Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, and Graf Spee

[Commissar Yossarian]

A secondary British objective was to sink Scharnhorst so that she couldn't threaten future convoys - but keeping Scharnhorst at arm's length without sinking her would still have been a victory for the British.


This is not correct. The British convoys to the USSR were in range of land-based aircraft. The relative ineffectiveness of aircraft against them was the primary reason these convoys were even possible. At least during Winter: the British stopped running Summer convoys in 1942 and 1943 after the PQ17 disaster. A German carrier would have been even more constrained in its operation than German land-based aircraft.


First, you are overestimating how many good days were actually available, given the weather conditions in the Arctic for a a convoy that would be at sea only for about a week and of that out of range of UK and USSR land based air only two or three days.

Second, it matters a lot if those five days are not five days of stationary invulnerability but five days of running from threatening forces in a confined area. In five days a ship making 30 knots will cover 4,000 miles. That puts your carriers somewhere in the middle of Africa. Realistically running means returning to port and not being able to leave again except under observation.

So after PQ17 the next convoys defense was organised around a bunch of destroyers and a CVE. All heading into the artic in September where the CVE would be useless and should just roll over and die because of German big guns waiting in Norway.

Except that the fighter cover provided was super useful and the biggest problem they encountered was a lack of defensive fighters. No big guns were used on either side.

Convoys need destroyers and CV/CVE fighter cover to fend off print subs and AC.

Fleet engagements are still settled between the big boys when they come together for whatever reason.

The last place BBs were really useful was in forcing or breaking up a landing action when there was true parity on naval power. If you can force the carrier's into a defensive posture then your SAG can get in among the invasion fleet necessitating a brawl.

This being said, I don't know a lot of people who would attempt a naval invasion without control of the sea lanes...

 

[Praetonia]

There was an escort carrier for close defence against aircraft. Defence against ships was provided by two battleships, not a fleet carrier.

Battleships were useful right up to the point the European Axis ceased to operate battleships. The British kept fast battleships in Europe right up until Tirpitz was sunk and then sent them to the Far East.

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

Radar made appearance quite late in WW2, and by no means should be an excuse to make CVs virtually immune in a game which takes place from 1936 onwards. Argue all you want, but there were combat ships not equipped with radar during WW2 which were sank as a result of this limitation, as well as poor decisions regarding deployment, escorts etc. This includes CVs. Which imo trumps the generalized "no commander worth their salt..." musing on how things would be in ideal circumstances. The thing it more than a few commanders weren't 'worth their salt', as their nations found out the hard way.

No one is suggesting CVs should be immune or omniscient as far as I know. The only thing I know that it's on the table is that the combat utility vs IC cost favours CVs compared to BBs. Some people disagree with this and are trying to justify how BBs will outperform CVs to make them a worthwhile investment.

BBs on there own are still hugely powerful ships, but in the context of the game where people have hindsight to work from players tend to maximise force efficiency by spamming the best unit and ignoring others.

Just like in HOI3 my IJN fleet would be nothing but CL and CVs since it saved on research and was the most efficient striking force vs USA in terms of IC cost.

In real life a bias for CVs was also found in terms of efficiency, and so they came to be the dominant naval power obsoleting BBs.

People who want to play with BBs want to justify them from a historical perspective and point to all the ways they were used, ignoring that they were used because they were already built (or were a long way into construction when hostilities broke out), not because the country decided moar guns, fuck the CVs! So on the off chance that a massive armoured gun platform is marginally better in situation X that happens 1-2% of the time people need to extrapolate that to justify their choice of building BBs agasint hindsight. These things don't change the average combat utility.

 

[Praetonia]

I have never played HoI3, so maybe it was fixed already there, but in HoI2 battleships were not cost effective because the convoys were barely modelled, certainly not to the extent of being highly important. Since you never had to fight in the Arctic or worry about German battleships breaking into the Atlantic, a lot of the historical reason for Britain and Germany to build battleships wasn't present in the game. The game also didn't model very well the tremendous advantages in speed, protection and firepower that modern fast battleships had over old battleships, making it quite viable for Britain to rely on its starting ships. Historically this wasn't possible. So I think in HoI2 battleships were much less cost effective than they "should" have been, not because they were worse than they should have been fighting carriers in death matches, but because their key theatre was not modelled in the game.

(carriers had a similar problem that they were not very good at protecting fleets from air attack, although I believe this was fixed in HoI3)

 

[Kovax]

(carriers had a similar problem that they were not very good at protecting fleets from air attack, although I believe this was fixed in HoI3)

I wouldn't call it "fixed". The problem was certainly changed, though. CAGs on "CAG Duty" granted almost 100% invulnerability from air attack to their fleet until disorganized or destroyed completely, while simultaneously delivering full firepower against enemy ships even if they were reduced to a bare sliver of Strength and ORG. You generally had to destroy the CAGs completely before you could sink the carrier with aircraft.

Historically, I can't think of a single instance where a carrier ran out of aircraft completely before being sunk.

 

[Katarian]

If anything HoI3 made the BB problem worse. The amount of research needed meant it paid off to specialise on only a few types of ships rather then a realistic mixed fleet. Normally that was either CVs supported by CLs or BBs supported by DDs. I tended to always use CV+CL even as Britain where CLs weren't as good at hunting subs as DDs, mainly because they rarely got sunk and spent less time in port then using BBs. I used all the starting fleet mainly to find subs and CVLs and CVs to damage and sink subs. I suppose that was a bit better then HoI2 where I would actually disband almost the entire RN and build a newer better navy.

For me making BBs more attractive, from a game play perspective at least, is nice because it means I might actually build them in a normal game rather then as a test or a fun game. I also won't immediately be swapping out of the "inferior" UK naval doctrine for the "better" carrier doctrine.

 

[Constans]

Carriers I find are way cooler then Battleships. Don't get it.

#Graf Zepplin

Then that's extremely unrealistic and I will be getting a mod for that asap. CVs are the king of the waves. The Battleships disappeared because of the poor performance in world war 2.

IMO a proper CV fleet should have an advantage at the highest tech levels against a proper BB fleet with similar tech levels. But not a huge advantage, especially given the reliance on good weather/spotting conditions for the CAGs to have the most effect. So basically similar to how it is in HOI3. CVs and Light Cruisers are the superior fleet composition to BBs and DDs, but given certain advantages the BBs will win.

Also, I liked in HOI3 how the CV/LC/CAG tree was a lot more involved and expensive than the BB/DD one. It made sense: you have to upgrade your CAGs and their respective doctrines, upgrade your CVs and their doctrines, and upgrade your LCs (shared doctrine with CVs). Whereas all you have to do with BB fleets was upgrade DDs and BBs and their shared doctrine.

It definitely was easier to make fleets out of BB/DDs if you were a leadership poor nation. And I think that makes sense.

 

[Denkt]

HOI4 is not HOI3 and the doctrines have been changed.

The battleship vs carrier debate seems to use arguments that may not be entirely realistic:

• Carriers can give up ground without any cost: Convoys and old ships tend to be slower then modern warships, a fleet without battleships will have to retreat if the battleships advances towards it and everything that are slower then the battleships will likely be sunkt, which can in very bad scenario be a whole army, a lack of modern battleships make any naval invasion extreamly risky.
• Battleships are easy targets from the air: Battleships and other capital ships need screens and with a good screen air attacks will not be so effective any more, even better is to get air cover on your own.
• Battleships are slow: This depend on the variant, it is possible to design fast battleships.
• Battleships are limited value for their cost: In a gun to gun battle battleships are likely to defeat all types of ships cost effective as long as they have a good screen. Carriers are not that useful if you have access to airbases that can provided the needed aircrafts.
• Battleships cant sink carriers: This may be true but that is like saying ships can not destroy airbases mean they are useless which is not true.

Battleships is an important part of any navy who is looking for naval domination. They are not ment to be massed in huge numbers and need alot of support which is not the same thing as being useless or a bad decision as not building them is worse.

 

[tom_jones]

We're talking about a sustained chase speed, not planning sprints.

That may be what you personally are talking about, which doesn't mean everyone is. Please consider all potential situations, not just the ones which conveniently fit your viewpoint.

Any potential "sustained chase speed" advantage of the carriers is going to be negated anyway since, unless you want to do the dumb thing and send them out entirely on their own and without any support, it's the slowest part of the group that's going to dictate the overall long-term speed, not the fastest.

 

[tom_jones]

No one is suggesting CVs should be immune or omniscient as far as I know.

You seem to be suggesting a combination of two/three factors -- one, that carriers with help of the radar (and their own scout planes) can't be caught by surprise by another fleet at ranges which would allow these ships to use their guns. Two, that carriers facing prospect of an attack at close range from such a group can and should do the one smart thing, which is to run, and three, that carriers have speed advantage which should allow them to outrun any possible chase.

This does look very much like pushing/suggesting immunity to me, because I can't quite see where in this scenario you allow a possibility for ships other than carrier to actually have a shot at sinking said carriers.

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

So 1 if you're running scared from a BB then yes the carrier would leave behind slower escorts if it meant being caught and killed by a BB.

Second it's not invulnerability in the sense that CTF can be caught and pinned to landward or by forcing the CTF to turn away from one SAG and ambush it with another.
I'm not sure it's in the game, but damaged ships should also run slower, so that you can plink away at a CTF then once damaged a bit too be slower, send your SAG to maul/sink the CTF before it makes it back to port, much like combined arms on land.

But objectively a CTF should reasonably manouver away from the SAG keeping it out of gun range while making harassing attack with air craft. In game you still have a detection chance that is modified by weather, day/night, RADAR etc, so there will be a chance that your CTF stumbles into a SAG, but in no way should the escort ships in a CTF close to pound it out with the SAG voluntarily like they currently do per the WWW streams.

 

[Denkt]

The thing is that sometimes harassing is not enough, sometimes you need to stand your ground or face terrible consequences. I find it is very unlikely that one fleet would not build any carriers at all if they build battleships and operate in water in which carriers make sense to build (not close to large friendly airbases) and in the same manner why would you not build battleships if you build carriers.

What Im saying is building montone navies are a bad idea no matter if it is battleships or carriers we are talking about.

 

[Secret Master]

As Germany I obviously will focus on Army first, Luftwaffe second, and Navy third. Obviously yes I will try and get battleships or a strong navy to do things like invade Norway, but I just don't see that happening with 10 dockyards and like 8 oil max to start out with.

I hate to drag this thread back on topic, but this post is exactly the reason why free ships from NFs would be a terrible idea.

Ships that materialize out of thin air from a NF will essentially be nuclear powered vessels with infinite capacity for sailing around the world. HOI4 abstracts fuel costs into construction. While there is a small thread about this in the forum, I want to point out that even if you are comfortable with abstracting oil/fuel into construction costs, ships granted by NF (or any troops/equipment) would more or less break that system.

Ta da! Enjoy your oil free navy! If only Italy had thought of doing something like that.

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

Mmm nuclear powered ships in 1948-52 with broken research... Tasty