Port strikes

[Hoyte]

I believe subs and other ships should be able to damage ships in ports and subs should physically be able to attack ships in port

 

[bkuepers]

Hard to simulate this without mines and sub nets in game to be able to setup a defense. Would be cool though. At least we know we have the ability to port strike with planes.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I believe subs and other ships should be able to damage ships in ports and subs should physically be able to attack ships in port

Was never done on a large scale historically.

Historically ships could only attack unprotected backwater ports without coastal defenses.
A coastal gun roughly speaking had 1/10:th the weight of a shipborn system and was 10 times harder to knock out then a ship. Add to this the danger of mines and torpedo boats lurking nearby. All this meant that you have to be crazy to attack a defensive system that is 100 times more cost effective with your fleet + the enemy ships, rather then just wait until they are at sea.

For submarines there is only really one success of attacking a port ( which quickly made any such subsequent attacks even more of a suicide ). No one really knows how many dozens of submarines that were lost trying to sneak into ports.

 

[griffor]

Was never done on a large scale historically.

Historically ships could only attack unprotected backwater ports without coastal defenses.
A coastal gun roughly speaking had 1/10:th the weight of a shipborn system and was 10 times harder to knock out then a ship. Add to this the danger of mines and torpedo boats lurking nearby. All this meant that you have to be crazy to attack a defensive system that is 100 times more cost effective with your fleet + the enemy ships, rather then just wait until they are at sea.

For submarines there is only really one success of attacking a port ( which quickly made any such subsequent attacks even more of a suicide ). No one really knows how many dozens of submarines that were lost trying to sneak into ports.

well they could simulate it as a player choice but i never want the ai to do this for me on its own ships take to long to build to throw them away

 

[inteljoe]

It happens, it's possible. But you have to think that the submarines at the time could only stay underwater for a limited amount of time due to the batteries.

There are just so many different things that could go wrong too. I see it as being possible, but only advantageous if you happen to know if the port has some heavy ships docked, there are few or no screening ships or anti-sub nets deployed. Otherwise it would throwing a submarine away to damage or take out a few ships.

 

[LordOfWar16]

The only missions that did something like that i know of all were basicly one-way missions. Harbours made sure that their ships are well secured from direct attacks. If you throw tons of planes at them it looks a bit different of course.

 

[inteljoe]

The only missions that did something like that i know of all were basicly one-way missions. Harbours made sure that their ships are well secured from direct attacks. If you throw tons of planes at them it looks a bit different of course.

Problem with planes is getting them to the port first. Sure if you have a carrier based navy that can support long range engagements or sneak attacks (Japan rings a bell) would allow port attacks to become very advantageous. The issue is where if you are Germany for example and don't have a strong navy and also have a very close enemy that does, it becomes an issue to consistently have "good" attacks where the resources destroyed outweigh the resources spent. Ultimately though it also depends on the Intelligence gathering system, in other words. How well can Side A detect ships in Side B's ports and then effectively attack it via aircraft or submarine or "other". And what precautions can Side B take in order to prevent Side A from being successful.

Assuming the mechanic is in the game, although I don't remember hearing about it in WWW4. But that doesn't mean it is implemented, unless someone can add some more information about it.

 

[Daelyn75]

Regardless of ships/subs attacking a port, I think that air attacks should be much more deadly than they have been in previous HOI games. Having to attack a port 20 times with a large naval attack air group to sink a handful of ships is completely unrealistic.

 

[Wyrm]

Air attacks on ports should be deadly and at the same time risky. Ports with ships in the will be high-value targets and as such will be defended heavily. In HOI3, the few provinces I added AA-improvements on were ports. And radar as well to help my fighters defend the ports properly as well.

Most harbours are tricky to use torpedoes in. In Pearl, the Japanese had to modify their torpedoes specifically for this raid.

One thing of notice if you look at air-raids on ports in the war, there were a few raids that were highly successfull. Battle of Taranto would be the first one and it was successfull mainly because it achieved nearly complete tactical surprise. The italians were not prepared for attacks by carrier-based torpedo bombers at night and hence the Swordfish-planes wreaked havoc there.

This battle then influenced the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbour that also achieved complete tactical surprise and was very well planned and trained for.

Those are two iconic port-strikes.

Then we could look at numerous strikes done that were a lot less successful. Look at the entire hunt for Tirpitz. How many sorties were flown and how many was lost until they managed to finally sink that ONE ship? Those raids kind of end up at the other end of the scale.

I suspect balancing this in a good way while still keeping it abstract will be very tricky. Noone will build a navy if it gets sunk in port by aircraft the first day of the war every single time



- edit -

This was an interesting list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Allied_attacks_on_the_German_battleship_Tirpitz

 

[Antiboyscout]

I thought this was a thread on strikes of port workers and unions.