German naval units

[Garoad]

I'm no expert on the matter, but shouldn't German naval units be a little stronger than they are? Historically they had fewer, obviously, but didn't they also have larger guns and weren't they generally better protected? In light of things like the Bismark class and pocket battleships, shouldn't the axis heavy and/or light fleets have a stat or two slightly higher? I know some might say these differences aren't significant enough, but I'm not sure, looking at how the German surface fleet (correct me if I'm wrong) generally outperformed Allied surface fleets.

In the game right now it seems like the Axis navy is pretty much dead meat if it goes much into the open seas, forget going somewhere like the South Atlantic or further like they did historically, unless it's a huge wolf pack with good evasion. Should Axis heavy/light units start out with a better naval attack and/or evasion? I don't think it creates a danger where you'd have a German player building up huge "superior" navies either, because even with a slightly boosted navy they still have plenty to worry about on the air/land front.

[Forwarn45]

I think the current ratings are a compromise since ship quality applies to both the German fleets and Italian fleets. Perhaps the Germans were slightly better - but the Italians may have been slightly worse. The size of the Axis fleets versus the Allied fleets works for me. The Italians can contest the med with air support, and the Germans can raid the open seas if the Allies leave openings. Any more requires massive support of uboats and/or air. I don't think the Axis could have expected to do much better than this, and the way uboats operate actually gives them a slightly better chance. You are right that the Germans used some individual ships in commerce raiding far from port but it would have been difficult to model use of individual ships in that role as opposed to larger fleets that are modeled. I don't think its a serious oversight as the Germans ultimately lost these ships IIRC.

[Garoad]

Yeah, honestly I was kind of leaning towards what you're saying because of the Italian crap fleet, but I wanted to throw it out there to see what others think. With an upgrade like that I would expect the size of the Italian navy to be decreased, too.

[PyleDriver]

I agree. it bewonders me how the Germans were able to go around the Horn, or to South America, and then return...Sometimes, they got caught...They had, I'll have to look agian, huge amounts of fuel to do it...How do you build it into a statigic playable game?...A good website I found German-Navy.de/kriegsmarine ...It shows all the Raids the Germans did during the war, Warships, U-Boats, Scraped ships, and Plans. You'll enjoy it.

[8D]
Jon Pyle

[Krisanie]

I have done fairly well using U-Boat saturation by boosting their speed, evasion, and torpedo ratings. I wolf-pack as much as I can, and focus on the transports, leaving the warshps to my own warships and airpower. Cutting off the transports aand then getting out of Dodge makes taking England a lot easier. I devote all of Italy to making nothing but U-Boats & transports for the whole war.
Once I have the Atlantic whipped into shape, I like to send a wolfpack around the Horn to help my Asian friends. Nothing messes up the US Pacific fleet like having a dozen U-Boats show up west of San Francisco!

[rjh1971]

Once I have the Atlantic whipped into shape, I like to send a wolfpack around the Horn to help my Asian friends. Nothing messes up the US Pacific fleet like having a dozen U-Boats show up west of San Francisco

That's right, but you probably did that against the AI, human players start upgrading ASW the first thing, at least I do, nonetheless uboats are or can be a big nuisance if used properly.

it bewonders me how the Germans were able to go around the Horn, or to South America, and then return...Sometimes, they got caught...They had, I'll have to look agian, huge amounts of fuel to do it...How do you build it into a statigic playable game?

One solution could be to allow the movement of transports a turn after being loaded with supplies, only with supplies not units, this way Germany could send raiders to the South Atlantic (LF and HF) and so could the allies.