Corvettes: Flimsy or Fearsome?

A closer look into CCNet's smallest warship class and an argument into balancing them

The corvette-gunboat H.M.S. Cinnamoroll moored in the port town of Commonwealth, Imperium Romanum

Destroyers are usually the smallest class of warship used in naval region conflicts- their powerful torpedoes and six quick-firing 4-inch guns allow them to be effective at dealing devastating amounts of damage to larger ships while also being able to utilize their high speed to intercept convoys and lone crafts. This is balanced by the fact that destroyers are only about half the size of cruisers and are limited to relatively thin armour, meaning a direct encounter with a cruiser or dreadnought can quickly end with the destroyer resting at the bottom of the ocean.

Corvettes, however, are a different story. They too have access to 4-inch guns, albeit four instead of six, and access to four torpedo launchers instead of the destroyer's six. This alone does not mean much, as corvettes have a very low armour-percentage and are, at most, half the displacement of a destroyer; however, there are several key factors on a corvette's side that can make it a much deadlier tool.

Corvettes or Torpedo Boats?

Corvettes and destroyers have the unique ability to sacrifice cannons for torpedoes. At maximum, a destroyer can sacrifice four of its six 4-inch guns for three extra standard torpedo launchers and a corvette can sacrifice two guns for two torpedo launchers. When entity torpedoes were first added in August, many navies tested and built prototype torpedo boat destroyers- the theory was that a destroyer with its (relatively) high speed could utilize a large torpedo payload to use against larger vessels in open ocean and against smaller ones in more confined spaces. These prototypes have since been mostly abandoned, as it happens that although the three extra torpedoes could deal significant damage in one salvo, the long reload time and lack of 4-inch guns meant that, once their torpedo arsenals had been expended, these torpedo boat destroyers had to retreat to reload, making them largely useless on the battlefield and would often fall prey to other destroyers that utilized their standard 4-inch armament.

The torpedo boat destroyer variant of the Imperium Romanum's standard destroyer H.M.S. Acheron, equipped with three torpedo turrets with three launchers each and a single dual 4-inch turret in the front

Corvettes, on the other hand, are rather different. For a destroyer to be effective, they almost always have to be maximum size so that they can take take more hits and therefore stay in the fight longer. This is not the case for corvettes. Corvettes have a very low armour percentage- 10% as compared to a destroyer's 25%- and are extremely fast and agile- a top speed of 17 m/s (33 knots) compared to a destroyer's 16 m/s (31.1 knots). Unlike every other warship class (except for possibly aircraft carriers), corvettes can still be effective at any size, from their minimum displacement of 500 blocks all the way up to their maximum of 2,000 blocks- although a minimum-displacement corvette does lose much more of its hull percentage per-block lost as compared to a maximum-displacement one. Altogether this means that not only is a corvette capable of arming itself with the same amount of torpedo-firepower as a standard destroyer and being so fast that it can easily outrun any other ship class including destroyers, they can do all of this while being so small that they can be extremely difficult for larger ships to hit them.

The Utilization of Corvettes

Most of the time, corvettes are a very handy tool for quick and easy transportation. Their high speed and small size mean that they can rapidly move from place to place and have little trouble moving through narrow canals and avoiding debris. They're often used to move in between continents and are a staple of convenient travel.

A common unarmed convertible-type corvette, capable of being piloted as both a corvette and a truck, Western Dio, Imperium Romanum

Lately, however, some navies have been utilizing small torpedo boats- exploiting their aforementioned abilities to be armed with six standard torpedo launchers to not only travel quickly but also to harass larger warships. Several skirmishes have occurred already involving these torpedo boats and their effectiveness is undeniable. Their tiny size and agility make them more than just a nuisance, especially with their deadly torpedo armament. These torpedo boats are also able to exploit their high speed to run away whenever they choose to do so.

A minimum-size torpedo boat corvette, armed with two 4-inch guns and six standard torpedo launchers, designed by Fake4, parked in Liberia, Quintessence Syndicate

Are Corvettes Balanced?

Corvettes are, on paper, very easy to kill. A few torpedoes or repeated hits from even low-calibre guns can easily sink one. In practice, however, it is not that simple. As mentioned before, corvettes are very hard to hit and are very fast, making them deadly even to destroyers. They take advantage of their small silhouette to avoid incoming fire. They're so hard to hit, in fact, that even other corvettes struggle to engage them, let alone hit them. Similarly, they're extremely cheap to mass-build and the price for a couple of torpedo boats is nothing compared to the devastating amount of damage they can do to larger warships. Ultimately, a corvette's ability to harm other warships makes them disproportionately cost-effective compared to other ship classes, with the only real limit to a single navy's ability to send them out in large numbers being the number of pilots they can muster.

Essentially, the answer is no, they are not balanced.

Balancing Corvettes

With the aforementioned strengths that corvettes possess, the most logical solution would be a speed decrease dependent on the armament of a corvette. The speed of a corvette would be progressively decreased starting at two 4-inch guns or two torpedo launchers- as more 4-inch guns and/or torpedo launchers are added, it slows the corvette down. Anti-aircraft guns would not count towards a speed decrease. The speed of the corvette would decrease until a minimum speed of 15.5 m/s (29.2 knots)- making them faster than cruisers but slower than destroyers at maximum available firepower.

These changes would mean that corvettes can no longer be capable of dealing such a significant amount of damage to other crafts without a notable tradeoff. Corvettes would still be a very small target and still be capable of replacing two of their four available 4-inch guns for two more standard torpedo launchers and they would still be a cheap and fast mode of transportation while still being able to protect themselves to some extent before having a speed decrease. These suggested changes are meant to be flexible and force designers and pilots to be more strategic in their use of torpedo boat corvettes.