Evasion

[mcaryf1]

I have been experimenting with setting a small evasion percentage for some countries and for some classes of warship. For example the Italians specialised in developing faster ships so they could withdraw if confronted with superior Royal Navy numbers and DDs might typically hide behind smoke screens and withdraw if faced with slower but more heavily armed capital ships.

I have, however, found that the implementation of evasion has not worked quite as I expected. In particular I find that DDs under attack can get in a good hit on an opponent whilst evading any damage themselves. I can just about imagine a fleeing DD getting a lucky torpedo strike but this would be a very rare situation and the standard ought to be that neither party to the combat should suffer any damage if evasion is successful.

I realise that this might cause a problem to change if the program uses the same coding for both defender and attacker evasion. however, if it is easy to do can I suggest that this implementation might be changed.

Regards

Mike

[Hubert Cater]

You are correct, it is a combat loss evasion that is randomly determined for both the attacker and defender depending on your settings... unfortunately not a avoid combat all together series of settings.

[mcaryf1]

Hi Hubert

Thanks for the answer. I think I will use the loss evasion option rather more sparingly than I had first thought as my intention was to give weaker units the chance to flee rather than to have a free hit!

Regards

Mike

[Big Al]

I have it in Brute Force. You are looking at it in a micro scale. Look at this at a macro scale. There are 100 factors that determine naval combat: luck, intel, position, search planes. Midway is a perfect example. USA had intel, the Jap search plane's radio broke. Right there those 2 incidents can lead to one side evading damage and the other getting a +1 on the randomness crippling the enemy fleet.

Its an abstract concept, not a specific one.

[SeaMonkey]

Big Al does it right!

[mcaryf1]

Hi Big Al

Yours is an interesting argument but not one I completely agree with. I do accept that naval warfare can be one of extremes where one "lucky" hit on a single ship determined a battle (e.g Hood), however, as SC abstracts ships so they represent multiple units the idea of one hit being decisive is less relevant and of course Bismark did actually suffer important damage that led eventually to her destruction. It is a pity by the way that naval damage does not impact action points but I suppose we need to keep the game's complexity down.

Your example of Midway does not entirely prove your point, that one side should avoid damage altogether, because the US did in fact suffer severe losses to its aircrew in particular the torpedo bombers.

I would probably agree with you that the degree of damage to either side in a naval battle could ideally have a higher random element but I would still like to have been able to use evasion for a defender to mean that they effectively ran away to fight another day. Still, if it is hard to implement evasion meaning that, I might have to think about your solution of all naval units having some level of evasion. I am experimenting with giving BB's two hits so it might not turn out too badly, thus in an unequal fight BB or CV v DD, the big battalions should still come out on top. I could also regard BB's having evasion as the BB's dodging a mass of torpedos fired by the DD flotilla.

One further observation, in the game it is slightly unfair that a defending unit does effectively get multiple return hits when it is responding to multiple attackers albeit maybe in a weakened state. It would be desirable if the chances of multiple evasions by one unit in succession in such an engagement were somehow minimised. I have seen it occur with evasion set at 10% which should, I presume, only be one in a hundred cases but of course rises to one in ten after the initial successful evasion.

Thank you anyway for your comments.

PS A subsequent edit: When modifying my trial scenario a thought came to me that I would typically allocate 10 points of evasion for naval units which would be split 5 points when attacking and 5 points when defending but for some situations e.g. the Italians and DD's I would bias it and make more of the 10 points of evasion apply when defending and less to attacking.

Regards

Mike

[Big Al]

All I can tell you is modify the effects of the game. Make it cost 2 supply for naval combat, something Im thinking about. Or Adjust evasion.

Here is another example. I dont remember the name of the battle but there was one where a Jap cruiser group ambushed an american cruiser group with zero losses, the americans lost 4 of 5 if I remember.

Also the ambust battle of the Pearl Harbor BBs vs the jap fleet near the Philippines. They blew the japs out of the water without a loss.

he idea is to keep the system abstract. You could do 2x strikes but how much more complexity will it add to the game? Will it make it tedious?

For example I think the ASW warfare is tedious from the allied side so I interoduced an auto ASW script which eliminates the headaches but still allows the micro-managing touch.

If the game is for your personal use customize how ever you like it though.

Some concepts in SC2 you have to think outside the box to implement them using other factors you might never have thought of. SC2 is really flexible in that and I always push Hubert to make it more flexible. Some outstanding mods can come out of the SC2 system on any era. The AI logic is well done at a tactical level using fuzzy logic. All you have to do is give it strategic direction.

[xwormwood]

... naval damage ... impact action points ...

Excellent suggestion!

[Big Al]

If 1 unit is 1 ship then sure. If its a group.... not so sure.

[mcaryf1]

Hi Big Al

The naval battle with cruisers to which you referred was the Battle of Savo Island where events were actually the reverse of the typical SC implementation. In the real case the IJN cruisers travelling from Rabaul achieved complete tactical surprise in a night engagement against a mixed US Australian cruiser and destroyer TF who were covering the marine landings. The SC equivalent would probably have the IJN TF surprised when it found the Allied TF as it was the arriving force. I must admit that your evasion might work there but would be random. In truth the advantage should be given by a higher IJN Naval Warfare rating. Just as an aside the IJN practised night-time gunnery illuminated by flares whilst the inter-war USN practice was to engage in inter-ship gunnery competitions, so they waited for good weather conditions and sunshine so the competition was fair to both sides!

Your second example battle was Surigao Strait where Yamashiro and Fuso plus cruisers ran into a battle line of 6 old US BBs plus masses of DDs and were shot and torpedoed to pieces. This was essentially a suicide distraction mission by the Japanese and it was not surprising that they were obliterated without inflicting significant loss on the USN. One of the other battles at Leyte, (Samar) actually might be a better example for you when the Taffy task forces consisting of slow CVEs and DDs managed to get away without being annihilated by a force including Yamato, other BBs and cruisers. They did suffer losses but inflicted more than they lost on the giants attacking them.

I do not disagree that there has to be a significant random element in naval warfare and the Battle of Samar is proof of that but there are also lots of examples of battles where one side withdrew when blessed with superior speed against a stronger enemy. For Italians versus RN where the RN withdrew see the 2nd Battle of Sirte and for the Italians withdrawing against the RN see The Battle of Punta Stilo (I should note that the Italians claimed that their BBs were not withdrawing when they sailed off behind a smokescreen but were actually trying to lure the RN into a torpedo ambush).

In any case I think my suggestion of allocating 10 evasion points between attacking and defending based on naval doctrine 5,5; 0,10; 10,0 could work quite well. I will let you know how it plays out in my trial games.

With respect to damage impacting action points it was usually the case that one damaged major ship would cause a whole TF to slow down. Clearly the mechanism exists in SC as ships lose APs in the somewhat more abstracted case of ships running out of supply (what situation does that map onto in the real world other than stopping players running their ships all over the world?) . Perhaps a ship damaged to 5 or below could have its supply reduced to zero so it has to crawl home.

Regards

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

I like that suggestion for "crawling" home. In fact, Mike, this thread has great potential, as much as the supply one did. If there is a model that is lacking in SC, it would be the naval-air one, so I would hope some more good suggestions might be revealed here. Forum? ...........Remember, though, the AI must be able to cope.

[mcaryf1]

Hi SeaMonkey

You are right about the AI. I noted you rated reconnaissance as a big plus in Gold. In fact you could already do it in 1.07 by taking a minor power such as Canada and giving their bombers extra long range and spotting ability and calling them PBY Catalinas. You put one of those on Midway and if the Japanese Navy comes calling then you know about it soon enough to react.

Unfortunately whilst the AI will benefit from the spotting, it does not realise that this is now a recon aircraft and will continue to try to use it as a bomber out of range of any fighter escort rather than keeping it out of harms way as a useful asset. I cannot give it 0 x APs as obviously a player would want to move it about.

I do not yet know enough about writing AI scripts to see if it might be possible to give it a methodology for using a changed unit type properly.

PS just had a battle in which a DD as a defender evaded damage 3 times in succession. Unfortunately I have messed about with my test scenario so much that I cannot be certain what evasion I had given it in this game and the properties screens do not include this value but I think it was only 10%.

I wonder if tech improvements also increase the evasion factor - perhaps Big Al knows.

Regards

Mike

[Bill101]

Hi Mike

I'm pretty sure it stays the same for surface vessels as tech advances. The only units that do receive enhancements in their evasion abilities with tech are subs (as tech increases their chances of diving) and Airships in SC WWI.

[SeaMonkey]

Good point Mike, about the ability of the AI to manipulate multi-use units in the most beneficial way and since we hopefully have the developers monitoring this thread, they could comment. How about Hubert, Bill, does the AI possess the fuzzy logic necessary to correctly use the many features/mode a single unit class might possess?

If we have some orientation from the designers, I believe there a many ways that the existing features, especially the recon and evasion parameters, could be used to enhance the naval model. It's just that the box is defined by the AI's limitations.

And Mike, I know you're not aware of my style of play, but the one unit that I usually build(generally speaking) to the max of the limitations is the "bomber", guess why?

[Hubert Cater]

Off hand I would say that the AI handles almost all the modes but of course there are always a few exceptions and the fact that it might never be as good as a human player in doing so.

[SeaMonkey]

Well then if the AI can handle something like the multiple fighter modes, then perhaps another naval mode wouldn't be too difficult for it.

So we have a "Raider' mode which simulates convoy interdiction and the obvious default mode that allows movement and attack. What other selectable mode would enhance the naval model and what would its effect be? Perhaps something that would change the evasion level of the affected unit?

[mcaryf1]

A comment Big Al made earlier in this thread about the concept of units in SC has helped me to a better insight with respect to possibilities within the SC engine for improving naval combat, which is currently rather too catastrophic in the standard scenarios. I am thinking in particular about the total loss of naval units compared with the fact that they can represent large numbers of vessels particularly in the case of SS and DD units.

If for example an SS unit represented 50 x U-Boats, then that might be the the entire fleet that Doenitz had chosen to deploy in the North Atlantic (that would actually be the right sort of number in 1940). You then have to ask yourself what might it mean if that unit is destroyed during the course of one turn - should Germany suddenly have no U Boats? Well the reality of U Boat deployment was that the number actually on station represented about 25% of the number allocated. Broadly speaking about 25% would be travelling to the Mid-Atlantic, 25% returning after a mission and 25% indulging in RnR or training whilst their boat was refitted and resupplied. Thus if a U Boat unit on station or travelling is destroyed it should only represent a 25% loss of the force deployed. We cannot create 4 times as many U Boat units as we would run out of space on the map for them particularly if the Axis player built the historic fleet. The solution I would offer is that the Axis player should be allowed to rebuild his sub unit at a production cost of 30% and zero delay thus the supply level restriction on rebuilds for subs should be set at at 0 (perhaps Hubert or someone else could tell me if it will still work if it is set at zero - although I guess a value of one would probably serve my purpose). A value of 25% rebuild cost is not actually available in the game (increments are in 10's) but the extra 5% probably compensates for the zero rebuild delay when theoretically the SS unit should be at 75% strength for a period. Conceptually this is speeding up some boats already in production, after all U Boats were not actually built in batches of 50 before they were deployed!

The same consideration could apply to CA and DD units where these too represent ships allocated to a theatre rather than actual ships all deployed in a specific operation at the same time. BB and CV units would be handled differently as these really are representative of a ship or 2 or 3 ships that might well be deployed together and therefore all be sunk at the same time. However, I would allow these units to be rebuilt at a cheaper cost and smaller delay if they were sunk in or near a port. As port space can be restricted, particularly round the UK, I would probably make the supply criteria for BB or CV units to be rebuilt set at eight (conceptually this is raising them from the harbour floor). The rebuild cost might be 30% and the delay 50% (on average Pearl Harbor, Taranto and Alexandria victims were refloated and repaired in about 9 months).

I would be interested in comments on this suggestion about using rebuild to make multiple ship units a more realistic concept but I have to repeat a comment I made in an earlier post - the more I look at it the better this game is in terms of its potential to model the reality of WW2. My congratulations to Hubert and the team.

Regards

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

Good ideas here, especially the sub rebuild program. On the port thing, I would think you'd have to restrict that to ports that have the capability to raise and refurbish sunk vessels, 100% efficiency / 10 supply type.

[mcaryf1]

Hi SeaMonkey

I am not 100% sure about trying to exclude supply 5 ports from a historic perspective. After all Alexandria is supply 5 but both Queen Elizabeth and Valiant were sunk there by Italian frogmen. There was enough expertise to get them both raised although they had to limp home to get a proper refit. Of course if I allow players to rebuild them then that would place the unit back in the UK 9 months later which is not a bad match to what actually happened. The other thing of course is that I do not think there is a distinction in game handling as far as the unit is concerned - it still gets allocated supply 10 even if it is in a supply 5 port and it keeps supply 10 until it is in a fight but I presume the fight will reduce the supply unless the unit is actually in or very near a port. I am not sure where supply reduction and subsequent supply replenishment might fit relative to a decision by the program as to whether a ship is eligible for rebuild.

I have been trying an exercise to allocate Japanese ships into a number of TF's to map onto Strategic Command's BB, CA and CL/DD units. So far I am using 90k tons of displacement for BB, 45k for CAs and 30k for CL/DD. That has given me 6 BBs (Yamato got to be in a unit on her own plus a CA and 2 x DDs, the other BB units were 2 real BBs in each plus a DD escort) and 5 each of CA and CL/DD. The CA units were typical;y 3 x CA/CL plus some DDs, whilst the DD's had one or two CL's plus up to 12 x real DD. I think I might want another CL/DD unit so will possibly switch that to 25k of displacement reducing the real DDs in each by about 3. However, the crunch will come when I try to do the same exercise with other countries and see if I end up with reasonable numbers.

I have started to think about CVs and will probably initially try having something like 150 a/c per CV unit or two real CV's. The trouble here is the RN as most of their carriers in 1942 were carrying half the a/c compared with the USN or IJN but their carriers were somewhat more robust.

Regards

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

Don't forget Mike that experience medals allow for a more effective unit and one that is more resilient also.

[mcaryf1]

Hi SeaMonkey

Lots more thinking to do on this yet but early ideas are that heavier calibre guns will give an evasion factor e.g. they are shooting from beyond the range of the foe, better armour will also give an evasion factor, 8 or more aircraft in the TF will give greater spotting range (note some IJN CA's carried 6 float planes), any TF in the top 90k group will get two strikes, all TFs deliver one point of damage, those with guns of 8" or more deliver +1, those with 11" or more deliver +2, those with 15" or more deliver +3, those capable of firing 24 or more torpedoes get +1. Those capable of travelling at 30 knots or more will get a defensive evasion.

All these variations will only apply if all a countries TF's in that category have the attribute. Where there is a disparity in attributes within a country, I will look to use experience as a means of giving better or poorer performance. I am thinking that every TF for a major country (except possibly USSR and China) would start with experience of 1.5 so that I can use that to fine tune strength ratings but this has implications for production. I should perhaps note that I am talking about the Axis High Tide scenario so all the navies really have had some chance to gain wartime experience. The TF which has the best in the world stat (e.g. the thickness of Yamato's armour) could be distinguished with better initial experience possibly 2.5 instead of 1.5 so I can give her an extra strength point also the fastest TF might get extra evasion and so on. Any TF populated entirely with slow, unmodernised BBs might get reduced to 0.5 experience. However, where possible I will prefer to modify the specific characteristics for a country's units as, if I use experience too much, this will force me to manage future production rather more than I would like.

I have previously been involved in helping to develop a detailed naval computer wargame so fortunately I have tons of stats readily available.

There really are a lot of factors within SC that can be used to fine tune the starting characteristics. Thereafter of course the players can invest in technology to improve their situation.

I am just starting work on creating the UK 1942 TFs so it might yet go horribly wrong if I cannot get them to give sensible values!

Regards

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

And, susceptibility to air attacks, not the CV type but LB air. How do you propose to handle that scenario?

I might add, it is exceedingly difficult to acquire additional experience for naval vessels other than what they begin with.

It'll be very interesting to see what you conclude with.

[mcaryf1]

Hi SeaMonkey

Actually very few BBs were sunk solely by aircraft except when they were in harbour. The main exceptions being Prince of Wales, Repulse, Musashi and Yamato. In the case of POW and Repulse these were the examples that caused the AA capability of BBs to be massively upgraded; in the case of Musashi she was in a TF containing several BBs and she was the only one sunk and Yamato was on a solo suicide mission.

There were a number of reasons why few BBs were sunk by a/c possibly the main one being that they were not usually put in harms way without air cover or they were deployed at night (e.g. around Guadalcanal) also their vastly increased AA capability kept even the Kamikazes away.

I am not sure why you make a distinction with land based air in your post. It was really only torpedo carrying aircraft that were a threat to BBs at sea and the majority of land based air in WW2 was not designed for that mode of attack. Tirpitz was finally sunk with a massive Tallboy bomb but that was only effective because the ship was static.

With respect to experience gain and loss, I think there is a bit of a logic flaw in the implementation of experience with respect to CV's in SC. They can only gain experience by successful use of their aircraft but they can lose it from both damage to their aircraft and to their ship structure. Two ways to lose and one way to win means that they can rarely retain it, my plan to deal with this is to make most CVs start very experienced. This should also help to distinguish CVLs and CVEs by giving them less.

Regards

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

I'm in agreement with the BBs relative immunity to sinking when coupled with other assets(aircover, AA), but isn't that for the players to exercise during the course of the game? On their own(actually with escort) without AA upgrades they should be just as vulnerable to air attacks as any other naval TF, ie harder to sink. I envision them as being rendered virtually helpless from air attacks allowing other naval units to finish them off.

As far as the difference of LB vs CAGs, look at the mechanics, CVs with half the aircraft making double strikes, LBs allowed only one doesn't feel right in my scheme of reality. Have we forgotten what the whole island-hopping strategy in the Pacific was all about, the fast carrier strikes to neutralize what? What was that threat? How to represent it?

[SeaMonkey]

I guess what I'm trying to say Mike is, the naval model is not about sinking, but about neutralizing the threat. What do players do when their naval assets are reduced to minimal strength or are presented with the likelihood of that?

What happened to the RN, when they evacuated the CW contingent from Greece?

I'm not going to debate historical happenings with representing them in SC, what is important, as SC is really about "what ifs", is giving the players the mechanism to do something else with the limitations of the era. You said it yourself, the Tirpitz was done in by a selective process, the technology was there, just because its implimentation was unique, doesn't mean the players shouldn't be able "to find a way".

What I'm thinking we should witness, is at the end game, both sides ports are filled with damaged naval TFs, with them unable or unwilling to reinforce because of the MPP cost.