Compendium of Navys and Naval issues

[Makeyourownmind]

I have read and written a lot, but it is spread all over the forum. So I decided to accumulate it in one thread. I havn't collectet all, so if you see something missing, add it. Some things are already rejected, but not adding them would mean that wishes you could vote for or against or discuss about would be excluded, so I added them nevertheless. I hope this will become a lively discussion.

Please don't post any "I agree" - state what you agree and why or why not.

Ralf, Hearts of Iron I + II gamer

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Naming, Classes and Szenarios

With the following, the Naval would be both Historical and fully compatible with design of HOI2 1.0/1.1

1936:

remove improved battleship (Bismarck) - Too Early

add event to fire 1.1.36, giving blueprints for : Early carrier, Basic Destroyer, and Improved battleship. This will be in agreement with "Plan X" (Precursor to plan Z, historic date 1935 post GermanEnglish Treaty), and production of all vessels can be started well within historical timetables.

Add to in production queue:
KMS Scharnhorst Laid down 06 May 35 Battlecruiser-3
KMS Gneisenau Laid down 15 Jun 35 Battlecruiser-3
KMS Admiral Hipper Laid down 06 Jul 35 Hvy Cruiser-3
KMS Blücher Laid down 15 Aug 35 Hvy Cruiser-3

Change Deutschland, Adm. Sheer, and Adm Graf Spee from
Hvy Cruiser 3 to Battlecruiser-2
Why: Design dates to 1929, and better matches battlecruiser.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1939

add Techs Advanced Light Cruiser (M-Class) and Advanced Battleship (H39),
as well as Basic Destroyer (z17), and Advanced Destroyer (Z23)

Note: two M-class Light cruisers were under construction, started in 1938. Same with H39 class battleships. "H" being built in same space used for Bismarck, "J" has mixed info, but under construction netherless. Z23 laid down 15 Nov 38. launch 15 Dec 39.

While there are LOTS of in construction units that can be added (most cancelled late Sept 1939 by Direct order Führer, add:

KMS Prinz Eugen - laid down 23 April 36 (think it is already there)
KMS Seydlitz - laid down 29 Dec 36 Heavy Cruiser-4
KMS Lützow - laid down 02 Aug 37 Heavy Cruiser-4

- - - - -- - - -
Names for tech:
Battlecruiser-4 should be named "O-P-Q" Battlecruiser
Hvy Cruiser-4 should be named "P-Class"

Improved carrier : Flugzeugträger B (1938)
Advanced Carrier: Flugdeckkreuzer E V (1942)

Imp Battleship: H39-class
Adv Battleship: H42-class
Superbattleship: H44-class (but this one is confusing, as tech is 1938)
Note: Advanced battleship for England = Lion-Class (1946)

- - - - - - - - -

Finally, if there is interest: an event to trigger after sept 38, choosing between Plan Y (subs) and Plan Z (Surface fleet). Event should test to see if you actually researched Plan X items. If you didn't research Plan X, then you are not prepared for Plan Y/Z, and don't get the bennefits below:

If Plan Y, provide plans for IX Subs, Electro Subs, and promote Donitz.

If Plan Z, provide plans for Adv. Lt Cruiser (M-Class), Adv. Battleship (H39), and Improved Destroyer (Z23-class). All are historic to germany late 38/early 39.

This will restrict the "Sub Junkies", and will reflect a possible turn had the Kriegsmarine been given Plan Y. Electro boats earlier vs Allied ASDIC.

The "Flugzeugträger B" was a "Graf Zeppelin"-class ship. Flugdeckkreuzer and Grossflugzeugkreuzer are not CV, they are some weird combination of a cruiser or battleship and half an aircraft carrier. They were designed to be used for commerce war, but I don't think they are such a good idea, since a CV and a BB have different usage. The soviets have build such ships after WWII, and someone told me the japanese have converted three ships like this, but I don't know of any extended use of such ship types.

- The "M"-class CL is supposed to be the german Advanced CL. In the 1939 Szenario, the germans don't have this tech, but in history, the first two ships were planned to be layed down in November 1939. All used material was scrapped at the beginning of the WWII. In September 1939, they had this tech already. Please change it in the gameszenario. Also, the Nürnberg (CL-4) is the same class as the Leipzig, both are "Leipzig"-class. (the Leipzig is counted as a K-class CL, and the CL-4 is named Nürnberg-class, which is wrong).

If you don't want this to happen, please change the so called Nürnberg class (actually, with the Leipzig together the "Leipzig"-class) to be in the Basic CL class together with the "Königsberg"-class (this class has to change names anyway, keeping to be the "Königsberg"-class in the tech tree is ok, but the name was "Königsberg"-class, not "K"-class; in reality, these two classes havn't been soooo different, either). Then, the Improved CL could be the "M"-class (could you name it somehow better... like "München"-class, since München is the largest town in Germany with M), and the Advanced CL could be named "Spähkreuzer"-class (what was the actual design for a CL in 1940, but only layed down once and scraped pretty soon thereafter).

-Additionelly, the Z1 class is actually the "Zerstörer 1934"-class, the Z17 is the "Zerstörer 1936"-class, and the Z23 is the "Zerstörer 1936 A"-class.
With Z46 class you probably mean the "Zerstörer 1936C" or the "Zerstörer 1938"-class.

-The Great War Air Carrier called Seydlitz-class is also wrong, the Seydlitz was a really fast Admiral Hipper class Hvy-cruiser, converted to a small aircraft carrier (never completed). With an estimated range (one way) of 6600 nm, this was - for a GERMAN capital ship - a small range, but this was not an old crappy thing like the converted coalfrighter of the US (the first aircraft carrier ever on the seas of the world). PLEASE make it at least the Early Air Carrier, since no german would ever produce a Great War Carrier.

-The H-class Battleship is not an advanced Battleship, they were the super heavy type (see: standard displacement of Yamato and Musashi: 65,000 ts, Montana (Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, Louisiana) 60,500 ts, H-class 62,500 ts), but please name it "Hindenburg"-class, not H-class.
There were some studys of Battleships of over 80,000 ts (standard displacement, not max displacement!), but they were never built, too, and I doubt they would have been, even if the war wasn't in the way.
-

Conclusion:

Basic CL: "K"-class (in reality the "Königsberg"-class) and "Nürnberg"-class (in reality the "Leipzig"-class) --> "Königsberg"-class
Improved CL: "M"-class (But please name it "München"-class)
Advanced CL: "Spähkreuzer"-class

Advanced CA: "P"-class (after Panzerschiff) (maybe call it "Potsdam"-class, since one letter is dull)

Early DD: "Zerstörer 1934"-class
Basic DD: "Zerstörer 1936"-class
Improved DD: "Zerstörer 1936 A"-class
Advanced DD: "Zerstörer 1938"-class.

Great War CV: leave blank in favor of the Early CV
Early CV: "Seydlitz"-class
Advanced CV: maybe "Europa"-class (a should-be conversion from a passenger ship; it got enough range, speed and space) - a little bit crappy, but better than nothing - or leave it blank like it is now

Advanced BB: leave blank in favor of the Super Heavy BB; Germany has never build such a class
Super Heavy BB: "H"-class (but please name it "Hindenburg"-class)

Advanced BC: "O"-class... don't know a possible other name
(Kreuzer "P" was a Panzerschiff, in fact a really large CA, not a BC (or something between); The "O"-class had 10,000 ts more displacement. I think even the Hood could have beaten a "P"-class easily, since they had only 11'' naval guns planned, but the "O" had 15'' like the "Bismarck"-class.


- Please rename the "Graf Spee" (hvy cruiser germany) to "Admiral Graf Spee"

- I havn't found the abreviation "KMS" (Kriegsmarineschiff?) anywhere. I know that they had "Seiner Majestät Schiff" (SMS) in the first World War, but I think in WWII they don't had any abreviation at all before their ship names in Germany.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Naval Ranges

I don't know why they caped the range that way. First of all, there WERE ships that had a short range, but for some mission templates they are useless, so, of course, there were ships invented with more range - and other methods, like refuling on the high sea.

I understand that a transport has only 3,000 nm range (maybe historically not correct, but the effects are likely similar to the history) - and having 10,000 men piled one over the other doesn't make it better. But on the other hand, warships don't have this effect like in history. They are puny. If Hitler had the ships you grant him, he would have said from the beginning: "Admiral Raeder, I understand your interest in warships, but they are useless. Get over it. Do you want to have a job in my newly build panzer army?"

I think 8,000 nm (one-way) for ships build after 1936 was a nice range for capital ships, 10,000 nm a very good and 20,000 nm was extraordinary. But in reality, they used auxilary ships, so their range increased drastically.

I want to have Auxiliary Ships (maybe you can use convois?) - I cant use a fleet (especially as Germany) if I can't research range for ships.

It does indeed seem that the current ranges of the naval units in the game were based on the assumption that everyone is playing as Italy. Germany isn't that bad (the operational ranges on it's ships were not as special on avarage as you make them out to be), but the Pacific naval powers, ie. US and Japan, are worse off.

From historical pow (and Paradox may have very well chosen to slash the ranges intentionally), I'd like to see around 150%-200% increase in ranges, depending a bit on the type and tech level of the ship, my major points are:

#1 DDs are rather fine as they are (however, they should be able to refuel from the capital ship during long sails, ie. the ranges should avarage out and not be limited to where short ranged DDs can go).

#2 Capitals ships from CLs to BBs need significant increases.

#3 Techs should have limited effect on range (a L-1 CL should not have half the range of a L-4 one). As a historical example, the three classes of Japanese improved Tenryu type CLs from the early '20s had ranges of 9.000nm (Kuma, Nagara) and 7.800nm (Sendai) respectively, while the newer CLs from the early '40s had 6.300nm (Agano) and 10.600nm (Oyodo). Another example is USN CAs keeping steady range at 10.000nm from Pansacola to Des Moines.

#4 An exception from the point #3 are subs, whose range should increase exponentially with tech, even to as far as 15.000-20.000 kms for the semi-modern ones. I might also add at this point that the medium range subs should have lower defense than short range ones and the long ranged ones should have a lower than the mediums. This is because the larger subs always proved to be clumsier and slower to dive and manuver and were, hence, more vulnerable to depth charges. Electric subs, with their high submerged speeds should have much higher defenses than anything previous.

#5 The naval doctorine techtree could be used to give a bit of national flavor when it comes to ranges. For example the Indirect Strike path could give some range bonuses overall while the Selane Interdiction path could give some boost to the ranges of BBs and BCs.

There is a bug with a AI controled naval units range. AI contoled navy can go all over the world regardless of distance from their base.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Submarines and Convoy Raiding

If you set submarines to "convoy raiding", they should actually go convoy raiding, and NOT engage in battles with suface fleets. This is so stupid, I mean, both american and german sub-fleets had doctrines for convoy raiding, and their subs avoided warships in general. Anyone heard of a naval battle in the atlantic between the Royal Navy battleships and the german submarines??
So, I would like submarines on convoy raiding to AVOID fleets, and only wage war against convoys-escorts, as it was. Besides, almost NO capital ship, be it light cruiser or be it battleship, had a anti-submarine capability, they had destroyer screens taking care of that, so it´s really stupid if CL to BB attack value´s (or defense value, for that sake) counts when battling submarines. That would in that case mean that the submarines would go surfaced and firing a volley exchange with their deckguns, like battle-submarines?
Besides, capital ships with their destroyer-screen in turn avoided submarine-suspected waters if they could, the only exception was the submarine-killer Taskforces of late war, consisting of one carrier with a ASW capable screen of ships.

Why bother? Convoy raiding as is, is totally useless anyh00t. Target countries (most likely allied), will have had ample opportunity to build up unrealistically high surplus stocks of any and all resources. As such, there is no war of attrition and no need for convoy raiding.

A simple suggestion to remedy the issue would be to remove submarines from active fleets (perhaps along with destroyers) and rather have them play a revamped and abstract role in the war. Ie. Submarines could be built same as convoy transporters and escorts and automatically attack these. At the same time something would have to be done with the economy that allows for such high stock surpluses, perhaps by allowing submarine activity to "steal" from such stocks. Anything to make the war of attrition more viable!

As someone mentioned somewhere else, convoy raiding seems not that effective at all (I've seen stocks of 9999.0 Oil, 9999.0 Rare materials and 9999.0 Supply, even if you could set up a blockade this would take some time)

Ships in a seazone near a harbour should be able to completely (it is much easier than looking for convoys in the middle of the ocean) blockade this harbour (similar to EU II blockades), to cut troops off from being resupplied.

Add naval mission: Blockade. Making it possible to isolate an island completely if you control all adjacent sea-zones. Convoy raiding missions are too "random" to isolate an island since fleets move around.

I agree that the game not only needs this but it is VITAL to making it a better simulation. Right now Sealion is unstoppable once the troops land because you cannot cut off supply o matter how many ships/ aircraft are patrolling a seazone. This was also an important tactic used on Japanese Garrisons in the Pacific.

I like the idea having submarines in the same category with convoys and escorts. On the other hand, it would be nice to actually direct your sub-fleets, and besides, you should have the possibility to use your subs as the japanese did, against capital ships. So, my suggestion is, only some vessels can perform ASW combat (DD, CL and CV), and when submarines are on convoy-duty they are only spottable by those fleets, other fleets are ignored. But there should be the possibility for subs and fleets to be in the same naval area too, without spotting each other, and an ASW-fleet in an area where a convoy is attacked by subs should really have a good chance of spotting them, since the fleet in question then would be helped in pin-pointing the subs.

Currently it is easy to avoid a blockade by negotiating for resources instead of trading. Interdiction should be applied to resource swaps just as to trading.

I am nearly positive trading resources will take losses. For example, I used to give Japan supplies and coal as Germany, and it operated at 66% or so. Not sure of the exact numbers, but I do remember seeing this.

Submarines are offensive juggernauts vs. AI navies. Even my German prototype sub (dive boat) have Battleships and Carriers on it's kill-list!

Penalize high concentrations of u-boats. Make them easy to spot: it should be impossible to hide 30 flotillas of submarines in one sea zone. Make them receive high levels of casualties: it should be like fishing in a barrel enemies should not have to even aim.

Submarines were generally very slow whilst submerged so their only chance against fleet warships was stealth. If they go around blowing their cover by moving in huge underwater armadas they should have about zero chance of getting into plausible fireing positions, much less hitting a good target.

In reality, subs got some lucky shots (and sunk the whole ship with one or two volleys!), but they where only massed versus convoys. As far as I know. It is even an often given tip to go submarine instead a whole navy.

But like this, the Submarines must have the ability to sometimes break free of combat if a large huntergroup tries to enter combat - if you can only manage to move around in stacks of two ships, you are easy pray, even if you have a hundred of these submarines.

But in general, this is a good idea. No naval fleet would enter combat with 30 submarines voluntarily; they would call the naval bombers and stay out of it. Submarines must have their place: silent hunters that can submerge (i.e. to a certain degree be invisible; but my own trials with small stacks of submarines have been bad - they are spottet to often and then sunk by large hunterfleets without chance - and let me say, MY submarines where a lot better tech then their crappy destroyers).

Secondly, small stacks of submarines don't have pray to often, because the majority of the convoys are to heavily guarded (and have I mentioned that my submarines where better then state-of-the-art...?)

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Upgrades, Naval Brigades and Stats

About CV strenght... CV with tech should get bigger and bigger, so let them be able to attach more and more brigades.

Tech Tree suggestion, Naval:
1. Develop Improved Radar technologies should also affect ships already in service. Like AA Firepower, possibility to detect other ships, firing range/efficiency.
2. Improved Sonar Techs for destroyers. Should also "upgrade" existing flotilllas.
3. Torpedo Techs, this is because the Type VIIB was an sub but it was upgraded while introducing new torpedos and should have an drastical effect on their efficiency.

4. Upgrading ships. This is one of my biggest complaints. Countries DO upgrade ships as a matter of necessity because they are such major investments. Not even the US could afford to build more carriers or battleships simply because they were outdated. These ships are a simple of prestige and are kept up[ to date as much as possible. Case in Point, the USS Missouri. Between the time of her commisioning prior to WWII, to her final dicommisioning after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, she was upgraded many times. (I have other examples such as the post war nuclear carrier Enterprise... the entire tower was replaced) One cannot do much about a vessel's displacement, size, armor and range, but one can certainly add new armament, the US does it all of the time, as do other naval powers. Just because a BB doesn't have AAA in 1936, doesn't mean that someone hasn't found a way to mount some on the same ship by 1945. Necessity is the mother of invention. If the Mighty MO can go from conventional arms to cruise missiles, we should be able to upgrade our navies during the game.

Upgrades. If I have level one aircrafts in a wing, and have developed technology for level four, my aircrafts upgrade in order, that is first to level two, then level three, finally, they upgrade to level four. Can someone tell me why any armed force would want to produce older planes for wings/divisions/whatever that is eligible for upgrades? In fact in real life, if a state has three wings with aircrafts grading from least modern to most modern, and develop new aircrafts, the first wing to get the new equipment is the LEAST modern.
Cost should stay the same, since a new plane/tank/whatever doesn´t become more expensive because the unit it replaces is older than usual.

Since BBs gets so crappy AA stats in the game (which is for the most cases correct - older BBs had crappy AA), my suggestion is that it should be possible to develop AA brigades which could be attached to BB (to reflect BBs upgraded with later WW II style AA floating fortresses).

This could come with a speed and range penalty for the BBs thus equipped.

With this enhancement one could get rid of the ridiculous situation now at hand where DDs and CLs have far better AA stats then Advanced BBs.

Wouldn't it just be easier to tweak the research? Getting the various levels of Radar, for example, could boost BBs (and other naval units) Sub Detect, Air Detect, Sea Detect, Air Defense, Air Attack, and possibly Sea Attack (radar guided big guns on the North Carolina). As for floating fortress AA behemoths, I'd tie that into the one of the AA research trees - I just don't know if static AA or AA brigades tech would be a closer match.
Would take some time to balance, but implementing it would be easy - even as a user Mod. I just don't happen to know if "naval air attack +1" or "+x %" is implemented in the game.

No, mudder dude, I'm not saying that "we should be able to build aa fortresses", I am saying that historical BB's WERE aa fortresses and that became their primary functional role since surface combat between BB's didnt happen (much) in WWII and this was realized pretty early on that planes were to be the dominant force in this new war. All later models were just bristling with AA. Apart from the atlanta's CLAA, the AA armament of a US Battleship would flatten the AA armament of an average CL so the stats need to reflect this (IMHO)

My perception is that for HOI2 purposes, each ship class is sort of optimized to do one thing well and other tasks less so. BB's are surface bombardment platforms, CA's are cheaper versions of same BB's, CL's are AA platforms, DD's are ASW, etc. I know this is not realistic but it does reflect their wartime useage patterns at least, so I can live with it I suppose.

Like others, I just find it interesting that a BB with 10 twin 5 inch DP turrets and dozens of 40mm quads (and the fire control directors for all of them) has less than half the AA strength of a Cleveland CL, which ad only 6 twin 5 inch DP mounts and less than half the quad 50's...

Abstraction has to be made, I guess, but it does make for some strange solutions.

My opinion has always been:

To heck with "balance"

Make these units what they really were proportional to eachother and then let the player go at it. It wont matter if BB's have phenomenal AA. The player wont build tons of them for their AA value.....they're too expensive and take too long to build versus a CL. So the tactics wouldnt change really and MAY just solve the nav bomber exploit.

You've got that wrong my friend. BB's did have a few AA guns on board but the primary functions for battleships were attacking other enemy ships and shore bombardment. This was especially so in 1940+ classes such as the Iowa class and Bismark class. Cruisers and destroyers are better suited for Carrier protection. That's why there are no BB's in service today. Besides, your best AA cover should come from the carriers with its own intercepters.

Hmm, I have to strongly disagree here. Even the late-30's designed US BB's had at least 10 twin 5" dual purpose batteries with AA directors and so many 40mm and 20mm batteries as to leave almost no room left in the decks and galleries. That's not "a few AA guns on board" the way I see it. The vaunted CLAA cruisers only had 8 (later reduced to 6 due to stability problems) 5" DP twin turrets and a smattering of 40mm and 20mm batteries (due to lack of space and weight reserve.)

The WW2 Iowa's were the finest anti-aircraft platforms of their day, designed from the outset to survive in an aircraft-intensive environment. They were superior anti-ship platforms of course but they did so well in the WW2 battles in which they participated in large part due to their superb AA batteries being the primary defensive hedgehog of any carrier TF.

And to disagree on another point...the main reason BB's don't exist today is that they are way too manpower intensive in comparison to what they can deliver to an enemy using modern weapons systems.

(And to expensive and ineffective, because you can sink a BB with virtually the same effort than any other ship in modern days.)

The more I write and read about WWII navies, the more I get the idea that 'one size fits all' is wrong. All the major powers had different ways to do it their way, so all the ships got different abilitys (apart from the - very basic - ability to move or sink other ships). And some abilitys ARE important, as the range-discussion shows.

IF you think that one size fits all is right after all, then there are a few more shipclasses to think about then only SS, DD, CL, CA, BC, BB, CV and Transport - they are very basic.

Britisch battlecruisers had a total different philosophy then the german Scharnhorst class - the british ships where armored with paper (and they later tried to better armor them, but a design failure cant't be changed, but they where propperly armed instead), while the german ships belonged to the class of "fast Battleships" (the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau where amored like real Battleships, but because of the lack of apropriate guns, they were - temporarily - armed with (9x) 11'' guns instead of the intended (6x) 15'' guns. Because of the outbreak of WWII, this was never changed [the turrets were produced, but not installed]). Note that their size of 3/4 of the Bismarck corresponds with only 3/4 of the (intended) guns of the same caliber.
The Bismarck class was also around 31 knots.

There where short range and long range hvy cruisers, both for totally different usage. (like: Admiral Hipper class <-> Deutschland class)

Light cruiser is a term used for all fast, armored ships larger then a destroyer and not so heavy armed as a "real" cruiser. Their usage is not unified.
And there were ships you force to be a light cruiser, who could be proud to be named like that, like AA battery ships.

Battleships of newer designe where much faster then you assume (Bismarck class over 31 knots!) - but older ones could have the same firepower and nearly the same weight of armor.

Carrier had from nearly 20 airplanes to 110 airplanes on one ship - a significant difference, even if you upgrade the type of the airplane to a newer one. Maybe you can implement this as a "factor", where 50 standard planes may be equal one, and you multiplicate this factor with the boni from the planes given.

There were carrier with a protection system of a battleship! (namely the Shinano), and other, cheap builds, who were not protected at all (namely the escort carriers).

All the small ships you force to be destroyers (Schnellboote, torpedoboots and more ...) have totally different usage and stats.

And so on...

I have a suggestion for Ships in general: could you integrate a button "modifications" at the ships building menue, where you can order one or two modifications to the new ship at the expense of a greater cost in IC, like -greater range, - faster, -greater firepower/firerange (heavier gun types) or -more AA.
Historically, this was done. (To solve the problem with the "Deutschland"-class, who has greater range and firepower/firerange than all other cruisers of that time, and a lot of other German ships, who had A LOT more range than other navies. Germany was fully aware that they don't had harbours in the wide world, so almost all German ships - namly the ones for the Atlantic- had better ranges than the game sugested. Like the small Battleships of the Scharnhorst class, about 8,800 sm (one-way) at 19 knots; the BBs of the Bismarck class, about 10,000 sm (one-way) at 16 knots; the Zeppelin class was constructed for 8,000 sm (one-way) at 19 knots and the "Spähkreuzer 1940" was constructed for 12,000 sm (one-way) at 17 knots... and so on.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Naval - Miscellaneous

Some collected things:

3. Lend Lease. During the war, the United States in particular acted as the "arsenal of democracy". It would be nice if it could give or sell units to other countries. Not just expeditionary forces mind you, but actually selling equipment. For instance, the US gave the UK outdated destroyers in return for basing rights, well before it entered the war. As one cannot upgrade ships (also see next point), one should be able to sell or trade them as a commodity. Add to that Sherman tanks, B-17 bombers, Jeeps, etc. Provided that the buying country has the manpower to take the equipment, it should be able to buy it. The selling nation should get its manpower back.

Would be great if naval interdiction just worked better... I had two fleets in the waters around Hainan as Japan (both with more small than capital ships) and i was not able to invade Chinas mainland as my troops only can get there as long as there is no enemy fleet in "Gulf of Tonkin". Even if both my fleets were directly there, some invisible ships blocked that way.

Coastal fortresses should (if they don't already), attack and damage/destroy ships that attempt to land troops on their "beach".

While on the subject of seaborne combat...it desperately needs rework. Disallow auto-flee opportunity (average ship speed and commander skill should be considered if a fleet gets to escape).

From List:
24) Notify when a naval unit withdraws to base because of low org/str (its annoying to find that 20+ fleet return home just because one (1) DD squadron gots damaged

I also suggest a pop-up similar to this when a ship gets too low on org:

"5th Fleet commander suggests sending 43rd DD Squadron to base for repair
and refit."

Then you click yes or no.. it will auto detach and go to base if directed to.
A set up like this would also allow it to be done automaticly in the options
menu.

3) I don't like the undocumented naval stacking penalty for large fleets. While it may be realistic, it is confusing. If a Grand Admiral is supposed to be able to control 30 flotillas without penatly, I think he should control 30 without penalty. Also, players are more likely to create large fleets for a number of reasons. One reason is that it gives the human fewer things to micro-manage, which allows more time to be spent in the "Action." Also naval disadvantaged nations like Germany versus the UK have to build uber fleets to be able to compete with the huge number of medium fleets their enemies deploy.

6) A left over bug from HOI1 is that there are sometimes fleets with no flotillas in them that do not disband. Example: TP flotilla fleet that is destoryed in port.

8) There is a "Massive Mysterious Naval Loss Bug". It happened to me twice in the last game. The first when I massed all the starting German Fleets, and the second time when I had by far the largest (30 units) and most powerful fleet in the game. You get a message like your ships have lost a battle, but almost all of your ships sink, it shows no enemy losses, nor is there any engagement. Yes, my ships had high str, and org, and were in supply. One moment they are there, the next moment they simply vanished.

13) Missions are much less useful than they could be because they are assiged to regions that are not detailed anywhere in the game. I know some people have a keen understanding of obscure world geography that allows them to realize that conducting a combat patrol in the East Iberian Sud will take their navy to the square where the enemy navy is bombarding their troops, but I can't. The color coding does not help much as the same colors are often duplicated many times, and the difference between colors is so subtle I often cannot tell the difference. <g>

19) One of the big problems I had in HOI1 was trying to get escort ships./sub packs to travel along with my transports at the same speed (but due to stacking limits and ease of use be in separate fleets). I still cannot seem to get this done in HOI2. Whichever unit is faster runs ahead and leaves the TP's all alone at the mercy of enemy fleets. I would like some easy way to tell my warships to protect that convoy over there with the panzers, or die trying.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Air Defense and Naval Bombers / "Flotte"

You use the term "Flotte" (like: 1. Flotte) for german fleets. Thats the right translation from english, but I think that the germans havn't used this term; I think they used "Kriegsschiffgruppe" (like Kriegsschiffgruppe 1, happened in Weserübung), "Flottenverband" or short "Verband" (fleets in general).


Naval Bombers have been less succesfull than the game suggests, especially in the first years. It is right that only a few bombs could have sunk a warship, but they havn't hit that much (in the first years).

Let me say some other thing: cruisers are almost the same length as battleships, maybe only 15% smaler. A lot of Battleships have been nearly as fast as cruisers (the fastest have been faster than older cruisers!), but WAY better armored. (improved up) Battleships are to vulnerable to (early) Naval Bombers, and even later Naval Bombers have used special bombs and operations to sink battleships. It is a fairy tale that Battleships have been easy pray for bombers; what is rigth is, that you need a lot less efford to sink such an expensive ship than it costs. An other advantage of the Naval Bombers was that they were much more mobil and could strike suddenly.

Early Battleships have been easy pray, of course; sometimes one hit was enough to sink such ships.
And Naval Bombers had a hard time hitting warships in the first time, maybe the Torpedobomber were a little better, but they had more casualtys.

I suggest that BB in special (improved and above?) have better Air protection than all other ships*, because they have been extraordinarily armored and were no less hard to hit then cruisers.
*(except CV who had their own intercepterscreen)
And also that the Basic Naval Bomber (and maybe all other Basic aircraft, to preserve the balance), have less Sea Attack. The Improved ones may keep their Sea Attack skills.

The Yamato and Musashi have both over 30! hits with Bombs (about 1 ts each) and Torpedos, before they sunk, and that have been late Naval planes.

"Navy carriers launched nearly 400 aircraft to hit the oncoming Japanese ships. In all, Yamato was struck by some ten torpedoes, mainly on the port side, and several bombs. U.S. losses totalled ten aircraft and twelve aircrewmen."

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Aircraft Carrier Capacity

While the brigade system used in HoI2 for carriers is OK, it could use a little improvement. Junk hunks like the Langley and Hosho have almost the same offensive potential and air defense as a Midway, just because they're now carrying late-war planes. Even if they could carry them, they certainly couldn't carry as many, so they'd be much less useful in combat. Right now, that isn't modelled, and it's very strange. The Hosho might be slower with lower Sea Defense, but if it fights almost the same in combat, who cares? You can throw out several of them for every Shinano, since CAGs aren't very expensive and you can build the carriers by serial build, and the difference is even more pronounced after you get the Assembly Line techs.

I think I have a fairly simple way to fix that, adding two more attributes to carriers: CAG Capacity and CAG Tech Limit.

CAG Capacity is essentially a multiplier showing how many planes a model of carrier can carry, based on a CAG being some convenient number (I'll use 100 for ease of calculation in my example). For instance, a Hosho CV-1, which carries 21 aircraft, would have a CAG Capacity of 0.21. If it's currently got a model of CAG with Air Attack 8, Air Defense 7, and Sea Attack 6, you multiply them together and the Hosho gets a benefit of AA 1.68, AD 1.47, and SA 1.26. A far more capacious carrier, a Shokaku CV-4, carries 84 aircraft, and with the same model of CAGs, the ship would benefit by AA 6.72, AD 5.88, SA 5.04. This is low by current standards, but the statistics of CAGs would be higher to compensate.

CAG Tech Limit is the maximum model level of planes that a carrier can operate. To bring back the Hosho again, there is no way it could possibly have operated jet aircraft, or even late prop planes, even though it survived into the jet era. Ingame? No problem, a 1945 turbojet CAG for all my escort carriers! CV-1s would get a CAG Tech Limit of about 4 or 5; the Langley was great for Aeromarines, but she couldn't launch Corsairs and Avengers, loaded with bombs, munitions, self-sealing fuel tanks, and amor plating. The early and perhaps basic carriers would get a CAGTL of 7, showing that they can operate any prop plane but not turbojets. All the later carrier were sufficiently advanced enough for turbojet operations; the first jet plane to land on a ship landed on the HMS Ocean, a late war light carrier. A CAG can't be placed on a carrier that's too old for it, and a CAG onboard an old carrier won't upgrade past the CAGTL.

I like these ideas, especially the first one; they differentiate between carriers and make it worthwhile to build late carriers. A Midway should be a Midway, not a triple price Langley with 2% more firing distance and a lot more armor. The second idea, especially that integral last sentence, might require a little too much coding for the end result, but it always seems odd seeing turbojets based on some old converted fleet oiler.

This idea is mostly the same as I mentioned before, but way more detailed. Good work pointing out the differences!

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Battleships vs. Battlecruisers

Two other things about Battleships:

1936:
remove improved battleship (Bismarck) - Too Early

The Germans had started the work on the "Bismarck" in juli 1936.
Of course, building battleships has lasted longer in reality than in the game - this ship was operational in 1940, more than three and a half years after the first REAL work was done (excluding the construction plans).

----------

The difference between a Battleship and a Battlecruiser:

1) Hood, UK, (in the game as BC-3) took 2 or 3 hits (at least one 8'' and one 15'') and then brook up.

2) Dunkerque, French, (in the game as BC-4) took 3 hits from heavy artillery, then she was badly damaged. One air delivered torpedo later, she capsized and sunk (the first time; she was in a flat harbour and could be repaired).

3) Bismarck, Germany, (in the game as BB-4) took 3 hits from heavy artillery and was damaged, so she lost about 3 knots (from 31 to 28) and left behind a track of oil.
3 hits from air delivered torpedos later, she was damaged so heavy that she could make only 5 knots and lost her rudder. All in all she took 10 torpedos and several dozen hits form heavy artillery before she opened her valvets and sank herself as a wreck, no machinery and no heavy turrets left.


If someone knows other examples, he is invited to explain his thoughts. Up to this point, I think that BBs have to low defense skills in comparison to other ships (and aircraft) - no heavy cruiser and battlecruiser could make it versus a battleship, except that a battlecruiser could have the same ARMAMENT as a battleship (heavy artillery).
Ingame, both improved (lvl-4)
BC - SA:17 / SD:12
BB - SA:21 / SD:19
The offensive could be better (maybe 19 or 20 for a BC), but the defense of a BB is at least double the amont of a BC (so, this would mean SD:24+).
Making a BB a floating fortress, impenetrable to all but another BB?
No, that was the idea behind this massive investments, but this proved to be wrong in reality, and will prove wrong in the game, too. In reality, this ships sunk due to a hunt from all available units, may them be naval or airial, not from some tiny trys, even if the battleships were alone.
And in war, you can't make this massive investments a second time, so battleships will not be a hinderence at all; and you are going to recognize that a lot naval battles will happen at more than your gunrange.
So, why bother? Because this ships were not funny at all, even countrys who had aircraft carriers feared them. This is a simulation based game, and I want battleships, not bigger battlecruisers. (You can compare the armor or other combat reports, if you want.)

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Hosho

Tried to check if anyone else brought this up, couldn't find; IJN Hosho, cv small missing in oob

I havn't found her either in the 1936 scenario; she was completed in 1922.

The Japanese Navy was a pioneer in naval aviation, having commisioned the world's first built-from-the-keel-up carrier, the Hosho. Throughout the 1920's and 1930's, they constantly experimented with their carriers, perfecting their design and construction methods, and honing the demanding art of blue-water power projection.

By the beginning of the Pacific War, Hosho had been relegated to training duties, but was used in a combat role during the Battle of Midway in June 1942.
During the June 1942 Battle of Midway, Hosho accompanied the Japanese "Main Body" to provide a modest degree of air cover for the battleships and other vessels of that force. In July 1945, during U.S. carrier air strikes on Kure, Japan, she was lightly damaged.

HOSHO served in the combined fleet from 1922 to 1933 when she was withdrawn and used for training duties. During the 1938-39 period HOSHO received a full air complement, (of obsolete types), and was employed again with the Combined Fleet and saw action in the China War. In 1940 she again reverted to the training role and remained so employed until after the Pearl Harbor attack. Shortly thereafter HOSHO was reequipped with modern aircraft, (exact numbers and types not known for certain), and was assigned to the 3rd. Carrier Division along with the RYUJO. After a few minor operations she took part in the Battle of Midway as part of the main fleet. She then returned to home waters and was reassigned to the training role for the duration of the war. This second line employment is probably what saved her, for she was usually operated away from the main fleet anchorages and was overlooked in the wide ranging air sweeps by US Navy aircraft towards the end of the war. At war's end she was still afloat although she had sustained some bombing damage in 1945. HOSHO was used after the war to repatriate Japanese soldiers and civilians from the many outlying island garrisons which had been bypassed in the American drive across the Pacific. She served in this duty until 1947 when she went to the scrapper's torch. Thus HOSHO was both the first and the last Japanese carrier.

I think she has to be there, since she saw action in WWII, and several obsolete types of warships are incorporated in the game.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Feeling for Naval combat

I also think that naval combat has to be a little bit faster and repairs have to be a little bit slower (even damage that was "minor" took month to repair). Maybe you can make building a ship slower in general (and cheaper per day), but ship assembly line faster (and more expensive per day) to catch up. This would give a more real feeling for ships. And spotting has to be lower...

 

[unmerged(15623)]

The difference between a Battleship and a Battlecruiser:

1) Hood, UK, (in the game as BC-3) took 2 or 3 hits (at least one 8'' and one 15'') and then brook up.

2) Dunkerque, French, (in the game as BC-4) took 3 hits from heavy artillery, then she was badly damaged. One air delivered torpedo later, she capsized and sunk (the first time; she was in a flat harbour and could be repaired).

3) Bismarck, Germany, (in the game as BB-4) took 3 hits from heavy artillery and was damaged, so she lost about 3 knots (from 31 to 28) and left behind a track of oil.
3 hits from air delivered torpedos later, she was damaged so heavy that she could make only 5 knots and lost her rudder. All in all she took 10 torpedos and several dozen hits form heavy artillery before she opened her valvets and sank herself as a wreck, no machinery and no heavy turrets left.

Some things to note:

The "armours" that were commonly used in defense against Torpedos were not, AFAIK, very weight intensive. So listing the amount of probable torpedo hits is rather moot in a case like this.

Of the example you posted only the last one included a lenghtly exchange of fire. Naturally the Brits kept pounding Bismarck for a good while after she was already on her way under (a situation that didn't occur in either of the two other examples). IMO, in game terms, Bismarck was "sunk" when her rudder got damaged. Not only was she "mission killed" then but she was also rendered incapable of returning to port.

Furthermore the example number one (Battle of Denmark strait) was a freak feat of luck more than anything else. Unless my memory has compleately given up on me, the protection scheme on Hood was very similar to that of Queen Elizabets' (with improvements and alterations) and definetly worthy of any battleship.

I havn't found her either in the 1936 scenario; she was completed in 1922.

She's there. It's just that she's, for some reason, named Koku Sentai 1, even though the name Hosho is in the unitnames file.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Battleships and Battlecruisers, part 2

I havn't found her either in the 1936 scenario; she was completed in 1922.

She's there. It's just that she's, for some reason, named Koku Sentai 1, even though the name Hosho is in the unitnames file.

You are right. Koku Sentai seems to be the japanese version of "Fleet" or something similar, so "1. Koku Sentai" means "First Fleet". This seems to be a naming bug. (edit: on second thought, this has to do something with aircraft carrier fleet, not fleets in general)

As for the Bismarck/Hood/Dunkerque: The "Bismarck" was heavily damaged after the rudder; and the hit on the "Hood" was luck; BUT: the hit on the rudder was also luck. The "Dunkerque" capsized and sunk after one torpedo; the "Bismarck" could have been saved ON HIGH SEA if she wasn't pounded short after, and she already took three torpedos. And she didn't capsize after the tenth.

Furthermore the example number one (Battle of Denmark strait) was a freak feat of luck more than anything else. Unless my memory has compleately given up on me, the protection scheme on Hood was very similar to that of Queen Elizabets' (with improvements and alterations) and definetly worthy of any battleship.

It doesn't matter if she had a protection system similar to the "Queen Elizabeth" class; the QE-class was build 1912/1913 - a first World War battleship isn't worth figthing a second World War battleship. And the 27,000 ts displacement of the QE-class (don't know if max or standard) is less than even "Gneisenau"-class.
The "Hood" didn't have a useable horizontal armor (1'' to 3'', average no more than 2''), and thats bad on a large range battle, because every hit is a horizontal one. A hit of "Prinz Eugen" (she only had 8'' guns) penetrated the Hood! This is not the protection system I would like to have for a battleship. And because of this horizontal armor, every hit penetrated this armor and a lucky hit was inevitable.

On the other hand the "Bismarck": several dozen hits of heavy artillery, and no amunition exploded. Luck? Of course, but aided by construction in both cases.
(Note: The "Bismarck" had a horizontal armor of 1.5'' to 4'', but critical points were better protected or better hidden, and she also possesed a good system of armored bulkheads, especially under the waterline where torpedos could hit.)

 

[Makeyourownmind]

HOSHO, the third

During the Shanghai incident in 1932, the 1. Koku Sentai with Kaga and Hosho was deployed to the chinese coast.

The Kaga is in the game, so the 1. Koku Sentai is only one (capital) ship, so there is no point naming her not HOSHO.

 

[unmerged(11610)]

Heavy ships (battleships and heavy cruisers at least) should last longer in battles. There should be more damaged ships and less sunk ships. AI should also need to learn to REPAIR ships and not to use them if more than 50% damaged. Also repair should take much more time. This will make naval warfare more realistic and we don't anymore see dozens of sunk ships in few weeks period (US sunk all Japan ships in just MONTHS).

 

[unmerged(20208)]

Japan's Naval power depends entirely on the carriers. As long as carriers engage in surface battles AI Japan will never have a chance against the US Navy. Carriers need to be treated as a special kind of ship, with special combat rules. Surface ships should simply not be capable of engaging them. Only another carrier fleet should be capable of shooting back at another carrier fleet, and only with their air wings. Surface fleets just get hit by the air wings, and cannot return fire.

A carrier is not just another ship with planes on it, it's a radically different kind of naval warfare that renders the large slugger ships obsolete. The confusion arises from the fact that this is a WWII game, and carriers were new so some odd things were done with them early on that lead people to cite "historical" data that has nothing to do with reality.

Until carriers have special combat rules, I'm guessing you'll find that AI Japan's Navy gets wiped out in a month or two every single game.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

Carriers, Naval Combat Range and other stuff

Some stuff that piled up:

2) No naval retreat! This is making naval battles ridicillious.

--> Yes, but only for a few hours. Retreating at night, bad weather was normal

There have been posts before; look for them in this thread.

4) Subs are way too good against warships

--> but too bad against convoys

Subs are too good when player player stac 10+ flotillas. Submarine flotillas should be limited to maximum to 10 (like planes are 4). No more über-subs.

5) Naval battles are too deadly, there should be more damaged ships and less sunk. Specially important when heavy ships fight!

I think that happens. Look the three below:

--> This is a point, which is vice versa in my current game. Playing as Japan, I have naval battles with 2-3 big fleets (2-4 CV, 2 BB .....) against the same for USA (sometimes 5 CV, 4 BB...). This goes for 4 months now, we are at the 20th or 30th engagement now, and up to now nearly no ship was sunk already! The battles last for only 1-3 hours and then someone retreats. This goes on an on. OK, the strenght and org are down for some ships, but no sunk ships. Only if I make some navalbomber strikes additionally, I sunk some of them. But after all, 90% of ships are sunk by airplanes, not by naval battles...

Playing as the US I kept running into Japanese ships and combat would start, but almost every time the battle ended with no ships sunk. I looked at the ranges during the combat and it was too far for the other ships besides carriers. So all my capital ships just sat around while the carriers attacked. I dont know why the CAGS couldn't sink a single ship but that seems pretty cheesy to me. I think the attack values of those CAGs should be revamped to make it more realistic. Or was it my fleet composition?
Carriers seem to kind of suck overall, I really dont like that.

I have had the same problem: I had the better and the more CV's, but almost always the enemy got away without critical losses, especially in carriers.

(I got CV-4, four to eight versus one to three, some dozen naval combats)
I sunk about 15 less important ships in these... thirty? fights.

The weather was sometimes the culprit, but not mainly.
I think, both of our fleets were to large (a lot 20+ fleets) with to less carriers, so the combat stopped before ships sunk, and the damage was spread all over the fleet. Transports, destroyers, cruisers and battleships sometimes sunk, but not what I would expect for this large fleets clashing.

But you know what? Except one thing, it is ok that not much of the ships sunk. (If I recall it right, the thirty combats spoken off happened in about thirty to fourty days, and sinking 15 ships - half of them capital - in fourty days is quite good, historically compared.)
The only thing that is sad, was that my carrier planes should target carriers more. Where is the point in sinking (the almost useless) battleships first, if I could sink them later? I have to sink these carriers first who damage me at all distances, and targeting a certain ship out of twenty shouldn't be the problem, if I fly a plane.

6) *At least* double the repair time of ships. Badly damaged battleship (20%) should take 8+ months repair not 1% per DAY (1,5 month).

--> that's ok, maybe not necessary 8 month, but longer. Also repairtime of airplanes, harbours, IC should go longer!

Repair time has to be increased!

16) Naval bombers should be credited in ships sunk statistic page

--> Oh yes, and they shouldn't be so strong as they are at the moment. Playing Italy, I managed to sink 80% of the Royal Navy with 8 naval bombers

8) No more US sunk Japan navy in 4 months (suggestion 5 should fix this also)
20) Lower light cruisers ASW stats
21) Increase heavy cruisers air defence, lower air defence for light cruisers and *specially* destroyers. Early war models (DD + CL) and way too good at AA, it should be CA's role.
25) DO NOT CHANGE transport ships range. Its a ridicillious to make 3000+ km amhibious assaults. Range could be even shorter, but I haven't fight in the Pacific yet, so probably 3000 km is good compromise.

The roles of the warships cannot be taken in this game as it is; cruisers are supposed to sink and guard merchant ships, but because of the range, you cann't do this. This is especially true if you are not in war with UK and you have to use the channel - the channel range bug limits you to northern spain, but also true IF you are in war with UK - there were cruisers with about 10,000 nm range in reality!

Visibility has to be lowered for this purpose (or naval detection), but detection of merchant ships has to be increased (because you know where they are likely try to travel), and cruisers have to use their speed to get away (like subs their stealth) if the convoy is guarded to heavy.

Minimum range in naval combat:
I just got the game, and the first thing I did was play the Coral Sea scenario to test out the naval combat. Several times, a Japanese fleet ambushed my carriers at close range and got massacred. At 1.0 km, aircraft were hard to launch then get into combat because of the shells landing all around. But, my CAGs wiped out the enemy fleet. This change would also effect subs, as their weapons consisted of torpedoes. Also, at lower angles the really heavy guns on BBs could not be fired and/or would not be aimable at ships too close. So, at close range, sea attack should be lowered.

I can live without the change of course, but it would be fun to have.

 

[Makeyourownmind]

AD of ships accompaning CV's / CV-light / large Fleets

Another point that bugged me all the time: CV's gave all other ships in their fleet Air Defence, even if only some: attacking Naval Bomber cannot commence their attack run as they wish.

It would be nice having CAG's giving all other ships in the same fleet +2 to 3 AD or so (but not multiple for more than one carrier).

Dividing fleets into smaller units isn't encouraged by the engine at all; the one who uses his fleet as a "Monster"-stack has the advantage, but thats not the historical use. Historically, if you use only one big fleet, you are missing all the enemy ships, but they are conducting their missions in smaller numbers.

---> That leads to the other point: give large fleets not multiple boni for sea detection; a small fleet can see almost the same, and sea detection is to high anyway.
Penalizing large fleets in combat stats isn't the way of choice; you have to do it with an other way (like the sea detection thing).

--------------------------------

By the way: one possible way to handle the problem with older CV and newer CAG converting them to virtually the same combat power as newer and larger ones is to separate CV's into two branches: CV-light and Fleet Carrier.

Light CV's (20 up to 50 airplanes) are mostly the early ones or the conversions; they are build quick and expensive, and have lower stats than real carriers; they cannot use the advanced types of CAG's (maybe you develop an extra CAG-light that doesn't have this advanced types).

Fleet Carriers (60 to 120 planes) have a longer build time, (and are cheaper per power) but are the "lay all eggs in one basket" policy. They also can use the advanced types of planes due to their length and space available.

That would solve quite some of the problems.

 

[Iridium]

I might as well mention the lack of the Takao class heavy cruisers produced by Japan. Argueably the best CA's Japan had to offer, especially after their '33-'34 refit. Just for example they had a cruising radius of 8500 nm @ 14 kts.

On the survivability of BB's in general I think that you have many cases of luck and totally out numbered vessels (i.e. Yamato). In all, I'd have to say that the Bismark was lacking in armor layout. It had the weakest overall protection of all the newly constructed BB's in WWII. This link is fun for BB comparisons: BB vs BB

Very few CVE's and even CVL's participated in battle willingly, the US was using them as a means to transport aircraft across the pacific and to protect sea lanes from subs. Most CVE's in fact had a flight deck that was too short for aircraft to land on, especially when half the deck was covered with planes for transport. I realize that Japan and even some US CVL's were used as real, however small, CV's. Most of these vessels were conversions from merchant ships or cruise liners, hence the low top speed of ~22-25 kts. Some were specifically designed as CVL's and posessed a speed of ~32 kts but these were few and far between.

I believe that some names of CL's and CA's could be filled out to be a real class in stead of CL V, etc. I'd have to look at what is missing and what classes have the qualities that meet these designations. IIRC there is no class name for CL I or II. Of which could be named Tenryu and Yubari respectively. I know that the Yubari was a 'one of a kind' for design study but I feel that it meets CL II specs.

Anyhow, if anyone else noticed, some of the classes are simply missing from places where they could be used. I think I was simply annoyed that my class V CA's looked like the class IV CA's and were actually named class V. Just annoyed me a bit.

 

[unmerged(15623)]

I might as well mention the lack of the Takao class heavy cruisers produced by Japan. Argueably the best CA's Japan had to offer, especially after their '33-'34 refit. Just for example they had a cruising radius of 8500 nm @ 14 kts.

None of the Takaos were under a refit in 33-34 so you must be thinking about another class there. In general they were a slight improvement overall over the earlier Myôkô class (called Nachi in HoI iirc), but not neccessarily significant enough to justify CA-4 status.

Admittedly, date of costruction should be the most deciding factor in determing the tech level of a historical class. Takao class seems to be there on the edge of being CA-4 date wise, seeing how Zara class is considered CA-4 with only slightly more recent construction date. However, if Takao is classified as CA-4 there are plenty of CAs that need their tech upgraded as well, like the British Norfolks (two last County-CAs) and all American CAs aside Pensacola and Salt Lake City (heck the 7 ships of the New Orleans class should be CA-4s regardless).

Personally, I would rate Takaos as CA-3 to keep it simple and use Tone class to represent a Japanese CA-4 desing. And to add further, the CA-5 should be named as Ibuki (never finished, but you could use a photo of an 8" gunned Môgami for it, as Ibuki class was a follow up on Môgami).

Most CVE's in fact had a flight deck that was too short for aircraft to land on, especially when half the deck was covered with planes for transport.

It was definetly possible (if tricky) to land on USN CVE's.

Of which could be named Tenryu and Yubari respectively.

Japanese CL-1 is already Tenryu. The CL-2 is named after one of the three improved Tenryu classes (can't remember which exactly, Naka?).