Matrix Games

quote:

ORIGINAL: el cid again

First -

RNZN Kiwi class minesweepers (clas slot 180) are incorrectly defined. A variant of the USN
Bird class, they have vastly more range than given, and a unique armament. For some
reason unknown to me, maximum speed is one knot less - at 13. The armament includes
a single 4 inch /45 forward and a peculiar, French dual Hotchkiss 3 pounder aft. Probably also
two rifle caliber machine guns. The listed displacement would be correct if standard is used
(no navy in the world uses standard displacement, a legal concept: damage control depends
on thinking in terms of full load displacement; when this is exceeded, the ship sinks!) But
the USN Bird class shows the correct full load value - so we should be consistent. There are three
members of the class - ship slots 1916 to 1918.

More courious still is the case of RNZN Matai. Fairly well defined in class slot 196, she was
a former lighthouse tender, but does not appear in the ship data at all as far as I can tell. I am
using ship slot 9730 for her. She has a similar 4 inch gun - although /40 caliber - and two 20 mm
in addition to probably two machine guns. Requistioned in May 1941, she was in service by the
time the Pacific War began.

quote:

ORIGINAL: el cid again

First -

RNZN Kiwi class minesweepers (clas slot 180) are incorrectly defined. A variant of the USN
Bird class, they have vastly more range than given, and a unique armament. For some
reason unknown to me, maximum speed is one knot less - at 13. The armament includes
a single 4 inch /45 forward and a peculiar, French dual Hotchkiss 3 pounder aft. Probably also
two rifle caliber machine guns. The listed displacement would be correct if standard is used
(no navy in the world uses standard displacement, a legal concept: damage control depends
on thinking in terms of full load displacement; when this is exceeded, the ship sinks!) But
the USN Bird class shows the correct full load value - so we should be consistent. There are three
members of the class - ship slots 1916 to 1918.

time the Pacific War began.

quote:

The Royal New Zealand Navy's new Bird-class ships were unusual. Although they looked a little like the Admiralty’s Isles-class minesweeping trawlers, their extended forecastles gave them more of a naval look. In terms of punch and power they slotted somewhere in between minesweeping trawlers and corvettes
The best way of thinking of these ships is as multi-purpose vessels optimised to train young New Zealanders in seamanship, minesweeping, gunnery and – unusually for such vessels – even torpedoes. When Defence Minister Fred Jones announced their ordering in December 1939, he called them ‘three small training ships, not unlike trawlers’; two years later, just before their arrival in New Zealand, he spoke of them forming ‘a training flotilla’.
Kiwi, Moa and Tui were also unusual in another way. In the Second World War, the Royal Navy built its small escorts in huge numbers – there were 145 Isles-class ships and nearly 270 Flower- and Improved Flower-class ships. At just three in number, Kiwi, Moa and Tui were very rare birds, a one-off design ideally timed to assist the birth of a new navy.