An honest question here, but I have seen pictures of a WWII fire control machine (computer??). I really have no idea how the human affects this, other than a correct input of observational data. Could you fill me in?
Hearts of Iron IV - Developer Diary 10 - Naval Combat
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An honest question here, but I have seen pictures of a WWII fire control machine (computer??). I really have no idea how the human affects this, other than a correct input of observational data. Could you fill me in?
Cardus,
Thanks for contributing that! WWII is such a big subject and that is a clear & concise description. What I don't like about HoI3, and think HOI IV will have the same thing, is that every tech seems to go up in equal increments. Where it should be more like the fallowing:
Range Finding Radar: +10 day attack, +5 night attack
Target Locating Radar: +1,000 yards range, +5 day attack, +15 night attack
(values are accumulative & just made up to show the point)
Thanks for contributing that! WWII is such a big subject and that is a clear & concise description. What I don't like about HoI3, and think HOI IV will have the same thing, is that every tech seems to go up in equal increments. Where it should be more like the fallowing:
Range Finding Radar: +10 day attack, +5 night attack
Target Locating Radar: +1,000 yards range, +5 day attack, +15 night attack
(values are accumulative & just made up to show the point)
This is a significant imporvement over previous installments. I can't wait to see what the result of a submarine flottilla in a strategic area that is out of ground based air patrol wil look like.
Will fleets being attacked in port use a similar method of combat (with the fleet in port unable to move / maneuver for a number of combat turns)? I’m trying to map this example of naval combat to a Pearl Harbor or Battle of Taranto scenario.
Yeah, Mers El Kebir is probably the best known example of a fleet being shelled while in-port. And, despite significant heroism by the French (& you won't see me post that very often) it wasn't much of a battle. Although the forces were fairly evenly matched (apart from Ark Royal) the fact that the French weren't free to manoeuvre really was a game changer. They were sitting ducks. That said, "significant" forces (Strasbourg) still escaped despite being harried by aircraft from Ark Royal, which achieved little to nothing.
Many ports, and naval bases in particular, would be very very dangerous to attack with warships. Land-based gunnery is far more accurate than those on a ship. They're also a lot smaller target &, therefore, much more difficult to hit.
So, bombarding ships in port should (IMHO) be included in Ho I IV but it would require the inclusion of land-based fortifications being able to shoot back. For the number of times this occurred, and the ease with which you can just capture the port instead (which forts shooting back would go some way to address) it probably wasn't considered cost-effective to put in HoI 3.
But I really hope it's in the new one.
Semantics aside, would like to know how this will be handled. I've rarely been able to replicate a Pearl Harbor or Battle of Taranto type result in vanilla HOI3, but it seems like the mechanic described in DD might address that. All the factors outlined in the DD are the same I think – except one side is maneuvering and one isn’t at the start of the battle.
It will be handled like any other port attack IF they use HOI3 terminology and missions. It is not just semantics. It is a crucial difference. One is a naval combat, the other is an air attack, which in this case is the port attack mission.
It makes sense only if they keep the same naval and air combat models. And we have seen enough of both to know that is not the case.
Planes are shown in the naval combat screen shot They are probably all carrier capable planes launched from the five CVs on the screen, many are torpedo bombers, but many seem to be fighters. Is it possible for some of those planes to be launched from air bases on land?
podcat said:
Why would you have a different combat mechanism in this case, one for bombers from the CVs, another for those from land?
podcat said:
We know also that air wings also use Strat. Regions and provinces, and it would seem odd not to use this combat mechanism if air wings from land spot a Task Force at sea, were not handled as a "naval event".
Is it not far removed to then also use the same mechanism to include ships in a port. A naval TF attacking one in a port, such as Mers El Kebir or Casablanca could be modelled by making the TF in the port more easily hit, their position static, or slow moving if they try to leave the port, navigating into open water. The port is then a special position within an adjoining sea province, rather than a special position within the land province.
This means that fleets can't hide out in ports, immune to attack from other ships. In fact, you could put a large fleet at an even bigger disadvantage if the enter a very low level port. Make them even more vulnerable, to represent ships being at anchor outside of the port facilities, so static and also out in the open, they would be particularly vulnerable to torpedo attack. That will penalise fleets which try to hide in a level 1 port.
The exception being, of course, that ports are not regarded as part of the High Seas. And you can't attack ships in a neutral port (River Plate).
This would have the scope I think to model Pearl Harbour and Tranto, and other combat where there was either TF v TF, TF with air support v TF, or air wings v TF, where the defending TF is in a port, or at least starts combat in the port.
Coastal artillery would also need to be included to prevent attacks on fleets in large well protected naval bases.
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Well Podcat said ground based planes will be in the same screen, but have not been done yet for the DD.
All good stuff but there's one teeny tiny thing I think worth mentioning again.
Carriers in-port can't recover their aircraft. In fact, the majority wouldn't be able to launch them either. At least, not efficiently.
This makes them especially vulnerable as once they've "shot their bolt", their aircraft need to land somewhere else.
Can you explain this please. I thought stationary CVs often couldn't launch planes, they needed to be sailing into a head wind with sufficient speed to provide the additional uplift for the plane to get airborne. But I'm not sure what would prevent a stationary CV in port recovering its planes.
The examples of combat I gave don't have any CVs in the port so there is nothing to suggest this would be a problem. What would have happened if the US CVs had been at Pearl Harbour, could they not defend themselves?
If so, then a CV should never dock at a low level port, but should always go back to its home naval base, generally out of range of enemy bombers, plenty of AA cover and CAP provided by land based planes. Plus anti-sub measures to prevent them getting into the harbour.
Maybe this is why Germany could not go down the CV route - they could never adequately protect such a large target anywhere other than in German Baltic Sea ports, and it would be too large to go through the Kiel Canal?
Most WWII CVs had catapults of one form or another (&/or could use rockets to assist take-off!) so the aircraft can start from a standing start (and full throttle) & still be accelerated to somewhere near its stall speed and be launched safely. Even the ageing Ark Royal had two catapults. As for landing, it's exactly the same problem as taking off except that your starting at a speed of a few hundred miles per hour and need to reduce this to zero in a very short space. This makes it much more difficult to "put a kite down on a postage stamp" than to get one airborne. The stall speed of carrier-based aircraft is lower than a land-based "equivalent" design but they still need their airstrip to be moving (in to the wind) in order to reduce the relative speed to a manageable level. And even then, they need arrestor equipment. Even with the CV at cruising speed, an ambitious pilot could (and several did) get the rear-end of his aircraft ripped off.
The only aircraft I know of that was capable of operating from a stationary carrier (but it still had to be pointing the right way in to a stiff wind) was the string-bag, who's low airspeed gained it legendary status as being too slow for Bismarck's AA fire control to track properly!
If the CVs had been at Pearl Harbour? Speculation here but, IMO, they would almost certainly, have been toast. They were surprised so would probably have had their aircraft on display on-deck. They may have been able to get a few airborne but probably not as they would have been the first targets. Even if they had been able to get some of their CAP up, I doubt very much that it would have made much difference as Japan (and Yamamoto in particular) above even Britain & Italy, knew the power that aircraft were able to wield and they would have been bombed to bits.
That said, being “caught cold” may well have worked in their favour and led to them being repaired, rather than catching fire &/or blowing up as usually happened when hit while conducting flying op's.
Germany. There are many reasons why Germany was unable to go down the CV route (and you’ll get loads of different opinions in this forum) but the sad fact is that German naval architects simply didn’t have much of a clue of what was required to operate aircraft from a carrier and, therefore, what was needed or how to build one. Carriers & carrier operations are very complex and where Britain, Japan & the USA had been playing with this technology for decades, Germany was starting from scratch.
Not sure what you read but it was made pretty clear that planes go on missions. See this quote:
"Once again it is time for a Hearts of Iron Dev Diary! This time I'm going to talk about how Air Combat has changed, and boy, it sure has changed! In earlier HoI games, air units were all "wings", a grouping of a non-specific amount (but notionally around 100) planes which you could order to carry out missions in an area or targeting a specific province. In HoI4 we no longer use only wings; each plane is an individual piece of equipment, and rather than give each one orders, you give orders to your air bases to send a certain number of planes on missions to a given Strategic Region."
So planes at an air base are sent on a mission (port attack) in a SR. They have not said what the missions are and that was why I said if they keep the same missions. But I think it's safe to assume that some type of naval or port attack mission will be in the game.
I have it on good authority that HOI4 will utilize a freemium model. Port strikes and naval strikes cost 400 Iron Cross Bucks, which can be purchased in the in-game store. Subscribers get 10 free port strikes a month.
(Now I can imagine a Hitler Downfall rant about this getting posted on Youtube later...)