Amphibious assault – MAJOR ISSUE

[Lars]

Originally posted by blackbellamy:

I think that a lot of people are forgetting the simple fact that SC2 in addition to being a game is also a simulation of the strategies and tactics used in that era.

While the system adequately simulates blitzkrieg warfare, supply, strategic airpower, and a host of other mechanics, the amphibious rules not only do not simulate reality, but actually go against every established practice and dictum of military strategy.

It is simply impossible to effect a large-scale amphibious assault in the face of superior naval and air power. It's not problematic, or difficult - it's simply impossible. No commander would greenlight such an endeavor to begin with. But SC2 allows you to embark out of range, sail past the inactive and still ships under a planeless sky, and debark on a hostile shore without fear. You could be facing two British air fleets, a strat bomber, and an almost solid wall of ships, but as long as there is just a one-space gap in the line, you can get everyone into the fight.

Like someone pointed out, it takes time to get off the ship. You don't take the landing craft directly. You take a troop ship, and then deploy into the landing craft near the shore. You have tons of support ships, supply ships, troop ships, large and small landing craft, and they're all milling about, loading, getting into formation, being readied, etc. And all during this time the enemy is free to bomb and strafe and shell and torpedo the whole kit and kaboodle.

The whole naval movement within range of the enemy airforce never seemed right to me, like how you can sail German surface ships through the English Channel with impunity as long as you begin and end outside the range of airpower. But surface ships don't break the game. It might be annoying but it's not fatal. But amphibious invasions using that same mechanic is just so totally wrong it's not funny. I can just imagine Eisenhower saying oh the Luftwaffe, they're not a problem. We figured out they can't hit our ships.

I suppose Guadalcanal would be the countering example.

You shouldn't say impossible, just risky.

[LampCord]

Originally posted by Lars:

Another solution.

The only problem I see with it is what people really seem to want is a chance to blast them out of the water. Under your system, you can still only hit them on land.

True. And that is the most important point.

But what about this:

What about another 'mode' for airfleets.

Right now we have:

Auto - will escort and intercept

Escort - escort only

Ground, etc.

What about adding 'Naval Patrol'.

This would cause the air fleet to react to any naval units instead of any air units. In otherwords, it would ignore incoming bombers, would not act as an escort, but instead intercept any enemy vessel spotted in the water in its range.

[Lars]

Gonna run my CA's and BB's in till your two or three airfleet strikes are used up.

Perhaps autoset to hit only amphib and transport would work. I don't think we need to take them offline just to guard the coasts.

[Exel]

Originally posted by blackbellamy:

It is simply impossible to effect a large-scale amphibious assault in the face of superior naval and air power. It's not problematic, or difficult - it's simply impossible. No commander would greenlight such an endeavor to begin with. But SC2 allows you to embark out of range, sail past the inactive and still ships under a planeless sky, and debark on a hostile shore without fear. You could be facing two British air fleets, a strat bomber, and an almost solid wall of ships, but as long as there is just a one-space gap in the line, you can get everyone into the fight.

To which the solution, in all its plain simplicity, is to reduce the amphibious transports action points by half or so.

This is really becoming repetitive...

[Edwin P.]

Originally posted by LampCord:

What about adding 'Naval Patrol'.

This would cause the air fleet to react to any naval units instead of any air units. In otherwords, it would ignore incoming bombers, would not act as an escort, but instead intercept any enemy vessel spotted in the water in its range.

I would change this to:

Naval Patrol - Intercepts Amphibious Transports in Range. Thus it would ignore other naval vessals - such as subs, cruisers, carrier fleets and normal transports. I would also allow bombers to perform the same function.

[LampCord]

Originally posted by Edwin P.:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by LampCord:

What about adding 'Naval Patrol'.

This would cause the air fleet to react to any naval units instead of any air units. In otherwords, it would ignore incoming bombers, would not act as an escort, but instead intercept any enemy vessel spotted in the water in its range.

I would change this to:

Naval Patrol - Intercepts Amphibious Transports in Range. Thus it would ignore other naval vessals - such as subs, cruisers, carrier fleets and normal transports. I would also allow bombers to perform the same function. </font>

[Lars]

Originally posted by Exel:

To which the solution, in all its plain simplicity, is to reduce the amphibious transports action points by half or so.

This is really becoming repetitive...

It would be if it wasn't for the readiness hit. You want to reduce that too, I'd say fine.

But I can already hear the same old whining from SC1 about fresh troops being dumped on your shores after spending three or four turns at sea.

[LampCord]

Originally posted by Lars:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Exel:

To which the solution, in all its plain simplicity, is to reduce the amphibious transports action points by half or so.

This is really becoming repetitive...

It would be if it wasn't for the readiness hit. You want to reduce that too, I'd say fine.

But I can already hear the same old whining from SC1 about fresh troops being dumped on your shores after spending three or four turns at sea. </font>

[Sombra]

Can´t see problems with the readiness. If you want to put the americans in the US in assault vehicles lets take thme a pitstop at England, Tunesia.

Put the Americans in normal transport, ship them near the assault zones change them to assault vehicles.

Would be even realistic

[Exel]

You know, there was a reason why the U.S. mounted the invasion from Britain, not from New York. There's also a reason why they crossed the English canal instead of going directly to Germany. Or why they needed Tunisia for Sicily.

Amphibious transports do NOT have the ability to sail the seven seas before hitting the beach and landing the troops in peak condition.

Reducing the action points by half or more and thus penalizing long crossings is only realistic. If you want to transport troops long distances, you use Transports. If you want to invade, you use Amphibious Transports, but you better do that from a nearby port.

[LampCord]

Actually, in the US's planned but never executed invasion of the main island of Japan, they intended to send some troops 3,000 miles directly from San Francisco to Japan.

This was because they simply didn't have enough staging areas closer to Japan.

So, yes, it could be done. 3,000 miles from ship to beach with no transfer. At least by the US in late 1945. Maybe that would have been level 5 amphibious technology.

But even still, even with these super ships that could house and feed soldiers for 3,000 miles and still dump them on a beach, the plan could only be considered once the Japanese Air Force was effectively destroyed.

And what happens then if Sealion is successfull? Where do the Americans transfer to amphibious vehicles? With England gone and Gibralter securecd by Spain there is nowhere left for US to go.

We might as well say the game is over once England falls....

Although, I must admit, the lower range and readiness solution is the simplest one to implement since it could be done through the editor. So its the most likely solution we will see.

Its not perfect, but it would be a marked improvement compared to beach teleporting that we have now.

I just wonder how its going to work when someone makes a whole world map and we have to deal with the vast distances in the Pacific. I think we'll be right back on square one.

[ May 06, 2006, 08:03 AM: Message edited by: LampCord ]

[Exel]

Originally posted by LampCord:

Actually, in the US's planned but never executed invasion of the main island of Japan, they intended to send some troops 3,000 miles directly from San Francisco to Japan.

This was because they simply didn't have enough staging areas closer to Japan.

So, yes, it could be done. 3,000 miles from ship to beach with no transfer. At least by the US in late 1945. Maybe that would have been level 5 amphibious technology.

But even still, even with these super ships that could house and feed soldiers for 3,000 miles and still dump them on a beach, the plan could only be considered once the Japanese Air Force was effectively destroyed.

And what happens then if Sealion is successfull? Where do the Americans transfer to amphibious vehicles? With England gone and Gibralter securecd by Spain there is nowhere left for US to go.

We might as well say the game is over once England falls....

Although, I must admit, the lower range and readiness solution is the simplest one to implement since it could be done through the editor. So its the most likely solution we will see.

Its not perfect, but it would be a marked improvement compared to beach teleporting that we have now.

I just wonder how its going to work when someone makes a whole world map and we have to deal with the vast distances in the Pacific. I think we'll be right back on square one.

I fail to see how reduced AP for amphibious transports would make long-range attacks impossible. You could still do them, but you'd suffer readiness and morale penalties doing so. Also the fleet would be more vulnerable to enemy counter-operations. (both since the crossing would take longer)

So far I have failed to come up or be presented with any negative sides or proven unrealistic effects of reducing amphibian movement.

[LampCord]

OK, I did a little math:

Its 18 ocean spaces from the farthest east port of St. Johns to the west coast of England. If we limited tranny movement to 3 it would take 6 turns or 6 weeks to make the crossing from the last port to England. That's a little slow but I could live with it.

The question is, would reducing movement to 3 hexes suffice? As I look at the map, it seems to me that even with a range of 3, Germany could mass enough units outside the range of allied fighters and then move them to the coast in 1 turn without ever being fired upon. Maybe the bombers could reach, but the boats would likely not even be spotted before they land.

If we reduce the movement to 2, now we're talking about 9 turns to cross the ocean. That's 9 weeks. If memory serves, the Pilgrims did it in about that time in 1492.

[Exel]

3 tiles per turn would mean that Germany could not for example invade Britain from the Danish port without the risk of being spotted and intercepted on the way. Similarly the U.S. would really have to escort its transports to Britain as the risk of being spotted on the way by subs increases. But the English channel could still be crossed in one turn. All fine so far.

Now, unless someone comes up with some serious drawbacks with that implementation, I think we should adopt it for testing for the next patch.

[LampCord]

I wouldn't mind seeing it playtested. Its not perfect, but at the very least its a major improvement over the current system and is simple to implement. I'm sold.

[Sombra]

Originally posted by Exel:

3 tiles per turn would mean that Germany could not for example invade Britain from the Danish port without the risk of being spotted and intercepted on the way. Similarly the U.S. would really have to escort its transports to Britain as the risk of being spotted on the way by subs increases. But the English channel could still be crossed in one turn. All fine so far.

Now, unless someone comes up with some serious drawbacks with that implementation, I think we should adopt it for testing for the next patch.

@Exel 100% agreement.

I hope a smple fix with limited range will be implemented. Anything between 3-5 squares for an amphib transport would be fine for me.

[ May 08, 2006, 02:03 AM: Message edited by: Sombra ]

[jon_j_rambo]

You going to actually give the United States the correct amount of troops then? This game is so biased to the Nazis, it's a joke. Gamers like the Nazis to win, because of all the Bunta worship. The US had supply in North Africa, not this current situation.

If you clowns want it historical, then lets make it all historical. BEEF UP THE USA.

[Sombra]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

You going to actually give the United States the correct amount of troops then? This game is so biased to the Nazis, it's a joke. Gamers like the Nazis to win, because of all the Bunta worship. The US had supply in North Africa, not this current situation.

If you clowns want it historical, then lets make it all historical. BEEF UP THE USA.

Rambo please take sometimes a look at the history book.

Do you think the US invaded the Normandy in summer 1944 because they were cowards or did it take simply some times to build up sufficient troops?

[hellraiser]

Originally posted by LampCord:

OTOH, having units take 3-4 weeks to PREPARE but then able to move at a reasonable speed makes total sense and is more historic. I mean why do we have airborne prepare but not amphibious? Does it really take longer to crowd a bunch of people into transport planes than into boats?

[/QB]

You are only thinking of Sealion, me thinks

What about North Africa? 3-4 turns to prepare because you can't use the ports in Africa due to Malta effect or badass bomber in Malta/ UK BBs hitting every turn your 2 african ports?

I would rather go for a cost approach. Make them very, very expensive, especially for countries that historically had low amphib capabilities.

Wanna load that tank in a boat? Okay, the bill is 300 reichsmarks. You get the point. Axis will have to make a very difficult decision then. Waiting times would be lenghtened as well because you can get so much cash/turn. Say, a Seelowe would cost Germany over 1000-1500 mpps aside from usual major powers readiness increases. It is a very tough decision, you either take England and greatly improve your odds in the game (ofc if you can take Egypt as well during the same time) or you will just go bankrupt or lag behind in troops numbers / techs for the late game.

Anyway, to me not England is the problem in SC2 but the ridiculously easy way Axis can capture USA early in the game. For example the AI buys corps with USA early on and thi helps the Allies. But a human player, most of the time will invest in IT/PT/IW/AT with USA, buying troops later. Axis (after France) load troops in boats, land in Canada triggering the USA in (so they don't have to DOW USA and piss USSR off) , and the next turn swarm the US shores. The RN may or may not be around to help - ppl use the RN around UK or the Med not thinking of this far fetched 'invasion USA' stuff. Even if som RN units are around US shore, can they prevent it? I don't think so.

It would be very good that in the case of a DOW, USA is granted several armies/corps+HQ+whatever for defence. These troops won't appear unless USA is declared upon.

[Guest Mike]

They did want to do it in 1943, but were persuaded otherwise by the Brits who actually had some idea of hte problems involved. As a result they went for hte "practice run" of torch instead, cleaned up Nth Africa, exposed sicily and got some valuable lessons.

In 1939 the US army was the 17th largest in the world in terms of manpower - it had 174,000 regular officers and men, and about 200,000 in hte National guard.

In what way is it under-represented by 2 field divisions on the Atlantic Coat at half strength that can fairly easily be bought up to strength?

[Sombra]

@ Hellraiser: Again a shorter range for amphib. transports would help. If you patrol a little bit with ships, the Royal Navy could catch transports still in transit.

You can build up more troops quite early in the US.

If the allied player does´t send out ships into the Atlantic and gets caught unaware... Lets say "Hannibal ante portas" I think taking high risks should be rewarded sometimes and not stopped by scripts.

The US invasion is only possible because the Allied player takes a predictable way to build up its troops.

[hellraiser]

@Sombra - okay, SC2 is alternate history but 'invasion USA' was out of the question for any of the Axis' power. History or no history, they simply couldn't do it. Alternate history means 'you have more or less the same resources, but try to use them better than they did back then'. Invading USA is just Star Trek ...

To me, the cost approach simulates better the management of limited resources. This way, the Axis player would still be able to do amphib invasions but such endeavour, if failed, may cost him the game or make it far easier for the allies.

Let's say very expensive boats for Germany/Italy and maybe UK as well and less costly for the US - in fact the only power in the ETO who could afford it on a large scale without ruining its economy in the process.

I think the representation of US army during the starting turns of SC2 is ok. The US army was a joke in '39. They started to build up, train, used NAfrica for collecting valuable combat experience , - they GREW UP, so to speak, becoming a tough opponent from '43 on.

[vveedd]

Good point about invasion on US Hellraiser. I totally forgot this stupidity. All this time when we discuss about amphibious assaults one question is always on my mind – when we are talking about amphibious transports what kind of vessels we mean? Classical invasion vessels like Allies used in D-day or cruisers, battleships, merchandise ships? You can load units on lots of navy units. Amphibious transports unit look presumes classical vessels and this vessel were very light and small. Crossing Atlantic with them is quite impossible. BUT, in game this will be possible even with reduced range and in that case only good solution (to my opinion) for this issue is useless. :confused: Damn!

[Lars]

Originally posted by Exel:

You know, there was a reason why the U.S. mounted the invasion from Britain, not from New York. There's also a reason why they crossed the English canal instead of going directly to Germany. Or why they needed Tunisia for Sicily.

Amphibious transports do NOT have the ability to sail the seven seas before hitting the beach and landing the troops in peak condition.

Reducing the action points by half or more and thus penalizing long crossings is only realistic. If you want to transport troops long distances, you use Transports. If you want to invade, you use Amphibious Transports, but you better do that from a nearby port.

Er, actually, they can do it very easily.

LST - Range about 10,000 miles on 50,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

And could carry six LCVP on board to boot. We only built over a 1,000 of them. You should really do a little research before making such wild claims.

And at 10 knots, New York-London or New York-Casablanca is only 14 days.

[jon_j_rambo]

Go ahead, land on the USA with Bunta Bias in 1941. You know how big the U.S. Army would become the next turn? The entire country! Every citizen in the greatest nation ever would be fighting against Somebra's Grandpa! You think the Russians fought for their homeland, try out Uncle Sam's family. Everybody thinks we're so dang soft, yeah right.

You want reality? Historical game? The Germans couldn't even win the air battle over England. There would be no FOW on landing transports with all the spies.

Germany had no chance to win WW-2. You can't defeat hearts with the sword.