Coastal Defense Ship as separate hull type

[tferch]

I'm sure we'll see some mods (along the lines of ICE) that add more detailed units of all types and split off the coastal defense ships, but for vanilla, I really can't see it being worthwhile for Paradox... they're trying to keep it simple and accessible, and having a separate ship type for those ships that no-one built during the time frame adds complexity for scant benefit. Far easier to model them as CAs with high levels of gun and armour upgrades and base level engines.

 

[Denkt]

Far easier to model them as CAs with high levels of gun and armour upgrades and base level engines.

I can agree with this. But I think that there should be certain sea regions which are classified as coastal in which large ships get huge penalties. Also I think your navy should get bonuses if they operate near your coast to represent coastal vessels such as torpedo boats.

This would be a nice boost for the minor countries that can not compete with the major naval powers but still have a navy powerful enough to make an invasion of them strategically unjustifiable. While the costal defence ships may not look that impressive, the realistic enemy they would face would be in their own weight class, not a 40 000 ton battleship.

You really think those three Stuka-fodder ships were going to stop the German war machine? Even the Type II coastal U-Boots would have a field day with them. The Kriegsmarine got mauled because it was tiny and went against the largest navy in the world. Not to mention one of their biggest ships they lost was from a Norwegian coastal gun and not even a ship.

I wouldn't be so sure about this. Eventually Germany is going to sink them but the cost for Germany to sink them could be very high and given the dependency on Swedish ore, it would be a very risky gamble to declare war on Sweden. The time the swedish navy can win could be enough to mobilize the army and win time for the allies to act. If Germany is able to send something like Bismarck to Sweden, you would not have the real life difficulties of an invasion and the swedish navy would be practically useless.

Here is a screenshots of Norway's navy.

Here is another screenshot showing a list of the ships in the Swedish navy.

 

[Secret Master]

Am I the only one who thinks that if you include coastal battleships, it would also be time to include rules for naval mine warfare, e-boats, torpedo boats, and shore batteries?

I can't see including naval terrain and coastal battleships without then adding all of these other things.

 

[Axe99]

Am I the only one who thinks that if you include coastal battleships, it would also be time to include rules for naval mine warfare, e-boats, torpedo boats, and shore batteries?

I can't see including naval terrain and coastal battleships without then adding all of these other things.

No way known . I'd loooove there to be capacity to use coastal zones to influence combat for coastal units, and work these things in. The UK built over 600 MTBs (and a further 600 MGBs, many of which were fitted with torpedoes later in the war) and a squillion* minesweeper/trawlers (that often did a combination of minesweeping and coastal escort work, so an exact count on the number of minesweepers isn't straightforward), and mines and MTBs were influential in the struggle for control of sea zones, and knocking out merchant ships and the like.

* Between them, the UK and Canada built around 750 trawlers and minesweepers, with a further 400-odd 'Motor launches' which could (and often did) do a bit of minesweeping work as well)

I can agree with this. But I think that there should be certain sea regions which are classified as coastal in which large ships get huge penalties. Also I think your navy should get bonuses if they operate near your coast to represent coastal vessels such as torpedo boats.

I think this would be better than nothing, but I'd prefer if there was a mechanic that it was based on the actual size of the MTB force, as many nations with a coast had very few MTBs, while other nations had heaps. For example, Australia operated very few MTBs (down all the way to none, depending you you classify the Fairmile motor launch, of which they had 35), so giving them a coastal bonus for MTBs in a historical-alike playthrough is giving them a bit of a leg-up. On the other hand, Sweden definitely had around 20 MTBs for a much smaller coastline (so at least 40 torpedos coming at an attacking force if they come at them together, so potentially quite dangerous) - but even then, I'd like the game to make the player have the MTBs where the Germans attacked, rather than just assume they were everywhere.

 

[Secret Master]

Let's hope a naval DLC could address this all as a group.

Although I still intend to invade Sweden, coastal battleships or no.

 

[Axe99]

Let's hope a naval DLC could address this all as a group.

Although I still intend to invade Sweden, coastal battleships or no.

I'm definitely hoping (although also planning to mod in stuff until this is confirmed). Even if the coastal vessels make the game, Germany won't be all at sea against those coastal battleships, it had the capacity to build a good number of MTBs (S-Boats) as well .

 

[krieger11b]

I don't think there is a single class of ship that could possibly be described as Stuka Fodder. The Stuka, in particular amongst the Luftwaffe's aircraft, had a spectacularly dismal record against ships.

And the Sverige class were the same size as your typical merchant ship at only 400 feet long. And while we're on the subject of aircraft attacking shipping, let's not forget that Sweden is the home of Bofors. The Sveriges had a pretty good AA armament, upgraded pre-war to carry quite a lot of the Bofors 75mm, 40mm & some smaller MGs. Certainly a lot better then the merchant ships the Stuka struggled to score hits on.

A Stuka pilot destroyed a Soviet battleship in Leningrad, under heavy AA fire. He also took out one or two destroyers also. Early war it might now fare as well as I hear around here that the Luftwaffe didn't have armor piercing bombs early war, haven't found anything online about it, but I will assume it might be true since Germany for the second time in a row thought they could avoid a naval war with the UK, at least until much than 1939 anyways.

 

[CyberianK]

Many of the successes of the bombing of ships by Stukas were actually against immobile targets in port. Precisely bombing a moving ship especially a fast one was actually pretty hard up to near impossible with added rough weather on open sea.

 

[Flayer92]

A Stuka pilot destroyed a Soviet battleship in Leningrad, under heavy AA fire. He also took out one or two destroyers also. Early war it might now fare as well as I hear around here that the Luftwaffe didn't have armor piercing bombs early war, haven't found anything online about it, but I will assume it might be true since Germany for the second time in a row thought they could avoid a naval war with the UK, at least until much than 1939 anyways.

That was Hans-Ulrich Rudel, a legendary elite pilot, best of the best. That speaks more to his abilities as a pilot than the plane's success as an anti-ship bomber.

 

[Aries666]

Agreed.

But for such mod's to work, we need the terrain. Type and sea zones. While I know it was possible to mod-in terrain types in HoI 3 on land, I don't think there was any possibility to create a new type of terrain for shallow water & have it recognised by the core programme with regard to accessibility or penalties/bonuses.

Thinking about it, a terrain type of archipelago would go down well too.

EU4 has coastal and ocean zones so I am sure they could do it. They also have inland seas where galleys get a combat bonus so this could also be done.

 

[Amur_Tiger]

Many of the successes of the bombing of ships by Stukas were actually against immobile targets in port. Precisely bombing a moving ship especially a fast one was actually pretty hard up to near impossible with added rough weather on open sea.

... and the particular age of the ship which left it with very poor deck armor. Dropping a pair of the largest bombs they could field on some of the oldest ships active in WWII while it's immobile in port, pretty well says nothing about the effectiveness of plane or ship, just that the ship was in a baaaaaad situation and the plane on the reverse end of that.

 

[Hoyte]

In black ice there are recognized as costal battleships

 

[Big Nev]

A Stuka pilot destroyed a Soviet battleship in Leningrad, under heavy AA fire. He also took out one or two destroyers also. Early war it might now fare as well as I hear around here that the Luftwaffe didn't have armor piercing bombs early war, haven't found anything online about it, but I will assume it might be true since Germany for the second time in a row thought they could avoid a naval war with the UK, at least until much than 1939 anyways.

Yes, indeed. "a stuka pilot" hmm...

! SPOILER ALLERT !

There are a couple of... err... unauthorised err... icons (?) on some of the pictures in this link. You know the kind I mean.

So, if you don't like lthem or don't want to see them... don't look.

Owkay?

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rudel.html


If just linking breaks the forum rules then, sorry, the article is funny but please delete as required.


And while the Marat was, technically, a battleship, you can't really compare it to a Queen Elizabeth or Revenge class. It was also 600 feet long so a much better target than a 400 foot Sverige.
Especially considering it only had ten 3" and six 1½" AA. Not exactly awe inspiring when compared to the 20 4½" DPs with HACS direction carried by the Old Ladies.

And to say "destroyed" is a bit of a stretch too. She was sank at her moorings in shallow water. Yeah, she took a lot of damage but continued to fight. Granted, if she'd been at sea, she would have been lost, but then again, if she'd been at sea, she probably wouldn't have been hit so... you know...
Oh yeah. Herr Rudel only get's a 50% claim BTW. The Marat was hit by two bombs and, as a Stuka could only carry one 2,200lb bomb at a time...

 

[krieger11b]

I know Rudel was one of the finest Stuka pilots ever, I read his damned autobiography.

 

[FUregistration]

I'd love to see coastal defence ships (monitors & a few other bits & bobs) in the game but, to implement them properly, you need a different terrain type for shallow water where large capital ships can't go.

Then you need to teach the AI how to use them properly and not to take them out in to open sea.

While I always like more depth and more things, I have to say this falls quite well into the abstraction list.
Check the map, check the water provinces and tell me how many of those would realistically get the type "shallow water" that is so shallow regular battleships wouldn't dare enter?
None I would say.

And coding AI is a nightmare, that's why AI sucks in pretty much every single game ever created that has any meaningful amount of it. So asking the devs to develop even more conditions into their AI code to represent something that had minimal impact isn't fair.

 

[blue_yonder]

I've just noticed that in the wiki, it says you can hire the services of a coastal defence fleet designer (actually it says 'coastle,' which is rather sweet). The wiki is ancient of course, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

 

[Big Nev]

So we pretty much agree on everything there.

As for

check the water provinces and tell me how many of those would realistically get the type "shallow water" that is so shallow regular battleships wouldn't dare enter?
None I would say.

There's one important place that springs to mind.

The shallow waters around Sweden come under this category. Consequently, the handful of Sverige class ships basically guaranteed that Germany couldn't invade by sea because the only warships of significant size Germany had that were capable of operating in those waters to tackle them, were the Deutschlands.

And the Deutschlands would have been pasted by the Sverige class ships.

So this one instance is worthy of note.

I'm sure a lot of players invade Sweden by sea with their amphibious assault supported by a couple of Bismarcks.

IRL you just couldn't do it.

IRL their amphibious assault ships and their supports would get annihilated by the equivalent firepower of a couple of battlecruisers and their supports because the covering German battleships & battlecruisers can't get close enough.

I'm pretty sure a lot of the water around Siam & the East side of the Malay peninsular is pretty shallow too. As is the sea South of Singapore & East of Sumatra.

You want to launch an amphibious asault in those places? Don't expect your battleships to provide anything other than distant cover.

These are just a few game-significant locations where you can't use battleships. I'm sure there are a few more.

 

[GsusNSV]

I've just noticed that in the wiki, it says you can hire the services of a coastal defence fleet designer (actually it says 'coastle,' which is rather sweet). The wiki is ancient of course, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

It is not that old. I added the designer last week or so. Source is GB from WWW Part 1.

 

[Le_Carabinier]

This is what it could look like once modded/DLC'ed.
The immense variety of ship types in this era can lead to a completely absurd tree with countless branches : this would be bad. But so is the excessively simplified tech tree the devs offer us. The land tree and air tree are good, and one of the reason they are is because they offer easily accessible variants. Instead of carrier planes, tank destroyers and self-propelled artillery having their own trees, or branches, they became auxiliary researches to plane and armor techs.
Ships have no equivalent.

Just imagine if it looked like this :

The much debated question of Panzerschiffe and Coastal Battleships could be solved easily if they were made subclasses of Heavy Cruisers. PBs would be more costly, but gain increased firepower and range, while CBBs would have a dramatically reduced range, but acquire increased armor, firepower and a bonus while fighting in coastal areas.

Watching yesterday's world war wednesday and listening the player explaining how, despite his best efforts in fortifying the border, the Soviets could easily launch amphibious attacks made me realize how the Scandinavians minors, which would be among the most played minors, would benefit from such a change.

 

[Denkt]

The reason why Deutschland had so huge range was because they used diesel engines which is basically maxed engines in the model system.

Sweden did abandon the costal defense ships for a navy based around light cruiser and destroyers that was more suited for the modern times.

However the Tre Kronor class light crusier was the heaviest ships Sweden ever built.