Air Power vs. Sea Power too powerful?

[Meatball]

I've been spending some of my spare time reading through a great series of books detailing the History of the US Navy in WWII. I'm into volume 6 of 15 which really gets into some air power versus naval power battles.

 

There's two major discrepencies I see between what really happened in WWII and how things work in Victory.

 

The first thing I've noticed is that even major air attacks on fleets were not using huge numbers of aircraft. Very rarely are more than a 100 used in strikes. I think mostly because they just were not available. Considering how easy it is to produce huge amounts of aircraft in Victory it just doesn't match up well with history. I can easily have 300-400 aircraft all attacking in Victory where that really just didn't happen in WWII.

 

Secondly, even when these big air attacks hit fleets, they very rarely decimated whole fleets. I've been reading about lot's of 50-60 aircraft attacks where they were happy they sunk one or two destroyers.

 

A thought I had was to leave the cost of air units the same but drop the total amount of aircraft that are built in a unit by half, maybe even a quarter. Then scale back the damage capacity accordingly. This would bring aircraft numbers more in line with what was really happening in WWII and make naval power useful enough to actually do something again

 

While I'm sure there were some cases in history that things happened like they do in Victory, it was likely an exception rather than the rule. When I get home I can dig up specific numbers from larger battles in the book if anyone would like.

 

Thoughts? Flames?

[Beltira]

I have thought some of the same thing, except my thought is not that the air is two powerful, but that the navy is too weak.

 

A group of some battleships and cruisors of the era could litterally flatten a city.

 

And typically air strikes on naval forces would envolve more loss of planes than what I've seen from the comparable battle reports that I've seen.

[Meatball]

Hmm, could be that too. So far in all of my reading, I've yet to see anywhere where Coastal Batteries really had any effect on naval actions or amphibious assaults. Maybe slow them down a few hours, but they just about always get knocked out by Cruiser and DD guns soon after they start firing.

[Beltira]

That somewhat depends.

 

Look for example at the big coastal guns Germany built in France. They had greater range and accuracy than all but the biggest ship mount guns on battleships. Thus, they had to be taken out by landing rangers the night before D-Day. And that was after weeks of attempting to take them out by bombers.

 

This presents an interesting concept for Vic II. Big coastal batteries for those willing to spend on them.

[Meatball]

Yeah, but any coastal batteries have one problem, they're stationary. The tech was there in WWII to be able to backtrack incoming rounds to the source. Maybe not exact, but it got the job done. There's just no way Coastal Bat's should be able to stand toe to toe with anything that has a decent CB rating.

 

Maybe the answer to all these issues is to beef up Ship strengths.

[Beltira]

Yes, they did, but there are some issues to consider.

 

1. Those calculations were as we say, non trivial.

 

2. Without exact positioning, those were not really worht much.

 

3. Becase the batteries were fixed, aiming as aesier than it was for aiming shipmounted guns. Consider the only shipboard guns that could reach them had to get into range of them to do so, thus becoming a target themselves.

 

4. These types of shells tend to fall an pretty close to straight down. Thus, the ships were most vulnerable to them and those cliffside guns were quite well protected and very difficult to hit from a range.

 

Thats why Rangers were used. They knew the odds were that they would be killed, but it was deamed better than putting entire battle ship crews at risk.

[LenLorek]

The first thing I've noticed is that even major air attacks on fleets were not using huge numbers of aircraft.  Very rarely are more than a 100 used in strikes.  I think mostly because they just were not available.  Considering how easy it is to produce huge amounts of aircraft in Victory it just doesn't match up well with history.  I can easily have 300-400 aircraft all attacking in Victory where that really just didn't happen in WWII.

I, too, have noticed the very high numbers of aircraft in Victory! I think this can be addressed by manipulating the National Training System (NTS) limits.

 

Air Force NTS limits are the number of new air groups that may be formed per turn based on the current Air Force NTS level.

 

Currently, the limits are:

 

NTS Level 1: 3 Air Groups per turn 1 NTS points

NTS Level 2: 6 Air Groups per turn 2 NTS points

NTS Level 3: 8 Air Groups per turn 3 NTS points

NTS Level 4: 10 Air Groups per turn 4 NTS points

 

This could be changed to:

 

NTS Level 1: 1 Air Group per turn 1 NTS points

NTS Level 2: 2 Air Groups per turn 2 NTS points

NTS Level 3: 3 Air Groups per turn 3 NTS points

NTS Level 4: 4 Air Groups per turn 4 NTS points

 

This will also an additional effect: in order to increase the NTS limit for the Air Force, you will need to decrease the NTS limit for the Army and/or Navy. So, building one more Air Group each turn means building two or three fewer Divisions each turn. Some players will think twice about this, so further limiting the number of aircaft they can build.

[Grimor]

navy is too weak....

 

a recon force of condors will sink all your queen mary's in one go

 

I will never play a sea nation anymore

 

this presentday situation has not been changed since vic 1.... except for the 10 air point factories

 

also ships are wayyy to expensive in Victory...

 

 

just my thoughts

[Ronald]

Yeah, but any coastal batteries have one problem, they're stationary. The tech was there in WWII to be able to backtrack incoming rounds to the source. Maybe not exact, but it got the job done. There's just no way Coastal Bat's should be able to stand toe to toe with anything that has a decent CB rating.

 

Maybe the answer to all these issues is to beef up Ship strengths.

I dunno if you have ever been to Normandy, but some of teh bunkers build there were so well protected and so heavily armoured that not even a direct hit from battleship could damage them.

Unless the ship would have come to such close range that it could have shot straight into the turret. Ofcourse its needless to say that any captain worth his pay would risk taking his ship in that close.

 

but i do agree with the general point made, ships are very easily destroyed.

now i can imagine that being realistic for the smaller ships, but not for the big transports and cruisers and battleships.

 

perhaps its an idea to make it harder to find ships or limit which types of planes can be used for maritime strikes. (which will also force players to build more different types of planes, instead of 2 or 3 types which he uses for about everything)

And finally perhaps it could be possible to beef up the hullpoints of the larger vessels.

 

(it took the english a damn lot of planes to find and sink the bismark and that was just 1 ship)

[LenLorek]

I dunno if you have ever been to Normandy, but some of teh bunkers build there were so well protected and so heavily armoured that not even a direct hit from battleship could damage them.

There was another effect of bombardments of bunkers (and heavy tanks, come to that): concussion.

 

Just because a powerful shell did not penetrate the bunker or tank's armor, did not mean that the crew were safe. There were many reports of heavy tank crews being hit by anti-tank shells which did not penetrate the armour, but the shock wave that passed through the tank temporarily stunned the crew. I expect the same effect would have been suffered by those in bunkers. Even though the shell would not penetrate, those inside would have suffered concussion, confusion, etc, which would have left them unable to function for a minute or two, and/or function at less than 100% capacity for some hours afterwards.

 

(Incidentally, there were also a few reports of the shock wave causing some of the internal parts of the tank to shear away, causing harm to the crew -- even though the shell did not penetrate the heavy tank, the crew still suffered casualties. Would the same effect be seen in bunkers?)

 

Could these effects be simulated in Victory 2? This would allow a naval task force to bombard the coastal batteries enough to get the ships in close, and then finish them off at close range. Of course, the same concussive effects would be suffered by the ships' gun turret crews, but if the ships outnumber the coastal batteries, then there will be some ships whose gun crews are not suppressed in this way, and so can fire at 100% efficiency. On the other hand, if the coastal batteries outnumber the ships ... .

 

Waddya think?

[LenLorek]

(it took the english a damn lot of planes to find and sink the bismark and that was just 1 ship)

The same happened in the Pacific theater of war: hundreds of US and Japanses planes flying around looking for an enemy in an empty ocean -- how hard can it be to found an enemy fleet? Quite hard it seems.

 

The problem is usually the clouds. The higher the planes fly, the more Ocean they can see. But if the clouds are low, then the planes have to fly low, which means less Ocean can be covered in each flight. Also, if there is broken cloud, then there is the temptation for the planes to fly high in order to cover more Ocean, with the risk that ships are missed.

 

And if the weather is bad (raining, too windy), then the planes cannot fly at all.

 

And how long can a plane's crew keep their concentration on spotting enemy ships before they get bored and let their mind and eyes wander?

 

IMHO, spotting by aircraft on attack missions is too successful, both over sea and land. In Victory, I have sent aircraft on such missions even though I didn't know enemy units were in the province under attack, and the planes found and attacked something! Unless the planes on attack missions know exactly where they are going (ie, the enemy has already been spotted, either by aerial reconnaisance or by contact with the enemy), then they shouldn't want to fly on such a mission! (On the other hand, Victory may have assumed that the attack mission includes a pre-mission reconnaisance?)