No reco aircraft for Carriers ?

[Jeremy971]

I was watching this:

And thought why dont we have reconnaissance aircraft on our carriers ? It's weird, we can add reco on DD but no on carrier ?

Escort carrier would be sooooo useful if we could add reco aircrafts on them. Don't you think ?

Hoi4 dev talk about history everytimes but why did they miss that ?

 

[Anaraxes]

Put some aircraft on a mission in your sea zone, as from an airbase -- say air superiority for fighters, or you might do Naval Strike with NAVs. They'll add to your spotting chance in the sea zone. If you keep all the aircraft on deck, reserving them in case of a naval battle, then naturally enough they're not doing recon. WW2 carriers didn't generally carry specialized search aircraft (like those catapult seaplanes you're putting on cruisers and BBs, or the land-based long-range planes like the Catalina, Sunderland or Condor, not to mention bombers used in this role). If you send them out to do missions, they might or might not be able to join any naval battles that occur (just like any planes in the sea zone), so choose wisely.

It's going to take a lot of carrier aircraft to make a substantial change in the overall spotting percentage.

Here's some more details on naval spotting (and following links, the rest of the naval mechanics).
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/naval-detection-guide.1157358/

 

[Alex_brunius]

It's weird, we can add reco on DD

No we can't...

 

[Jeremy971]

@Anaraxes

So basically, any aircraft can reco. In Pacific, there are a lot of islands able to give you an airport and air supremacy.

BUT, if you pay attention to Midway, this island is isolated. So, your tactic is not a good solution since you have to use carrier aircraft... It would be easier to have reco planes on carrier ?

And historically, reco planes were used on land also. They gave information about armies, etc.... Why can't we use reco planes along with radars ?

It would definitively make sense in their new naval system. And why not using them to increase the stats of strategic bombers or division attack ?

And I swear spotting ennemy ships would be so much easier and air supremacy so much necessary ! In my opinion, Intel doesnt work with only radar...

 

[Alex_brunius]

BUT, if you pay attention to Midway, this island is isolated.

If you pay attention to the video about Midway the Japanese Carriers did usually not have a single recon plane on them, because the Cruisers could carry them so that they could have more planes to strike with. Cruisers could not carry strike planes.

 

[Jeremy971]

@Alex_brunius

Your argument is incorrect. Here's a carrier based reconnaissance aircraft from the imperial navy:

Nakajima C6N

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_C6N

Also, here's a picture of another carrier based reconnaissance plane, the Ki-76 on the escort carrier Akitsu Maru

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokusai_Ki-76

If you go there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carrier-based_aircraft

You will see that all countries had reco planes on their carriers.

What I understand is the reco plane has an higher speed and lower armor and armament than usual fighter planes. They had a key role in navy and army. They were used to increase the artillery accuracy, etc...

So why don't we have them in game ????

 

[Alex_brunius]

Your argument is incorrect. Here's a carrier based reconnaissance aircraft from the imperial navy:

Nakajima C6N

And how many of them were used to scout before the battle of Midway? Oh 0? Why?

Because it entered service in 1944, when there were pretty much neither any Japanese Carriers left to fight from nor any well trained pilots to fly them!

The Ki-76 was not a recon plane, it was meant for artillery spotting and it's low range made it unsuitable and unable to perform recon missions like the Japanese Cruiser floatplanes did at Midway. I can't find any evidence of the Ki-76 being successfully used in a recon role, please provide any if you have.

Escort carrier would be sooooo useful if we could add reco aircrafts on them. Don't you think ?

Since Escort Carriers don't exist in HoI4 I don't see how they could be useful.

 

[Daelyn75]

@Alex_brunius

Your argument is incorrect. Here's a carrier based reconnaissance aircraft from the imperial navy:

Nakajima C6N

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_C6N

Also, here's a picture of another carrier based reconnaissance plane, the Ki-76 on the escort carrier Akitsu Maru

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokusai_Ki-76

If you go there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carrier-based_aircraft

You will see that all countries had reco planes on their carriers.

What I understand is the reco plane has an higher speed and lower armor and armament than usual fighter planes. They had a key role in navy and army. They were used to increase the artillery accuracy, etc...

So why don't we have them in game ????

Kokusai Ki-76

Role Liaison/observation
Manufacturer Kokusai
First flight 1941
Introduction 1942
Retired 1945
Primary user IJA Air Force
Number built 937 including a single prototype

"The Ki-76 remained in service as an artillery spotter and liaison aircraft until the end of the war. Ki-76s were also used as anti-submarine aircraft, operating from the Japanese Army's escort carrier, the Akitsu Maru, being fitted with an arrestor hook and carrying two 60 kg (132 lb) depth charges."

In 1942 at the Battle of Midway, this plane was not there, nor did Nagumo launch any aircraft from his carriers for reconnaissance, since he wanted them available for striking the US carriers or Midway Island itself. He used only reconnaissance planes from his cruisers. This is detailed in the book Shattered Sword that I own, and was recommended to me by Alex Brunius a while back.

The Japanese Navy changed up a lot of how they operated after Midway, probably introspection over why they lost so badly, but if recon planes were introduced on Japanese fleet carriers, it was after Midway, so I assume not even in 1942. As for their light carriers, escort carriers, and seaplane tenders, they operated differently, but none of those were at the Battle of Midway.

Nakajima C6N

Role Carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft
National origin Japan
Manufacturer Nakajima Aircraft Company
First flight 15 May 1943
Introduction 1944
Retired 1945
Primary user Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service
Number built 463

"The C6N originated from a 1942 Imperial Japanese Navy specification for a carrier-based reconnaissance plane with a top speed of 350 knots (650 km/h) at 6,000 m and range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,960 km).

Although designed for carrier use, by the time it entered service in September 1944 there were few carriers left for it to operate from, so most C6Ns were flown from land bases."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_C6N

This plane didn't exist in 1942 for the Battle of Midway. Also note the 1942 Japanese Navy call for a carrier based reconnaissance plane. So no, it wasn't common for Japanese fleet carriers to use reconnaissance planes, though I am sure there are exceptions throughout the war.

Of the other recon planes for Japan on the list of carrier-based aircraft, one other was a prototype in which only 2 were built, and the other was from 1922, and by the mid 30s they had been phased out for the Japanese Navy.

 

[Alex_brunius]

There are some problems if we want to have recon planes from carriers in HoI4 as well.

1.) It would be most consistent to use actual planes, so that there is a historical trade off between how many strike planes you can use and how many recon planes to bring, but there is no automatic flying of carrier planes for detection, nor is there any stat influencing detection on airplanes. This means it would probably require quite alot of changes to the game for an honestly very small gain unless done together with another major change to how aircrafts or carriers work.
2.) If a module is used instead like with cruisers, then to get that historical tradeoff you would need to sacrifice a hangar module on the Carrier meaning losing 20 planes. I don't think many players would want to do that if you can get the same scouting capability from much cheaper cruisers ( Do you pick a CV for 10000 industry to bring 3 scout planes or do you pick a CL for 4000 industry cost? ).


IMO there are alot more serious issues with how Carriers work in naval combat that should have priority like how combat range doesn't exist, how ship speed or weather doesn't matter much for closing distance to CVs, how CV dive bombers are not very useful, how you must bring capital ships to screen CVs, how CVs on invasion support missions don't support invasions, how CV planes don't train together with CVs adding micromanagement and some more things.

 

[Meglok]

Recce should be left where it is, either float planes on capital ships or land based aircraft.

 

[Jeremy971]

There is no correlation between my example and the battle of Midway. My goal was to show that this kind of plane has been developed and used on carriers during WW2.

Check again the link below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carrier-based_aircraft

Japan wasn't the only country to use them.

And the purpose of this game is to simulate WW2 and try to improve the historical strategies and doctrines of, for example, Imperial Navy.

Why did they lose battle of Midway ? Bad Intel.

What can I do in order to not to make the same mistake ?

Design my ships with radar or catapult reco aircraft or why not carrier based reconnaissance aircraft.

Also, in one of my game I forgot to design my ships with radar or any reco modules. So I had to restart. If the game could have given me another alternative like carrier base reco aircraft, it would've been great !

And we should be able to use this kind of plane on land to give bonus to divisions or strat bombers. It's weird to send his bombers without any reco. Don't you agree ? It has no sense since you don't know where are your targets...

Here's another carrier based reconnaissance aircraft from UK, the Fairey III, on the carrier HMS Furious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_III

So, I repeat your argument that no carrier will have reconnaissance aircraft on board because they will have only strike planes is incorrect.

 

[Alex_brunius]

There is no correlation between my example and the battle of Midway. My goal was to show that this kind of plane has been developed and used on carriers during WW2..

So why did your argumentation include a link to a video on the battle of Midway then?

Why did they lose battle of Midway ? Bad Intel.

No. They lost due to a list of at least 10 different reasons, one of which is bad air recon. There were many more factors at play.

So, I repeat your argument that no carrier will have reconnaissance aircraft on board because they will have only strike planes is incorrect.

If someone have made such an argument then let me know who it is, because I will join you in agreeing it's incorrect. My argument on recon plane usage was specific about the Japanese in the Battle of Midway.

Both the American and British doctrines included flying recon missions from Carriers although they were mostly flown by dive bombers or torpedo bombers with a lighter or no bombload to increase range. Dedicated recon carrier airplanes was quite rare.

 

[cursorhiker]

IMO there are alot more serious issues with how Carriers work in naval combat that should have priority like how combat range doesn't exist, how ship speed or weather doesn't matter much for closing distance to CVs, how CV dive bombers are not very useful, how you must bring capital ships to screen CVs, how CVs on invasion support missions don't support invasions, how CV planes don't train together with CVs adding micromanagement and some more things.

I agree with all this, as well as the fact that it doesn't seem like fighters disrupt land-based aircraft on naval strike missions. Never thought I'd miss the old range-based system so much.

 

[Daelyn75]

The top reason for why they lost was that their doctrine required a maximum strike with everything they could throw at the enemy, and while this was happening, for hours, between the Midway airfield, and the US carriers, they were constantly harassed by air-attacks, which gave them no real time to collect, refuel, rearm, and send up it all at once.

But like Alex_brunius wrote, there are a lot of reasons all together. I wouldn't place bad intel at the top, if it even should be on the list at all. They were aware of the enemy carriers, and Nagumo could have sent off what he had, but decided to stick to the doctrine of one massive strike.

EDIT: This is detailed in the same book I mentioned - Shattered Sword.

 

[Meglok]

@Jeremy971 adding recce planes to carriers under the current design system would use up a build slot for carriers without adding extra detection that is not already available by using float planes on a cruiser hull.

There is no way to just add recce planes to the plane allotment that would not detract from the deckload of fighters and bombers. So say you add scout planes, which other planes do you remove from the CAG? And how do you justify giving them more detection than a dedicated float plane launched from a CA that has better range in most cases?

If you want more detection in your carrier fleet, make a dedicated seaplane carrier out of a cruiser hull by cramming it with max float planes, max radar, and high AA. What you want would need a lot of coding for little to no gain in game play to add something that is already available in the game.

 

[Louella]

Recon aircraft aren't really a thing though in hoi4.

In history, Escort carriers put up single aircraft to do long range patrols looking for submarines, and engage enemy maritime patrol aircraft. But there's not a good way of representing that in-game. So there's not really any escort carriers in-game either.

If there was a recon mission then scout planes might be a thing.

 

[Louella]

There is no way to just add recce planes to the plane allotment that would not detract from the deckload of fighters and bombers. So say you add scout planes, which other planes do you remove from the CAG? And how do you justify giving them more detection than a dedicated float plane launched from a CA that has better range in most cases?

I've thought before about a deck module with 5 fewer space, and a small amount of fuel use, that gives some detection, representing a flight of scout aircraft, but ultimately, I don't like the idea of aircraft that couldn't be shot down by the opposing fleets combat air patrol.

 

[STABBY5]

Carriers don't need special scout planes. They should still provide spotting. Carrier planes did patrols.

 

[Daelyn75]

I've thought before about a deck module with 5 fewer space, and a small amount of fuel use, that gives some detection, representing a flight of scout aircraft, but ultimately, I don't like the idea of aircraft that couldn't be shot down by the opposing fleets combat air patrol.

What could be done without any changes that we have to do in game, is to just give carriers with airplanes the same scouting ability automatically as a module. Which makes sense, since carrier planes were used as scouts to get more eyes out there when needed.

 

[Louella]

I think if a "scout" or "recon" mission was created, that gave ships in the area a boost to detection, then that'd help things quite a bit.

Could even give it to the CV-CAS aircraft, to give them a function that makes them worth building.