Hearts of Iron IV - Developer Diary 10 - Naval Combat

[Dalwin]

Submarines rarely got "into" carrier fleets during air operations. What usually happened was that damaged carriers were happened upon by opportunistic submarines. In situations where fleets were moving at tactical speeds, submarines hadn't a hope of catching them, but coming in and out of port, or on random transit, that's where the subs really made their money.

This is one that is harder to quantify as well, since stat summaries rarely distinguish between a sub getting a kill on a damaged ship or straggler vs picking something off from an operational task force. Both things happened though.

 

[Traks]

There is hope after this DD. HOI3 naval combat was random crap pile.

 

[Beagá]

I will say that submarines attacks worked by such different rules compared to surface engagements that trying to STILL use them in battles might not work that well.

I´d still favour a instant resolution system instead of battle screens. Submarine and fleet in same área? POP-up: submarine sunk/damaged/escaped. Ships sunk/damaged. With different atitudes for submarines that would define how agressive they would be regarding attacks on surface ships.

But maybe Paradox will come up with a very good system.

 

[jju_57]

Submarines rarely got "into" carrier fleets during air operations. What usually happened was that damaged carriers were happened upon by opportunistic submarines. In situations where fleets were moving at tactical speeds, submarines hadn't a hope of catching them, but coming in and out of port, or on random transit, that's where the subs really made their money.

This is complete fallacy and I've debunked it lots of different threads. The exception was where the carrier was previously damaged.

 

[unmerged(495036)]

And do damaged ships move slower or defend worse against torpedo attacks, making damaged ships more vulnerable to torpedo bombers, torpedo armed surface ships, and submarines?

let me echo this - a very important question.

Does damage affect speed?
Or, even better, does it affect firepower?
Can heavily damaged carriers accept their aircraft? Can heavily damaged submarines submerge? (=some detectability penalty).

 

[Gratch11]

Submarines rarely got "into" carrier fleets during air operations. What usually happened was that damaged carriers were happened upon by opportunistic submarines. In situations where fleets were moving at tactical speeds, submarines hadn't a hope of catching them, but coming in and out of port, or on random transit, that's where the subs really made their money.

Exactly, give one time where a sub sank a carrier in a TF(is there one?)

 

[unmerged(495036)]

and one more question, only seemingly offtopic:

will range of airplanes properly play a role while rebasing?

Think of all the ferry missions while getting land based airplanes to Malta.
Or sinking of defenseless HMS Glorious, while ferrying planes back from Norway..

 

[Porkman]

and one more question, only seemingly offtopic:

will range of airplanes properly play a role while rebasing?

Think of all the ferry missions while getting land based airplanes to Malta.
Or sinking of defenseless HMS Glorious, while ferrying planes back from Norway..

I would like to see an automatic thing where the planes would fly their own pat across friendly bases. Stopping in each one for a short time. You could also strategically redeploy to send them to China or in the middle of the pacific but then they'd travel off map for a long time and be out of org on arrival.

 

[Art1985]

I would like to see an automatic thing where the planes would fly their own pat across friendly bases. Stopping in each one for a short time. You could also strategically redeploy to send them to China or in the middle of the pacific but then they'd travel off map for a long time and be out of org on arrival.

Transpot them using special convoy (enemy can sink them while this happening).

 

[Had a dad]

Exactly, give one time where a sub sank a carrier in a TF(is there one?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_aircraft_carriers

Just scroll down and look for the conditions, very few are mentioned to already have been damaged that were sunk by subs.

 

[Klausewitz]

Exactly, give one time where a sub sank a carrier in a TF(is there one?)

In a Taskforce?
Depends on how you define 'taskforce'.
Ark Royal was sunk when fully opertaional and escorted.
Courageous was stalked and sunk why escorted by two of the four assigned destroyers.
The USS Block Island got hit by a submarine that snuck through her screen and fired 3 torpedoes.

 

[Sinbuster]

Very nice. How long would large engagements potentially last: a few days?

 

[Beagá]

Shouldn´t be the case. One thing is maneuver isnide a sea zone, another battle.

Naturally spotting is quite important and it begs the question if it will be changed. Floating planes, radar etc.

 

[Secret Master]

My only point of contention is that the Shinano was escorted. Luck and the zig zagging brought the course right to the Archerfish. Of course Japanese ASW was not up to par but that is a different story. Hopefully techs will have a nice back and forth in this area.

Yes, but in HOI3, Archerfish can't even get in range to fire if she gets surprise. That's what was unacceptable about the old model.

The new model seems to make it possible that if the Japanese DDs are doing a bad job of ASW, Archerfish at least gets a chance to shoot.

 

[Dalwin]

Well some of the Pacific Battles took a few days, but that was becasue the fleets never got in visual range of each other. It was cat and mouse with recon and carrier strikes. This involved having to take a break during darkness and resuming in the morning.

 

[scroggin]

We also wanted different ship types to be able to interact with each other and not make, say, convoy raiding a completely separate system.

Does this mean that convoys will be represented moving on the map rather that being abstracted as in HOI3?

I like what we have in this DD it sounds like another impressive improvement on HOI3......thanks Podcat and team.

Thanks to the moderator for removing the silly posts claiming "First" they aren't really a positive contribution to any thread.

 

[safe-keeper]

Submarines rarely got "into" carrier fleets during air operations. What usually happened was that damaged carriers were happened upon by opportunistic submarines. In situations where fleets were moving at tactical speeds, submarines hadn't a hope of catching them, but coming in and out of port, or on random transit, that's where the subs really made their money.

Differences in speed notwithstanding, if a sub is lucky enough to be in the path of a carrier, said carrier is at risk, even if she is under escort.

 

[tommylotto]

Without capital ships having multiple segments (engine, gun turrets, bridge, hull, etc.) that can separately be damaged, you cannot have a general rule where damage always effects speed or firepower. When all damage in generalized there is no way to determine which specific system was damaged by a given hit. However, there is nothing stopping PI from using a critical-hit-type system where each damaging hit has a certain percentage change of causing critical damage to one or more systems, which might result in loss of speed, firepower or maneuverability (positioning), etc.

 

[Klausewitz]

Differences in speed notwithstanding, if a sub is lucky enough to be in the path of a carrier, said carrier is at risk, even if she is under escort.

An important thing is overlooked here i think:
A submarine captain might value his life.

Going into a carrier group means going into a hornets nest of ASW assets and make them angry enough that they might keep looking for you until your air runs out.
So a sub captain might not want to turn towards a surface fleet even if he has the chance, given that WW2 subs are not the silent hunters of today, but noisy submergable torpedoboats.

 

[Dalwin]

Without capital ships having multiple segments (engine, gun turrets, bridge, hull, etc.) that can separately be damaged, you cannot have a general rule where damage always effects speed or firepower. When all damage in generalized there is no way to determine which specific system was damaged by a given hit. However, there is nothing stopping PI from using a critical-hit-type system where each damaging hit has a certain percentage change of causing critical damage to one or more systems, which might result in loss of speed, firepower or maneuverability (positioning), etc.

I agree. Even something as simplistic as saying when a ship is at below 50% strength there is a 50% chance that it's speed is severely reduced would be better than nothing.