Naval issues

[AlvaroSousa]

Thus why I said players need to protect their rear. Most dont

[ago1000]

These suggestions may have been already been voiced (not sure) Re: Invasions in General
1) Invasion force requires two OP to disembark. (I believe that was Alvaro's original idea)
2) when unit disembarks it should be like rail, no OP left to move inland.
3) Units in a stack should all be allowed to disembark if they can without movement. I'll explain, if I have 2 units remaining in a stack with two OP showing then both units should be allowed to disembark to adjacent hexes one at a time with the player choosing.

Reason #1: If no air superiority in the area that means the invasion will get hammered twice (once when units stop moving by Air and then by Naval and Air on the other's person's turn - This will effectively eliminate the Sealion Strategy)

Reason #2: No OP left will hinder units moving inland rapidly.

Reason #3: Allows to rethink invasion strategy so that convoys are used instead of single ships sailing to shores.

Just my thoughts.

[Meteor2]

Alvaro, please.
What was the reasoning not to force carriers to repair and replenish their air and hull (as in SC3), after damaged has been taken?
I think, that this procedure is feeling right, despite the short time needed. But in the frame of the game it is ok.

And by the way, will we have the possibility to set up convoy / supply routes in the Pacific Game?
Example: Direct ships and escorts to Guadalcanal, when occupied by one side.

[AlvaroSousa]

ORIGINAL: ago1000

These suggestions may have been already been voiced (not sure) Re: Invasions in General
1) Invasion force requires two OP to disembark. (I believe that was Alvaro's original idea)
2) when unit disembarks it should be like rail, no OP left to move inland.
3) Units in a stack should all be allowed to disembark if they can without movement. I'll explain, if I have 2 units remaining in a stack with two OP showing then both units should be allowed to disembark to adjacent hexes one at a time with the player choosing.

Reason #1: If no air superiority in the area that means the invasion will get hammered twice (once when units stop moving by Air and then by Naval and Air on the other's person's turn - This will effectively eliminate the Sealion Strategy)

Reason #2: No OP left will hinder units moving inland rapidly.

Reason #3: Allows to rethink invasion strategy so that convoys are used instead of single ships sailing to shores.

Just my thoughts.

#1 2OP invasion disembark - I already addressed this and in beta it was found to be too harsh as these invasion forces could be easily blasted away by air. Most invasions moved at night and landed during the day.

#2 After disembark no OP left for land unit - This was also tested in beta and again found too harsh on invasion forces. They would easily be corralled and booted off the beach. Units stuck on shorelines would be blasted by air power to death. Air power does FULL damage to units on the beach and very little to land units on land tiles.

#3 Disembark without movement - Units can disembark without movement in ports. But you need naval OPs to invade and disembark on a beach. Maybe I am not following what you are saying.

Sea lion should be possible as an Axis strategy. This is a game not a historical recreation. Players want to have fun. I want a little anxiety on both sides. Right now I am playing 2 games as the Allies in the server. I have already been planning to defend Sealion as I should as the UK every game and not assume they aren't coming. We will see by these results. Interestingly one player has had crap weather throughout the game and the other got lucky on weather during the winter. The overall effect in France is minimum maybe a 2 turn difference between them going down. Currently in one game I expect France to fall late June maybe early July (lucky weather game). July-August in the bad weather game. But never assume as the UK you don't need more naval units. You do.

[AlvaroSousa]

ORIGINAL: Meteor2

Alvaro, please.
What was the reasoning not to force carriers to repair and replenish their air and hull (as in SC3), after damaged has been taken?
I think, that this procedure is feeling right, despite the short time needed. But in the frame of the game it is ok.

And by the way, will we have the possibility to set up convoy / supply routes in the Pacific Game?
Example: Direct ships and escorts to Guadalcanal, when occupied by one side.

It was tedious and the cost is built into the ship. But considering what was said before if you missed it I implemented a limited CV naval air repair of 3 per turn regardless. I forgot to consider what if the CV takes zero damage? Then by the code it replenished all the planes. Which isn't right as someone pointed out. So now we try with 3 plane repairs a turn. It is a new variable in the editor to modify.

One thing to consider here is hindsight. Historically the Allies did their pilot training correctly while the Axis did it stupidly. In a game we have to assume this error doesn't occur and that both sides do it generally right. It makes for more of a fun game. So any severely air damaged CV should take 2 months to repair. I might reduce it to 2 planes per turn (10 CV planes)

Pacific - Convoys will be the same as in WarPlan for supply and resources. You can turn on and off a route. It would be a massive undertaking to rewrite the engine code to change this. In the pacific you will use more of the support items in WarPlan than you do here like airfields. Already the system has build in the Tokyo Express. I suspect the strategy to play the Pacific will be very different experience than the European theater.

This will not be a War in the Pacific replacement. It is not that detailed. But I guarantee it will be fun and just as easy to use. I am quite excited about it. Map will be same size double scale (50m per hex).

[ago1000]

Thanks for the quick reply Alvaro:
I've tested suggestion 1 and 2 and know they can be real massacres if you don't have air superiority and fleet screening cover. I was just sharing my thoughts.
I'm hoping the following pic will explain my third though. I was thinking that it should be possible to land all three transports, one in each of the three locations in red. I can only land one since the entire stacks OP is used. At the moment I can't think of why I would create a screening cover of ships for my transports (especially for a single transport). If I need to bring each transport in one at a time anyway it simply becomes a numbers game, like baby sea turtles on a beach.

[AlvaroSousa]

It's the targeting profile. If you have a transport with a 2-3 ships it's targeting profile is lower than alone.
If you escort an invading force with 2-3 ships it has a lower target profile.

If someone wants to be gamey and send 8 divisions alone vs 2 fleets and 2 air units then that's a lot of production lost right there.

And yes you can only unload one unit per turn not in a port.
Another thing is that an intercepting fleet can inflict enough casualties on the moving fleet to cause it to retreat and never get to the invasion spot.

[aspqrz02]

I'm sorry, but an AXIS naval invasion of the UK was as close to being impossible in the real world as you can get short of surrounding the island with minefields.

There was LESS THAN ZERO chance of them successfully invading Canada.

The Axis simply DID. NOT. HAVE. THE. CAPACITY.

At the very least the Canadians and US should get an IMMEDIATE appearance of a horde of Militia CORPS and massive one off boost in PPs to spend AND in Production PPs per turn.

IF you could set up a trigger zone at sea several hexes off the Canadian/US Coast and rejig Transport movement so that has to STOP at that trigger point and THEN the US/Canadian Militia appear and the PP appear and the Production level starts ... then that should let the Axis player in on the fact that the whole plan is rubbish.

But many players seem to like computerised RISK <sigh>

Phil McGregor

[Meteor2]

No, I am not a friend of an artificial and sudden boost of PP or militia units in Canada, if a German unit reaches the coast.
Its the naval model, which needs improvement.
In reality the supply of every hypothetical axis unit in Canada has to come from Germany over the Atlantic.
That means, that every mercant marine vessel has to slip through, despite the capabilities of the allied Navy.
The WP mechanic of Naval and Marine air interdiction shoud not allow this.
Even a German corps in Canada (30.000 men) with port supply should not survive due to the supply situation.

[aspqrz02]

The thing is, at the scale of what WarPlan is, the Canadians (and everyone else), certainly from 1939, has units FORMING all the time.

They don't just magically start to appear 30/60/90 days after you pay the PP ... that's merely the final stage ...

And, of course, there are coastal defences not shown in the game ... and Canada had some quite effective ones ... and the Militia Regiments and Training Units would have been able to field themselves as combat units even though they are not shown in the game ... like the Germans did with their Wehkreis in early 1945. They were quite effective, conscripts mainly, but led by veteran NCOs and Officers ... of course, their fielding meant no more units coming online, and was a desperation move, but the point is there would be many many many many 'units' actually available for fielding against such a ridiculous invasion that simply aren't shown in the game.

That's what the PP Bonus represents, that's what the additional 'free' units represent. They're really a part of the real world unit raising and training mechanism not shown in most games.

So, for example, from early 1940 the British had around 750,000 armed Home Guard militia in around 1200 'Battalions' which would probably operated as Companies (5000) or Platoons (25000) ... and it was made quite clear that they would not be constrained by (and generally did not expect to be covered by) the Laws of Land Warfare (Hague Convention, NOT the Geneva Convention). Many of the members, NCOs and Officers had experience from WW1 and would have been potentially formidable individual combatants.

How do you represent them? In a Corps level game, you cannot, really ... and probably don't want to, not even as Divisional units ... but they ARE there and they WILL resist, with a variable degree of effectiveness.

The Canadians had three full UK style divisions reserved for Home Defence (i.e. the equivalent of about 5-6 German Divisions or two Large Corps) and raised another Small Corps equivalent as beefed up equivalent of the UK Home Guard, the 'Veterans Guard' which actually had full time active units.

And then there was the Militia and Training units, as noted.

So the units don't ACTUALLY appear out of nowhere.

As for the additional PP ... for the US it means that they go to full war footing, something they didn't actually do during the war. The US economy was the only economy of a combatant state to actually increase the standard of living for civilians ... EVEN WITH RATIONING ... there was another (from memory) 20% or more 'slack' that could have been directed at warfighting and mobilisation AND since the units raised would be fighting in North America, all the overhead cost of supplying them by sea in Europe or the furthest reaches of the Pacific and Asia can actually be diverted to combatant units.

So, really, your objections don't hold water.

Phil McGregor

[aspqrz02]

Actually, the other thing that should be implemented is a requirement to represent a Transport Ship pipeline ... for short distances in the ETO it isn't needed, but for long cross-Atlantic or Pacific distances it IS needed.

What do I mean? Well, to maintain a Transport Ship pipeline you need a constant flow of ships IN the pipeline ... the further you get away from your ultimate supply source, the more ships you need. About 40% heading out, 40% heading back and 20% being unloaded at the destination at any given time for something like a cross Atlantic invasion.

So, each invading Strength point requires MORE Transport points to 'carry' it ... in this case, FIVE TIMES more than it would for a short hop across the Med or English Channel. So the Germans would have to have 150 Transport Points to move a single Large Infantry Corps ... and probably double that for a Mechanised or Armour Corps. And that would realistically apply to Amphibs as well.

Makes a Canadian invasion attempt closer to being impossible ... realistically so.

Phil McGregor

[Meteor2]

I think, you missed my point.
It is not the question (for me), whether Canada can raise troops or if German troops can beat them.
The supply mechanism and the naval model needs to be looked at by Alvaro.
A secure supply line from Germany to Canada should have a probability of around zero, making any invasion a suicide mission.

[AlbertN]

Supply to ports presently is not precisely working.

Germans can draw supply from Baku as port - simply because it's a port.
Or Malta is still supplied even if Allies have lost Gibralatar and Suez Channel.