Naval Units Destroying Ground Units

[canuckgamer]

One of the really unrealistic features of this game is how naval units with bombardment can completely destroy a ground unit. This has been happening ad nauseum in North Africa because there is so little space to place units because there is no stacking. I thought there was an update where naval units could no longer spot ground units on the coast? If they can't spot them how can they fire at them. In addition every ground unit on a coastal hex must be assumed to be near the coast since considering the scale of the map I wonder how the naval guns can reach that far inland.
The massive shore bombardment historically in D-Day really didn't have much effect but in this game you can destroy ground units by combining it with air strikes. I may be wrong but attacking a vacant hex with an air unit seems to reveal the ground unit after which you sequentially hit it with air and naval units until it is shattered.
Generally the naval aspects of this game are way out of whack historically. In our current PBEM game each side has lost dozens of naval units because naval combat occurs all the time. Naval combat in the European theater was basically the u-boats trying to isolate England, the Battle of the Atlantic. It wasn't u-boats attacking battleships, cruisers, carriers and vice versa.
How naval combat and bombardment should be revised and I still don't understand why there isn't any stacking even on a limited basis. Why not allow one air unit to stack with one ground unit like you can in War Plan?

[canuckgamer]

When I said attacking a vacant hex with an air unit I meant a hex where the unit has not yet been revealed.

[BillRunacre]

Although naval units cannot spot units on enemy held shores, if the enemy unit has already been spotted by something else then there is nothing stopping the naval unit from bombarding them.

However, naval units have zero attack values against enemy land units, and there are no upgrade bonuses to increase this, and although they can occasionally inflict a point of damage, this should be fairly rare.

I'm therefore a little surprised to hear it might be happening with great frequency in your case.

Can you confirm which campaign you're playing?

[canuckgamer]

We are playing the 1939 Campaign. I will start noting how many naval bombardment attacks are made and their results as it has been on going for many months in the Med. The Axis took Cairo and Jerusalem and have been advancing north up the coast. Russian units invaded Iraq, conquered it and have been attacking and defending against the Axis along with American, British air and land units. Large British and American naval force in the Med as the Italian navy has been virtually wiped out. Allied naval and air units are using Cypress as their bases and ports.

[BillRunacre]

Please do, and have the naval units doing these attacks acquired considerable experience?

I'm just trying to understand why you might be experiencing this.

[canuckgamer]

I stopped putting ground units on the coast. However because of the lack of hexes I placed a maritime bomber in coast hex. The Allies bombarded it with air and naval with the naval scoring 2 hits. It started as 10 and ended up as 2. I have no issue with air units destroying enemy air units but don't agree with naval bombardment reducing enemy ground or air units. In addition, the effect of air units on ground units is too severe. Operation Cobra where the Allies used mass bombing by heavy and medium bombers to blow a hole by St. Lo is the only example I can think of historically. Maybe I should just accept that both sides can reduce ground units by naval and air attack since the game isn't supposed to be Grisby's East or West Front.

[FOARP]

Naval bombardment needs to be replaced with an artillery-like mechanic (i.e., ranged fire causing minimal damage in terms of unit strength but impacting other metrics). Experience gain should also be cut for naval bombardment.

At present Naval bombardment is both OP when it is a unit in open terrain being hit, and UP when it is a unit in a town being hit which can suddenly return fire, as though every coastal town in the world had defensive gun batteries.

[BillRunacre]

I've looked at this a bit deeper and run some tests.

Experienced naval units are capable of inflicting damage on a regular basis when carrying out shore bombardments, especially when they have 2 or more points of experience.

A naval unit will gain 0.05 experience per shore bombardment, which over 20 turns equates to 1 experience point. This is the minimum possible without removing any experience gains altogether from shore bombardment.

What I can do then is to remove the experience gains, and also reduce the attack values of naval units against aircraft from 1 to zero. The first will drastically reduce the benefit of long term shore bombardments, and the second will render aircraft safer from naval bombardment.

[Sugar]

Seems reasonable.

[The Land]

Sounds sensible to me... but so does this:

ORIGINAL: FOARP

At present Naval bombardment is both OP when it is a unit in open terrain being hit, and UP when it is a unit in a town being hit which can suddenly return fire, as though every coastal town in the world had defensive gun batteries.

is there some Naval Defence on resources? That would make sense if Defence meant "attacks are less likely to damage", but less sense given that it means "attacker is more likely to take damage".

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

I've looked at this a bit deeper and run some tests.

Experienced naval units are capable of inflicting damage on a regular basis when carrying out shore bombardments, especially when they have 2 or more points of experience.

A naval unit will gain 0.05 experience per shore bombardment, which over 20 turns equates to 1 experience point. This is the minimum possible without removing any experience gains altogether from shore bombardment.

What I can do then is to remove the experience gains, and also reduce the attack values of naval units against aircraft from 1 to zero. The first will drastically reduce the benefit of long term shore bombardments, and the second will render aircraft safer from naval bombardment.

This would also fix the shore bombardment abuse move. Having ships only gain experience in ship vs ship battle is very needed. Hope this will be fixed across all three games.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4875892