randall Turner]

Polycrates, are you sure you're arguing with me? Because it really sounds like you're agreeing with me, not arguing.

"All big-gun" is the accepted term for "Dreadnought" - they're synonomous, ie,

That "Ironclad" we're seeing there represents all ships up to Dreadnoughts - the defining factor of which wasn't power-plant, of course, it was all-big guns...

So of course I'm agreeing with you on the paradigm shift for capital ships, right?

What are we disagreeing on? I am saying DD,BB to oil is simultaneous in game time scale - what's a few years between friends when we're modeling Thutmose to the Space Shuttle. QE, Narvik, whatever.

And yes, there's certainly no clean break between WWI BB's and WWII BB's, except perhaps for top speed expectations. Oh, and plunging fire protection, but you can retrofit that.

So, are we just disagreeing on whether the Ironclad needs a buff or the DD a nerf? <shrug> I can live with that, but I was playing around getting the Battleship units competitive with Artillery in a duel, I don't think we want to reduce the strength of DD's more than they already are, they're terribly fragile. The only reason we don't see it more is that the air units are all either ship-nerfed (bombers) or overall bombardment-nerfed (fighters). They get close to the shore, any dumbass arty just kills them.

 

[Polycrates]

Errr, mostly I was just happily rambling on about boats, to be honest. I get carried away sometimes. But I misread and thought you were lumping dreadnoughts in with ironclads, my bad!

Anyway, I guess I just never see a compelling reason to build any ships except DDs once they're available, except for the occasional CV if my bombers need the range. They're just so versatile yet powerful enough that all the other options seem like poor choices in comparison.
I don't think they should be destroying ironclads, and I don't think they should be quite so capable of swarming a BB. They're so useful that it's kinda pointless to go the sub route because they'll always be facing massed DDs. And CVs are relatively rubbish against them. I'd rather they were more of a scout/cheap picket unit and a counter to an enemy going heavy on the sub/air route. More of a floating pikeman crossed with a scout, really.
Ironclads/battleships seem more suited as the heavy-hitters and land-bombardiers, and CVs more an anti-ship than an anti-land weapon (have fighters better vs ships and let bombers maybe base to carriers but not fly sorties from them - I think carrier bombing wings fit in with "fighters" much better than with the tactical/strategic bombers of the "bomber").
But yeah, I think we agree that the DD should not be beating an ironclad in a stand-up fight. I'd make the DD somewhat weaker (on attack and defense) and cheaper, give the ironclad +1 range, a little extra attack power and an upgrade to BB, and give BBs +1 speed.

 

[Randall Turner]

<shrug> Sounds good to me.

I fiddled with unit strength stuff mostly to get out of the situation where one unit fits all, and DD's do as it stands. (Same sort of problem with Tanks/Mechanized Infantry.)

What I don't get is, didn't they see this back in the home office?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Destroyers are too powerful, but

Ironclads are also seriously inadequate (compared to Frigates)
no ocean going
use Coal
slower
slightly tougher
not upgradable

So I'd make Ironclads Ocean going and upgradable to battleships first (to make them viable v Frigates)

and Then work on the Destroyer (either require oil *preferred* or weaken it)

 

[Lyoncet]

I'm not a nautical expert, but isn't part of the problem with CiV destroyers that they're trying to cover too much historical ground? It really seems like they've lumped the early submarine destroyers in with the small warships (cruisers/battlecruisers) that competed with battleships for naval prominence. We do have missile cruisers, but those represent modern ships, not the mid-20th-century vessels that along with aircraft carriers effectively rendered battleships obsolete. If they broke the modern ships down a bit further (not unreasonable given the great diversity of land units we have in the modern era), you could make (weak, resourceless, WWII) destroyers pikemen on skis, add (slightly less weak, resourceless, WWII) cruisers as anti-air ships, and then have oil-guzzling battleships and carriers be the center of the fleets with Missile Cruisers taking over from battleships in modern.

Alternately, you could wrap anti-air and anti-sub into (weak, resourceless, WWII) destroyers, make battleships take increased damage from fighters and bombers, and then add battlecruisers into the equation as cheaper, quicker, not-quite-as-powerful battleships (probably need to make them require oil too). Basically, this would simulate the mixed bag of being weaker, but also less vulnerable due to their speed, ability to defend against air and more efficient in terms of resources (better hammers-to-power ratio). Perhaps place them at Radar, since that would give an alternate tech route a decent warship to go along with carriers, but it would also be slightly higher tech than battleships and well before missile cruisers. They'd probably want to be 2 range as well, but of course with indirect fire. Maybe even give them move after attack, but then they'd probably start getting too good and would have to be placed higher on the tech tree or made to require more hammers, both of which kind of defeat the purpose.

Anyways, point of all that is if you went that route, ironclads would balance out pretty well. They'd be better against destroyers (but destroyers would still be very useful), and we'd have cruisers/battlecruisers to fill in the fast attack role that destroyers are currently doing triple duty on (along with AA and anti-sub). Letting ironclads upgrade into battleships while battlecruisers had to be hard-built could also give it an interesting dynamic.

 

[Polycrates]

I'm not a nautical expert, but isn't part of the problem with CiV destroyers that they're trying to cover too much historical ground? It really seems like they've lumped the early submarine destroyers in with the small warships (cruisers/battlecruisers) that competed with battleships for naval prominence. We do have missile cruisers, but those represent modern ships, not the mid-20th-century vessels that along with aircraft carriers effectively rendered battleships obsolete. If they broke the modern ships down a bit further (not unreasonable given the great diversity of land units we have in the modern era), you could make (weak, resourceless, WWII) destroyers pikemen on skis, add (slightly less weak, resourceless, WWII) cruisers as anti-air ships, and then have oil-guzzling battleships and carriers be the center of the fleets with Missile Cruisers taking over from battleships in modern.

Alternately, you could wrap anti-air and anti-sub into (weak, resourceless, WWII) destroyers, make battleships take increased damage from fighters and bombers, and then add battlecruisers into the equation as cheaper, quicker, not-quite-as-powerful battleships (probably need to make them require oil too). Basically, this would simulate the mixed bag of being weaker, but also less vulnerable due to their speed, ability to defend against air and more efficient in terms of resources (better hammers-to-power ratio). Perhaps place them at Radar, since that would give an alternate tech route a decent warship to go along with carriers, but it would also be slightly higher tech than battleships and well before missile cruisers. They'd probably want to be 2 range as well, but of course with indirect fire. Maybe even give them move after attack, but then they'd probably start getting too good and would have to be placed higher on the tech tree or made to require more hammers, both of which kind of defeat the purpose.

Anyways, point of all that is if you went that route, ironclads would balance out pretty well. They'd be better against destroyers (but destroyers would still be very useful), and we'd have cruisers/battlecruisers to fill in the fast attack role that destroyers are currently doing triple duty on (along with AA and anti-sub). Letting ironclads upgrade into battleships while battlecruisers had to be hard-built could also give it an interesting dynamic.

I like your thinking on all this, though I would disagree on the battlecruisers. The BC was pretty much a stillborn concept (at least as a ship-of-the-line), and the area where it was actually designed to excel before everyone except Scharnhorst and Gneisenau forgot about it (as a commerce raider that could take out defending CAs and use its speed to run from BBs) isn't modeled in civ anyway. Apart from that, they're otherwise fairly indistinguishable from BBs - and more importantly I'm not sure the late industrial/modern era really needs another ship anyway.
I think it's okay to have the destroyer cover DD and CL territory and be a combined anti-sub + anti-air + picket ship that's a bit rubbish in a stand-up fight; and combat damage calculations in this game are such that a nerfed destroyer would still be able to do some damage to a BB, and so be able to swarm heavier ships in a pinch - reducing the need for a separate CA unit. Their speed also makes them a realistic threat against CVs. Hell, I'd balance it so that ironclads essentially still work as coastal-only CAs against more modern ships - as a credible but sub-optimal defensive alternative for those players who have coal but not oil. They would of course need 3 range and more strength for this. With the right balancing, subs can also act as the oil-less player's counter to heavier ships.
And the BB and CV are there as the heavy-hitters - one tough-as-nails and punchy but with a short reach, and the other fragile but ranged and deadly and ridiculously oil-thirsty. It's still a simplified picture, but I kinda think adding more ships just overcomplicates things a bit unnecessarily. It all needs a whole bunch of balancing (and an AI that knows how to use them) but I think they've otherwise got the mix of modern ships pretty good.

If I were to add another ship to the game (and I would), it would be a medieval trireme upgrade - a war galley or galleass or something.

 

[BubbaYeti]

Not even close, unless you're assuming the in-game ironclads are the very very first Monitor/Merrimack hacks launched in 1860's, which isn't indicated by the unit graphic, ie, they look like the later 1880's ironclad battleships.

These ships typically had something like 4 x 10" guns, 10" armor, that sort of thing.

A WWII heavy cruiser had 5" armor typical. WWII Destroyer 5" shells would just bounce off these guys.

I'm not sure, but I think the more modern guns on a WWII Destroyer would out-range the larger caliber, but older guns on the late 1800's ironclad. The Destroyer would have a major speed advantage too. Tactically, it would fire from just outside the ironclads range, bombarding it with shells that would eventually wear down the ironclads protection, or get lucky hits on the guns, etc. If this was the case, then the ironclad would have no effective response.

If the destroyer did not have a range advantage, then another tactic would be for the destroyer to use it's speed to close range quickly and let loose a barrage of torpedoes. One torpedo hit would take down the ironclad...ships of that era were not well compartmentalized. And being so slow, the ironclad would be hard pressed to avoid the torpedoes.

I think either way, it is no contest.

 

[Polycrates]

I'm not sure, but I think the more modern guns on a WWII Destroyer would out-range the larger caliber, but older guns on the late 1800's ironclad. The Destroyer would have a major speed advantage too. Tactically, it would fire from just outside the ironclads range, bombarding it with shells that would eventually wear down the ironclads protection, or get lucky hits on the guns, etc. If this was the case, then the ironclad would have no effective response.

If the destroyer did not have a range advantage, then another tactic would be for the destroyer to use it's speed to close range quickly and let loose a barrage of torpedoes. One torpedo hit would take down the ironclad...ships of that era were not well compartmentalized. And being so slow, the ironclad would be hard pressed to avoid the torpedoes.

I think either way, it is no contest.

For the sake of this discussion, let's assume we're talking about only WWII destroyers rather than the torpedo boat destroyers that are more contemporaneous with pre-dreadnought ironclads or WWI-era destroyers (and let's consider that in the game destroyers come with electricity, and before the battleship, ie before 1906).

But armour penetration is heavily predicated on range - so even if a WWII DD could outrange a pre-dreadnought, and even if either of them could hit each other at that range, it's not going to ever do any actual damage. So the destroyer would have to get very close to actually be able to do anything to the ironclad (and even then, it would take a LOT of hits), while the ironclad more likely just needs a single shot from any distance to absolutely demolish the destroyer. And of course, the closer the destroyer gets, the more smaller-calibre guns the ironclad can bring to bear - all of which could do a lot more damage to the destroyer than a 5 inch shell could do to an ironclad.
EDIT: did a quick lookup - the 5 inch gun on the WWII Fletcher class DD could penetrate the thinnest upper belt armour on the Royal Sovereign pre-dreadnought (5 inches) only at 4000 yards, which is less than half the range of the Royal Sovereign's 13.5 inch and 6 inch guns. And it wouldn't do much when it got through there anyway since it was backed by subdivided coal bunkers. It appears that even at nearly point-blank range there is no possibility of these shells ever penetrating any of the pre-dreadnought's other armour.

As for torpedoes, I'm not sure that pre-WWII torpedo boats were ever actually an effective ship type, and even in WWII ship-launched torpedoes really had only limited success and only en masse - at any sort of long range it's very hard to hit and very easy to dodge (pre-dreadnoughts weren't that slow), especially if you don't have the element of surprise. And again, if the destroyer got in close then it's much more likely to take a shell from the ironclad than score a torpedo hit. Incidentally most pre-dreadnoughts had their own torpedo tubes as well, for what it's worth.

So with a lucky torpedo maybe, but I would definitely put my money on the pre-dreadnought.

 

[Carlx]

I built one a long time ago, and its actually a decent unit in its time. BUT: at least then it couldn't be upgraded to destroyer (unlike frigates). That was what annoyed me most.

Think about it how could you convert a wooden ship into a metal one? It makes perfect sense frigates, are just obsoleted by metal ships. An Ironclad you could at least re rivet the panels and remould it into an on the water design, rather than a mostly below the water design and later ships obviously would just take a major refit. However being as its such a small ship the upgrade cost should be quite substantial.

 

[Carlx]

I'm not sure, but I think the more modern guns on a WWII Destroyer would out-range the larger caliber, but older guns on the late 1800's ironclad. The Destroyer would have a major speed advantage too. Tactically, it would fire from just outside the ironclads range, bombarding it with shells that would eventually wear down the ironclads protection, or get lucky hits on the guns, etc. If this was the case, then the ironclad would have no effective response.

If the destroyer did not have a range advantage, then another tactic would be for the destroyer to use it's speed to close range quickly and let loose a barrage of torpedoes. One torpedo hit would take down the ironclad...ships of that era were not well compartmentalized. And being so slow, the ironclad would be hard pressed to avoid the torpedoes.

I think either way, it is no contest.

Just to add a WWII largest destroyers guns could hit a barn door from 5km away on rough seas and maximum range was ~15km, A battleships range well... The mathematics and calibration techniques by then were highly precise. They even adjusted for wind. Mostly this was done by the gunners then, now computers take the guesswork out of it. Suffice to say the accuracy and power in comparison between the two are ludicrous, really. And ironclad would be completely out matched by a destroyer, it wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in hell. Absolutely the destroyer would as you say simply sit out of range on the waters it couldn't manouver in and pick it off.

Torpedos hell even a well placed depth charge would sink the Ironclad in a few minutes, and the return fire would make no odds really as the shells would be like buzzing flies. It could even ram it and take it out that way. I'm also pretty sure that a decent shell on key weak points of the ironclads armour would indeed penetrate it. The iron clad, is particularly weak at the guns and or certain ports and joining structures so the destroyer could target those and would most likely do so. It would stand a pretty good chance of hitting them too even from longer ranges. So it would probably take little more than a dozen or so precise hits to fatally compromise it. They were not that large a ship as well being no longer or fatter than any other ship of the day, and sometimes a deal smaller.

Ironclads made of steel did not appear until the 1876 as well and not until the late 19th century did ships regularly get built from steel instead of iron, so these ships had armour that was not even comparable to them more modern destroyers.

It would be as the ridiculous a contest as spearman vs tank.

 

[Carlx]

For the sake of this discussion, let's assume we're talking about only WWII destroyers rather than the torpedo boat destroyers that are more contemporaneous with pre-dreadnought ironclads or WWI-era destroyers (and let's consider that in the game destroyers come with electricity, and before the battleship, ie before 1906).

But armour penetration is heavily predicated on range - so even if a WWII DD could outrange a pre-dreadnought, and even if either of them could hit each other at that range, it's not going to ever do any actual damage. So the destroyer would have to get very close to actually be able to do anything to the ironclad (and even then, it would take a LOT of hits), while the ironclad more likely just needs a single shot from any distance to absolutely demolish the destroyer. And of course, the closer the destroyer gets, the more smaller-calibre guns the ironclad can bring to bear - all of which could do a lot more damage to the destroyer than a 5 inch shell could do to an ironclad.
EDIT: did a quick lookup - the 5 inch gun on the WWII Fletcher class DD could penetrate the thinnest upper belt armour on the Royal Sovereign pre-dreadnought (5 inches) only at 4000 yards, which is less than half the range of the Royal Sovereign's 13.5 inch and 6 inch guns. And it wouldn't do much when it got through there anyway since it was backed by subdivided coal bunkers. It appears that even at nearly point-blank range there is no possibility of these shells ever penetrating any of the pre-dreadnought's other armour.

As for torpedoes, I'm not sure that pre-WWII torpedo boats were ever actually an effective ship type, and even in WWII ship-launched torpedoes really had only limited success and only en masse - at any sort of long range it's very hard to hit and very easy to dodge (pre-dreadnoughts weren't that slow), especially if you don't have the element of surprise. And again, if the destroyer got in close then it's much more likely to take a shell from the ironclad than score a torpedo hit. Incidentally most pre-dreadnoughts had their own torpedo tubes as well, for what it's worth.

So with a lucky torpedo maybe, but I would definitely put my money on the pre-dreadnought.

Then you would lose your money. What on Earth would those puny little shells do to the armour on a destroyer not to mention their range was nowhere near the guns on a destroyer, and the maximum ranges even into the early 19th century were not even a few kms. They were designed to take out wooden ships and even later when most fleets sported iron ships of some sort their power was not comparable at all to modern weaponry.

For one thing the effective range of a destroyers guns was up to 15km, and even at 5km the pre-dreadnaught would be so far out of range as to be stupid.

A pre dreadnaught ship would be raped by a post dreadnaught ship in the early 20th century let alone an A type destroyer in WWII, with the advent of the dreadnaught class all pre dreadnaught ships were made obsolete overnight.

A destroyer would typically be fitted with some sort of below the water attack method from about 1905 onwards. 1 hit from those would sink an Ironclad, being as they are lumbering whales for the most part in comparison to the destroyer I would expect the destroyer could sink them with torpedoes easily too.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

Think about it how could you convert a wooden ship into a metal one? It makes perfect sense frigates, are just obsoleted by metal ships. An Ironclad you could at least re rivet the panels and remould it into an on the water design, rather than a mostly below the water design and later ships obviously would just take a major refit. However being as its such a small ship the upgrade cost should be quite substantial.

I think unit upgrades should be considered as the same people, but with new equipment, so a brand new ship with an old experienced crew.
Same when horse based units upgrade to industrial or modern units.

 

[Carlx]

I think unit upgrades should be considered as the same people, but with new equipment, so a brand new ship with an old experienced crew.
Same when horse based units upgrade to industrial or modern units.

I don't. The ship and a crew trained to operate it don't appear by magic. The point is you still have to build a whole new ship so that is precisely what you do in game, training the crew sure, magical powers, probably not as realistic. You can't upgrade a wooden ship to a metal one its as simple as that, it would be unrealistic if you could.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

Not magic, you buy the new ship. Upgrading from the wodden ships to destroyers are very expensive 500 or 600 gold.

 

[Polycrates]

Then you would lose your money. What on Earth would those puny little shells do to the armour on a destroyer not to mention their range was nowhere near the guns on a destroyer, and at distances over a few kms they would be relatively inoffensive. They were designed to take out wooden ships and even later when most fleets sported iron ships of some sort their power was not comparable at all to modern weaponry.

Puny little shells? The Royal Sovereign (the quintessential pre-dreadnought) fired 13.5 inch, 570 kg shells up to a range of 12000 yards. Would they hit anything at that range? Pre-dreadnoughts at Tsushima scored hits at 7000 yards (though admittedly the Japanese were probably the best at naval gunnery at the time, at least until Jackie Fisher had his way with the RN).

A WWII destroyer (Fletcher class - one of the largest, most advanced and most successful WWII destroyer classes) fired 5 inch 25kg shells that are physically incapable of penetrating pre-dreadnought armour even at its thinnest points at anything more than 4000 yards, and utterly incapable of penetrating its armour anywhere else even at point-blank range.

The Royal Sovereign had 18 inch belt armour, its thinnest being five inch at the upper belt, and 17 inch gun armour.

A WWII Fletcher class destroyer had an 0.75 inch plate hull, with no armour. A 13.5 inch, 570kg shell is going to go right through that like a hot knife through butter, as are its 45 kg secondary shells. Hell, even its six-pounders might have a chance.

To respond to your edits:

For one thing the effective range of a destroyers guns was up to 15km, and even at 5km the pre-dreadnaught would be so far out of range as to be stupid.

See above, pre-dreadnoughts scored hits at 7000 yards, effective range could be up to 12000. A destroyer is not doing anything at all to it beyond 4000 yards.

A pre dreadnaught ship would be raped by a post dreadnaught ship in the early 20th century let alone an A type destroyer in WWII, with the advent of the dreadnaught class all pre dreadnaught ships were made obsolete overnight.

Yes but a destroyer is not a capital ship, nor intended to be able to fight a capital ship. It's a picket, sub and torpedo boat destroyer, with AA capacity.

A destroyer would typically be fitted with some sort of below the water attack method from about 1905 onwards. 1 hit from those would sink an Ironclad, being as they are lumbering whales for the most part in comparison to the destroyer I would expect the destroyer could sink them with torpedoes easily too.

And well before - the torpedo boat destroyer was designed in response to torpedo boats and were generally torpedo boats as well. Ship-launched torpedoes are not the most effective weapons simply because the necessary range is much greater, leaving buckley's chance of scoring a hit against anything unless you have a simultaneous wide spread from multiple DDs at once against a packed fleet with limited room to move. And you remove the element of surprise, giving anything plenty of chance to move out of its way, especially a pre-dreadnought steaming at 17 knots (they weren't so slow as people imagine - far faster than WWII freighters). And if you get closer, you get a 13.5 inch shell in your face, even if you get past the capital ship's pickets.
EDIT: I agree that the destroyer's only chance of sinking a pre-dreadnought is via torpedo, but that chance is extremely small in comparison with the destroyer's chance of being demolished by shelling.

 

[Carlx]

Not magic, you buy the new ship. Upgrading from the wodden ships to destroyers are very expensive 500 or 600 gold.

Then if you are buying the ship you are paying someone else to build a ship for you. It makes no difference, the ship doesn't magically materialise out of thin air, you buy all the materials from some independent company and some engineers hammer the parts together, this effectively takes one turn instead of x turns it takes to build it from scratch. Frigates are obsoleted by ironclads, Ironclads by dreadnaughts, although they at least share a simillar material so they can be scrapped and or remodelled. I think it makes sense that certain units cannot be upgraded personally.

 

[Carlx]

Puny little shells? The Royal Sovereign (the quintessential pre-dreadnought) fired 13.5 inch, 570 kg shells up to a range of 12000 yards. Would they hit anything at that range? Pre-dreadnoughts at Tsushima scored hits at 7000 yards (though admittedly the Japanese were probably the best at naval gunnery at the time, at least until Jackie Fisher had his way with the RN).

A WWII destroyer (Fletcher class - one of the largest, most advanced and most successful WWII destroyer classes) fired 5 inch 25kg shells that are physically incapable of penetrating pre-dreadnought armour even at its thinnest points at anything more than 4000 yards, and utterly incapable of penetrating its armour anywhere else even at point-blank range.

The Royal Sovereign had 18 inch belt armour, its thinnest being five inch at the upper belt, and 17 inch gun armour.

A WWII Fletcher class destroyer had an 0.75 inch plate hull, with no armour. A 13.5 inch, 570kg shell is going to go right through that like a hot knife through butter, as are its 45 kg secondary shells. Hell, even its six-pounders might have a chance.

I love how actually believe yourself its so sweet.

Moderator Action: You could have made your point without resorting to insulting behavior.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

With the destroyers range and maneuverability and the innacuracy of there guns it would be no contest, the fact you cite single advanced ships makes no difference, it is a no brainer. The fact is commonly most ships of the period had effective ranges of only a few kms and battles took place at close range, and having one long range gun means nothing if it would never hit anything.

Why the hell would it aim only for the strongest points on a ship anyway, pounding repeatedly on key weak points would be all it takes. I stick with the dozen or so well targetted shots to breach the ship and fatally compromise it. It could hit the slow piece of crap and dance around it takinf highly accurate pot shots at range, and the beast could not even keep its guns targetted on it at close range. Do you realise how gun battles worked. Firgates were so superbly streamlined that they could out maneuver other ships, like wise the destroyer would simply out maneuver that cow.

Run in close zig zagging around the ships t, and the guns would never even come to bear, then launch a torpedo and leave as it sank, being sure to keep crossing the T back and forth to keep out of the effective range and gun direction.

It is simply a fact that the dreadnaught class obsoleted all previous designs, the destroyer would waste the hell out of an ironclad which is a slow ponderous whale of a ship with all the accuracy of mr Magoo with a rifle. At range it could simply not even hit the faster destroyer, it's a joke to even suggest there would be any contest.

A WWII destroyer (Fletcher class - one of the largest, most advanced and most successful WWII destroyer classes) fired 5 inch 25kg shells that are physically incapable of penetrating pre-dreadnought armour even at its thinnest points at anything more than 4000 yards, and utterly incapable of penetrating its armour anywhere else even at point-blank range.

Oh and this is complete bs by the way. Destroyers were not all fitted with guns like that some had ranges of 15km and packed a hell more of a wallop than that. Stop talking nonsense. If you are just referring to 1 class of destroyer then you should of said that. Different navies had different classes and types all differently armed and armoured.

You also seem to forget depth charges and spigot mortars which would mince your precious ships armour in seconds. Drop a few of them fire off some mortars and then leave the area and the whale couldn't even turn in time to avoid all depth charges in time.

Depth charges can be rigged to explode near or on the surface.

 

[Polycrates]

I had hoped we were having a civilised discussion here.

I think you have a misconception about what a destroyer actually is. The Fletcher class were the largest WWII destroyers ever built. Their largest guns were 5 inch (which were primarily used for AA). I'm not aware of any destroyers with larger guns - even light cruisers often didn't sport guns any larger. They did indeed have ranges of 15km, though at considerable angles and extremely low penetrative power at that range (even discounting the reduced penetrance caused by the increased angle of the shell vs the armour). However they could not penetrate pre-dreadnought armour at anything near that range. Were there ever destroyers with more armour? Perhaps, but certainly never enough to stop a 13.5 inch shell - armour was utterly counterproductive to a destroyer's primary purpose.

Destroyers were the smallest fleet ships in WWII (discounting frigates and corvettes which weren't fleet ships), they were certainly not dreadnoughts. So the HMS Dreadnought argument, while true for capital ships, is irrelevant to this discussion. They had no guns capable of harming a capital ship because they were never intended to fight capital ships (except via mass torpedo). They could cross the T, but to what purpose if they're not doing any damage? Pre-dreadnoughts were nothing if not well-armoured - HMS Royal Sovereign was roughly equivalently-armoured to Bismarck (thicker in places). And not as slow and lumbering as you imagine - 17 knots is nowhere near destroyer speed but it is still a significant clip.

There is evidence from the few pre-dreadnought battles that actually occurred (Tsushima mostly) that ships were capable of scoring hits well outside the range at which a destroyer would be able to damage a capital ship. The HMS Royal Sovereign, for example, had 14 guns with range well beyond that threshold. It only takes one hit. The "speed is armour" doctrine put forward by Jackie Fisher proved to be monumentally untrue in practice.