BB combat values

[Michael T]

@Alvaro, this is just food for thought.

The image below is from IMO *THE* most advanced and best Strategic Level game on WWII ever. GMT's A World at War.

Just note the combat values for the BB's and BC's. See how the modern BB's are rated at 4, and the older WWI BB's at 3. Also note the orange band on the
old French BB's, that indicates that they are slow, which means quite a few disadvantages for those ships in regards to intercept and combat. Finally note
that the French BC's are also only a 3. They are not equivalent in strength to a WWII type BB.

[AlbertN]

Main problem is that for ships, is that they get 'upgraded'. (Premise, I do not believe any player builds ships actually in Warplan and live with what they've).

So even if BB-A and BB-B start at '39 and '40 tech, the '39 one will get on par with the other due to the upgrading.

Ships should not receive upgrade and come out already diluted with relative techs.

Presently with their cost and time required to build, anyhow I cannot see anyone building a navy. Especially with the very limited use it has. A Medum Bomber is cheaper, more versatile, and quicker to produce.
Ships are hardly needed in the Atlantic as well - as pratically to intercept transports from the USA going to UK ... one requires a miracle (or Allied player misplay).

[Michael T]

yes, battle of the Atlantic just doesn't happen at the moment. U-Boats are just not up to scratch and the RN's old WWI battlewagons hold too much sway.

[tyronec]

So there already are two classes of Battleship; Warships and Large Warships. Not sure if there are any Large Warships in the game.
Maybe class the old BBs and assorted BCs as Warships and modern BBs as Large Warships, and have a look at the combat values accordingly.

I like the simplicity of how the naval system works, though expect for PTO it would need to be enhanced.

[AlvaroSousa]

So to give everyone a heads up. With a discussion from Cohen and it was his idea that changed this.

I changed the BGs in the game and the tech.
Warships applies to all warships and are on all starting ships or WW1 type BGs on the map.
Large Warship applies to all BGs on the queue and new ones built. So players should be building large BGs

The tech for large warship has been upgraded to being more powerful.

Some BGs were changed on the map if I remember.

The German Scharnhorst BG is a 9 surface and 9 defense with a 1940 Warships advancement. It is considered a modern battle cruiser type group. With it's 11" guns it simply can't take on a modern BG. This is the same for the older Italian G. Cesare

The UK's Nelson is a 11 surface and 9 defense with a 1939 Large Warship advancement

So to sum up

Nelson 11/9 - 1939 Large Warship (modern BB)
if was 1940 tech it would be an 11/10
Sharnhorst 9/9 - 1940 Warship (modern battle cruiser that had better armor than the Bismarck)

Barham 9/8 - 1939 Warship - BB (WW1)
G. Cesare 9/8 - 1939 Warship - BB (WW1)

The new table comparison puts large warships 2-3 points ahead in attack and defense with an advantage in AA guns.

So now there is a distinct difference and advantage.

The advantage in Large Warship is that a 1941 tech is better than the 1945 tech of the Warships

So the balancing agent is that Large Warship only applies to queue ships and new BGs only.

How does that sound. I still need to test it. I consulted with a friend who was well read in WW2 naval ship design.

[tyronec]

I think this approach works.

Maybe have the tech improvements fairly limited, so updating a Warship from 39 to 45 won't make much difference.
After all if you start with a WW1 battleship or battlecruiser it is never going to be up to the standard of a modern battleship built in 39.
Don't know much naval history but would have thought most of the war years improvements were adding AA guns - perhaps someone knows more on this ?

[AlbertN]

If there is a way to disable upgrades it would work potentially even better where you can have a difference between Old Warship of this type to that type.

But it is at least a better approach than the current one.

Alas with current mechanics it's hard to model naval adequately enough. For instance Nelson and Rodney had massive guns, but were pretty slow. Whereas the German BCs were pretty fast even if their gun size was not as much.
Then, gun size is relative - germans had better metallurgy than brits since long (as shown in the WW1 battle of Jutland where the German despite inferior gun calibers, sank more british ships).

But working with what we have presently - I believe it's an acceptable compromise.

[Michael T]

Great work. I am surprised and very happy you have improved it this way Alvaro.

[Essro]

I think this is a decent evolution of the naval system.

For those concerned about slow vs fast, I wonder if reducing the ops points from 2 to 1 would be a solution to model those slower ships?

EDIT: the above is probably too drastic, but I'll leave it for discussion.

Also, considering the discussion about how ships don't "upgrade" throughout the war. Consider the following:

-some ships were fitted with additional AA
-improved fire control procedures
-improved search and rescue
-improved ability to recover battle damage
-improved ordnance (especially torpedoes, more of a PTO issue of course)
-improved sailing skills--even just simple navigation improved throughout the war as a result of more accurate weather forcasting
-improved sailors training--especially in terms of gunnery

According to the US Navy, here is an example of one such ship's treatment after Pearl Harbor where "She spent the rest of the year receiving permanent repairs and improvements, including a greatly enhanced anti-aircraft gun battery."

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collec ... bb-36.html


So I think it's not whether these ships upgrade but rather which stats should improve.

As far as BBs, I'd buy into improved surface and AA. Not so much in the ASW area...at least for BBs (that's a terrible role for them). For defense...gotta think on that. Assuming that factor represents more than just armor, I suppose it still works.

[AlvaroSousa]

Cohen was right. No one would use it. Even I didn't use it. So I had to give it incentive to be used. Now WW2 BGs have a big advantage over other ships.

Like the Scharnhorst (BC) or Valiant (WW1 BB) was no match for the Nelson (Modern BB). They would get slaughtered.

[AlbertN]

IF there is a way to make ships non upgradable one can tinker a lot more.
Like Scharnorst and Gneisenau were factually modern, but battlecruisers. They'd not win vs the Rodney or Nelson in general - no. But they'd outrun them.

IF you can lock ships in their 'upgrade tier', you can have Old-Slow BBs in '39, you can have Old-Fast BBs, in '40 tier (fast = +1 Action point maybe? Example), Modern-Fast BC in 41 slot (Which may mean less gunnery than a BB, but maybe more defence? To mirror more speed, to evade combat?).

One in that case has not to see '39, '40, '41 as a sequence, but just as a categorizing where a ship is frozen in time - due to no upgrades. And chassis can be used for both BB and CA, as their base stats are different.

[AlvaroSousa]

Old ships were upgraded. The Italians upgraded their WW1 BBs but even after upgrade they werent as good as the Litorrio.

For example one of the old BBs went from 12" to 12.6" guns + more things. They had a limit.

[Majmac]

Don't forget that RADAR was a significant upgrade (in the real world).

[AlbertN]

I am aware of that. Albeit change of guns was in the pre-war refitting. Anyhow yes - most of improvements across the war were installations of radars, improving AAs as planes were showing their dominance over the seas, etc.
It was a suggestion but mayhaps for WP2.

Hearts of Iron 2 had a good naval system for ships and their management. (Pratically you cannot upgrade a ship but each ship has slots that can be 'fitted' in with extras)

[TrogusP96]

Changing the guns max elevation was common. Alvaro I think the upgrade/advancement system captures the US and Japanese approach very well -0 even old ships had AA, gun directors, radar etc added. But since the upgrades include defense (perhaps improved Damage control) which the US got very good at leaves little incentive to build the more modern ships. The newer ships start at the same base as the older ones or is this what you are changing? Also the Battle cruisers seem to have the same defense as the BBs this is probably warranted for the Germans not sure about the Brits three BCs.

I think the upgrade system is great. I always felt that WiF suffered because the static values didn't reflect the changes during the war. I'm sure its tough to balance the old hulls versus new hulls versus upgrades on both hull types. one of the main advantages of the newer ships was speed, which I think someone already mentioned.

[AlbertN]

WiF has an excellent naval system - and tbh upgrades were quite relative to not warrant different counters unless the ship had very large overhauls.
Especially as it is a tabletop game first, and then converted to computer for larger fruition, counters (the physical units / gaming pieces) are limited, or well, they're related to the cost.
But the fact that each ship had its individual qualities / stats by itself was great already.

[TrogusP96]

Cohen I agree. I really like the WiF system. They did a ton of work to come up with those naval unit stats.WP is not limited by printing factors. Isnt that an advantage of a computer game. That's why I didn't quite understand when MWIF was a transport of the board game instead of taking advantage of computer more fully. Alvaro has done that with WP I think, athough I think the individual capital ships are better for reasons I've expressed elsewhere - contruction cost, deployment, risk, smaller country flexibility, partial battle losses and more. Like individuality or color. WiF has more than WP so far. I hope it keeps growing. AS seems open. That Wargamer review about soul may have grown from factors like that. Heck AS hasn't even made the SS units black for which maybe we should be grateful.

[AlbertN]

Unless there is a difference in the game, there is no need to make SS units black or of a different colour. If there is a difference in mechanic, then yes.
Given, some like the historical chrome, some games have SS black, Wermatch gray or feldgray, Luftwaffe ground units or LW in general azure, etc.

I personally favor the approach of WiF - a game that I can understand fully without hidden mechanics.

[AlvaroSousa]

If you want to make an ubermensch elite SS unit give it the +10% experience specialty and rename it

"SS Ubermensch Panzer Corps"