NAVs OP wah wah wah

[Sakkura]

Actually there are tons of examples where Land Based Aircraft were almost certainly able to complete destroy a naval force. Why didn't that actually happen more often? Those LBA never actually found the fleets. There is nothing wrong with Naval bombers owning fleets, there is something wrong with the fact that they're almost guaranteed to spot a fleet. Your recon plans (or whatever) had to find the fleet, report back the location, the aircraft called to readiness, and actually get off the ground to get in formation before finally heading in that direction. Pretty much every time Land Based Aircraft in a strike package found naval forces, the naval forces were brutalized.

The land-based aircraft didn't find the ships because the enemy was keeping them in port/out of range 99.9% of the time because they were afraid of air attack.

But you're probably right about naval bombers spotting enemy fleets too easily. Right now it seems like they automatically engage as long as they reach the right sea zone.

 

[Rotten Venetic]

Are NAV affected by naval detection and evasion stats in the game? It would be dope if they were, but I think not.

 

[Vanguard44]

Look, I know that land based aviation is powerful. If a fleet is found by LBA its normally the case that it loses; this is true from 1940s->modern day. The most difficult part is reconaissance; this is even more difficult in WW2 where elint doesn't exist. But for a start...

Coordinating a 400 aircraft strike is, well, no. 400 planes is a lot. Even Adlerangriff didn't have 400 planes going up in one day; while a unit might be 100 planes, I don't think that attacking with a 4-plane stack actually means that all 400 planes leave the ground. If you are flying interdiction or air superiority for instance, rather than a single-strike sortie, then aircraft will be rotated. So let's not talk about 400 planes attacking a carrier fleet because that is plainly not what is happening.

I'm not really complaining about being attacked in port.

The most famous instance of WW2 landbased naval aviation is evidently Repulse and Prince of Wales. Wikipedia lists the Japanese ORBAT as being 3 Kokutais, but the actual attack force as 88 aircraft only, which seems to reinforce my point about not all the aircraft taking part in a sortie. And yeah, Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk. I'm not going to contend that. But the more salient point is that they were being stalked by a Japanese submarine; it was really this which allowed the Japanese to make that attack. In other scenarios where Japanese landbased aviation attacked ships at sea, reconaissance was not a big deal.

Furthermore, I am aware of no existing scenario whereby landbased aviation in the second world war successfully sank an aircraft carrier. Maybe my history is dodgy.

I mean I know I have made some dumb mistakes; but I think that they were wrongly exacerbated a bit too much by the game mechanics.

 

[Mjarr]

Coordinating a 400 aircraft strike is, well, no. 400 planes is a lot. Even Adlerangriff didn't have 400 planes going up in one day; while a unit might be 100 planes, I don't think that attacking with a 4-plane stack actually means that all 400 planes leave the ground. If you are flying interdiction or air superiority for instance, rather than a single-strike sortie, then aircraft will be rotated. So let's not talk about 400 planes attacking a carrier fleet because that is plainly not what is happening.

It's sort of relevant with the discussion along with spotting and some other possible issues (as trivial as they sound), as the gameplay mechanics on rough basics would possibly imply the opposite. I cannot tell for sure as I have no personal ingame experience with DH so far, hopefully I'll have sooner or later. It's pretty impossible realistically and even using imagination still leaves the bad impression that the game likes to think otherwise

 

[Sakkura]

Coordinating a 400 aircraft strike is, well, no. 400 planes is a lot. Even Adlerangriff didn't have 400 planes going up in one day; while a unit might be 100 planes, I don't think that attacking with a 4-plane stack actually means that all 400 planes leave the ground. If you are flying interdiction or air superiority for instance, rather than a single-strike sortie, then aircraft will be rotated. So let's not talk about 400 planes attacking a carrier fleet because that is plainly not what is happening.

You're absolutely right. But on the other hand, it takes nowhere near that many planes to do serious damage to a fleet. Most likely you'd have planes out scouting for the enemy fleet and only a certain fraction of the overall number of available planes ready to actually attack; but even those small numbers can do serious damage, especially if the enemy fleet has no air cover. Which they often did, specifically to keep the precious naval assets safe.

I think you made mistakes that are very understandable in a game; it can be a hassle to micromanage everything, whereas IRL everything was always "micromanaged" 100%. And the game maybe punishes such mistakes too harshly.

 

[nessin]

The land-based aircraft didn't find the ships because the enemy was keeping them in port/out of range 99.9% of the time because they were afraid of air attack.

But you're probably right about naval bombers spotting enemy fleets too easily. Right now it seems like they automatically engage as long as they reach the right sea zone.

Really? Wow, never knew that the Solomon Islands and Guadacanal were figments of my imagination. Since I've been apparently mistaken about how the Allies actually used ships in the Island hopping campaign, how in the world did they do it?

Yeah, they tried to avoid getting too close to land, but its kind of hard to do that and still, you know, actually fight a war.

 

[Sakkura]

Really? Wow, never knew that the Solomon Islands and Guadacanal were figments of my imagination. Since I've been apparently mistaken about how the Allies actually used ships in the Island hopping campaign, how in the world did they do it?

Yeah, they tried to avoid getting too close to land, but its kind of hard to do that and still, you know, actually fight a war.

They usually stayed under friendly air cover. That's one of the main reasons for island-hopping in the first place; your air cover grows while that of the enemy shrinks.

 

[unmerged(151058)]

Part of the issue, if we want to call it that, is the speed of rebasing fighter/bomber wings. Just rebase in some bombers from who knows where and bomb that fleet away - the org penalty for rebasing over less than transcontinental distances isn't nearly enough to stop such ridiculous maneuvers, if you have some basic air doctrines.

 

[nessin]

They usually stayed under friendly air cover. That's one of the main reasons for island-hopping in the first place; your air cover grows while that of the enemy shrinks.

Still doesn't change the fact that:

A) They did get near land

B) More often than not the enemy sent planes to drive them off (exceptions like Japan at the end when they didn't actually have that many planes or fuel to fly them)

C) LBA had a lot of difficulty finding the ships

D) Where LBA found ships they left ships in wrecks or a lot of debris behind

 

[Sakkura]

Still doesn't change the fact that:

A) They did get near land

B) More often than not the enemy sent planes to drive them off (exceptions like Japan at the end when they didn't actually have that many planes or fuel to fly them)

C) LBA had a lot of difficulty finding the ships

D) Where LBA found ships they left ships in wrecks or a lot of debris behind

A) Yes, but usually under air cover and with ships stacked with AA guns. The OP was sailing without AA attachments and air cover, and not paying close attention to what happened. The latter is excusable, it's just a game after all, but the former probably contributed significantly to the problem.

B) Well, yes. Then it became a question of establishing air superiority, or outmaneuvering the enemy (like what happened, mostly by chance, for the Americans at Midway).

C) Yes. And they could probably stand a tweak in that direction in DH.

D) Depending on the circumstances, but yes.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

You totally stole my line.

@ the thing about having to attach AA to all your ships... what ships IRL didn't do that? Everything from subs to battleships was crammed full of AA guns, because air power was just that lethal to ships.
The only real gripe here is that CAGs can't properly engage enemy bombers as they would IRL, but that's a general shortcoming of the way HOI2 and derivatives model carriers. HOI1 tried to make CVs into floating airbases and failed miserably... Maybe HOI3 will nail it, but they still have soo many flaws to fix on that game.

The thing to remember is that most ships didn't START the war crammed with AA, hence the attachment. It was very much a learning experience that air was such a threat.