Naval issues

[tyronec]

Some points thrown up in my game with Cohen.

1. I had a sub in a port, protected by 6AA. When they are bombed by land aircraft it works OK, the aircraft take some losses and may sink the sub. When they are bombed by carriers it is not OK, the carriers get to bomb risk free because their aircraft regenerate for free.
Carriers need to have separate hit points for aircraft and hull. Then when they take some air losses they should have to go back to port and pay to repair them.

2. Carriers are too hard to kill. I did a test, move a carrier out to sea and attack it with a battle fleet.
The carrier gets a free hit as the battle fleet moves adjacent.
Then when attacked they carrier is either not found OR does fairly even damage (despite being attacked by a whole fleet of Battleships, Cruisers and destroyers).
Then the next turn, if they are not sunk, the carrier will get another free attack before running away.
That makes 3 attacks against 1, and given that often nothing is found and I think the Interdiction attack has a better chance of hitting, it make the odds weighted heavily in favor of the carrier.
It all needs to be more nuanced, a fleet with a carrier beats a fleet without one but a carrier on it's own should be at high risk.

3. Axis invade Canada. Not that difficult in the game, an unescorted invasion unit can head out from Europe and reach Canada before the Allies can react because they have a turn head start. This is what happened on the next turn.
Axis had taken the port in Newfoundland. They were surrounded by British carriers sinking my battle fleet while it refueled.
This turn they sail South and take another port, evicting more British ships that were refueling in the process.
The UK will have to garrison every port within 24 hexes to stop me doing the same next turn.
Clearly a few things not working here.

[AlvaroSousa]

I can add cost to naval air and your points are valid on this account. The air part replenishes as the strength of the unit does. Naval air from CVs were also better trained to go after ships.

Let's address the rest.
CVs attacked by surface - of the 48 carriers sunk in WW2 only 3 were sunk by surface ships. The Glorious by the Germans, a Japanese escort carrier, and a light carrier by the Japanese in the Philippines. This comprises 6.25% of all carriers sunk. It is not unreasonable for it to be that hard to sink a carrier force by surface ships. Quite a few of those sinks were done by subs which can be done in this game. You have a carrier engagement, the CV is damaged, on the enemy turn they send in a sub and attack the enemy. Now if a carrier gets too close and can be engaged by a night action then you get a free shot. Carriers also can't fly once they are damaged below 50%. Their effectiveness is used in missions.

As for Canada - You should absolutely have ships in the backfield for the UK and be paying attention to the map always. Now with all the discussion of the FoW system I am considering adding adding something extra where backfield units aren't seen. But now this creates another problem. Now as the UK you WILL have to garrison every port in Canada if I introduce a typical FoW system. Because now you won't see the Germans coming.

But not having naval units placed around the Atlantic is like leaving no garrison in France for Germany. The UK needs to build some naval groups.

Have you seen SC3 Carrier groups? They are incredibly devastating.

[tyronec]

Have never heard of or seen an SC3 carrier group so I looked it up on Google, this was what came up:
Am sure it would be totally devastating in Warplan !

I would suggest that the reason why not many carriers were sunk by surface warships was because their admirals were more careful of them than you need to be in the game. They didn't go sailing around unescorted when there were opposing battle fleets in the area, and they avoided coming within range of enemy land based bombers unless they had total air superiority.



Just looking up causes of carrier losses in WW2, I count
20 to aircraft, mostly carrier but some land based.
20 to warships, more to subs than surface vessels.
USA was the only country where the great majority of losses were from aircraft.
In Europe most were lost to subs, then surface ships and least to aircraft.

The way the game works I don't think you are not going to lose any to subs with 'optimal' play.

[Meteor2]

Carriers need to have separate hit points for aircraft and hull. Then when they take some air losses they should have to go back to port and pay to repair them. (as Tyronec said).

True. In SC3 the mechanic is just this and despite the different overall approach to naval battles, the "feeling" is about right.
Carriers will not wander around the map alone and it is important to shield them with surface ships.
So: +1

[AlbertN]

Even if I had ships in the middle of the Atlantic I'd not have found the enemy convoys that travel in raider mode.

Royal Navy had spent some time tailing subs with CV and surface raiderfleets with their own, NEVER finding them.

Tyrone is correct that to have 1 turn ahead of the move means a lot.

I already stressed long ago about infinite CV carrier planes, and how naval movement works.

[AlvaroSousa]

SC3 is Strategic Command 3. The CVs are crippling.

In the middle of the Atlantic you just can't find another fleet. Almost all naval combat took place near shores.

Also realize that when someone sails out a CV group they are sailing out other naval groups with it. When you attack a naval group in surface combat their targeting profile is low due to the screening groups. But if all you have is a fleet of 2 CV groups they are the only targets.

As for the 20 that were sunk by warship 18 of those are subs which very likely caught a damaged CV going back to port.

Your subs can be lost. I am in 3 multiplayer games, 1 as the Axis. I am being very careful about subs and I have been hit a couple times. I lost strength some due to escorts. In my allied game one Axis player is doing fairly well with subs, while the other one not so much.

In my Axis game I am building subs myself.

Why would anyone place their CVs at risk anywhere recklessly? Of course you will be careful with those units.

As of today I put in a new variable that limits 3 CV naval air to be replaced per turn. So any severely depleted fleet of naval air will take 6 weeks to fully recover not to mention hull repair.

[tyronec]

In the middle of the Atlantic you just can't find another fleet. Almost all naval combat took place near shores.

But no-one sent a large invasion force across the open ocean without escorts in the face of superior Naval strength.
No problem in Warplan.
It is not a good solution to say that the Allies should be garrisoning the Canadian ports and patrolling the Atlantic with warships.

There are ways to deal with this. Slow down the transports. Make them more visible. Make them easier to find.

This is not a big issue for the game, it can be defended against and even if they capture half of Canada the Allies can recover. Just something to think about for WIP.

Why would anyone place their CVs at risk anywhere recklessly? Of course you will be careful with those units.

In all the games of Warplan I have played don't think anyone has even had a carrier damaged let alone sunk, despite taking more risks with them than historical. Again not a game breaker; the Allies have super-carriers just balances out some of the Axis strengths but it doesn't feel right.

Enough ranting, have said my bit three times which is probably twice too often [:)]

[Flaviusx]

As a quick and dirty solution, maybe the Americas should have some minefields in place.

[Michael T]

Transports loaded with an invasion force should move much slower. Another point is that the invader does not have to commit to actually invading until he reaches the beach. Wrong.

I would do something like this:

If a player intends to invade he makes that decision when he embarks, using up landing craft in that process.
Once committed to invade that Transport Fleet moves at half speed.

Problem solved. Along with a few other invasion abuses.

[AlvaroSousa]

It doesn't take 3 months to cross the Atlantic to do Torch is the issue.

Just like it only took 7 days to go from Japan to Pearl Harbor. That is the width of almost 2 WarPlan maps. So even if a transport was 50% the speed that is still 14 days. If it is 25% of the speed 1 month. And right now it takes I think 3 turns to do torch.

The other solution is to have invasion take 2 operation points. This was in the original concept but it turned gamey as the enemy would have aircraft all around their location then take 1 opt to move and 1 to hit the fleet. Or they could run up troops and block the landing site.

[AlbertN]

Transports should not have a 'raider' mode.

MichaelT suggestion of having a unit determine if it is on regular transport or invasion fleet at sailing out also makes sense. But I'd just have all ships move less - and enable them to move AND try to attack with 1 single action point.

That allows them to do a sortie and return to port with the 2nd action point IF someone is close enough to their bases.
It enables as well to 'catch up' someone or at least to try to strike at them. Otherwise it's like I move 48, you move 48, and you never catch me.

Add Port Value to gunnery value of ships in port to represent coastal batteries and the like to avoid cheap hit and run port attacks that way.

[Michael T]

Well transports must move slower than combat naval units. At the moment they don't. So either slow them down or speed up the combat units. That is a valid solution.

Second thing is that in reality the commitment to invade was made at embarkation. The troops and supplies were loaded up along with the landing craft. This was a totally different mission to a regular troop transport mission. But in the game the invader does not have to commit to invading until he safely reaches the beach. Do I really need to spell out how unrealistic and gamey this situation is?

So why not have a check box when troops are loaded up in port for invasions. This commits LC to those troops. If the invasion turns back for some reason the LC are not lost but cannot be reassigned for that turn. If the transported unit gets sunk en route then so the LC are also lost/sunk/used. This is far more realistic and solves many issues.

Another idea. Leave ship speeds as is for normal moves. But an invasion move (the last qualifying leg of the invasion, just prior to the landing) is half speed. So then a Torch type invasion from the US is possible but the last leg is slower. Thus allowing it to be caught by combat naval units.

[AlvaroSousa]

I'll consider these suggestions.

[battlevonwar]

You either have to buff the Russians a little and weaken the Amphibious Side and become more land-focused or be able to survive as the Allies to utilize to the same extreme amphibious power?

Germany/Italy can get hammered by amphibs by December '41

[Michael T]

An Axis invasion of Canada should probably have a pretty drastic effect on US entry also.

[AlvaroSousa]

That I should 100% add

[Flaviusx]

Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that an Axis invasion of Canada should trigger US entry outright. The Monroe Doctrine being a thing and all.

[Twotribes]

I hate to be a nay sayer but carriers were not sunk by battle fleets because in all but a very few occasions the carriers knew the battle fleet was coming and sailed away from it. A carrier is a big target and would die quickly to battleship fire if caught by one. Perhaps the idea of not finding them is valid but until you make aircraft on the carrier destroyable then allowing it 3 attacks against a battle fleet is a bit much, At Midway the American carriers lost most of their aircraft on one attack.

[battlevonwar]

Americans were facing a superior foe though at the time. And the Japanese lost 'everything' in return.

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

I hate to be a nay sayer but carriers were not sunk by battle fleets because in all but a very few occasions the carriers knew the battle fleet was coming and sailed away from it. A carrier is a big target and would die quickly to battleship fire if caught by one. Perhaps the idea of not finding them is valid but until you make aircraft on the carrier destroyable then allowing it 3 attacks against a battle fleet is a bit much, At Midway the American carriers lost most of their aircraft on one attack.

[Meteor2]

Triggering the US entry solves nothing.
The naval model should lead to the situation, that a German invasion of Canada should be nearly impossible!
Given the strength of the allied navvy, the supply of any Axis troops in Canada is just .unthinkable.
Every bullet or spare part had to travel from Germany to the coast of Canada.
The game mechanics should model the impossibility.

And invasions: Michael T had some good ideas to make them feel more realistic.