Coastal Forces - A Key Part of the Stategic War

[adski42]

I've been reading a lot about the role Malta played in the war and I think that there's a great opportunity to add in a key aspect of the war that was missing in HOI4: coastal forces.

In my mind, coastal forces (torpedo boats, gunboats) etc should be represented in the game in the same way as the strategic air war exists. For example, coastal regions should have something like a "sea superioty" meter as coastal force contest for the upper hand. Superiority is key because it allows safe passage of convoys and fleets through the region.

This would make things like the strategic importance of Malta incredibly relevant - not only was it a base for bombers to harass the sea lanes, but also for coastal force to attack convoys. If it had been for the forces based on Malta then the war in North Africa may have been very different as the convoys supplying Rommel wouldn't have been as badly hit.

As an extension to this, minefields should also be represented. Minesweepers could be employed to clear shipping lanes while other light craft and aircraft could drop the mines in the first instance.

All of this could be abstracted to a strategic level (as with air warfare) so you don't have to order around small groups of units all of the time (which I guess no one would want to do). I mean, if single seat fighters are built one by one then why got 12+ crew coastal craft? In many ways they could be seen as the fighters of the sea.

As well as Malta, this would add more spice to the Pacific campaign as well as making things like the "Channel Dash" more of a dangerous prospect in game.

This added component feels like something that should be a DLC as I guess its too late to be included in the vanilla game, but it could add so much. What does everyone think?

 

[jesperj13]

In my mind, coastal forces (torpedo boats, gunboats) etc should be represented in the game in the same way as the strategic air war exists. For example, coastal regions should have something like a "sea superioty" meter as coastal force contest for the upper hand. Superiority is key because it allows safe passage of convoys and fleets through the region.

Interesting concept, but very difficult to implement in the game I think.

These coastal forces are only effective against convoys or unescorted transport ships. They would never stand a chance when encountering a destroyer or anything larger, so they would not be very effective in achieving "sea superiority" in any way. Also, if you only envision coastal forces to be active in the coastal waters around a province, convoys could easily be rerouted in order to avoid sailing to close to shore, thereby staying out of range of any coastal naval forces.

It is also in no way similar to achieving "air superiority", as fighter planes can easily shoot down other fighters and bombers, PT-boats, MTB-boats and E-boats are useless against larger vessels.

Again, interesting concept, but I don't know if it will add anything to the game other than the fact that you couldn't stage an amphibious landing without adequate naval support. Maybe I'm missing something here though? I can't claim to have read too much about the role of Malta in its naval capacity.

 

[Kovax]

There were apparently a lot of smaller craft operating the Med which don't get a lot of recognition, including so-called "F-leiters" (sp?) and various other small gunboats or powered barges with a single gun emplacement. They served to harass shipping, but were not a threat to a capital ship. A single torpedo boat may not be a threat to a capital ship, but a squadron of them with torpedoes can certainly sink a Destroyer or a merchant vessel that encounters them.

As with the abstraction of the air war, having the ability to "contest" sea provinces adjacent to a port and cause ORG damage to units passing through would represent the effects. That doesn't need to include actual damage, but the chance for ORG hits would reflect the strain of increased vigilance, the increased difficulty of resupply, and other indirect effects.

 

[Klausewitz]

Interesting concept, but very difficult to implement in the game I think.

These coastal forces are only effective against convoys or unescorted transport ships.

No, destroyers were originally 'torpedoboat-destroyers' for precisely these forces:
Small, fast ships carrying torpedoes are dangerous to any ship of any size especially since they can work together with coastal aviation, artillery and minefields.
If all that worked like you supposed the German 'Channel Dash' would have been no big deal.

 

[Bane5]

I actually think this is something that could help the AI vs humans. If sea zones had a "danger" level represented by the proximity of enemy ports, enemy coastline, and general infrastructure/remoteness of the area, then it could prevent the human player from landing random transports wherever they want without much opposition (think how easy sealion was in HoI3 as germany vs British AI).

The only way to conduct naval invasions would be to have escorts like DDs and capital ships in close proximity to ensure that the landing craft don't get harassed. These coastal forces would be astracted by being included with ports and coastal forts. Increase them and it is automatically assumed that more is invested in coastal patrolling on the sea in addition to the beaches.

 

[jesperj13]

No, destroyers were originally 'torpedoboat-destroyers' for precisely these forces:
Small, fast ships carrying torpedoes are dangerous to any ship of any size especially since they can work together with coastal aviation, artillery and minefields.
If all that worked like you supposed the German 'Channel Dash' would have been no big deal.

1. I get that destroyers are dangerous due to their speed and torpedoes, however, you would never win a battle with destroyers vs capital ships, as their guns have a much greater range. Destroyers in battles would have been used after larger ships would have knocked out the guns of the enemy's capital ships. The torpedoes could then finish him off. Destroyers would not have been effective in a stand-alone force (correct me if I'm wrong). To assume that destroyers have torpedoes and therefore MTBs are dangerous to enemy naval forces is sort of a logical fallacy: they are not the same type of ship, so the premise does not hold.

2. The reason why the Channel Dash was so daring was not because there were 30 odd MTBs at Dover port. By then, the RAF had already achieved (occasional?) air superiority over the channel as the focus of the Luftwaffe had shifted to Russia. The Channel Dash depended on weather factors and surprise, in order to keep the RAF, FAA and Royal Navy at bay.

Obviously I do get that these types of forces did play an important part in coastal defence. Without them, raids and landing parties would have no opposition at all until they would be within range of coastal guns (which relied on them being able to see in the dark and fire accurately), but raids are not even simulated in the game as it doesn't involve a large force.

Taking into account the scale of the game, I feel that it would not really add a great deal. Although Bane5 does make a good point about the way the AI defends against amphibious landings. However, on the other hand, the AI itself is not very good at staging amphibious landings, so maybe this is something that can be addressed at the same time? I'm just not sure whether MTBs are the right answer.

 

[Bane5]

Taking into account the scale of the game, I feel that it would not really add a great deal. Although Bane5 does make a good point about the way the AI defends against amphibious landings. However, on the other hand, the AI itself is not very good at staging amphibious landings, so maybe this is something that can be addressed at the same time? I'm just not sure whether MTBs are the right answer.

My position would be that it should only be tied to the safety of transport ships (or any other merchant marine vessels included in HoI4) AND the ability to spot enemy ships on the map.

Coastal patrols could be a threat to a lone DD; however, in HoI3 for example, a DD unit isn't one DD but rather a small group of destroyers. For a force that size, coastal forces would avoid contact.

Basically, if Germany tries to send transports unprotected to great Britain, they will be spotted early on, and if they are far too close, should be sunk/damaged/forced to retreat. On the other hand, if Peru wants to invade Honduras with lone transports, then they could probably get away with it most of the time. Things are kept simple and the player has control over how things work. Select a transport, mouse over a province, see a % risk for movement or for conducting an invasion (super high risk) and which countries have local presence. Don't have any ports/coast forts in an area? then the sea is basically a fog of war--bomb enemy ports/infrastructure to affect it.

 

[208]

1. I get that destroyers are dangerous due to their speed and torpedoes, however, you would never win a battle with destroyers vs capital ships, as their guns have a much greater range. Destroyers in battles would have been used after larger ships would have knocked out the guns of the enemy's capital ships. The torpedoes could then finish him off. Destroyers would not have been effective in a stand-alone force (correct me if I'm wrong). To assume that destroyers have torpedoes and therefore MTBs are dangerous to enemy naval forces is sort of a logical fallacy: they are not the same type of ship, so the premise does not hold.

Yes, destroyers would not do well against capital ships. The smaller coastal craft, however, are too small and maneuverable (not to mention more numerous) to be effectively fought with a capital ship's large-caliber guns. And as these are not ocean-going craft, the range advantage of the large battleship guns is somewhat reduced due to "terrain" factors. Klausewitz's post that you replied to indeed mentions the historical fact that destroyers (to repeat, actually short for "torpedo boat destroyers") were explicitly designed to help screen capital ships from these small craft because they actually were a threat, once capital ships started using the "all large guns" design philosophy. It has nothing to do with a leap of logic from torpedo-mounting destroyers to smaller torpedo craft, but rather with actual historical naval design and tactics.

 

[jesperj13]

Yes, destroyers would not do well against capital ships. The smaller coastal craft, however, are too small and maneuverable (not to mention more numerous) to be effectively fought with a capital ship's large-caliber guns.

True, I never denied that. But if capital ships have screens, MTBs still don't stand a chance! Anyway, to avoid this turning into a what-ship-can-beat-which-other-ship argument, my point was that, in my view, it doesn't add that much to the game as the game is on a higher strategical level. I completely agree that during ww2 these units were extremely useful in coastal defence and convoy raiding, as well as making coastal waters a dangerous place for any hostile navy. My argument is about the scale of the game, not the historical significance. I can completely see this being a feature in the black ice mod, but not in the vanilla game.

As I mentioned before, I agree that the AI in HoI3 was flawed when it came to defending against and undertaking amphibious landings. I can't recal a single time I was ever attacked by a naval force when undertaking an amphibious landing myself. This should definitely be fixed in HoI4.

 

[Axe99]

I think the OP's idea is an excellent suggestion (top thread adski ). Station the MTBs/PTs in ports (like fighters at airbases), and then assign them missions (probably as simple as indicating how aggressively they'll attack enemy ships, and how far from port they'll go), and let them go at it. In the naval map mode, have the player see which zones are covered by their MTBs, which by the enemies (maybe only where intelligence allows, depending on how intelligence works) and it adds an interesting and important component to the war. It could also have an impact on Search and Rescue for pilots if there is any kind of pilot recovery mechanic in the channel or in appropriate areas of the Pacific, although this might be getting a bit detailed.

In the Channel and the North Sea, there was an ongoing struggle between Coastal Command's MTBs/MGBs (of which there were 2000 during the war) and Germany's S-Boats, which had a decent impact, despite opposition by Coastal Command.

During World War II, E-boats sank 101 merchant ships totalling 214,728 tons.[6] In addition, they sank 12 destroyers, 11 minesweepers, eight landing ships, six MTBs, a torpedo boat, a minelayer, one submarine and a number of small merchant craft. They also damaged two cruisers, five destroyers, three landing ships, a repair ship, a naval tug and numerous merchant vessels. Sea mines laid by the E-boats were responsible for the loss of 37 merchant ships totalling 148,535 tons, a destroyer, two minesweepers and four landing ships.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-boat#Operations_with_the_Kriegsmarine)

From the same source, Italian torpedo boats destroyed HMS Manchester, a Cruiser, during Operation Pedastal, another RN Light Cruiser, as well as sinking and disabling freighters in the Mediterranean (moving convoys through areas with some enemy torpedo boat presence should run the risk of losses), as well as in the Black Sea, knocking out supply vessels coming to the aid of the besieged Sevastopol.

MTBs were strategically important in the Atlantic and the Med, but there's also the PT boats in the Pacific, where they did a lot of interdiction of Japanese supply barges (apparently, according to my dodgy-as-all-get out wikipedia research, the Japanese called them 'devil boats', which implies they weren't thought of fondly). They were an effective weapon in the battle of the Solomons, attacking both naval combat vessels and supply barges.

I think one of the reasons that they're not remembered as much is because they're relatively small, and everyone gets excited about the bigger vessels, but the torpedo boats still had an important role to play, and deserve a place in a grand strategy game of the level of detail that HoI4 goes to (individual production of units, battalion-level building blocks of divisions), and using something akin to the air warfare/strategic region approach does it in broad brushes that give players choice (do we station a lot of MTBs at Malta to hurt the Italians/Germans in North Africa, or do we focus on protecting the English Channel?) but doesn't weight things down in micro.

Also a big +1 to having naval minefields and minesweepers in the game, as DLC if not in the base version.

At the very least, Torpedo Boats had a far, far larger impact on the war than Armoured Trains, and they got a five-page thread. Let's all hug a torpedo boat today .


Note - all numbers are sourced by dodgy-as-you-like Googling (ie, don't cite them!), but they're all large enough that they could have a pretty big margin of error and still be important.

 

[Secret Master]

I would want to abstract coastal guns, mines, E-boats (not U-boats; they are a totally different thing), and stuff like that as a small attrition modifier on enemy ships in your coastal waters. Putting a fleet in a coastal sea zone unopposed for days on end "cleans up" these issues based on the attributes of screens, but you stand to lose capital ships or at least have them damaged.

Until the sea zone is cleaned up, amphibious invasions have a penalty (see Exercise Tiger) and there is a chance of losing transports outright. If you lack air superiority, cleaning up the sea zone takes twice as long. If the province is still controlled by you when the enemy fleet leaves, you begin gaining the modifier back. You could increase the modifiers effectiveness, and the time it takes to eliminate it, by techs and by building coastal forts.

The goal is to make certain kinds of naval movement and control of key areas even more important.

 

[safe-keeper]

Yeah, there are MTBs and the like in Black ICE, but I just consider them cumbersome micro-management. As I've said before, I think that giving islands and coastal provinces a "zone of control" that would hamper convoys and perhaps even damage ships in surrounding sea zones, or at least give them attrition, would work much better. In some instances I suppose you would want denser coverage in certain areas, so I guess a kind of "optional micro-management" system could be put in place to allow me to, for example, make the English Channel more dangerous to traverse for enemy ships, at the cost of resources/supplies or weakened defenses in other areas.

 

[Axe99]

Yeah, there are MTBs and the like in Black ICE, but I just consider them cumbersome micro-management. As I've said before, I think that giving islands and coastal provinces a "zone of control" that would hamper convoys and perhaps even damage ships in surrounding sea zones, or at least give them attrition, would work much better. In some instances I suppose you would want denser coverage in certain areas, so I guess a kind of "optional micro-management" system could be put in place to allow me to, for example, make the English Channel more dangerous to traverse for enemy ships, at the cost of resources/supplies or weakened defenses in other areas.

I deffo wouldn't think about (or implement it) in HoI3 terms - as you say, it'd be micro-management mega-hell! But if it was something like port zones where you just eneeded to check back in to see how they'd been doing every month or so, it'd add the depth and make the naval game more realistic, but not at a cost of a lot of micro. It'd be a zone of control a bit like how Secret Master proposed it, but the ZoC's strength would depend on how many MTB's/PT boats/S(E)-Boats were posted at the ports that overlapped with that ZoC. If you didn't have MTB production, then it's effectively free coastal defence to anyone with a coast, but by making them a bit like airbases and the air war approach, you get the hands-off coastal zones (and the map actually has specific coastal zones this time around, so we may be lucky and have a mechanic in there for this already) but you still have to decide where to focus your MTB strength.

 

[Klausewitz]

I would want to abstract coastal guns, mines, E-boats (not U-boats; they are a totally different thing), and stuff like that as a small attrition modifier on enemy ships in your coastal waters. Putting a fleet in a coastal sea zone unopposed for days on end "cleans up" these issues based on the attributes of screens, but you stand to lose capital ships or at least have them damaged.

Until the sea zone is cleaned up, amphibious invasions have a penalty (see Exercise Tiger) and there is a chance of losing transports outright. If you lack air superiority, cleaning up the sea zone takes twice as long. If the province is still controlled by you when the enemy fleet leaves, you begin gaining the modifier back. You could increase the modifiers effectiveness, and the time it takes to eliminate it, by techs and by building coastal forts.

The goal is to make certain kinds of naval movement and control of key areas even more important.

+1

True, I never denied that. But if capital ships have screens, MTBs still don't stand a chance!

Again too simple.
If capital ships have screens the job of the MBTs gets much more complicated, but they are stilla danger.
Saying screens nullify a threat is like arguing that as long as a convoy has screens u-boats pose no threat.
The threat is dimished, but it is still there.

Anyway, to avoid this turning into a what-ship-can-beat-which-other-ship argument, my point was that, in my view, it doesn't add that much to the game as the game is on a higher strategical level. I completely agree that during ww2 these units were extremely useful in coastal defence and convoy raiding, as well as making coastal waters a dangerous place for any hostile navy. My argument is about the scale of the game, not the historical significance. I can completely see this being a feature in the black ice mod, but not in the vanilla game.

I disagree.
It absolutely has historical significance.
A D-Day unsupported by the terrific mass of vessel it had historically would suffer from mini-subs, e-boats, etc.
The G.I.s would not only be slaughtered on the beaches they would already be slaughtered from the moment they could see land.
And in the interest of amphibious operations (which are, without doubt part of strategic warfare) coastal forces need to be modelled.

 

[jesperj13]

I disagree.
It absolutely has historical significance.

I think you misunderstood my post. I completely agree that MTBs have historical significance (the discussion was to not overstate the importance of mtbs), and I'm not against the concept of including them in hoi4 (first/second post). My worry was the amount of micromanagement involved. Hence my suggestion it would fit well in the black ice mod rather than in the vanilla game.

Having the danger of coastal artillery, minefields, and mtbs abstracted and modelled in a modifier in coastal waters, as suggested by Secret Master, is a good idea and I second this suggestion. Why? As it combines the historical signifigance without overstating it and without involving micromanagement. Good thinking Secret Master!

Edit: maybe the modifier would only be active in coastal provinces with a port? Just to prevent the whole coastline of India, China, North Africa etc. to have the same modifier as those with (important) ports like along the Channel, Sicily etc.

 

[Klausewitz]

Edit: maybe the modifier would only be active in coastal provinces with a port? Just to prevent the whole coastline of India, China, North Africa etc. to have the same modifier as those with (important) ports like along the Channel, Sicily etc.

Maybe the port could cover a certain area around it (do we know anything about the shape of the seazones yet?)?

 

[Secret Master]

It absolutely has historical significance.
A D-Day unsupported by the terrific mass of vessel it had historically would suffer from mini-subs, e-boats, etc.
The G.I.s would not only be slaughtered on the beaches they would already be slaughtered from the moment they could see land.
And in the interest of amphibious operations (which are, without doubt part of strategic warfare) coastal forces need to be modelled.

In game terms, this is why amphibious invasions weren't usually ninja attacks. You could argue certain invasions were more or less ninja, but the vast majority of successful major amphibious invasions wrestled with these issues. In HOI3, Germany can ninja the UK with Sea Lion by attacking a portion of the coastal when the RN is out of position. TFH alleviated this problem somewhat by changing the nature of amphibious attacks, but the truth of the matter is that Germany would have had to launch an amphibious invasion in the same way the Allies did Overlord, and I'm not sure the German navy was up to the task. In all the "what ifs" of the war, one of the issues with Sea Lion is that every discussion assumes that Germany clear the mines, E-boats, torpedo boats, and all that crap from the Channel. That's actually a big damn assumption.

EDIT: Making it depend on ports has promise, jesper.

 

[Axe99]

Edit: maybe the modifier would only be active in coastal provinces with a port? Just to prevent the whole coastline of India, China, North Africa etc. to have the same modifier as those with (important) ports like along the Channel, Sicily etc.

I still think you need some kind of control/cost to it though - otherwise Melbourne in Southern Australia (a couple of guns at the heads - fired the first shots of WW1 and WW2, but not in anything that would be described as a military action!) will have the same level of coastal defence as Southern England or Northern France. Similarly, how do you balance the 'Coastal Defence' of Malta with that of St Helena without some kind of 'coastal defence resource' that's distributed between those ports?

 

[jesperj13]

I still think you need some kind of control/cost to it though - otherwise Melbourne in Southern Australia (a couple of guns at the heads - fired the first shots of WW1 and WW2, but not in anything that would be described as a military action!) will have the same level of coastal defence as Southern England or Northern France. Similarly, how do you balance the 'Coastal Defence' of Malta with that of St Helena without some kind of 'coastal defence resource' that's distributed between those ports?

Good point. Maybe coastal defence efficiency and range depends on the level of the harbour? That way you can at least distinguish between more and less important/strategic ports?
Or maybe you can see coastal defence as a building and 'build up' the level required, like you would with coastal guns, land fort and AAA? This should be easier to modify, but has the disadvantage that you can't let it affect any other sea province than the one next to the port where you construct it. Or maybe you can? Can't say that I'm an accomplished mod builder

Anyway, just some suggestions...

 

[Axe99]

Good point. Maybe coastal defence efficiency and range depends on the level of the harbour? That way you can at least distinguish between more and less important/strategic ports?
Or maybe you can see coastal defence as a building and 'build up' the level required, like you would with coastal guns, land fort and AAA? This should be easier to modify, but has the disadvantage that you can't let it affect any other sea province than the one next to the port where you construct it. Or maybe you can? Can't say that I'm an accomplished mod builder

Anyway, just some suggestions...

Good suggestions . It still wouldn't cover differing emphases on coastal defence by various nations (for example, the US only built 500-600 PT boats, compared with over 2000 produced by the UK, and as far as I can see, Japan only ever had a handful, although towards the end of the war it seems they had a variety of creative small-craft ideas that may have been a reasonable proxy), and the focus of defence may vary by region (it's sketchy, but a Wikipedia list of coastal command bases has 29 bases in the British Isles, one in Malta, a couple in Alexandria and one in India (in Bombay), so having a 'harbour size implies coastal defence force strength' would give Singapore and Hong Kong huge ahistoric buffs if the port size/coastal defence was used as a proxy for coastal defence vessels and minelayers/minefields. You'd also have ahistorical results around places like the Solomons, which didn't have much of a harbour but attracted coastal-defence sized vessels from the US, Australia and New Zealand in the struggle to deny supply of the Japanese forces on the island, and protect their own waters, despite the harbour in the Solomons being pretty minimal.