Submarines and Naval Combat / FOW

[Guderian1940]

These are human VS human observations. Human VS AI is completely different and you should not, from my experience, apply those lessons to MP play.

Submarines were adjusted, in a revision, allowing them to escape when surrounded. Fair enough. However it is now too difficult to find subs and attack them. They are much too elusive and powerful. Today's Nuclear subs are probably not as hard to find. They can kill DD’s and other ships almost at will and hide (again Nuclear subs). Did not German subs have only a limited number of torpedoes to use and would only use them on cargo ships rather than Escorts. Sure if a CV or BB was siting there they might. I understand the difficulty in “What if’s” VS established doctrine at the time. Humans will not follow doctrine of the time since they know better. Let’s buy a lot of submarines and sink the British fleet. Another point is supply to subs.

I also find the land, CV or CE are at a disadvantage in finding subs. Was it not Aircraft that sunk most submarines. Was it not the ability to cover the whole convoy route with aircraft a major demise of the sub war. Early on in the war there were not enough long range aircraft or EC’s to do the job however currently you can sit in the English channel with subs almost immune to spotting unless you move a ship through it. Not possible with any air coverage.

Enigma helped of course but if you know where they are you still need the ability kill them. One thing to know the enemy plans another to be able to do something about it.

I believe that Naval combat in General is not portrayed as well as it could.

I think the core issue is the long range of Naval units which can attack and then hide/get away. You keep attacking hiding with no ability of the defender to respond in any way. Just kill and hide, in the ocean or go back to the port. There are so many ports along the Coast in France and GB as well as Italy and the Med that hit and run is the tactic to use. The tactic of attack hide, attack hide, repeat as necessary is a terrible process.

Some possible solutions: Submarines to limit their ability to attack surface ships such as destroyers. Allow Naval or land Aircraft to auto spot subs. From my understanding subs would move away from any Air capabilities. Aircraft would spot them from the air by their shadow, never mind increasing technology, and sink them.

Naval Combat: Reduce the movement of units that attack so that they cannot simply attack and get away. There should be a way to respond to an attack besides being sunk and the enemy gets away. You try to find them and get hammered with FOW contact. They are also probably too far away to get at. Again aircraft should be able to spot Naval units easily. Using your Air AP’s s to recon is not very good. At least if they spot a naval unit they should be able to attack.

FOW. I find it defective in all aspects. Enemy units within Air range should have a greater chance of spotting automatically. You should not need to send out aircraft to spot. This should be automatic. At worst use AP’s to recon as an option like other options available ti aircraft.

Some observations to ponder. I am sure there are many solutions to these problems. Work around are not a solution IMHO. Some thoughtful thoughts perhaps.

[elmo3]

I'm having different observations from my head to head game. When my opponent finds one of my subs it is dead every time. It can't dive far enough away to get out of his screen and he just keeps hitting it until is sinks. His aircraft attack my subs even when they are in silent mode. Bug?

I agree naval combat is the weakest part of this great game. Why do ships have to stop and lose all their movement and action points just because they run into a previously hidden ship? Some sort of fight should ensue and/or the faster ship should have a retreat option. Agree with you that attacking units should lose a good chunk of their remaining movement.

Anyway, just some random thoughts that came to me after reading your post.

[Leadwieght]

Well, it's hard to simulate both high-density land combat and low-density naval combat with essentially the same game engine.

I agree that sometimes subs can be too effective versus destroyers. But I like the way the anti-sub war feels. as the Allied player, you have to commit multiple escorts to kill a sub, but one or two are usually enough to make it dive. That seems about right.

Purchasing the tech advance of increased aircraft range will increase the spotting range of CV's CVE's and land-based fighters.

Maybe Naval Weaponry 2 should also increase spotting by surface ships. The Naval Weaponry advances are more about better radar and fire control than they are about bigger guns, and better radar implies better spotting.

The other thing would be to increase the likelihood that Spying and Intelligence advances result in naval spotting. That's what really won the Battle of the Atlantic.

[Hubert Cater]

Why do ships have to stop and lose all their movement and action points just because they run into a previously hidden ship? Some sort of fight should ensue and/or the faster ship should have a retreat option. Agree with you that attacking units should lose a good chunk of their remaining movement.

1) Under normal movement surprise contact can allow for combat and you will have the option to attack or not so long as you have the advantage after the surprise contact. If the hidden unit has the advantage then they will attack instead.

2) If it is a naval cruise movement you will not have the option to attack at all surprised or not.

The primary reason for limiting the options for 2) is that there would otherwise be no disadvantage to naval cruise and players would simply use it all the time. We wanted to introduce the feature of 'naval cruise' to allow players to cover more of the vast areas of the map that naval units could historically cover in a turn time period, but we also didn't want the Star Trek effect of naval units zooming in from all over the map whenever there was a naval engagement. This would make it very difficult to plan a naval strategy and as a result it forces players to more carefully consider attacks and counter attacks.

Additionally as Guderion1940 has noticed, it would only make the attack and run away strategy that much more pronounced and likely problematic.

[elmo3]

OK, thanks for the reply.

[TheBattlefield]

ORIGINAL: Guderian1940

These are human VS human observations. Human VS AI is completely different and you should not, from my experience, apply those lessons to MP play.

Submarines were adjusted, in a revision, allowing them to escape when surrounded. Fair enough. However it is now too difficult to find subs and attack them. They are much too elusive and powerful. Today's Nuclear subs are probably not as hard to find. They can kill DD’s and other ships almost at will and hide (again Nuclear subs). Did not German subs have only a limited number of torpedoes to use and would only use them on cargo ships rather than Escorts. Sure if a CV or BB was siting there they might. I understand the difficulty in “What if’s” VS established doctrine at the time. Humans will not follow doctrine of the time since they know better. Let’s buy a lot of submarines and sink the British fleet. Another point is supply to subs.

I also find the land, CV or CE are at a disadvantage in finding subs. Was it not Aircraft that sunk most submarines. Was it not the ability to cover the whole convoy route with aircraft a major demise of the sub war. Early on in the war there were not enough long range aircraft or EC’s to do the job however currently you can sit in the English channel with subs almost immune to spotting unless you move a ship through it. Not possible with any air coverage.

Enigma helped of course but if you know where they are you still need the ability kill them. One thing to know the enemy plans another to be able to do something about it.

I believe that Naval combat in General is not portrayed as well as it could.

I think the core issue is the long range of Naval units which can attack and then hide/get away. You keep attacking hiding with no ability of the defender to respond in any way. Just kill and hide, in the ocean or go back to the port. There are so many ports along the Coast in France and GB as well as Italy and the Med that hit and run is the tactic to use. The tactic of attack hide, attack hide, repeat as necessary is a terrible process.

Some possible solutions: Submarines to limit their ability to attack surface ships such as destroyers. Allow Naval or land Aircraft to auto spot subs. From my understanding subs would move away from any Air capabilities. Aircraft would spot them from the air by their shadow, never mind increasing technology, and sink them.

Naval Combat: Reduce the movement of units that attack so that they cannot simply attack and get away. There should be a way to respond to an attack besides being sunk and the enemy gets away. You try to find them and get hammered with FOW contact. They are also probably too far away to get at. Again aircraft should be able to spot Naval units easily. Using your Air AP’s s to recon is not very good. At least if they spot a naval unit they should be able to attack.

FOW. I find it defective in all aspects. Enemy units within Air range should have a greater chance of spotting automatically. You should not need to send out aircraft to spot. This should be automatic. At worst use AP’s to recon as an option like other options available ti aircraft.

Some observations to ponder. I am sure there are many solutions to these problems. Work around are not a solution IMHO. Some thoughtful thoughts perhaps.

SC3 is and remains a strategic game and is not a technical simulation. I personally consider little of "automated" settings. For the area of reconnaissance, the game provides sufficient possibilities - from research to active aerial reconnaissance. If someone absolutely wants to see everything and immediately, he can switch off the FOW or expand the recon range from any unit (via Editor) up to the edge of the map. The use of a tactical variant (hit & run) of the current game engine I find unproblematic, especially in a MP game and especially if both players have basically the same possibility.

Nevertheless, I share some your concerns about naval warfare. The current engine already provides two movement modes for ships. Why is the "Cruise" mode supply consumed and not the much more intense "search and fight" movement? Why is the relation of range of these different movement modes hardcoded and can not be varied (via the editor)? Thus, the range in "combat mode" (if not affected by supply consumption) could be at least significantly reduced without touching the fundamental range of the ships.

[Hubert Cater]

Why is the "Cruise" mode supply consumed and not the much more intense "search and fight" movement?

This is again to give players some pause when considering "Naval Cruise" as opposed to regular movement and due to the extra range provided it felt like a reasonable penalty to also apply.

Again, without some counter consideration to naval cruise mode for naval units, there really is no reason to have it in game as it would make more sense for it to be the default movement option, but then we run into other naval game play issues as highlighted above.

This way there are some pros and cons with what ever movement option you choose.

[elmo3]

Lost two more subs in my PBEM++ game. As soon as I run into an unknown enemy ship my sub loses all remaining movement, every time, even if it had only just moved a couple of hexes. There is no chance to get away. The enemy surrounds my sub and kills it every time. Diving does no good as you can't dive far enough away. IMHO this is broken.

[vonik]

I consider that the present naval game is quite balanced even if not very realistic .
Increasing the spotting ability of the mass of the Allied carriers would simply make the German Navy useless so it is clearly not the way to go .
I find that already in the present form it is much easier to spot the U boats than in reality and then to swarm them with destroyers .
Specifically the silent mode doesn't seem to be very efficient - in reality a sub in periscope depth and stealth mode is extremely hard to spot and if the sea is stormy, it is outright impossible .

Another issue is the very large radius of movement which leads to only one combat tactics - hit and run . In other words, if you are seen, you are dead .
However also here, I think that there is no alternative . Both players have that same problem so that a considerable thought must be given to the way how, with what forces and where to move .
If you move a lonely sub or 2 or an isolated battleship, then you'll lose it and it is deserved .
It generates some quite important strategical thinking in which one must accept to loose some ships provided that the ennemy will loose more .

Perhaps I would just slightly decrease the movement points to 15 or 16 what would put a pressure on the players to think more before they start their movements .

[TheBattlefield]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Why is the "Cruise" mode supply consumed and not the much more intense "search and fight" movement?

This is again to give players some pause when considering "Naval Cruise" as opposed to regular movement and due to the extra range provided it felt like a reasonable penalty to also apply.

Again, without some counter consideration to naval cruise mode for naval units, there really is no reason to have it in game as it would make more sense for it to be the default movement option, but then we run into other naval game play issues as highlighted above.

This way there are some pros and cons with what ever movement option you choose.

Damn it. My performance in the English language seems to lead me regularly into a dead end. [8|]


The meaningfulness and the existence of the cruise mode is completely beyond doubt. Also, the need for a small penalty when using this mode is more than just comprehensible.

I aimed at a very different aspect:

I still do not see any game-relevant disadvantage, if the "Cruise Mode" and "Normal Movement" were not "hardcoded" connected, but could be set separately from each other in the editor. In this way, fine adjustments (as suggested by "vonik" in post # 8) can be made with regard to the action radius in the tactical movement mode without automatically changing the range in the operatinal mode.

In other words: Operational Movement - penalty with regard to supply consuption and combat. Normal Movement - penalty with less freedom of movement. Both variably adjustable without a simultaneous reduction or increase of the other movement mode.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Battlefield,

Your English is fine and I suspect I was just reading the post too quickly. Honest answer here is that it takes a very long time to get everything editable and as much as we tried to do that for this release, as we neared the end some shortcuts simply needed to be taking in order to get the job done. So a few options are hard coded if it more or less made sense at the time to do so, i.e. Naval Cruise is 2X regular range seemed like a simple and quick logical choice at the time.

That being said, the easiest solution at this point (for us) is for a consensus change that "works" for now (if applicable) until things are updated on our end to allow for this type of editing and customization.

We do have some thoughts on this and we'll go from there,
Hubert

[TheBattlefield]

[:)]Thanks!

[battlevonwar]

The Battle of the Atlantic should be fun.

I have had players with issues killing subs and I have issues doing it too. They are by far strong although in ole Strategic Commands, you basically just hunted them down and never worried..sail back to England and forget pretty much the rest of the game about Submarine Warfare which went on into 1942 and prevented D-Day Landings and even made Torch a difficult situation.(1 or 2 guys would use high tech subs to create a uberbarrier as a strategy but it was rare)

England gets a lot of PPs, A LOT! 300plus just base and she can really pump out destroyers. I imagine most here don't now how to use them. Subs are not easy for Germany to build I'm finding and to keep up with Land and Air builds. I am not sure if Subs are OP yet but so far as I am finding it depends on the opponent.

ORIGINAL: elmo3

Lost two more subs in my PBEM++ game. As soon as I run into an unknown enemy ship my sub loses all remaining movement, every time, even if it had only just moved a couple of hexes. There is no chance to get away. The enemy surrounds my sub and kills it every time. Diving does no good as you can't dive far enough away. IMHO this is broken.

[James Taylor]

While the naval mechanics aren't perfect, they have come a long way baby! I'm fine with the cruise option and the penalties of use. The sub thing is still an easy kill as the subs cannot dive away far enough to have a chance to not be detected.

I'm not sure if even a four hex dive away would be effective as enough APs remain for a few destroyers to relocate the escaping sub.

The other thing is the operational losses suffered by carriers in attack mode on subs. I can understand a CAG having a few splashes occasionally through normal operations as WW2 planes were not all that reliable, but I believe the frequency is too high and never should losses be over 10% of the CAG's TOE.

[Hubert Cater]

One easy fix there is to simply implement absolute 0 losses for when air is attacking a Sub in Silent mode.

[James Taylor]

That would simulate a sub that is submerged and being depth charged by aircraft. Absolutely no possible way a sub could retaliate against the aircraft, but there are the operational aspects of carrier-air operations.

Aircraft recovery and launching was not without accidents and as I mentioned, mechanical issues could also cause a ditching, perhaps a small chance of some CAG losses.

Since there are the losses from aircraft-surface confrontations that seem a bit excessive at times, perhaps this rule would be a wash, even though a bit unrealistic.

I don't know, what do our other patrons think? I'm always for an easy fix and this would allow an avenue to build some carrier experience which presently is impossible.

[battlevonwar]

CAGs crashed notoriously during the war. In fact the US Navy had a film crew for just that reason, to film the mistakes to show the next group of pilots. The Pilots said they knew something was wrong when the film crews were filming.

U-boats did have antiair guns ~
At the beginning of the war the standard U-boat anti-aircraft (AA) weapon was a single 2cm gun. The Germans knew these as Flak from Flugabwehrkanone. The 2cm gun was most often the C/30 version in LC 30/37 mountings. From 1941 the 3,7cm gun SK C/30U became standard on type IX boats.


Around 120 aircraft were shot down by U-boats for the loss of roughly 30 U-boats either sunk during the attack or due to being located by other forces shortly afterwards and sunk.

One source says that RAF Coastal Command (U-boat hunters) lost 700 aircraft (badly damaged, shot down and paid off) and sank 220 U-boats during the war. I've been unable to verify the RAF losses but the U-boat figure is about right it seems. These figures show the immense effort put out by the British to hunt down the U-boats and almost all the aircraft successes took place in 1942 and later. In 1939-1941 only some 2 U-boats were sunk by aircraft (31 in 1942 alone).

Source: U-boat.net

ORIGINAL: James Taylor

That would simulate a sub that is submerged and being depth charged by aircraft. Absolutely no possible way a sub could retaliate against the aircraft, but there are the operational aspects of carrier-air operations.

Aircraft recovery and launching was not without accidents and as I mentioned, mechanical issues could also cause a ditching, perhaps a small chance of some CAG losses.

Since there are the losses from aircraft-surface confrontations that seem a bit excessive at times, perhaps this rule would be a wash, even though a bit unrealistic.

I don't know, what do our other patrons think? I'm always for an easy fix and this would allow an avenue to build some carrier experience which presently is impossible.

[Hubert Cater]

Battlevonwar, SeaMonkey,

Agreed and what we were thinking was that if a Sub is in Silent mode, essentially under water, that any losses an attacking aircraft could possibly sustain would be from operational damage and not from a counter attack from a sub.

Currently subs are set to have 0 counter attack ability against air units, but the +/- 1 modifier to combat results allows for the potential of at least 1 strength point loss from time to time. This is a great way to represent the chance for aircraft operational losses or the chance that a surfaced U-Boat could also inflict some counter damage to attacking aircraft, and again from time to time.

The question here is really only for subs in Silent mode and what the likelyhood of any operational damage would be to aircraft when attacking subs underwater. Reasonably we could keep the chance of a 1 strength point loss, but I think the optics of it really do call more for absolute 0 in this case as new players and old alike are likely to feel that a 1 strength point loss for attacking a sub underwater just feels wrong.

It is a singular special case here, but something we are strongly leaning towards.

Thoughts?
Hubert

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Guderian1940
...

I believe that Naval combat in General is not portrayed as well as it could.
...

Naval Combat: Reduce the movement of units that attack so that they cannot simply attack and get away. There should be a way to respond to an attack besides being sunk and the enemy gets away. ....

Agree with this and it needs fixing. In my current PBEM game if my opponent finds one of my ships in the Mediterranean he can sortie ships from various ports, kill it, and then sortie back to port and I can do nothing about it. Same with the Baltic.

Ports also feel way to strong. I'm sure some of them had guns to defend the port but a ship tied up in a port should be a sitting duck. As it is now the attacker almost always takes much heavier losses than the defender.

[elmo3]

Another example of attacking with impunity. I accidentally moved a DD next to Calais where I uncovered a German ship in the port. My DD was stopped dead in it's tracks. Next turn my opponent sent out a couple of ships from other nearby ports, killed the DD, and then sailed back to their ports and there was nothing I could do about it. None of my ships in nearby ports could sail out to intercept them, none of my aircraft could fly to attack the enemy ships or even shadow them back to see what ports they were using. IMHO this needs some kind of fix.

Edit - Just curious what Bill or Hubert think of this. If it's working as intended then I'll stop commenting.