First, a review of our workhorse warships:
1) I have no complaints about the ADOBO class, they are our main beatstick against all comers.
(Psychologically is another matter.)
At 21 knots we are starting to show some problems, but time in the yard can't give me more than an extra knot without having to change main gun turrets to single guns. Not worth it.
2) My plans with LECHO being the sort of Raider/Counter-raider force ran in the problem of LECHON being LECHON.
However, she seems to be doing fine enough in the Caribbean, so she should just stay there.
She should stay in the Caribbean for a long, long time then.
3) Now, FURIOSA-class should have been our Raiding force, but they're well equipped for Foreign Service so they're doing that very well. No need to build any more ships of their class - they are fast enough and well-armed enough for all the gunboat diplomacy they need to do.
Now looking at our strategic situation:
1) We have 2 Dreadnoughts, both in the Mediterranean.
Five armored cruisers, but we rely on the ADOBO-class - one in Northern Europe and one in the Mediterranean. Both are in repair.
The problem with building more of them, despite their
outstanding track record and how cheap they are to construct with our shoddy budget, is that they are 1899 Legacy ships and we can do so much better now. We probably should go full Battle Cruiser next time.
2) Italy has 1 Dreadnought left, I know that's the LEONARDO DA VINCI.
They have
zero old model Battleships, we sunk them all.
They have three Armored Cruisers, probably VETTOR PISANI class with 2x 10-inchers or GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI with 4x 9-inchers. Not a serious threat.
Actually at this point I am not noting any more Armored Cruisers because anything less than a Battle Cruiser is no threat to the ADOBO-class.
Stupid luck and their own stupidities are a bigger threat to the ADOBO-class.
They have completely lost naval initiative and should come groveling to an end to the war, except-
3) Austria has one Dreadnought in active service.
One Battle Cruiser building.
SEVEN Battleships.
And literal assloads of Submarines.
12-inch guns are still a serious threat. Eight inch belts can no longer bounce them with impunity, we only have two ships capable of resisting that level of firepower.
Granted, we didn't shy away from this sort of thing against Italy, but it was 2 vs 4. 2 vs 8 is a more daunting prospect.
Austria-Hungary doesn't have much in the name of raiding forces, so that's less chance of giving us free VP in an intercept.
4) The US is surprisingly does not possess as large of a fleet as I expected, but at least they have 1 Dreadnought and 1 Battle Cruiser already working.
4 old model Bs might stand up against the CSA's 4 also, but the CSA is building two at once instead of USA's one.
Granted, USA's BC is probably better and building 2 at once will likely lead to the CSA running out of money fast.
It's nice that they're able to send forces to help in the Med considering the CSA's equal threat.
Now a look at everyone's battlewagon potential:
After looking at all these files, the French BB COLBERT is what I'll be using as the standard to judge other ships by.
2) The British BB RESOLUTION is almost the same, except slower and much lighter therefore cheaper to build. They have a lot of these hulls.
3) The US BB CALIFORNIA class has 12 inch guns, weaker but not by much. Less armor, but not by much also. Less speed, but also not by much as well.
4) The CSA's BB JAMES LONGSTREET really suffers much in terms of compromise and their less tech level. This would not be a match for the US BB, but their 14 8-inch secondary batteries would wipe Armored Cruisers off the face of the waters. Dangerous salvos.
5) Now the BB LEONARDO DA VINCI is a serious pain in our behinds because it's
fast for a BB and it didn't even have to compromise much to achieve that!
6) We know that Austria-Hungary only has 1 functioning Dreanought, which mean it is the BB ZRINYI.
Eight 11-inch guns in a broadside vs six 12-inch guns. It might depend on the range.
Fortunately it's not that much faster than our Dreadnoughts, but as equally armored. It might come down to a long slugging match and how many old model Bs are present to add their own 12-inchers.
7) And finally, our BB BARACO-class.
Despite how BB BARACO has the tendency to
almost sink every time, she is also known for crushing her opposition every time as well.
She is a very finely balanced warship, with her eight-inch broadside gun salvos contributing to taking down Cruisers and light warships with HE.
She can stand up with a good chance of beating any other Dreadnought here one-on-one.
Her main weakness is her slow speed and her aging armor scheme.
BB BARACO can't do anything against Battle Cruisers with a speed advantage of 25 knots, so next we should look at how we address the Battle Cruiser problem.