Naval system proposal for SC3

[Guest Mike]

...yah, I know, being a bit previous here!

however the use of the same build/steps/combat systems for naval elements has come in for quite a bit of criticism from many quarters, so I figure why not.

Firstly - large ships should be rated for their major individual characteristics - gunnery, range, speed, a/c carried (for carriers), AA capabilities, damage resistance, etc.

Range is an important one that is completely absent from SC - albeit that ships can lsoe morale and efficiency if they stay at sea it's not nearly the same.

Secondly - at this abstract level ships should have a limited number of damage states - eg undamaged, lightly damaged, moderately damaged, severely damaged, sunk.

the damage state would obviously alter the characteristics of the ship if it ever tried to do anything.

there might be some additional consideratinos - ships sunk in harbour would have some chance of being recovered and repaired - the chance depending upong the shallowness of the harbour perhaps - eg Pearl Harbour, Taranto and Krondstadt were relatively shallow and so many of the ships "sunk" there were recovered (or at least raised enough to be artillery batteries at Krondstadt), while ships sunk at Scapa Flow were usually lost completely as it was a deep water harbour.

Cruisers would be treated similarly but perhaps grouped into squadrons of 2-3 ships for ease of play - but each ship would be tracked, and they could be transfered betwen squadrons as required.

ditto for destroyers perhaps....although there needs to be a bottom limit below which ships are treated more abstractly to simplfy things and I'm not sure whether this would include destroyers or not.

anyway - smaller ships would be tracked as "points" of some sort.

ships would be grouped into units such as fleets, squadrons, flotillas basically consisting of whatever he player wanted to put in them.

so you could create a squadron of the Bismark and Prinz Eugen and sent it into the Nth Atlantic, and then split it up, etc.

Fleets need to have the ability to move, strike and move again, unless somehow caught by patrols or airpower - not sure how this would work, but for example for the Taranto raid Illustrious left port on 6 November, launched the raid on the 11th from 170 miles range. I don't know how long it took to return afte the strike, but later it took Illustrious only 2 days to steam from Malta to Alexandria at 26 knots while damaged on 23rd Jan 1941, having taken 8 direct bomb hits and 7 near misses in the previous 3 weeks.

but I digress......

If you're not patroling your seaways then you simply dont' see teh enemy - period. The system of automatic spotting is a major distorition of seapower.

Others have mentioned possible changes to submarines - I personally like the idea of having 2 systems - an abstract one for commerce/convoy raiding, and one like that for all other ships for "fleet" duties.

Ports and dockyards need to be revised too - not all ports had dockyards - Scapa Flow had none for example!

Damage should only be repaired at suitably sophisticated dockyards - obviously simpler facilities are required for smaller ships, and quiet limited numbers able to handle major damage to capital ships.

thus all harbours and dockyards worth noting on the map would be rated by capacity - maximum size and maximum number of ships that can be harboured, repair facilities complexity and capacity.

Phew - lots of other ideas too......I want to see teh computatinal power we hav at our fingertips harnessed for most of these functions - features from games like MOO might provide ideas on how to handle teh specifics perhaps?

[janbo]

Sounds good to me.

If you have a fleet consisting of, say, Prinz Eugen and Bismarck, and you run into an enemy fleet and a battle commences. Do you then use your both ships individually, or are their stats combined somehow? If not, is there really a point stacking them into a fleet?

[Guest Mike]

Dunno

I suspect you'd have to have some sort of TacAI to resolve the battle, certainly there should be some provision for breaking off combat if "losing" for example.

Probably something like applying the ehavy-ship combat factor fofrom each heavy ship in your fleet against 1 of thsoe in the enemy, doubling up some if you have more than him, and calculating whether they score any damging hits each round or somethign like that.

Applying "light ship" combat factors among the light ships, figuring out a certain number of damaging hits, applying them randomly among he flotillas attached, if any, etc.

the provision of "fleets" is mainly for simplifying movement.

[Rolend]

Well if we are talking SC 3 and 'big' why not turn SC into a strategic/tactical game. Have a similar strategic game as SC 2 but for each battle switch to a tactical map to resolve each battle tactically. Once the battle is done then back to the main strategic map. Yea I know it would take forever to play a game but then it would allow for more realistic naval, air and ground combat. Not really asking for this just an idea I thought I would toss out there.

[Colin I]

Think the ideas are good but contrary to the spirit of SC and the reason I like it - simplicity. There strikes me as too much micromanagement ín fleets here. If the game turns into HOI I'll stop playing!

Basically you have big ships, small ships, transports, subs and carriers. Coupled with technology, morale and strength and a few other features thats quite enough detail! The only think I want to change is the interaction of land with sea (landings, shore bombardment, attacking fleets in harbours) but this can mostly be handled without new stuff.

[Guest Mike]

Yes it's the interactions that are the problem but I'm not so suer they can be "fixed" without changing some of the fundamentals.

[Tagwyn]

Red Prick: There is compulsion in religion. See Islam. Tag

[Guest Mike]

White one: why don't you contribute something to the thread?

[Colin I]

Interactions

I would have shore bombardment (and air attacks) do less damage in strength points but affect morale and readyness a lot. Therefore, they are best used in conjuction with ground forces which makes sense to me. There is LOTS of evidence in Normandy that air power was crucial but resulted in few direct casualties. Both ground and air should still be able to damage non-mobile targets (ie not too much change to strategic attacks).

Harbours are tricky - but maybe simply you cannot repair a ship in harbour when an enemy ship capable of bombardment is adjacent suffices. This way you can't do the irritating trick of repairing the Bismark faster than I can shell it! Also, if harbour infrastructure anything more than basic no sub attacks.

I'll not touch amphibious assaults - enough on this one elsewhere.

[hoolaman]

SO your ideas sound like the "Clash of Steel" approach to naval ops where you sent you fleet to a region and set them to patrol or raid commerce or whatever.

Given that SC is already a "Clash of Steel" clone, I don't think that this idea will be implemented.

[Scrogdog]

I agree those changes might muck the simplicity factor, though they are interesting.

Right now the biggest weakness that I see with the naval game is the lack of interest in securing Bergen by the Axis. This key port allowed the Axis surface fleet to be used as surface raiders as you know.

Perhaps something simple would address this such as Axis successes along that particular convoy route being reduced.... perhaps even severely so... if Bergen is not held.

[PeterX]

Originally posted by Tagwyn:

Red Prick: There is compulsion in religion. See Islam. Tag

Lol. Depends on which period of Mohammed's life one studies. SO has evoked the relatively pacific Mecca suras. Those composed, or dictated, in Medina have an entirely different tenor.