Kissaki wrote:
True, but remember that in Salerno,
"Naval bombardment was carried out by the following heavy forces: 7 Battle Ships,2 2 Monitors, 23 Cruisers, 2 Gun Boats and 74 Destroyers. In addition, a wide variety of special amphibious fire support craft were provided, to give close support by firing onto the beaches from inshore waters. This force consisted of 25 LCG (L's) 36 LCT (R's), 24 LCS (M's), 29 LCF's, 45 LCA (HR's), 5 LCT (CB's), 48 LCT (A's), and 16 LCT (HE's)."
That's a LOT of firepower. And accuracy would be nowhere near as good as field artillery without spotters, either by air or land.
I remember reading the memoirs of a Swede fighting with the French Foreign Legion in Norway, recounting the battle of Narvik where a British destroyer shot so poorly they thought it had it coming when it was sunk.
Another point to consider is that naval bombardment could last days, sometimes weeks, before the enemy positions were softened up sufficiently for invasion.
Sure, there were usually a lot of ships involved in naval bombardments. I guess you could explain that in PC with one ship representing a flotilla or squadron, but in any case, wouldn't more firepower be an argument in favour of increasing effectiveness of naval support in this game?.
I'm not so sure about accuracy, especially in the case of direct fire (which was probably the most lethal type). In the case of naval artillery you had very advanced fire controls (sometimes even with radar rather than optical controls) and often also spotter aircraft. Forward observers were also used. A battleship was able to hit a moving ship-sized target at ranges of over 25000 yards, as you probably know, which is not too bad. But when you have several hundred guns, each with a semi-automated munition delivery system then you don't need to be very accurate anyway.
When you read about Salerno you often find stories of single ships causing significant damage. For example, you can find claims that a single DD destroyed 12 tanks in a single engagement.
Now imagine what a squadron of ships could do over the course of days and you'd see why I don't really understand why causing no damage and no suppression at all with DDs and CLs against most ground units in this game seems a bit off.
As for the fact that naval bombardments often took days or weeks: from what I understand a turn in PC takes at least one day (according to scenario descriptions). So in most naval invasion scenarios (where you often start with your ground units some way from the shore) you bombard for several days (of course this is where the scale of this type of game breaks down again as landing craft don't typically cruise around for several days).
I'm surprised about the British destroyer at Narvik though. Usually direct fire artillery support from a destroyer was the most dangerous type of fire (this supposedly played an important role in the Normandy landings). Maybe the veteran, not being on board of the destroyer and not being subjected to the fire either, wasn't able to accurately assess the damage. Or the destroyers were preoccupied with the threat of German ships and aircraft. For the most part British gunnery seems to have been sufficient as the Germans lost quite a few ships in that battle.
, likly the "scale" of the game will be smaller (battalians regiments?) to warrent more suppression/damages inflicted.
