Light carriers.

[unmerged(54763)]

We have withnessed CVL-s in HOI II.

Now I hope is time to forget that interesting expirience of carriers without planes and turn towards future CVL-s in HOI III.

So ,light carriers:Important naval cathegory,built in massive numbers in WW2.
So they are anavoidable in game.

But,
will they be finely in game represented as carriers?

Will they finely have, CAG-s?

 

[Thistletooth]

From my understanding, Paradox is moving away from model upgrades and back to a HoI1ish system whereby tech advances just increase unit stats (with a short upgrade period for most unit types). If we have something like that, would we really need separate CAG units, or could CAGish techs simply raise carrier stats, meaning that carriers - fleet, light, escort, ASW - would be represented by just the ship model? If they went that route, there would be no reason to model light carriers in a way apart from fleet carriers, or to include CAGs as detachable brigades.

The only sticky historical matter is: what happens if a carrier's air wing gets destroyed, but the ship survives (think Japan post-Marianas)? However, HoI2 didn't model that much better than the first one did. If Johan and co. could figure out how to deplete one of the carriers' "battalions", and make it expensive to build it back up to combat efficiency (especially if they could also get the AI to recognize the lack so that your surface battle groups don't get spam-attacked by an empty, yet invincible, flattop with range 200km), that would go a long way towards providing a realistic naval combat system.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I really hope so. The way I wish for it to work is to let Carriers have one CAG "slot" for each ca: 30 airplanes. With options of building defensive or offensive CAG versions.

In essence:
Defensive = Fighters and Utility like recon or ASW.
Offensive = Bombers, both torpedo & dive.

This would let CVLs have one defensive CAG while Armored deck carriers can fit an additional bomber CAG and wodden deck Carriers can fit two bomber CAGs. (using historical setups).

CAGs should also have separate exp/strenght, be able to recieve separate orders and operate from land/island bases or other Carriers.

The Historical Reason of CVLs existance was to provide replacements and extra fighters for the fleet carriers airgroups. And also to lift the timeconsuming work to quickly ferry aircrafts from San diego/Pearl to Island bases all over the pacific of larger CVs.

 

[unmerged(81995)]

... that would go a long way towards providing a realistic naval combat system.

YES. Seconded. As it turned out the HOI II naval system looked (!) like a big improvement over HOI I, but only on paper. It´s still the piece of combat that works worst, while I found air and ground already modeled good enough (except MAY BE naval bombing, but that more because the AI was incapable of moving ships out of attacked harbours AND because only one ship in a stack returned fire. Easy to fix - both).

Regards,

Thorsten

 

[Bullfrog]

What Alex said. We have had discussions on this before.

The design system for land divisions would work wonders for air units, especially CAGs. Light carriers should receive light CAGs as per Alex's post.

So a CV gets a full CAG wing containing fighters, Torps and Dives, where a CVL has to be given a mission priority because it only gets to choose one type, or two at most. (advanced lvls)

 

[kstanb]

I like the idea of offensive vs defensive CAGs

with: 3 "CAGs" for a fleet carrier, 2 for armored deck carriers and 1 for CVL/ CVE

The default for CVL/ CVE should be a defensive "CAG", however, you should be able to use an offensive "CAG" in a CVL/ CVE if needed

I am really looking forward for a naval warfare DD

 

[ok2useLane]

What Alex said. We have had discussions on this before.

The design system for land divisions would work wonders for air units, especially CAGs. Light carriers should receive light CAGs as per Alex's post.

So a CV gets a full CAG wing containing fighters, Torps and Dives, where a CVL has to be given a mission priority because it only gets to choose one type, or two at most. (advanced lvls)

This is so necessary. I felt like CVL's in HOI2 were useless, when trying to play in a more historical manner. Hopefully this can be implemented.

 

[Bullfrog]

yeah I would really love to have accurate CVLs like the Independence class, Saipan class, the Colossus and Majestic classes, the Shōhō, Zuihō, Ryūhō, Chitose and Chiyoda (am I leaving any out?) that contributed so much to WW2. Though I would also like to keep the "CVE" that is in HoI2.

 

[unmerged(131342)]

Light carriers, and fleet carriers for that matter, can only be properly modelled if the superstack problem for airforces is fixed. 30 planes are as much as no planes in the war of the superstacks...

 

[Delta107]

That would be nice to have CAGs associated to light carriers, what about mission priorities we must first of all see how the new naval system will work.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Light carriers, and fleet carriers for that matter, can only be properly modelled if the superstack problem for airforces is fixed. 30 planes are as much as no planes in the war of the superstacks...

Depends, a super-Carrier-stack (15xCV) would have 15x3x30 = 1350planes equal in numbers to roughly 10-15 land based airwings.

Imo its not a problem if CAGs get molested by large formations of land based fighters/interceptors. There is a reason the British & US Carriers never raided land positions in occupied Norway, France & Denmark for example.

 

[Markusw7]

If fleet carriers have CAGs in HOI3 then all carriers will, the only reason CVLs didn't have CAGs in HOI2 was that they were an oversight added to the later at a point when it would have been more trouble than it was worth to give them their own CAG system.

 

[FNK_Drake]

I really hope so. The way I wish for it to work is to let Carriers have one CAG "slot" for each ca: 30 airplanes. With options of building defensive or offensive CAG versions.

In essence:
Defensive = Fighters and Utility like recon or ASW.
Offensive = Bombers, both torpedo & dive.

This would let CVLs have one defensive CAG while Armored deck carriers can fit an additional bomber CAG and wodden deck Carriers can fit two bomber CAGs. (using historical setups).

CAGs should also have separate exp/strenght, be able to recieve separate orders and operate from land/island bases or other Carriers.

The Historical Reason of CVLs existance was to provide replacements and extra fighters for the fleet carriers airgroups. And also to lift the timeconsuming work to quickly ferry aircrafts from San diego/Pearl to Island bases all over the pacific of larger CVs.

Its a good idea, I thought of it myself. But IMO 30 planes is too much. Different CVs had different capacitys. 30 planes would limit you to 3 CVs. 30 plane CVL. 60 plane CV, and 90 plane fleet carrier.

It would be pointless to build any new carriers, just upgrade the planes. Since the US and Japan had carriers that could hold 91 planes in 1936, a player could run a huge serial production, and just upgrade the planes.

If they really wanted to make it realistic, 9 planes would fit almost every carrier made. It is a small number, but with something like the division designer, you could design different CAG for different roles. And maybe have a max of 2v1 squadrons(or something like that) solving the problem of super stacks mentioned in This thread.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=393545

 

[kstanb]

It would be pointless to build any new carriers, just upgrade the planes. Since the US and Japan had carriers that could hold 91 planes in 1936, a player could run a huge serial production, and just upgrade the planes.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=393545

But building carriers will still be expensive (regardless of any gearing bonus), moreover, the more carriers you build the cheaper it will be to research better designs, so even if advantages of new designs are minimal, (which I don't if it will be the case) it is still going to be a good idea to research new models

Also, a question for some experts:
were Essex carriers a lot better than the Yorktowns? ,Yorktowns were used until the end of the war...

 

[Alex_brunius]

Its a good idea, I thought of it myself. But IMO 30 planes is too much. Different CVs had different capacitys. 30 planes would limit you to 3 CVs. 30 plane CVL. 60 plane CV, and 90 plane fleet carrier.

The Idea would be to make it as simple as possible but still increase historical accurate compared to HoI2. Three Airgroups and a few other upgradeable stats would be around the same as 3-5 brigades that most land divisions will have so I think It would be enough.

Im not saying more accuracy is bad, just that given Paradox recent crusades against micromanagement we are not very likely to see such functions implemented.

It would be pointless to build any new carriers, just upgrade the planes. Since the US and Japan had carriers that could hold 91 planes in 1936, a player could run a huge serial production, and just upgrade the planes.

Well Historically they did have those carriers by 1936 too and airgroup size didn't increase. The reasons to build new carrier models would be others like to repair & refuel and rearm airplanes faster.

If CAGs are made independent units the best way to represent this would be to let each Carrier level allow their airgroups to reorg faster. Around equal to one extra airbase level worth of reorg per CV model "level".

Newer carriers also could provide longer range or better protection, perhaps increased bulges, armor and base AA. Just a few general stat increases that we had in HoI2.

 

[FNK_Drake]

The Idea would be to make it as simple as possible but still increase historical accurate compared to HoI2. Three Airgroups and a few other upgradeable stats would be around the same as 3-5 brigades that most land divisions will have so I think It would be enough.

Im not saying more accuracy is bad, just that given Paradox recent crusades against micromanagement we are not very likely to see such functions implemented.

Well Historically they did have those carriers by 1936 too and airgroup size didn't increase. The reasons to build new carrier models would be others like to repair & refuel and rearm airplanes faster.

If CAGs are made independent units the best way to represent this would be to let each Carrier level allow their airgroups to reorg faster. Around equal to one extra airbase level worth of reorg per CV model "level".

Newer carriers also could provide longer range or better protection, perhaps increased bulges, armor and base AA. Just a few general stat increases that we had in HoI2.

What you said does make sense. Especially the reorganization time.

I don't think the 9 plane squadrons would be a bad idea though. It wouldn't increase micromanagement because they would be grouped together into a single CAG. What it would do is add a bit of accuracy and options for the player to configure his own air groups.

You may decide you want a more cautious strategy and have more fighters, or more aggressive with more bombers. having the small squadrons would give the player this kind of flexibility.

And In terms of accuracy, all the carriers that I researched were a 0-5 difference in aircraft by using 9 plane squadrons. This includes Fleet Carriers, CVLs and some CVEs.

12 plane and 24 plane squadrons would also work, but not quite as accurately.

Just my 2 cents.. Any improvement in this area would be welcome.

 

[unmerged(52507)]

I think that the CAGs should work like divisions, but then, I think that about the other air units as well.

 

[unmerged(76922)]

And In terms of accuracy, all the carriers that I researched were a 0-5 difference in aircraft by using 9 plane squadrons

That's kinda a pointless stat - EVERY number, period, is within 0-5 of a multiple of 9. Still, I'm game for a 9 plane squadron, though I think I would probably go with 10 just for simplicity. The other point is, they don't actually need to define how many planes in a squadron, just how many squadrons the carrier can carry - we can always assume whatever numbers suit our personal desires for the actual size of the squadron.

 

[unmerged(44926)]

Well Historically they did have those carriers by 1936 too and airgroup size didn't increase. The reasons to build new carrier models would be others like to repair & refuel and rearm airplanes faster.

If CAGs are made independent units the best way to represent this would be to let each Carrier level allow their airgroups to reorg faster. Around equal to one extra airbase level worth of reorg per CV model "level".

Newer carriers also could provide longer range or better protection, perhaps increased bulges, armor and base AA. Just a few general stat increases that we had in HoI2.

Agreed.

The thing with full size, purpose built (not the earlier conversions) fleet carriers is that none of them really went obsolete during the game's time frame. When you're building new carriers it shouldn't be because your old ones are no longer useful, it should be because you want/need more. Carriers are useful enough, and it is easy enough to replace the airplanes on deck that they should last decades before needing replaced, assuming they don't get sunk.

If they are accurately modeled, the difference in capabilities between the fleet carrier models, after the early experimental ships built in the 20's and early 30's, shouldn't be very great. There should never really be a reason to want to scrap and replace something so useful and expensive, even for those with a pretty heavy power gaming bent.

 

[Bullfrog]

were Essex carriers a lot better than the Yorktowns? ,Yorktowns were used until the end of the war...

Yes all the Yorktown class ships were sunk except for Enterprise. In fact all the pre-war US carriers were sunk except for Enterprise, Ranger, and Saratoga. No Essex were sunk though.

Some were renamed to the old carriers, the Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp and Hornet, after the originals were lost.

The design of the Essex was similar to the Yorktown, just modernized and made more efficient as far as aircraft handling. Also by default a good bit larger. In all a much better design, made for combat and some useful add-ons during construction were done, due to learning lessons in battle.