Italian battleships should be treated as battlecruisers

[LUISVIGO]

Hello everyone. I started this thread because in former versions of HOI, the Italian battleships of the classes Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria were treated as old battleships, so they had a more or less strong punch and good armour, but were quite slow. Something in the league of the British Revenge class battleships, or the French Courbet class battleships. But the reality was very different. After their reconstruction in the period of 1937, they had a speed of about 26 or 27 knots. This, added to the fact that their armor was considerably weaker than that of let's say a Revenge or Queen Elizabeth, and their weight of salvo was about 5 tons, compared to a weight of salvo of about 7 tons for a Revenge, made them a very different species, something much more similar in overall statistics to a Renown class battlecruiser, or may be a Kongo class battlecruiser/ fast battleship.

Why all this fuss? Because those facts influenced the Italian tactics in the naval battles against the Royal Navy. The Italian admirals knew well that their old battleships were not comparable to the British ones in punch and toughness, and therefore they always tried to keep a reasonable distance between them, and always with a route of escape open, thanks to their superior speed. The inevitable outcome of these tactics was a string of inconclusive encounters, where the losses were minimal. Only in Cape Matapan were the British finally able to bring to bear the power of their battle fleet (if not against battleships, but against cruisers), and that because of the element of surprise (and the use of Radar) during a night engagement.

So my proposal is to deploy the old Italian battleships as old battlecruisers instead in the OOB. That would be much more realistic and in accordance with the design philosophy of those ships.

 

[Skjold89]

I'm no naval expert but Andrea Doria class has 11 inch turret armour and 10 inch belt armour, since the designs are from 1910ish that sure sounds like a Dreadnaught to me. Just becouse they refitted old Dreadnaughts to gain increased speed doesn't turn them into Battlecruisers, they were merely makeshift modern battleships.

Edit: Any competent commander uses the strengths of the ships to their advantage, you could argue that the Bismarck was used as a battlecruiser in role. Does that make it one?

My 2 cents.

 

[Aries666]

Not sure about designations but anything that allows more of the Regia Marina to survive longer than 6 months (which doesnt happen in HOI3) would be welcome as a large portion did survive the war.

 

[Skjold89]

Not sure about designations but anything that allows more of the Regia Marina to survive longer than 6 months (which doesnt happen in HOI3) would be welcome as a large portion did survive the war.

Well, they survived largely becouse they were almost permamently at port. In HoI 3 the AI sent them to fight no?

 

[GsusNSV]

Podcat said somewhere, that ship types are so non-uniform, that whatever you do, you will never end the discussion. So they mainly just go with the designation from the building nation.

Edit:

Are there actually standardized rules for this stuff? afaik a large cruiser, battle crusier, fast battleship, battleship and super battleship could all mean the same thing depending on who named it. I'm not pretending to be well versed in naval classifications but to be perfectly honest the whole system seems pretty shit.

The Yamato was 30% heavier than Iowa class and 60% heavier than South Dakota class battleships. Imo that warrants a new label to differentiate it, unless we wrap all BB under the same label in which case there will be a pretty wide scope and wouldn't mean much. There is a lot more grounds for this classification imo than differentiating among the ones I mentioned above.

 

[FOARP]

The thing is the variants system should theoretically allow these differences to modelled much better - just chose whichever class is closest and then vary the stats until you have the desired outcome.

In the long term, of course, the tech-trees need much more detail about WW1-era technology in them to accommodate these differences. Yet another reason why a WW1 DLC is a good idea.

 

[Beagá]

Well, they survived largely becouse they were almost permamently at port. In HoI 3 the AI sent them to fight no?

Hehe pretty much so.

 

[shri]

The thing is the variants system should theoretically allow these differences to modelled much better - just chose whichever class is closest and then vary the stats until you have the desired outcome.

In the long term, of course, the tech-trees need much more detail about WW1-era technology in them to accommodate these differences. Yet another reason why a WW1 DLC is a good idea.

I do too hope, a WW1 DLC is release for HOI4. It may be the best WW1 game out there, once done. There are a few i have played each having its own set of flaws.

 

[tommylotto]

The question is whether the ships in the starting OOB's will take advantage of the experience variant system. It would be a lot of work for the developers, but it could be used to model real life reasonably well.

The old Italian BB's could be level 1 with ordinary guns and armor (for an old BB) but have improved engines (after the rebuild) to make them fast. The QE class could also be a level 1 BB but have improved guns and armor so that they are slow but a match for a level 2 BB in a slugfest. The Littorio could be a level 2, faster than a QE but a fair fight in a slugfest.

 

[Loke]

Well, they survived largely becouse they were almost permamently at port. In HoI 3 the AI sent them to fight no?

Like the us navy in port of Pearl Harbour or Italian at Taranto or English at Scapa Flow and Alexandria. Harbours are not that safe, ships tend to sink anyway...

 

[Axe99]

Not sure about designations but anything that allows more of the Regia Marina to survive longer than 6 months (which doesnt happen in HOI3) would be welcome as a large portion did survive the war.

Aye, if an outmatched AI kept its fleet in port more, and only sallied out when it had a good advantage, that would be a good thing - would force the British player or AI to keep ships in the med, but owuld mean relatively few confrontations (unless the Brits were silly enough not to keep enough ships there), and have some tension in the Mediterranean theatre for much of the war. Same story for the German surface fleet, raiders aside.

The question is whether the ships in the starting OOB's will take advantage of the experience variant system. It would be a lot of work for the developers, but it could be used to model real life reasonably well.

The old Italian BB's could be level 1 with ordinary guns and armor (for an old BB) but have improved engines (after the rebuild) to make them fast. The QE class could also be a level 1 BB but have improved guns and armor so that they are slow but a match for a level 2 BB in a slugfest. The Littorio could be a level 2, faster than a QE but a fair fight in a slugfest.

This would be the way. There are only two reasons why I think BC's should be in the game as a separate type:

- To allow separate AI behaviour (ie, the AI could maybe tell BCs go out long-range raiding, but not BBs).

- So that the ridiculously thin armour on the British BCs is in the game. Had the Brits armoured their BCs as much as the Germans, and if there wasn't any interest in separate AI behaviour for BCs and BBs, there'd probably be no need for BCs to be in the game. I'd say the old Italian BB's had enough armour to be a level 1 BB at base level, though, so don't need to be a BC.