War in Spain, War at Sea

[Q-Ball]

I apologize if I am using up my allotment of questions, but again interested in this one. I am a veteran of WITP-AE, so I am familiar with the Naval and Air warfare basics (from the screenshots, it looks very familiar)

My question is this: How will certain aspects of the Naval War be handled? I am thinking of a couple things.

1. Neutral Ships: Much of the Republican and Nationalist Supplies came in Neutral Country ships. Will those be subject to blockade/sinking? What about Russian ones (which were more actively attacked)? Is the Neutrality Patrol at all modeled? How will blockades be handled? A complicated aspect of that is that some Italian and German ships on Neutrality patrol were not very neutral....
2. Republican Naval Issues: I assume the leadership issues in the Republican Navy will be modeled by the Republicans having a pretty terrible set of captains and commanders to choose from....correct?

Will there be an experience gap between Nationalist and Republican crews? (the Nationalists had all the best training facilities, including that training ship)

What about the Fuel problems?

[RangerJoe]

How should I put this politely and in a family friendly way.

The Republicans did want many of the officers around and/or the officers did not want to stay.

The Nationalists had some officers but some of the existing crew members did not necessarily want to serve in the Nationalist navy.

I am sure that you can understand from your experience in WITP:AE how that would affect leadership skills as well as crew experience levels, or levels of leadership incompetence along with inexperienced crews.

[Piteas]

Ranger Joe has clarified the second point for you, I'll clarify the first one.

Both sides need to organize task forces to obtain supplies in friendly countries. Theoretically, there was a neutral patrol, but we all know it wasn't useful and in this game it's just an informational piece of news.

Of course, for the Republicans it is more difficult and convoys from Soviet ports might be "undiplomatically stopped" by the Italian ships in the Mediterranean Sea. But the Italians will not be able to pursue Soviet convoys throughout the entire war, only intermittently, as has historically been the case. German ships (and some submarines) are also dangerous to the Republicans, but their presence is much smaller in number.
In addition to this, the defense/escape of your convoys is vital to avoid attacks from the opposing side.

In short, the republican player have a harder time receiving supplies because of the Italians patrolling the Mediterranean at times, as was the case in reality. So he must be more careful... and manage his navy better than the actual Republicans.

[Q-Ball]

Sounds interesting, thanks!

Unless there is some sort of constraint built into the game, I would expect the Republican Navy to be MUCH more active than in real life........even if the Nationalists have some advantages

The two battleships in particular I think are going to be important units, but also those 2 Nationalist Heavy Cruisers

[Dali101]

More details on your question.

No ships in the game are neutral. They are either axis side or allies side.
The engine allows you to set neutrality, but only at certain levels.
But specific units on the map (a merchant ship or a squadron of fighter aircraft, for example) cannot behave neutrally.

Nationalist ships have a slightly higher quality setting.
In general, ships (all including Italian ones) have very low experience.
The year was 1936 and all navies (perhaps with the exception of the IJN) lived a completely peaceful life...

It should be noted that the Nationalist navy almost does not exist in 7/36.
It has two DDs, one CL and only one partially disarmed and very worn out BB.

Fuel. A large part of the navy, including the merchant fleet, runs on coal (it could be 70-80% of the ships in the game). Coal is plentiful.
Diesel oil is much more difficult to obtain. Spain did not have a single refinery in 1936. The only Nationalist refinery is in the Canary Islands.

Naval battles occur only sporadically. Both navies must rather focus on protecting convoys, as their survival depends on importing supplies and fuel.

(and in the case of the Nationalists, also transporting Italian, German and African troops to the European part).

[Nikel]

Interesting read in Spanish.

La estrategia naval en la guerra civil española.

Ricardo Cerezo Martínez. Revista de historia naval, Año nº 2, Nº 6, 1984, págs. 5-24.

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/art ... &info=link

1.png (112.25 KiB) Viewed 928 times

2.png (74.96 KiB) Viewed 928 times

[Q-Ball]

More details on your question.

No ships in the game are neutral. They are either axis side or allies side.
The engine allows you to set neutrality, but only at certain levels.
But specific units on the map (a merchant ship or a squadron of fighter aircraft, for example) cannot behave neutrally.

Nationalist ships have a slightly higher quality setting.
In general, ships (all including Italian ones) have very low experience.
The year was 1936 and all navies (perhaps with the exception of the IJN) lived a completely peaceful life...

It should be noted that the Nationalist navy almost does not exist in 7/36.
It has two DDs, one CL and only one partially disarmed and very worn out BB.

Fuel. A large part of the navy, including the merchant fleet, runs on coal (it could be 70-80% of the ships in the game). Coal is plentiful.
Diesel oil is much more difficult to obtain. Spain did not have a single refinery in 1936. The only Nationalist refinery is in the Canary Islands.

Naval battles occur only sporadically. Both navies must rather focus on protecting convoys, as their survival depends on importing supplies and fuel.

(and in the case of the Nationalists, also transporting Italian, German and African troops to the European part).

Thank you for the greater detail! With those 2 Nationalist DDs, one of them didn't even last long (the Churucca, whose crew arrested the officers and joined the Republicans), IIRC only the old DD Velasco stayed with the Nationalists

Good to know on Diesel Fuel; I imagine that will be a constraint, particularly if you want to run the BBs around, which are fuel hogs. I like the addition of COAL as fuel; makes sense.

Thanks for the color on experience levels, that does make sense.....crew training in the Spanish Navy in general was not up to the standards of the RN, USN, or IJN. The Regia Marina was in better shape IMO, but WW2 showed that training was not up to par with the RN in wartime. IJN of course was the gold standard for surface warfare training

Looking forward to this

[Q-Ball]

Apologize if I am using up my question quota.....but how is the DD Churucca handled in-game?

She initially joined the Nationalists, and made an important delivery of troops from Ceuta to Cadiz in July

However, shortly thereafter the crew arrested the officers and joined the Republicans (not sure if they shot the officers or not, but that's not important to the game)

Seems like the best way is to simply have the troops she moved to Cadiz simply appear in Cadiz, and have the ship itself just appear in a Republican port after July.....is that how it's handled?

[Dali101]

I know the detailed story of DD Churucca.

I am the original creator of SCN and I have to respect the situation as of the day the SCN starts.
That is why this DD is on the side of the nationalists in SCN01. What happened the next few days is no longer relevant to me (if he hit a mine the next morning and sank, would you also want to remove him?)

But for example in SCN Balearic Islands this DD is on the side of the republic.
And he accompanies the heavy fleet towards the end of SCN.
Because this SCN has a later date and I respect where this DD was at that date.

That is called objectivity.

I have a certain advantage in that I am really neutral. No axis or allied fan boy...

I wear T-shirts with PZ Tiger, Spitfire, Zero, Buffalo and there is also Pokryskin.

[Q-Ball]

Seems like a reasonable take on DD Churucca, thanks!

How much of the Kriegsmarine is in the game? U-Boats were pretty active, German surface ships definitely were in action, though maybe not aggressively.......and do the German crews have higher experience ratings? I know Deutschland and Leipzig made an appearance at least

IIRC, Kreigsmarine training was pretty good at this stage, but I'm no expert on that

[Dali101]

German ships appear in the game on short-term missions.

They are quite difficult to model, as they behaved, let's say, semi-neutrally, at least in the first year of the war.
And of course they represent (especially pocket battleships) a very tough opponent for the Republican fleet.
German submarines did not participate much in this war..(unlike the Italian ones)
I think only 4 pieces. After all, the German submarine fleet was only in its infancy in 1936.

[Q-Ball]

German ships appear in the game on short-term missions.

They are quite difficult to model, as they behaved, let's say, semi-neutrally, at least in the first year of the war.
And of course they represent (especially pocket battleships) a very tough opponent for the Republican fleet.
German submarines did not participate much in this war..(unlike the Italian ones)
I think only 4 pieces. After all, the German submarine fleet was only in its infancy in 1936.

Thanks for reply! The KM is very tricky to model, because you're right, they were only intermittently active

If you gave a Nationalist Player unlimited use of the Deutschland, that could be too much of a game-changer as you say.....she outclasses anything in the Republican Fleet.