Naval Interdiction in land war

Boerwar1 · Post by **Boerwar1** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:18 am

I've seen some discussion on this on the Matrix site, but now that I've played some PBEM games I'll add my thoughts. I think it is too easy for Naval units to damage ground units while remaining essentially invulnerable in the game. If the Allied navies could have stood off the coast of the Netherlands and destroyed 20-30% of the panzer or inf divisions operating there every couple of weeks while sustaining no damage in return I think they probably would have done so. They didn't because they knew the Luftwaffe would have decimated them and it would have taken an excessive amount of time and treasure to replace the lost fleets.

In my opinion the naval units in the game aren't as vulnerable to air attack as they should be and it doesn't take much time/ effort to repair.

My recommendations:
- Increase vulnerability of naval units so that tactical bombers can cause 40-100% damage in a single attack.
- Limit the amount of damage that can be repaired on naval units each turn:
CV/HS's 1-2 repair points per turn max
LS 2-4 repair points per turn max
- Increase the PP cost for naval repair by 3-5 times

I'm new to the forum so sorry if this is a repeat of previous posts.

Thanks,
Boerwar

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:32 am

Thanks for the feedback but we need to balance up how effective the air units are against naval units out at sea. If we make them this effective then once you have longer ranger tac air & bombers you'll probably find it too easy to destroy the enemy navy.

We may be better to reduce the land attack value of navies to 0 and increase their shock attack by 1 so they disrupt but do not destroy ground units. This could lead to people filling beaches with garrisons to stop naval landings so has other potential issues.

We could give ground units a naval attack value but that could again unbalance things. It's a tough call really.

SMK-at-work · Post by **SMK-at-work** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:38 pm

In WW1 naval units did exactly that - they could because the front line was fixed. In WW2 they did it again at Normandy including Cherbourg and Caen well after the landings, northern France, Belgium and Holland - they didn't in 1940 'cos it was over a bit soon!! They also used bombardment after the initial landings in the Sicily campaign, and Naples was taken with the aid of bombardment from the sea

Naval bombardment was a lot more common than people realise I think...but usually unheralded except for the big amphibious ops.

Boerwar1 · Post by **Boerwar1** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:49 pm

"Thanks for the feedback but we need to balance up how effective the air units are against naval units out at sea. If we make them this effective then once you have longer ranger tac air & bombers you'll probably find it too easy to destroy the enemy navy."

I think this would be accurate. The Allies avoided straying within range of landbased Axis air for good reason. The Bismarck was racing to get within range of landbased air when the Ark Royal put a lucky torpedo into it's rudder. Had it gotten within range of landbased air it would have been safe from the British BB's. Surface units rarely sortied near enemy landmasses until they had gained air superiority. When they did (Dunkirk/Norway/Early Med) they lost a lot of shipping. The balance is where they operate. Naval forces grant you control of the sea lanes, not the continental war.

"We may be better to reduce the land attack value of navies to 0 and increase their shock attack by 1 so they disrupt but do not destroy ground units. This could lead to people filling beaches with garrisons to stop naval landings so has other potential issues. "

This would be a nice start, but I don't think it solves the underlying problem nor do I think the current solution solves the problem you posit with regards to filled beaches. With ships the way they are right now you can't eliminate a land unit unless you have alot of air to back it up. That is true whether surface bombardment can do 1-3 levels of damage at a pop or not.

"In WW1 naval units did exactly that - they could because the front line was fixed. In WW2 they did it again at Normandy including Cherbourg and Caen well after the landings, northern France, Belgium and Holland - they didn't in 1940 'cos it was over a bit soon!! They also used bombardment after the initial landings in the Sicily campaign, and Naples was taken with the aid of bombardment from the sea

Naval bombardment was a lot more common than people realise I think...but usually unheralded except for the big amphibious ops."

During WWI air power was in its infancy. At Normandy and the other major amphibious operations the invading force had (at least local) air superiority and they were shooting at immobile, entrenched units. Fire control was not developed enough to have a serious impact very far from the beach. Once again in late war they were used to support operations near the coast against implaced defenders. I believe they could do this because they had total air superiority, not because the earlier fight ended too soon.
I presume the hexes in this game represent a land mass of 30-50 miles. What I'm seeing now is Allied surface units attacking armored units sweeping through the low countries and inflicting 20-30% casualties. For game purposes probably only 20-30 percent of the unit represented on the map would even be within range of the ship's guns.

Thanks for the feedback. I hope you have the oportunity to continue to work on CEAW because I think it has good potential.

R,
Boerwar

SMK-at-work · Post by **SMK-at-work** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 12:08 am

Yes I agree about air superiority.....there are many things about the CEAW system of unit depiction that create shortcomings when it comes to creating believable individual combat results. These things are common to most games of this type of course...the main ones in the context of this thread are unitary naval and air units and the 10-step loss system...battleships and carriers dont' suffer damage in 10% increments.....they're either up to spec...or they're off being repairded somewhere...usually slowly.

These are design parameters for eth game decided by slitherine early on as part of their philosophy...which is of course their right to do....and for which they have accepted the inevitable tradeoff in terms of lack of "realism".....c'est la guerre!

VonManteuffel · Post by **VonManteuffel** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:00 am

It is somewhat unrealistic, but at least it forces the axis to keep away from the coast or risk losing units. If that were not the case, it might be too easy to just blow through the French left every time. I know that in my PBEM games, that's the only thing that keeps me from using the sea to guard my right flank and just overpowering the defense on that side and sliding past.

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 9:41 pm

Boerwar1 wrote: Fire control was not developed enough to have a serious impact very far from the beach.

I have to take serious exception to this statement. For one thing, it's excessively vague. Define "very far", please.

For another thing, US artillery fire control during WWII was actually very good, arguably the best in the world. (As I've stated elsewhere, artillery and logistics were the only areas in which the US could claim to be the best).

The main limitation on the use of naval fire support is the flat trajectories. Most howitzers typically fire at angles of roughly 45-50 degrees, and mortars can fire at 60-70 degrees or more from the horizontal. In contrast, naval gunfire is (or largely, was, since very few navies still have gun-equipped ships in commission, not counting 5" and smaller, of course) limited to much lower, flatter trajectories. This makes terrain masking a much larger issue than with conventional artillery. In plain english, the "shadow" behind a hill, in which the artillery can't hit, is much bigger. If this doesn't make sense, draw yourself a picture, from a side view. You'll quickly see what I mean

SMK-at-work · Post by **SMK-at-work** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:25 am

Yes fire control that was adequate to hit a moving target at 15 miles + from a moving shooter was perfectly adequate for hitting lage bits on land in which htere are expected to be enemy!!

Naval fire control is generally fearsome for land troops because of both its accuracy and weight - the lightest naval guns used for land bombardment tesd to be "heavy artillery" for the foot sloggers, heavy cruisers are corps or even army level (IIRC the British army had less than a dozen 8" guns (but more howitzers) total in 44-45 in a couple of super-heavy batteries) and battleship guns are simply out of their league

Boerwar1 · Post by **Boerwar1** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 5:14 pm

Whether or not the U.S. had the best fire control is irrelevant. IF you have a spotter and IF you can get the enemy to stand still while a fire control solution is developed you MAY be able to hit the target you are shooting at and perhaps the US was the bast at that during the second world war. To get the results we are seeing in the game against division/corps sized units you would have to repeat that result hundreds of times in a two week period.

Let's look at the performance of the surface bombardeers you call the best. In the later portion of the war after significant advances in fire control they had absolute control of the seas around Iwo Jima and Peleieu for weeks and yet surface and air bombardment were unable to eliminate or even seriously damage the stationary entrenched defenders confined in an area of tens of square miles at best. No hill problems here. If the hill was in the way all they had to do was sail to the other side. Not much organized enemy air power to worry about. Nevertheless it took the Marines and Army to go in and dig them out.

Fast forward to 2007 CEAW, now we have early war surface ships combined with the all powerful Swordfish equipped British CV's fearlessly sailing off the coast of the Low Countries and France with the ability to DESTROY a corp/division sized armored unit operating in a hex representing hundreds of square miles in a single turn (I did the math, the hexes look like they are about 25-30 miles wide). All this while being nearly impervious to return damage.

Certainly as Stalin says this is Slitherine's game and they can do as they will. However, they asked for feedback so I hope this means they are interested in making the game resemble the period they based the game on.

SMK-at-work · Post by **SMK-at-work** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 9:54 pm

those pacific islands would be fortresses in CEAW.....how much does that affect the result?

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 11:31 pm

Exactly what he said. Except they would be SUPER fortresses. The Japanese in the Pacific entrenched like nothing ever seen in the European theatre in WWII.

The Maginot line and the Belgian border forts at Eben Emael were nothing compared to the Japanese fortifications in the Pacific. Perhaps the most important difference was that all the european fortifications were known of. The Japanese fortifications on Peleliu and Iwo Jima were all cunningly concealed.

Total Allied casualties for the battle of Iwo were 27,000, as compared to an estimated 10,000 for D-Day itself, and 125,000 for the entire Battle of Normandy.

24 Marines were awarded "The Medal" for Iwo, and 5 sailors. As always, about 2/3 were posthumous.

Iwo Jima remains a dark legend within The Corps, and a name that is still spoken with a certain hushed reverence.

SMK-at-work · Post by **SMK-at-work** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 11:35 pm

Have you seen how deep the Maginot line went?

And AFAIK the Japanese fortifications pretty much lacked the heavy artillery of hte ML.....

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 11:40 pm

And how many casualties did the Germans suffer in reducing the maginot line? Yes, that's a trick question.

vypuero · Post by **vypuero** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:01 am

Well I can tell you this - as the Allies in some PBEM games the ships do a little bit of damage - one or two hits, soften em up, then maybe your forces who naval invaded can hurt them - that combined with some air strikes. In France, you really kill them because you can combine naval gunfire, air attack, and well-supplied ground attack. Even so, they are not being "destroyed" that is a giant exaggeration. If its so good, build your own navy - a BB costs what a tank costs. Is it really that good? I dont think so.

Boerwar1 · Post by **Boerwar1** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:18 am

vypuero wrote:Well I can tell you this - as the Allies in some PBEM games the ships do a little bit of damage - one or two hits, soften em up, then maybe your forces who naval invaded can hurt them - that combined with some air strikes. In France, you really kill them because you can combine naval gunfire, air attack, and well-supplied ground attack. Even so, they are not being "destroyed" that is a giant exaggeration. If its so good, build your own navy - a BB costs what a tank costs. Is it really that good? I dont think so.

Actually, no. It's a fact. In a PBEM game I'm playing I had a German Arm unit start the turn on the Belgian coast at lvl 9 or 10. It was destroyed by 2 BB's, 2 CV's and one Mot Inf. In another instance I had an Arm unit reduced to lvl 1. In game terms these were a wonderful plays by my opponent. In the reality of 1940, Fairey Swordfish and a couple squadrons of British battleships weren't much of a problem for the German High command, even if the Marines got 24 medals of honor at Iwo Jima.

SMK-at-work · Post by **SMK-at-work** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:43 am

possum wrote:And how many casualties did the Germans suffer in reducing the maginot line? Yes, that's a trick question.

None of course....'cos they didn't try to reduce it!!

But how many did the Americans take trying to reduce it from the wrong side??!! IIRC the Battle of/for Metz in 1944 is firmely entrenched in US army psyche too......

Boerwar1 · Post by **Boerwar1** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:33 am

We appear to have strayed off topic here. Topics at hand:

a. Naval forces didn't/ and still don't operate within range of land based airpower unless they have achieved total air superiority.
b. The effects of Naval bombardment in the game may/ or may not be excessive. This has been covered at length.

Regarding a.

There are several examples of instances landbased air destroyed naval forces that strayed too close to land based air. Repulse, Prince of Wales and Hermes spring to mind. There are few, if any instances (other than those occuring in CEAW), where naval forces sailed around bombarding a hostile coast for weeks while the control of the air was in doubt.

In the game, one naval unit represents several ships. That implies that some of the time when level losses are taken the ships represented by that unit are being sunk. Somehow in game turns we are able to "repair" those sunken ships in a single two week turn. HMS Illustrious was damaged by Stukas in January 1941, she didn't return to service until May, 1942 after being repaired in Norfolk, VA. Indomitable was damaged twice by land based air (Aug 1942/June 1943) and in each case it took 6 and 8 months to complete the repairs.

While researching this I've noticed that several Royal Navy vessels were sent to shipyards in the U.S. for repair and refit during the early war years. While not definative proof, I would suspect that was done because the best British shipyards were vulnerable to the Luftwaffe.

vypuero · Post by **vypuero** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:36 am

British also had a large Fleet Air Arm, some of which operated from land too, plus coastal command- for game purposes its all considered part of their carrier power. I never see anyone building carriers, so they can't be that good.

SMK-at-work · Post by **SMK-at-work** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:55 am

I don't think Coastal Command (and similar commands from other nations) can be considered part of naval air power - it's simply not modelled at all.

davetheroad · Post by **davetheroad** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:12 am

vypuero wrote:British also had a large Fleet Air Arm, some of which operated from land too, plus coastal command- for game purposes its all considered part of their carrier power. I never see anyone building carriers, so they can't be that good.

Your carriers are causing me a LOT of problems in our PBEM game early 1942. Fleet air arm versus teched up FW190's, and stukas/Ju88's, sheesh!