Will we NOT have the superstacks?

[kviiri]

A nuke bomb ?

By my understanding, capital ships were typically kept spread far enough to make using a nuke of that time rather inefficient. Also, conditions on the sea are very different than on the ground. I think water would've absorbed a far larger part of the shock and left relatively little damage to the ships.

 

[Harada.Taro]

By my understanding, capital ships were typically kept spread far enough to make using a nuke of that time rather inefficient. Also, conditions on the sea are very different than on the ground. I think water would've absorbed a far larger part of the shock and left relatively little damage to the ships.

But to their crew .....

 

[Oahkoah]

carriers aircraft are stacking penalized because of the tight airspace inside naval combat. Past 4 carriers worth of planes efficiency will go down a lot.

I always enjoyed having four carriers in a CTF, so it's good to see that I can use that number. How does this get affected whenn fighting within range of naval bombers?

 

[kviiri]

But to their crew .....

Hm, that's a different story. I guess one sensible way to study the effects would be to read on the Bikini Atoll nuke tests. IIRC the nukes sank fewer ships than they expected, but radiation pollution was significant.

 

[Harada.Taro]

Hm, that's a different story. I guess one sensible way to study the effects would be to read on the Bikini Atoll nuke tests. IIRC the nukes sank fewer ships than they expected, but radiation pollution was significant.

From what I have read all the test animals either died from the blast, heat wave or radiation, instantly or after hours of incredible sufferings so.... It would have been the same for the crew... the ships might survive the blast but heat and radiation would kill most if not all the crew so it would have the same result.

 

[FOARP]

Anything as long as the weather is bad enough to ground the planes or make them unusable. I think if you threw enough AAs on your ships in DH you could fare pretty well too.

IRL? A fleet with a massive amount of AA CLs could probably get close enough to do it, assuming they had enough speed.

Not sure what this is based on. Even the Japanese, with obsolete aircraft, managed to score hits with Kamikazes against fierce AA and CAP defence.

 

[Denkt]

Kamikaze had the best chance to hit american ships of any type of aircraft attack during the later parts of the war. However a hit do not mean that the ship is destroyed.

 

[hkrommel]

Not sure what this is based on. Even the Japanese, with obsolete aircraft, managed to score hits with Kamikazes against fierce AA and CAP defence.

Kamikaze had the best chance to hit american ships of any type of aircraft attack during the later parts of the war. However a hit do not mean that the ship is destroyed.

Basically that. Nobody is claiming that this fleet is unscathed, simply that it will be close enough to open fire on the carriers, thus the doomstack will be defeated.

 

[Beagá]

I don´t like arbitrary stack limits. Having carriers should be worth it but very expensive and complicated. It also depends a lot on what land based planes can do and how they work.

 

[Denkt]

Anti air weapons was an underdeveloped area before the start of the war, pretty much any ship you look at pre war had very little anti air and often these guns was very poor. Axis never developed effective anti air for their navies and this contributed to why USA dominated Japan at the seas.

The main point of anti air is not to destroy aircrafts but keep aircrafts from making an effective attack as aircrafts can not effectivly target the ship if they have to make evasive manuvers.

 

[Gratch11]

Yes the Japanese did sink some ships late in the war but all in all the US AA was very effective making it allmost impossible for the Japanese to really change the outcome of the battles using airpower.

 

[FOARP]

Basically that. Nobody is claiming that this fleet is unscathed, simply that it will be close enough to open fire on the carriers, thus the doomstack will be defeated.

Sorry, no sale.

A fleet of gun-armed ships could be under attack from the air for an entire day before coming in gun range of a carrier fleet. And that's if they knew where to actually look, which they likely wouldn't without aerial recon. The idea that AA would do more than take a toll on each wave of attackers, whilst each wave cost the defenders ships, is a non-starter.

 

[Denkt]

A mixed fleet is the best fleet, massing one type of ship just leave to many weakness in your navy.

 

[hkrommel]

The idea that AA would do more than take a toll on each wave of attackers, whilst each wave cost the defenders ships, is a non-starter.

Very few Kamikaze attacks were successful, and you're assuming an awful lot that each wave will do enough damage that it become significant. Not to mention that you're saying they could be under attack for an entire day. Sure, and they could be commanded by Sir George Tryon. For this conversation to get anywhere you have to assume this fleet is tailored for carrier-hunting. That means lots of AA and lots of speed. So put that fleet in the mix, and if there's bad weather or sea conditions that's just icing on the cake. Remember that carriers back then were not the carriers now. Furthermore, remember that we're talking carriers without escort, to avoid stacking penalties.

Either way it's not nearly as clear-cut as you seem to think.

 

[Beagá]

There is no such thing as "carrier-hunting". Carriers were fast and could spot better than anything even with radar... How the hell you hunt what you can´t reach?

The crux of the problem is that because of hindsight players often focus on carriers, and thus Paradox has to put the stacking malus, else any AI that went historical build orders would be trashed. Above all Japan if it builds the two dumb floating hotels AKA Yamato. Also, magic CAGs that can fit into 1936 carriers even if they are 1945 jets.

Is that the ideal solution? Hell no.

The solution IMO is to make carrier building and maintenance more expensive and early war carriers really trash, so that no one will build 4 carriers in 1936- or they can, but they will have lots of flaws and NOT scale into late game.

 

[Elouda]

Very few Kamikaze attacks were successful, and you're assuming an awful lot that each wave will do enough damage that it become significant. Not to mention that you're saying they could be under attack for an entire day. Sure, and they could be commanded by Sir George Tryon. For this conversation to get anywhere you have to assume this fleet is tailored for carrier-hunting. That means lots of AA and lots of speed. So put that fleet in the mix, and if there's bad weather or sea conditions that's just icing on the cake. Remember that carriers back then were not the carriers now. Furthermore, remember that we're talking carriers without escort, to avoid stacking penalties.

Either way it's not nearly as clear-cut as you seem to think.

The main problem with trying to 'run down' carriers is that they are very fast and have good endurance, and the sea is a large place.

Unless you can 'pin' an enemy force against something (some object or place of value that they have to stay an fight for), it is very hard to actually force an action with forces that don't want to be engaged. And carriers, unlike surface combatants, have very little reason to stay 'pinned' (they can fight just as effectively at a distance from the 'objective', unlike surface combatants that have to actually stay at the 'objective' to defend it).

This means you will be chasing them. And as said, fleet carriers (with few exceptions) are fast. Faster or as fast as most battlecruisers or fast battleships, and often only slightly slower than heavy and light cruisers. Which leaves destroyers, and even then the speed difference is ~5-10 knots in most cases. That means 10-20 hours just to close an opening gap of 100nm (185km), which is not very far in naval terms (well inside striking distance for carrier aircraft). The other issue is fuel - most destroyers have endurances of a few thousand nm at cruising speeds, and that becomes much less when sprinting at high speeds - in contrast most carriers had endurances close to or over 10,000nm, and while high-speed reduces that too (to a larger degree than for DD's no less, given machinery design considerations), they will still outlast most destroyers quite handily.

All in all, barring surprise or some other unusual occurance, a carrier group that doesn't want to be engaged is very hard to engage without your own aircraft.

 

[WeissRaben]

Sorry, no sale.

A fleet of gun-armed ships could be under attack from the air for an entire day before coming in gun range of a carrier fleet. And that's if they knew where to actually look, which they likely wouldn't without aerial recon. The idea that AA would do more than take a toll on each wave of attackers, whilst each wave cost the defenders ships, is a non-starter.

You are talking like those planes aren't piloted by trained soldiers. "We can get more pilots" worked very poorly for Japan, and the Marianas Turkey Shoot was a work of planes as much as of ship AA (one battleship - might have been New Jersey, but I'm not sure - shot down several planes on her own). A carrier has her own air wing, and when that is shot down it needs to get more planes and more pilots. The Pacific War showed that a good AA umbrella made impossible for enemy carriers to do anything at all, especially if there are more carriers to help keeping air superiority.

I'll also quote "Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns and Gunnery":

 

[Beagá]

Define training? It isn´t about taking off and landing only. Also yes US AA was vastly superior but that is in large part because of the industrial and manpower advantage they had. All things being equal they would win the Attrition war versus Japan, but fact is, after Midway, NOTHING was equal. Japan had disadvantage in everything. 1944 showed that in virtually all aspects.

Also what is being discussed here is more the stacking malus itself as balancing factor for carriers. As said above I´d rather see it made way less necessary by other changes to the game itself, above all making early carriers more vulnerable and CAGs themselves better modeled (no 1945 planes in 1936 carriers etc etc).

 

[Denkt]

Low tech carriers may be much worse effected by the stacking penalty then high tech carriers as if I understand Podcat it is the number of carriers that are important and low tech carriers can not carry many aircrafts not to talk about being much weaker and slower.

However this applies to all ship classes, late tech ships are much better then early tech ships.

 

[JuicedGoose]

From a game play perspective, I think that super stacks should be penalized and discouraged.

In reality, with naval and air superiority, obviously a Navy could put hundreds of ships and aircraft in an operational zone.