|
Post by cv10 on Feb 8, 2017 21:25:14 GMT -6
This mistaken identity can cut both ways, during operation Husky, the Airborne forces had to fly over the invasion fleet to get to their drop zones. At one point, AA gunners on the allied ships confused the planes and gliders for German and Italian planes and opened fire on them. Several hundred allied paratroopers were killed and many more wounded. Also, at Pearl harbor on the Night of December 7th, a group of planes from Enterprise tried to land on Ford Island, a panic arose and AA on shore and ships shot at them. One of the pilots killed was my College's first alumni killed in World War II
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Feb 4, 2017 17:47:34 GMT -6
jwsmith26Quite all right, and I'm glad that my post provoked some discussion! I also noticed that navy and marine LBA units tended to be better coordinated with the fleet. I think that's one of the reasons why the the USN or USMC tended to be the ones controlling much of the LBA that supported the Navy in the Pacific (not to ignore the Army Air Force contribution, which was large). I think the idea was that by removing inter-service rivalry from the equation, it would be more efficient. After all, the examples I keep bringing up (RAF-RN, RM-Italian AF, Japanese IAAF and INAS) are all examples of inter-services squabbles. In contrast, navy-run LBA was much more attuned to the needs of the fleet.
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Feb 4, 2017 0:00:42 GMT -6
I think I cited Force Z as being an example of LBA smashing a poorly defended surface fleet. I think someone else brought up the point that Admiral Phillips failed to request that the RAF support his fleet, and that as a result there was no LBA support. Ironically, Force Z was supposed to include HMS Indomitable, which at the time had a large number of Sea Hurricanes (about the best domestically produced RN carrier fighter at the time) but she ran aground during her working up voyage and was delayed for repair, and the only other carrier HMS Hermes, was far too slow for fleet operations. It would be difficult to say if either of them would have made a difference. After all, I'd give an edge in surface combat to the Japanese and more likely than not, Phillips would have run into a Japanese SAG even if he did hit the transports first.
Perhaps it might be worth modeling a rivalry between the Navy and the Air Force with regards to resources and aircraft priority. After all, the advent of the aircraft carrier did provoke bitter arguments about who should have funding and even who should get control over naval aviation. In the U.S, the navy was able to preserve it's control over naval aviation, but in the UK the RNAS was merged into the RAF, and the Fleet Air Arm did not become a part of the RN until 1937. The result was that the FAA had some fairly odd planes, and lacked a purpose build single-seat monoplane carrier fighter, and good dive bombers. Additionally, inter-service rivalry between the Luftwaffe and the KM helped (but were not entirely responsible for) scupper the Graf Zeppelin project (the Luftwaffe wanted command of the planes and pilots, the KM refused outright, so the Luftwaffe refused to provide any help with procuring carrier-capable aircraft). In terms of gameplay, this could mean loss/gain of prestige and funds, as well as hamper or accelerate aircraft research.
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Feb 3, 2017 19:40:25 GMT -6
@oldpop
I think we understand each other, and that fundamentally, our opinions are not too far from each other. I tend to favor my argument based on the evidence I previously cited. While LBA could support fleets, and did, I just feel that on the whole, carriers were generally better at it. For me, the hit or miss factor I mentioned earlier comes into play. While that PBY squadron you mention did good work, there were also more than a few occasions where LBA failed woefully to support fleets at sea. If my memory serves correct, there was at least one point in the Solomons campaign where LBA spotted a Japanese task force moving "down the slot" and failed to communicate that information to allied fleets (it might have been in the Philippines campaign). Again, the Allies failed to coordinate air cover for their fleets in the DEI while the Japanese enjoyed a good amount of support from carrier based planes. As to the Med. the planes at Malta were more for preventing the Axis from gaining air superiority being mostly fighters, agin if my memory serves. I think it is telling that the RN's Med. fleet rarely (if ever) sortied out without a carrier present. Additionally, the Italians tried to use LBA to support their fleets, but were never very successful with it, and generally it was RN carrier aircraft that turned up in battle, rather than Italian aircraft.
That being said, I think that you have a good amount of evidence to support your opinion, and it is well-worth factoring in, as players who do manage to successfully coordinate LBA with their fleets should be able to hurt the other fellow.
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Feb 3, 2017 18:34:28 GMT -6
oldpop2000 I agree with the point you make, but I'm just not sure if the case you are discussing is pertinent to the point I'm making in what you quote. My point is that Carrier-based planes were better coordinated to supporting fleets at sea than land-based planes. At Guadalcanal, the land-based air force was mostly focused on supporting efforts to prevent Japanese ships from bringing supplies and other troops in. The permanence aspect of LBA is not particularly crucial to my argument, as carriers were imbedded parts of fleets, and generally had more fuel than other ships in the task force (and could even refuel destroyers in a pinch). Additionally, at Guadalcanal, a good deal of Japanese resistance came from planes based at Rabaul, so Guadalcanal was more LBA vs LBA than LBA vs CBA. Now, and again, Carriers would not be ideal for supporting sustained ground operations, however that was not the point I was making. In my opinion, the numerous actions in the Atlantic, Med. and Pacific demonstrate that for supporting surface fleets, LBA is not a good substitute for CBA. So while, if you were trying to block an enemy from landing troops/supplies on an island, LBA would be good, for trying to provide CAP, Scouts, and bomber support to a fleet at sea, carriers are better. When I say surface units, I mean surface task forces: battleships, cruisers, destroyers and the like, not ground combat forces. That might be confusing some people
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Feb 2, 2017 12:57:47 GMT -6
jwsmith26 I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make, I suggest reading the 2nd post I made shortly after the first one. My point is not that Land-based airpower played no meaningful role in the war at sea,although I might have poorly worded my observations that might cause people to think that is what I intend. My point, which is directly stated in my 2nd post, is that when supporting naval operations, land-based airpower was not historically a good substitute for carrier-based airpower. Only a fool would try an argue that land-based airpower played no part in the role at sea. Your discussion of the air attacks on the Malta convoys and the USN operations is the Solomon are both spot on. My point is that trying to use land-based airpower to support surface fleets was not generally a good substitute for carrier based airpower, which I support by citing the attacks on Force Z (btw an excellent example of land-based airpower impacting the war at sea, as Force Z had both the capital ships that the allies had on hand for the Malaya and DEI campaigns) as the failure by the RN and RAF to coordinate led to the loss of the fleet. I also cited the Italian Air Force and the RM not to dispute the German and Italian air attacks on Malta and the Convoys, but to examine the attempts to coordinate land-based air support during naval action. At the battle of Cape Matapan, attacks by British Carrier aircraft hindered the Italian fleet in the daylight engagement, and were responsible for torpedoing the Pola, which went dead in the water and was later sunk in the night along with her sisters Fiume and Zara after they were detached in an attempt to tow her. In contrast, the German and Italian air forces attempted to provide air support to their fleet, but failedto do so adequately, with the only air support being to Ju-88s, one of which was shot down. This is not an isolated event, most of the time the RN sortied in the Med, they brought at least one carrier: Matapan, Calabria, Operation Grog, Cape Spartivento just to name a few. Again, just to recapitulate, my point was not intended to be some form of comment that all land-based air power is useless at sea. I meant in terms of supporting the combat fleets at sea as "its generally trends that carrier based airpower was better coordinated to the needs of surface units and that land-based air was generally a poor substitute"
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Feb 2, 2017 9:56:14 GMT -6
I suppose that the point from the 2nd half of my post is that in my observations, its generally trends that carrier based airpower was better coordinated to the needs of surface units and that land-based air was generally a poor substitute
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Feb 2, 2017 9:38:46 GMT -6
Since the idea of designated ship roles has been brought up again, I would like to ad a big +1 to that idea. Adding designated ship roles would allow for a greater amount of creativity in ship design. All of a sudden, that five inch gun CL armed to the teeth with torpedo tubes can become an excellent Destroyer squadron flagship. Remove the torpedo tubes, and add a lot of 3-in secondaries and such a ship would make a fine CL-AA. A destroyer with a large gun armament can escort the battleships and carriers while the the torpedo heavy destroyers slink into an enemy fleet at night to go for the kill. As for player-created fleets and task forces, I also think this should be added. So far the biggest argument against this is that RTW simulates the role of the uniformed head of the navy, and that squadron organization would not be handled by such a senior figure, but I think that enabling the player to organize their own fleets and squadrons would add a nice extra layer to the game. Right now, we design the ships and then fight them in battle, so I feel that it only makes sense that we be allowed to have some say over how our ships are organized into the fleets that we fight them in.
Also, when discussing the idea of carriers vs land-based airpower (LBA), I think that this fact needs to be brought up: that during WW II, land-based airpower vs fleets was very hit-or-miss, pun sorta intended. On the one hand, Japanese bombers did maul Force Z, sending HMS Repulse (An elderly BC) and HMS Prince of Wales (One of the most modern British BBs) to the bottom. However American LBA at Midway failed to do any damage to the Japanese fleet, albeit with the attack convincing Nagumo to rearm their TBs with bombs to hit Midway again, thus allowing the US Carrier-based aircraft to catch them with a fair amount of fuel and ordinance on their decks. But by the same flip of the coin, the Italian Air Force was never really able to do significant damage to the RN in the med aside from hitting Illustrious if I'm not mistaken, and failed to prevent the RM from being bombed in harbor, and in the Marianas, the Japanese LBA attack on the American fleet was a disastrous failure. Additionally, Force Z was supposed to be protected by the RAF fighters based in Singapore, but which failed to be adequately coordinated.
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Oct 19, 2016 8:12:55 GMT -6
I'll name a ship if there's a name I like or I'll name a ship after a previous ship that did something notable. In a game as GB I had a destroyer, HMS Liffey, that torpedoed two German BBs and a BC in a fleet action. She sank just sort of making port (I was kinda sad that she didn't make it) and I named the next BB I built after her to commemorate the "destroyer that fought like a battleship"
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Sept 27, 2016 20:32:32 GMT -6
I've said this before in a different thread a while a go, but I thin it would be nice to be able to organize our own squadrons, fleets and task forces. If this game is going to go into WW II era, than I think this is critical. Rather than simply designating what function a ship (AF, R, CP) is supposed to have, you could designate what role the squadron would have. For example maybe the 1st Battle Squadron ( 4BB of same or similar class) are part of the battle fleet and 42nd Destroyer Squadron (5 destroyers) + Cruiser Division 9 (4 CLs) are assigned as screen. Or, one could form a task force made of a mixture of ships and different ship types so TF 16 might include ( 1 CV 2 CA 2 CL 6DD). Naturally there would need to be a retention of the ability to micromanage individual ships so that they could be upgraded, put in reserve, mothballed, or scrapped.
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Jul 20, 2016 10:00:09 GMT -6
Even if we can't fully organize ships into squadrons, I'd like the ability to set aside ships into functions - designate cruisers or destroyers for screens, scouting forces, torpedo attacks, etc. At present we can't emulate the common practice of using light cruisers as destroyer flotilla leaders. I'd also like to be able to designate my flagship, or automatically have it be the biggest, newest-built ship. I agree with you on the idea of setting aside ships for specific functions. Late-game I usually have multiple destroyers designs in use that either focus on guns or torpedos. It would be very nice if I could have the gun heavy destroyers be designated as screens, because they're great for clobbering other destroyers while the torpedo heavy destroyers are able to act independently.
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Jul 19, 2016 18:39:50 GMT -6
I have two suggestions, the first of which was inspired by a look at SAI:
1) The ability to organize our own ship squadrons (being able to determine which ship go where). I think that's something that can be done in SAI, and I think it would be cool to be able to do ourselves if we want.
2)The ability to filter our fleet so we can see only the ships in a certain region. While the short by location option does this, I think it would be nice to be able to block out the ships that are not in a particular region.
If these have been stated previously and it was explained why they could not be done, I am sorry.
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Jun 9, 2016 11:42:17 GMT -6
Additionally, you did not link any contemporary designs, you posted antiquated ones, by the time Alaska was in play. The Alaska class was designed in 1939, the final plan authorized in 1940, and the ships laid down in 1941. Comparisons to the Scharnhorst and Dunkerque class are more than fair. It took until 1944-1945 for them to be commissioned because priority was given to aircraft carriers due to a steel shortage, which greatly delayed their construction (USS Intrepid was laid down at about the same time as Alaska was but was commissioned and sent to the pacific just under a year ahead of the Alaska). So while the Alaska is a late war ship, it was built to a early-war design
|
|
|
Post by cv10 on Apr 25, 2016 13:20:38 GMT -6
I was fighting a war with Japan as the United States in an "overtime" war in the 1928. Our fleets were relatively evenly matched with me having 10 BBs and the Japanese having 7 BBs and 3 BCs and the battle started towards the end of the day. The start of the battle went poorly for me: one of my BBs got pounded into a burning hulk and another suffered over 4 torpedo hits and ended up sinking while trying to run for a base I had on the Kamchatka Peninsula (a spoil of war from my victory over the Russians in a previous war). But when night fell, the Japanese closed in with the rest of my battle line and screening vessels. I had developed double turrets for destroyers and cruisers well ahead of all the other countries so my destroyers and cruisers had pretty large gun armaments, and most of my warships had either twin or quad torpedo mounts, so my screening vessels trashed the Japanese screen scattered the Japanese fleet. While my BBs hammered away at his, some independent destroyer and cruiser squadrons took it upon themselves to get in close and hammer his BBs with torpedo hits. In the end, I lost the two BBs sunk at the start of battle and two more heavily damaged in the night action in exchange for sinking all of his BBs and BCs. It was indeed a battle worthy of commemoration.
|
|