Quick Thought on Early Carriers

[Big Nev]

Nice link for a fire control comparison.

This site is one of my favourite sources but I'm not really a fan of this particular comparison. Firstly, it's totally theoretical and takes no account of crew training or actual results. Secondly, I can't help but think it's a teeny bit biased in favour of the USA.

For an example on my first point.

It is an historic fact that, during WWII, no Italian battleship ever hit anything with its main guns. At any range, day or night. By contrast, the IJN battleships & Battlecruisers (including Yamato) repeatedly demonstrated accurate fire (day or night) with them repeatedly bracketing DDs & DEs (on first or second salvo) and Yamato scoring a fairly long-range hit on a CVE off Samar. Didn't do much damage because she was firing AP and it went straight through, but it was a long-range hit all the same.

Yet this article rates her, and the Bismarck (also well known for accurate fire) the same as Vittorio Venito.

IDTS


And I've had another thought about how Yamato could "turn the tide".

She could have charged in to Hawaii, under massed fighter cover, and got herself stuck in the entrance as Nevada narrowly managed to avoid during the actual attack.


One massive naval base neutralised

The trick would, of course, be to make sure there were some CVs present so that they are actually bottled-up but even failing that, they're going to struggle to find anywhere to re-fuel or perform basic maintenance.

EDIT: And then Musashi can "do" the Panama Canal.


EDIT 2

I think I should point out that you are right, the Germans and the japanese were pretty far behind in terms of fire control, the sinking of Scharnhorst clearly demonstrates that. British or American ships would have been able to engage Yamato using Radar fire control far beyond the range that Yamato could have fired back.

I don’t follow how the loss of Scharnhorst is demonstration of how far behind the Germans were in fire-control. Not that they were.

Duke of York got lucky early in the engagement as one of her consorts (probably Belfast) had taken-out Scharnhorst’s forward radar. So when engaged by DoY, she was half blind as well as hopelessly outclassed.

10 x 14” > 9 x 11” and DoY’s armour made her virtually immune to serious damage from Scharnhorst whilst the relatively flimsy 2” deck was… yeah well.

And Yamato had radar too so how can Britain or the US engage her beyond range? Her gun range was greater than theirs and, beyond 20,000 yards you don't really have much chance of hitting anything anyway.

 

[Denkt]

Tirpitz was like British and American ships uppgraded with new types of radars and such as the war progressed and was due to have an uppgrade in maj or june 1945 so German development here was not stuck in 1941 as some people think (often because Bismarck was sunk at that year and is comapared to other ship with their 1945 setup which is ridiculous).

 

[Secret Master]

And I've had another thought about how Yamato could "turn the tide".

She could have charged in to Hawaii, under massed fighter cover, and got herself stuck in the entrance as Nevada narrowly managed to avoid during the actual attack.


One massive naval base neutralised

Damn it, there's got to be a pun involving the word "Go" here, but I can't come up with one.

 

[Umbaretz]

1 Thing that cannot be denied about Battleships .......case: Guadalcanal

Battleships and cruisers could do two things which carriers cannot (at least to an extent)-
- fight at night
- support and protect landing operations due to carriers vulnerability is spotted and necessity to keep far away from enemies

if the USS Washington was not at Guadalcanal the Japanese would have been successful and, since it was night time no amount of carriers could have made a difference.

without battleships to support landings which they can do both at night and during the day one side would exploit this and use fast moving cruisers and destroyers in to eliminate the supply/troop ships
then if the other nation does have battle ships then you want to make sure you have the better one.....

even if an attack happened during the day time it would be very difficult for a carrier fleet to destroy a battle ship task force supported by land based aircraft or even none at all before the battle group wipes out the landing operation and can then withdraw

another case were this almost happened was Leyte gulf and guess what only a group of old battle ships stopped the Japanese from breaking through and wiping out the landing operation

thus it is extremely dangerous for a nation to not invest in battleships the yamoto was simply a case of an over investment and poor operational use.

To conclude fleets need battle ships and they need carriers

Can't heavy cruisers do the same?

 

[Big Nev]

Can't heavy cruisers do the same?

That's the point of battleships. IRL, battleships just obliterate heavy cruisers. A little appreciated fact is that heavy cruisers suffer more than light cruisers when engaging battleships. Yes, heavy cruisers can do a lot of damage to troopships, but not if they have to get past a battleship first. Once the range starts to close & the BB is scoring regular hits (under about 15 km) it usually only takes two or three big shells to cripple or even sink any heavy cruiser.

This is something many people don’t understand. There’s a HUGE disparity between the real power of cruisers &the HoI power of cruisers. Even battlecruisers shouldn’t hang around for long when a real battleship shows up.

Hopefully, the Armour Vs Piercing they've introduced sets this straight.

 

[tommylotto]

This site is one of my favourite sources but I'm not really a fan of this particular comparison. Firstly, it's totally theoretical and takes no account of crew training or actual results.

Well, Yeah. That is the purpose of the comparison, to isolate the fire control system, independent of main armament dispersion, quality and consistency of ammunition, amount of crew training, naval doctrine, and just compare the kind and quality of fire control. Thus, a comparison of the various ship's fire control systems.

Secondly, I can't help but think it's a teeny bit biased in favour of the USA.

Well, we all have our biases. Don't we?

It is an historic fact that, during WWII, no Italian battleship ever hit anything with its main guns. ...
Yet this article rates her, and the Bismarck (also well known for accurate fire) the same as Vittorio Venito.
IDTS

Well, as a fleet in being, the VV's job was to not get sunk. A job she managed to accomplish, and a job the Bismarck (with its accurate fire) failed at miserably. After that, Hitler learned his lesson, and the Tirptz (with its similar mythological German awesomeness) had a combat record very similar to her Italian sisters -- moving from port to port, hiding from air attacks, and dodging torpedoes. In almost 4 years of service, the only thing she ever shot at were a few Norwegian huts.

 

[Umbaretz]

That's the point of battleships. IRL, battleships just obliterate heavy cruisers. A little appreciated fact is that heavy cruisers suffer more than light cruisers when engaging battleships. Yes, heavy cruisers can do a lot of damage to troopships, but not if they have to get past a battleship first. Once the range starts to close & the BB is scoring regular hits (under about 15 km) it usually only takes two or three big shells to cripple or even sink any heavy cruiser.

This is something many people don’t understand. There’s a HUGE disparity between the real power of cruisers &the HoI power of cruisers. Even battlecruisers shouldn’t hang around for long when a real battleship shows up.

Hopefully, the Armour Vs Piercing they've introduced sets this straight.

Nope, we were talking abot that stuff which happens after enemy battleships are obliterated by carriers.

 

[bcoop1701]

Nope, we were talking abot that stuff which happens after enemy battleships are obliterated by carriers.

I don't really understand what you are getting at. Cruiser's wouldn't survive an environment dominated by aircraft carriers anymore than a battleship would. You just spent significantly less money on the artificial reef.

 

[shierholzer]

[...] Bismarck (also well known for accurate fire) [...]

Denmark Strait was heavily in the Kriegsmarine's favour, and not a example for particularily good or bad FC. Bismarcks AA FC proved to be ineffective later on.

(with its similar mythological German awesomeness)

German FC was good, though not better than someone would expect from a decently trained western navy with radar at the time.

 

[FarEast]

I hope to remember that full-scale attack have been after USN had enough battleships. I think USN needed battleship gun -huge destruction power- for landing operation. They have experience of horror in Gualcanal.

 

[Big Nev]

Denmark Strait was heavily in the Kriegsmarine's favour, and not a example for particularily good or bad FC. Bismarcks AA FC proved to be ineffective later on.


German FC was good, though not better than someone would expect from a decently trained western navy with radar at the time.

Yeah, and the funny part is that the AA fire control proved to be inadequate because the Swordfish was too slow for it to track properly

PMSL

 

[Director]

"Secondly, I can't help but think it's a teeny bit biased in favour of the USA."

Permit me to raise a few points. Biases first: I'm an American citizen and navy enthusiast who does not believe that the USN is and was always the world's best. I'd like to think I go where the facts lead me but I do mostly read American sources and histories... I love the Royal Navy for its traditions and accomplishments and once (in Victoria, written up as A Special Providence) defeated the Royal Navy using American battleships, so there's that. No Anglophobe here.

So. Fact: the Royal Navy, in the person of Percy Scott, created modern naval gunnery. Scott and William Sims (USN) became the two biggest supporters. Since the Imperial German Navy's gunnery was very good, they must have had high-ranking officers who made it a priority, but I don't know who they were. Even by Jutland, not all Royal Navy battleships were fitted with modern gunnery control equipment. Percy Scott's reforms were pushed by Fisher but otherwise deeply resisted: Royal Navy capital ships hit at about 3% of shots fired and the Imperial German Navy managed about 5%. I don't have any expectation that US ships would have shot any better than that, but lacking evidence we have no facts there.

Between the wars, part of modernization of old ships (since they couldn't build any new ones) was to fit modern gunnery control equipment. This usually included a big central rangefinder (or two), a mechanical computer to handle 'rate of change' calculations, a central gunnery 'director' to process all information, pass it to the turrets and - in some cases - fire the guns at the same instant. Different navies had different systems (Britain used coincident rangefinders, US and Germany stereoscopic; Britain tended to have small rangefinders - seriously, tiny, what's up with that - and other navies very long ones; some fired full salvos for rangefinding, others fired half-salvos or single gun per turret, etc) but those are the basic keys.

My impression is that the US Navy had fewer budget constraints from 1919 to 1929 and tended to put better and more expensive fire control systems in its ships than other navies could. In WW2, the US added automatic mechanisms to keep the guns turning as directed by the fire control equipment; Britain and Japan depended on human operators to move 'pointers' and they tended have errors and become fatigued. The US, British and German capital ships had gyro-stabilization to keep the guns angled as the ships rolled; not sure about Japan.

Both Germany and Japan were capable of good shooting, though Japanese long-range gunnery seems never to have been very good (Komandorski Islands for one example) but both navies deteriorated quickly as a result of crew losses, reduced ability to steam and train and failure to continually improve equipment.

My impression is that gunnery was the #1 priority for US and German officers. I have read sources that note that RN ships might go for long periods without gunnery practice due to being needed for other duties (as HMS Hood). I think all navies had ships with better and worse gunnery, but I do think the very small range-finders, the reliance on human 'pointers' and the lack of gunnery training (seconded not for preference but by other, more urgent needs) makes RN gunnery not as consistently good as the USN. Could some ships shoot very well? Indeed, yes. Were others, um, not proficient? Seems so, but with so many factors like weather (visibility) to account for it is hard to say. In 1941, Bismarck hit Hood and Prince of Wales early and often, but those two had material problems and deficiencies in gunnery training. In 1943, Duke of York shot Scharnhorst to pieces; not surprising given the German ship's inferiority and early loss of critical systems. So... it is my impression that the Royal Navy (pre-war) preferred to close and smother the opponent with fire while the USN intended to engage at very long range, and to secure those long-range hits invested more heavily in equipment and gunnery training. In other words I think Sims was more honored in his service than Scott was in his - and that is an opinion only.

 

[Director]

Damn it, there's got to be a pun involving the word "Go" here, but I can't come up with one.

Operation Ten-Go involved sending Yamato, Yahagi and eight destroyers to attack the American beach-head on Okinawa. Since they had only enough fuel for a one-way trip they were expected to beach themselves and shoot until they were destroyed. None made it there.

So if Yamato had been used to block the entrance to Pearl Harbor you could call it Donate Steel to the American War Effort-Go, or Honolulu Liberty-Go. Maybe I-Gotta-Go, or One-Way-Go, or Not-Gonna-Go? Seems to me there must be a pun involving pearl necklace, but I can't find one.

 

[mursolini]

Well, returning to actual HOI discussion, as I played a game of Japan after reading this thread, and my impression was actually rather positive about how the game handled ship types.

Early in the war (pre-1942 techs & doctrines), while carriers were able to "win" naval battles, they were pretty incapable of actually sinking emeny ships, and on top of that, CAGs depleted very, very fast. Modern battleships, however, when I played Germany or Italy, managed to sweep enemy non-carrier navies clean in a few decicive battles.

As Japan, despite having almost total naval supremacy with 2 carrier task forces, with 5 older and 4 newer fleet carriers and a support of 5-ish CVLs, cleaning up both USN and RN proved to be a long, and expencive in terms of CAG damage and convoy loses, affair. I`m pretty sure that if I build a few modern BBs or SHBBs instead of this many carriers, I could sweep the ocean cleen way, way faster and cheaper, simply by virtue of not having to chase enemy fleet for quite a long time, to get some kills, as my fast battleships would turn most victories by carriers into huge slaughter, while the old Japanese battleships and BCs simply couldn`t do the job. Or, maybe the problem was not having modern escorts, but overall, performance of my navy wasn`t really that decicively crushing, and if AI could actually decently fight naval war, I could end up in a lot of troubles later on, as US get it`s superiority in IC translated into superiority in ship building.

 

[Beagá]

Operation Ten-Go involved sending Yamato, Yahagi and eight destroyers to attack the American beach-head on Okinawa. Since they had only enough fuel for a one-way trip they were expected to beach themselves and shoot until they were destroyed. None made it there.

So if Yamato had been used to block the entrance to Pearl Harbor you could call it Donate Steel to the American War Effort-Go, or Honolulu Liberty-Go. Maybe I-Gotta-Go, or One-Way-Go, or Not-Gonna-Go? Seems to me there must be a pun involving pearl necklace, but I can't find one.

Considering the historical Yamato was just one big target, if it killed a thousand americans in such a silly move it still would have been more useful...

 

[Denkt]

Now Im talking about HOI4 as the game probably will be

Carrier aircraft will be very capable to sink and damage enemy ships even in the 30s. Nobody will have all base strike doctrine researched however nobody will have any doctrine tree full researched yet. At 30s the ships will be tech level I and II with III and IV under production, maybe some III late 30s. These ships will be quite weak so the same tech carriers and its aircraft should do well here. Later ships, doctines and aircrafts will be all more advanced however it may work more or same the less in the early game as in late game.

The developers have said that they don't wan't to make major warfleet made up of one or two ship types viable so making a fleet of only carriers and light cruiser will probably not work well. As naval war is just like the land war, you don't need to really sink any enemy warship at all, if all their ships are unable to operate at all you have probably won the naval war.

The ships will probably work in a rather advanced rock-paper-scissor way:
Carriers aircraft is very good against capital ships but have alot of trouble damaging screening forces and can be disrupted by the screen aa guns before they can attack the capital ships making the attack much less efficient.
Destroyer is the counter to submarines, as well as carriers as it is faster then the carrier, aircraft have very low chance to score hit on the destoyer and the destoyer carries torpedoes so if it get close it will have a very good chance at sinking the carrier.
Light cruiser is not a counter against submarines but instead it is excellent against destroyers as well as aircrafts and carriers.
Heavy cruiser is the best ship against screens as it can easly avoid torpedoes while having good ability in hitting the smal ships. This makes the heavy cruiser the ideal surface raider as most escorts will be screen class ships.
Battlecruiser and Battleships are not fast and thus vulnerable to aircrafts however their ability to take punishment is much better then most carriers. At close range they are excellent against all capital ships and they are much less vulnerable to screen torpedoes then carriers however they still pose a dangerous threat.
Super heavy battleship are slow however if they ever get an enemy ship in range that ship will probably not last long, extremely good against all capital ships and can take alot of punishment.
Submarines a cheap ship that is very dangerous thanks to its ability to stay hidden allowing it to get in torpedo range. Powerful against large slow ships it is however terrible against destroyers.

 

[TiberiusfromSWG]

Excellent discussion.

As far as CV's go I believe Japan had a slight edge on USA and UK in CV operations because it had been using them against China since '37, gaining experience in air ops and also had been training in TF operations during that entire time,. I do believe they were the superior force as far as operations even in 1942, but the deciding factor at both Coral Sea and Midway (and beyond) was MAGIC, the USA knew where to place their carriers in both operations and that was decisive. Even having the early CVL's and converted CV's gave the IJN, USA and UK tremendous experience over all other nations. I hope that HOI4 has CV, CVL and CVE represented as each were distinct from each other in what aircraft they could handle and their operational uses.

I need to ask a noob question. i understand that at least in hearts of iron 3 terms. a CL is a light carrier that can carry one CAG, and a CV is a standard fleet carrier that can carry two CAGS. what is a CVE, i don't remember that designation. How is it different?

P.S. I hope that i have it right in terms of HOI3 terms if i don't please correct me.

 

[shierholzer]

what is a CVE, i don't remember that designation. How is it different?

Escort carrier - cheaper, slower and carries only one CAG (ingame, synonymous to CVL).
((IRL, CV/CVL/CVE are basically the same type of ship, just in different sizes. Generally CV's are purpose built ships and those converted off BB/BC hulls (which made some of them - like Yorktown - surpirsingly hard to sink), while CVL's are converted off anything else and CVE are purpose built only (usually to accompany convoys and landing forces).))

 

[tommylotto]

CV - fast large fleet carrier - carries 2 CAGs
CVL - fast small fleet carrier - carries 1 CAG
CVE - slow escort carrier - carries 1 CAG

CVL were in Hoi3, but CVE were not. However, CVE were added by several mods.

 

[Big Nev]

CV - fast large fleet carrier - carries 2 CAGs
CVL - fast small fleet carrier - carries 1 CAG
CVE - slow escort carrier - carries 1 CAG

CVL were in Hoi3, but CVE were not. However, CVE were added by several mods.

Errmm... not exactly.

CV = Fleet carrier. Carries 2 CAGs. Various mods have increases to 3 or even 4 with late tech's.

CVL = Light fleet carrier. These were usually converts-during-construction from other ship classes like light cruisers or civilian liners but not always. Sometimes they were small simply because that's all the remaining displacement allowed to treaty signatories would allow. They are characterised by having a significantly reduced wing but are fast enough to operate with the big CVs. This class is not actually represented in vanilla HoI 3.

CVE = Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable. Carries 1 CAG and is mis-named as CVL in HoI 3. Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of escort carriers were purpose built and not converted from merchant hulls. They are characterised by being small, slow, pitifully armed and totally unarmoured. Typically operating older &/or obsolete aircraft due to their short flight decks. More suited to the support of landings & troops pushing inland, sub-hunting and ferrying aircraft as they simply can't keep-up with fleet carriers.

Not to say that they're cheap so you don't mind having to replace a few while the loss of a fleet carrier is a disaster.