Naval Plans for the World's Naval Powers

[Chromos]

An important thing to remember here is that “modern” heavy cruisers are actually bigger (longer) than old battleships (Queen Elizabeth 645’, Baltimore 673’) and they are by no means nimble enough to evade once within about 15,000m where flight time is below 30 seconds.

The typical 8” CA armament couldn’t penetrate even an old battleship (9.4” @ 10,000m Vs 13” belt of Queen Elizabeth) therefore, is incapable of inflicting significant damage.

Seriously. In a stand-up between a Queen Elizabeth & a Baltimore, my money would be on the Queen Elizabeth every time. Even a group of them would only be able to evade.

I’d actually be surprised if a Baltimore survived long enough to get in range of her guns.



Edit: Even the Scharnhorst wouldn't stand-up to the old rust-bucket Ramillies.

I fully agree on the former, but not on the fight with the Scharnhorst.
The Scharnhorst had quite better armour and the quickfire 11" were of new design. Not like the old 15" of Vanguard etc.
So they would not sink instantly, but for sure capable of heavily cripple the Ramilles rather quick. No Range advantage for Ramilles in the sense of a tactical advantage etc..
While Ramilles could also count only on the same, but was slower etc..

 

[Big Nev]

At extreme effective range, the 11” could penetrate up to 3” of deck armour, reducing as range closes. Queen Elizabeth had 4” of deck armour.

Scharnhorst also had (maximum of) 4” of deck armour which could be penetrated by the BL 15”Mk I at any range.

It would require a headlong charge to get within effective gun range for the 11” to penetrate the Queen Elizabeth’s 13” belt before getting crippled. And I assure you that the Brit’ 15” gun would penetrate the Scharnhorst’s 13¾” belt long before that happened.


EDIT: I'm struggling to find the armour distribution for Ramillies but the fact is that Scharnhorst & Gneisenau wouldn’t close on HX 106 (under orders) for fear of getting pasted by the old battleship.

 

[Chromos]

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had strict orders not to engage any hvy secured convoy.

And please don't think about the old 11", as imho it is a misconception to think it was not useful enough.
The same as many think S was a BC, as it was not a BC, it was a fast BB with smaller main art.
It had very good modern ship and its armor was designed and applied with modern production technics.
Nowhere comparable with WWI.
Also maybe interesting, Germany decided for lower calibre as Uk most of the time, since the hvy Art of german warships was most time as effective as UK ones wich one higher calibre class.
Thats why the german designs had often still had 30cm whenUK had 34cm, or had34cm while UK had 38cm in WWI. Even with the Bismark class they were still staying with 38cm while common was already 40cm.

In S last Battle ~50 Torpedos were fired at S, and it had already cripled RADAR and was burning when in the bad weather also Duke of York opened fire.
DoY was a modern ship and not an old WWI type.
So it was not a "sitting duck" maybe but at least a blind duck pretty early in the fight and UK had a big position advantage. Not a fair fight for a comparison like we had in mind with one on one..


Look for comparison about the 12" of Alaska class:

The Mark 8 weighed 121,856 pounds (55,273 kg) including the breech and was capable of an average rate of fire of 2.4–3 rounds a minute. It could throw a 1,140 lb. (517.093 kg) Mark 18 armor piercing shell 38,573 yards (35,271 meters) at an elevation of 45°, while the "barrel life" of the guns was 344 shots; when compared to the 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun found in the Iowa-class battleships, Alaska-class cruisers could fire about 54 more shots.[1][3]

As a result of the decision to fire "super heavy" armor piercing projectiles, the Mark 8's deck plate penetration was better and the side belt armor penetration equal to the older (but larger) 14"/50 caliber gun.

The previous 12" gun manufactured for the U.S. Navy was the Mark 7 version, which had been designed and installed in the WWI era Wyoming-class battleships.[1] The Mark 7 could throw an 870 pounds (390 kg) shell 24,000 yards (21,950 meters),[4] showing the higher quality of the Mark 8; earning the Mark 8 the honor of "by far the most powerful weapon of its caliber ever placed in service."[5]

The 28 cm SK C/34 had a lower shell weight as the Mark 8, but that is about also due the slightly higher calibre and type of ammunition of the Mark 8.
The Mark 8 heavy ammo was also 10 year later of design. And it is noetable that US was sure that the new ammunition type that was also used on the Iowas was capable enough to go head on head with Yamato if they had to.
Date for penetration power for 28 cm SK C/34:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_11-545_skc34.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_cm_SK_C/34_naval_gun
This gun was also not used on Deutschland Class, that vessles used the older 11" gun(28 cm SK C/28).

Ramilles, wich was your first example had ~64mm -> 3inch..
While the 11" gun could penetrate up to 76mm.
And for the record, the upper deck armor of QE was also up to 45mm and the under deck armor was up to 76mm.
S had up to 105mm for its under deck armor..

But thats all statistics.
As you would need to take into account the placement of the armor, the angle and the armor type used etc..
If you look at the gun charakteristics, they are of course not as good as the modern more heavies of that time, but still hvy enough to inflict serious dmg.
Think about a "one on one", then S was also quite faster as R or even QE, it could decide when and if to engage, had a higher rate of fire(even higher as the Mark 8!) etc.
So its not a sure bet who will win.
And quite different as to think of a CA against a BC or even a BB. Wich would be silly in most situations if not in bad weather where the range would be limited etc..
Noteworthy is here that S got ist RADAR cripled by a CA shot in such circumstances. And UK commanders were of course quite often very good and bold in the usage of their ships.

Armor for Ramilles:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ramillies_(07)
I've more data in books, but as I was writing that up between testing cool game features, I didn't found the time to look at them.

Cheers,
Chromos

 

[Secret Master]

Most Italian cruisers were modern and very fast, as they sacrificed armor for speed. Italy's main problem was its inability to field its navy due to political reasons (Mussolini wasn't willing to use his navy for what it was designed for: to fight), even though its navy wasn't bad on paper; Italy never used it, so we don't know how well it really would've performed. Germany squandered its navy on fruitless convoy raids, so nothing there that applies to your question.

The unwillingness of the Regina Marina to go on the offensive is why I looked to the Pacific in the first place.

Maybe I'll take a closer look at the Med.

SM. In order to determine the effectiveness of old battleships against modern heavy cruisers, just read the account of the battle of the River Plait.

I didn't even think of looking at that battle because it had German ships, and I wasn't even thinking along the lines of "Germans had older ships facing newer British cruisers."

that's if you exclude the five battles off Guadalcanal, and Leyte Gulf

That's where I started looking first. I got some interesting data from Guadalcanal, but I disregarded Leyte Gulf because there were a ton of carriers in the vicinity that I didn't want to "taint" the results with their impact on commander decision making.

Oh, and fuel shortages didn't help!!

And people wonder why so many Italian players annex Romania ahistorically.

Yes, thats true, theer have been some AAR's where CA/CL fleets wipe the RN out of the Sea and even managed to kill the CV's(positioning and speed is key).
If you "Zerg" them, the dmg they hand out is big enough to kill eveything. And they stay long enough in battle to close range due to the numbers.
Against faster CV's it will be of course hard, but you can also use land based Aircover to nail them down.

In game terms some units need need maybe lower hull. So a hit will be more devastating.
As for now even A DD has 1.0 while a BB has 1.5.
And the SeaDefence raised for the big ships to simulate the armour to some extend.
As smaller vessels can eavade shots through their speed, and bigger ones due to their armor..
And as bigger have also more hull, they stay longer in battle..

Nah, I'm not interested in CAs versus CTFs at all. I know all about that.

I am focused on a much smaller issue. I just want to compare in-game performance of 1940 tech CAs against pre-1936 BBs versus the historical record. I don't even know how they compare, so I can't comment on any changes I would or would not make.

The typical 8” CA armament couldn’t penetrate even an old battleship (9.4” @ 10,000m Vs 13” belt of Queen Elizabeth) therefore, is incapable of inflicting significant damage.

Seriously. In a stand-up between a Queen Elizabeth & a Baltimore, my money would be on the Queen Elizabeth every time. Even a group of them would only be able to evade.

I’d actually be surprised if a Baltimore survived long enough to get in range of her guns.



Edit: Even the Scharnhorst wouldn't stand-up to the old rust-bucket Ramillies.

Interesting.

It seems like most people agree that, historically, newer cruisers still had a firepower and durability disadvantage against older BBs. But so far everyone has just talked about main armament.

What about torpedoes? My assumption is that the game abstracts both gun and torpedo attacks together into a single sea attack value. I was browsing through heavy cruiser specs, and while it appears that US CAs didn't have torpedoes, other nations did (like Blucher and Lutzow). Do these torpedoes realistically give CAs penetration against large capital ships even if they have to place themselves in substantial danger to fire?

These questions of mine are part of some larger questions I have about comparing certain game mechanics to historical battles on the ocean. For the moment, I am most interested in determining whether the game has, perhaps inadvertently, made pre-1936 capital ships way to wimpy in comparison to post-1936 ships of all kinds. But because the war was, in many ways, decided by air power, those damn carriers and land based aircraft keep "spoiling" various historical battles I examine.

 

[Big Nev]

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had strict orders not to engage any hvy secured convoy.

And please don't think about the old 11", as imho it is a misconception to think it was not useful enough.
The same as many think S was a BC, as it was not a BC, it was a fast BB with smaller main art.
It had very good modern ship and its armor was designed and applied with modern production technics.
Nowhere comparable with WWI.
Also maybe interesting, Germany decided for lower calibre as Uk most of the time, since the hvy Art of german warships was most time as effective as UK ones wich one higher calibre class.
Thats why the german designs had often still had 30cm whenUK had 34cm, or had34cm while UK had 38cm in WWI. Even with the Bismark class they were still staying with 38cm while common was already 40cm.

In S last Battle ~50 Torpedos were fired at S, and it had already cripled RADAR and was burning when in the bad weather also Duke of York opened fire.
DoY was a modern ship and not an old WWI type.
So it was not a "sitting duck" maybe but at least a blind duck pretty early in the fight and UK had a big position advantage. Not a fair fight for a comparison like we had in mind with one on one..


Look for comparison about the 12" of Alaska class:

The 28 cm SK C/34 had a lower shell weight as the Mark 8, but that is about also due the slightly higher calibre and type of ammunition of the Mark 8.
The Mark 8 heavy ammo was also 10 year later of design. And it is noetable that US was sure that the new ammunition type that was also used on the Iowas was capable enough to go head on head with Yamato if they had to.
Date for penetration power for 28 cm SK C/34:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_11-545_skc34.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_cm_SK_C/34_naval_gun
This gun was also not used on Deutschland Class, that vessles used the older 11" gun(28 cm SK C/28).

Ramilles, wich was your first example had ~64mm -> 3inch..
While the 11" gun could penetrate up to 76mm.
And for the record, the upper deck armor of QE was also up to 45mm and the under deck armor was up to 76mm.
S had up to 105mm for its under deck armor..

But thats all statistics.
As you would need to take into account the placement of the armor, the angle and the armor type used etc..
If you look at the gun charakteristics, they are of course not as good as the modern more heavies of that time, but still hvy enough to inflict serious dmg.
Think about a "one on one", then S was also quite faster as R or even QE, it could decide when and if to engage, had a higher rate of fire(even higher as the Mark 8!) etc.
So its not a sure bet who will win.
And quite different as to think of a CA against a BC or even a BB. Wich would be silly in most situations if not in bad weather where the range would be limited etc..
Noteworthy is here that S got ist RADAR cripled by a CA shot in such circumstances. And UK commanders were of course quite often very good and bold in the usage of their ships.

Armor for Ramilles:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ramillies_(07)
I've more data in books, but as I was writing that up between testing cool game features, I didn't found the time to look at them.

Cheers,
Chromos

There’s no doubt that the German 11” was a very good gun with a much higher muzzle velocity than weapons on capital ships of other navies which gave Scharnhorst something like a 10,000m range advantage.
Despite both the German 11” and the BL 15” MK I being very accurate, you’re not going to hit anything almost 3 minutes away!
Scharnhorst scored a hit on HMS Glorious at 24,200m and Warspite hit Giulio Cesare at “well over 24,000m”. Sources differ but these were exceptionally lucky shots.
Taking in to account their rate of fire, about two 330kg shells to each 879kg shell they’d be scoring similar damage.
Armour. Yes, Scharnhorst had the edge on technology. Her armour was of better quality, but not by much and the RN was using modern shells in these old guns.
So yes, all things considered, it would be “on the dice”.
And thanks for the link to the German wiki for Ramillies, (I can de-cypher it with Google Translate ) which carries some more information than the English version. The English wiki for Revenge, however, quotes a deck thickness of 127mm (I assume this to be the maxim over vital equipment) for the class.
I’ve always found this a major problem in wargaming. Different sources quoting different values for the same thing. I’ve learned, a long time ago, that you can’t even trust Jane’s!

The bottom line though, and I think we are agreed on this, is that heavy cruisers have no chance against battleship guns.
On another topic. I’m actually leaning towards allowing upgrades to battleship armament effectiveness with technology. RADAR, for example, vastly increased the effective range of battleship guns, and not just at night. Maybe they should all start with higher values and have lesser increase for weapons tech’s, which don’t upgrade, but advances in fire-control could give much better increases in effectiveness than they do now.
I need to think about this. It may go some way to addressing this CA:BB issue if old BBs are more effective at the start and get better with certain specific tech’s.

Originally posted by Google translate:
“vorgenommen und betrafen erneut die Fla-Bewaffnung “ = “and arose once again the bottles weapons“
:rofl:

 

[Big Nev]

The unwillingness of the Regina Marina to go on the offensive is why I looked to the Pacific in the first place.

Maybe I'll take a closer look at the Med.

Cape Matapan

It seems like most people agree that, historically, newer cruisers still had a firepower and durability disadvantage against older BBs. But so far everyone has just talked about main armament.

What about torpedoes? My assumption is that the game abstracts both gun and torpedo attacks together into a single sea attack value. I was browsing through heavy cruiser specs, and while it appears that US CAs didn't have torpedoes, other nations did (like Blucher and Lutzow). Do these torpedoes realistically give CAs penetration against large capital ships even if they have to place themselves in substantial danger to fire?

No, “modern” US CAs didn’t carry torpedoes, but the older battleships had submerged tubes so that they could fire & re-load during a battle. As you know, Japanese destroyers were the only other class capable of doing this.

The idea of a battleship torpedoing a cruiser is a little… different.

Most, if not all, of the old “Rust-Buckets” had bulges added inter-war so… torpedoes would not have been as devastating as they used to be and, of course, torpedoes fired at anything other than close range are easily avoided. Remember that the Rust-Buckets (apart from Hood) are physically small targets too.

These questions of mine are part of some larger questions I have about comparing certain game mechanics to historical battles on the ocean. For the moment, I am most interested in determining whether the game has, perhaps inadvertently, made pre-1936 capital ships way to wimpy in comparison to post-1936 ships of all kinds. But because the war was, in many ways, decided by air power, those damn carriers and land based aircraft keep "spoiling" various historical battles I examine.

I am 100% certain that CAs are way over powered in combat against BBs. An analogy would be Tiger Vs Sherman when the Sherman has nowhere to hide.
As I’ve stated in my last reply to Chromos and elsewhere. Improvements in fire-control, addition of RADAR and using modern shells in old guns, should, perhaps, allow upgrades to battleship armament effectiveness with technology.

Instead off the old BB armaments starting with higher values, have a smaller increase for weapons tech’s (it took a long time to develop a significantly better new naval gun) which still don’t upgrade, new tech’s of Fire-control & Naval Shell Ballistics could address the problem.

Fire control would increase both gun range (distance) and sea_attack (a little) whilst Naval Shell Ballistics would just increase sea_attack. Both of these would be upgradeable on existing warships.

I need to talk to Lothos about this too.

 

[Chromos]

Nice translation from google, and I agree overall.
Btw. another lucky shot: Hood was hit at 23km..

I agree, in game terms CA's shouldn't be able to do sink BB's easily.
And I fully agree that comclusions are hard to draw with this limited infos we have.
Generally I think that taking into account the "sinking" of the Bismarck, we can see that even having a unpenetratable armour wich will keeps the ship alfloat, will not help in not being taken out of action.
So the B was not sunk maybe by the UK 40cm shells and the torpedos, wich is still debated but very likely if we look at the shipwreck data we have today. But we can say for sure, that B would have been -at best- be very long out of service.

The sinking of the S also shows, that a CA attack can have a devasting effect on a heavier ship.
There was also a night battle, afaik in Guadalcanal, where CL or DD damaged US BB RADAR, and the BB, having its targeting system crippled, fled the field.
But thats hard to simulate in HoI.

So my suggestion above was to allow BB to swallow much more dmg before they sink, and give CA and smaller ships less hull so they sink faster if they get hit.
In that way we can maybe simulate that even a near miss from a 15" on a lightly armoured target as a CA and smaller would have already devasting effects on the interiour structure of that vessle.
Maybe slows it down and make it an even easier target etc..

Nah, I'm not interested in CAs versus CTFs at all. I know all about that.

I am focused on a much smaller issue. I just want to compare in-game performance of 1940 tech CAs against pre-1936 BBs versus the historical record. I don't even know how they compare, so I can't comment on any changes I would or would not make.

So it is about to keep in mind "one on one"? Will one CA have a "good time" against one older BB?
And should "10 CA's" have a good time against one older BB?

I admit, that I have no actual ingame test data on that one.
All "I think to know" is, that groups of CA's are currently too powerful.

 

[Secret Master]

I am 100% certain that CAs are way over powered in combat against BBs. An analogy would be Tiger Vs Sherman when the Sherman has nowhere to hide.
As I’ve stated in my last reply to Chromos and elsewhere. Improvements in fire-control, addition of RADAR and using modern shells in old guns, should, perhaps, allow upgrades to battleship armament effectiveness with technology.

You might be right, but for my purposes today, it is clear that CAs are overpowered against older BBs. Put another way: the capital ships build with pre-1936 technology are one step removed from worthless.

So it is about to keep in mind "one on one"? Will one CA have a "good time" against one older BB?
And should "10 CA's" have a good time against one older BB?

I admit, that I have no actual ingame test data on that one.
All "I think to know" is, that groups of CA's are currently too powerful.

Well, I'm working on a larger project involved at looking how the naval part of the game works and rethinking some stuff.

But to answer your question about CAs versus BBs, there are multiple factors that result in CAs being unusually powerful in a variety of situations.

The first is that there is no armor-penetration mechanic for surface combat like there is for tanks in land combat. Every unit of sea attack is equal to all other units of sea attack, no matter what ship is firing at what target. A BB has more sea attack than a CA, but the sea attack from the CA is just as valuable as the sea attack from a BB, no matter what tech levels we are talking about.

Now, sea attack represents more than one thing. It clearly represents guns, torpedoes, and various improvements in shells. That means that you can't just compare gun caliber to armor, but also must consider other factors (which several people have already done in this discussion). It also means that just because I research cruiser guns 1942, it doesn't mean I got bigger guns on my cruisers. Maybe they just aim better, or maybe the shells are better at penetrating armor, or maybe I mounted some torpedoes I could reload in combat faster.

That's one reason I was asking about CAs versus older BBs. Even if the guns weren't super awesome, I wasn't sure if better ammunition, or torpedoes, or better optics would have made 1940's cruisers capable of easily taking down ships like Ramillies or Hood. The consensus seems to be no.

But there are other factors that favor CA warfare in HOI3 that are peculiar to other mechanics. For example, the game takes into account weapon ranges in surface combat. This is great. But the problem arises when two SAGs engage in combat. They both sail at each other at full speed, which means that the range advantage enjoyed by BBs over CAs rarely ever matters, and when it does, it only matters for one hour at the most. There is no real mechanism whereby larger capital ships can or will even try to stand off and range smaller ships. So, they both get into range and start firing.

Then there's the problem where newer CAs have hull values that nearly match old BBs. Since hull determines how much punishment a ship can take, the new CAs tend to be unusually resilient when facing ships who should have better armor.

There is also a bunch of other stuff I'm looking at, but I'm still collating some data and theorizing some stuff. This discussion about the historical CAs have been helpful in putting some stuff in context.

 

[unmerged(738901)]

Would it be possible to mod in the armour and penitration aspect from tanks to ship?

 

[TheBromgrev]

No. It would be great if you could, but the game engine won't recognize and use the values if you apply them to ships.

@Secret Master: The thing is, battleship armor even from the WW1-era ships that didn't undergo reconstruction was so thick that specialized shells, torpedoes, and bombs had to be developed to either penetrate the armor or hit the deck instead. This is how the Hood was sunk; the shell hit the deck and punched through since the deck wasn't armored as heavily as the sides. I recall hearing about how the USS Missouri was fired upon by Iraqi Silkworm missiles during the Gulf War. One missile missed and the other was shot down. The captain, when asked what might have happened had the battleship been hit, replied with something along the lines of "it would've scratched the paint".

BTW, has anyone tried the new Soviet build plans since I updated them? I'm curious to see if any experimenters on the forum can build a modern (aka level III and higher) navy using the numbers in the build plans and still beat Germany.

 

[plasticpanzers]

Most folks forget that a lot of the gear to control all the main armament on a BB of any age is on the superstructure which is no where near
armored enough to withstand 8in shells (or 6in rapid fire guns). Firing guns by turret control is very slow compaired to firing with the full
gun control system. Also fires and damage in the superstructure, including destruction of the funnels, can effect the control of the entire ship
including the engines. A ship with higher speed (such as a crusier) has a better chance of 'following the shot' of enemy rounds (like USS Augusta
off N. Africa from the Jean Bart which was stationary in port). Also smaller rounds can penetrate the turrets thru the barrel slots which are generally
only protected by thinner armor/canvas or even shrapnel from hits can penetrate. The concussion can also knock out electrical systems. The
US "light" cruisers of the Boise type are really heavies with light armament and can put out an immense amount of shells as was seen at times off
Guadalcanal. The last US heavy cruisers "Des Moines" could engage any older battleship on equal footing with fully automatic loading 8 inch guns
and simply smother it with radar directed fire. Also remember battleships are not protected everywhere with heavy armor. Generally the bow and
stern are much more vulnerable to fire. An examination of Janes fighting ships 1914, 1918, 1939, 1941 can show the weak points of many BBs. The
US (and eventually others) countered this with the "all or nothing" which put a central citadel of heavy armor in the center and virtually none in other
places (except splinter protection/flotation protection) but many BBs did not have this if built during WWI or not designed with it later. its not always
good to simply match up penetration vs armor to get what you want. There is a lot more to it than that IMHO.

Edit: I should have added the obvious tho (LOL!) that cruisers should not fight battleships!

 

[21oliver]

You guys are freakishly nerdish historians!

 

[TheBromgrev]

Why else would we be playing this game Part of the fun is playing out the "what if" scenarios, and I compiled a whole bunch right here. Not many people have taken up the challenge to see if they can build either the historical numbers of ships for the big navies or one of the build plans for the smaller navies. I've tried most of the countries here, and I know Secret Master built the old Soviet build plans I had posted before I received more reliable sources from TZoli.

 

[Secret Master]

BTW, has anyone tried the new Soviet build plans since I updated them? I'm curious to see if any experimenters on the forum can build a modern (aka level III and higher) navy using the numbers in the build plans and still beat Germany.

I looked at the information posted there. The 1944 expansion plan seems a little... silly. I don't mean in terms of cost (although that's ridiculous, too), but the number of light carriers. How would those light carriers help defend the coast of the Soviet Union, since air fields are cheaper than CVLs (both in the real world and HOI3)? It's not like the Soviets needed to escort tons of convoys from raiders to secure resources from a colonial empire. All those CVLs could be consolidated into either CVs or more battleships and battlecruisers (since Stalin apparently had some weird obsession them).

 

[TheBromgrev]

I don't know what Stalin was thinking in regards to his post-war navy. In 1946, the number of post-war CVLs was reduced from 60 down to 6. Perhaps he thought that having many small carriers would provide flexibility when compared to a few large carriers, since the smaller carriers could be dispersed widely to cover the Soviet coastline? That's the only reason I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[21oliver]

Ok the issue here is that you are trying to rationalize what stalin was thinking... He's one acorn to the left of Hitler.

 

[Big Nev]

@ Chromos.
Yeah, I’m one of those that always considered Scharnhorst to be a battle cruiser. She was certainly an “in-betweenie” but, considering her protection, perhaps you’re right. Certainly she was a lot better protected than Repulse, for example, and if they had given her the 15” guns as planned, there would be no doubt about her classification as a fast battleship.

I don’t see that the Battle of North Cape shows massed CA attacks are effective against heavier ships. Yes, a lucky shot almost completely blinded Scharnhorst, but she still had the better of the engagement taking out Norfolk’s RADAR & X turret. The Brit’ cruisers learned to keep their distance after that. And, like Exeter was crippled by Graf Spee, these are the relatively small 11” shells, had Norfolk been hit in the same place with a 15”, the damage would have been much more significant. (We read of cruiser turrets, not being disabled, but literally blown off at Matapan) Then, of course, it was Duke of York that pasted Scharnhorst with 14” shells that sealed her fate, not gunfire from the cruisers.

Would one CA have a “good time” against an Old Lady? No. The encounter would be short. One or two hits from a 15” or 16” would cripple or sink and first hits would likely be scored between 12km & 18km. Well outside of effective torpedo range. A lone CA that ventures within effective range of a battleship is unlikely to get away.

Would 10 CAs fare better? Well yes, of course. A few would probably even get away without a scratch. Obviously a lot would depend upon the classes and, especially, their speeds. They would need to encircle & close fast, like destroyers, to launch a coordinated torpedo attack as their guns wouldn’t do much. I accept your point that a pounding like Bismarck took, without penetration, will still wreck a ship, but smaller guns take longer to do this.

8” - 8 x 5rpm x 116kg = 4,640 kg/min for a typical heavy cruiser.
8” - 9 x 10rpm x 152kg = 13,680 kg/min for Des Moines class.
15” - 8 x 2rpm x 879kg = 14,064 kg/min for a Queen Elizabeth.
16” - 9 x 1.5rpm x 929kg = 12,541 kg/min for a Nelson.

But I remind you that Bismarck was pounded by 14” & 16” shells (as well as the 8” from the two cruisers) and it was the 16s that did the significant damage of silencing Bismarck’s main guns. 8” guns are very unlikely to be able to do this as they have a tendency to bounce off. It must also be remembered that a single penetrating hit from a large calibre shell has a much greater effect than an equivalent weight of “bouncers” so… sorry Plastic, but I find your suggestion that even a Des Moines class could engage “any older battleship on equal footing” somewhat dubious because even the antique Queen Elizabeth had RADAR directed fire, actually presents a 12% smaller target area and would only need one hit, anywhere, to remove all advantages &/or cripple this super cruiser.

One missile missed and the other was shot down. The captain, when asked what might have happened had the battleship been hit, replied with something along the lines of "it would've scratched the paint".

I’ve had this argument soooo many times. People (mostly other Brit’s) saying the Gloucester saved the ship and pointing to what happened to the Sheffield as evidence of the power of modern weapons. OK, the missile could have hit the superstructure (rather than an armoured section) & done some superficial damage but MM was never in any danger of being seriously hurt.

A hit on a turret, however, would have done more than scratch the paint.

It would have woken the gun the crew!

 

[Chromos]

You might be right, but for my purposes today, it is clear that CAs are overpowered against older BBs. Put another way: the capital ships build with pre-1936 technology are one step removed from worthless.

Like I wrote, I can't provide one on one data atm, but if CA are already there too powerful, then they should be nerved.

Well, I'm working on a larger project involved at looking how the naval part of the game works and rethinking some stuff.

Great to read.

But to answer your question about CAs versus BBs, there are multiple factors that result in CAs being unusually powerful in a variety of situations.

The first is that there is no armor-penetration mechanic for surface combat like there is for tanks in land combat. Every unit of sea attack is equal to all other units of sea attack, no matter what ship is firing at what target. A BB has more sea attack than a CA, but the sea attack from the CA is just as valuable as the sea attack from a BB, no matter what tech levels we are talking about.

Now, sea attack represents more than one thing. It clearly represents guns, torpedoes, and various improvements in shells. That means that you can't just compare gun caliber to armor, but also must consider other factors (which several people have already done in this discussion). It also means that just because I research cruiser guns 1942, it doesn't mean I got bigger guns on my cruisers. Maybe they just aim better, or maybe the shells are better at penetrating armor, or maybe I mounted some torpedoes I could reload in combat faster.

That's one reason I was asking about CAs versus older BBs. Even if the guns weren't super awesome, I wasn't sure if better ammunition, or torpedoes, or better optics would have made 1940's cruisers capable of easily taking down ships like Ramillies or Hood. The consensus seems to be no.

I know the current combat mechanics quite good myself. I just have no actual data about one on one fights.
In real life the 8" where very likely not capable to cause critical dmg in the well protected areas of a bb, because the armour, even the older one, was to thick.
But like the example with the full Auto 8" from late war, these could put up a rain of shells on a ship, and from the examples with sinking of Scharnhorst and battles of Gualdalcanal we know that these smaller shells could make an bigger foe flee or cripple him, and bigger vessels then sink it.
So more smaller gunfire could act similar like machine gun fire and maybe not sink the BB, but "suppress" it hard enough.

But there are other factors that favor CA warfare in HOI3 that are peculiar to other mechanics. For example, the game takes into account weapon ranges in surface combat. This is great. But the problem arises when two SAGs engage in combat. They both sail at each other at full speed, which means that the range advantage enjoyed by BBs over CAs rarely ever matters, and when it does, it only matters for one hour at the most. There is no real mechanism whereby larger capital ships can or will even try to stand off and range smaller ships. So, they both get into range and start firing.

Then there's the problem where newer CAs have hull values that nearly match old BBs. Since hull determines how much punishment a ship can take, the new CAs tend to be unusually resilient when facing ships who should have better armor.

There is also a bunch of other stuff I'm looking at, but I'm still collating some data and theorizing some stuff. This discussion about the historical CAs have been helpful in putting some stuff in context.

And thats a reason I also mentioned above. CA's can withstain too much dmg compared with BB.
After all a CA could withstand mostly 5"(for Washington treaty CA design). So a 15" would already cause severe dmg by a near miss.(engine malfunction, electrics, pump system etc..)
A direct hit from a 15" would very likely be a critical hit. <-Thats why it is so dangerous to engange a BB with a CA. Not the own ability to cause dmg, but the own inability to stand a direct hit.
Even the Pocket BB where overall only lightly better armoured as the Washington Treaty Class CA's.

But La Plata Battle showed also here, 8" fire from 3 ships could make the bigger vessel flee.

I think range has to be senn with speed. Ships need maybe a different speed modificator for combat? So positioning before comabt would be more important already.
After all, closing in or fleeing took its time.

So overall in game terms, HoI needs a slightly finer abstraction for Sea Warfare. Arm/Penetration system come to play also here would be a good idea.
That could even be used for planes. -> Light MG equipped JAP fighter had a hard time shoting down US bombers in the late War because of hvy armour of the bombers..
Germans upgunned their fighters with 20mm/30mm guns to be able to do so..
So also here it is the same "game", tech race for guns/armour.

With that system, we could have CA's having a hard time to do much dmg to an older BB, but it would inflict much Org dmg and the BB would flee.
-> Quite historical and nice gameplay too imo.

Additionally I already suggested an easy to implement solution for a better torpedo usage somewhere else.
In that place Alex_Brunius also made great suggestions how to improve the current combat system.

 

[Big Nev]

...

But La Plata Battle showed also here, 8" fire from 3 ships could make the bigger vessel flee.

Actually, I think this, once again, shows that larger ships are in little danger from cruisers. Graf Spee was pasted by 6” gunfire (80+ hits?) and a few 8” hits from Exeter. Only one of which was significant. It took out an essential part of the fuel system so Graf Spey had to run for a nearby port. Not because she was badly damaged, but because she was suddenly almost out of fuel!

Yes, the 6” guns had done terrible but superficial damage to secondaries, AA and such. But remember, Graf Spee was little more than a heavy cruiser herself and that critical 8" hit not only penetrated her armour, something that would not have happened to a battleship, but it was a critical hit, something we don’t have in HoI.

...

Arm/Penetration system come to play also here would be a good idea.

Oh yes PLEASE

I think that's top of my HoI IV wish list. IMHO, it would solve almost all the issues. Obviously, torpedoes have to be worked-in so that DDs (in particular) can score damage. Although I think most use of torpedoes in surface combat was tactical, to force an opponent's manoeuvre (Except the Type-93 of course) and few hits were scored against a ship that was still capable.

...

That could even be used for planes. -> Light MG equipped JAP fighter had a hard time shoting down US bombers in the late War because of hvy armour of the bombers..
Germans upgunned their fighters with 20mm/30mm guns to be able to do so..
So also here it is the same "game", tech race for guns/armour.

With that system, we could have CA's having a hard time to do much dmg to an older BB, but it would inflict much Org dmg and the BB would flee.
-> Quite historical and nice gameplay too imo.

I like the idea that cruisers can inflict Org damage on a BB, (reducing their ability to fight) but...

Once Org is gone, doesn't ALL naval damage accrue against strength? So... won't they still be over powered? A delicate balance issue.


And P Vs A for aircraft too!

This gets better & better

...
Additionally I already suggested an easy to implement solution for a better torpedo usage somewhere else.
In that place Alex_Brunius also made great suggestions how to improve the current combat system.

Where?
Please send me a link.

 

[Chromos]

I think it was one of the wish for HoI4 or wish for HoI3-TFH threads.
Will look if I can find it.