46.000 Tons Of Dreadnought - US Battleship Only Episode 12 - Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Admiral's log. There is a particular kind of silence that follows an engagement that should never have happened. Not the silence of a hard-fought battle where the quiet afterwards carries the weight of genuine contest and the exhaustion of men who were truly tested. It is a different silence, heavier in some ways. The silence of an outcome that was never in question from the moment the thing began.

[00:00:27]She came out alone.

[00:00:30]one ship into the Black Sea against 11 of mine.

[00:00:35]I've been trying to understand the decision. Not tactically. There is no tactical framework that produces outcome as a rational choice. And I will not insult the intelligence of this log by pretending otherwise. I mean, the human decision, the one made by whoever stood on that bridge and gave the order to get underway, knowing they must have known what was waiting. What compels a man to do that? duty. Perhaps the particular crushing weight of duty when there is nothing left to send but one ship and one crew and the flag still flying over a navy that's been eaten alive by years of war on every front simultaneously.

[00:01:19]I think it was duty. I choose to believe it was duty because the alternative that they simply did not understand what they were sailing into diminishes them in a way I find unwilling to do.

[00:01:31]She was not a bad ship. I want that recorded clearly. She was not a bad ship. Under different circumstances against a different opponent in a different sea, she might have been something to contend with. The design had integrity. The hall had presence. I looked at her through the glass before the engagement, and I recognized the work of men who understood what they were building, even if fate had not given them the time or resources to build enough of it. Her crew was young, inexperienced.

[00:02:04]You can see it in an engagement the way you can see weather coming. In the timing, the decisions, the small hesitations that experienced crews have burned out of themselves through years of repetition and consequence.

[00:02:16]These men had not yet had those years.

[00:02:20]The Soviet Navy has been at war too long on too many fronts to give its crew years. It gives them ships and orders and whatever time there is in which in this case was not enough. 11 of my ships against one of theirs.

[00:02:37]I have won engagements I'm proud of. I have won engagements that tested this fleet and found it equal to the test and came home with a kind of hard-earned satisfaction I think is one of the few genuine rewards this profession offers.

[00:02:52]This was not that. This was not a victory in any sense that the word deserves. This was the closing of an account that was never balanced. The last gesture of a navy that history had already finished before the guns fired.

[00:03:06]I took no pleasure in it. No pleasure.

[00:03:09]None. What I felt standing on the bridge watching it end was something closer to grief than triumph. Grief for the crew.

[00:03:17]Grief for the ship that deserved a better opponent in a fairer sea. And underneath that, if I'm being fully honest, in this log, which is the only place I permit full honesty, grief for what it means when the last navy stands down, and the ocean belongs entirely to those of us who remain because that moment is coming. The Soviets are nearly finished. The Ottomans hold Qatar and nothing else. The smaller nations are gone or going. And when that last flag comes down and the last resistance ceases, there will be nothing between this fleet and the question I've been sailing towards since the first keel was laid. Britain and Germany.

[00:04:04]I'm not ready to write that log yet, but I'm ready for what writes it. That young Soviet crew fought as well as they knew how. In another life with another decade and another admiral to learn from, they might have been something formidable.

[00:04:18]The sea did not give them that time. I find I am sorry for that. Not sorry enough to have done different, but sorry.

[00:04:29]Hey there. Welcome to episode 12. I think it's been a fairly long war and it's come to an end. The war with France, 65 months.

[00:04:40]We've barely exchanged fire, if at all.

[00:04:44]Um, yeah. Oh, another The two minor minor powers, France and the Ottoman Empire, are now at war. I bet them good luck. Uh, shall I give the Ottomans an advantage by just claiming a French battleship? I mean, it is terrible. Um, at least that's their name. Well, that's the name convention that they decided to give it. Nah, I don't like it. I don't like it. I build my own. Um, what do you want to give me?

[00:05:16]Yeah, I'll just vacuum up your territory. It's fine. Uh, they gave me the Komoros.

[00:05:22]Okay, good. The Japanese are still asking for a peace treaty, and the answer is still mostly uh, no.

[00:05:29]As for Russia, southern Finland has now been conquered by an enormous army. I was part of that army with my US forces and unfortunately while I provided assistance I didn't actually get the territory of course the battle for Crimea is still going strong.

[00:05:45]It's going to take a couple more months but then we'll have Crimea as well. And as the Russians have also lost southern Siberia, the Russian Far East Sakalin, I'm now going for the last territory they have here which is Kamchatka. And Kamchatka has only has a tonnage of 7,000. So, I can probably take that off of them right now. They have 12 provinces and seven ports. I don't strictly care about their provinces. I care about their ports because once you um well, I suppose you could say bereft uh a country of their ports, they just disintegrate. They just fall apart. The game says, "Nope, sorry. You can't play dreadnots if you don't have boats." And over here, that is about to happen because somewhere the Norwegian found 1.4 4 million men and decided to start marching them into northern Russia. I'm happy to let them take it.

[00:06:38]Over here, you're also seeing a naval invasion which is likely to go through by China. Yes, China. China's also launching an invasion uh from Estonia.

[00:06:49]Yes, Estonia is being invaded by China over land and Lithuania seems safe for the time being. I think that uprising there didn't happen. Here you see the Bellarus, which is another one of their provinces. Um, and here's Muldova.

[00:07:04]Surprisingly, nobody's actually harassing Muldova. But then again, it doesn't have a port. It doesn't have a port, so nobody really cares. If this goes through, and this goes through, that's another one, two, three. If they're ports down, that's four.

[00:07:18]Um, Crimea is five.

[00:07:22]This is six.

[00:07:24]There's probably one I'm overlooking somewhere.

[00:07:31]Kronat is already mine. Yeah. At any rate, the Russians are all but finished.

[00:07:35]This is pretty much the end for them.

[00:07:39]Several months later, and I now control almost the entirety of a Japan atlet with the exception of Formosa. That's the last remnant if I'm not mistaken.

[00:07:48]Yes, one province. I have also taken it upon myself to do a little expedition to northern Russia because for some reason this offensive failed. Norway couldn't get it done.

[00:08:02]So I'm here with the fleet that was previously in the Black Sea and now they're all the way over towards Morman Square. They need two more turns and Russia loses northern Russia. When they do that, well, they got one port left and I know where to find it. It's over here.

[00:08:20]Providia. It's a port defended by one heavy cruiser. And if that heavy cruiser decides to ever leave base, well on your head be it because I got the California and the White River right next to it.

[00:08:30]That's 16inch guns. Good luck. Now I finally have completed my research on the Dreadnaugh 6. I also have a shipyard which is capable of getting 69,000 tons and eventually will go up to 82,000 tons. By the time that we get that, I don't think we'll actually have a design like a whole platform capable of filling that shipyard.

[00:08:56]Let's see what this dreadnot six sorry five can do. I think that's what right now right now. Dreadnote 5. They do still have some case mates, but not many.

[00:09:05]Sorry. Yeah, this is the six. And it just places 42,000 tons.

[00:09:10]That's it.

[00:09:16]Why would I pick you, dude?

[00:09:19]You can do 42,000 tons.

[00:09:22]I think the previous design was a Dreadnal 4, wasn't experimental dreadnaugh. It goes to 47,000. 49,000.

[00:09:34]And that's weird. You got the Dread 3.

[00:09:38]It's 495. And you got the Dread 4, which is smaller.

[00:09:44]How about that? This thing has more stability though.

[00:09:48]Is that that H? It's that weird thing.

[00:09:53]Okay. The Mississippi. What are you precisely?

[00:09:57]Oh, you are using that weird thing.

[00:10:03]I'm mostly building battleships at this point because I can, not because I think it's going to be a very worthy successor to the Mississippi because these are solid ships. These are really good ships. I can still refit them. I can still now give them a better engine because I now have access to that. I also have access to oil. And we're going to go from turbines to geared turbines.

[00:10:30]We're potentially going to have better armor. No.

[00:10:35]Antiflot 3. Everything for my crew and their survival.

[00:10:41]Yeah, there's nothing a whole lot very new there. Okay, TNT 2. Actually, uh, two out of one.

[00:10:48]I think we have a better rangefinder. We got Stereo 3 rangefinding.

[00:10:52]I've just been not really prioritizing anything but the hull. And you're now seeing that these guns just don't really get any research or they well they get research but they don't get a whole lot of advances at least not as many as I'd like. The same for the towers. It's a short and advanced cage mask number four. That's what I have. The second mast is a cage three which I have. So there isn't a whole lot that can be done to make these things a whole lot better.

[00:11:23]And I'm afraid that's the same thing is going to be true when you're looking at building a bigger ship. Then again, uh, building bigger ships is what we do here. So, let's get as big as we can.

[00:11:38]And that's probably going to be the 49,000 ton dreadnaugh. Um, plus extra width.

[00:11:45]So, let's get to work on that because there is one innovation that I have and that's triple barrel tech.

[00:11:53]So, I could add about 50% firepower to the Mississippi class, which is going to give me even more firepower.

[00:12:04]The downside is accuracy.

[00:12:10]That's going to be the downside. See, the hole just doesn't get any bigger. It doesn't get any longer.

[00:12:16]Resistance 63. Resistance 69. My The beam here can be as big as plus 13% though. But the platform itself is 42,000.

[00:12:30]This one just doesn't get as fat.

[00:12:33]The draft is the same.

[00:12:37]This thing is arguably slightly faster.

[00:12:40]The Dread 3 has an optimal speed of 22 and a half. So, I'm already kind of pushing it beyond that with this ship here doing 24 knots.

[00:12:49]That could be a case for the Dreadnaugh 6.

[00:12:59]We just don't have any fast ships yet. I mean, it's 193 or so. No, 1914, I think. So, it doesn't really get any better than 22 to 24 knots.

[00:13:12]If I super size this, you're at 20, sorry, at 42 tons.

[00:13:18]But we get better towers. There is that 49.5 long range accuracy.

[00:13:24]It just takes up half the ship.

[00:13:28]Um so say again 495 whereas with this thing you get the cage masts which are great but they don't get 495.

[00:13:39]Okay. We're going to be using dread 6 for the simple reason that it is quite potent. I am kind of interested in seeing what happens if I reduce the beam. Can I still make a pretty fast ship with that?

[00:13:54]That could be an interesting platform to have. So, we're going to go with the enhanced casemate tower number five.

[00:14:02]Uh, and you can already kind of see where this whole thing is going because you don't get as much versatility as you'd like. It's simple ABX period.

[00:14:11]There's no there's no real play in this design.

[00:14:16]There's not a whole lot of flexibility in it.

[00:14:20]Now, with a lower beam, I suspect my turning circle is going to be absolutely atrocious. So, so be it.

[00:14:28]Thus, anti-Trp 3 gets installed to keep everybody safe and mostly inside the hall and the torpedoes out.

[00:14:35]447,000. Sorry, 474,000.

[00:14:39]Uh, give me a 15-inch belt. Give me a 6-in for belt, 6 in aft, 6 in super. Uh, 15 inch on the conning. Okay. Now, a hole really needs a funnel. One funnel is enough. 155% engine efficiency.

[00:14:56]Normally, you can go, "Yeah, well, one funnel is going to get destroyed."

[00:15:00]Not likely. If you got six inches of superructure armor, this thing has a lot of armor to it.

[00:15:08]You could get two of them, I suppose, if the game is going to, you know, like let you, but seems like the police, the fun police are out in full force today.

[00:15:21]Wait, this thing has damage control.

[00:15:26]That's interesting, huh? Whoops.

[00:15:33]Nice.

[00:15:36]You put damage control on your funnel.

[00:15:40]Okay, then um plus 37 28 base plus 33 long range accuracy 25 base. Nah, it's fine. Torpedo launchers. No, thank you. 8 kilometers 9.4. Okay, things are getting more dangerous around here. Now, if I want to give them the same level of firepower, I suppose we're going to go 16s cuz the 17, the 18, and the 19 are all Mark one.

[00:16:15]And I've checked the research tech. It's going to be a while. The AP range is 19.

[00:16:20]The AP range here is 20 and a half. So, we're definitely getting ABX.

[00:16:28]There we go. They don't weigh that much yet.

[00:16:35]But that's about to change.

[00:16:38]Let's give them TNT, two powder, enhanced reloading, and better turret rotation speed. Ballistic shells.

[00:16:47]Um, yeah, we're going to go full on with that. All the barbettes, flashfire chance, 8%. Nice. I can work with that.

[00:16:56]These things are worth about 600 million, and that's without a secondary arament. These things are worth a little bit more at 621.

[00:17:04]That's probably because they displace more. Now, there is still a bit of a problem. I don't have the bulkheads that I want. I don't have the range that I want. And I don't really have the whole speed that I want, which is about 24.

[00:17:15]And then we run into trouble.

[00:17:18]I can potentially get more if I increase the draft, but having a high draft comes with its own issues because having such a high draft gives you uh less base accuracy, but it also gives you less of a penalty from, you know, sea waves and you're likely you're more likely to flood. Your acceleration is worse. Your turning rate is worse.

[00:17:41]Your deceleration is better. You get a lot more operational range.

[00:17:51]2,000 meter turning circle, which basically means when are we going to get out of the way? Uh, never.

[00:17:59]This is that changes almost nothing.

[00:18:03]Okay. Uh, these are going to be tall ships.

[00:18:06]As simple as that. No, I just need one tower. I don't need two. Thank you.

[00:18:14]I hope this will turn.

[00:18:17]It's going to be a very, very tight fit there. If you hear some screeching iron on iron or steel on steel, it's probably there.

[00:18:27]Now, I have a I have almost no tonnage to put armor.

[00:18:34]Uh, no, that was six and we're going to keep it at six. Four deck is one. After deck is one, nobody's hitting decks at this range. We're going to reduce that.

[00:18:42]We're going to reduce that. And we're going to reduce that. And now I have some room for secondaries. We got 8 in Mark 3. Please tell me they fit. They don't.

[00:18:52]7 in.

[00:18:54]They kind of do, but they'll obstruct that turret a bit.

[00:19:06]Yeah.

[00:19:07]What do I need to use those balconies? 6 in.

[00:19:12]Oh, you're going to probably hate that.

[00:19:16]No, you don't give a [ __ ] You do. Good lord. You don't want to be manning that gun.

[00:19:22][ __ ] sake. You don't want to be manning that 6-in gun when that big gun goes off overhead cuz you may not have a head.

[00:19:31]Then again, I guess that fixes the whole issue of, you know, noise. Um, yeah.

[00:19:40]And now all of a sudden this thing is relatively expensive and overweight.

[00:19:48]Yes. Okay. Long barrels, please. This gives me a range on secondaries of about nine. So I am at that torpedo range.

[00:19:58]Then again, I'm going to use these to squat away or to to swat away anything that looks like a destroyer and preferably do that at about three times the range at which they can launch a torpedo at me.

[00:20:11]A three inch inner belt.

[00:20:14]Let's reduce that a bit. I don't think we need 15 in.

[00:20:22]I'm tempted to put this thing on a barbette and put some nice 8 in around it because that's going to give me a substantial amount of firepower.

[00:20:35]Is that going to fit? No. I want this thing to look halfway decent, which yes, I know is a massive change in design philosophy.

[00:20:44]Unfortunately, those things weigh 200 tons.

[00:20:52]138 tons for a barbette. Come on.

[00:20:58]Yeah. Well, that works, I guess, because now I can add some 8 in. Yeah, I might as well make triples. No, I can't because I cut the beam off the ship.

[00:21:18]What's the range on you bad boys? Come here.

[00:21:22]8 in guns. 8 in guns. 8 in guns. Hello.

[00:21:26]Here. You got a range of the same because you haven't had your barrels adapted yet. Okay, let's go do so now.

[00:21:39]10.

[00:21:41]That is it.

[00:21:48]At least your pen is a heck of a lot better. Look at that difference. 4.7 in of pen at 10,000 m. These things can't even get beyond 4 in of pen with armor piercing.

[00:22:00]So that is a massive argument for the 8 in guns.

[00:22:06]It's unfortunate you can't put them out there. Um, what if just for funsies, I turn the beam into something much much much bigger because if I can house additional 8 in.

[00:22:22]That's going to be a interesting fit here.

[00:22:28]This will fit.

[00:22:33]It's going to be expensive ship, but that's fine. I got cash. Lots and lots and lots of cash. in fact.

[00:22:40]Okay, so we just scrapped strapped a heavy cruiser to the side. Why? Because we can.

[00:22:46]And we got lots of pen.

[00:22:49]We can pen the side of a light cruiser and potentially a heavy cruiser at maximum range. That is something I quite like. What I don't like is the fact that these things are utterly and completely unarmored, which means my men are not protected.

[00:23:07]3-inch top 10 inch there.

[00:23:11]Oops. We're going to remove not the whole damn thing. Come on.

[00:23:16]We used to have an undo button.

[00:23:20]Memory serves me. And for some reason, that's no longer there.

[00:23:24]Anyway, we're going to have these things with longer barrels. Yes, we're going to throw a funnel on there with the damage control.

[00:23:35]And I may need to slow it down to 23 knots. That's not really doing anything.

[00:23:41]Fine. We'll go for a single hole bottom.

[00:23:45]That saves you a lot of weight. This does make it slightly worse, but her turning circle is only 1,000 meters.

[00:23:50]It's not that bad. So, I can probably keep that functional.

[00:23:56]Uh, she's got a balanced rudder. I can throw in an unbalanced rudder. Now it's less than six, less than 700.

[00:24:05]Acceleration's awful.

[00:24:07]Absolutely awful. One.1 kn of acceleration uh has to do with the engine efficiency.

[00:24:22]And I cannot add another funnel unless I move the secondary tower. If I move the secondary tower, everything else is going to shift and my citadel increases in size, which then means I need more armor.

[00:24:38]This is already with a force boiler.

[00:24:43]Lovely.

[00:24:45]Okay, we don't have MarkVs anywhere.

[00:24:56]Now, first we're going to armor these things up. If they happen to have any weight left, which they don't, I will gladly give them some lengthy barrel.

[00:25:10]But for now, they just have to survive as they are. These actually got remarkably good angles.

[00:25:18]Hold on. I'm not likely to be engaging ships on two sides, right?

[00:25:24]What if I just kick out half of these turrets and give it a different turret setup?

[00:25:31]We're going to extend this a bit.

[00:25:35]Come here.

[00:25:37]Yes, I know you need to be on the center there.

[00:25:42]If I can now find one of those really tall barbettes for secondaries.

[00:25:47]those that I can Oh, actually there that's going to house one 8 in.

[00:25:59]We're going to go with another center line. 16 there.

[00:26:05]Cuz having all of those 8 in on the sides doesn't necessarily always help me because I'm not that likely to constantly be engaging targets on one side and another. I just want to have one battle line and I'm going to be shooting stuff over there. Period.

[00:26:21]So, if I could do the same thing here, that'd be great. Unfortunately, I don't think that'll fit.

[00:26:26]I could potentially put another 8 in here and still, if the game isn't going to crash on me, still have reasonable amounts of firepower, but the game doesn't really like me putting it there.

[00:26:40]Oh, there. That word. Oh.

[00:26:46]Yeah, that seems to fit.

[00:26:49]Not quite in the weight, though.

[00:26:53]Not quite in the weight.

[00:26:56]Now, with this, I feel even more confident about my abilities to knock out enemy ships.

[00:27:02]Um, I could go as big as an 8.9.

[00:27:07]Of course, not there, but that doesn't give me that much more range. You're looking at a range of about 11 to 10 and a half or 10 to 101.

[00:27:18]Yeah, they'll get more damage in though because this is 4.7 in of pen at max range and this is five. I don't care.

[00:27:30]I don't care for that.

[00:27:33]Now, there is something to be said about the triple barrel.

[00:27:37]Usually, double barrel tech is better.

[00:27:40]for the simple reason that your accuracy is better. These things basically rely on we're going to throw out more [ __ ] and see what sticks, which works. Works.

[00:27:51]It's not great, but it works.

[00:28:00]Yeah, I'm going to go dual barrel 8 in.

[00:28:08]Keep in mind this is not some sort of 1940s contraption. This is 1915 when the world was looking at battle cruisers which were blowing up left, right, and center and everything else.

[00:28:20]Didn't exactly envision ships like this quite yet.

[00:28:25]We weren't quite at that level.

[00:28:30]Uh yeah, I think the rest ship's fine. I don't think I can get up to 25 knots.

[00:28:36]Not at all. So 24 is where it's at.

[00:28:42]Single hole bottom reinforce.

[00:28:46]I want this to be more standardized.

[00:28:49]We can blow apart fairly healthy amounts or well that depends on who you're asking. Fairly unhealthy amounts of armor.

[00:28:59]Wait a second. These things don't have different stats, do they?

[00:29:03]No, they got the same level of pen.

[00:29:09]Yeah, I can blow apart 18 inches of armor. It's probably too much if I go cap shells.

[00:29:16]It's I think more reasonable.

[00:29:19]Yeah, that'll do. I could even give him heavy shells. Heavy shells is a bit of a mixed bag. It gives you more damage, but it also starts to inflict some debuffs on your flash fires, which means you are potentially going to blow up. and it messes with your accuracy, which is not something I want. Light shells um give you less gun range, but more base accuracy.

[00:29:45]They tend to give you less shell pen. I think they give Yeah, you can put 7 and 12% better reload.

[00:29:54]And I still have enough pen with a reload of 70 seconds on a triple barrel.

[00:30:02]These things get a pen of 4.2. two.

[00:30:04]These things get a pen of 2.2.

[00:30:08]That's not much.

[00:30:13]Allows you to cut through a light cruiser. The problem now is range.

[00:30:19]I don't think they'll launch at maximum range, but range against destroyers carrying longer range torpedoes is certainly a problem.

[00:30:30]Let's stick to standard for now. Conning towers properly armored, but we can always add a bit more.

[00:30:37]There you go. Now, a difficult point.

[00:30:40]What do we name these?

[00:30:43]What do we name these?

[00:30:46]Because I have used uh states, I've used cities, I've used mountains, and I've used rivers.

[00:30:54]Um, how about naming these things after fallen nations?

[00:31:04]Um, so this and I think they were the first to go. This is the Belgium class.

[00:31:09]So we're going to have a Belgium. We're going to have a Netherlands. We're going to have a Portugal. We're soon going to have a Soviet Union because they will cease to exist. We're going to have a Japan. Yeah, we got nations to play with, so to speak. Well, increasingly fewer.

[00:31:27]Um, is this thing pricey?

[00:31:30]Yes. But then again, who's counting? I mean, we got a a nice little budget of 1.6 billion, I think, at this point.

[00:31:41]Wait, without What do you mean without saving?

[00:31:46]Yes.

[00:31:48]If you didn't save my ship. There we go.

[00:31:51]Okay. So, this thing is a bit more expensive, but not dramatically. So, it's 150 million. Build time is still 26 months. So, we're going to build a Belgium or three. And uh the first is going to be the Belgium. And then we're going to have the uh the Netherlands.

[00:32:13]Did I not order three? I didn't. Okay.

[00:32:17]Give me a third.

[00:32:20]built one. There you go.

[00:32:23]And uh that I think should be the Portugal.

[00:32:28]Portugal.

[00:32:30]Portugal. There we are. Okay. So, our shipyards are busy. We're still busy cranking out a bigger shipyard. We're doing better research or we're doing research on better guns, which means eventually we'll get extremely large 20-inch guns with a Mark 1. You're supposed to get this in 1911. shows you how much I've fallen behind because I've prioritized other projects, but then again, I'm supposed to have um some stuff. Not yet.

[00:32:57]Like this is 1911. Sure. Uh rangefinders.

[00:33:02]I think I'm slightly ahead on rangefinders. The coincidence rangefinders number four you're supposed to have in 1918, which is going to be a bit of a stretch. I probably can't get there. Other nations are considered very advanced. Chile, don't laugh, is considered very advanced.

[00:33:22]Um, oh, Brazil is also extinct.

[00:33:26]Yeah, very advanced British, very advanced Germans, but also very advanced United States. So perhaps we will be able to keep up with them. As for economic growth, if this just keeps up long enough, yeah, we're going to bypass the Germans and we will also bypass the British, especially as we keep claiming more territories. I'm at 66, the Germans are at 36, and the British are at 101.

[00:33:52]Damn, son, have we got work to do. For now, though, this is it. Thank you for watching. I hope you've enjoyed, and I'll see you soon for the next episode.