Naval Composition 2.0: The Importance of Being Ernest King (with apologies to Oscar Wilde)

[davidc929]

And refused to use convoys until the U-boats sank enough tankers to start to worry the USN itself, I think it took a big political bat to whack them over the head to get them to do so (it's been a while since I read those books, so might be wrong on that).

It's amazing isn't. It would seem obvious that the Americans would have spent the time before they entered the war studying the battle of the Atlantic. What they could learn from it and so. And therefore go into the war with plans for convoys, how to use escorts and so on. But nope along comes that old human attribute of thinking you know better than others. How many people died for that hubris I wonder?

 

[BulgarianFocusTree]

I wouldn't bet money on a full overhaul, but I really hope for it. A full overhaul might make countries like France or Germany actually tolerable to play navally (without having to go Fascist as France or having to tank your land warfare development to build a working navy as Germany).

If nothing else, it'd be nice if a player on defense had recourse other than 'hide ships and garrison ports' when the UK or Italy comes around.

 

[Dalwin]

It's amazing isn't. It would seem obvious that the Americans would have spent the time before they entered the war studying the battle of the Atlantic. What they could learn from it and so. And therefore go into the war with plans for convoys, how to use escorts and so on. But nope along comes that old human attribute of thinking you know better than others. How many people died for that hubris I wonder?

No more amazing than the British strategies that led to the quick fall of Malaysia or the loss of Prince of Wales. If one wants to point out the blind spots in the high command of the various nations of the war, there are more than enough examples to go around.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

@Alex_brunius @Jorgen_CAB

Leaving aside the issue of their primary focus, would you both say that there are plenty of non-combat things DDs and CLs are meant to do that are not really simulated in HOI4?

I would say yes... I would also say that different countries used their respective screen ships differently both in combat and outside of combat. Japanese DD and CL worked rather different in philosophy than say US DD/CL ships was. Japanese CL was not that useful for Anti-Air duty as one example, they were mainly used for long range patrol and leaders of destroyer and submarine formations. US CL was not used in that way and filled a different role in most respects. The game really don't acknowledge these differences very well.

 

[Alex_brunius]

@Alex_brunius @Jorgen_CAB

Leaving aside the issue of their primary focus, would you both say that there are plenty of non-combat things DDs and CLs are meant to do that are not really simulated in HOI4?

Oh yeah definately, loads of them.

They were used to ship troops / supplies to places convoys couldn't go, or when they were needed quickly.
They were used to deliver smaller scales raids
They were used for smoking up the taskforce so they could get away
They were used as radar pickets latewar to spot incoming airstrikes
They were used to pick up downed pilots ( near and far from the Carriers, US Navy DD crew got icecream as reward when they fished up a pilot and delivered him back )
They were used to fish up sailors from other sunk ships
They were used to screen vs torpedo boats and smaller craft as well as coastal subs that are not ingame
They were used to scuttle ships when there was no option to salvage them
They were used to salvage, towing ships home

And probably dozens of more jobs I forgot.

 

[Axe99]

• Heavy Cruisers = Anti Small ship (DD/CL) screens

As best I can recall (super tired this morning, so watch me say lots of silly things, lol), doctrinally, for the RN and USN, there often wasn't a lot of difference in terms of how they used their cruisers - they'd use groups of cruisers rather than worry particularly about whether they were 'heavy' or 'light'. In many ways, the lighter cruisers, with their higher-rate of fire main armament could do a better job against DDs.

The US didn't really co-operate for quite a while though, hence one of those "happy times" when U-boats could more or less sit off the eastern seaboard and sink ships with little risk to themselves

And refused to use convoys until the U-boats sank enough tankers to start to worry the USN itself, I think it took a big political bat to whack them over the head to get them to do so (it's been a while since I read those books, so might be wrong on that).

It's amazing isn't. It would seem obvious that the Americans would have spent the time before they entered the war studying the battle of the Atlantic. What they could learn from it and so. And therefore go into the war with plans for convoys, how to use escorts and so on. But nope along comes that old human attribute of thinking you know better than others. How many people died for that hubris I wonder?

The US did study convoys, but they didn't have enough escorts for them, and based on their studies made the call that they'd lose less ships sailing independently than in un-or-lightly escorted convoys. This was the wrong call, as WW1 experience suggested, and studies by Coastal Command's Operational Research Section confirmed (but these studies weren't undertaken until after Operation Drumbeat, so the US could hardly be criticised for not knowing their outcome) - but it was a call based on getting the best results. They did make other out-and-out mistakes (leaving the coastal lights on was the biggest I can think of) but in the context of needing enough escorts to fulfil their Atlantic escort obligations, less the 12 (or so - going from memory) destroyers that were sent to the Pacific unexpectedly (the US had expected to need to protect their trade on the East Coast when war broke out, and I think (but memory's super-hazy this morning) had convoy plans, but no-one, not even the IJN, expected the start of the Pacific war to go that well for the Japanese).

From what I can see, the literature on US trade protection in the Eastern Sea Frontier during Operation Drumbeat is a bit of a mess - a lot of the non-US stuff (and some US material) is overly critical, while a lot (but not all) of the US stuff is overly forgiving and glosses over the mistakes that were made. I haven't read either of the accounts mentioned (my impressions come from bits and pieces mentioned in other books, as well as Stern's US Navy and the War in Europe) but I'd urge caution before taking too much written about this particular element of the war at face value.

With the modular system I think battleship, super heavy battleships and battlecrusier can be merged and be represented with modules.

This would work well .

Destroyers and Light crusier can also probably be merged into a single class and be also represented with modules.

I wouldn't suggest this - CLs and CAs could be well combined together, but I'd argue it makes more sense from a historical plausibility perspective grouping CLs with BBs than it does grouping DDs with CLs (which isn't me saying CLs should be grouped with DDs, but that DDs should remain their own class). HoI4 already has a gaping hole in terms of its coverage of 'smaller' naval craft (many of these 'smaller' ships were still more than thirty times heavier than a mid-war medium tank, hence smaller in quotation marks), and DDs are already used, in-effect, to represent DDs, DEs, corvettes and frigates. Grouping DDs and CLs together would require the abstracting of naval combat to a degree that the difference in the level of abstraction between naval and air/land would be pretty jarring. Not having a go here, just speaking up for the smaller ships .

And probably dozens of more jobs I forgot.

Minelaying and minesweeping (streaming paravanes when moving through contested waters, not defensive minesweeping) are another couple, but I think you got most of the ones I can remember off the top of my head as well. The smaller ships in a fleet tended to be the 'jacks of all trades' though, and when a fleet didn't have anything smaller, DDs might cop other odd jobs as well.

or only Carriers

BB or carrier-only fleets would be in danger of confronting either a BB fleet in non-flying weather/light, or a carrier fleet in flying conditions, respectively, but I'm not for a second suggesting you're not on top of this .

 

[Alex_brunius]

As best I can recall (super tired this morning, so watch me say lots of silly things, lol), doctrinally, for the RN and USN, there often wasn't a lot of difference in terms of how they used their cruisers - they'd use groups of cruisers rather than worry particularly about whether they were 'heavy' or 'light'. In many ways, the lighter cruisers, with their higher-rate of fire main armament could do a better job against DDs.

Indeed. It's probably just me trying to "game-ify" what kind of role I would like to see them have ingame.

CLs feel a bit too versatile right now IMO given how they are the best counter to the loads of DDs that are around in the starting fleets, they are good at AA and they perform decent even vs CAs and they can even do some decent ASW work against subs if you got a few of them.

BB or carrier-only fleets would be in danger of confronting either a BB fleet in non-flying weather/light, or a carrier fleet in flying conditions, respectively, but I'm not for a second suggesting you're not on top of this .

Yeah, such fleets were used though by all sides depending on needs and availability of high speed Capital ships like BB/BC to escort them.

But you do have a point that Carriers and BB/BC could provide some mutual support to eachother and would probably be desired.

 

[Secret Master]

Due to their lower cost and high firepower I feel like BC hardcounter mixed fleets because they will melt the screens faster than equivalent cost of BBs.

I decided to test this today. Did a few different tests to see some stuff with BCs configured for hit and run tactics.

The first tests involved BCs and BB/DD fleets facing each other with the same doctrines and same admiral traits and equal IC cost. One set of tests used blockade runner on both fleets, the other did not. Each fleet had the same total XP applied. The BB/DD fleet had +2 across the board on the BBs and +2 to engines and torpedoes. The BCs had +5 engines and +5 guns. Both sides had maximum Fleet in Being (except for sub path, since it has no effect on these tests).

It's worth pointing out that BCs have higher base reliability than BBs, so even though they had no reliability upgrades, there weren't at low reliability.

The fleet breakdown was 11 BBs/34 DDs versus 20 BCs.

Nothing too interesting here. The results mimic earlier test results.

Typical results from multiple tests with blockade runner admirals.

In these tests, pure BCs win out over mixed fleets. Remember that these BCs cost around 8000 and the DDs cost 1080, so each BC is roughly equivalent to 8 DDs.

With no blockade runner admiral, typical results from multiple tests look like this:

These battles are much bloodier overall (again, to be expected). But the results are still bad for the mixed fleet. It's worth pointing out that the mixed fleet ran out of DDs this time.

For those interested in raiding, despite these results being technically victories, they are too bloody to justify a surface raiding fleet with BCs. If you intend to raid, you really should have the blockade runner admiral in place.

Then I ran a different series of tests. I swapped in the raiding designer for the BCs and maxed out Trade Interdiction for the BCs, leaving the Pacific fleet designer for the mixed fleet and maxxed out Fleet in Being.

Setting up the BCs in this way resulted in the BCs having a top speed of 38.4 knots. The Japanese DDs in the mixed fleet only had a top speed of 34 knots.

The naval battle summary screen is not displaying the US fleet properly (it did this every time I ran this test for some reason). It looks like the fleet is missing ships (17 instead of the 20 in the fleet) and it is not showing the one dead BC. But in almost all tests I ran, the BCs either lost no ships or just one. Meanwhile, the mixed fleet lost all DDs or almost all. In some battles, they lost BBs. Note the presence of blockade runner admirals on both sides.

These tests are by no means conclusive, but it seems to indicate that the Blockade Runner trait may be by far the best admiral trait in the game for surface gunfire battles. And as far as I know, it cannot be earned. But it's value scales relative to things like doctrines and raw ship speed.

I'm beginning to think that if we take air power out of the equation, brave Sir Robin should always be appointed admiral, if available. And that trade interdiction and raiding doctrines might actually be good for just straight up finding and sinking opposing fleets if you have a blockade runner.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Out of curiosity what retreat settings were used when when doing these tests? It can have a quite big impact on losses.

 

[Secret Master]

Out of curiosity what retreat settings were used when when doing these tests? It can have a quite big impact on losses.

Repair priority HIGH on all tests conducted so far with all fleet, admiral, and doctrine configurations. Everyone gets it.

I'm not even sure if it would make sense to use a lower priority in vanilla at the moment unless you were desperate to plug a gap in naval supremacy coverage.

 

[Secret Master]

And since I forgot to add it to the previous post about BCs, here's a test with pure BB versus pure BC.

To test each ship type in its own element, I gave the raiding designer to the BCs with +5 guns and +5 engines, while Japan got the Kure design for extra armor and firepower for the BBs and the BBs got +3 engines/+3 guns/+2 armor/+2 reliability (same XP as the BCs). The BCs got full Trade Interdiction, while the BBs got full Fleet in Being.

I tested with and without blockade runner admirals. The results are not spectacular, but they are noteworthy to anyone considering BCs at the 1940 level.

Typical results with blockade runner on each fleet:

The BCs die easily, no losses to the BBs. (Those DDs in the previous test have to be feeling pretty bad right now; more BBs died when the DDs were screening them.)

Typical results with blockade runner only on the BCs:

Yeah, that's pretty bad for the BBs. But the centerpiece of the test was BCs versus BBs with no blockade runner on either fleet.

Typical results with no blockade runner on either side:

Apparently, the blockade runner trait covers a multitude of sins. Take it away, and you put your fleet at risk.


Obviously, these results are not conclusive, need to be verified, and do not take into account different repair priorities. But something seems to be really goofy in the naval combat code as it is written. The results are not only unhistorical, but they also don't seem to make any game sense.

 

[myzael]

@Secret Master, the images are not working.

 

[Secret Master]

@Secret Master, the images are not working.

Which ones?

I just uploaded pics to the posts.

 

[Axe99]

More interesting tests SM . I'm hoping that there'a decent mix-up to how things work in MtG, but far too early to speculate what that may or may not look like, or even how much of a mix-up it'll be (beyond that fuel will be involved ).

@Secret Master, the images are not working.

They're pics on the latest post are working for me (and I can check the others if that'd help), but took a second or two to load.

 

[myzael]

Which ones?

I just uploaded pics to the posts.

More interesting tests SM . I'm hoping that there'a decent mix-up to how things work in MtG, but far too early to speculate what that may or may not look like, or even how much of a mix-up it'll be (beyond that fuel will be involved ).



They're pics on the latest post are working for me (and I can check the others if that'd help), but took a second or two to load.

Now they do. And it was only the embedding that didn't work, I could see them if I opened them in a new tab.

 

[philjd]

This was the wrong call, as WW1 experience suggested, and studies by Coastal Command's Operational Research Section confirmed (but these studies weren't undertaken until after Operation Drumbeat, so the US could hardly be criticised for not knowing their outcome)

I'm not familiar with that particular study, at least under the title (?) that you have given it. But, I am aware that 'studies show that sailing in convoy even without escort, reduces the losses incurred when compared to sailing independently', if that was the result that came out of your quoted study, then perhaps it is timing and hindsight.
But the escort shortage claim I am also aware of and appreciate.
During WW1 a lot of coastal convoys in the UK were escorted by airship/aircraft only and suffered no losses - submarines do not like being spotted.

 

[Axe99]

I'm not familiar with that particular study, at least under the title (?) that you have given it. But, I am aware that 'studies show that sailing in convoy even without escort, reduces the losses incurred when compared to sailing independently', if that was the result that came out of your quoted study, then perhaps it is timing and hindsight.
But the escort shortage claim I am also aware of and appreciate.
During WW1 a lot of coastal convoys in the UK were escorted by airship/aircraft only and suffered no losses - submarines do not like being spotted.

It was a study by Professor Blackett (and I didn't give it a title ) - the reference I have to it is in Anti-Submarine Warfare by David Owen, I haven't seen the study myself. It found that (more or less - I'm going by memory) u-boats tended to sink roughly the same number of ships per encounter, all else being equal, so large convoys meant less encounters, and lower losses, regardless of whether there were escorts or not (and sailing independently was on the other side of the scale, giving u-boats a shot at sinking a significant proportion of the ships the saw).

 

[Denkt]

Is not the reason why blockade runner is so good because it increase the chance of ships retreating and make retreat much faster which save your ships and damaged ships are then repaired for free. I suspect that is why the battlecruisers do so much better with the BR because they can use their superior speed to retreat.

Could Light Cruiser and Heavy Cruiser be combined into a single base type with the modular system. While there is a big difference between the lightest cruisers and the most heavy ones, the same can be said about ships considered to be battleships or battlecruisers as well.

If you have the tech for one cruiser type you can research the other one so what I said above is simply pretty much the same system that is currently in the game.

That way we could have three base archetypes, destroyers, cruisers and capitals with the modular system allow for a much more diverse amount of ships than is currently possible. Technologies will likely be better modules that can replace older modules on ships keeping older ships more relevant.

You will also be able to convert battleships into carriers, but how it will work I do not know.

I suspect the system will be something similar to the one used in Stellaris, with a base archetype and with hardpoints for weapons and submodules for stuff such as engines and fuel storage.

The developers have said that they plan to make AA values on ship reduce the damage from naval bombers like how land AA reduce damage from close air support which should make AA significant more useful.

There will be changes to submarines so they will be harder to detect and with fuel cost they should be harder and more expensive to hunt down. The same will be true for surface raiders as well in which a single ship can be difficult to find and deal with.

Naval management will be changed to be based on task force which I suspect mean they plan to use the same two tier system they use for armies with generals and field marshals. Large naval battles may be a thing of the past and the focus may after the expansion be on smaller engagements which should give a smaller navy far better chance.

Naval commanders from what I understand will be given traits similar to generals.

Naval terrain will also be added which I assume would affect big ships very much and limit their usage.

Overall it seems like the navy is going to be very different after the expansion and many of the current issues may hopefully be gone such as mega doomstacks that slug it out or the carrier aircraft massacre.

I hope they make it cost resources to repair your ship because that is one of the main reasons why you want to use big ships that can be repaired for free instead of smaller ships that tend to be sunken and thus you lose the whole investment. This binary rule don't make sense as it was not free to repair damaged ships.

It would also be cool if specific components such as guns or radar could be damaged in combat, that could add some depth to your designs.

 

[philjd]

It was a study by Professor Blackett (and I didn't give it a title ) - the reference I have to it is in Anti-Submarine Warfare by David Owen, I haven't seen the study myself. It found that (more or less - I'm going by memory) u-boats tended to sink roughly the same number of ships per encounter, all else being equal, so large convoys meant less encounters, and lower losses, regardless of whether there were escorts or not (and sailing independently was on the other side of the scale, giving u-boats a shot at sinking a significant proportion of the ships the saw).

TY - I'll have a dig when I get home also,see if I can find the source of the 'unescorted convoy = lower losses then independent'. On the larger convoys - this means fewer groups of ships at sea, so less chance to be spotted by the subs (obviously Intel comes into this), but it also means more escorts per convoy ship, which means a tougher target for the subs and also more chance of taking losses. The downside being port capacity at the receiving end and handling such a large number of ships arriving at the same time.

 

[Gyrvendal]

Nice tests @Secret Master ! Thanks for confirming the value of BCs against mixed fleets. Edit: It's worth noting with BC fleets that they can benefit a lot from a bit of micro. When they first engage they will quickly kill a lot of screens before enemy capitals even get close. If you retreat them at that moment by setting them to repair now, they will take no losses and almost no damage while having sunk quite a few screens. It works even with quite small groups of BCs far outnumbered by the enemy.

It's really interesting to see the value of the the blockade runner trait. Especially since it is likely to remain in some form even in MtG, unless the devs see this thread and nerf it.

I guess all that's left to test is whether SHBBs are ever worth it. They will probably win versus pure BB or BC fleets, but might fail against mixed fleets or event pure DD fleets. Perhaps the ideal fleet composition in the current build is an even mix of BCs that will destroy any screens quickly then retreat, and SHBB that will destroy enemy capital ships.