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Post by oldpop2000 on May 31, 2018 18:32:36 GMT -6
Well, we are now entering the Age of Carriers in this game. In RTW we only had to concern ourselves with surface ships and submarines. Now we have a third dimension, aircraft. This thread isn't meant as an historical discussion although I am certain some history will be included, it is for all of us to discuss the possible paths we might be able to take in Carrier aviation. Here are some paths:
1. Design and use of carriers based on tactical and strategic considerations. Meteorology will now play a big part in the deployment and use of carriers and their weapons.
2. Design and use of the aircraft. We can discuss engine types, wing structures and metallurgy, control surfaces, electronics, and a whole host of other important aspects.
3. Ordnance and armament development and use.
This is a very short list but I will leave it to all of you to expand it.
We can also discuss "the path not taken".
Let the games begin.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 31, 2018 20:19:12 GMT -6
Let me ask this question; Will the game start with all metal structure or wood and fabric cover with nitrocellulose dope coating? Will it depend on the nation?
Another question: Will you focus on 1. Maximizing the offensive potential of the carrier. 2. Develop the best strategy or strategies for using carriers before they can be sunk or put out of action. 3. How make the carrier less vulnerable.
Isn't this fun
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Post by noshurviverse on May 31, 2018 20:37:01 GMT -6
While my personal strategy is probably going to be fairly similar to the historical norm, with a mix of fighters and dive bombers (can't say I'm a fan of torpedo bombers though), a friend of mine has long been advocating for a carrier strategy that I find...questionable. His reaction to the fall of the Dreadnought and the rise of the carrier group pretty closely mirrors the Pope's reaction to crossbows in the medieval era, so his idea is to load carriers with absolutely nothing but the best fighters he can, in hopes of rendering the enemy incapable of conducting any aerial attack or defense by establishing complete air supremacy. At that point he hopes to close with his BBs and force the surface engagement.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on May 31, 2018 21:08:15 GMT -6
While my personal strategy is probably going to be fairly similar to the historical norm, with a mix of fighters and dive bombers (can't say I'm a fan of torpedo bombers though), a friend of mine has long been advocating for a carrier strategy that I find...questionable. His reaction to the fall of the Dreadnought and the rise of the carrier group pretty closely mirrors the Pope's reaction to crossbows in the medieval era, so his idea is to load carriers with absolutely nothing but the best fighters he can, in hopes of rendering the enemy incapable of conducting any aerial attack or defense by establishing complete air supremacy. At that point he hopes to close with his BBs and force the surface engagement. If you had radar direction of your CAP that might work, but even a veritable cloud of fighters would still need time to meet and destroy the enemy. In this game I might be game to give it a try, but i wouldn't expect it to come close to working until 1943-era tech is online. Once a dive bomber reaches its push over it is nearly invulnerable given its imposed rate of change of range. A fascinating notion all the same though! :]
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 31, 2018 21:18:15 GMT -6
While my personal strategy is probably going to be fairly similar to the historical norm, with a mix of fighters and dive bombers (can't say I'm a fan of torpedo bombers though), a friend of mine has long been advocating for a carrier strategy that I find...questionable. His reaction to the fall of the Dreadnought and the rise of the carrier group pretty closely mirrors the Pope's reaction to crossbows in the medieval era, so his idea is to load carriers with absolutely nothing but the best fighters he can, in hopes of rendering the enemy incapable of conducting any aerial attack or defense by establishing complete air supremacy. At that point he hopes to close with his BBs and force the surface engagement. The concept of operations sounds ok except that the carrier was and is meant for offensive operations. If the Conops is to establish air supremacy, then attacking and destroying enemy carriers first, is the best strategy. We know from WW2 in the Pacific that the side that struck first, generally won the carrier battle. I have statistics on that in one of my books. This requires search effectiveness, strike navigation and good strike preparation. The key then is to out-range your enemy, which is subtle. Just ensure that your strike aircraft have a longer range than your opponents. This was the IJN's conops, but strikes can miss their target and this did and will happen to all of us during game. Another way to protect your fleet is to separate your carriers so that if one of them is found, the others will not and they can launch a strike. This method ensures, maybe, that you will have CAP above your fleet at all times. The other way is just to maneuver your ships to make the bombers miss, and have excellent AAA. You cannot force a surface engagement if the enemy does not want to fight, we have seen this in RTW and will again, in RTW2. His idea sounds good, but there are too many variables and conditions that can disrupt the whole conops. Offense is the best defense. Now having said all this, I recommend that you test the idea. Try developing fleet carriers with balanced air wings but then convert some cruisers or other ships, then equip them with just fighters for CAP over the battle fleet or a support fleet. The game or any war game is a testing environment, winning isn't the idea. The idea is to test the conops that you have developed to see if it works.
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kaiww
New Member
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Post by kaiww on May 31, 2018 23:10:22 GMT -6
Let me ask this question; Will the game start with all metal structure or wood and fabric cover with nitrocellulose dope coating? Will it depend on the nation?
Another question: Will you focus on 1. Maximizing the offensive potential of the carrier. 2. Develop the best strategy or strategies for using carriers before they can be sunk or put out of action. 3. How make the carrier less vulnerable.
Isn't this fun The question of protection is a good one, i tent to get my ships always to close to the enemy and i woul hope my carrier stay out of range. But they most likly will not
So i wonder if we will see armor schemes for carrier with increasing technology and of course things like CAP doktrines ?
MFG Kai
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Post by archelaos on Jun 1, 2018 0:48:56 GMT -6
I will definitely try defensive carrier, if possible, but only as part of bigger strike group and still keeping small strike squadron, just in case. I was always interested if using such carrier could prevent CAP hole like that suffered by Kido Butai when strike planes were landing.
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Post by alexbrunius on Jun 1, 2018 5:30:44 GMT -6
The concept of operations sounds ok except that the carrier was and is meant for offensive operations. If the Conops is to establish air supremacy, then attacking and destroying enemy carriers first, is the best strategy. We know from WW2 in the Pacific that the side that struck first, generally won the carrier battle. I have statistics on that in one of my books. This requires search effectiveness, strike navigation and good strike preparation. The key then is to out-range your enemy, which is subtle. Just ensure that your strike aircraft have a longer range than your opponents. This was the IJN's conops, but strikes can miss their target and this did and will happen to all of us during game.
I think that the Battle of the Philippine sea ( Marianas Great turkey shoot ) blows that out of the water.
Japanese CTF hit first and achieved nothing more then scratching a battleship + getting most of their airgroups shot down by CAP and AA.
Going mostly fighters is not far from what the US Navy late-war doctrine actually evolved into, and with their standards of Radar, AA and fighters it worked!
The only difference is what to use to sink the opposing Carriers after their airgroups are neutralized. It would need to be either bombers or surface ships faster then enemy CVs are ( not an easy feat to achieve considering the speed of most WW2 fleet CVs, but perhaps easier for earlier wars? ). With the air superiority advantage scouting should allow the chasing side an upper hand.
A pivotal element in the success for such a strategy would probably be to maneuver so you can cut off the retreat of the enemy force preventing it from heading home towards friendly air-cover.
I would hope to be able to try out alternative plausible Carrier ops like the above as well and a few others like features I hope is in the game: - Handle scouting for the CTF from Cruiser floatplanes ( Japanese ) or from Divebombers ( US ) or land based ( limited use in Pacific )
- Loitering with strike to spot and launch additional planes, or strike with a single full deckload
- CAP vs Strike escort balance of fighter assignments - Using dive bombers as "close CAP" to fight of slow enemy torpedo bombers and to spot submarines - Split up strike ( to ensure some finds enemy ) or single big group of Massed strike - All divebomber or all torpedo bomber strikeplanes
- Bomber only Carriers with extreme range plane designs to ensure first strike
- Closed hangar ( Japanese ) or Open Hangar ( US ) - Deck parking or not ( risky in severe weather ) - Attrition from scouting and CAP limiting duration a CTF can be at sea unless you have airbases to reinforce airgroup in area - Longer multiple day battles to allow for cat & mouse maneuvering of CTF
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2018 6:00:52 GMT -6
I have some plans to make my carrier similar to Shinano, with heavy armor, fighters only, it should also have heavy guns (>8in, possibly a turret on position A, with double or triple heavy guns) and radar. It should be able to defend BB/BC squadrons. Then I´ll consider making offensive carrier based on Midway class, but with more bombers and less figters, because fighters will already be on the escort "BBcarier".
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Post by dorn on Jun 1, 2018 7:13:01 GMT -6
While my personal strategy is probably going to be fairly similar to the historical norm, with a mix of fighters and dive bombers (can't say I'm a fan of torpedo bombers though), a friend of mine has long been advocating for a carrier strategy that I find...questionable. His reaction to the fall of the Dreadnought and the rise of the carrier group pretty closely mirrors the Pope's reaction to crossbows in the medieval era, so his idea is to load carriers with absolutely nothing but the best fighters he can, in hopes of rendering the enemy incapable of conducting any aerial attack or defense by establishing complete air supremacy. At that point he hopes to close with his BBs and force the surface engagement. The concept of operations sounds ok except that the carrier was and is meant for offensive operations. If the Conops is to establish air supremacy, then attacking and destroying enemy carriers first, is the best strategy. We know from WW2 in the Pacific that the side that struck first, generally won the carrier battle. I have statistics on that in one of my books. This requires search effectiveness, strike navigation and good strike preparation. The key then is to out-range your enemy, which is subtle. Just ensure that your strike aircraft have a longer range than your opponents. This was the IJN's conops, but strikes can miss their target and this did and will happen to all of us during game. Another way to protect your fleet is to separate your carriers so that if one of them is found, the others will not and they can launch a strike. This method ensures, maybe, that you will have CAP above your fleet at all times. The other way is just to maneuver your ships to make the bombers miss, and have excellent AAA. You cannot force a surface engagement if the enemy does not want to fight, we have seen this in RTW and will again, in RTW2. His idea sounds good, but there are too many variables and conditions that can disrupt the whole conops. Offense is the best defense. Now having said all this, I recommend that you test the idea. Try developing fleet carriers with balanced air wings but then convert some cruisers or other ships, then equip them with just fighters for CAP over the battle fleet or a support fleet. The game or any war game is a testing environment, winning isn't the idea. The idea is to test the conops that you have developed to see if it works. This is only one way to use carriers and it was used primary in Pacific operations in WW2. However in Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic one of main carriers tasks was ensuring local air superiority. It was used mainly to defend convoys, cover evacuations etc. The strategy is described by noshurviverse is very close that was used by Royal Navy as RN has completely different tasks that of USN or Japan navy. However even Royal Navy does not focus only on defense. But their carriers was built to be operate in worst conditions under umbrella of land based aircraft (development of armored box hangars for carriers) and in worst sea conditions (closed hangars and not using deck parks). Royal Navy did not have such wargames as commenced by USA however they did excercises with their carriers. Their find out that even low number of CAP can substantially decrease chance of hit and that carriers work best together (multicarrier task force). Later in the war the number of fighters increased as later war fighters has enough performance to carry bombs too.
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Post by dorn on Jun 1, 2018 7:19:31 GMT -6
I have some plans to make my carrier similar to Shinano, with heavy armor, fighters only, it should also have heavy guns (>8in, possibly a turret on position A, with double or triple heavy guns) and radar. It should be able to defend BB/BC squadrons. Then I´ll consider making offensive carrier based on Midway class, but with more bombers and less figters, because fighters will already be on the escort "BBcarier". We will see how it could be useful in RTW2 however in reality this was tried but without success. It is better to have carrier and battleship that 2 hybrids as hybrids are not good in either way. I am quite interested if there will be some limitation of number of aircrafts on carriers. As I read somewhere that Essexes were very close to practically possible operational aircraft limit and that Lexington and Saratoga could not use their number of aircraft effectively. How much maximum aircrafts have Essexes for operational use (in air at one time)?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 1, 2018 8:06:39 GMT -6
The concept of operations sounds ok except that the carrier was and is meant for offensive operations. If the Conops is to establish air supremacy, then attacking and destroying enemy carriers first, is the best strategy. We know from WW2 in the Pacific that the side that struck first, generally won the carrier battle. I have statistics on that in one of my books. This requires search effectiveness, strike navigation and good strike preparation. The key then is to out-range your enemy, which is subtle. Just ensure that your strike aircraft have a longer range than your opponents. This was the IJN's conops, but strikes can miss their target and this did and will happen to all of us during game.
I think that the Battle of the Philippine sea ( Marianas Great turkey shoot ) blows that out of the water.
Japanese CTF hit first and achieved nothing more then scratching a battleship + getting most of their airgroups shot down by CAP and AA.
Going mostly fighters is not far from what the US Navy late-war doctrine actually evolved into, and with their standards of Radar, AA and fighters it worked!
The only difference is what to use to sink the opposing Carriers after their airgroups are neutralized. It would need to be either bombers or surface ships faster then enemy CVs are ( not an easy feat to achieve considering the speed of most WW2 fleet CVs, but perhaps easier for earlier wars? ). With the air superiority advantage scouting should allow the chasing side an upper hand.
A pivotal element in the success for such a strategy would probably be to maneuver so you can cut off the retreat of the enemy force preventing it from heading home towards friendly air-cover.
I would hope to be able to try out alternative plausible Carrier ops like the above as well and a few others like features I hope is in the game: - Handle scouting for the CTF from Cruiser floatplanes ( Japanese ) or from Divebombers ( US ) or land based ( limited use in Pacific )
- Loitering with strike to spot and launch additional planes, or strike with a single full deckload
- CAP vs Strike escort balance of fighter assignments - Using dive bombers as "close CAP" to fight of slow enemy torpedo bombers and to spot submarines - Split up strike ( to ensure some finds enemy ) or single big group of Massed strike - All divebomber or all torpedo bomber strikeplanes
- Bomber only Carriers with extreme range plane designs to ensure first strike
- Closed hangar ( Japanese ) or Open Hangar ( US ) - Deck parking or not ( risky in severe weather ) - Attrition from scouting and CAP limiting duration a CTF can be at sea unless you have airbases to reinforce airgroup in area - Longer multiple day battles to allow for cat & mouse maneuvering of CTF
You have to be careful in how you interpret late war battles in the Pacific War. The situation had dramatically changed. By June of 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy had been worn down and most of it best pilots were now gone. We were now in an amphibious invasion mode and needed air supremacy over the invaded island as we moved closer to Japan. In fact, Ozawa had planned to use the airfields on Saipan and Guam as shuttling points for his carrier aircraft while his carriers stayed out of range. Our attacks on the two islands, eliminated that possibility. Along with that, Ozawa was having trouble with US submarines. He lost two of his biggest ships; Taiho and Shokaku to submarines in one day and US airstrikes eliminated Hiyo. A pre-war US Navy document changed the number of fighters on board the carriers from eighteen to thirty-six. The aircraft allocation document for June of 1944 shows the Yorktown, Hornet each with on average about 37 aircraft. That is exactly what was authorized by that 1941 memorandum. Now, one year later, the same document shows Yorktown and Essex, Franklin with about 52-63 aircraft. So the number of fighters did not change until just before the end of the war. This was due to many factors including aircraft production and the fact that we now were encountering Kamikazes. Now the 64,000 dollar question is, will this be the pattern in the game. We will not know until more details come out. But remember geography has a big part in this. There were only three nations that built large carriers and had carrier fleets. Britain, US and Japan. All three were maritime nations. The British areas of the concern were enclosed and narrow seas which put them near land based air. It is unknown how the game will handle the factors that the British faced. Your carrier aircraft building and deployment will depend on your economics and geographic location. You can't escape location, no matter how you try even in this game. Look at Russia and see the access to blue water that she has and the danger's involved. The Black Sea in an enclosed sea with its only access to the Med through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles protected by Turkey, Vladivostok is closed for ice six months out of the year and access points are protected by the IJN, The other access for her is the Baltic through Kattegat and Skagerrak which is protected by Germany and Denmark. The last one is from Archangel and Murmansk, again she has to move by Norway and the Great Britain through one of four exit points. So, how much good would a fleet of large carriers that are weakly armored be to her. She would have to build carriers like the British, armored decks with enclosed hangers and this will limit the air wing size. It is going to get much more complex in this new game, I suspect. Weather will play a much bigger role in carrier aviation than it did with dreadnoughts. Russia's northern forces will be fighting intense storm and iced blocked ports, if the game duplicates this problem.
Just a note: the two carriers lost by the British in the Mediterranean were sunk by U-boats not land based air. I am not certain how the game will portray this condition or even whether it will be duplicated.
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Post by williammiller on Jun 1, 2018 8:12:09 GMT -6
Let me ask this question; Will the game start with all metal structure or wood and fabric cover with nitrocellulose dope coating? Will it depend on the nation?
Starting aero tech is pretty much typical pre/early-WWI stuff - development will depend upon how much effort you put into the tech, national characteristics, and prob a bit of luck
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 1, 2018 8:19:25 GMT -6
Let me ask this question; Will the game start with all metal structure or wood and fabric cover with nitrocellulose dope coating? Will it depend on the nation?
Starting aero tech is pretty much typical pre/early-WWI stuff - development will depend upon how much effort you put into the tech, national characteristics, and prob a bit of luck I asked the question because the first all-metal aircraft structure was in Germany in the form of the Junker J-1 in 1915. It was the first Duralumin aircraft but was not intended for mass production, so will we be able to accomplish this. Will duralumin be available immediately in the game. Maybe I am asking for more information that should be offered.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Jun 1, 2018 15:17:03 GMT -6
oldpop2000, I think the Junkers J 1 was far outside the norm for its time. I think it is much more likely that planes in the game will follow a pattern that more closely aligns with historical norms. Certainly, I would expect variation but probably not to the extent where a plane shows up that is 20 years ahead of its time. I suspect that duralumin might show up as a technology advance but in judging from how things are handled in RTW, I suspect it would probably be more along the lines of some of the ship construction techs such as "High tensile steel - 1% weight saving on hull". So, if it is developed you might get a benefit, perhaps an increase in speed or durability, but the invention would probably not allow you to build an all-metal-clad aircraft when 99% of the planes flying are still using wood and fabric.
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