SC2 and Strategic Warfare

[arby]

Sorry I was on hiatus for a while, but I spent the last four days in Vegas proving the truth of the fool/money aphorism. I thought I'd herald my wallet-lightened return by discussing another aspect of SC, with a view to sparking a discussion on how to change it in SC2. The subject is strategic warfare.

The first question should be whether it needs to be included in the game. For example, a number of people have clamored for the inclusion of paratroopers. The problem is the counterargument: given that there were only four major uses of paratroopers in the entire war, and that two were pretty much of a disaster, the omission of them in a grand strategic simulation is understandable.

Not so for strategic warfare; both sides devoted substantial resources to strategic warfare and the counters to it. The effect of the German U-boats was significant; by 1942, they had almost brought Britain to its knees. While the effect of Allied strategic bombing is more debatable, at the very least it forced Germany to devote resources to the Western Front that could have been employed on the Eastern Front.

The second question is whether the game accurately simulates the effect of those aspects of strategic warfare. I don't think there's very much question that it does not. I have rarely seen the German player undertake a significant effort to use submarines to the extent that the Germans actually did, and even less common is to see the Allied player engage in strategic bombing. (In fact, the current in vogue strategy for the Allied player is to disband the one bomber he starts with.)

The next question is why this is. I think the answer is relatively simple: the costs of adopting a strategic warfare strategy are substantial, and the gains relatively minimal.

The penultimate question is whether this should be fixed. I think the answer is yes, for two reasons. First, a historical simulation should attempt to simulate history. Secondly, a grand strategic simulation should give the player choices. It may be that the Allied player does not want to devote substantial resources to strategic warfare, but would rather use those resources to build more infantry units, so as to invade Europe earlier, or better defend the Mediterranean, or whatever. But right now, that choice is made for him; as mentioned, the costs of pursuing such a strategy far outweigh any benefits that will be received.

The last question is what to do about it. I'll give some suggestions in the next couple of notes, and you guys can take it from there.

[arby]

Strategic Bombing

This is probably the easier of the two to fix. The problem here is relatively straightforward: too little damage is inflicted by strategic bombers, and too much damage is taken by them. That problem is compounded by a few quirks in the rules.

Let's start by taking a look at the numbers. There are 148 resource points within a 9-hex range of Britain. I use 9 hexes, because the US starts out there, and the Brits should have at least 1 increase in LR air by the time mid-to-late 1942, and the Western Allies can start strategic bombing in earnest. By that time, 148 resource points would probably represent 27% of total German MPP's, so that's a pretty big dent.

Of course, there's no way that the Allied player could make that big a dent, unless he devoted virtually all of his resources to building bombers. But he could do some serious damage. Three strat bombers at L1 will each do 2-3 pts. of damage per turn. I'll short-circuit the math lesson, but after 5 turns of that, the German player will have lost 60 to 104 MPP's during that time, will have had its MPP production cut by 18 to 33 points per turn, and will be losing an additional 3 - 6 per turn on top of that. Crank up the bombers to L2, thrown in an 8 HQ and a 1 experience level, and the losses become near-catastrophic: The German player will have lost around 240 MPP's, will have had its production cut by 78 per turn, and will be losing an additional 12 to 15 each turn after that.

So why not do it? A number of reasons. First, that's about all strategic bombers are good for. They do reduce entrenchment levels by two, but they're only half as effective against ground units as air fleets. Given their lesser cost and their greater versatility, and the overarching importance of {tactical) air power in the game, it makes sense to buy air fleets instead of bomber units. Second, the current rules allow you to use a corps to protect a strategic resource from being bombed; that tactic is much more effectively countered by tac fleets instead of bombers. Third, anti-aircraft is a killer. While mines and oil wells have no intrinsic air defense, ports have a defense of 1 and cities a defense of 2. Bombing a city costs the bomber 1 to 2 points per turn. Do the math: what sense does it make to inflict a 3-MPP loss on your opponent, when it costs you 54 MPP's to repair the losses to your bombers. That's why the German player rarely keeps fighters on the Western Front: he doesn't have to. In fact, he's better off not doing that, since then he avoids losses to his fighters. And often times the German player won't make any investment in anti-aircraft, and in virtually no case will it be among the top priorities.

So what to do? First, tone down the tactical air effect on strategic resources. Right now it's 2, and it probably should be 0. (I think there's a pretty solid consensus that tac air needs to be toned down in other respects as well.) Second, have strat bombers affect the target, not any unit on them. Third, have all strat resources start out with 0 anti-aircraft defense. That means there's no cost to the bombers, unless you defend with fighters or invest in anti-aircraft research. A fourth suggestion would be to beef up the US strat bomber force: start them at L2, and given them a 2-pt. bomber they have to build up.

That doesn't make it a done deal by any stretch. There are still substantial costs to a strategic bombing campaign, and the payoff isn't phenomenal; unless the German player passes on anti-air and leaves the Western Front undefended by air units, it may well be that the costs still exceed the benefits. Then again, they arguably did, and that's what a strategical game is supposed to simulate.

[arby]

Submarine Warfare

I've seen this utilized more frequently than strategic bombing, but it's still a relatively rare bird. The German player starts with 3 subs; 2 are almost invariably gone by the end of 1939, and the third has great difficulty getting into the Atlantic. Even after that, problems abound. Subs have much more limited movement than surface fleets, they don't inflict damage when attacked, the supply rules for ships make them very vulnerable after a few turns at sea (because of the movement rules, ships can usually be kept near port and in good supply, and still be able to attack subs in one turn). And since the British start out with a fairly sizable fleet, the only hope the German really has is of making a sizable submarine fleet of his own. Sending out four or five sub fleets may prove effective; sending out one or two is close to suicidal. But building five sub fleets costs almost 1800 MPP's, which means that, assuming they could in fact inflict the maximum damage on Britain -- 40 MPP's a turn -- it would take 3 1/2 years of game time for that investment to pay for itself. Given that cost/benefit ratio, it's understandable that most German players would figure that those MPP's would be more wisely spent building five tank groups for the Eastern Front.

What to do? This is much more complicated than bombers, because perhaps the most fundamental problem here is that the game gives the submarine a role it wasn't intended to have in WWII: attacking surface warships. While there are certainly numerous instances of such attacks, that's not what they were meant to do, and they weren't very good at it; in fact, they usually tried their best to avoid it.

The first thing I'd suggest is scrapping the entire naval combat system. Others have suggested going from a hex to a "zone" system, and I think that would be ideal. Instead of having losses determined by actual combat, sub and MPP losses would be determined by four things: the number of subs in the zone, the number of surface fleets, whether one of them is a carrier, and the level of sub advances v. sonar advances of the respective combatants. (What I'm left undecided on is what the losses should be, and if there should be any limit to MPP losses.) You might also include a "Murmansk convoy" zone, which would result in reduction of Soviet MPP's.

One other thing to consider is the reduction of costs for building subs, and the introduction of an "escort" unit in the game, which would also be substantially lower cost than the cruiser or battleship. Maybe 250 for the sub and 325 for the escort.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Which, after Vegas, I could use....

[JerseyJohn]

Arby

Great thread, cuts right to the essential points.

Agreed totally on the sub issue and turning the Atalantic and, for that matter all sea areas into zones instead of hex areas.

If the Mediteranean were three Sea Zones it would be possible to compress the water area by a few hexes and create those extra maneuvering hexes along the North African coastline.

Transport of troops and invasions could then be done with specific coastal/port hexes as targets

with interception depending upon variable factors, etc., instead of floating corps, solving another problem! But this is moving off topic and I'll start another thread on it later if you don't; meanwhile there's already enough to talk about here on the specific topics you've examined.

Regarding Strategic Bombers. It should be kept in mind that in late 1940 Britain was conducting night raids on Berlin from bases in England. These were at the time only of psychological importance but significant in game because strategic bombers can't get that far regardless of bombload!

In accordance with the redesigned Strategic Bomber unit I'd create a new

Fighter Interceptor unit which would incorporate night fighters and jet fighters and be seperate from the current mixed air fleets.

Air fleets would be tactical operation units while interceptors would be dedicated air defense units.

The redifined Strategic Bomber unit should incorporate it's own long range escorts. In the lower levels these would be effective at half range and the range would be extended along with other increases in effectiveness as the levels increase.

In effect the airfleets are a different form of bomber unit incorporating their own fighter escorts.

There should, of course, be an overlap. Airfleets should have some strategic bombing ability and strategic bombers should have some ground/sea attack capabilities, but both should perform best at the specific tasks they were deseigned to perform.

[ March 15, 2003, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[xwormwood]

I would seperate the tactical warfare from the strategic warfare. Keep the hex-system for battleships, carriers & troop transports / LCU s and invent the COS seazones for subs and escorts (i like the seabattles in SC more than the ones in COS). Or simply install an *improved* (not the original one) Navysystem like the one used in Strom across europe.

Keep the airfleets as tactical air units and invent the Storm Across Europe airfleets for strategical bombing runs. These air units attacked not a single target but every part of the targetcountry which they could reach. Bombers and their escorts could be bought seperatly from the tactical airunits.

[arby]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

If the Mediteranean were three Sea Zones it would be possible to compress the water area by a few hexes and create those extra maneuvering hexes along the North African coastline.

Yeah, I didn't get into how surface warfare would be handled by a zone system, since that's really not part of the strategic warfare topic. Actually, the present game engine does a reasonably good job of handling surface combat. Some things would have to be ironed out if a zone system were used for that.

In accordance with the redesigned Strategic Bomber unit I'd create a new

Fighter Interceptor unit which would incorporate night fighters and jet fighters and be seperate from the current mixed air fleets.

Air fleets would be tactical operation units while interceptors would be dedicated air defense units.

I kind of like this idea, but it has problems. First, while many of the early fighters served almost exclusively as interceptors, by 1942 most of the fighters served dual roles, and some -- such as the German Fw-190 and the American P-38, P-47, and P-51 -- excelled in the tactical bombing role. Secondly, if you're going to have three different types of plane, you're probably going to have to cut the cost of purchasing them.

I'm not sure about the idea of having escorts incorporated into the bomber fleets. As you probably know, until the development of the P-51D, bombing runs into the German heartland went unescorted. That led to horrific losses; over 12,000 Allied heavy bombers were shot down, resulting in about 100,000 crewmen being killed.

Sometime this week I'll probably start a thread on air power. I know it's been discussed, arguably to death, but it might be good to get some consensus.

[Les the Sarge 9-1b]

Not sure how this notion will work.

I have seen that having no subs suddenly means no sub warfare losses.

I would rather a once each turn sub based loss be inflicted on Britain, then a once usable assault on allied naval units (that comes with no long term gain and no assurances of success).

So I tend to take my subs and just find the furthest must remote most useless spot on the map, and hide there.

Of course it is possible the allied player will just go and sit in the furthest spots on the map, find the two lousy sub counters, and tras them.

I am sure the allies during WW2 would have like it being that simple.

The game might better simulate retaliating against the subs, by creating ASW counters. The mere existence of an operating ASW counter , would impact the automatic loses imposed by the subs.

It would render the simulation more accurately.

Currently all we have is 2 stupid sub counters in the atlantic simulating sitting ducks.

And I can't picture anyone mounting a bombing offensive on this game. So in a swoop, I would be inclined to say, SC does not possess any form of Strategic Warfare.

It's operational warfare waged on a grand strategy scale mostly.

[John DiFool]

Been here, done that. NO zones. :mad:

Plus subs WERE effective against warships, and

DID sink quite a few. Now the question is

whether their intended role was to actively look

for enemy warships. Except for the Japanese sub

fleet, the other major sub fleets were primarily

merchant raiders-but if a juicy CV or BB showed

up as a target of opportunity, they would

salivate at the prospect.

Capital ships sunk by subs include

Royal Oak

Courageous

Wasp

Taiho

Shinano

Now I would love to see a more realistic Battle of

the Atlantic, but to say that subs "shied away"

from enemy warships is nonsense.

John DiFool

[arby]

Originally posted by John DiFool:

Plus subs WERE effective against warships, and

DID sink quite a few. Now the question is

whether their intended role was to actively look

for enemy warships. Except for the Japanese sub

fleet, the other major sub fleets were primarily

merchant raiders-but if a juicy CV or BB showed

up as a target of opportunity, they would

salivate at the prospect.

Now I would love to see a more realistic Battle of

the Atlantic, but to say that subs "shied away"

from enemy warships is nonsense.

No, it's not nonsense. Certainly, if targets of opportunity presented themselves, subs would take advantage of it. But given the substantial advantage that surface ships had in mobility, coupled with the limited time that a sub could stay submerged, it would have been suicidal for any wolfpack commander to intentionally engage surface fleets. This is born out by the stats: The US and Britain, combined, lost 290 surface ships in both theatres; the Germans lost 994 U-boats.

You said you were in favor of a "more realistic Battle of the Atlantic," which appears to concede that the present Battle, in your opinion, is not realistic. What problem do you have with zones, and what other way would you suggest we might have a more realistic Battle?

[xwormwood]

John di fool:

have you ever play CLASH OF STEEL or STORM ACROSS EUROPE? Their seazone-system worked great. :cool:

arby:

the SC "war in the atlantic" is completly unhistoric.

-

Please explain your stats, because the way you wrote them they explain nearly nothing. There were much more (allied) countries who lost warship through subs, not only the US and UK.

German SUB victories against warships (sunk/damaged):

BB/BC: 2/3

CV: 5/2

CA/CL: 6/7

DD: 34/11

DE, frigats, corvets, sloops: 59/24

others: 42/?

all: 148/47

German SUB victories against merchantships:

2831 = 14.315.964 tons

In september 1939 Germany had 57 subs, and only 26 were able to attack in the atlantic. 26 divided in two counters = one counter represents 13 subs (in september 1941 Germany had 197 subs. So there should be at least 10 subs in the 1941 scenario :mad: ...).

If the allied player isn't a complete and utter idiot he gets rid of them before dezember 1939. Do you think that this is historic? :eek:

[Tigleth Pilisar]

Good post. I think all wargames are ultimately about economics. My strategic decisions are usually based on math (since units in games are really collections offensive/defense and cost numbers), so your line of thinking appeals to me.

Strategic Bombers

Great identification of flaws. I'm not much help though on ideas here. From a game perspective, the strat bomber to me is a recon and naval unit, not an economic bomber or a ground unit bomber.

The air unit is kind of an air/ground attack unit, with recon abilities as well.

From a "game" perspective, a purpose needs to be attributed and then a unit designed for that purpose. possibly these units should exist from a "game" standpoint:

1) a unit good for attacking ground units.

2) a unit good for attacking/defending vs air units.

3) a unit good for attacking resources.

4) a unit good for attacking naval units.

Currently 1 and 2 are merged and 3 and 4 are merged, in concept anyway. Not necessarily the best combinations.

Clearly if you agree that the 4 "purposes" need to be addressed, you would agree that you need 4 kinds of "units". Or, if we merge functions to have less units, then there are many combinations.

But to focus on #3 only - there really is no unit good at attacking resources. Why? Mainly because of the damage the strat bomber takes is 10x or more what they inflict.

So, living within game rules, what could we do?

1) Research in heavy bombers costs less.

2) Start with higher allied heavy bomber research.

3) Heavy bombers cost less to build/repair.

4) Increase heavy bomber strat resource attack.

5) Increase heavy bomber defence.

6) Strat bombers attack strat resources in hex asssigned to attack rather than units, where resource value is >0.

My suggestion is 1 & 3. I like strat bombing to be a "choice" as provided through research, rather than giving allies an advantage on a silver plate. Increasing defence makes them a better air vs air unit, an unintended effect so I wouldn't do it.

Ultimately, I think air unit design can be better in the game, when combining the above purposes with historical authenticity.

Subs:

I'll agree with John DiFool - no zones needed.

Subs are dual purpose, naval attack and strategic attack. I think they are adequately reflected, and priced in MPP properly (should not be cheaper anyway for sure).

Alternatives I have read in these forums that would help are:

1) Make the Atlantic much bigger. Then the ally would have a tougher time finding them.

2) My ignorance will show up here: make enemy units only have 1 range of spotting against them (2 for carriers and 3 for air fleets). Maybe this is already in the game.

3) Improve their diving ability when attacked. Maybe by 15%? So starting subs have a 40% chance they will dive and tech 5 subs have a 65% chance of diving. More diving I think is more realistic than making them better at combat.

Oops ... I'm going on too long, and rambling more than adding value I think.

[arby]

Originally posted by xwormwood:

the SC "war in the atlantic" is completly unhistoric.

I couldn't agree more.

Please explain your stats, because the way you wrote them they explain nearly nothing.

What I was trying to show is what you did a much better job of showing: that the submarine's role as an attacker of surface warships was a distant second to its role as a convoy raider. Look at the numbers: you show that German U-boats sank a total of 148 warships, versus nearly 3,000 convoy ships. That would seem to bear out the argument that the primary target of U-boats was the convoy ships, and that they would avoid engaging surface fleets whenever possible. Which, if you read accounts of the Battle of the Atlantic, is exactly what happened.

But it doesn't happen in this game.

[John DiFool]

I have already posted my thoughts on seazones.

HERE

I think Jersey John is right-we just keep

reinventing the wheel here, so I might take a

hiatus-just drop in from time to time to see what

Hubert has decided to cook up.

And as far as sub wolfpacks deliberately targeting

capital ships-sure it would be nuts; the warships

would have to come to them, not the other way

around (hence targets of opportunity-or in SC

parlance "surprise attack!" ). But to make

subs ineffective against warships would be a

mistake. Essentially subs need to survive longer-

make their dive percentages greater and chances

of detection lower, and the Atlantic bigger, and

I think they will be in their element.

JD

[Edwin P.]

I strongly agree with the comments made above re: submarine warfare on making them harder to find and increasing their diving percentage.

In fact, I would allow surface warfare ships to see subs only if they bumb into them (aka FOW for land units). Thus making it much harder to locate them. This would be realistic as the ocean hexes cover hundreds of square miles.

I would also increase, as mentioned earlier, the diving % of the submarines. Perhaps increasing it by 10% per Tech level to reflect the great difficulty of locating the more advanced subs in the ocean after they made an attack.

With these two simple changes subs would become a much more valuable element in the war for Europe.

I know that no more patches are due for release; however, just maybe Hubert will find it interesting to add these two changes in a downloadable patch, that is if the changes can be made and the program recompiled in under 30 minutes.

[JerseyJohn]

Interesting Thread, everyone's making good points, some I agree with and some I'd differ with, but it would be splitting hairs to do so and I may not even be right.

A lot hinges on altering the map size. But every time that comes up (see the North America and North Atlantic Threads [link provided by JohnDiFool in above posting]) it gets shot down right away. Taking that into account I can't think of too many solutions other than alternate screens, as mentioned many times before, but that too always gets shot down.

But I think a lot of ideas that have come up regarding units and combat/supply, etc., may get somewhere. I've pretty much expressed all my views a few times over and will be laying back a bit for a while till there's something more to work with.

JohnDiFool

Have a good break, see you when you get back. As you mention, it seems a good time to cut back a bit till the next significant event, whatever that may be.

[ March 16, 2003, 06:29 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[xwormwood]

arby:

Seems like i just misunderstood your point, sorry.

John DiFool:

A larger Atlantic is a solution, but a poor one in my opinion.

They way SC handles subhunt is not acceptable.

Battleship Taskforces were NEVER on subhunt, even cruisers wouldn't even have tried.

If I would be King of SC-Land, i would order to mix the existing seawar with some new elements:

Leave the warhships and carriers and transports on the existing map, so there can be fights between them. Next step: a second seazone map for strategical war. Here you can place subs and escorts. Depending of weather/season, research levels, nearby landbased airunits and/or carrier groups combat between these elements occour each round automaticly, lend-lease/sub-/ship-losses should be calculate by the programm. For every shipmovement on the real (old) map there could be a minimal percent-chance for losses due to subs (example:

1-92 % no losses,

93-98 % one strenght point,

99 % unit lost 50 % of its strenght,

100 % unit lost 75 % of its strenghts (*),

(*) following a second chance for total loss:

1-80 % no further losses,

81 - 100 % complete loss of unit).

Percantage could increase or fall by research levels.

This way we could still fight with our beloved fleets and subs would / could do there bloody job

against merchantships.

("... not yet, Kameraden, not yet...den Tipperary song, wenn ich bitten darf...").

[Steve C]

Originally posted by xwormwood:

They way SC handles subhunt is not acceptable.

Battleship Taskforces were NEVER on subhunt, even cruisers wouldn't even have tried.

If I would be King of SC-Land, i would order to mix the existing seawar with some new elements:

Leave the warhships and carriers and transports on the existing map, so there can be fights between them. Next step: a second seazone map for strategical war. Here you can place subs and escorts....

Well, given the simplified nature of naval combat in SC, there are no destroyers, either singular or flotillas, so what other recourse do you have ? I don't think two sea warfare maps is going to mesh well with the simple style that we enjoy in this game.

"I strongly agree with the comments made above re: submarine warfare on making them harder to find and increasing their diving percentage."

"In fact, I would allow surface warfare ships to see subs only if they bumb into them (aka FOW for land units). Thus making it much harder to locate them. This would be realistic as the ocean hexes cover hundreds of square miles." Quoted from Edwin P.

Yes, I think this is more in keeping with the spirit of the game. It has the same effect as increasing the size of the ocean. Certainly it would make more difficult that farcical Allied sub hunt and slam-dunk elimination of the two Atlantic u-boats at the beginning of every game. Perhaps the increased range effect of upgraded air units could allow better sub spotting, reflecting the actual shrinking safe haven for u-boats as the Allies gradually perfected using air power in anti-submarine warfare.

I don't have a problem with SC's abstraction of reducing MPP as the effect of submarines sinking merchant shipping. But I think that subs are too expensive in SC. One submarine costs not so much less than an airfleet with 1,000 planes.

They get more reasonable later in the game as Industrial Research kicks in, and I have used them to good effect (at least against the AI), keeping several lurking around the French Atlantic ports to wreak havoc on transports, but generally they're a luxury you can't afford when fighting for your life on the Eastern Front as Axis.

[ March 18, 2003, 12:43 AM: Message edited by: Steve C ]