Classification of gunboats

[el cid again]

It has been suggested that gunboats should not be PG after all - this only for WITP as AE fixes the issues with PG classification.

RHS already has some PG or RGB classified as CL or CA. I think the big battleship PG should be BB - because they cannot bombard - their main contemplated mission for wartime use - if not. The suggestion was mainly for the 6 inch gun PG - and indeed the US ones were intended to be demi- cruisers - and are covered in US Cruisers (USNI). I have more of a problem with the smaller gunboats - the suggestion was to call them DD. This is confusing I think. What about DMS? Or DML if it carried a mineload. We are missing river minesweepers - so they might be part of the composite small riverine units.

[Historiker]

I'm not sure whether DMSs and DMs participate in bombardements - this should be tested, before.

[spence]

Officially classed as WPG the USCGC Taney really was envisioned as a wartime escort for convoys/antisubmarine vessel along the lines of a DE. She and here sisters had been reconfigured during 1941 for that role. All of her sisters were tasked as convoy escorts in the Atlantic where the other six claimed 4 or 5 U-boats (and one was sunk by a a UBoat). The USS Charleston (demi-cruiser) design started with the same hull as Taney which isn't as strange as it seems since Taney was larger than most of her contemporary DDs of late 30s construction.

The PG designation seems to cause a ship to have a significantly lower experience level as well as a Lt or junior grade for a CO. The Taney Class were skippered by senior Commanders or Captains and probably had a greater overall experience level amongst the crew than the average USN crew occasioned by the variety peacetime missions she performed along with military training.

Taney appears in CHS but not in Stock. It seems a shame since she remained in commission long after every other ship in the WitP data base was sent to the breakers (except Arizona).

[el cid again]

Well - some ships went to the bottom - including another US battleship damaged at PH which sank only in 1946 - under tow to the US West Coast. And then there were ships in the database that survive as museums - or hulks.

[Bogo Mil]

I think some of the river "gunboats" are so crappy, that you can simply delete them from the game and use the slots for something else. Who need a boat which has only 2 .303 AAMG as armament? At sea, it could be used as picket, but on a river?

One thing I found out about the ship classes:
MSW, PG, , DD (probably PC, SC and DE, too) sometimes get ASW-attacks, even if they don't have any ASW-weapons: If you have a task force with such vessels, you sometimes get a combat report of an ASW-attack, where only the sub is listed, no enemy vessels (because none had any weapons to attack). I have never seen this with TF without any escort class ships.
My conclusion is, that those ships give some protection against sub attacks. You might bear this in mind if you assign ship classes: If the boat shall give ASW protection, make it a PG or DD. If not, it CL or BB might be better (of course this is not important for river craft - there are no river subs).

[el cid again]

Tiny river gunboats are intended mainly for interior river systems - where big ships or even big river gunboats cannot go. They are murder on enemy landing craft and other unarmed or marginally armed river transports. They also are chrome. The Kotaka (if I remember the right one) was built for use in extremely shallow waters of the upper Yangtze - and is sort of a "cruiser" up there - with only twin 13 mm in her main battery. But the objection - by Historiker - is valid: river craft could do support. This matter is addressed in AE, according to Joe.

[Historiker]

Indeed, it's not a problem of classification, it is - once more - the code.
Unfortunately, PGs can't bombard no matter what guns they have. Even 16in guns would do nothing against land targets. But as PGs will be able to bombard in AE, it's just an interim solution

PS: My Soemba was sunk by APs in an PBEM