The Navy need some LOVE

[Cortilein]

Hey, folks, thought I might share my thoughts on naval gameplay in PzC 2.

While the Recon, AT (and AA classes) have gotten some decent love and substantial improvements in PzC 2 vs. PzC, the naval part of the game (though not as important in the European theatre with its few naval missions) has the same (dare I say: underwhelmingly simplified) feel to it, IMHO.

While I can imagine that publishers do not want to generate in-house competition with respect to sales numbers of individual games, the "Order of Battle" series (which I also own and play) is by far superior in that regard. Of course, OOB mainly covers (at least originally) the Pacific theatre of operations, so naturally there has been more emphasis on naval combat game mechanics in that series. Yet, PzC 2 scratches the same itch, and with future DLCs and expansions, the game would surely benefit from some major enhancements to the naval system.

What embazzles me most is the complete absence of those great new mechanics of land units, like automatic Arty/AT/AA support and such, which introduces and/or improves a true "combined arms" tactical layer as compared with the original PzC. I mean - c'mon, those (capital) ships had plenty of AA guns equipped to them, and yet they are more or less sitting ducks to high anti-naval rated bombers in PzC 2 ATM! I would like to see some more love for the navy - maybe switchable units (which the AI would have to be "taught" how to utilize). At least there should be more of a clear (tactical) difference between light cruisers vs. armoured cruisers vs. battleships other than that the latter "even more capital ships" simply have better stats and thus inflict more damage and/or suppression.

Also, the categorization of all aircraft into "Carrier" (= Dirt Airfield is sufficient) and "Airfield" (= a 'proper' concrete runway is needed as a base) is somewhat revealing: By all means, not all "smaller" aircraft were capable of starting from AND landing on an aircraft carrier. Apart from historical "singularities" as the so-called "Doolittle Raid" on Tokyo, where twin-engined B-25 Bombers started (but for sure didn't LAND on) an aircraft carrier, this simplified categorization should be broken up more properly alongside a rework of naval gameplay, so that only "true" carrier-based aircraft can actually fully utilize those vessels as an airbase. There should be a third category (of "small" aircraft) that can utilize dirt airfields, but the capability to LAND on an aircraft carrier should IMHO be a proper trait and feature of dedicated, specialized planes.

If it is ever intended to move on with the game to other theatres of war (with I am hoping for, since the China and Japan factions - yet without any units - already exist as a sneak peek into the games' files reveal), then this would become a major issue anyway.

I am pretty eager to hear what other players think about his.

[Horseman]

In PG you had Carriers, Battleships, Battle Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers, Destroyers, Patrol boats and subs. And they were the same for every nation.

PC wasn't much (any?) Better.

Now at least we have classes of the above with slightly different stats which is progress!

I agree with you though. Id love to see the Naval aspect expanded a little.

The thing is, unless they head to the Pacific then that could be a lot of work for very little gain. On the other hand if they do decide to head to the Pacific then they will have to do something to make the Naval aspect better or we'd end up with another Pacific General (anyone remember that?).

I've dabbled in OOB over the last few days (only tried the freebie) and I'm not sure I like everything about the Naval aspect there but it is a good example of how to make it different/better.

[PoorOldSpike]

Shore bombardment would be useful in PC2 on coastal maps, I think battleship guns could hit anything up to 10 miles inland.
Question- I've always wondered why historically the Royal Navy didn't send a big bunch of battleships, cruisers and destroyers to hit the Germans along the north European coast in 1940, especially to protect the Brit troops around Dunkirk?

[Horseman]

Shore bombardment would be useful in PC2 on coastal maps, I think battleship guns could hit anything up to 10 miles inland.
Question- I've always wondered why historically the Royal Navy didn't send a big bunch of battleships, cruisers and destroyers to hit the Germans along the north European coast in 1940, especially to protect the Brit troops around Dunkirk?

Because we didn't have a big bunch of Battleships. We only had 14 at the outbreak of the war (if I remember correctly) And they would have been spread around the Empire some what.....

They were also needed to be ready in case any of the German fleet tried to break out into the Atlantic (think Bismark....)

Not to mention several would have almost always been kept at home in case of invasion.

Also they would have been very vulnerable to the Luftwaffe just sitting off the coast of Northern Europe.

[Retributarr]

"Dunkerque":
http://www.worldwar2facts.org/dunkirk-evacuation.html
I was watching a 'Documentary' a while-ago, from my 'imperfect-recollection', I know anyway that at least "6-Destroyers" {Might have been only 3???} and at least around "100" or more other vessels were sunk!.
Evacuation Losses:

Operation Dynamo:, occurred between May 26th and June 3rd 1940 from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk, France. By the 9th day of the operation, there would be 338,226 soldiers evacuated by the 850 boats that took part in the operation.

Losses at Dunkirk:
A total of six UK and three French destroyers sunk during the operation along with nine large boats. Additionally, 19 destroyers were damaged and more than 200 of the Allied sea craft were sunk with just as many damaged.

The RAF flew a total of 4,822 sorties over Dunkirk losing approximately 100 aircraft compared to 240 for the Germans. The Allied forces were also very fortunate that inclement weather precluded the Luftwaffe from flying during much of the evacuation time frame of the evacuation preventing additional loss of life.

[ADMIRAL3]

Totally agree Cortilein!!! Navies deserve more love. OOB naval mechanics could be a good starting point. Naval warfare in PC2 is awful.

[Blade0]

Well, once we had a Pacific General with more detailed ships and rules.
As you have correctly stated, the focus of PC2 is on land combat. Any further changes would be off, or would require more detail on land units as well.
Think about it: a battleship can have as many as 4 different caliber of naval artillery, heavy and light AA guns, some have torpedo tubes (!), and a couple of recon planes on-board. Some parts of the ship are more easily destroyed than others; they often go out of action by critical hits, and their combat effectiveness deteriorates depending on hit locations.
You just can't model all this with a few numbers. If you decide to model all these, then it raises the question of flame panzers - while the flamethrower run out of fuel quickly, it still had machine guns, some models even a main gun with a lot of ammo. Some ATGs had a machine gun as a secondary weapon, others didn't. Tanks could typically carry 4 types of ammo, with different effectiveness on different targets, but not always carried all of them. Actually the "stub" PzIVs were pretty good against tanks - as long as the panzergrenades lasted. But those were usually out of supply, as the tungsten core was in a shortage.
Yeah, so maybe in a Naval Panzer Corps more detail can be implemented. To play "panzer chess", whatever we currently have is kinda enough. I could accept a few improvements we have already seen in Pacific General - but more detail is just too much to ask at this point.

[Cortilein]

To play "panzer chess", whatever we currently have is kinda enough. I could accept a few improvements we have already seen in Pacific General - but more detail is just too much to ask at this point.

I agree with you that this is very low priority at the moment. Yet I think a more sophisticated tactical layer for the naval part of the game would be nice. Not talking intense micro-management as in the game "Strategic Mind: The Pacific" - that is too tedious and would be way off for the Panzer Corps series.

I did some testing today, making some vessels switchable to an "AA mode". To my surprise, the AI actually utilized it out-of-the-box with the Tribal class destroyer in the Dunkirk scenario. When that destroyer had no other striking opportunities apart from a German fighter plane hovering in an adjacent hex next to it, the AI switched the Tribal destroyer to AA mode and actually attacked the aircraft.

Code: Select all

DDTribal,"NSLOCTEXT('units','DDTribal','DD Tribal')","NSLOCTEXT('units','DDTribal','DD Tribal')",Destroyer,Naval,Naval,9,TRUE,FALSE,10,TRUE,FALSE,3,TRUE,TRUE,11,TRUE,FALSE,11,14,7,10,3,2,0,60,90,1000,"(SingleEntity,SuppressingFire,MineKiller,EntKiller2)",DestroyerTribalClass,(GB),,360,4,01.01.1939 - 01.01.1946,DDTribal-AA

DDTribal-AA,"NSLOCTEXT('units','DDTribal-AA','DD Tribal')","NSLOCTEXT('units','DDTribal-AA','DD Tribal')",AntiAir,Naval,Naval,9,TRUE,TRUE,10,TRUE,TRUE,3,TRUE,FALSE,11,TRUE,TRUE,11,14,7,10,3,2,2,10,90,1000,"(SingleEntity,NoPurchase,NoRetaliation,AASupport,MachineGun,SuppressingFire,LowAltitudeAttack)",DestroyerTribalClass,(GB),,360,4,01.01.1939 - 01.01.1946,DDTribal

Note that I have limited movement of the ship to 1 hex while in "AA mode", just barely enough to bring itself into firing position. You don't want a highly mobile naval ack-ack zooming the ocean, do you? Also, no targets other than aircraft can be targeted when in "AA mode". That air attack value was left unchanged, and in this particular case is just half the punch of a land-based Oerlikon AA gun. Need some testing and balancing here.

I don't know whether the AI would make "good" tactical decisions when there are both naval and air targets around, and whether it would switch the unit back and forth between modes as it sees fit. Some further testing is needed here. Also, the generic Destroyer unit would have to be split up into several entities for each faction/nation separately, as the game obviously freezes when a unit available to several factions is made switchable. But that would be just a simple copy-and-paste job in the equipment file.

[Blade0]

I did some testing today, making some vessels switchable to an "AA mode". To my surprise, the AI actually utilized it out-of-the-box with the Tribal class destroyer in the Dunkirk scenario. When that destroyer had no other striking opportunities apart from a German fighter plane hovering in an adjacent hex next to it, the AI switched the Tribal destroyer to AA mode and actually attacked the aircraft.

Nice idea!
What I would do is to give ships passive air attack, but add them the "AA support" ability. This way they won't start chasing planes (which is very-very surrealistic), but give each other an AA screen, which was a concept even in WW2 (wasn't too successful, though), and was continued in the Aegis Destroyer concept.
The expected result is that ships grouping together are more successful in fending off attacking planes than lone ships which are sunk relatively easily.
The problem here is the range - PacG had a separate range for AA weapons on ships (as I remember it was a fixed 2), while in PC2 I suppose it will use the ship's gun range (5 for battleships, 0 for destroyers). That means destroyers won't give an AA screen at all, while the AA screen of big ships will be a constant pain.
We can try to give destroyers the range of 1, but probably that will effect submarine attacks which is actually point blank... so we're back where we started, we should have separate values for separate weapon systems, which the engine just doesn't support.
Well, maybe we can still figure out an improvement (I actually like the idea of destroyers having 1 range), but it is not that easy, will need to re-balance other things.