Hearts of Iron IV - Developer Diary 10 - Naval Combat

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I think the Torch landings made a pit stop in Gibraltar first, but I could be wrong. Ike's HQ was in the Rock, that's certain.

No, they didn't. Not Gib' anyway. All of the landing forces sent to capture the area around Casablanca sailed directly from the US, whilst those sent to Morocco (Oran & Algiers) sailed directly from Britain.

Apart from the fact that people were watching Gibraltar, the whole point of the assault ships (in fact it was a design requirement of the LST2s) was that they could sail straight across the Atlantic & put troops/tanks etc. on to a beach without the need to offload in the UK (or anywhere else) and thus avoid all that dicking about with unloading, unpacking, arming, re-greasing, re-fuelling etc. etc. and finally re-embarking as it would take days.

The landings were, of course, supported by a large number of liberty ships (which sailed from the same starting points as the invasion forces) carrying additional supplies, troops & equipment to be loaded on to the LSTs, LCTs etc. for landing support as well as unloading at port facilities when captured & available.


Edit: Yes nubbymcnunub. Gib' is pretty small. In fact, it's tiny. Almost exactly the same size as Midway!
 
Last edited:
One of the things that makes the Torch landings hard to compare to those in the Pacific or Normandy is that they were expecting substantially less opposition.
 
They weren't sure what to expect. But while many landings in the Pacific expected heavy resistance few ended up being that way. Many landings were pretty easy with limited resistance where the actual fighting took place inland. Even Utah was a breeze.
 
Sorry Paradox, but I still don't see anything suggested that is going to make is so you don't have to micro manage your fleet.(Japan/USA mainly) I really would like to see the range on the carrier based fleets used without having to always do it manually.
 
First, looks awesome and I'm *really* looking forward to this game. Question: If DDs have good ASW and CLs have good AA, anti-screen, and torpedoes for large ships, why not just spam a bunch of DDs and CLs? I hope the CLs would get chewed up badly by the heavy ships but the way it's worded it sounds like CLs are dangerous to all but subs.
 
First, looks awesome and I'm *really* looking forward to this game. Question: If DDs have good ASW and CLs have good AA, anti-screen, and torpedoes for large ships, why not just spam a bunch of DDs and CLs? I hope the CLs would get chewed up badly by the heavy ships but the way it's worded it sounds like CLs are dangerous to all but subs.

DDs and CLs are screens; their job, traditionally, is to protect the big ships. They can pack quite a punch (CLs), but they usually don't have much in the way of armour.
 
First, looks awesome and I'm *really* looking forward to this game. Question: If DDs have good ASW and CLs have good AA, anti-screen, and torpedoes for large ships, why not just spam a bunch of DDs and CLs? I hope the CLs would get chewed up badly by the heavy ships but the way it's worded it sounds like CLs are dangerous to all but subs.

DDs and CLs are screens; their job, traditionally, is to protect the big ships. They can pack quite a punch (CLs), but they usually don't have much in the way of armour.

It all depends upon how the Armour Vs Penetration will work.

Obviously, if your armour doesn't get penetrated, you shouldn't suffer much damage, if it does then you should suffer a lot.

The hard part is when you don't have much armour.

DDs, generally don't have any real armour so take little damage from anything, but suffer more than if they had lots & hadn't been penetrated. In most accounts of DDs being sunk by gunfire, the damage that kills them would normally be termed a critical hit. The way to take out destroyers is, basically, to fill them full of holes & score multiple critical hits. It's the number of hits rather than the size of the shells that count. So lots of small rapid-fire guns (5" DPs anyone?) are the way to go.

Light cruisers should take a similarly proportionately low amount of damage from big guns (as the shells pass through both sides, as with destroyers, to explode relatively harmlessly outside of the hull) and take little damage from the small guns carried by destroyers (because they carry enough armour to be protected) but should suffer disproportionately high damage from medium sized guns like those carried by light & heavy cruisers.

If the correct rock-paper-scissors balance can be achieved...

CLs swat DDs
CAs swat CLs & pummel DDs
BCs swat CAs & CLs
BBs swat CAs & pummel BCs
DDs (& some CLs) are virtually immune to large calibre gunfire and can to terrible/fatal damage to any ship if it hits with torpedoes. But (unless they're Japanese) they only get one chance.

It should also be remembered that BBs carry secondary armament similar to a CL (most "modern" US BBs had about the equivalent of an Atlanta strapped to each side) & BCs carry secondary armament somewhere between a DD & a CL. One item on my wish-list was anti-destroyer or "secondary" armament stat's for ships. Convoy attack, Sea Attack & Destroyer Attack if you will.

The pocket battleships should score damage (through penetration) similar to BCs but suffer as a CA.

Heavily armoured light cruisers, like some of the big US jobs, should get obliterated by battleships just as CAs would.
 
But (unless they're Japanese) they only get one chance.

But what have we learned from HOI1-3? There are no nation specific units. If you research it you can build it and it will be identical in stats to every other unit built by every other nation using the same techs.

So either everyone only gets one shot or everyone gets multiple shots.
 
I'm also opposed to unique units for various nations. Hearts of Iron is a sandbox system, which in turn means anyone (technology, politics and whatnot permitting) should be able to do anything. If certain nations are barred from doing certain things, there should be a reason why, owing to culture, politics, etc.

For example, if suicide units were implemented, I believe they should be limited to the countries that would historically allow the use of such units. Playing as France and being able to train suicide pilots would break immersion for me.
 
It should also be remembered that BBs carry secondary armament similar to a CL (most "modern" US BBs had about the equivalent of an Atlanta strapped to each side) & BCs carry secondary armament somewhere between a DD & a CL. One item on my wish-list was anti-destroyer or "secondary" armament stat's for ships. Convoy attack, Sea Attack & Destroyer Attack if you will.

The pocket battleships should score damage (through penetration) similar to BCs but suffer as a CA.

Heavily armoured light cruisers, like some of the big US jobs, should get obliterated by battleships just as CAs would.

I was about to scold you for forgetting the secondary armament on BBs. Then I saw the second half of your post. ;)

Were there any battleships or battlecruisers with insufficient secondary armament, though? Reading up on Yamato, Iowa, Bismark, and King George V, all of them had sufficient secondary armament to kill any DDs or CLs that happened into range.

It seems to me that since all of them had sufficient killing power against screens through secondary armament, that a separate stat is not needed. It's not like anyone was building or designing battleships bereft of 5 inch guns.

Hell, even the Essex class carriers had 12 5 inch guns on them, although it looks like they were set up more for anti-aircraft duty than anti-ship duty, for obvious reasons.
 
Were there any battleships or battlecruisers with insufficient secondary armament, though? Reading up on Yamato, Iowa, Bismark, and King George V, all of them had sufficient secondary armament to kill any DDs or CLs that happened into range.
Depends what you consider insufficient. Most of the WWI vintage ships did not have a great secondary armament. Repulse and Renown had only 4" guns; the British and Japanese WWI superdreadnoughts had six inch single guns in casemates, which would have been of questionable value. I can't talk about the Italians or Americans off the top of my head, though IIRC most of the US battleships that saw service in WWII did have a LOT of 5" guns.
 
But what have we learned from HOI1-3? There are no nation specific units. If you research it you can build it and it will be identical in stats to every other unit built by every other nation using the same techs.

So either everyone only gets one shot or everyone gets multiple shots.

How about a tech that's difficult to get, that Japan starts off with (or close to), or an expensive variant that, again, Japan can go with from the get-go. Have it possible for everyone to have multiple shots, but Japan is in the box seat for having that set up early?
 
One thing to note though about the surface warfare equation is that, at least in the Pacific, the vast majority of surface actions occured at night; and very often at extreme point-blank range which is how you got US cruisers crippling the Hiei.

Which also highlights the enormous importance of radar; which allowed for accurate firing in both nighttime and bad weather.
 
But what have we learned from HOI1-3? There are no nation specific units. If you research it you can build it and it will be identical in stats to every other unit built by every other nation using the same techs.

So either everyone only gets one shot or everyone gets multiple shots.

How about a tech that's difficult to get, that Japan starts off with (or close to), or an expensive variant that, again, Japan can go with from the get-go. Have it possible for everyone to have multiple shots, but Japan is in the box seat for having that set up early?

My opinion exactly and very very easy to implement.

The Oxygen wet-heater type engine that drove the Long Lance (& its derivatives) could have been researched by other nations. It was, however, deemed too difficult to implement safely and only Japan developed the special materials & techniques required between the wars. In game terms, this would give Japan something like 1944 torpedo tech's* in 1936 in exactly the same way that Britain starts with RADAR.

Consequently, with such massively advanced torpedoes, Japan chose to maximise their potential by developing armoured mounts that were re-loadable and had their DDs, CL, & CAs carry re-loads. The re-load capability is both a doctrine and a hardware tech'. Some might suggest that the very idea of using pure Oxygen would require a doctrine too.

Yes, anyone can research these but again, as with assault ships & infantry landing craft, Japan should start a 1936 game with these tech's because they did IRL and it would take a looonnng time for anyone to catch-up.

In fact, due to the secrecy surrounding the Long Lance, (type II air :rofl:) you'd need successful espionage just to find out how far behind you are and that there IS a need to catch-up.**


On the other hand, the USA chose NOT to equip their cruisers (neither CA nor CLs) with torpedoes. So there's a doctrinal issue there and a significant amount of research that the USA needs to perform in order to give torpedoes to anything bigger than a DD.***



* The range & power of the Long Lance wasn't matched until after the war.
**Some ships hit by Long Lance torpedoes didn't know they were even in combat range and thought they had struck mines! It was a long time before they learned the truth.
***The Atlanta class CLs were, in fact, designed as destroyer flotilla leaders. ;)
 
Last edited:
It is worth noting though, that the Long Lances on the cruisers sometimes blew up spectacularly after being hit, leading to the loss of at least two cruisers off Samar to 5 inch gun fire (one to a Destroyer Escort, one to the lone puny gun of a converted merchantman carrier)
 
It is worth noting though, that the Long Lances on the cruisers sometimes blew up spectacularly after being hit, leading to the loss of at least two cruisers off Samar to 5 inch gun fire (one to a Destroyer Escort, one to the lone puny gun of a converted merchantman carrier)

Hmm...

Don't know about that DE but the Gambier Bay was a Casablanca class, not a convert. Point taken, however.

I do know that there were also "occasions" when a Japanese cruiser under air attack failed to jettison her loaded torpedoes and got taken-out by bomb hits on the mounts.

Considering the number of Japanese cruisers sunk by bombs compared to the number of Japanese cruisers sunk by taking bomb hits to loaded torpedo mounts, I would suggest that these events were rare in the extreme. Comparable to the pride of your fleet blowing-up ten minutes in to combat.
 
Don't know about that DE but the Gambier Bay was a Casablanca class, not a convert. Point taken, however.

I do know that there were also "occasions" when a Japanese cruiser under air attack failed to jettison her loaded torpedoes and got taken-out by bomb hits on the mounts.

Considering the number of Japanese cruisers sunk by bombs compared to the number of Japanese cruisers sunk by taking bomb hits to loaded torpedo mounts, I would suggest that these events were rare in the extreme. Comparable to the pride of your fleet blowing-up ten minutes in to combat.

The Samuel B Roberts is generally acknowledged to have hit the torpedo mount of Chokai, albeit given the little ship utterly butchered the Japanese cruiser with so many hits the torpedo mount explosion may have been superflous.

Nobody's entirely sure which of the jeeps scored the hit on Chikuma though (Gambier Bay in particular was badly damaged by that point), although going from memory I think Hornfischer credits it to Kitukin Bay.

And yeah, there were bomb hits on the mounts which wrecked at least one cruiser. The volatile nature of the mounts is why no other Navy really went for them, especially the USN who felt that cruisers shouldn't be risked to do torpedo attacks in the first place.