Convoy escorts - Corvettes, Sloops and Frigates

[Axe99]

Question for the devs, or anyone else that knows . With some speculation that convoys are now going to appear on the map, and potentially be integrated into the main naval combat system, is it too early to ask if the role of 'escorts' is more detailed in HoI4. In HoI3 they were all bundled into escorts, but with HoI4 modelling equipment down to individual tanks and aircraft, and convoy warfare possibly taking place on the map, are we going to see these classes of vessels (of which combined their were hundreds) play more of a role (I'd assume primarily in the Battle of the Atlantic, but I'm not aware of the other actions these classes of vessels were involved in, if any)?

Suspect I'll have to wait and be patient, but it popped into my head, so thought I'd ask in the off chance .

 

[Wyrm]

It would certainly be intresting as long as we don't have to COMMAND them individualy. But having them follow the convoys automaticly and having them show up in naval battles the same way as convoys would be nice.

 

[potski]

We haven't been told of all of the different types of ships, I think. But at least one type is required below DD, to replace the convoy escorts that were abstracted in HOI3, but which we believe will appear on the map and engage in naval combat. We will more than double the number of ships that can be moved on the map. There must still be an autoconvoy system, where these small escort ships can be put into a pool that the system can assign to convoy routes. Just like the transport/cargo ships. And if necessary you can assign DD and even some capital ships to convoy duty.

One change that would be good. Don't have a global pool of transport/cargo and small escorts. This makes no sense, if ships in Hong Kong get assigned to the Halifax to Liverpool route. It should be done on a Theatre basis. If there are spare ships in the UK then these would be used. The autoconvoy system should simply warn the player there are insufficient ships in the Theatre to run the necessary convoys, it should not grab ships from other Theatres. So if you have heavy attrition you control which areas you are going to put your ship into. In HOI3 random convoys would stop working, and spotting this and controlling it was hard work. Of course, it means more work up front - when new convoy ships are built, for instance in UK, then you have to send them to the Theatre(s).

The transports in a Theatre pool would be used, with escorts if under threat from enemy attack, for moving whole Divs across seas, as Strategic Redeployment (not amphibious invasion which should be micro-managed). So if you are Japan and a new Div is deployed on the home islands. Then you should be able give it a command to SR to North China, it will move to a suitable port, convoy ships from the home islands theatre will take them to a port you control in China, then the Div continues overland. Make these things easy, please.

 

[Thanik]

It would certainly be intresting as long as we don't have to COMMAND them individualy. But having them follow the convoys automaticly and having them show up in naval battles the same way as convoys would be nice.

And then in naval battle they will destroy your "positioning" (or any other mechanics which prevent 20 BB's in one fleet), and they can become too easy target for enemy

 

[Wyrm]

Besides convoy escort, some of these types of ship (perhaps moste notable being the Black Swan-class) was formed into special anti-submarine groups that were not directly attached to convoys but worked more as fire brigade that could be called in if subs were spotted. These groups could then help defend the convoy and not being directly responsible for the convoy's safety, the could pursue enemy subs at their own discretion and chase them down until they had to surface or destroy them with depth charges.

These groups were very effective after they were formed in 43, perhaps most notable being the 2nd Support Group under command of the nearly legendary Captain Walker

 

[Wyrm]

And then in naval battle they will destroy your "positioning" (or any other mechanics which prevent 20 BB's in one fleet), and they can become too easy target for enemy

Well, they WOULD be easy targets for any type of surface ship in the battle fleet since they were not built at all to engage destroyers or larger ships. That's one of the reasons surface raiders in the early war scared the Brits so much. If they came upon a convoy, it would easily defeat the escorts and could then lay waste to the merchants.

If attacked by a surface fleet, I'd like these ships to have a mechanic where they try to get away from enemy surface ships rather than engage them. I mean a Flower Class corvette had a single 4"-gun at best. Ok for dealing with a surfaced submarine but not much else.

 

[Axe99]

It would certainly be intresting as long as we don't have to COMMAND them individualy. But having them follow the convoys automaticly and having them show up in naval battles the same way as convoys would be nice.

We haven't been told of all of the different types of ships, I think. But at least one type is required below DD, to replace the convoy escorts that were abstracted in HOI3, but which we believe will appear on the map and engage in naval combat. We will more than double the number of ships that can be moved on the map. There must still be an autoconvoy system, where these small escort ships can be put into a pool that the system can assign to convoy routes. Just like the transport/cargo ships. And if necessary you can assign DD and even some capital ships to convoy duty.

One change that would be good. Don't have a global pool of transport/cargo and small escorts. This makes no sense, if ships in Hong Kong get assigned to the Halifax to Liverpool route. It should be done on a Theatre basis. If there are spare ships in the UK then these would be used. The autoconvoy system should simply warn the player there are insufficient ships in the Theatre to run the necessary convoys, it should not grab ships from other Theatres. So if you have heavy attrition you control which areas you are going to put your ship into. In HOI3 random convoys would stop working, and spotting this and controlling it was hard work. Of course, it means more work up front - when new convoy ships are built, for instance in UK, then you have to send them to the Theatre(s).

The transports in a Theatre pool would be used, with escorts if under threat from enemy attack, for moving whole Divs across seas, as Strategic Redeployment (not amphibious invasion which should be micro-managed). So if you are Japan and a new Div is deployed on the home islands. Then you should be able give it a command to SR to North China, it will move to a suitable port, convoy ships from the home islands theatre will take them to a port you control in China, then the Div continues overland. Make these things easy, please.

Good thoughts . One way it could maybe work (convoys and escorts will already be in the game in some way by now, so I'm just theorising) is a bit like airbases - so within a theatre you have a pool of ships and escorts, and then you assign these to convoys (instead of airbases), so each convoy has merchant vessels and escorts (from corvettes up to BB's and CVs - some of the convoys to Murmanks had at least a BB and a CV) assigned to it (preferably with some kind of 'auto assign' tick box, so that everyone need not do it) - and perhaps limited by doctrine. Then the convoys chug back and forth along the route, with adjustments to the fleet size as appropriate, but those adjustments only being possible at either end of the convoy (where the 'reserve' ships are kept).

And then in naval battle they will destroy your "positioning" (or any other mechanics which prevent 20 BB's in one fleet), and they can become too easy target for enemy

From the look of the Naval DD, it's moving away from a 'positioning' stat to actually modelling the positions of all of the ships - so not enough screens may not be an abstract stat, but rather not having enough DD's to keep the other subs and DD's out. Under the new model, it'd be unusual to have a huge fleet in one spot in any case, and if there was, then the enemy fleet has the rest of the naval zone to move around in!

Besides convoy escort, some of these types of ship (perhaps moste notable being the Black Swan-class) was formed into special anti-submarine groups that were not directly attached to convoys but worked more as fire brigade that could be called in if subs were spotted. These groups could then help defend the convoy and not being directly responsible for the convoy's safety, the could pursue enemy subs at their own discretion and chase them down until they had to surface or destroy them with depth charges.

These groups were very effective after they were formed in 43, perhaps most notable being the 2nd Support Group under command of the nearly legendary Captain Walker

This would also be great in-game, and definitely add depth to the Battle of the Atlantic .

 

[Big Nev]

Well… I used to spam DDs with almost all the “components” set to the minimum level. Utterly useless in surface combat, not very fast either, but as good as anything else against sub’s.

I would assign these the “escort” mission for convoys, often with a similarly cheap & nasty escort carrier.

It still didn’t work very well (as the escort mission didn't do what it said on the tin) but I thought it was better than the generic Escort vessel.

My point is that such a vessel, smaller than a DD, is not only a viable option but, for many countries (including several majors) for much of the war, are vital.

 

[Gratch11]

as for the convoys, I would like a more realistic system. ie convoys didnt come everyday, it was more 0,0,0,0,0,0, 10000 supplies/Steel etc

Sinking parts of a convoy then means drastic results as in Malta.

Same goes for war material/new tanks etc, transported. And planes couldnt ferry from UK to egypt in one jump and so on but had to go by ship.

 

[Wyrm]

as for the convoys, I would like a more realistic system. ie convoys didnt come everyday, it was more 0,0,0,0,0,0, 10000 supplies/Steel etc

Sinking parts of a convoy then means drastic results as in Malta.

Same goes for war material/new tanks etc, transported. And planes couldnt ferry from UK to egypt in one jump and so on but had to go by ship.

This I like. Convoys could move as fleets from harbour to harbour. And if you hit them hard you can take down big parts of it causing temporary shortages of vital materials or supplies. Also, it would make assigning a BB to escort the convoy very doable.

 

[Axe99]

as for the convoys, I would like a more realistic system. ie convoys didnt come everyday, it was more 0,0,0,0,0,0, 10000 supplies/Steel etc

Sinking parts of a convoy then means drastic results as in Malta.

Same goes for war material/new tanks etc, transported. And planes couldnt ferry from UK to egypt in one jump and so on but had to go by ship.

+1 from me too, all being well this'll be how it's done. Now that they've got a good degree of naval automation in EU4, I reckon PDS is developing/has developed the code to allow for something like this to happen.

 

[Midden]

be nice to get some PT boats and the like in there somewhere, some sort of costal force that can impact convoy supply.

 

[Axe99]

be nice to get some PT boats and the like in there somewhere, some sort of costal force that can impact convoy supply.

Haha, I'd be keen on patrol boats as well (there were thousands of 'em during the war), but I suspect the game's not quite ready for that yet. It might be heading in that direction though, fingers crossed .

 

[Le_Carabinier]

I guess they'll be a ressource, like in HoI III with the Destroyer Escort, rather than deployable units.
They don't appear in the naval tech tree we saw in that gameplay video.

 

[potski]

I guess they'll be a ressource, like in HoI III with the Destroyer Escort, rather than deployable units.
They don't appear in the naval tech tree we saw in that gameplay video.

Destroyer Escort - was that from a mod? Or do you mean the abstracted convoy escorts, which have no ship type.

We understood that convoys would appear on the map, and not be abstracted. Can you provide a screenshot of the naval tech tree please.

 

[lokomoko]

as for the convoys, I would like a more realistic system. ie convoys didnt come everyday, it was more 0,0,0,0,0,0, 10000 supplies/Steel etc

Is that actually realistic though? It seems logical to me not to put all your eggs in one basket and have constant streams of resources being sent out, rather than placing them all in one transport fleet. This is an honest question, I don't know what happened historically with regards to the shipping of vital resources.

 

[Gethsemani]

Is that actually realistic though? It seems logical to me not to put all your eggs in one basket and have constant streams of resources being sent out, rather than placing them all in one transport fleet. This is an honest question, I don't know what happened historically with regards to the shipping of vital resources.

Initially ships were sent out on their own, with the idea that a lone ship was harder to detect than a huge gathering of ship. This proved to make life pretty easy for German submariners though, as they could attack lone and unprotected ships with little fear of reprisal, and that was why the convoy system eventually was formed. It was eventually decided that the system of large convoys full of ships and with a large contingent of escorts was the best way to ship resources and material as it maximized the number of ships that any one escort could protect and proved to be a harder target for the submarines, who had to not only evade the escorts but also attempt to reach the "middle" of the convoy, where the big prizes like tankers usually were located. In case of air attacks or surface attacks it was also possible to draw larger concentrations of protective fire the larger the convoy was.

All in all, sending all your ships at once proved to be a good way of getting most of them through, with the drawback that it required lots of logistic work on the port side as anywhere between a dozen and 50 ships reached port simultaneously and wanted to unload their cargo. It also diminished the effectiveness of the individual ships as they could spend several days or even a week or two in port while waiting for the next major scheduled convoy.

 

[Wyrm]

Initially ships were sent out on their own, with the idea that a lone ship was harder to detect than a huge gathering of ship. This proved to make life pretty easy for German submariners though, as they could attack lone and unprotected ships with little fear of reprisal, and that was why the convoy system eventually was formed. It was eventually decided that the system of large convoys full of ships and with a large contingent of escorts was the best way to ship resources and material as it maximized the number of ships that any one escort could protect and proved to be a harder target for the submarines, who had to not only evade the escorts but also attempt to reach the "middle" of the convoy, where the big prizes like tankers usually were located. In case of air attacks or surface attacks it was also possible to draw larger concentrations of protective fire the larger the convoy was.

All in all, sending all your ships at once proved to be a good way of getting most of them through, with the drawback that it required lots of logistic work on the port side as anywhere between a dozen and 50 ships reached port simultaneously and wanted to unload their cargo. It also diminished the effectiveness of the individual ships as they could spend several days or even a week or two in port while waiting for the next major scheduled convoy.

That system would not have been optimal vs powerful surface raiders since they could take out the escort and then sink as many convoy ships as possible before the convoy scattered. It happened a few times.

 

[eleetsdier]

That system would not have been optimal vs powerful surface raiders since they could take out the escort and then sink as many convoy ships as possible before the convoy scattered. It happened a few times.

The threat of surface raiders could be greatly mitigated by throwing old battleships or escort carriers into the convoys. This becomes easier the fewer convoys there are, so it might still be the optimal response.

 

[Big Nev]

That system would not have been optimal vs powerful surface raiders since they could take out the escort and then sink as many convoy ships as possible before the convoy scattered. It happened a few times.

Which is why Britain & the RN expended so much effort to ensure that Bismarck & Tirpitz never really made it in to the Atlantic.

A single Queen Elizabeth class was more than a match for Scharnhorst or Gneisenau (both of them at once wouldn't risk an engagement) and a Deutschland would be little more than 10 minutes target practice, but the old battleships wouldn't have stood-up to a modern battleship for long.

But against any (or all) of the other German surface units, one such "rust-bucket" was more than enough. The limitation then becomes, how many rust-buckets can be spared from guarding against a break-out by a serious threat like Bismarck &/or Tirpitz? This number is how many large convoys you can run.