naval battles

The following table shows how this would change the relations in between the ships - I compare 6 destroyers against 3 cruisers against 2 battleships, because all three stacks cost quite precisely the same; values in brackets are the current situation before my proposed change:

(HP*attack)

(HP*(attack+defense)/2)

(HP*air defense)

In my humble opinion Naval armed forces is the only part of the game that CoW represents adequately as is. I don't see any reason to change it, current stats are by no means perfect but adequately represent the strength and weakness of the current units.

Only two notable exceptions Cruisers being one as in real life you had light and heavy cruisers that served two entirely different roles but the game in general does ok by them representing it as a hybrid.

Subs are misrepresented they are WAY too strong compared to their WWII counterparts, which is normal as their primary role was to sink cargo vessels not ships of war which has no similar mechanism in game. The element of surprise being their biggest asset once they lost it willingly or otherwise they were as good as dead. This however would be very hard to reproduce in game... Perhaps up the attack values both defensively and offensively but drop HP to 5?

Having said that, I don't see any valid reason why destroyers should gain such a big defensive advantage in ship to ship fighting. That was not their role and they should indeed get crushed if being used that way. As was mentioned their main lethal weapon (to capital ships) was torpedoes which to be used correctly in a running fight they had to get in, real close, to score hits exactly like what PT boats did. Hence this role being relegated to PT boats which were smaller more maneuverable targets with less numerous crew and much easier to replace losses compared to losing Destroyers. Using Destroyers for torpedo runs was the exception not the rule as more often than not they would get destroyed before getting within torpedo range so it was a tactic only used in desperation.

I also believe (like Kanaris) that the naval part of the battle is represented adequately now, with the possible exception of the subs been overly strong - but I accept it because there are no cargo ships in the game.

Perhaps the only thing that I am missing is the ability to really massacre enemy capital ships using planes. The top level Naval Bomber attacks with 18, while a top level Cruiser defends with 14 - but, of course, the cruiser will not be alone, and each escorting Destroyer Lvl6 adds another 7 to that. Battleships Lvl6 have 11 defense against planes. Since the capital ships have a massive number of hitpoints, it is obvious that the odds are much against the planes and in favor of the ships. In practical terms, if one makes an "SBDE-perfect" combined fleet he is invulnerable to air attacks, even without having a single carrier (this is illogical imho).

atreas1 wrote:

Since the capital ships have a massive number of hitpoints, it is obvious that the odds are much against the planes and in favor of the ships. In practical terms, if one makes an "SBDE-perfect" combined fleet he is invulnerable to air attacks, even without having a single carrier (this is illogical imho).

Having said that in real life there is a reason why the Japs resorted to kamikaze tactics. Towards the end of '43 beginning '44 they could not get anywhere near the American capital ships using regular torpedo and dive bombing tactics (where the sacrifice of the airplane was not pre-planned)

The AAA fire greeting enemy aircraft was so fierce that friendly CAP had designated no fly zones where past a certain point they would not follow enemy planes any closer to the fleet formation for fear of getting splashed by friendly fire. So in essence properly formed fleets rendered conventional attacks ineffective by attriting enemy aircraft with layer ranged defensive fire before the enemy aircraft could get close enough to deliver they ordinance.

In my opinion on this aspect CoW is depicting WWII reality adequately.

It is more than slightly difficult to estimate, back at that time, to what degree each one of the following factors contributed, during the Pacific war: code breaking by the USA, radar that only the USA essentially used, complete air supremacy (both in numbers and in quality of troops), lack of oil for the Japs, etc. In most of the battles the Japanese planes were unable to approach anywhere near the enemy vessels (they were mostly killed in the sky by planes).

Seeing the things from the reverse side, for example, we can see that the Japanese fleet, that had an almost equally good AA protection, was always killed by the planes. Two other factors also point to the direction of complete switch to planes supremacy: the extinction of battleships after WWII and the fact that in all naval battles the most important target was always considered to be the enemy carriers.

Now, to return to CoW (where navy is exactly the last thing I would touch) I only find the carriers somewhat undervalued, even in a navy-based strategy (if somehow a map drags so long that this becomes relevant).

So you're not convinced!

OK, let's argue on this:

Kanaris wrote:

I don't see any valid reason why destroyers should gain such a big defensive advantage in ship to ship fighting. That was not their role

* To fight at distance, CoW ships use only their attack value, so the attack value represents the primary naval artillery of the ship => battleships must have a very high attack value, cruisers a medium one and destroyers a low one.

* Fighting in close combat is represented in CoW by melee battle, for which CoW ships use both their attack and defense value. Here the attack value still represents the primary artillery, since it can be used at short distance as well. While the defense value represents weapons that could be used only at short range (torpedoes and secondary, low calibre artillery), as well as speed cause it helps to escape torpedoes. So battleships should have a very low defense value, cruisers a medium one and destroyers a high one.

Kanaris wrote:

Using Destroyers for torpedo runs was the exception not the rule as more often than not they would get destroyed before getting within torpedo range so it was a tactic only used in desperation.

Anyhow this doesn't mean that WW2 destroyers weren't capable of fighting taller ships with torpedoes. They even were designed primarily for that. Are you saying they carried all these torpedoes just for decoration? No, whenever two fleets met, always the destroyers approached close enough to use their torpedoes. Take for example battle of the Java Sea (--> Wikipedia link <--).

Or let's look for example at the American "Later Fletcher" class, 62 ships of that type were built 1942 to 1944:

Artillery: 5 x 12,7-cm guns - with that they couldn't even tickle a battleship or heavy cruiser.

Torpedo tubes: 12 x 53,3-cm - that's heavy; that was a lot.

Now you said there was no need to change anything about Navy. But in my opinion, naval battles are very one-dimensional. You move your fleet within fire range and that's it - bigger fleet wins. My change would open several tactics: Fire duel at range / engaging at close combat with only your destroyers / engaging at close combat with both your destroyers and cruisers. And it would become a question in which formation you position your ships: Placing your destroyers and/or cruisers ahead of your battleships leaves the latter vulnerable against air, but having all in one stack makes it vulnerable to enemy destroyers engaging it in melee combat, while enemy battleships and/or cruisers stand behind and fire at range.

More importantly my proposal would make it more reasonable to build destroyers, cruisers and (optionally) battleships, which every nation did in real life, but which currently never makes sense in CoW.

Worst idea ever. If you have not seen right naval fleets in CoW it does not mean there aren't some possible.

You are inconsistently. You say there is no defence here, but only dealing damage for attacking or being attacked. And after that you want higher defensive stats for destroyers? Sorry if battle ship on patrol run in "defensive static fleet of destroyers it would die with your changes. How realisitc is that ? "close combat" is not really close. It only a graphical and virtual projection of naval battle within direct view range. Rangebattle is battle without direct view range.

Who said battleship would not kill destroyers before they are firing torpedos?

There is no inconsistency. What I said is that the defense value of ships cannot be imagined the same way as for land units (like the ability to hold ground against an approaching enemy). Instead it represents the combat strength at short range, which was significantly higher for destroyers than it was for battleships (of course not if comparing 1 destroyer with 1 battleship, but if comparing 6 destroyers with 1 battleship, which had about the same costs in reality).

f118 wrote:

if battle ship on patrol run in "defensive static fleet of destroyers it would die with your changes. How realisitc is that ?

f118 wrote:

Who said battleship would not kill destroyers before they are firing torpedos?

Hans just accept it: DD are a nothing against these monsters. They wouldnt engage simply because they wouldn't exist to engage. We casually accept a myriad of simplifications in this game, please dont insist on a completely untrue one.

Had it not been for the planes BB would still rule the seas. That is the simple truth.

No, is difficult for me to accept that.

When WW2 started, the accumulated fleets of GB, France, Germany and Japan consisted of 36 battleships, 129 cruisers and 445 destroyers (source https://weltkrieg2.de/flotten-1939/), while USA focused even much more on destroyers.

CoW is very different: In most situations it's the best choice to build twice as many destroyers as battleships and no cruisers at all. That's boring and not realistic. And the reason is that destroyers in CoW have no chance against battleships, but did have a chance in reality (only by getting close enough to fire torpedoes, of course). Or do you mean to say engineers around the world made a mistake using up the biggest part of the payload and deck space of destroyers to let them carry primarily torpedoes and torpedo tubes??

They all didn't notice the primary weapon they gave to the about 1200 destroyers active during WW2 was actually unusable?

You know better than all these engineers (provocative question, I know )?

I was avoiding this thread on purpose as in my humble opinion everything that had to be said did. Although I understand that you would like for things to be different as far as naval battles go I do not understand why, neither from a historical perspective nor from a gaming perspective what you ask it just doesn't track

Historically speaking what you refer as proof that DDs did take part in battles (battle of Java sea) proves the exact opposite. American DDs where NOT able to pierce the Jap DD screens and were driven off repeatedly by the longer ranged guns of Jap cruisers. They resorted to trying several torpedo runs from great distances and failed to hit any vital shipping. Eventually they gave up and headed back to Pearl.

Unless used in close range what is referred to a "shot down the throat" torpedo runs do not work. It is very hard for a DD to get close to a capital ship to launch a successful torpedo attack as its light armour cannot withstand even one direct hit from the main battery of a heavy cruiser or battleship. As I explained before that is why this role was delegated to patrol boats that are much more manoeuvrable and offer a smaller silhouette thus much harder to hit.

DDs assumed the role of screening the fleet and ASW duty. By the way PT boats were also taking horrendous losses for the amount of damage caused to enemy ships so even this practice was abandoned. Here is a fun fact for you, the majority of successful impact torpedo hits launched from DDs were on friendly targets in an effort to scuttle abandoned ships that their crews were unable or did not have time to scuttle them selves before abandoning ship.