Right from the off (2020) I have thought that the naval aspect of the game is pretty pants. The reason it seems is that the designers failed to understand the difference between land and sea warfare.
Here are the glaring examples. The other day I was faced with a large convoy, no naval units just transports and used a battleship and sub to attack it. I lost both. Absolutely ridiculous. Troops, tanks guns etc are merely cargoes on transports not fighting units - error 1.
Submarines. How on earth do the developers think a battleship or cruiser can attack a submarine except on the surface? They cant. Only destroyers, sub chasers, corvettes could. So to me subs need to be reworked completely. Now this could be difficult because really the game needs to take account of when subs are on the surface and when submerged. When submerged their speed needs to be drastically reduced aka level 1 militia almost.
During WWII subs were basically submersibles and spent most of their time on the surface moving around but submerged to attack or keep anonymous if likely to be discovered (eg aircraft patrols) until the XXI types became available or snorts.
Perhaps an approach like if a sub gets to the viewing range of a warship it is assumed to be on the surface then dives, at which point its speed drops dramatically. Then the 'game' changes. The sub has firepower advantage but massive speed disadvantage and it will then only succeed if its initial positioning was to put it on a converging course.
As for attacks against transports, cmon Bytro a battleship versus a convoy is no contest. The BS would hammer it straight off. The reality is the convoy might split up and scatter in order to safeguard as much of the precious cargo as possible.
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104 Replies
18 Mar 2024, 22:03 (edited)
And you too. It is like watching fake news on here. I am only printing facts not opinions. Just read the books man. Enough submariners have written them !
What Alexander said is rubbish and stupid. Why would you reveal your position to an enemy? You dont even have to be in the forces to understand that one.
All too happy to debate opinion not rubbish displayed as facts.
You can think what you want but there is so much rubbish spouted on here and generally it is unbelievable. It just isn't true. Crap like Cruisers sunk submarines, submarines surfacing at night to sink a convoy !!
Well I checked out a few claims from poss Carkiing 6th about cruisers sinking subs. If he used the same sources as I found then no wonder. I found one instance claiming sinking a u-boat only for the date to be the date the u-boat sank the sub. Others the u-boat allegedly sunk by the cruiser had been lost months or years before. I found five instances of this.
It is facts portrayed as opinion that I dont like because it is pure ignorance. Am afraid even respected broadcasters and journalists are just clueless these days. Consider this gem 'a ship arrived by sea today off Gaza'. What was she expecting, the ship (a tug) was air dropped? If I dont know something I'll ask.
And as for being polite I always thank those that help me.
19 Mar 2024, 00:22
BladeFisher wrote:
What Alexander said is rubbish and stupid. Why would you reveal your position to an enemy? You dont even have to be in the forces to understand that one.
Mainly, to save torpedoes which were very big and heavy for a small sub and thus it could only carry a (very) limited supply. Shells are relatively smaller, and U-boats would prefer to spend those on easy targets. It is true that they wouldn't surface to a attack a protected convoy with them, but loose ships and straddlers would surely be sunk by the deck gun, and not by scarce torpedoes.
19 Mar 2024, 00:30
Which is exactly what I said in two posts.
But this was only true in the early part of the war for the Germans and maybe later for US. Reason increased/lack of air detection. Not really interested in the USN tbh.
The over riding issue was maintaining secrecy/not being discovered. You got to remember a sub is very vulnerable on the surface. One stray shell through the pressure hull and wham mission compromised, so caution always exercised. So the use of the deck gun was not as prolific as you might think. I think most were removed by 1943.
19 Mar 2024, 00:31
That’s too bad, considering that the largest navy of the entire war and a whole doctrine in the game is based off of them. You kinda have to be interested in them to make things realistic…
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 00:36
Carking the 6th wrote:
If we were to do that, it would be best to re-add the 50 km range that they used to have. Adding something like 30 is equally useless- they’ll just be outranged. At least being able to somewhat damage cruisers would be helpful.
Are cruisers useless because battleships have longer range guns? No! Cruisers are quire popular with expert players. The speed, AA defense, and better anti-sub attack values make cruisers very dangerous. Giving a small bombardment range to destroyers could make them somewhat useful for shore bombardment, and a lot more useful for intercepting transports and subs without "running into" them and losing HP. Using shoot-and-scoot tactics with destroyers would require quite a bit of skill, and it would add a bit more spice to naval warfare.
19 Mar 2024, 00:56
Destroyers with 30km ranges though? That would get out ranged by mere land artillery. This was not the case in real life.. cruisers are strong because they can still match land units and use their ship armor class to their advantage. This gets pretty muffled with short range destroyers, which apart from perhaps fighting convoys really wouldn’t add ALL that much to them…
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 01:59
I do find it odd that destroyers cant bombard anything. I thought they did quite a bit of that in the island hopping and European landings?
19 Mar 2024, 02:07
Carking the 6th wrote:
Destroyers with 30km ranges though? That would get out ranged by mere land artillery. This was not the case in real life.. cruisers are strong because they can still match land units and use their ship armor class to their advantage. This gets pretty muffled with short range destroyers, which apart from perhaps fighting convoys really wouldn’t add ALL that much to them…
Are you kidding? Let me shoot and scoot transports and subs with destroyers, and I might seriously revisit my default naval research. Right now I'm building cruiser stacks 99% of the time (unless I have Pan Asian). Being able to build a slightly weaker but much faster and cheaper naval unit would be awesome. It would save a lot of food, metal and manpower in the early game.
Of course, I'm not getting into a gun battle with bigger ships. Like I'm not getting my cruisers into a gun battle with battleships. But give me a research level advantage, and numerical superiority, and you just might see wolf packs of destroyers going after capital ships.
19 Mar 2024, 02:10
It would make no sense. Why should destroyers have shorter range than artillery, which have far smaller (and shorter range) guns in real life? That’s unrealistic. Having a decent naval unit (that is easily blown up unless you are active enough anyway) is cool and all, but having their ranges artificially reduced is honestly weird.
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 02:12
Carking I presume you are American? The US did NOT have the largest navy throughout the war. Holywood syndrone again?
Firstly as usual the Yanks came in part way through (twice now) but US production was phenomenal so by 1945 the USN was the largest in the world. Strangely the RN and associate navies had more subs at the end than the USN. Now that did surprise me.
To be serious for a moment it is quite frightening that the US 2024 election could lead to history repeating itself if DT gets in. As usual the UK government is also trying to ignore the lessons of history (as it usually does).
19 Mar 2024, 02:16
I live there, but I am not American. You just contradicted yourself. Its fleet at its height was bigger than any other, so yes, it was the largest fleet of the war. The US navy crushed Japan with only minimal British naval support (most of the Royal navy was busy fighting the Germans and Italians) and still managed to help the United Kingdom on that front (America gave the UK quite a few ships.) America did not consider subs very useful, especially since carriers (which they did have) were the most important ships at this point.
What does this have to do with elections, exactly?
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 03:27
Carking the 6th wrote:
It would make no sense. Why should destroyers have shorter range than artillery, which have far smaller (and shorter range) guns in real life? That’s unrealistic. Having a decent naval unit (that is easily blown up unless you are active enough anyway) is cool and all, but having their ranges artificially reduced is honestly weird.
The standard 5 inch gun on a destroyer had a range of less than 10 km. Land artillery came in many different sizes. The smaller calibers are not represented by the artillery unit, I think of them as being part of infantry unit types. Larger calibers had ranges in the 20-30 km neighborhood. I think those are the standalone artillery units in CoW.
It makes sense for destroyers to have less range than long range land based artillery in CoW.
19 Mar 2024, 04:18
I did some research, and it seems those 5 inch guns would fire closer to 16 km. British, Japanese and German ships could go as high as 20+ km.. artillery of course varied massively, but estimates that I saw ranged from 10 km to 23 km. Rather equal.
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 04:49
Under 15 km for maximum range, not necessarily maximum effective range, but sure.
Land based artillery could easily surpass that. And keep in mind, at maximum range, you didn't get pinpoint accuracy, you get something more suitable for saturation fire. What you need to suppress large army formations. In essence, land based artillery had greater effect at longer ranges AND land based artillery had bigger guns than destroyers.
Destroyers could move around quickly and get close to shore. This was especially useful in island hopping. Destroyers don't need to compete with land based artillery. Or with capital ships.
19 Mar 2024, 06:46
But they could. Many examples of destroyers line the fletcher class commencing surface action exist. It would also just be better from a game standpoint, rocket arty has this range (like those Pan-Asian mortar units) so why can’t this? Furthermore, destroyers originally did have this range. If it’s added back, it should be kept.
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 08:47
Carking the 6th wrote:
I live there, but I am not American. You just contradicted yourself. Its fleet at its height was bigger than any other, so yes, it was the largest fleet of the war. The US navy crushed Japan with only minimal British naval support (most of the Royal navy was busy fighting the Germans and Italians) and still managed to help the United Kingdom on that front (America gave the UK quite a few ships.) America did not consider subs very useful, especially since carriers (which they did have) were the most important ships at this point.
What does this have to do with elections, exactly?
Elections. In his first Presidency Trump pursued a very US isolationist policy. USA had such a policy in 1939-41 though Roosevelt possibly through close affinity with Churchill fought against it somewhat. Same thing could happen over Ukraine.
I didnt contradict myself. At the start of the war 1939 (not Dec 7 1941) the RN was the largest navy numerically in the world. I can find no records which shows when parity was reached but by the end of the war the USN was the largest.
Subs. Again sorry but you are not correct about US subs! The US submarine fleet absolutely decimated the Japanese supply lines so how you can consider them viewed as not very useful . . . But it was an economic tool
Militarily I am not sure if any on here understand how subs were used. The Germans and USN were similar in that it was an attritional war against merchant shipping. The RN were more interdictional (if such a word exists). The IJN strangely used them as part of their surface fleet, which probably explains why they were viewed as not very successful.
19 Mar 2024, 11:36
So you did contradict yourself. After 1941, the USN was larger. At the and of the war and at their heights, the USN was by far the largest fleet of the war, bigger than the Royal navy before or after the war and larger than all other navies combined.
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 12:14
No I didn't. You implied that the war was 1941-45. I corrected you and said it was 1939-45, which is correct. You said the USN was the largest throughout the war. It wasnt the RN was at the beginning of the war. What I dont know and I suspect neither do you, which month/day/hour was parity reached between 1939 and 1945 ! And to be quite honest who cares.
The reason I thought you were American was your spelling of defence. Defense a give away. lol
19 Mar 2024, 13:25
Carking the 6th wrote:
That’s too bad, considering that the largest navy of the entire war and a whole doctrine in the game is based off of them. You kinda have to be interested in them to make things realistic…
Of the entire war, not through it. That’s not what I meant and you know it. Noblebright, is that you? Either way, sources say that the UK was surpassed in 1943. That doesn’t really matter, though. It was the largest fleet during the entire war since at no other point at the start or end was there a larger naval force than the US at the start of the war. Hence, largest fleet.
And do you happen to be British…? Or maybe Swedish…
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
19 Mar 2024, 13:57
Carking I really do appreciate your help, you're a good guy but now you are tying yourself in knots !!
Fact WWII 1939-45 RN largest fleet at start, USN largest fleet at end. And you have said '43 was the switch over. Great.
Notwithstanding here in UK we didn't exactly get on with Adm King, it isnt an issue who had the largest fleet.
A bit of speculation. What do you think would have happened if the USN carriers had been at Pearl Dec 7th?
