Which factors are used in air vs naval attack

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I attacked Happycat's Russian naval units in the Black sea with German tactical bombers during the Summer of 1942. My tactical bombers had tech level 4 in combat support and thus increased naval attack from 3 to 6. The Russian BB had a survivability of 6 and the DD a surviability of 4. They both had air attack of 1.

When I checked the odds I noticed I had 8:0 against the DD and 7:0 against the BB. A German fighter had 4:0 against the DD and 3:0 against the BB.

I find these odds to be way too high when I compare the factors the different ships have. I guess the German air units use naval attack against the Russian naval units. So a tac bomber with naval attack of 6 should fire and check hits against a survivability of 6. I guess the BB and DD fire back with air attack of 1 against the tac bomber's survivability of 5 or so.

Naval units with naval attack 6 against survivability of 6 have odds of about 4:4. So why do tac bombers score twice the number of hits against a BB than the BB would have against a BB? I can understand that the BB would not score 4 hits against the tactical bomber and would maybe score 1 hit or so due to air attack of 1.

It seems to me that the air units fire FIRST and then the remaining steps of the naval unit fires back. So a BB losing 7 steps will only fire back with 3 + 4 = 7 steps instead of 14 steps. No wonder they rarely score hits.

But if a tac bomber bombards an garrison with survivability of 3 then I usually score 2-4 steps. So I guess terrain will help the defender.

Is it intended that naval units should suffer a lot more against air raids than land units? How is the air vs naval combat executed compared to air vs land combat?

[firepowerjohan]

No, they use the same sequence as land battles. Defending ship fires first.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Can you then explain how it's possible to get odds like 8:0 and 7:0 against a DD and BB with a tactical bomber with naval attack of 6 against a DD with survivability of 4 or a BB with survivability of 6.

It's strange that the same tac bomber only get odds like 4:0 against a garrison with survivability of 3 even though the garrison is inside a city.

So which factors are used to implement air vs naval combat? Is it naval attack vs survivability?

[firepowerjohan]

Yes, naval attack vs surv.
The garrison have defence bonus in city so is harder to hit. Compare hitting a garrison in clear terrain vs hitting a naval unit in open sea. But vs land units you will use ground attack not Naval Attack.

Beware also, if you attack ship in port since that give some cover to the naval unit. So if you target DD in port and BB in open sea that produces odd numbers for comparison.

NOTE: if you attack a carrier with a air unit the port bonus is not used since it is counted as a Dog Fight.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

OK. That means we just have to accept that naval units are very vulnerable in open sea close to enemy territory where land based air units can be located. This reminds me of something that should be changed in the game so e. g. BB's, DD's, transports etc. could get better air cover.

I have never understood why CV's dont fly interception mission against air raids within the attack range of the CV. Now the CV can only use its air attack offensively. I think the game would have benefitted a lot if CV's could intercept enemy bombers trying to destroy a transport or BB. This means players would use CV's in a naval task force not only to attack other naval units, but also to protect their own naval units from air attacks.

Is this possible to implement in the game or is it too hard to change? If the change has too big consequences to air attacks against land units then you can just allow CV's to intercept air attacks against NAVAL units.

[firepowerjohan]

It is possible, but we had a lot of complaints that Carriers were too strong when ceaw was a new game. A difference in roles makes fighters and carriers fullfilling different tasks.

We want air to be powerful vs navy especially if you decide to research Close Air Support. Makes for more strategy and means you can protect your transports better from hungry enemy navy.

This also puts emphasis on air superiority before invasion. If you do not have air support over English channel and enemy has a lot of air then your navy may get hurt, as intended by the design of the game

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I can understand these objections when it comes to intercepting air attacks upon land units. The carrier was not intended for such tasks.

This is why I suggested that carriers might be used to intercept air attacks upon NAVAL units only. For some parts of the map you can only get air cover from carriers and you would need the carriers to protect your own transports who intend to invade. E. g. it's not easy for the Allies to invade Norway if Germany have placed air units there. Tac bombers can annihilate the transports before they even land.

Remember that a medicine against carriers could be to use fighters. Fighters should perform much better in air to air combat than carriers so a carrier intercepting an air raid against a naval unit could be counter intercepted by a fighter and the carrier would lose more steps than the fighter. So you may keep the carriers away from the enemy fighters. But if this is the only alternative to protect against enemy tac bombers annihilating your armor units aboard a transport then it's maybe worth getting a depleted carrier.

I usually felt that the most powerful aspect of the carrier was it's OFFENSIVE air capability, combined with the long attack range. Some people joked about having carriers in British ports ground striking German land units near Brest or Cherbourg. That is cheesy indeed.

If you're afraid of carriers being too powerful with intercepts then you can just let carriers have an interception range of 1. That means the carriers will only intercept air attacks on hexes adjacent to the carrier. This means you must place the carrier close to the transport or BB to protect it, but by doing so you expose the carrier itself to enemy air attack.

I think this limitation would not make carriers too powerful and still give the players a chance to use them defensively to protect other units. Now the carriers are an offensive weapon and not a defensive weapon.

Is it possible to e. g. add a value in general.txt called Carrier_intercept_range and set this to e. g. 1. That means people who won't have carrier interception at all can set it to 0? If you don't want to change the vanilla game then you can set the carrier_intercept_range value to default 0. That means modders can change the value if they would like to allow for carrier interception. Is this possible for v1.07?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I can understand these objections when it comes to intercepting air attacks upon land units. The carrier was not intended for such tasks.

This is why I suggested that carriers might be used to intercept air attacks upon NAVAL units only. For some parts of the map you can only get air cover from carriers and you would need the carriers to protect your own transports who intend to invade. E. g. it's not easy for the Allies to invade Norway if Germany have placed air units there. Tac bombers can annihilate the transports before they even land.

Remember that a medicine against carriers could be to use fighters. Fighters should perform much better in air to air combat than carriers so a carrier intercepting an air raid against a naval unit could be counter intercepted by a fighter and the carrier would lose more steps than the fighter. So you may keep the carriers away from the enemy fighters. But if this is the only alternative to protect against enemy tac bombers annihilating your armor units aboard a transport then it's maybe worth getting a depleted carrier.

I usually felt that the most powerful aspect of the carrier was it's OFFENSIVE air capability, combined with the long attack range. Some people joked about having carriers in British ports ground striking German land units near Brest or Cherbourg. That is cheesy indeed.

If you're afraid of carriers being too powerful with intercepts then you can just let carriers have an interception range of 1. That means the carriers will only intercept air attacks on hexes adjacent to the carrier. This means you must place the carrier close to the transport or BB to protect it, but by doing so you expose the carrier itself to enemy air attack.

I think this limitation would not make carriers too powerful and still give the players a chance to use them defensively to protect other units. Now the carriers are an offensive weapon and not a defensive weapon.

Is it possible to e. g. add a value in general.txt called Carrier_interception_range and set this to e. g. 1. That means people who won't have carrier interception at all can set it to 0? If you don't want to change the vanilla game then you can set the carrier_interception_range value to default 0. That means modders can change the value if they would like to allow for carrier interception. Is this possible for v1.07?