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I found an extremely weird bug. In my 1890 France campaign, there are no battles of any kind. Each nation builds up an absurdly large fleet, and uses it to attack merchant ships only. Germany and Austria Hungary never, ever leave their ports. Consequently, Austria-Hungary has more than two hundred cruisers stuffed into their three ports. Each harbor has about 300% of its rated capacity, more than 300,000 tons in one of them. The world is a state of constant piracy. There is extreme financial instability, because the merchant marines of the world occupy a terrifying Hell-scape, and the navies are continually built up for battles that never happen. Warships never engage each other and are never sunk. In ten years, not a single one has been lost or scrapped. So, things are going pretty well for France.

Replacing belt armor is usually easier than improving deck armor, so long as plates are available. With decks, one has to figure out how to maneuver the plates through all the overlying structure, which can be tough. Might have to raze everything above that deck, first. I think barbette armor would also be fairly difficult, and actual movement of the barbettes would become exponentially harder with bigger turrets. Deck armor is almost always homogenous, incidentally, with a few odd exceptions. Several US battleships in the interwar period were partially refitted with triple bottoms in place of their old double bottoms. This was, I think, exclusively under the machinery, and usually only under the boilers. These were replaced with smaller models, so builders were able to fit in a new skin above the previous inner. I think some of the ships that got new turbines also got triple bottoms beneath them. The other parts of those ships (under magazines, ends, etc) mostly kept their double bottom. There was also some thought of thickening the inner bottoms of some ships, but I'm not sure this was done to any real extent.

The term "light cruiser" did become popular around the time of WWI. The later Towns were called light armoured cruisers, and the name was shortened soon to just light cruiser during (maybe a little before?) the war. "Heavy cruiser" was actually a term that was used to describe big cruisers by around 1900, especially in contrast to small "scout cruisers." I don't know the earliest mention, but I've seen it in the 1903 Brassey's and in an 1894 publication. "Light cruiser" is at least as old a term. Officially, there were many variations on names, but a common scheme was three or four "classes" of cruiser based on size, with 1st class being the biggest and 3rd/4th being the smallest. Some protected cruisers were indeed extremely large, and some small ones had absurdly big guns.

Probably refers to high-capacity, or HC. Thinner shell walls, but more explosive filler. Though I would rather it be called HC than super-HE!

Believe this was typically the US approach. I'm not sure it was considered a huge disadvantage, for whatever that's worth. I'm not sure the difference in ROF was quite as pronounced as in the game, though it's a bit tough to say.

The sheer existence of the Lost Cause myth should lay the "history is written by the victors" idea to rest. Since you do seem to be a fan of WWII Germany, you should know that much of the US military's historical manuscripts on the Soviet-German war were written by Fritz Halder. This is the former general who wrote the evil Commissar Order... unsurprisingly, he is the source of many discredited "Clean Wehrmacht" myths. In regard to German warships, Koop and Schmolke are excellent sources, and they served in the German WWII navy. They specifically point out the atrocious reliability of the high pressure steam plants adopted, as well as the extreme fragility of the modern light cruisers. There was also the failed attempts at 15cm destroyer guns, and the idiotic Type XXI submarine fabrication system, and the foot-dragging on aircraft carriers, and the lack of usable aerial torpedoes, and the splintered cooperation with the air force that led to friendly fire....

Nice point, I think this would be a great visual improvement Whole compartment system is a little contrived. There's no side compartments, wing spaces, double bottom spaces, etc. Some ships did have boilers and engines in three central rooms, but there were lots of other arrangements!

Fantastic information, thank you!

For what it is worth, a quad turret can successfully bracket a target by itself. The idea is that the next salvo is aimed by checking the farthest and nearest shell splashes from the last salvo. The splashes should surround the target. If the most distant shot in the salvo is on the near side of the target, then the salvo was short and the next one needs to fire at a longer distance. If the closest shot is on the far side of the target, then the salvo was long and the next one needs to fire at a shorter distance. When the extremes are on either side of the target, then probably the shooter is dead-on. The shots between these extremes should thus have a high chance to hit the target (hits may or may not be visible). This technique ("gun ranging") would be used in conjunction with optical rangefinders. Fire-control radar usually would be able to pick up splashes, too, so this would be used in that manner too. A three gun salvo will probably work too, as the "middle" shot should have a decent chance to hit, but four was generally the minimum desired. At short ranges, of course, range brackets are not nearly so important, so (partially for this reason) earlier battleships often had mixed batteries and fewer big guns. The classic 8-gun broadside could be fired in half-salvoes, giving two smaller but more frequent 4-splash brackets. This was the British approach in WWI. Of course, this could be scaled up if the ship had more guns (9, 10, 12, etc), with proportionally more shells in each half salvo. The US WWI approach was to always fire full salvoes, evidently to get a solid spread.

Seconded, this is a good question. Deck armor can be calculated about the same way, length times average width times thickness times density of steel (which is about 8g/mL, or 0.29lb/in^2). Transverse bulkheads would work the same as belts. Barbettes and turrets can be a bit complex, but an easy approach is to assign a diameter to each and treat them as cylinders and rectangular prisms. Then calculate armor weight based on surface area. This technique can be extended to conning towers and steering gear boxes. There would be some snarls with this approach. First, belt length and height right now is too simple and is essentially identical on all ships. No thinner upper belts, tapers, etc. Second, armor weights can have knock-on effects. More weight may require more structure to hold it up, especially with turrets. And third, different armor fasteners and wood/cellulose/cement/steel backing layers add variation in weight (an interesting example is Japanese heavy cruiser belt armor, where the armor plates are part of the hull girder). So this calculation may be too simple, but I think the gist of it is good.

It is assuredly intentional. Those numbers neatly match with Imperial to metric conversions. One modern inch is equal to 25.4mm. The game ticks up by 0.1in at a time, giving increments of either 2.5mm or 2.6mm with rounding. 2in is thus 50.8mm, 3in 76.2mm, 4in 101.6mm, and so on. The example image "124.5mm" and "200.7mm" are rounded conversions from 4.9in and 7.9in, respectively.

I think it may expand the "flagship near" and "far" radii. But I have never tested this. Often not worth it, I'd agree

Nick Thomadis is the lead game designer. Maksim Zasov is his boss. Thomadis may have special privileges within the company, though. Game Labs is based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Total of 24 employees. Believe Thomadis works out of Athens. There are 2-4 other developers for Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts, probably in Greece or eastern Europe. Stillfront is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and owns a broad number of internationally placed semi-independent video game studios. Most are focused on a F2P model. This deal was probably attractive to Game Labs because it provides a large amount of capital, an experienced marketing network, and substantial cash / stock payments to principal shareholders. Management and developer teams appear also to have been preserved. Stillfront likely wishes to diversify its holdings, and a move to purchase a growing, less mobile-oriented company with grand strategy themes is their line of attack. The two companies apparently have similar internal organization, with internationally placed small teams working on disparate projects.

Based on the compartment viewer in battle, each ship is divided evenly into seven longitudinal parts. The first two and last two parts are covered by the extended belt. The middle three parts are covered by the main belt. I am less sure about the decks, but I think they cover the same areas respectively. I don't know how the extended belt is actually laid out. My suspicion is that it is considered to be at about 45 degree angles from the centerline, so that the belts form a hexagon in plan. It is unclear where the magazines are, but I think the idea posited is that they are directly below the respective turrets no matter what. The engines are evidently inside the main belt/deck.

Missing two other scenarios: One side has a spotter plane and the other does not. One ship in a division can see the enemy, but the others cannot due to smoke etc. The blind ships can get spotting data from the one in visual contact using special equipment.