Something terribly wrong with convoy speed

[Tacticus101]

But it's a little weird to say that seaborne movement should have a massive handicap due to the gaping hole where a proper logistics system should be while massive land movement and offensives are privileged and do not face similar constraints.

I didnt say that though.

 

[Aeon221]

The units landing in Operation Torch needed 500 transport ships. The 35,000 (3 divisions) that were shipped directly from the US needed over 100 ships in convoy to acount for all their equipment (including the tanks). This is all with complete allied naval cover, having already won the battle of the Atlantic quite comprehensively, which is why none were lost.

Operation torch also saw 6 troopship lost despite all this.

The US shipped a million men overseas. They did not have a million men and all their equipment at sea at the same time. Its a major difference.

Torch was in 42, and the events are not as supportive of your viewpoint as you might think from the wiki article's casualty list. Note that Torch was conducted with ersatz troopship such as converted prewar cruise ships, which were much slower than the purpose built troopships. All quotes following are from The War At Sea by Craig Symonds.

Of the six transports lost, only 2 sank with troops aboard. Both sank while anchored off the harbor awaiting the assault after being delayed. One was killed by French destroyers and the other by German u oats.

Of the remaining four, 3 were empty and sank well after the landing, 1 was disabled by air attack with all personnel fine.

No transports were lost to sub or surface attack en route.

As the British ships ran through the Straits of Gibraltar, Spanish observers noted their passage and forwarded the information to the Axis. Nine German and twenty-one Italian submarines prepared to intercept them. The Italians assumed that this was another reinforcement convoy for Malta, a speculation the British encouraged by maintaining a course for that island until they were almost due north of their actual targets, then abruptly turning south. That subterfuge led the Italians to concentrate most of their boats in the narrows between Cape Bon and Sicily and allowed the invasion convoys to avoid them altogether. The German U-boats did their best to interfere with the Allied convoys, but the strength of the escorts deflected them.

Once all the various elements of the American invasion armada rendezvoused off Norfolk on October 25, the transports and cargo vessels formed up into nine columns with the ships following one another at one-thousand-yard intervals. Like the British, the Americans committed a large escort to the troop transports, including three battleships, seven cruisers, and thirty-eight destroyers, plus the Ranger and the four auxiliary carriers that had been converted from oilers. Altogether, the formation covered some six hundred square miles of ocean. And also like the British, the Americans took an indirect course to the target beaches, feinting southward toward the bulge of Africa before turning northeast to close in on French Morocco from the southwest. As a result of that, and some luck, the convoy was undisturbed by U-boats and arrived off the Moroccan beaches intact and on time.

Transport one "kill" was disabled by an air attack.

Nevertheless, it was a German air attack from Sardinia that drew first blood on November 7 when a Heinkel 111 torpedoed the American troop transport Thomas Stone, part of Burrough’s convoy bound for Algiers. The torpedo exploded near the engine room and broke the transport’s propeller shaft. The Thomas Stone was dead in the water and unable to continue. Burroughs left the River class frigate Spey to stand by her and pressed on with the rest of the invasion convoy.

All personnel survived and many of the troops on board embarked on a shambolic voyage on their Higgins boats that eventually led them to be picked up by the escorting destroyer.

French destroyers nailed number 2

That was not the end of the naval fighting. Rear Admiral Gervais de Lafond, unwilling to be trapped in port, led seven destroyers, joined later by a light cruiser, in a sortie. Once clear of the harbor, they sought to escape by heading north along the coast, a course that took them directly toward the American landing force at Fédala. De Lafond became an early casualty when he was wounded by a strafing attack conducted by Wildcat fighters from the Ranger. The French destroyers were also targeted by American warships off Casablanca, and as they neared Fédala, the American cruisers Augusta and Brooklyn, guarding the landing force, joined in the fight. Samuel Eliot Morison, who was on board the Brooklyn that morning, exercised some poetic license in writing that the American ships “went tearing into action like a pack of dogs unleashed.”18 It was mostly a one-sided action. After a 16-inch shell from the Massachusetts struck the destroyer Fougueux, she sank within minutes; another severely damaged de Lafond’s flagship, Milan. The French pressed on, making smoke to disguise their movements, and managed to sink one of the landing ships, but they were badly overmatched.

Most of the troop ships sunk were sunk after the landings had already occurred. This is transports 3 through 6:

The delay in getting the troops ashore meant that the transports and cargo ships remained off the landing beaches longer than intended, and that gave Dönitz the opportunity to order fifteen U-boats to the Moroccan beaches. On the evening of November 11, Fregattenkapitän Heinz-Ehler Beuke in the U-173 fired torpedoes into three different ships: the transport Joseph Hewes, the tanker Winooski, and the destroyer Hambleton, all within a ten-minute period. The next day, torpedoes from the U-130 struck three more troopships, all of which sank. By then the ships had discharged their priceless human cargo, but it was another blow to scarce Allied shipping. Later that same day (ironically, Armistice Day), as Patton’s ground forces neared Casablanca, news arrived of Darlan’s order for a cease-fire, and by November 12, the Allies had secured their foothold in both Algeria and Morocco.

Contrast this outcome with the situation in game where even a single division being moved by three troopships with convoy escort efficiency at 100% is intercepted and at risk of annihilation, potentially multiple times. Goofy as all heck.

Edit: good lord paradox switch to markdown your antediluvian formatting markup is an atrocity

 

[Aeon221]

Oh and just as an additional note, compare the 6 lost transports to the hundred plus higgens boats and other assault landing craft lost to rough seas and enemy action during the actual landing.

Clearly the risk of ocean transport of troops is far higher than it should be while the difficulty of amphibious assault is far lower.

 

[Tacticus101]

Torch was in 42, and the events are not as supportive of your viewpoint as you might think from the wiki article's casualty list. Note that Torch was conducted with ersatz troopship such as converted prewar cruise ships, which were much slower than the purpose built troopships. All quotes following are from.......

I dont know what veiwpoint you are refering to?

Im not disputing that troop ships were rarely sunk. I was just giving an illustration of the number of ships needed to supply the equipment for even 3 divisions; the reason they landed with all their equipment was because 100 ships were sent with the divisions, rather than the 6 or so needed in game.

Oh and just as an additional note, compare the 6 lost transports to the hundred plus higgens boats and other assault landing craft lost to rough seas and enemy action during the actual landing.

Clearly the risk of ocean transport of troops is far higher than it should be while the difficulty of amphibious assault is far lower.

Amphibious assault is already quite hard, espeically against prepared troops, generally requires far more troops than D-Day to pull off.

Landing forces are also incredibly vulnerable, you can catch the divisions themselves mid landing with planes or subs.

 

[Aeon221]

I dont know what veiwpoint you are refering to?

Im not disputing that troop ships were rarely sunk. I was just giving an illustration of the number of ships needed to supply the equipment for even 3 divisions; the reason they landed with all their equipment was because 100 ships were sent with the divisions, rather than the 6 or so needed in game.

In game troop transports have a spotting penalty ~25x that of freight transports. They are easily killed. They are very pokey.

Any AI nation that routinely uses sea lift sees massive casualties from intercepts as a result.

I agree that sea lift should require more convoys. Airlift should also require more planes and those planes should require fewer IC to produce per plane. Land logistics should require trucks, and those trucks should require fuel. Reliability on automotive equipment should be lower.

Paradox does not agree.

Amphibious assault is already quite hard, espeically against prepared troops, generally requires far more troops than D-Day to pull off.

Landing forces are also incredibly vulnerable, you can catch the divisions themselves mid landing with planes or subs.

Amphibious invasions are ahistorically easy by comparison with the historical effort. They require more troops because all nations have hugely larger armies and division counts than would ever have been possible in reality.

 

[Tacticus101]

In game troop transports have a spotting penalty ~25x that of freight transports. They are easily killed. They are very pokey.

Any AI nation that routinely uses sea lift sees massive casualties from intercepts as a result.

I agree that sea lift should require more convoys. Airlift should also require more planes and those planes should require fewer IC to produce per plane. Land logistics should require trucks, and those trucks should require fuel. Reliability on automotive equipment should be lower.

Paradox does not agree.

Again, im not sure what you are arguing against. You seem to be refering to things i havent said.

I have not asked for divisions to require more convoys, or that supply should be changed or indeed any changes to the game; though i DO support improvements to the system in general. I have not talked about the vulnerability of troop transports in the game. I have not really talked about implimenting any changes into the game.

What i have been arguing, as summarised by my second post is:
"You cant pick and choose what you want to be realistic in a majorly abstracted mechanic."

Amphibious invasions are ahistorically easy by comparison with the historical effort. They require more troops because all nations have hugely larger armies and division counts than would ever have been possible in reality.

If you try and launch the historical D-day invasions, with historical numbers, against the Dug in forces the Germans had there you will either bounce off or take days to get even one landing, easily enough time for even the historical German forces to move there. If you manage to land, the lack of a port will doom your invasion really quickly.

 

[Praetori]

In game troop transports have a spotting penalty ~25x that of freight transports. They are easily killed. They are very pokey.

Any AI nation that routinely uses sea lift sees massive casualties from intercepts as a result.

I agree that sea lift should require more convoys. Airlift should also require more planes and those planes should require fewer IC to produce per plane. Land logistics should require trucks, and those trucks should require fuel. Reliability on automotive equipment should be lower.

Paradox does not agree.



Amphibious invasions are ahistorically easy by comparison with the historical effort. They require more troops because all nations have hugely larger armies and division counts than would ever have been possible in reality.

Well one could argue that "divisions" in game are actually just units counters and not divisional sized unita and that "width" would classify them as Divisions, Brigades and even regiments (common mix of AI templates). And then one could argue that the actual units count is too low rather than too high.

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

Isn't a factor of about 1.75 sufficiently explained by the fact that in real life ships need to sail back across to the port of embarkation?

 

[Dan1109]

Isn't a factor of about 1.75 sufficiently explained by the fact that in real life ships need to sail back across to the port of embarkation?

Again, justifying a deficiency by abstractly justifying a different missing mechanic shouldn’t be the approach here.

If troop transfers required a mission like naval invasion where planning was required(to gather the necessary transports), that would be fine. I’ve already suggested such a mission, mainly from the point that troop transfers can be done on a larger scale, rather than 1 division on the ocean unescorted on their own. Escorts can then be added to such a mission, ala naval invasion support. If the planning of such a mission takes convoy gathering into consideration, that’s an excellent justification of planning requirements. But it shouldn’t be linear like naval invasions, 12 divisions port to port shouldn’t require 2 months of planning. Perhaps a week.

With such a mission, atleast they wouldn’t be on the dangerous waters while waiting, they would be safe in port. Again, the over arching goal of my convoy posts is to a) make convoy warfare more realistic b) reduce the abhorrent amount of equipment and manpower the AI loses.

And note, the ~1.75 factor I found in the original post is by no means intended by PDS. It’s due to the inability of ships to sail in a straight line, due to naval pathing issues and a finite number of sea zones. The longer the route the higher the error.

 

[Praetori]

I remember back in the day when new iterations of the CIV series, PDS-titles and other games changed their approach and people marveled and thought it ODD that you didn't have to build and send actual-on-map troop-transports to a port in sufficient quantities by means of microing and then load the ground units onto said ships (hopefully for a snug fit).
The previous "old" approach was logical and "realistic" (well not really but from a PC-game standpoint) but actually didn't add squat to the gaming experience other than micro.

Troops in such "newer" games conjuring up their mode of sea-transportation from thin air has been modified in more recent titles by the use of resources or (as in the case of the later PDS-titles like HOI4) convoys but neatly handled in a non-intrusive way. In HOI3 for example you couldn't move troops without actual fleets. Said fleets needed attached troop-transports (which is basically a variant of the old CIV or Colonization style) but that was pretty micro-heavy so I do understand why an approach similar to CK2 was used for HOI4.


In HOI4 it's already way too easy to basically whimsically transport large amounts of troops over the ocean. But then again, obstructions rarely makes fun gameplay on the GSG-scale of things.
I think the added time, intentional or not, is pretty sound given how care-free the troop-transports are. The alternative would be to have faster convoys but proper delays for unloading and reforming of units, supply-lag, port-sizes and ship types dictating that time etc. But then we'd also need a system to properly prioritize the escort of these fast troop convoys (as was the case in HOI3 with actual fleets).

While I agree with the OP (and have voiced similar observations myself) I'm not convinced there's a problem other than historicity involved (given how easy it is to field and train divisions).

 

[currylambchop]

Again, justifying a deficiency by abstractly justifying a different missing mechanic shouldn’t be the approach here.

Maybe it's not a deficiency, but an abstraction or a balance decision?

Imagine, for a second, if convoys moved as fast as historically. China would get stomped so hard in the war, as Japan would be moving its troops far faster than before. The Allies would be able to absolutely crush the Axis in Africa with far superior mobility. In fact, Navy would probably become more important than Air or even Land, as it would be practically necessary to prevent players from exploiting the supersonic convoys speed.

Well there is nothing unsusal about some game design decisions being good and some not good

But the issue here, is that the design decision here has a very clear reason, similar to the others. You are missing the point.

37.5 km/h convoys are around as balanced as the historical 40km/h panzer divisions that took down France. That is the obvious reason it is not implemented.

OP even acknowledged that it would greatly increase the power of the Allies, but did not see that that may well be the reason that the speed is still slow:

What matters most to me is how long these troops are on the water, which is dead wrong, seen from tables from the US Naval document. It contributes to troops dying in the Atlantic (which they NEVER did) and horrendous troop transfer times limiting the Allied naval mobility, which helped them win the war.

 

[Dan1109]

Maybe it's not a deficiency, but an abstraction or a balance decision?

Imagine, for a second, if convoys moved as fast as historically. China would get stomped so hard in the war, as Japan would be moving its troops far faster than before. The Allies would be able to absolutely crush the Axis in Africa with far superior mobility. In fact, Navy would probably become more important than Air or even Land, as it would be practically necessary to prevent players from exploiting the supersonic convoys speed.

The problem is that the longer the route, the more the problem is exacerbated. 12kmph IS ok fora short route. So, China/JAP is actually using realistic timings, as its a very short route. I'm not suggesting 37.5kmph convoy speed. for example, for routes between USA and UK/Africa, if speed was increased dynamically to 20kmph, it would result in accurate crossing timings. San Francisco to Guam would need faster speeds up to say 28kmph, to reach proper time on water.

This was by no means "designed". It results in one of the contributing factors in deaths on the water, and the Allies losing hundreds of thousands of troops and their equipment on the seas I am certain was not a balancing decision.

 

[Tacticus101]

The Allies losing hundreds of thousands of troops on the seas is more an AI issue than anything else, the AI is terrible at convoy escort and loves moving its troops around all the time. Even if ships were 5 times the speed, the game would still have that problem.

 

[RikiBreeiki]

you can do more tests.

put some subs in the sea and escort your ships, it can take up to 6 months to go from florida to scotland since your convoys wont move while in battle

i would increase convoy and amphibious invasion speed from defiens for a mod by 4 times so it does not take half a year

 

[currylambchop]

you can do more tests.

put some subs in the sea and escort your ships, it can take up to 6 months to go from florida to scotland since your convoys wont move while in battle

i would increase convoy and amphibious invasion speed from defiens for a mod by 4 times so it does not take half a year

I love armchair balancing.

This was by no means "designed". It results in one of the contributing factors in deaths on the water, and the Allies losing hundreds of thousands of troops and their equipment on the seas I am certain was not a balancing decision.

I think it’s almost certain that it is a balancing decision, also the problem that the Allies lose lots of troops, it is because they forget to use escorts. US lost lots of material in the beginning months after it entered the war, as it was not prepared for the U-boats

 

[RikiBreeiki]

There is no arcmhair balancing make 100 subs put tjem in groups of 5 ,(20 task forces) and try to move through it it will take you atleast 3 months to get from Florida to Scotland , escort however you want

@currylambchop

 

[Baron_von_Beer]

IMO a more ideal situation would be a lead time prior to departure, as well as one on the backend. Some combination of planning and assets committed could reduce this to an extent (takes time to organize the ships and load plans, while committing more ships allow for combat loading of supplies and equipment rather than cramming like sardines, meaning faster loading/unloading. Imagine a warehouse floor, arranging pallets in per/truck piles with room for forklifts to move bewteen. Much less efficient use of space than stacking it wall to wall, but faster to move it in/out. War in the Pacific modeled this pretty well )

The lengthy embarkation/disembarkation process was fairly safe though vulnerable to port strike. Using transit time to stretch the trip prolongs the extremely vulnerable time at sea.

 

[currylambchop]

There is no arcmhair balancing make 100 subs put tjem in groups of 5 ,(20 task forces) and try to move through it it will take you atleast 3 months to get from Florida to Scotland , escort however you want

@currylambchop

The armchair balancing is when you say we should increase the speeds of convoys by 4 times.

 

[RikiBreeiki]

The armchair balancing is when you say we should increase the speeds of convoys by 4 times.

I would like to hear if there is a moddable other solution , would be great if there is one. To subs slowing can by constantly attacking and stopping them . In mp games I observed some times even in small places you have 1 naval Invasion going 2 others coming a month late in English channel due to convoys stopping moving

 

[currylambchop]

I would like to hear if there is a moddable other solution , would be great if there is one. To subs slowing can by constantly attacking and stopping them . In mp games I observed some times even in small places you have 1 naval Invasion going 2 others coming a month late in English channel due to convoys stopping moving

Escorting your convoys maybe?