Finally, we can bomb Pearl Harbor!

[hkrommel]

"realistic"

Sinks 20 capital ships with 400 aircraft when the Pearl Harbor attack sunk 4 with 350 aircraft

Seems pretty OP to me.

 

[KDEstroy]

Could you actually explain what exactly you did for this test? I am unable to recreate this kind of port strike. I tried it with rather historical figures (still NAV2 with 5 range), 360 JAP planes and around historical US fleet size.
In fact I actually saw barely any difference from the coordinated strike at all.

Could anyone else recreate such a situation?

1. Move the CVs next to Honolulu

2. Set the naval bombers to port strike mission

3. Commence the coordinated strike operation

4. Wait a couple of days, and the strike happens

 

[STABBY5]

"realistic"

Sinks 20 capital ships with 400 aircraft when the Pearl Harbor attack sunk 4 with 350 aircraft

Seems pretty OP to me.

Under massive aircover no less. 800 active fighters would have not only alerted the navy, but also would have shredded the Japanese.

 

[hkrommel]

Under massive aircover no less. 800 active fighters would have not only alerted the navy, but also would have shredded the Japanese.

Definitely. Even caught completely unawares (not even the AA was manned and many guns didn't have ammunition) the US damaged 74 planes and destroyed 29

 

[Orlunu]

"realistic"

Sinks 20 capital ships with 400 aircraft when the Pearl Harbor attack sunk 4 with 350 aircraft

Seems pretty OP to me.

The OP also stated that he completely overclocked the attacking force to implausible levels

 

[Holdy]

1. Move the CVs next to Honolulu

2. Set the naval bombers to port strike mission

3. Commence the coordinated strike operation

4. Wait a couple of days, and the strike happens

edit2: test was done without the beta

Well, I meant what numbers did you use? How many carriers and planes on JAP side, were the NAv's 5 range? How long did you port strike Hawai?


This is basically what happenes on my first port strike after commenced coordinated strike:

Spoiler

After 10 days, and that means 10 attacks, the port strike looks like this (a period where you could expect even the last player has noticed the port strike):

Spoiler

Why I only get 60 NAVs to attack I am not sure. Following the defines it should be 10 planes per ship. Efficiency is at 70%.
I mean if I let the port strike run for 2-3 month, I could probably get the same result, but in the end the coordinated strike is done for 3 days and in those I can by no means recreate your result. So the question is for how long did you run the port strike? Or how many carriers did you use?


edit:

For comparison this is what I get (after 10 days minus 1st attack) without coordinated strike (normal declaration of war)

Spoiler

 

[Voigt]

@Holdy Just to be sure, are you on 1.9.2 Beta?

 

[Holdy]

@Holdy Just to be sure, are you on 1.9.2 Beta?

OHH, DANGIT!

Yea, I could recreate the result now on the first attack

Spoiler

sorry, mate!

 

[Voigt]

Now these damage numbers look interesting with only 320 Nav Bombers, would like to see with 240 though. ^^

Also about comparison to Real Life, Japan didn't sent that many Naval Bombers, but alot of High Altitude Bombers, CAS and Fighters aswell. We in HoI IV purely send Naval Bombers.

 

[Orlunu]

OHH, DANGIT!

Yea, I could recreate the result now on the first attack

Spoiler

sorry, mate!

Ah, yes, this does look like a pretty nice balance point. About as good as we could hope for, really.

 

[Voigt]

Depends. The purely sunk numbers look alright, 6 BBs and 5 CAs. But if you look left on the damage numbers, I'll assume that pretty much all the ships are quite damaged aswell, on top of the sunken ships.
So this is still a very powerful blow.

 

[Orlunu]

Depends. The purely sunk numbers look alright, 6 BBs and 5 CAs. But if you look left on the damage numbers, I'll assume that pretty much all the ships are quite damaged aswell, on top of the sunken ships.
So this is still a very powerful blow.

Yes, a very powerflul blow, made with pure torp bombers instead of torps/cas/fighter mix. It's not an exact copy of IRL, but it's a pretty damn close analogue, and I think that's about as good as we can look to get.

 

[xtfoster]

The screenshot did seem excessive. Most of the ships hit at PH weren't even sunk (permanently), but were repaired and put back into service. Also, the OP said he gave the US 800 fighters on AS, which realistically should have protected the ships from such a force to a large degree.

This is no doubt tricky to balance without making it either useless or overpowered.

Well, some notes on why it might seem excessive.
1) As mentioned, those 800 fighter can't intercept the Coordinated Strike (however many sorties that is).
2) He used 400 buffed 1940 CV-Nav, when historically only 353 aircraft (of all types: A6M Reisen Fighters, D3A Dive Bombers, and B5N Bombers (about half armed as level bombers, the rest with torpedoes).
3) About half of the bombers were tasked with attacking targets other than ships (base facilities, aircraft, hangers, etc.) For some strange reason attacking the fuel storage facilities was not part of the plan.

 

[Holdy]

Well, I did some more test runs, and the time you commence the coordinated attack is very important, since the coordinated port strike will commence exactly 72 hours later. So a night port strike might not be preferable (keep in mind top right time is UK time, not local time):

Spoiler

On another run I even could sink the whole navy stationed in Pearl harbor:

Spoiler

Mixed CAS and NAV seems not do too bad either (one of the more luckier runs):

Spoiler

 

[Fulmen]

As mentioned, those 800 fighter can't intercept the Coordinated Strike (however many sorties that is).

Realistically they obviously should be able to. The fact they can't is based on developer attempts at trying to make the "Coordinated Strike" mission type worthwhile, rather than on realism.

He used 400 buffed 1940 CV-Nav, when historically only 353 aircraft (of all types: A6M Reisen Fighters, D3A Dive Bombers, and B5N Bombers (about half armed as level bombers, the rest with torpedoes).
3) About half of the bombers were tasked with attacking targets other than ships (base facilities, aircraft, hangers, etc.)

Comparing to the historical amount of aircraft, it's still obviously overkill. Realistically the US fighters should provide protection, many of them should get destroyed on the ground, and most of the ships should not be total losses, but rather be badly damaged.

Again I'm only pointing out what would be realistic. I am aware of the balance-issues and other game limitations with modelling it this way.

For some strange reason attacking the fuel storage facilities was not part of the plan.

IIRC they were for the 3rd wave, but that wave was never launched because the Japanese feared the US carriers that were out at sea.

EDIT:

Well, I did some more test runs, and the time you commence the coordinated attack is very important, since the coordinated port strike will commence exactly 72 hours later. So a night port strike might not be preferable (keep in mind top right time is UK time, not local time):

Spoiler

On another run I even could sink the whole navy stationed in Pearl harbor:

Spoiler

Mixed CAS and NAV seems not do too bad either (one of the more luckier runs):

Spoiler

Interesting tests. The part about timing the attack correctly by means of monitoring the in-game hours or day/night cycle seems like a bad oversight by the devs. There should be a preset that allows you to choose the time of attack (like we had for attack orders and missions in HoI2), or at least whether it's day or night.

 

[safe-keeper]

Realistically they obviously should be able to. The fact they can't is based on developer attempts at trying to make the "Coordinated Strike" mission type worthwhile, rather than on realism.

Is Coordinated Strike meant to be a surprise attack, like Pearl Harbour and the early air strikes on the USSR on June 22nd? Because then it makes sense that air superiority should not matter too much. Those 800 fighters would be parked wingtip to wingtip in the sun, and the radio operators would mistake the Japanese planes for B-17s from the Mainland. Telling your air force that you read your tea leaves and got the rising sun, and that you believe a Japanese attack is forthcoming, probably wouldn't do much good.

This is another example of how HoI4 needs proper mobilisation and readiness levels, though.

 

[CraniumMuppet]

Coordinated strike is not a perfect modelling of Pearl Harbor per se. The mechanics are inspired by it but is not intended to perfectly model this specific event and is more of a general approach to such coordinated strikes, hence the name and why its not named "Attack on Pearl Harbor".

So having a perfect Pearl Harbor attack with the same outcome as in real life is something I don't think should be expected, cool if it happens to land close to be sure but there are so many variables for each of those historical attacks that making one operation simulate all those different operations with different parameters is currently impossible

 

[Fulmen]

Is Coordinated Strike meant to be a surprise attack, like Pearl Harbour and the early air strikes on the USSR on June 22nd? Because then it makes sense that air superiority should not matter too much. Those 800 fighters would be parked wingtip to wingtip in the sun, and the radio operators would mistake the Japanese planes for B-17s from the Mainland. Telling your air force that you read your tea leaves and got the rising sun, and that you believe a Japanese attack is forthcoming, probably wouldn't do much good.

I've wondered the mission's effect on aircraft on the ground. I have a feeling it doesn't allow for the destruction of masses of parked planes, but I haven't ran any tests. Actually I'm not sure if damaging planes on the ground is even possible in HoI4. It was in previous HoIs, but planes were on-map units there.

 

[hkrommel]

Coordinated strike is not a perfect modelling of Pearl Harbor per se. The mechanics are inspired by it but is not intended to perfectly model this specific event and is more of a general approach to such coordinated strikes, hence the name and why its not named "Attack on Pearl Harbor".

So having a perfect Pearl Harbor attack with the same outcome as in real life is something I don't think should be expected, cool if it happens to land close to be sure but there are so many variables for each of those historical attacks that making one operation simulate all those different operations with different parameters is currently impossible

Nobody is expecting exact replication of Pearl Harbor and I’m aware OP gave himself good bomber variants (though the Japanese had good bombers too)

But even with that in mind Pearl Harbor is a historical benchmark that we can look to and say “ok, how did a highly trained navy perform in this sort of operation in a situation that was literally a best case scenario for them?”

In that best case scenario (minus the carriers being out to sea) they sank 4 capital ships. OP sank *20* with only 50 more planes, while facing active air cover of *800* fighters.

That needs some work. It’s definitely not something that should be top priority as I’m sure you and the other devs have more important things to be doing, but I’ll be very disappointed if results similar to these are WAD and they aren’t adjusted at some point down the line

 

[STABBY5]

So having a perfect Pearl Harbor attack with the same outcome as in real life is something I don't think should be expected, cool if it happens to land close to be sure but there are so many variables for each of those historical attacks that making one operation simulate all those different operations with different parameters is currently impossible

That completely understandable though I would probably use pearl harbor as a metric for what a good, unopposed attack would look like. This is completely deleting fleets under air cover which it really shouldn't.