I was insisting that hit and run guerrilla tactics are a legitimate attacker's tactic since the attacker dictates when and where to engage, seizing the initiative by retreating to a location where it is extremely difficult for a counterattack.
Remodeling Sealion
- Thread starter Faradaux
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I was insisting that hit and run guerrilla tactics are a legitimate attacker's tactic since the attacker dictates when and where to engage, seizing the initiative by retreating to a location where it is extremely difficult for a counterattack.
Ok - so you have a convoy of slow, unseaworthy transport vessels, loaded with troops weapons and supplies.
Their only hope to survive is if you keep both explosions and high-speed wakes at a distance.
The enemy's ships are older, but outnumber you at least 5:1 in any class.
Do explain how "hit and run" tactics will prevent annihilation of your convoy.
From what I read, OHK was very confident its basically almost over in Octobre/November. Also before that confidence started already.
I mean to get the numbers straight:
- 1st July tank war Dubno-Luzk-Riwne: 2.000+ tanks destroyed,... - I lack numbers of POWs, wounded and fallen here.
- 9th of July 41 report from Bialystok and Minsk: 328.898 POWs + dead and wounded, 3102 guns seized and 3332 destroyed tanks (as many tanks as Germany had in total). Two Red Armies totally destroyed.
- 10th of September 41 report from Smolensk: 300.000 POWs + 420.000 dead and wounded, 3.000+ tanks destroyed,...
- 26th of September 41 Kiev: 665.000 POWs + woudned/dead fallen, 2781 guns seized, 4 armies destroyed, 2 more armies almost destroyed
http://www.johndclare.net/wwii6_sealion.htm#part6
When used as a landing craft, the barges, tugs and motorboats required extra crew. In total, the Kriegsmarine estimated that a minimum of 20,000 extra crew would be needed. That's 20,000 extra crew at least knowledgable of matters maritime. By stripping its ships to the minimum (which doesn't bode well for the Kriegsmarine if it is required to fight a fleet action), the Kriegsmarine was able to supply 4,000 men. The Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe transferred 3,000 men who had been sailors in civilian life, and an in-depth trawl of the reserves and the factories and the drafts brought forward another 9,000 men. After digging through the entire manpower cupboard, the barges were still 4,000 men short of the minimum required.
http://www.johndclare.net/wwii6_sealion.htm#part6
Dowding had made preparations to pull 11 Fighter Group back to the Midlands in order to preserve an effective fighter opposition to an invasion proper.
Finally:
One single main exercise was carried out, just off Boulogne. Fifty vessels were used, and to enable the observers to actually observe, the exercise was carried out in broad daylight. (The real thing was due to take place at night/dawn, remember).
The vessels marshalled about a mile out to sea, and cruised parallel to the coast. The aramada turned towards the coast (one barge capsizing, and another losing its tow) and approached and landed. The barges opened, and soldiers swarmed ashore.
However, it was noted that the masters of the boats let the intervals between the vessels become wider and wider, because they were scared of collisions. Half the barges failed to get their troops ashore within an hour of the first troops, and over 10% failed to reach the shore at all.
The troops in the barges managed to impede the sailors in a remarkable manner - in one case, a barge overturned because the troops rushed to one side when another barge "came too close".
Several barges grounded broadside on, preventing the ramp from being lowered.
In this exercise, carried out in good visibility, with no enemy, in good weather, after travelling only a short distance, with no navigation hazards or beach defences, less than half the troops were got ashore where they could have done what they were supposed to do.
The exercise was officially judged to have been a "great success".
[...]
We can choose to wave a magic wand, and wipe out the RN and the RAF, and examine how successful the invasion was likely to be in their absence. Sandhurst has done this on four occasions to my knowledge. Both sides were given the historical starting positions, with an invasion date of 24 September.
In each case, the details of the fighting varied, but by each analysis resulted in 27 September dawning with the Wehrmacht holding two isolated beachheads, one at roughly 2 divisions strength on Romney March, and one of 1 division at Pevensey. Each were opposed by more numerous forces, with growing numbers of tanks and artillery. German resupply was still across open beaches.
I am sorry, thats not a source its a personal opinion, which is not even an educated guess. Maybe you feel personally attacked, even though I dont mean to, but this is a text I cant take serious. Same goes for loads of German language texts and "articles" (of which are a lot over the internet), which basically glorify the one side and bash the other as stupid.
Bottom line: in the end you need historicans, who reviewed internal texts, reports,.. from all sides, put them in relation and verified facts. And even then you need to look for yourself at the interpretation and verify at key areas. If you dont, text liek the one you quoted arise.
That was because they have yet to see the mass deployment of T-34s which could only be pierced by the Pak-40 AT gun (which were only available in very small numbers) or the AA Flak guns. They also severely underestimated the Russian Winter and overstretched supply lines.
Yep. I may also add the underestimation of the rainy Bessarabian summer, which stopped them cold in mud also in summer.
Back to Sealion. Whats imho missing and whats wrong in HOI4:
- AI navy handling.
- Naval combat in a whole is broken.
- UK AI being "aware" of the importance of dominance by sea and keeping it.
- Lack of sea mine fields.
- Intelligence about invasions being prepared is missing.
- AI defense against invasions. This is actually the worst point, where an AI doesnt prepare against an invasion and then - once it happens - doesnt react with enough force, but instead allows the human player to doomstack invaded provinces - which basically is a game over AI.
Definitely agree on this.
Can you be more specific, here? Apart from the AI suicidal actions, I find I get some pretty believable scenarios - what are you referring to?
I would go slightly alongside this and say that the AI needs to be able to distinguish "fleet in being" threat value and "total priority" situations where you commit even if it means the risk of loss. I think that's the real trick of naval (surface) warfare.
Yeah, these are tricky to include, and HoI has never had them, yet, but it would be nice. I would add coastal forces (MTBs/Schnellboots/PT boats) and coastal guns here, as well. They could work in a way analogous to air warfare and AA, which could be "fixed" at the same time.
Intelligence and reconnaissance is an area that really needs a lot of development, I think. There was a discussion elsewhere about the LRDG and other forces in the Sahara - reconnaissance was a major benefit, there. Aerial photoreconnaissance is another feature of relevance, and the whole area of organisation and presentation of stored intelligence data (list of enemy ships, current tank and 'plane models, etc.) is really not well represented and would enhance the playing experience, I believe.
If I'm being snarky, I'd say "like holding up two vital Panzer divisions for days while a beachhead is being established, you mean?"
Ships sometimes disengage for no reason when facing a tiny fleet, for example you may have a fleet of 4 carriers 10 battleships and some light cruisers and meet an enemy fleet of 4 submarines. For some strange reason your carriers and battleships then start disengaging, then 4 carriers from the enemy fleet join the battle and your light cruisers end up at the bottom of the ocean - Hoi 4 naval combat in a nutshell.
No argument there, but there's no way the Germans could take Moscow in 1941, and many generals knew it. Guderian didn't but from what I've read the higher-ups weren't too keen on Typhoon (of course they wouldn't admit this publicly). Remember that you need to take this stuff with a grain of salt. Any sense of caution or doubt was often condemned as "defeatism," with dire consequences at times.
Back to the main point, it was impossible to take Moscow at the end of Barbarossa. The supply lines weren't strong enough, there wasn't a high enough level of local superiority, there was very little freedom of maneuver because the timetable demanded basically a beeline for Moscow, and if they got there, they didn't have the men or logistics to seriously contest the city.
That was actually something they already knew about. Honestly, yearly weather conditions like that don't catch people by surprise. It's freaking weather that happens every year, not exactly a state secret. It was probably a major reason why they went for the Balkans and Greece before Barbarossa, since the ground was too muddy to launch Barbarossa anyways. The Russian winter was abnormally cold, but the Germans had prepared for winter (it's not like it isn't cold in the rest of Europe), they just decided to ship ammunition for Typhoon rather than winter gear.
Thanks for the clarification. I think this links to a wider issue: battleships and carriers wanting to distance themselves from subs while destroyers and light cruisers deal with them I can well understand, but the system doesn't (in general) have a good setting for "shadowing". This applies to patrolling destroyers, too; they should definitely not try to engage capital ships they encounter, but should try to shadow them - out of gunnery range but in sight/radar contact - until their own big ships close in. This probably requires a couple of alterations; one to the AI, another so that sea battles can be mobile (i.e. they include chases where all the ships involved move across several sea "provinces").
"Naval combat in a whole is broken."
Sure. As of now naval combat offers a "best" setup. From my experience so far it is somethign along the line of 4 CVs + screens + 100% naval CAGs. There might be better ones, still this setup alone trashes the AI fleets anytime.
This doesnt apply to reality, nor does it fit in a game-balance way. Hence its broken.
Apart from that, I am sure someone testing naval warfare and fleet setups comes up with a perfect fleet setup. As a result its broken historically and game-wise.
Sure. As of now naval combat offers a "best" setup. From my experience so far it is somethign along the line of 4 CVs + screens + 100% naval CAGs. There might be better ones, still this setup alone trashes the AI fleets anytime.
This doesnt apply to reality, nor does it fit in a game-balance way. Hence its broken.
- Historically in the 40's CVs were of a lesser effect in difficult weather situations. Weather should have a larger impact on battle outcome. This is also a reason, why UK and Germany were more reluctant for CVs, since they always considered the North Sea in such plannings.
- Grouping of CV + BC + CA + CL + DD fleets together with subs is ok and actually works.
- A soft limit of 4 CVs is enforced, which is correct as of today, yet at those times the limit was naval aircombat organization. Even the Japanese needed their time to get carrier logistic, service right (in that area I consider Pearl Harbour special with 6 CVs attacking)
- Positioning and always keeping the distance for CVs works imho "too well" in HOI4.
Apart from that, I am sure someone testing naval warfare and fleet setups comes up with a perfect fleet setup. As a result its broken historically and game-wise.
I think the Royal Navy is fine. it doesn't need to be any stronger or weaker. What would help immensely is AI fixes. A player could easily use the RN to full effect to stop Sealion, but the AI has proved it is utterly incapable of doing that
Oh, and yeah, peace needs to be totally reworked
Oh, and yeah, peace needs to be totally reworked
Thanks for this clarification, too. I think we maybe just have different definitions of "broken"; I can see the flaw that CVs are too potent, and the lack of a strong enough weather vulnerability is definitely an issue, but even a "perfect" fleet cannot be everywhere. Strong fleets existed, in theory, throughout history, but you counter them by keeping a "fleet-in-being" that threatens where they are not, so that they have to try to be everywhere and so become vulnerable. So, OK, a flaw, but not what I would call "broken".
Then I was not clear enough. The mere existance of a "perfect fleet" makes the system broken. Even on CVs you always have options and counters. This system doesnt offer any.
Game-view only: In a game, esspecially MP games you always rely on a rock-scissor-paper approach. Where option A counters option B, B counters C and C counters A. On anything else its kinda pointless.
Historical view: going all CVs in the North Sea area is moot due to weather conditions. A mix of CV and BB depending on current weather makes more sense, where a fleet is more BB heavy in autumn and spring, but more CV heavy in winter and summer. Still on exceptional days this can still reverse. Also building cost impact (raw materials) as well as training and experience to just handle a carrier (not unit experience, but nation-wide experience) is a crucial factor.
Again extremes might show the issue there: Germany going all CV would historically result in a hunt for such a fleet, right when it leaves docks, ideally already before by bombings by UK respectively allies in general. As it stands now, such a 4CV fleet plain obliterates anything in SP or in best case leads to a battle result by chance, when even fleets meet.
There is no rock for the "scissor" which is CV. There is only paper...
Thats what makes a system broken.
Or rephrased: the naval combat is imho broken since the risk vs reward and invest scheme is out of whack for CVs.
I direct you to The War at Sea - Royal and Dominion Navy Actions in World War 2 for a fairly comprehensive analysis of RN capabilities in 39. As always, don't look at just one source, but this source gives a rather good big picture. I assure you, Sea Lion was very much a possibility. Also - just because the Germans discussed Sea Lion in 39 doesn't mean they planned for it. They discussed finding the Ark of the Covenant as well. Napoleon actually was much further along in his preparations for an invasion of England than the Germans ever were. He actually had camps set up across the Channel where the majority of his army was situated.
You can relax about my feelings, because as a rule I have zero respect for your/anonymous internet posters statements.
However,
- The article refers to a Sandhurst wargame.
- The article lists specific numbers of (insufficient) required maritime crews.
- The article points to a specific German exercise.
I checked the Sandhurst reference, and it is correct.
The others I accept on face value, because 1) the first reference checked OK, 2) they make sense, and 3) they are falsifiable.
So if you disagree about the feasibility of Sea Lion, I challenge you to provide sources that prove:
1) Germany had sufficient maritime crews available. (It is generally accepted knowledge Germany had to use river barges, but how were they going to man them? With Bavarian engineers?)
2) Germany performed a Sea Lion exercise successfully.
Really? Thats the original Map of the OKH plan, 13 Infantry Divisions where picked for the first wave. Thats a total of 227.500 men plus the 2 Paratrooper Divisions securing Dover and Brighton. Germany had a total of over 500.000 men in France.
Last edited: