naval warfare?

[Cheesehead]

I'm playing my first game. I'm Axis against the AI. It is Nov 24, 1939 and I've had subs and surface ships out in all the sea zones around Britain. I can see that there are Allied ships in those same sea zones and yet I have not had a single naval battle or sunk a single convoy that I'm aware of. I do have my subs on Raider and my surface ships are set to Engage. Am I missing something? Are there naval contacts that I'm just not aware of because I'm not seeing the reports somewhere? It seems odd that I've not seen a single naval engagement....

thanks

John

[Razz1]

Try looking at the strategy guide.

hit R for reports
check raiders activity
read up on detection

[Cheesehead]

Where is the strategy guide? Is it part of the manual?

So what you are saying is that naval combat is abstracted to the point where you have to follow it in the end of turn reports?

Thanks

[doomtrader]

Go to the preferences, select gameplay tab, and uncheck autoresolve naval battles

[Razz1]

Try the war room


tm.asp?m=2978875

[JLPOWELL]

This pretty much matches the experience I have. Both in PBEM and vrs AI. Surface ships are mostly harmless vrs Surface ships. CV attacks have virtually no hope at all of killing a full strength surface unit. Test it if you want. Just put a couple of surface raiders in a zone with the entire RN and watch and wait and watch and wait nothing happens. Full strength BB takes about 10 -12 CV attacks to kill. Razz has pointed out where to find the results, but you won't see many results. In one game I left several German surface units stacked with a USSR fleet in the Baltic (Leningrad had fallen) and they were all there several months (over 20 turns) later apparently shooting nerf weapons at each other. [:D]

BTW The larger a fleet is the more vulnerable it is to air attack (air attacks get lots of hits distributed among all targets not much focus on an individual target). While full strength individual ships are virtually impossible to destroy. They get Damaged then scoot back to port (if controlled by a human AI didn't get the memo on this). Tac is pretty deadly though so the Germans pretty much rule anywhere they can get tac air. This makes the Med a death zone for the allies.

Contrast this to the actual sorties made by the German navy. And their extreme reluctance to risk surface units after a few disastrous attempts.

Game likely needs a dedicated NAV air unit for ASW and anti surface. I don't recall reading about many German torpedo bombers. German Tac air in particular is overpowered it acts like Japanese naval air in effectiveness when they were not trained or equipped for naval warfare.

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead

I'm playing my first game. I'm Axis against the AI. It is Nov 24, 1939 and I've had subs and surface ships out in all the sea zones around Britain. I can see that there are Allied ships in those same sea zones and yet I have not had a single naval battle or sunk a single convoy that I'm aware of. I do have my subs on Raider and my surface ships are set to Engage. Am I missing something? Are there naval contacts that I'm just not aware of because I'm not seeing the reports somewhere? It seems odd that I've not seen a single naval engagement....

thanks

John

[battlevonwar]

I wholeheartedly agree.

Surface ships don't protect Amphibs/transports... In our game at least 5 of those have been lost to tactical air while the Navy is off doing less important things. The occasional hit and sinking does happen. Though you almost waste PPs reinforcing Navies in this game. You are better off buying more Tac Air.

It is more like a Pacific Scenario right now, the tools the Americans and Japanese employed in the Pacific with Super Navies and Super DiveBomber-Torpedo Planes. This must be addressed.

I know Tirpitz was damaged by Long Range Land Based Bombers. Bismark disabled by Carrier Based Torpedoes. There may have been a few more in WW2 done Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy. I doubt it though...In our games it's like this...20 ships destroyed by both sides using purely land based bombers, what way around this? Fighter Screens are not very effective. We could assume that every Battleship near friendly ports, territory, etc.. has a Fighter Screen. Also Amphibs/Transports should be vulnerable(don't want D-days on well protected beaches) but not the only target that goes down 1st!

Plus Germany never embraced Japanese Naval Tactics! Virtually no communication between the KG and Luftwaffe... The Italians had awesome Naval Bombers and I know they did some harassing of the RN.......Game needs some tweaks here......

ORIGINAL: JLPOWELL

This pretty much matches the experience I have. Both in PBEM and vrs AI. Surface ships are mostly harmless vrs Surface ships. CV attacks have virtually no hope at all of killing a full strength surface unit. Test it if you want. Just put a couple of surface raiders in a zone with the entire RN and watch and wait and watch and wait nothing happens. Full strength BB takes about 10 -12 CV attacks to kill. Razz has pointed out where to find the results, but you won't see many results. In one game I left several German surface units stacked with a USSR fleet in the Baltic (Leningrad had fallen) and they were all there several months (over 20 turns) later apparently shooting nerf weapons at each other. [:D]

BTW The larger a fleet is the more vulnerable it is to air attack (air attacks get lots of hits distributed among all targets not much focus on an individual target). While full strength individual ships are virtually impossible to destroy. They get Damaged then scoot back to port (if controlled by a human AI didn't get the memo on this). Tac is pretty deadly though so the Germans pretty much rule anywhere they can get tac air. This makes the Med a death zone for the allies.

Contrast this to the actual sorties made by the German navy. And their extreme reluctance to risk surface units after a few disastrous attempts.

Game likely needs a dedicated NAV air unit for ASW and anti surface. I don't recall reading about many German torpedo bombers. German Tac air in particular is overpowered it acts like Japanese naval air in effectiveness when they were not trained or equipped for naval warfare.

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead

I'm playing my first game. I'm Axis against the AI. It is Nov 24, 1939 and I've had subs and surface ships out in all the sea zones around Britain. I can see that there are Allied ships in those same sea zones and yet I have not had a single naval battle or sunk a single convoy that I'm aware of. I do have my subs on Raider and my surface ships are set to Engage. Am I missing something? Are there naval contacts that I'm just not aware of because I'm not seeing the reports somewhere? It seems odd that I've not seen a single naval engagement....

thanks

John

[JLPOWELL]

The two main Naval issues are:
CV attacks are not decisive on CV attacks one BB usual result is sunk BB not some scratched paint.
BB vrs BB (applies to all surface) these battles were decisive as well defender scratched shouldn't be the typical combat result. I can see avoid combat, but once engaged stuff gets sunk. Any read of naval history of WW2 in any theater supports this.

The German naval tech level is silly as well. BB technology was from the 'last war' US UK and even Italy were ahead in what really counted Naval aviation. BB's were expensive anachronisms costing more than the superior CV. Basing the tech level on the 'legendary' Bismark which sunk the Hood by a fluke more than anything else and was in turn sunk by a CV. In WW2 the RN still ruled the waves the Germans and Italians (less so the Italians) had to stay clear or die. German naval tech would rate possibly 4th or 5th in the world. Behind US UK JP and perhaps even IT. This genre of game has a 'Germans gone Wild' mind set, and perhaps it sells games but not on 'realism'.

Another issue likely a design response to players making unrealistically large battle-groups is that naval combat favors small units each ship after the first appears to only detract from effectiveness. Not true as the famous quote often attributed (but perhaps never said by) to the successful if not brilliant military mind of Joesph Stalin "Quantity has a quality all of its own"

[JLPOWELL]

Just got some results in. The Peter Strasser has finally been sunk in my PBEM game. I kept a log of the attacks to support my contention that naval combat 'needs work'.
7 weeks of chasing this ship + 1 BB +1 CA around the Atlantic (BattleVonWar too cagey to move where TAC could hit it with laser guided bombs)

Based on the forces involved this should have been 'over' in seven hours not seven weeks.

Strikes on hex with 'reported' German CV present.
USN CV strikes 31 (including the one which finally sunk it.)
RN CV strikes 9
4 Turns ending in in sea zone with 'spotted Ge CV' (large task forces 3+BB 3+CA 4+ CV) (big stuff here bigger than battle of Midway forces on Allied side)

Port strikes (based on 'someone' getting a hit on the Strasser in that port that turn
USSR 3
USAF 5
UK 3

So 11 port strikes (actually nearly half of the damage was done this way and this is likely the least effective based on the historical record which indicates : CV strikes most deadly Surface engagements second most Port strikes third (of the three) {Pearl harbor is a special case of a surprise attack when at 'peace'})
40 CV strikes plus whatever happens when 5 CV's end a turn in the same zone (mostly nothing)50 days of 'action'. Wow if the Japanese had a few of these they could have anchored them in San Francisco bay and Bombed Sacramento. All this is about as plausible as the movie about the nuclear Carrier which went thru a wormhole back to WWII.

So ANYONE tell me that if this is WAD that the design does not need a 'bit' of tweaking.

[doomtrader]

I'll take a look at this for 1.03

[Razz1]

In Vanilla TOF the Strausser is a 10/10 carrier. It should be a 5/5 carrier as in the Third Reich.

Having the unit in Raider mode reduces your possibility to hit tremendously.

As far as I know the carrier uses the same value as an airstrike for land combat.

For Naval combat, surface vs surface, the tables are behind the scenes.

It almost seems as if there is a 1 out of 6 chance to hit. If that's true then there should be 2 columns where you can make a hit. 2/6 = 30% vs 16% chance.

[Cheesehead]

I like the naval warfare concept in this game but it requires some major tweaking. Surface ships need to be more effective in sinking other surface ships. Naval bombers need to be introduced and tactical bombers downgraded in effectiveness against ships. Also, I think it should be easier to engage enemy ships that linger in a zone for more than a turn. But I would think this can be done without having to overhaul the system.

Cheers

John