Naval Warfare seems skewed

[MemoryLeak]

Hi,

Just so you know, I'm not some 12 yr old kid complaining. I've been playing war games for 50 years. I think the Naval Model is unrealistic. In the past playing SC2 i gave up completely on developing any kind of a navy. Every time (Axis) one of my ships or subs ventured from port it was pounced on by half a dozen enemy ships and sunk immediately. Very frustrating and so there was no reason to pursue a ship building program.

I am trying it again in the new Global Confict addition because the Japanese start with so many ships. Well I just attacked Manila with a task force of 10 ships. One US sub made one attack on a carrier and reduced it to a 2. I counter attacked with 3 carriers, 3 battleships and 2 cruisers. I couldn't kill it. All 8 ships started at full strength and they took several hits. Really screwy and I renewed my vow never to use ships again.

[SeaMonkey]

Go take a look at NWS Supremacy at Sea for a true naval experience formatted in a game.

Wait for porting to WaW and some tweaking, it'll get better.

In the mean time try ASW tech for the Japanese.

[Liam]

The European Map makes ships a big liability in SC2. Too expensive and more annoying than dominating. Ships get sunk very easily. 1 ship out venturing around will die in a heartbeat. Ships away from Port are easily mauled. Subs are overpowered vs Surface ships.

I do not recall ever building a ship in SC2 as the Axis aside subs. Only as the Allies to protect transports. If I could disband my Navy as the Axis player and buy HQs, Air fleets and Tech I probably would. There are a few places and instances where they're very useful however... I think I could survive as Axis with 2 subs and 1 cruiser for Germany and 2 Cruisers and a sub for Italy. Navy's only compliment Land units in SC that is their purpose as hunting transports is not practical, with the new WAW I hear though Subs are much better raiders which may add a dimension to the game. I'll have to see it

BTW: You should have no issues killing 1 sub with so many ships, just surround it and let it bump your fleets, it has very poor visibility and cannot elude damage by bumping other vessels.

[n0kn0k]

You will love WaW naval warfare

[MemoryLeak]

I own WAW also and not having much luck with thyat naval model either. I am going to check out NWS. I use to be on that site a lot but I haven't been there in a couple of years. I bought several naval games but I don't recall which ones at the moment.

[pzgndr]

I think the Naval Model is unrealistic.

Specifically, how and why? I can think of three factors for consideration: naval combat results, naval unit cost and naval unit production delay. Clearly if damages are too high, replacement costs too high and production delays too long then players will opt to not waste time on naval strategies. All of these things can be adjusted to be more "realistic" to a point.

[Timskorn]

I was about to mention that pzgndr. It may be more realistic to tone down naval losses, as replacing them is really expensive. One false move, one unlucky ambush and all that expensive metal is sunk or severely damaged (resulting in many MPP's to recover back to where you were).

On one hand this is interesting because it makes players use them cautiously, and a single pitched naval battle can determine who owns the seas. Troops you can generally throw around a bit and take some losses, but losing a couple ships or having a bunch damaged can really set you back. The prospect of rebuilding your fleet, as either Germany or Britain, is usually too depressing to pursue!

[arado234]

I think the naval damages that can happen are pretty accurate.Look what happened at midway in a span of a few days.Japans naval dominance was prettywell finished for good.Considering these turns are in weeks incraments alot of damage should be possible.War ships were expensive to build and should be.

[Edwin P.]

The problem I see is that new players don't use Naval units cautiously. They use them like replaceable corps. They don't wait to engage the enemy on their own terms.

That said, I would like to see Naval Units have the option of using Tactical modes that can give players more control over a battle.

Example:

Mode > Avoid Combat - a naval ship under orders to avoid combat has a chance (based on Experience Advantage, Speed Advantage, and Weather) to avoid combat, and cannot counter attack in this mode.

Example: Destroyer unit is attacked by a Battleship. If the Destroyer is in Avoid Combat Mode it has a chance to avoid combat that turn.

The Chance would be based on its Speed Advantage (+10% per AP advantage), Experience (+10% per Experience Advantage), and Weather (+20% if Stormy Seas).

This would simulate the naval fleet sailing away once it sights the enemy fleet, and not staying around to engage them.

A faster and more experienced fleet has a greater chance to evade combat.

[SeaMonkey]

Have to agree with arado, good example with Midway. I'll mention Pearl Harbor which allowed the Japanese to run unchecked for at least 6 months.

There could have been many more examples but as has been noted most of the participants were very cautious in the use of their capital naval assets.

Good reasons too.

Subs/DDs were expendable.

[targul]

Navy works really well in WAW. Sure it is deadly and I rarely explore building a navy but that does not indicate to me there is not a viable option to present a serious naval threat if that is the direction you want to try.

The one thing that does distrub me is Italian air is totally worthless vs British ships. Game I am presently in it is 41 and it a bomber or fighter where stupid enough to try and bomb a British ship of any kind it shows me losing 6 air to there 0 or 1. This seems inaccurate to me.

I just do not remember the Italian air force as being totally valueless vs the British ships. Am I incorrect where the British ship immune to Italian air?

[Hubert Cater]

Targul,

Are you sure there were no interceptors in the combat losses estimation?

For example, UK Air Fleets or perhaps a Carrier. Also, it could have been that the Italian air was low on supply or not supported by an HQ to produce such a drastic difference... additionally many factors including experience, morale and readiness could affect these numbers as well.

[targul]

The losses projected are verses carrier, battleship and cruiser since all are in reach of my air.

The one battleship was outside his air range but it did not change the displayed odds so I attacked it with my Italian navy and then the land based air and sunk it.

I still have been unwilling to commit my Italian Navy verses his main battle group off Tobruk since the readings on damage to my air seem so high.

Hq is next to the air. They are supplied since they are rebuildable to 10 in all cases. Each time I have considered attacking the ships I was from 8 to 10 points of strength. 10 for the bomber and 8 for the fighter since he is damaged 2 each round doing air cap.

[Hubert Cater]

Targul,

If you have a saved game please send it to me so I'll gladly take a look. Send to support@furysoftware.com.

The only reason I mentioned the above is that the Italian air CTV values are really not much different from the rest of the CTV values for other countries so my guess is that some other factor is perhaps skewing the combat odds against your favour.

[SeaMonkey]

I have noticed strategic bombers taking an inordinate amount of damage from naval vessel attacks that were not intercepted, usually around 2 strength points.

IMO if they are not attacking a CV and are not intercepted they should probably not take any damage other than the + or - (1) random. This is because they usually represent a high altitude attack of which naval WW2 vessels had very little impact on with their low level AA guns.

[Liam]

This does sound about right now SeaMonkey, High Altitude bombing unless bombing a Port Protected Unit would probably not cause much damage. I think originally they considered Naval Bombers part of the fold which might drop torpedoes and would be vulnerable to Low ACK fire

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

I have noticed strategic bombers taking an inordinate amount of damage from naval vessel attacks that were not intercepted, usually around 2 strength points.

IMO if they are not attacking a CV and are not intercepted they should probably not take any damage other than the + or - (1) random. This is because they usually represent a high altitude attack of which naval WW2 vessels had very little impact on with their low level AA guns.

[Guest Mike]

it's eth system that is inaccurate, not the losses particularly.

Navl units simply did not operate teh same way as land units.

typically they sit in port for long periods of time, and they only sortie for specific tasks - eg for a planned operation or in response to some information that a target is in the offing.

Think of het Bismark - it sortied ot attack shipping after Scharnhorst & Gneisenau had successfully done so earlier in the year.

the British fleet is on standby....it has to search to find the Bismark using units from the Home fleet and Gibralter. It sortied on 18 May, and was sunk on hte 27th - in 9 days it sailed from Germany around Iceland into the Atlantic finally being sunk almost directly west of Brest......about 5 or 6 times the distance it could travel in SC2 in a whole month......

so for starters the scale is wrong.....a naval unit should be able to cross the Atlantic about 4 tims in a month-long turn.

more over a raider should not have to sit in one spot to do damage (and of course there should be surface raiders in teh first place....) - it sails around catching merchants where it can - not all in one spot!

Even convoy escorting units operate out of a base......for the allies they would sail out with a convoy, get to some popint in hte atlantic, then sail back to port....the merchant ships would either pick up a new escort, or often sail on without - this commonly if sailing out from the UK.

there was a gap in the Atlantic between the furthest extent of UK based escorts and Canadian based escorts as well as the much more well known "air gap"

so what SHOULD happen is that most naval units should behave much like fighters do...they should be based in a port, and have a chance of "intercepting" enemy naval activity nearby - depending upon the type of both units - eg BB's should not intercept U-boats.

Then here's eth damage model.

Some naval units are made up of relatively large numbers of "small" units - eg DD's, Subs. These units could sometimes get losses made up "in port" without having to actually sail there....eg if a U-boat gets sunk in het Atlantic the rest of the flotilla do not have to sail home to get a repalcement....one arrives from Germany at soem stage, and hte flotilla remains active with its remaining boats in the Atlantic in the mean time.

Certainly some boats might get damaged and have to return to port for repairs....but that doesn't affect the rest of the flotilla - they can still be out there doing whatever it is they are assigned to do.

Capital ships are another thing entirely. sink or severely damage the capital ship(s) at het centre of a BB or CA or CV unit, and that unit is esentially immobilised and hors-de-combat until repairs are done. Moreover if the ship(s) is damaged way out in the Atlantic then it does have to sail back to port befoer anything can be done to fix it.

But in the time scale of the game such recovery still occurs well within 1 turn -eg HMS Illustrious - hit by 8 bombs on 10 Jan 41, made some repairs in Malta but was bombed again and a boiler room flooded, sailed to Alexandria and arrived on 25 January - all well within a month - but in SC2 you can't even move that far in a month if undamaged!

For all these reasons naval warfare at this scale strongly lends itself to the use of areas rather than hexes, with essentially unlimited movement (a ship from the UK could reach Cape Town in less than a month at 10 kts).

Naval units are then allocated tasks - patrol, raider (surface or sub), escort, etc. The chances of intercepting an enemy depend upon the nature of the enemy, it's task and your task.....eg a cruiser unit set to escort has no chance of intercepting a cruiser set to raider.....unless the raider actually attacks a convoy...but a cruiser set to patrol should have a chance of intercepting the raider even if it doesn't attack the convoy....but the raider then gets a chance of attacking the convoy and finding it has no escort at all.

Units such as DD's and SS's (and maybe some form of smaller ships too if desired- perhaps a "small escorts" unit?) can function even if damaged....but Cruiser and larger units based upon a small number of large ships with associated escorts can not operate if their main units are not fit for combat.