Let me disband my ships

[sillyflower]

I don't understand the logic of allowing land and air units to disband, but not ships. Turning ships crews into soldiers was widely practised, and no more difficult dong that with air force personnel. Similarly, guns were taken off ships and given new roles. Ships are scapped in metal in real life, and I would think that steel from ships could be turned into steel for tanks, and rather more easily that turning aluminium from aircraft into warships.

There may be a case for getting a smaller %age of materials back from a ship on the basis it it is a harder job (I'm guessing) but there is no justification for being unable to decommission ships and getting something back.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

Ships are scapped in metal in real life, and I would think that steel from ships could be turned into steel for tanks, and rather more easily that turning aluminium from aircraft into warships.

Do you have a real WW2 example of such ships scrapping? I have none.

[sillyflower]

There are examples of taking guns off ships (often putting them into coastal forts) and mothballing/abandoning/whatever them with the crews going off to fight on land. Russians and Germans and Japs did it, and even the USA in the Phillipines in 1942. I know that ships have sold and scrapped (inc. warships) as long as they had any useful materials which could be recycled or re-purposed, but I can't point to a specific example in WWII. Whether this is just ignorance (I don't have any real interest in ships or navies) or that it simply did not happen, I leave to experts.

Equally, I have no examples in my head of countries melting down obsolete aircraft to turn them into anything else, or the same happening to unwanted tanks/rifles etc. Obsolete kit was modified and new kit built based on old designs but that's catered for in the advancements. I can't go looking in my history books because I have about 1500 books in piles of boxes until I can get a room converted into a library, and then get round to putting them on shelves in an organised way.

My argument is simply that if you allow scrapping of land units and aircraft formations for materials and manpower, there is no reason why the same principle should not apply to warships. I like the idea and I'm certainly not in favour of scapping the rule if you can't scrap ships.

[Flaviusx]

Cosigned. Would be worth doing even if you imposed some kind of penalty on naval disbands to reflect inefficiencies. It should still be allowed and some resources would be freed up.

So far as real world examples go, for crying out loud. Just look at the Soviets. They parked their navy for the duration of the war more or less and cranked out a whole bunch of naval rifle brigades or whatever. There are other examples, but this is the most obvious one.

If you can do luftwaffe field divisions after disbanding air units, you can of course convert a navy into rifles in a crunch. There is no difference in principle here and the game does allow disbands of air units.

[OxfordGuy3]

If you allow this, should be an option to toggle this on/off - I would prefer NOT to allow disbanding of ships, for balance reasons

[Flaviusx]

What's the balance problem? I am not seeing it. The *actual* balance problem is in not allowing it.

[sillyflower]

Optional rules between consenting adults never bother me, though I think that for logical consistency it should be ships and air, or neither.

Thr other caveat is that the option needs to be available in PBEM too. At the moment the only optional rule (diplomacy) can't be toggled on/off when setting up a PBEM rule. Having a house rule for this isn't a problem because the use of diplo comes up in messages, but an opponent disbanding a unit does not. Furthermore, a mistake with diplo doesn't affect the game whereas a disband does.

[AlvaroSousa]

I will remind everyone here this is a corps level game. I thought about this but there is an exploit and I decided not to for a variety of exploitative reasons.

[sillyflower]

Then I respectfully ask you to reconsider Alvaro.

Manpower is manpower as so many WWII examples show. Therefore, the only 'exploit' could be becuase ships 'contain' a lot of production points. Tinker with the % returned (see my original post and Flavius' endorsement) solves that problem. Probably sensible to say the scrapping must be in a home port, but logically any rule about location of the scrapping (in terms of getting production points back) should be the same in all 3 cases.

[Flaviusx]

Just reduce production returned from naval disbands to 20% of the purchase value or somesuch thing. So if you want to scrap a CV or BB you might have enough to buy an infantry corps, but nothing crazy. I have no objection to reducing the production return on this relative to other disbands. Manpower obviously would come back in full.

[Flaviusx]

The only possible problem I can see from this is maybe with the French. And if you want to prevent them from doing this, fine. Special French rule, perhaps lifted if for whatever reason they last into 1941.

[sillyflower]

Good point re the French Flavius. Alternatively perhaps no disbands at all, or no ship disbands, until '41 might mirror RL. I don't think any country disbands forces in wartime until there is evidence that they aren't going to be much use later.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

My argument is simply that if you allow scrapping of land units and aircraft formations for materials and manpower, there is no reason why the same principle should not apply to warships

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

They parked their navy for the duration of the war more or less and cranked out a whole bunch of naval rifle brigades or whatever.

In both cases, I am hearing the same situation. You are willing to reuse the manpower for other purposes.
Fair enough, but I do not think scrapping a ship is the way to go.

You are not scrapping a CV to pickup the men on it. As you said, Flaviusx, they parked their navy.

There is already a solution in the game for this but only for ground units. Just allow the player to use "garrison" option on the naval units. Setting your navy in "garrison" mode should allow you to retrieve manpower and few production points to buy those coastal defenses (with the guns of the parked ships).

Scrapping tanks/aircrafts units is also a subject. Do you burn the planes?? [:D]

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Setting your navy in "garrison" mode should allow you to retrieve manpower and few production points to buy those coastal defenses (with the guns of the parked ships).

And, of course, a navy in "garrison" mode cannot attack, cannot move, can (or cannot?) defend...

[AlvaroSousa]

There is no garrison mode for navies.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

There is no garrison mode for navies.

I know. That's the proposal, introduce a garrison mode to "park" navies instead of disbanding them...

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Scrapping tanks/aircrafts units is also a subject. Do you burn the planes?? [:D]

I actually have a small model spitfire, which was made from a scrapped spitfire [:D]

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Scrapping tanks/aircrafts units is also a subject. Do you burn the planes?? [:D]

I actually have a small model spitfire, which was made from a scrapped spitfire [:D]

And, what do you think of my proposal of a garrison mode for naval units? Will it answer your needs?

[OxfordGuy3]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701]

And, what do you think of my proposal of a garrison mode for naval units? Will it answer your needs?

For it to make sense for ships, any garrison "mothball" mode for ships ought to take considerably longer than 1 turn to reactive the ships, probably also longer than one turn to release any production (which should only be a small amount) and manpower from mothballing too. Also, I would disallow it until at least 1941 or 1942, possibly even later.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e


And, what do you think of my proposal of a garrison mode for naval units? Will it answer your needs?

I prefer to scrap rather than 'garrison' because

1. I think that better models what actually was done. I can't think of any real-life examples of your suggestion, other than mothballing between wars. An obvious example is the sale of by USA of 50 mothballed destroyers to the UK, which is recognised in the game. The German High was effectively mothballed in WW1 after Jutland and only sailed again to go to Scapa Flow after the war had ended. It then scrapped itself properly...........

2. I want to get to be able to scrap them and I still see no distinction in principle between ships and other units, though the effects of scrapping may need to be adjusted as has been discussed above.

That said, your idea is better than the current position IMHO, particularly as modified by OxfordGuy.