Reasons to Build BBs

[ArmChairAttila]

BB's should be useful in naval engagements until the middle of the game time. What I mean by game time is if this game last from 1936-1950 the BB's should start losing there naval combat potency around 43-45ish. They should never lose there potency for supporting amphibious landing support.

 

[lila-laune-bär]

Introduce a (hefty) national unity or ruling party hit when building nothing but CVs, representing the naval establishment disapproving of your avantgardist ideas. Voilà, problem solved, there now is an incentive to build BBs.

 

[unmerged(139263)]

Introduce a (hefty) national unity or ruling party hit when building nothing but CVs, representing the naval establishment disapproving of your avantgardist ideas. Voilà, problem solved, there now is an incentive to build BBs.

I much prefer not artificially limiting the player in this way.

However, the weakness of the CVs should be bad weather - in that event, they're virtually powerless to protect themselves (or indeed spot with their aircraft to gain the incredible positinioning values they have in HOI2) and do need BB escorts. In reality the WW2 era CVs handled quite badly at bad weather.

Also, CAGs of the time should not function very well if at all during night-time.

That, together with a fixed fleet model, would make BBs prized escorts for CVs even later in the war.

 

[unmerged(141861)]

I dont know towards the end of the war some guided systems did exist such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VB-6_Felix or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_X, though I agree with you that its more stuff for a war in the 50s rather than the 40s.

.

didn't Italy also have a radio guided anti-ship system, that used a bomber/plane controlled by another plane??

 

[Praetonia]

Just make the AI's buildlists especially in ships dependent on what the other naval powers do. If you as a major naval power build only CVs, the others will build more CVs. That way the player can choose - early advent of CVs, or continue building BBs and wont be at much of a disadvantage as everyone else did that too.

 

[Christian D]

One reason could be that capital ships posed a great threat to convoys, and could have an even greater pseudo-fleet-in-being effect by causing the enemy to postpone multiple convoys while a capital ship raider is at large. IIRC there was one instance where the British suspended all north atlantic convoys because one pocket battleship had raided a convoy and hadn't been tracked down. Granted, a pocket battleship is not the same as a BB, but I suppose the same principle applies.

So that could be one reason to build a BB, but whether or not the risk outweighs the benefits is an entirely different issue. That's alot of IC gone if you're not careful. But then again, we're not sure exactly how raiding will work in HoI3 so I suppose this remains to be seen.

 

[Murkk]

Until Repulse / Prince of Wales in Dec 1941, no capital ships had been sunk by enemy aircraft while at sea. The invasion of Sicily, some of the allies were almost annihilated on the invasion and in desperation they called in artillery fire from the supporting capital ships. Thought to be too inaccurate to be useful in tactical engagements, they found out that naval bombardment could be very accurate and deadly.

 

[vertinox]

Until Repulse / Prince of Wales in Dec 1941, no capital ships had been sunk by enemy aircraft while at sea. The invasion of Sicily, some of the allies were almost annihilated on the invasion and in desperation they called in artillery fire from the supporting capital ships. Thought to be too inaccurate to be useful in tactical engagements, they found out that naval bombardment could be very accurate and deadly.

Technically, the Bismarck was damaged enough by aircraft in May 1941 to make her be able to be sunk by regular ships (or scuttled to prevent capture).

 

[Murkk]

Technically, the Bismarck was damaged enough by aircraft in May 1941 to make her be able to be sunk by regular ships (or scuttled to prevent capture).

Only it's rudder system was damaged, and the British really thought they had just gotten lucky (which they did). The idea that battleships had no place is just stupid. Had the British navy had no battleships, 25 carriers and a bunch of destroyers and cruisers, they would have been annihilated in 1940 by a German force of battleships in Sealion.

 

[unmerged(139263)]

The thing we have to remember is that the point of a fleet is not to destroy the enemy's fleet.
It is to control shipping.
Deny the enemy from using the sea and make sure you can use it. A skillfull naval comander can do very well accomplishing these goals WITHOUT having to best the enemy in battle.

THIS I hope to get properly simulated in the game, and it will make both CV's and BB's worth building as both can accomplish this task... and BB's will be more lucrative if you have good BB-knowledge and next to none CV-knowledge.

For example, the naval doctrine of germany was never to defeat the RN, but to elude it while still hampering brittish shipping.

Also, Italy had a true fleet-in-beeing approach with most of their BB's at anchor, just being a potential threat to shipping through the med. It accomplished its goals doing this a long while, forcing the brits to sail all the way around africa to guarantee the safety of their merchants.

True, but for Germany that is a losing strategy. Germany must execute Sealion (given there is no other way to make the British get out of the war), and for that a strong fleet and airforce which can kick the British fleet out is needed.

I generally tone down motorized / armour forces (which it can't really afford oil wise anyway) to free up IC and research (I go for fleet in being - Reader is OK researching in that field) for fleet and airforce building as Germany.

As for coastal bombardment role of BBs, that is also a very important bit. There are people who are demanding that the US retains two BBs precisely for that role even with all the modern rocket systems and airforce. At that time, it was the best tool for that role bar none.

 

[dpdlc]

The real question is why do I even need an aircraift carrier? It is only a floating airbase after all.

When we talk about carriers, we generally are referring to planes that are on them. Since the planes fighting have been decoupled from the aircraft carrier, and the air craft carrier has horrible combat stats, with the airplanes doing most of the actual fighting.

So Why air we building aircraft carriers?

a) To project airpower at range, because we have no nearby airbases to fight from.
b) Dynamically move the areas we project air power, without having to build new bases.

This make sense in the pacific, that is huge and has few stable airbases. Meanwhile in the European theater since things are closer together, and in range of your airbases you don't need a floating one.

 

[unmerged(139263)]

True, but they're useful in the Atlantic, or if you go out of reach of fighters which is possible. For coastal defence, naturally, the continent is one incredibly large carrier already

In theaters like the med. sea you can get by without them completely.

 

[bz249]

The real question is why do I even need an aircraift carrier? It is only a floating airbase after all.

When we talk about carriers, we generally are referring to planes that are on them. Since the planes fighting have been decoupled from the aircraft carrier, and the air craft carrier has horrible combat stats, with the airplanes doing most of the actual fighting.

So Why air we building aircraft carriers?

a) To project airpower at range, because we have no nearby airbases to fight from.
b) Dynamically move the areas we project air power, without having to build new bases.

This make sense in the pacific, that is huge and has few stable airbases. Meanwhile in the European theater since things are closer together, and in range of your airbases you don't need a floating one.

Those are exactly the reasons CVs played a very minor role in the European theater. Well I only remember the Taranto raid, which had close to no effect*,
since Italians intended to keep those ships in the harbour and they found a really good reason to do so.

*the effects were less than one year long repairs, which might be hastened if they really-really wanted to fight

 

[fmac42064]

I do my on thing when building navies. I build carriers, battleships, and cruisers as much as possible and about 100 destroyers. I like a very very large navy, no matter who I play as.

 

[bz249]

I do my on thing when building navies. I build carriers, battleships, and cruisers as much as possible and about 100 destroyers. I like a very very large navy, no matter who I play as.

It would certainly bankrupt Chile... though the mighty Tannu Tuva could build them after conquering a proper a coastal province.

 

[Alex_brunius]

In theaters like the med. sea you can get by without them completely.

That depends on if your still controlling malta or not

 

[unmerged(136067)]

Both CTF and SAG are useful, i especially like SBB type VII put some CVL and BC/CA then CL/DD for screens. I like diverse fleets whether they effective or not. As for CTF they are not fun, they don't sink ships as effectively as SAG's. There is nothing better than report of sinking several capitals from enemy fleet using SBB's. There is nothing more annoying than chasing enemy fleet with CTF because those bloody CV's making them only flee.

 

[Chaingun]

A bit late maybe: This is really a problem in any game with many types of similar units. BBs will be competing with various types of cruisers for the player's construction priorities, and there must be situational incentives to choose each one over the others, or it will be completely disregarded in construction planning (except for flavour for players "roleplaying").

 

[LaDoncella]

@Bluemystic, that's mostly because of the insta range of CVL

 

[Zorbeltuss]

The AI system is weak, tbh. The AI should do these things automatically and for everything rather than needing multiple specifically tailored AI files to take sensible actions.

Just wanting to say as a mediocre ai-programmer and consciousness-philosopher (as having studied both subjects separatly and combined), a weak ai is either an ai not intended to match a human in thought, or it can mean the weak ai principle that an ai that seems intelligent doesn't necessarily have to be intelligent.
As a simulation of worldwar 2 i think multiple ais are appropriate as all the decisions weren't made by the same man (even though some tried).