Shore bombardment is too powerful

[sveint]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Also, "ignoring air power and other fleets" is taking things out of their proper context.

If the other side had their counters in place you wouldn't be sending the fleet out to do all this stuff to begin with. (Or you might do it...if you are willing to pay the price.)

Context matters. This is not some kind of purely tactical question. This entire thread has the implicit assumption that players are helpless and cannot counter Death Star fleets. But this of course is not true.

No historical land battle ever received naval bombardment support in WW2. It shouldn't be possible. Invasions only.

[stjeand]

Fleets support an unlimited amount of times as long as they are adjacent to the hex. They do however lose efficiency and very quickly as well, 8% for each bombardment. As efficiency effect all stats including defence and anti air, a fleet that's just done 5+ naval support actions will be incredibly vunerable. Naval support does feel very slightly too powerful but it's really not by much in my opinion given the importance of the units and how much risk they face.

Well that is good to know...

But that still begs they question...why unlimited?
Can the support when they are at the minimum efficiency level?
Does their support get weaker as their efficiency drops?

and WHY would any captain use up their entire crews efficiency to bombard knowing that there may be a naval battle coming?

Sadly you can't just support one or two attacks...IF the ground units keep attacking so do the naval units.

[stjeand]

ORIGINAL: sveint
No historical land battle ever received naval bombardment support in WW2. It shouldn't be possible. Invasions only.

Actually I did read about one in the Baltic sea.

The Germans calls in some destroyer guns on Soviet positions. It worked well from what I read.

But that was the only one I ever read about.

[YueJin]

Support effects remain the same regardless of efficiency, it drops to 10% as the minimum but a fleet can continue to support even then.

I'd definitely be onboard with limiting fleet support to two maximum per turn. The unlimited support feels like an unintentional bug.

[Flaviusx]

Depends on how you define "land battle." There were plenty of instances where the allies had their bacon saved by offshore bombardment, and not only in terms of the immediate invasion. I admit the game has a granularity problem here, given the size of the hexes and the usual wargaming ambiguities and simplifications, which may slightly exaggerate the potency of this support, but it's not nearly so clear to define when a battle becomes purely land based at this scale. (If we had a smaller scale game it would be different.)

I'm not as hung up about this as you because I see these naval assets as being essentially strategic. You are focused on this one battle and missing the big picture. That's why I keep dragging counters and economics and context into the discussion. It's not about a single combat. It's how it fits into the whole big picture. At the level this game operates, I just don't see much of a problem here. There are counters to naval support. Use them. Navies are much more fragile than you give the game credit for taking into account, and your picture of invincible Death Star fleets is basically ridiculous.

That said, if unlimited support is a bug, by all means restrict to op points. (Which I thought was intended to begin with.)

[stjeand]

One of the reasons I get hung up on this is naval units in raider mode can shore bombard.
I have attempted to attack fleets like this with multiple aircraft only to never find them.

Well they are bombing my troops on the shore...therefore they are close to shore...therefore highly susceptible to attack.

But when I send in 3 planes with 6 searches and never find them...then I send my fleet down and it can't find them?

Sorry that is messed up.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: stjeand

One of the reasons I get hung up on this is naval units in raider mode can shore bombard.
I have attempted to attack fleets like this with multiple aircraft only to never find them.

Well they are bombing my troops on the shore...therefore they are close to shore...therefore highly susceptible to attack.

But when I send in 3 planes with 6 searches and never find them...then I send my fleet down and it can't find them?

Sorry that is messed up.

I absolutely agree that fleets should only be able to shore bombard if they are in Fleet Mode.

But the problem you are referring to should not happen. If the enemy fleets are near any of your ground units (which they would have to be to shore bombard) then you will have good recon into their hex and therefore your "Searches" should have a good chance of finding the enemy fleets. If you made 6 "Searches" and didn't find them than either you were extremely unlucky or else your land unit was destroyed such that you no longer controlled any hexes near the enemy fleet on your turn.

[Harrybanana]

Would it be fair to say that what we all agree on is the following:

1. Fleets should only get a number of shore bombardments equal to their OPs; and
2. Fleets should only be able to shore bombard if they are in "Fleet" Mode.

My only concern is that this will definitely make invasions more difficult as it means that on the turn of invasion the invading force will generally only receive one shore bombardment. This is one of the many reasons why I think air units TAC strengths need to be buffed. Not a lot, perhaps 10% to 20% would be enough.

[Nirosi]

Actually I did read about one in the Baltic sea.

The Germans calls in some destroyer guns on Soviet positions. It worked well from what I read.

But that was the only one I ever read about.

The Kirov also participated in the defense of Tallinn in 1941. And some Soviet ships helped at Sebastopol IIRC.

Allied ships bombarded Cherbourg massively to help capture it. This one can be argued both sides as it was not an amphibious landing per say, but in Warplan time scale it could also be seen as part of D-day maybe. Some bombardment occurred also during the capture of St-Malo.

Also both sides (but mostly RN) did some naval bombardment at or near Tobruck (usually small scale however). At our game scale we could consider them shore support I guess, even if most were targeting port (or supply) installations, and airfields.

So it did happen (outside amphibious landings) but not super common, and usual near ports it seems. We are probably not that far off from the right balance. Harrybanana proposition or a variant of it is certainly worth exploring.

[stjeand]

I think there needs to be a third mode...

Fleet mode but not actively searching for enemies. So like Raider you don't jump after ships moving in range but you will defend themselves if attacked.

This would be used for fleet bombardment...
All transports since I a not sure you can "hide" a fleet of transports which are SLOW unlike combat ships.
And port interdiction (more in the WPP side of things)



BUT to Harrys point...I agree...with the shore bombardment being Op point based and Fleet mode.

[Flaviusx]

You could lift the op point limit for actual invasions. As a practical matter, you aren't getting more than two shots even in an invasion because the units themselves only land with two mps.

The issue with unrestricted shore bombardment is the non invasion battles where ground units have full mps.

For all that, if someone runs out a fleet and takes 5 shots and lets their efficiency drop to nothing they are asking for serious hurt in a riposte if the enemy is at all set up for it. I feel like Sveint is kind of asking for Axis players not to even have to bother with such counters to allied fleets. As things presently stand, sloppy play is punished.

I like punishing sloppy play.

[stjeand]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

You could lift the op point limit for actual invasions. As a practical matter, you aren't getting more than two shots even in an invasion because the units themselves only land with two mps.

The issue with unrestricted shore bombardment is the non invasion battles where ground units have full mps.

Agree