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Post by christian on Apr 1, 2024 8:11:15 GMT -6
This thread is essentially here to document the current issues i and others have observed regarding carriers into the missile age, to go along with my suggestion of increasing carrier strike aircrafts payloads to historical levels as aircraft right now carry what in wartime conditions would be considered rather light loads nws-online.proboards.com/thread/7970/increase-payload-aircraft-diversify-bombersCarriers in RTW-3 face a problem going into the late 60s, notably strikes will suffer increased losses as SAMs continue to progress and become very effective defensive networks, meanwhile carrier attack aircraft do not progress in lethality from 1947 onwards, in fact after 1950 where most nations start to gain countermeasures against missiles, the high accuracy and Hitrates quickly dwindle down to 10-25% after accounting for defensive tools such as chaff, Sams and RMAA (i quess ciws as well but ciws is almost useless) At the same time a squadron of 20 HJF fighters can cost 500 monthly maintenance with night training (which is required for atleast 1 squadron for cap) A dive bomber from 1947 has effectively the same strike power as a heavy jet fighter from 1970 in game. while costing much less, and replacing faster and not needing a jet capable carrier. Yes technically the Jet attack has more lethality due to carrying a HASM instead of MASM, and having the option to do the bomb strategy which offers the highest carrier based lethality in game. But the jet attack suffers heavily in survivability and thus its effectiveness dwindles although being more survivable than the dive bomber, when not taking into account the dive bombers more numerous numbers due to lighter weight per aircraft and cheaper cost. But due to carriers still being lethal tools of the AI, a base amount of HJF nighttime/daytime cap is still needed A quick example of how MASM and HASM are lacking assuming a strike of 40 planes (this is rather big) with HJF, the most survivable option, all aircraft make it past the sams and launch, countermeasures reduce the hitrate to 50% or less (less as time goes on) and the enemies point defence systems shoot down 20-30% (25% for simplicities sake), we are now left with 1/4th of our initial missile salvo, assuming all missiles hit (and dont near miss) they can either split off and hit 10 targets doing light/medium damage to each, or hit 3 targets 3 times, having a good chance of sinking them Said 40 HJFs assuming night capable cost upwards of 1000 A MONTH in maintenance, for those 3 enemy ship kills If said budget was invested into HSSM missile destroyers, you could in effect afford 180 HSSM missiles, across 12 ships (15 per ship) which would be FAR more lethal than those 40 HJFs in the anti surface role. Currently, per testing of multiple members on the discord, the current most efficient strategies for handling of carriers into the 60s and 70s is. 1: CAP carriers, this means cutting carrier forces down to the essentials needed for protecting the fleet with HJF on cap, the saved funds for additional missile destroyers, of which an entire division (6 ships) can be cheaper in maintenance than 20 night capable HJF (for comparison my 6 1949 carriers with 2 squadrons of LJF on them have a maintenance cost of 9 million, assuming these were jet capable the maintenance cost would be twice as high, even higher if night capable which they need to be otherwise you get striked at night) 2: The JA nuke, this essentially just means replacing the far more survivable HJF with JA for strike, and loading them up with bombs, this is due to the fact that the HASM is only marginally better than MASM and will not have that great effect on target as described above. However the use of 4x 3000 SAP bombs on any ship in the 1960s + will sink it the vast majority of the time, and each plane carries a bomb load of that size in addition these bombs have a higher hitrate than MASM and HASM as they do not suffer from countermeasures effectively removing 50% of munitions, on top of having 4 times as many bombs, and each bomb having a bigger effect on target. 3: retaining HJF as almost purely cap, and only using them to strike enemy carriers and hoping for catastrophic fires from singular MASM hits. The conclusion here is that carrier strike aircraft simply do not carry enough munitions to be lethal, when the most effective anti ship option in 1960-70 is taking an A-7E and using 2500-3000 lb dumb bombs against the equivelant of a fleet of long islands supported by hazard perries, something is wrong. The simple way to fix this would be to give JA, either 2 HASM, or 4 MASM as loadout options, while giving HJF ATLEAST 2 MASM Pictures attached to show the viability of such loadouts, additional pictures can be viewed in the suggestion. Medium bombers, courtesy of their low maintenance cost (200 per 20 plane squadron) not only has more range, but also crucially can carry 2 HASMs which will outstrip any missile equipped aircraft (JA with dumb bombs is still the most lethal) in lethality in game currently. Attachments:
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Post by larcrivereagle on Apr 1, 2024 10:29:36 GMT -6
I really wish we got Heavy Jet Attack. The USN tried to maintain light, medium, and heavy attackers on its carriers, eventually dropping the heavies when the nuclear bomb delivery role moved away from plane delivery. Flying a Vigilante strike package would be really fun.
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Post by tendravina on Apr 1, 2024 22:54:09 GMT -6
I'll like to add about the replacement rate. In normal circumstances HJFs can make sense, as their survivability allows them to attack more and survive more battles. However, these are not normal circumstances, as HJFs, just like any aircraft, depend on having a passable replacement rate.
Testing done by Lady Robin and Alekan on the discord show that an average of around 4 HJFs are produced every turn, which makes stacking supercarriers even as the United States immensely difficult and costly. These production rates do not seem to depend on whether one goes to war, how long an aircraft model is in production, or how many air wings need to be filled (which can be into the thousands of planes). Such low production rates mean even a small loss of HJFs can cripple a navy, one which a player may never recover from during a war.
Quite a few other aircraft suffer a similar fate, with LJFs at an average of 5 per month, and jet attacks also at 5 per month. Having mixed carrier wings could alleviate this problem somewhat, but even then it is prohibitively slow to build more than 500-ish carrier planes at a time. I also wonder if this affects the AI.
The production rates of other aircraft are somewhat better, with piston fighters at an average of 11 per month, dive bombers at 10, floatplanes at 9, naval patrol at 11, helicopters at 8, and medium bombers at 9. At least, these aircraft can be made in bulk, but with these production rates it is difficult to say whether they are attritable or not.
For those who like peace, time might not be as big of a concern as money, but slow build times means large costs. To calculate how many resources it takes to get to full carrier strength, Lady Robin had devised a formula assuming a constant rate of production (which may not occur). The approximate cost would be 1/2 * N * (N/r + 1) * c, where N is the number of aircraft, r is the rate of production, and c is the cost of an aircraft. Plugging in a rudimentary N = 400, r = 5, and c = 30, Lady Robin then got a cost of 486000 over 80 months just to equip four supercarriers with HJFs. If we take r = 4 instead, as later testing seemed to indicate, the cost balloons to 606000 over 100. This does not take into account resources for maintenance, which can be as much or even greater.
In short, low production rates result in a navy that is both unable to actually build to even a moderate amount of planes, and construction that is prohibitively costly. In addition, a large quadratic dependence on cost incentivizes smaller carrier wings than normal, thus giving rise to the strategies in christian's post above.
NOTE: These production rates are not including ways planes might disappear, such as getting scrapped due to age. In that case, it may never be possible to get to 4 carrier wings of HJFs.
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Post by avimimus on Apr 2, 2024 2:35:24 GMT -6
What was the actual doctrine in this era? I know the Soviet Union developed guided missiles (but these were dropped from larger land-based aircraft). The Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm was working on guided weapons but switched to toss-bombing nuclear weapons from jet fighters. I gather that the U.S. lacked dedicated anti-ship missiles prior to the harpoon?
I'm just wondering how inaccurate the current depiction is?
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Post by Fredrik W on Apr 2, 2024 9:00:21 GMT -6
This thread is essentially here to document the current issues i and others have observed regarding carriers into the missile age, to go along with my suggestion of increasing carrier strike aircrafts payloads to historical levels as aircraft right now carry what in wartime conditions would be considered rather light loads nws-online.proboards.com/thread/7970/increase-payload-aircraft-diversify-bombersCarriers in RTW-3 face a problem going into the late 60s, notably strikes will suffer increased losses as SAMs continue to progress and become very effective defensive networks, meanwhile carrier attack aircraft do not progress in lethality from 1947 onwards, in fact after 1950 where most nations start to gain countermeasures against missiles, the high accuracy and Hitrates quickly dwindle down to 10-25% after accounting for defensive tools such as chaff, Sams and RMAA (i quess ciws as well but ciws is almost useless) At the same time a squadron of 20 HJF fighters can cost 500 monthly maintenance with night training (which is required for atleast 1 squadron for cap) A dive bomber from 1947 has effectively the same strike power as a heavy jet fighter from 1970 in game. while costing much less, and replacing faster and not needing a jet capable carrier. Yes technically the Jet attack has more lethality due to carrying a HASM instead of MASM, and having the option to do the bomb strategy which offers the highest carrier based lethality in game. But the jet attack suffers heavily in survivability and thus its effectiveness dwindles although being more survivable than the dive bomber, when not taking into account the dive bombers more numerous numbers due to lighter weight per aircraft and cheaper cost. But due to carriers still being lethal tools of the AI, a base amount of HJF nighttime/daytime cap is still needed A quick example of how MASM and HASM are lacking assuming a strike of 40 planes (this is rather big) with HJF, the most survivable option, all aircraft make it past the sams and launch, countermeasures reduce the hitrate to 50% or less (less as time goes on) and the enemies point defence systems shoot down 20-30% (25% for simplicities sake), we are now left with 1/4th of our initial missile salvo, assuming all missiles hit (and dont near miss) they can either split off and hit 10 targets doing light/medium damage to each, or hit 3 targets 3 times, having a good chance of sinking them Said 40 HJFs assuming night capable cost upwards of 1000 A MONTH in maintenance, for those 3 enemy ship kills If said budget was invested into HSSM missile destroyers, you could in effect afford 180 HSSM missiles, across 12 ships (15 per ship) which would be FAR more lethal than those 40 HJFs in the anti surface role. Currently, per testing of multiple members on the discord, the current most efficient strategies for handling of carriers into the 60s and 70s is. 1: CAP carriers, this means cutting carrier forces down to the essentials needed for protecting the fleet with HJF on cap, the saved funds for additional missile destroyers, of which an entire division (6 ships) can be cheaper in maintenance than 20 night capable HJF (for comparison my 6 1949 carriers with 2 squadrons of LJF on them have a maintenance cost of 9 million, assuming these were jet capable the maintenance cost would be twice as high, even higher if night capable which they need to be otherwise you get striked at night) 2: The JA nuke, this essentially just means replacing the far more survivable HJF with JA for strike, and loading them up with bombs, this is due to the fact that the HASM is only marginally better than MASM and will not have that great effect on target as described above. However the use of 4x 3000 SAP bombs on any ship in the 1960s + will sink it the vast majority of the time, and each plane carries a bomb load of that size in addition these bombs have a higher hitrate than MASM and HASM as they do not suffer from countermeasures effectively removing 50% of munitions, on top of having 4 times as many bombs, and each bomb having a bigger effect on target. 3: retaining HJF as almost purely cap, and only using them to strike enemy carriers and hoping for catastrophic fires from singular MASM hits. The conclusion here is that carrier strike aircraft simply do not carry enough munitions to be lethal, when the most effective anti ship option in 1960-70 is taking an A-7E and using 2500-3000 lb dumb bombs against the equivelant of a fleet of long islands supported by hazard perries, something is wrong. The simple way to fix this would be to give JA, either 2 HASM, or 4 MASM as loadout options, while giving HJF ATLEAST 2 MASM Pictures attached to show the viability of such loadouts, additional pictures can be viewed in the suggestion. Medium bombers, courtesy of their low maintenance cost (200 per 20 plane squadron) not only has more range, but also crucially can carry 2 HASMs which will outstrip any missile equipped aircraft (JA with dumb bombs is still the most lethal) in lethality in game currently. Thanks for the feedback! We will consider this for further updates.
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Post by tendravina on Apr 2, 2024 10:22:09 GMT -6
This thread is essentially here to document the current issues i and others have observed regarding carriers into the missile age, to go along with my suggestion of increasing carrier strike aircrafts payloads to historical levels as aircraft right now carry what in wartime conditions would be considered rather light loads nws-online.proboards.com/thread/7970/increase-payload-aircraft-diversify-bombersCarriers in RTW-3 face a problem going into the late 60s, notably strikes will suffer increased losses as SAMs continue to progress and become very effective defensive networks, meanwhile carrier attack aircraft do not progress in lethality from 1947 onwards, in fact after 1950 where most nations start to gain countermeasures against missiles, the high accuracy and Hitrates quickly dwindle down to 10-25% after accounting for defensive tools such as chaff, Sams and RMAA (i quess ciws as well but ciws is almost useless) At the same time a squadron of 20 HJF fighters can cost 500 monthly maintenance with night training (which is required for atleast 1 squadron for cap) A dive bomber from 1947 has effectively the same strike power as a heavy jet fighter from 1970 in game. while costing much less, and replacing faster and not needing a jet capable carrier. Yes technically the Jet attack has more lethality due to carrying a HASM instead of MASM, and having the option to do the bomb strategy which offers the highest carrier based lethality in game. But the jet attack suffers heavily in survivability and thus its effectiveness dwindles although being more survivable than the dive bomber, when not taking into account the dive bombers more numerous numbers due to lighter weight per aircraft and cheaper cost. But due to carriers still being lethal tools of the AI, a base amount of HJF nighttime/daytime cap is still needed A quick example of how MASM and HASM are lacking assuming a strike of 40 planes (this is rather big) with HJF, the most survivable option, all aircraft make it past the sams and launch, countermeasures reduce the hitrate to 50% or less (less as time goes on) and the enemies point defence systems shoot down 20-30% (25% for simplicities sake), we are now left with 1/4th of our initial missile salvo, assuming all missiles hit (and dont near miss) they can either split off and hit 10 targets doing light/medium damage to each, or hit 3 targets 3 times, having a good chance of sinking them Said 40 HJFs assuming night capable cost upwards of 1000 A MONTH in maintenance, for those 3 enemy ship kills If said budget was invested into HSSM missile destroyers, you could in effect afford 180 HSSM missiles, across 12 ships (15 per ship) which would be FAR more lethal than those 40 HJFs in the anti surface role. Currently, per testing of multiple members on the discord, the current most efficient strategies for handling of carriers into the 60s and 70s is. 1: CAP carriers, this means cutting carrier forces down to the essentials needed for protecting the fleet with HJF on cap, the saved funds for additional missile destroyers, of which an entire division (6 ships) can be cheaper in maintenance than 20 night capable HJF (for comparison my 6 1949 carriers with 2 squadrons of LJF on them have a maintenance cost of 9 million, assuming these were jet capable the maintenance cost would be twice as high, even higher if night capable which they need to be otherwise you get striked at night) 2: The JA nuke, this essentially just means replacing the far more survivable HJF with JA for strike, and loading them up with bombs, this is due to the fact that the HASM is only marginally better than MASM and will not have that great effect on target as described above. However the use of 4x 3000 SAP bombs on any ship in the 1960s + will sink it the vast majority of the time, and each plane carries a bomb load of that size in addition these bombs have a higher hitrate than MASM and HASM as they do not suffer from countermeasures effectively removing 50% of munitions, on top of having 4 times as many bombs, and each bomb having a bigger effect on target. 3: retaining HJF as almost purely cap, and only using them to strike enemy carriers and hoping for catastrophic fires from singular MASM hits. The conclusion here is that carrier strike aircraft simply do not carry enough munitions to be lethal, when the most effective anti ship option in 1960-70 is taking an A-7E and using 2500-3000 lb dumb bombs against the equivelant of a fleet of long islands supported by hazard perries, something is wrong. The simple way to fix this would be to give JA, either 2 HASM, or 4 MASM as loadout options, while giving HJF ATLEAST 2 MASM Pictures attached to show the viability of such loadouts, additional pictures can be viewed in the suggestion. Medium bombers, courtesy of their low maintenance cost (200 per 20 plane squadron) not only has more range, but also crucially can carry 2 HASMs which will outstrip any missile equipped aircraft (JA with dumb bombs is still the most lethal) in lethality in game currently. Thanks for the feedback! We will consider this for further updates. Just wondering, are the low production rates intended to be kept or is this overtuned?
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Post by christian on Apr 2, 2024 12:20:18 GMT -6
What was the actual doctrine in this era? I know the Soviet Union developed guided missiles (but these were dropped from larger land-based aircraft). The Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm was working on guided weapons but switched to toss-bombing nuclear weapons from jet fighters. I gather that the U.S. lacked dedicated anti-ship missiles prior to the harpoon? I'm just wondering how inaccurate the current depiction is? The American "anti ship missiles" really came as more of general purpose guided missiles between 1953 and 1977 (with the introduction of the harpoon), except in the era between 1945 and 1953, where the roles were split Between 1945 and 1953 the Americans experimented with several types of both air to ground guided weapons and anti ship weapons, stuff like azon was for the ground based stuff. The ASM-N-2 "Bat" was the anti ship "missile" in reality its a glide bomb, although due to the airframe its glide range is rather great at up to 20 nm for a recorded impact (from launch point) this was a radar guided weapon and had some issues with ground clutter, but was quite successful and was used in combat against the japanese with success, this was the navies "anti ship" weapon in the late 40s early 50s, of course supplemented by torpedoes and dumb bombs from dive bombers, but the ASM-N-2 could be launched from an F-4U, SB-2C TBF avenger, and P2V alongside many other aircraft such as the PB4Y and PV-2, basically anything the navy had that was expected to target ships could probably carry it, it was the navies "flying torpedo" with a 1000 lb bomb as the warhead inside the airframe, with only a combined weight of around 1000 kg (airframe and radar + warhead) the development of the AGM-12 (or as the navy called it the ASM-N-7) started in 1953 (when the ASM-N-2 was retired) and was finished in 1959, producing the bullpup, a cheaper, faster, rocket powered general purpose missile, guided by the pilot using mclos with a 250 lb warhead and a range of only about 10 nm fired from medium altitudes, though mostly limited by the pilots eyesight and weather. This could in some ways be seen as a direct downgrade from the ASM-N-2 and in many ways it was on a weapon to weapon basis, but the bullpup was far cheaper, far more reliable, and was usable against ground and naval targets alike, and did not depend on the bats complicated and expensive, and unreliable radar. At the same time, Surface to air missiles began making an appearance, though early on these weapons had rather short range, the weapon of choice for the soviets in the vast majority of cases was the SA-3, or in soviet service S-125 or as the soviet navy called it simply M-1 with it first being tested in 1962 onboard bravy This system had a maximum range (assuming the target flying directly towards the launching ship) of 15 km, and a maximum altitude of 10 km. At this point the Americans had begun development of their first guided glide bomb, the "walleye" with 1000 lb warhead, and as the first test of the walleye was being carried out the "Bullpup B" began entering service, ostensibly its an enlarged bullpup featuring a 1000 lb warhead. with an enhanced motor and longer maximum range, though the bullpup system was limited by the pilots eyesight's and ability to guide the missile at long range. The walleye entered service in 1966 and provided American pilots a "fire and forget" guided glide bomb with great range of up to 16 nm (assuming clear weather due to seeker limitations) against a non moving target, at the time this weapon, assuming employment in clear skies and from high altitude, could effectively outrange the vast majority of soviet Sam systems. The soviets at this time were working on the M11, with a 55km maximum range, and it was introduced in 1969. American developments continued to be of the short range variety, and primarily multirole focused with little focus on "dedicated" anti ship weapons, the maverick in 72 and the GBU-8 "HOBOS" in 1969. In the meantime the soviets prepared to field the S-300 SAM system on the "Moskva" class cruiser laid down 1976, entered service 82 but at this point the American "harpoon" had been in service for 5 years, the harpoon bringing a lightweight system (lighter than the GBU-8 HOBOS) combined with a small profile that is small wings and small diameter body, highly effective sea skimming anti ship missile system. With how hard sea skimming missiles were to detect and defeat in the early 80s the harpoon became the mainstay of the American fleet, and remains to this day. Actual doctrine would take far longer to go into detail on. American aircraft, courtesy of high carrying capacity and numerous hardpoints often carried anywhere from 3 to 6 of these guided weapons For example the A-4C could carry 3, AGM-12B (the 1000 lb warhead one) The A-7E could carry 6 Walleyes, or 6 AGM-12B The FJ-4 could carry 6 AGM-12 (the 250 lb warhead version) with planes like F-4/A-7/A-6 carrying up to 2 or more GBU-8 "HOBOS" And later planes like A-6 carrying 4 harpoons. The soviets preferred fewer, heavier, faster and longer ranged missiles, and had a much more "stand off" focused doctrine.
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Post by larcrivereagle on Apr 3, 2024 0:09:55 GMT -6
Apparently, if your enemy chooses to fight you hemmed in and surrounded by airbases, concentrates their air defense assets in their battle line and disperses the other half of their carriers, air-based missile strikes become very effective.
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Post by khorne8 on Apr 3, 2024 16:50:02 GMT -6
Currently, per testing of multiple members on the discord, the current most efficient strategies for handling of carriers into the 60s and 70s is. 1: CAP carriers, this means cutting carrier forces down to the essentials needed for protecting the fleet with HJF on cap, the saved funds for additional missile destroyers, of which an entire division (6 ships) can be cheaper in maintenance than 20 night capable HJF (for comparison my 6 1949 carriers with 2 squadrons of LJF on them have a maintenance cost of 9 million, assuming these were jet capable the maintenance cost would be twice as high, even higher if night capable which they need to be otherwise you get striked at night) By "CAP carriers," do you mean: - Standard carrier designs, but loaded entirely or almost entirely with HJF, so that fewer carriers can cover the missile DDs, which are the real ships-of-the-line;
- A different CAP focused hull design?
- Something else I'm not understanding?
And, if these carriers are different to the usual 1950+ supercarriers, would you share a design please?
I will say that this is a really very interesting bit of simulation. Fortunately, a supercarrier strike package vs. a surface action group well protected by SAMs is something that wasn't actually tried in the 1960s. So there's no ultimate authority on how the late game balance between CVs and SSMs should look.
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Post by darththorn on Apr 5, 2024 12:03:25 GMT -6
In short, low production rates result in a navy that is both unable to actually build to even a moderate amount of planes, and construction that is prohibitively costly. In addition, a large quadratic dependence on cost incentivizes smaller carrier wings than normal, thus giving rise to the strategies in christian's post above. NOTE: These production rates are not including ways planes might disappear, such as getting scrapped due to age. In that case, it may never be possible to get to 4 carrier wings of HJFs. I'm not even sure this is an accident. Stacking increased numbers of aircraft on a supercarrier DOES have a multiplying actual cost even though marginal costs per unit go down, as each additional aircraft requires more tonnage, more training, more munitions, more support elements, and many more people per plane to keep them in flying shape.
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Post by tendravina on Apr 5, 2024 16:29:06 GMT -6
In short, low production rates result in a navy that is both unable to actually build to even a moderate amount of planes, and construction that is prohibitively costly. In addition, a large quadratic dependence on cost incentivizes smaller carrier wings than normal, thus giving rise to the strategies in christian's post above. NOTE: These production rates are not including ways planes might disappear, such as getting scrapped due to age. In that case, it may never be possible to get to 4 carrier wings of HJFs. I'm not even sure this is an accident. Stacking increased numbers of aircraft on a supercarrier DOES have a multiplying actual cost even though marginal costs per unit go down, as each additional aircraft requires more tonnage, more training, more munitions, more support elements, and many more people per plane to keep them in flying shape. If what I quoted is correct, with the whole quadratic formula, then marginal costs go up.
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Post by christian on Apr 6, 2024 4:41:54 GMT -6
Currently, per testing of multiple members on the discord, the current most efficient strategies for handling of carriers into the 60s and 70s is. 1: CAP carriers, this means cutting carrier forces down to the essentials needed for protecting the fleet with HJF on cap, the saved funds for additional missile destroyers, of which an entire division (6 ships) can be cheaper in maintenance than 20 night capable HJF (for comparison my 6 1949 carriers with 2 squadrons of LJF on them have a maintenance cost of 9 million, assuming these were jet capable the maintenance cost would be twice as high, even higher if night capable which they need to be otherwise you get striked at night) By "CAP carriers," do you mean: - Standard carrier designs, but loaded entirely or almost entirely with HJF, so that fewer carriers can cover the missile DDs, which are the real ships-of-the-line;
- A different CAP focused hull design?
- Something else I'm not understanding?
And, if these carriers are different to the usual 1950+ supercarriers, would you share a design please?
I will say that this is a really very interesting bit of simulation. Fortunately, a supercarrier strike package vs. a surface action group well protected by SAMs is something that wasn't actually tried in the 1960s. So there's no ultimate authority on how the late game balance between CVs and SSMs should look. Standard carrier design but filled with HJFs with 1-2 squadrons on nighttime training, then setting them to support your major surface fleets, they will essentially provide a CAP "sheet" over your ships you would basically never use them for strike in an attempt to maintain high readyness/numbers and reduce aircrew experience loss and because you cannot replace airframes The guy above posted a picture of a fleet battle, in that battle he lost 11 months worth of jet attack production
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Post by christian on Apr 6, 2024 4:54:42 GMT -6
Apparently, if your enemy chooses to fight you hemmed in and surrounded by airbases, concentrates their air defense assets in their battle line and disperses the other half of their carriers, air-based missile strikes become very effective. View AttachmentView Attachmentwhat year is this ? also note how missile strikes are still effective against carriers, I outline such, as a single missile can put them on catastrophic fire, the issue is that unless you target 1 singular important ship, sinking several "cheap" missile destroyers simply does not outweigh the losses you will suffer to sams from such attacks The issue is you cannot kill armored capital ships with them, which is also shown in your post, you failed to kill both battleships. you also massively outnumber the AI which tends to make it a "slightly" unfair fight And yes planes work, but for the maintenance of 661 planes, of which 79 are HJF (which is 2000 per month maintenance as they will cost 500 per squadron with night training) 270 are JA which depending on year will land you at around 250 a month for 20, so around 3,5-4000 a month the 170 LJFs being significantly cheaper at sub 200 (in my games tends to be about 180 but scales on year) which will set you back 1.500 you are spending about 7500 a month + on just your jets. Now I don't know what your actual maintenance costs for planes are, i have a feeling my math is very wrong and the actual costs are much higher. But i do know that i could afford to maintain ALOT of surface ships for 7500, even if we halve the jet count, (assuming a cap setup where a much smaller carrier count is needed) you would have over 3750 per month that i could dedicate to construction, and maintenance of surface ships. Also in recent testing with MASMs in my 1950s japan game, they are regulairly failing to pen 1" of armor, which would make even CLs highly resistant to these missile attacks. It seems the HE nerf also nerfed missile penetration alongside nerfing viability of 6" and smaller guns in the DP role
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Post by larcrivereagle on Apr 6, 2024 12:39:29 GMT -6
what year is this ? also note how missile strikes are still effective against carriers, I outline such, as a single missile can put them on catastrophic fire, the issue is that unless you target 1 singular important ship, sinking several "cheap" missile destroyers simply does not outweigh the losses you will suffer to sams from such attacks The issue is you cannot kill armored capital ships with them, which is also shown in your post, you failed to kill both battleships. you also massively outnumber the AI which tends to make it a "slightly" unfair fight And yes planes work, but for the maintenance of 661 planes, of which 79 are HJF (which is 2000 per month maintenance as they will cost 500 per squadron with night training) 270 are JA which depending on year will land you at around 250 a month for 20, so around 3,5-4000 a month the 170 LJFs being significantly cheaper at sub 200 (in my games tends to be about 180 but scales on year) which will set you back 1.500 you are spending about 7500 a month + on just your jets. 1967, but with tech slowed down to 80%. MSAMs couldn't target surface ships or intercept missiles at this point, so HSSMs were still king. Amazingly, the Japanese outnumbered me in that carrier battle, I was just able to maintain better local superiority with my strikes (I believe due to better reconnaissance from setting the land bases to target ships). Even after this battle the Japanese still had more CVs in active service than I did. It took another year or so to whittle their number down further. But, as you pointed out, the build rate on these planes is atrocious. By the end of the war I was sortieing with wings at half or third strength, and started throwing in my HJF into the attack role. This ended up being fine, both because it was usually done at the end of a battle to get a final large strike in, and also because I'm fairly sure the Japanese were struggling equally if not more to field JA planes.
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Post by t3rm1dor on Apr 7, 2024 3:52:38 GMT -6
I have long come to the conclusion that HJF are too expensive to worth the cost, and there is no really a need for more than one night trained wing for CAP per carrier, LJF are much cheaper to run CAP and escort at day. Also I'm surprised that the other big elephant in the root wasn't mentioned, that asm share a pool so using JA Hasm deplete the shared ammo for Hjf and Ljf. Also something I reported as a bug a while back - HASM planes per the manual should only be shoot down by Hv sam, yet it seem escorting M sam ships can shoot at JA. Finally I don't think bombs are a much better alternative considering it further increases losses, and that even with a 20% something hit rate for Asm you would be crippling or outrigth destroying most ships (plus that bomba are still hilariously ineffective against armored ships).
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