Shore batteries hurting ships

[Narvi]

The problem is that they did not work except for in some narrow straights.

If you look at the actual landings that did happen during WW2, very few ships was lost due to coastal batteries. The guns where either destroyed or missed their targets.

Some batteries, like in Norway, did deny traffic within their effective fire range in good weather. BUT that was not a complete HOI sea province. And if the allied forces decided on invading Norway or if the area was important for allied shipping, you could rest assure these batteries would have been rendered inoperative.
The allied strategy concerning Norway was to make Hitler believe there where an invasion in the planning, in order to make him waste resources on fortifying Norway with things like coastal guns...

About how easy they where to destroy. The technology of bombing heavy fortified complexes made enormous leaps forward during WW2. In the beginning the gigantic steel reinforced concrete bunkers made for coastal guns and submarines where hard do destroy and required large number of bombers. But the development of things like the bunker busters and air mines changed that dramatically.

I found this quote at U-boat bunker:


Those bunkers where at least as good as the gun bunkers. Also there is no need for complete destruction to make an gun battery inoperative. Even the blast wave itself often killed the crew and dislodged the equipment.

We have a bit different understanding of how they should work actually. I agree that the level of protection was limited and the actual hits were rare. But on the other hand how many succesful landings in ports have you seen during WW2? Or sea-based attack on the docked fleet?

Granted - there were occasions where it succeded (British bombardment of French fleet, raid on Scapa Flow and so on) as well as good examples of landings forced through coastal defence. Like Normandy. But they either required succesful guile or MAJOR concentration of force.

So coastal guns had their failings and their role dimished with the increase of airpower significance (as you rightly point out). But still it was cheaper than assigning fleet cover to all of your coast and I suppose just as effective (carriers excluded).

 

[unmerged(45464)]

Seems you guys have been busy debating this issue while I was asleep.

Maybe there were very few hits by shore batteries, but they sure made an impact, otherwise they wouldn't have spent so much time and resources bombing them from planes, ships or spec ops troops. Wasn't the reason they didn't score many hits because ships stayed away from them and if they needed to land in the area they made sure the guns were disabled first?

About the sinking of Blücher, yes torpedoes sank the ship, but it already had an uncontrollable fire from the guns, it might have had to be abandon anyway. However the sinking of Blücher was really just a one in a million chance. Almost as if destiny craved some irony. Guns from 1893 and torpedoes from 1901, created by Germany and Austria respectively manage to score perfect hits.

Anyway I'm not saying this is a top priority or anything. If we have a list of 1. Must have, 2. could use and 3. would be nice. Than this request would be under number 3. Why don't somebody look up every suggestion that has been made and make that list =P

 

[Alex_brunius]

For shore batteries to work smoothly we would need a few more things:

1. ALOT much more and smaller seazones. We can't have guns at pacific islands with 400km range if they keep HoI2 seazone sizes.

2. Ports that can be attacked by surface gun ships. If Ports automatically gets a few shore guns aswell for their defense you finally cannot hide your entire battleship force in some obscure size 0 harbour beeing immune vs all but air attacks.

For those that claim shore batteries were expensive and worthless I disagree. Many of them consisted of old turrets that would have been scrapped otherwise. Everything from old destroyer, cruiser and dreadnought guns existed. The turretless shore batteries were old or conqured equipment that could not see active frontline duty due to either ammo shortages or to complicated logistics when using 20different calibers.
For example the most common shore battery gun defending "fortress europe" was a french design, the next most common was a soviet piece.

Besides the facts that the majority of the guns were leftovers you can compare their cost to a real ship. A real battleship have a size of 45'000 ton (2000man), 3big + 10small turrets in a shore battery battery would weight less than a 10:th of this and have less than 200man crew. Comparing costs we get at least 10times the firepower and probably 20 times the durability since they can be hidden, spread out, better protected and hitting one of them doesn't risk sinking them all.

 

[unmerged(78917)]

The problem is that they did not work except for in some narrow straights.

If you look at the actual landings that did happen during WW2, very few ships was lost due to coastal batteries. The guns where either destroyed or missed their targets.

Some batteries, like in Norway, did deny traffic within their effective fire range in good weather.

While you’re correct in your statement that shore batteries didn’t actually sink many ships in WWII it’s probably because there weren’t many encounters. Naval commanders simply did not engage shore batteries and in the rare exceptions when they did the respective navies harm. The Blucher example and the Wake garrison I believe sunk 1 or 2 Japanese destroyers during the first attempted landings even though I think those were army field pieces.

The point is that naval commanders didn’t engage shore batteries because of the many advantages that shore guns would have over a naval gun. The land gun is a stable platform, unlike a rolling bobbing ship so accuracy is much better. A land battery also has had time to practice their range in a set location so their first salvo is going to be right on the money as compared with the ship which is going to take at least two or three salvos in order to bracket the target. I’m a novice in this type of battle but if I were a naval commander I wouldn’t risk my ship against those kinds of odds.

The straights examples here are good ones in that the game doesn’t let you even engage these areas. I think you should be able to engage a shore battery; it’s just that the batteries have such an overwhelming advantage over ships that it just isn’t worth it. Maybe the level of the costal battery would determine the range and accuracy level. For example Gibraltar had 14” guns and was well established so therefore would be like a level 8. An island garrison might have 4” batteries with less established fields of fire so maybe that’s a level 1. These would only engage during a landing other then in restricted waters like the Skagerrak where any ship trying to pass would come into range. Now I think you have to make the coastal fortifications progressively more expensive to make. That should give balance to the game and keep us from seeing level 10 forts everywhere.

Obviously a battleship could sit off of Kwajalein and pummel the island if its garrison only had 4” guns and not take any counter battery fire. That wouldn’t be the case in an assault on Gibraltar where the guns would have very similar range. Assaulting Gibraltar would require a different strategy. The point is that if you’re going to assault a fortified position you need massive preparation in order to be successful. That would include air and naval in support of the troops, as in RL. So my long winded answer is that I believe it would be a good enhancement to the game to include the fact that shore batteries can hurt naval ships. I don’t like the fact it’s abstracted in today’s game.

 

[unmerged(127904)]

I agree - batteries where superior and should have impact - the low losses where becouse of the commanders avoiding em. I dont like the blockades of straights as in HoI2 - it could be a nice change to make it work a little different. AI should watch and avoid such points becouse of high losses and player if he would like too could off course try but it should be costly for him.
An alternative for impassable straits.
Gibraltar with coastall bateries and as a fleet base + some planes and its impassable. Subs can try but with high risk.
Another thing should be 2 lvls of sea. Deep and shallow.
The difficulty in Mediteranean zone was also becouse of the reason that it was much easier to spot subs.
It would be a nice change to the whole naval combat.

 

[Lazy_Boy]

Shore batteries should hurt ships when there's a shore bombardment, amphibious assault etc. But shore batteries shouldn't get to shoot when ships are not close by. (Shore batteries shouldn't work when ships are on duty of Naval interdiction, convoy raiding, and just passing the sea zone)

Well what they mostly need is small naval zones just outside the shore to represent land based ranges. You have to enter them for shore assaults and any ship be very vulnerable to active shore batteries (as in not bombed) in that zone. I mean there had to be a point to building all of those. Hell I've visited old coastal defense forts here in Washington State. Not sure why they thought the Japanese would even get into Puget Sound but still would have been effective. Coastal forts were bombed or avoided for good reason after all.

 

[unmerged(48627)]

In HOI2 only the units making an amphibious attack were hampered by coastal batteries, at the very least I think the prescence of coastal batteries should decrease org in naval units delivering the units and naval units making shore bomabrdements.

 

[unmerged(52751)]

Really, shore batteries had very little effect in World War II.

I can't think of any examples of warships on the HOI2 scale being seriously damaged by shore fire. The exception being one German cruiser in Norway where a shore battery opened fire at 600 yards range.

The various mammoth gun batteries scored virtually no hits on anything - particularly not the various guns placed around the channel.

So I wouldn't get too worked up about the impact of shore fortifications.

...the game presents the opportunity to create an ALTERNATE history... and actually you're wrong about the success of coastal fortifications in WWII. There are many examples of shore batteries driving off ships or denying a coastal area to a naval attacker.

and the fact that the Germans were memerized by wasting large amounts of resources on huge cannon, this is something as a player I would like to do as well!

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

But shore batteries shouldn't get to shoot when ships are not close by.

Sometimes they should: the Channel near Dover/Calais, and Gibraltar come to mind.

 

[TheLand]

Sometimes they should: the Channel near Dover/Calais, and Gibraltar come to mind.

Did the Channel guns ever hit anything?

There are many examples of shore batteries driving off ships or denying a coastal area to a naval attacker.

Yes, but very few of causing any damage.

 

[chridder]

Whatever, from my point of view it would add some fun and strategic depth into the game, even when they are not 100% represented in the game.

But as mentioned before, smaller sea provinces would be needed to reduce the range of the shore batteries...

 

[Mattias]

... About how easy they where to destroy. The technology of bombing heavy fortified complexes made enormous leaps forward during WW2. In the beginning the gigantic steel reinforced concrete bunkers made for coastal guns and submarines where hard do destroy and required large number of bombers. But the development of things like the bunker busters and air mines changed that dramatically.

I found this quote at U-boat bunker:

The protection offered by these bunkers were adequate throughout the early years of the war, until 1943 or 1944 when the Allies introduced the Tallboy and Grand Slam bunker buster bombs. These 12,000 and 22,000 lbs bombs scored numerous direct hits and several bunkers were penetrated. The response was to further reinforce these bunkers from between 3 – 7 meters to 7 – 10 meters, but up to the end of the war, these were never completed.
Those bunkers where at least as good as the gun bunkers. Also there is no need for complete destruction to make an gun battery inoperative. Even the blast wave itself often killed the crew and dislodged the equipment.

Before Overlord the allies carpet-bombed all gun-emplacements several times with bombs up to 1-tonne each but couldn't harm ANY of the finished marine-artillery bunkers. Despite total air superiority and very weak air-defences gun emplacements considered vital had to be taken by special forces. In one case a battery with dubious morale was permanently silenced by a cruiser firing direct fire into the gun-emplacement, killing some of it's crew and persuading the rest they should wait inside their shelters until tha battle was lost.

The obvious reason the airforce didn't hit them was their quite small size - at least compared to the huge U-boat bunkers. /M

Edit: IMHO the role of costal-artillery in game should be to defend ports (including hiding ships). No CA=no possibility to hide in the port. This could be done with CA-units or by presuming a naval base also has proper CA (they usually had IRL).

 

[Mohe]

Really, shore batteries had very little effect in World War II.

I can't think of any examples of warships on the HOI2 scale being seriously damaged by shore fire. The exception being one German cruiser in Norway where a shore battery opened fire at 600 yards range.

The various mammoth gun batteries scored virtually no hits on anything - particularly not the various guns placed around the channel.

So I wouldn't get too worked up about the impact of shore fortifications.

deterrent is a very important effect. Lot's of things don't happen because somebody else prevented it. It is like incidents of cavalry charging pikes are very rare, because most of the time cavalrymen know what will happen, but sometimes they don't, Ireland in 1798 for example, and then you get a lot of dead men and maimed horses.

However this does not mean the pike is useless against cavalry, it just keeps the cavalry away.

 

[Alex_brunius]

deterrent is a very important effect.

Agreed. Also remember that many of the German "mammoth guns" were so heavily used in fortress europe propaganda that everyone including the allies knew exactlly where they were located and thus were very much deterred from approaching them.

Did you know that the allied commanders believed Germany had 49 coastal batterys that could fire on their D-Day shipping?

In reality the Germans had:
17 total Batterys, and of these:
12 that could fire on the ships approches, of whom:
3 that in modern terms that could be classed as costal batterys, and:
0 that were fully constructed and repaired.

That is the power of Propaganda and Myth. Noone can tell how much pure deterrance of German guns actually postponed and restricted D-Day.