The game hates Carriers...?

[wlbjork]

The counterpart to that point though is that carrier aircraft of the 1920s and 1930s period were less capable than the early 1940s - to paraphrase Pratchett "it wasn't Carrier Time - not quite".

Slower, somewhat less manoeuvrable aircraft would have been more vulnerable to AA fire, whilst shorter ranges would mean less impact in battle. Lower ordnance capability reduces the ability of the aircraft to do damage.


All in all, carriers, even in the numbers and with the capacity of late WW2 aircraft, would not have been as effective an say 1929 or 1934.

[aeson]

Feb 11, 2020 14:52:59 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

The counterpart to that point though is that carrier aircraft of the 1920s and 1930s period were less capable than the early 1940s - to paraphrase Pratchett "it wasn't Carrier Time - not quite".

See: "as long as an adequate strike aircraft is available."

Slower, somewhat less manoeuvrable aircraft would have been more vulnerable to AA fire

And the counterpart to that argument is that even into the mid-'30s the AA suites carried by warships were still often not significantly superior to those carried in the First World War. It was still fairly common for a big ship to have maybe around half a dozen ~4" HAA guns and a similar number of anti-aircraft autocannons or heavy machine guns, with a handful of light machine guns rounding out the AA suite, into the mid-'30s; some ships carried such armaments into the Second World War and beyond.

Beyond that, war experience with what wood-and-fabric biplanes remained in service by the Second World War, and with various aircraft designed to use as little metal as was reasonably feasible, suggests that such aircraft were more resilient than their construction might suggest.

[wlbjork]

I apologise for missing that last comment in your previous post aeson.

I'll grant you it's a fair point about reduced AA batteries, to the point that although the aircraft are more vulnerable the major lack of AA would probably work in their favour.

Robustness is trickier to consider, which is why I didn't mention it. However, the main advantage of fabric construction is that it doesn't set off shells but is disadvantaged by being more vulnerable to shrapnel and longer-ranged hits. Oh, and the mast-mounted flamethrowers that the Germans came up with in WW2. None the less, fabric-covered aircraft could (and did) come back with hundreds of punched through them. They also tended to be fairly quick to repair, as you just detached one damaged section of fabric and replaced it with one that wasn't damaged (or at east patched up).

[rimbecano]

Feb 11, 2020 14:30:04 GMT -6 aeson said:

A player-built fleet could have considerably more carriers than that by the 1930s, if the player elects to build them, and so would be in a better position to wage a carrier war in the 1930s than historical navies were - as long as an adequate strike aircraft is available.

Oh. I know :-)

My carrier strategy is "Convert ALL the things": any ship no longer useful as a surface combatant is turned into some kind of carrier (possibly with a period in mothballs if I don't have access to a carrier type that is valid to rebuild to for that tonnage). I typically have a significant carrier fleet by 1930.

My concern is "[if] an adequate strike aircraft is available".

[arminpfano]

Feb 12, 2020 6:10:31 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

Feb 11, 2020 14:30:04 GMT -6 aeson said:

A player-built fleet could have considerably more carriers than that by the 1930s, if the player elects to build them, and so would be in a better position to wage a carrier war in the 1930s than historical navies were - as long as an adequate strike aircraft is available.

Oh. I know :-)

My carrier strategy is "Convert ALL the things": any ship no longer useful as a surface combatant is turned into some kind of carrier (possibly with a period in mothballs if I don't have access to a carrier type that is valid to rebuild to for that tonnage). I typically have a significant carrier fleet by 1930.

My concern is "[if] an adequate strike aircraft is available".

Economically speaking this strategy only works if you just strip all turrets and guns and install a flight deck for cheap. As soon as you change the machinery and other equipment it gets too expensive. And I am not sure if it helps if you have quite a number of carriers in stock - in nearly all of my battles I only get one or two as a support force, even in fleet battles. So I think you need about three or so, not more (in a small or medium setup).

[jwsmith26]

Feb 12, 2020 7:57:26 GMT -6 arminpfano said:

Feb 12, 2020 6:10:31 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

Oh. I know :-)

My carrier strategy is "Convert ALL the things": any ship no longer useful as a surface combatant is turned into some kind of carrier (possibly with a period in mothballs if I don't have access to a carrier type that is valid to rebuild to for that tonnage). I typically have a significant carrier fleet by 1930.

My concern is "[if] an adequate strike aircraft is available".

Economically speaking this strategy only works if you just strip all turrets and guns and install a flight deck for cheap. As soon as you change the machinery and other equipment it gets too expensive. And I am not sure if it helps if you have quite a number of carriers in stock - in nearly all of my battles I only get one or two as a support force, even in fleet battles. So I think you need about three or so, not more (in a small or medium setup).

Well, that's certainly one way to guarantee that you'll only get 2 or 3 carriers deployed in a battle.    

My experience has been quite different. I regularly get 80% to 90% of my carriers deployed in fleet battles. Playing with large fleets and deploying a fleet of around 10 carriers of various sizes I will typically get 5 to 6 carriers deployed as a Carrier Force and another 2 or 3 added to my Main Force. The game has a lot of variation when composing battles, but personally, I rarely see a fleet battle in which my carrier force is not well represented.  

Carrier planes don't need to be capable of sinking enemy ships to be effective. In the 30s I don't expect my carriers to sink enemy battleships. I am quite content to wing BBs with carrier strikes and then finish them off with my own battleships. A single torpedo hit can slow a battleship and separate it from the herd, making it easy to destroy. That one torpedo hit can cause enough flotation damage that the BB will be at a strong disadvantage in what would otherwise be an even gunfire exchange. Even if no damage is caused by your carrier planes, having friendly aircraft overhead executing ineffective aerial attacks in the midst of a gunfire battle is highly disruptive to the enemy line.


 

[Warspite]

Feb 12, 2020 7:57:26 GMT -6 arminpfano said:

Feb 12, 2020 6:10:31 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

Oh. I know :-)

My carrier strategy is "Convert ALL the things": any ship no longer useful as a surface combatant is turned into some kind of carrier (possibly with a period in mothballs if I don't have access to a carrier type that is valid to rebuild to for that tonnage). I typically have a significant carrier fleet by 1930.

My concern is "[if] an adequate strike aircraft is available".

Economically speaking this strategy only works if you just strip all turrets and guns and install a flight deck for cheap. As soon as you change the machinery and other equipment it gets too expensive. And I am not sure if it helps if you have quite a number of carriers in stock - in nearly all of my battles I only get one or two as a support force, even in fleet battles. So I think you need about three or so, not more (in a small or medium setup).

I've had 10+ CVs in battles so this is wrong in my experience. 

[garrisonchisholm]

Feb 12, 2020 11:25:12 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

Feb 12, 2020 7:57:26 GMT -6 arminpfano said:

 Even if no damage is caused by your carrier planes, having friendly aircraft overhead executing ineffective aerial attacks in the midst of a gunfire battle is highly disruptive to the enemy line.


 

Or enemy aircraft being disruptive to YOUR line.  I went from a devastating victory to merely a solid victory and lost my only 2 18" gunned battleships because of 6 enemy torpedo bombers.  They flew in, the second division acted like chickens fleeing a coop, and by the time they reformed they were about 8,000 yards astern of my first division, which then received concentrated fire from the enemy rather than dispersed.  Add on that I was on Admiral's level, so once the First division become un-navigable the second was sailing at the whim of their commodore, which was clearly not interested in tasting whatever had just reduced the 2 lead BBs to burning hulks.

[rimbecano]

Feb 12, 2020 7:57:26 GMT -6 arminpfano said:

Economically speaking this strategy only works if you just strip all turrets and guns and install a flight deck for cheap. As soon as you change the machinery and other equipment it gets too expensive. And I am not sure if it helps if you have quite a number of carriers in stock - in nearly all of my battles I only get one or two as a support force, even in fleet battles. So I think you need about three or so, not more (in a small or medium setup).

Yeah, my carriers end up being bottom-dollar, just-fast-enough-for-CV(L)-classification junk buckets, but I get them for about a third the cost of a 30 kt new construction ship with the same airwing, and I find that airwing size is the most important characteristic of a carrier. They don't have to keep up with the battle line during combat, and 20-24 knots is plenty to keep up with the fleet when cruising.

As for numbers, I always play on very large fleet size, and most often as the US, which has fairly widespread commitments, so at three per sea zone, I still need twelve to cover the Eastern Seaboard, the Caribbean, the West Coast, and one other Pacific station.

[dorn]

I did in v1.00 calculation of lifetime costs of carrier which operate from 15 to 30 years. Costs of airplanes have changed through versions but in case of carrier planes it even increases. The construction costs were small part of lifetime costs so saving 10 to 20 % of construction costs was less than 10 % of lifetime costs.
I did not compare coversions to new carriers but it wouldbe even worse for conversions as their operating costs are higher.
Another thung is increase of operating costs in last patches.

For all this information the conclusion is clear, the conversions are not cheaper significantly to be used for fleet carriers. Brand new fleet carrier would be much better designed, faster, better protected with just several % increase of lifetime costs.

[euchrejack]

In my opinion, conversions are best because you need CV/CVLs fast. They're not ideal if there is time to build the real things. But often, they are in fact needed fast.

First, Shipboard operations can't be set on high priority unless you have a working model of a CVL, then a CV.
Second, if a war is on, or expected soon, then its just about getting as many as soon as possible. That was the situation in the early days of WWII.

[aeson]

Feb 14, 2020 9:50:20 GMT -6 euchrejack said:

Second, if a war is on, or expected soon, then its just about getting as many as soon as possible. That was the situation in the early days of WWII.

I only half agree.

Firstly, a lot of possible carrier conversions are utter garbage - especially if done on the cheap - and flooding your fleet with trash is not a good thing. If you only get one CV in a battle, you want it to be a good CV, not some piece of crap that only carries 30 or 40 aircraft because it was converted from an obsolete battleship or battlecruiser at the lowest possible cost and so is barely suitable for providing fleet air defense, let alone strike capability and possibly reconnaissance. CVL conversions have a little more leeway since even a good CVL doesn't carry enough aircraft to be good at providing both fleet air defense and strike capability.

Secondly, the ships that you have in your fleet and so might convert into carriers still have their own roles; battleships, battlecruisers, and the various larger cruisers remain useful fleet units even after carriers become good - far more so than in reality. Building a good carrier is expensive and time-consuming by comparison to converting one from an existing ship, especially if the conversion is done on the cheap, but building a passable late-game battleship or battlecruiser from the keel up is generally even more expensive than building a good carrier and you are not saving much, if anything, by converting an old but still adequate capital ship into a carrier if you then have to turn around and spend 130+ million to replace the ship you converted; much the same goes for CVLs and the cruisers of approximately the right size to become them through a conversion.

[dorn]

I would provide some numbers relating to carriers. Ships are designed in v1.00 however costs are recalculated to v1.17 so real change would be minimal built them in v1.17.
It does not take into consideration maintenance costs increased in one of last patches which would even decrease construction costs % from lifetime costs. 




I will take as example Implacable class as she is most effective per 1 aircraft being armoured very lighly. 

After 20 years of operation the costs will be 443M. The construction costs are 94M so about 21 %. 
If we take Ark Royal with 60 a/c which is may be possible by conversion that construction costs are 38 M from 151 M for 20 years thus 25 %. So even if you build conversion with same aircrafts with 70 % of costs related to new construction, you save just 11 M, so with construction costs of 27M. So you save 11 M from 151, which is 7 % of lifetime costs. 

Is it worth to save 7 % of costs by conversion with inferior qualities?
It can be but only in time you need quickly carrier otherwise it is not worth.

[euchrejack]

One mistake I made early on was converting ships without enough aircraft. I thought a light carrier with 4 aircraft could be useful in a real war. It's really not. However it is useful to keep Shipboard Operations at High spending, so it does have a slight use. Usually, the biggest problem with fitting enough aircraft is armor.

In relation to that, I was reading in another thread how flight decks of less than 6.5" armor are useless against 1000 lbs aircraft bombs. Much more than that gives immunity.
nws-online.proboards.com/thread/3728/ap-bomb-chart

So for a vessel that hopefully won't be in range of any of the enemy's guns (good luck with that), one could argue that any armor on a ship to be converted means less aircraft. Also, that much more than that sweetspot is excess and also means less aircraft.

...Which is probably why I always read about battlecruisers being converted, that were built with the intention of conversion.

I just thought that I would mention that we're getting into the nitty gritty of carrier design in a post entitled "The game hates Carriers...?"

Obviously, The game LOVES Carriers!