D is for Dreadnought - Episode 1 - British Legendary Campaign 

26:27 The Naval Defence Act of 1889 would have required you to have the combined number of battleships of the two biggest navies behind you irl.

HMS Alert channelling Glowworm by both ramming and attempting to sink a heavy cruiser (albeit not all at once)

First Loss The Times: 25 June 1902 The Malta Squadron is once again operating deep in the Adriatic, near the coast of the Kingdom of Italy. Led by the Argonaut class armoured cruiser HMS Theseus accompanied by the A-class destroyer HMS Alert the Royal Navy ship spotted three Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine class ships escorting a convoy of ten transports. The heaviest was the Zara class armoured cruiser Lustenau. The protected cruiser Aspern was next, along with the Streiter class destroyer D-1. The HMS Alert and the HMS Theseus closed on the enemy warships. The HMS Alert took a dud torpedo from the Lustenau before putting two live ones into the armoured cruiser. Then she was hit by a live torpedo in return. Ordered to retreat, she could not control her flooding and she sank with all 104 officers and ratings. The Admiralty has announced there will be no further action after the report of the Board of Inquiry. However the efforts of the HMS Alert allowed the HMS Theseus to get close to the Lustenau and overwhelm her with flooding hits. Unable to fight the flooding, the Lustenau sank with 675 officers and ratings of her 708 man crew. The D-1 then attempted to get a clear launch on the HMS Theseus, but sharp-eyed lookouts spotted the launch at a distance that the HMS Theseus could evade, then bring her torpedo broadside on the D-1. This launch was too close to avoid and the D-1 took all three 17” fast torpedoes. She sank from flooding losing 105 of her 112 officers and ratings. The HMS Theseus closed on the remaining KuKK warship, the Aspern, and with a solid hit on her also sank her. The Aspern went down with 372 of her 418 man crew. The loss of the three KuKK warships had allowed the transports to break for neutral waters, tucking themselves up to the Italian coast, so after a fruitless search for any survivors of the HMS Alert the HMS Theseus picked up the 86 Austrian survivors. The HMS Theseus suffered 28 officers and ratings killed or seriously injured.

I know most of this will be pre-recorded, but can we have at least one wing turreted ship...

I get constant use out of CL 1 and 2 hulls right up to the 1950. Build them right and you have a cheap-ish, cheerful, optionally minelaying hull to spam to colonial port in multiples which in turns means you often have several of them in any given random battle. Upgrading them can be extensive but my current version sports 7x3 5inch, Radar 2, Sonar III, max armor, survivability maneuver and firepower upgrades - they can and will slaughter most DD's stupid enough to close and can burn down most things bigger than themselves. Won't ever catch anything except fleeing convoys but provided you are on the ball very hard to catch a torp with.

A New Standard of Battleship The Times: 15 December 1902 The Admiralty has tasked the Director of Naval Construction to design a battleship around the newest Mark III 12” gun, designed to have a broadside of eight guns, and utilizing the design of the elevated barbette allowing the 2nd forward turret to fire over the first. The ship will also use the newest engine technology, not currently described that will increase the speed and range of the ship. The class will carry eight 12”/40 guns in four twin turrets, a pair super firing forward and a pair mounted aft on the deck. There will be six twin 6”/45 guns added as a secondary, and 14 single casemate mounted 3”/35 guns. An underwater torpedo tube mounted aft is primary positioned to balance the ship. With a designed speed of 22 knots from two funnels venting natural boilers powering the new engine technology, the ship has a designed 29,760 indicated horse power giving the ship a range of 15,480 kilometers. The crew complement is 1243. Build cost for the ship is $57,642,000 with a monthly maintenance of $3,170,310. Construction time is 19 months. One ship will be built as a demonstration. Her name is taken from the Holy Bible, from the verse “Fear God and dread nought else”. The Dreadnought.

The British campaign in Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts has begun.

52:17 'Goddamn tin can destroyer was never meant for sea You couldn't keep it steady in a lousy cup of tea We carry guns, torpedoes and ashcans in a bunch But the only time we hit our mark is when we shoot our lunch'

Imagine being in Dreadnought’s rear nest right behind and above that main funnel!

May we remember the HMS Alert. Too bad they weren't very alert, though.

Basically use it until it becomes a coastal battleship of sorts. I love this theme

I'm the sort of nutcase that will always start a campaign in 1890 because I like to be able to benefit from a few turns of peacefully growing the economy. My preferred approach for 1890-1899 which should be viable in the 1900 campaign is to mostly forgo battleships in favor of large number of armored cruisers with 11 inch guns and 21 knots. If you properly focus on upgrading the shells and armor quality on your ships, a 21 knot armored cruiser can dispatch most battleships since they tend to sink in a single solid penetration. It also means that your capital ships can keep up with your light cruisers.

I actually did a "no scrapping ships" run once. 1890s CLs can stay surprisingly effective against light ships when properly modernized, although the weapon scaling is kind of ridiculous (with mk 3 and 4 six inch guns being almost as large as the entire superstructure)

Let’s Give Them Odds The Times: 10 April 1902 Assigned to join the Malta Squadron at Valletta, the Argonaut class armoured cruiser HMS Theseus encountered two Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine Zara class armoured cruisers, the Dornbirn and the Spalato. Concerned that the damaged KuKK ships would not attack without two to one odds, the Captain of the HMS Theseus accepted battle. His 8”/35 guns, once all were brought to bear, were able to shatter the Dornbirn, send her to the bottom with 610 of her 708 man crew. The HMS Theseus then turned her guns on the Spalato and getting flooding aft and then forward, the Spalato sunk with 668 of her crew. The HMS Theseus was rudely handled, and suffered 40 officers and ratings killed or seriously wounded of her 546 man crew, but was able to sail into Valletta harbour without a problem.

HMS Vindictive is the “Party Boat” of the British navy. If you see it rockin’, don’t come knockin’. Yeah I know it’s a visual bug, but I think my head canon is funnier.

yay the British are back

Ah, yes, the ship of Theseus. Gonna have to rebuild that baby from the keel up...

Second Secretary of the Admiralty Ricky Kopf December 1902 With the ascension of Admiral Munro to the First Lord of the Admiralty of the Royal Navy, there has been plenty of action going around the British Isles as he ordered a construction of an entire new fleet with ships designed for dealing with many scenarios as possible. Our old friends in Portugal have also ordered some of our ships from us, and, speaking of friends, the Greeks have also become our ally as they wish to establish a presence in the Mediterranean alongside us. However, not long after, the passing of Queen Victoria marked the end of the Victorian age. Though the stability of the British Empire is uncertain, a new age has dawned as King George V accents the throne of the British Empire with the construction of a project known as Dreadnought. However, the Austro-Hungarians decided to foolishly demand an ultimatum from us as they ask for a huge sum of money while they were at war with the French and the Russians. Our new First Lord responded what his predecessors have before him: war. So far, we have sunk a couple heavy cruisers while only losing one destroyer and we are blockading them in the Adriatic. Though the Austro-Hungarians have established a peace treaty with the French and their friends, the Americans got involved in the war in their place. To make things even worse for the king of Austria-Hungary, the Austro-Hungarians decide to pull a French Revolution of their own as they depose the monarchy and establish a democratic republic in its place. Tune in next time as we see whether the Austro-Hungarians wish to make peace with us or continue the war.

Great stuff! Really looking forward to how this plays out.

"1890 is just too painful" 1890 is super fun for me.

"We're not going to throw anything away." Jackie Fisher is sobbing 😂

50:55 It’s very infuriating to watch your ship’s accuracy rating go up and down like that, while an enemy ship with half its upper works razed hits you with at least one shell of every salvo.

Those 8 inch cruisers may turn out a lot nicer when they get proper super-firing turrets and better armor scheme.

1:07:05 Fewer guns, but the same number of guns on the broadside. In all I think a very good ship.

50:49 to past BM (since present BM surely knows this by now): probably the 6.2” side guns have the ‘Range Found’ multiplier boosting their accuracy more often than your main battery guns due to sea state and/or other factors

Hmm, I wonder what’s next after this, Italy or France maybe? It’s been about a year after all for those two Also, I’d like 1890’s starts only for a few nations, Germany, France, Russia, China Mainly because they’ve got some very weird hulls, especially France (like the long campaign you did, from 1890-1940’s) Russia has that reverse Pre-Dreadnought, China has what looks like two Pre- Dreadnoughts smushed together Germany has some weird hulls, with some quite large secondary capacity, some bigger than France’s (France can equip main guns though, so..., but not on the CA, Germany wins that) Although they have some gun limits at first, and aren’t really good later on, unlike the French ones And then France, with its glorious combination of Weird Pre-dreadnoughts and more As for now, I’m looking into this one

I started a US 1890 campaign recently, and I knocked the Austro-Hungarians out for good already (don't even have my first dreadnoughts yet). They took Serbia, then I did the same. What followed was a combination of one land and two naval invasions of Croatia (two because the first failed due to lack of local tonnage). The end result was me taking all of their ports.

23:30: Actually I am quite thrilled to see two destroyers getting in two torpedo hits each in such rough weather. Actually, 100% torpedo accuracy by all three ships.

52:20 those sailors will have stomachs and quads of steel.

When u have designed you ship, reduce bulk heads to few and degrade armer to get back to around 100%, after starting refit the design back to bear armer and bulkheads, should work out at one month, however the original cost is much lower so you can build more.

I know you don’t like torpedoes and that’s propably prerecorded by maybe you its worth trying to put wing torpedo launchers on destroyers to increase their firing arcs and give slightly negate issues caused by rapid manouvers which might prevent you from launching them in CQC

First Blood The Times: 15 February 1902 The Malta Squadron, led by the Tribune Class semi-armoured cruiser HMS Vindictive, along with her squadron mates the A-class destroyers HMS Alarm and HMS Alert, have struck a massive blow against the commerce of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These Royal Navy ships, operating out of their base at Valletta, have sortied deep into the Adriatic to intercept a convoy of seven 15 thousand ton Kronprinzessin Erzherzogia Stephanie class merchant ships escorted by the Zara class armoured cruiser Salzburg. In a heavy fog the three ships sighted the smoke of several ships, and closing on them were able to distinguish a warship from the transports. The three ships focused on closing on the transports, while the HMS Vindictive also steered to place herself closest to the warship. Forced to close to less than a ships length of the enemy, the HMS Alert, to the embarrassment of her name, ran into the Bravo. But the Bravo proved to be the first merchant ship sunk, losing all but seven of her 59 man crew killed or lost at sea. In the fog a 3” shell from the HMS Vindictive hit the secondary tower of the HMS Alert, destroying it and killing two crewmembers. The KP EHZ Stephanie herself was sunk next, losing all but three of her crew. In the swirling battle the next transport to sink was the Huszar from point blank torpedo hits from the HMS Vindictive, four live and one dud, again with three survivors. Only one man survived the sinking of the Leitha. The Huszar went down with only 21 of her crew, an amazing feat of survival for her crew and officers. All this time the HMS Vindictive was dividing her fire between the Salzburg and the transports. She ordered the destroyers to make torpedo attacks on the Salzburg. The HMS Alert broke towards the enemy armoured cruiser and closed to get both torpedoes into her just as the Helgoland sank with three survivors, then turned back to find the seventh transport. The HMS Alarm made her torpedo run and again got both hits. With a final 3” hit from the HMS Vindictive the Salzburg sank taking 630 officers and ratings down with her out of a crew complement of 708. With the warship finished all three ships closed on the Sigismund and pounded her down, sending her to the bottom with only one survivor. The HMS Vindictive took 35 casualties of officers and ratings killed or seriously wounded. The HMS Alarm took 15 while the HMS Alert took 18.

Good thing barf bags are standard issue for the Royal Navy. They may want to buy in bulk, though.

Grey Mist - The Game.

My usual strategy when I start in 1890 or 1900 is to just avoid war till the 1910s when I have a major tech advantage, then just go on an absolute murder spree and take over the world

Did it bug anyone else that the tower flags were blowing in opposite directions during the battleship build?

Ngl was hoping for Dreadnought to be a recreation of HMS Dreadnought

Deploy your key ships at the start and u can then forget the rest as they auto deploy to ports when you click on the turn button.

1:07:05 not as many guns, but the same number when broadside. At least, in terms of main guns

Yes i did enjoy the Episode.

It's been a minute since I've seen this game,map popped a bit more

Oh boy I wonder if he will ever use a 17,18,19,20,21,22 in guns but we will never know

I'd like to request that you make a monitor at some point this campaign! I know they are not very effective, but they are interesting!

I have a question: are you designing your ships at the minimum displacement for a specific reason or are you just doing it to save money?

For dreadnought you could have put another funnel in the secondary tower and then sorted the offset from there and kept q turret

how do you make it so that the colours for each nation is shown on the map, my map is just all one colour?

45:25 Why do you never slow your ships down to improve accuracy? The enemy are unarmed and wallowing along at 11kts. You’re racing around at 26kts, blazing away at 1% accuracy.

18 knots was good enought for a pre dreanought/semidreadnought battleship in 1900

7:10 Your budget is gonna get crushed.

The Dominion class is one of the many poster childs of what a "pre dreadnaught" design looks like. 2 Main Guns, and high caliber secondaries and maybe some Tertiaries mounts all over the super structure for good measure. Still looks like a decent design. Wow that DD is a rockin and rollin, why's it got so much ROLL? Is it just really top heavy with all those barbettes? The map looks nice, im guessing thats a mod too? That splash of color to distinguish borders likes nice. Wow did they patch in the "weather effects", cus that battle looked AWSOME.

Is it just me? Or is it that there seems to be no big fleet battles anymore? It’s just like small cruiser battles and the occasional battleships duel. I stopped watching the chinese campaign because it just became an endless stream of light cruiser battles. Did the game like update something in the battle generation? Or is it just that you haven’t really provoked the ai? Or something?

I got a challenge for you, can you make a battleship of 120,00 tons or below and 80,00 for battlecruisers or below and part of the challenge is arming them enough while being within the tonnage limit of the challenge

1:00:37 Why does UAD limit you to one main turret barbette at first? What technological leap is required to build a second one on a ship??

There will be no board of inquiry for the Captain of the HMS Alert because everybody went down with the ship. Sadly.

Would you PLEASE stop and look at the stats on the enemy ships before starting the battle.

@47:00 if she sinks the enemy but looses her hull in the process. And is rebuilt. Will she be the same ship 😂

In these early campaigns I find 4 inch guns are superior to five inch guns especially for raiders due to there far superior fire rate

Not sure if you have a little colour blindness (or just missed it), but Austria is Yellow on the Map and Italy is green.

Already more torpedo hits than in the entire Chinese campaign, nice! When you say you won't mothball or scrap ships, I assume your intention is to keep them as updated as possible, and then send them on a "vacation" to whatever colony port needs them, right?

Munro a bit of constructive feedback & history context for you here as I know you have these pre-conceived notions of pre-dreadnoughts being bad to downright awful but I really do think you need to keep in mind the period in which these sorts of vessels were built ie. only the last of them even had basic range-finding equipment and 18 kts in the year 1900 wasn't exactly seen as bad as up until that point only the Italians (of course the Italians) thought speeds in excess of 20 kts were 100% necessary and that was mostly due to the nature of the Mediterranean making speed a good & important factor so given all these facts & they are realistically quite good ships for the period of history they represent of course they are by no means perfect and sure flaws in specific designs a plenty but they were an important stepping stone towards the all big gun concepts that would lead to Dreadnought herself. So maybe just maybe you should consider cutting pre-dreadnoughts a lil slack.

How did you get the colored provinces on the map?

33:53 It's not the same color as Italy, Italy's green and AH is like yellow I assume they look the same to someone who's colorblind though

Is this the first ship you have designed for this campaign or have I missed out on much?

That is one ugly Dreadnought 😂 Wing turrets aren’t useless when the hull is made for them like the early Dreadnought ones. I’d recommend using them unless your willing to wait until you get a flush deck.

Where do I get the game from please

Make TB the can help hunting down convoys

Is engine efficiency over 100% a waste?

Does China 1890 have any fun tech to focus on?

Where is the German campaign?

Lol the first ships really are absolute arse lol