Grand Fleet formation control

[tc271]

Am I missing a way to manually switch the GF between columns and line of battle?

Currently the default behavior seems to involve the GF forming columns until an enemy ship is detected and then automatically forming a line of battle.

To be taking this decision out of the players hands is unrealistic and needlessly hard on the RN player. 


Let me illustrate with two examples that happened to me during my current campaign:

1. I manage to lure the HSF into a battle with the GF in a perfect position to cross Scheers T - however its impossible for me to shake out the GF into a line of battle ready to encounter Scheer so I have to wait until he's being sighted and then lose precious daylight as each squadron turns into the line of battle.


2. Later on in the same engagement as night falls I loose visual contact with the HSF and my squadron then try and return to column formation despite me explicitly not wanting this - this leads to my dreadnoughts blundering back into the German line of battle piecemeal and being shot to pieces with me helpless to intervene.

Situation 2 in particular is a bit of a game breaker for the RN.

Please can we have this addressed I love the game otherwise.

[randomizer]

Play at Captain's difficulty level and take manual control of your divisions.

Admiral's difficulty is intended to impose the existing manoeuvre doctrine of the Grand Fleet Battle Orders onto the Player's computer-controlled forces and is a design feature not a bug. Although not perfect, what you're seeing reflect the actions of subordinate commanders to a significant degree in the only real example that we have, the Battle of Jutland. No programmed AI can ever meet all possible eventualities introduced by the Players. In conditions of excellent visibility with plenty of daylight and lots of sea room, the AI on Admiral's difficulty performs quite well and according to design and the GFBO's. Throw in darkness and or poor visibility and a high-speed pursuit and things start to unravel in a hurry, rather like the reality.

In Rear Admiral's difficulty your subordinate command input is limited by current visibility but it is my preferred difficulty level.

If you want more control you need to adjust your difficulty level in the game accordingly.

Thanks.

[julianbarker]

If you have scouting forces deployed appropriately situation 1 should not happen, at least it has never happened to me. At worst, as at Jutland, engagement with the German battleline has occurred as deployment is being completed as long as you deploy to one wing or the other once your scouting forces are in contact.

As for 2) night engagements are a crap shoot and should be avoided, even if it means the enemy escapes. Only try it to finish off some stragglers etc, and even then expect to lose a few major ships to torpedoes etc. SAI does not break the game for the RN, it demonstrates why the RN had the doctrine it did. A single long line at night would be impossible to protect from destroyer attack as the Germans proved the night after Jutland when they adopted that formation.

[tc271]

Aug 21, 2014 10:53:18 GMT -6 randomizer said:

Play at Captain's difficulty level and take manual control of your divisions.

Admiral's difficulty is intended to impose the existing manoeuvre doctrine of the Grand Fleet Battle Orders onto the Player's computer-controlled forces and is a design feature not a bug. Although not perfect, what you're seeing reflect the actions of subordinate commanders to a significant degree in the only real example that we have, the Battle of Jutland. No programmed AI can ever meet all possible eventualities introduced by the Players. In conditions of excellent visibility with plenty of daylight and lots of sea room, the AI on Admiral's difficulty performs quite well and according to design and the GFBO's. Throw in darkness and or poor visibility and a high-speed pursuit and things start to unravel in a hurry, rather like the reality.

In Rear Admiral's difficulty your subordinate command input is limited by current visibility but it is my preferred difficulty level.

If you want more control you need to adjust your difficulty level in the game accordingly.

Thanks.

Hi thanks for the reply.

I totally understand what your saying and I buy into the philosophy of the game and the 'friction' of command that was such a big factor in this conflict.

However to my mind deploying from a cruising formation into a battle one is exactly the kind of command that should be controlled by the player (and its something Jellicoe explicitly ordered using signal flags rather than something left to squadron commanders whim as it happens in the game currently). Also if you are willing to include the 'Scheer turn' button then including one for the deploying the GF into battle formation isn't a big concession to player control even in harder difficulty commands.

If you have scouting forces deployed appropriately situation 1 should not happen, at least it has never happened to me. At worst, as at Jutland, engagement with the German battleline has occurred as deployment is being completed as long as you deploy to one wing or the other once your scouting forces are in contact.







As for 2) night engagements are a crap shoot and should be avoided, even if it means the enemy escapes. Only try it to finish off some stragglers etc, and even then expect to lose a few major ships to torpedoes etc. SAI does not break the game for the RN, it demonstrates why the RN had the doctrine it did. A single long line at night would be impossible to protect from destroyer attack as the Germans proved the night after Jutland when they adopted that formation.

insert quote here

I did have scot CLs deployed for the GF and indeed had the Battle Cruiser fleet acting as the strategic scout force.

I do avoid night fights with the Grand Fleet - however the reason to avoid night fights should be the real threat of torpedo attacks not the fact that your squadron commanders will automatically deploy into a formation that screws you up.

[fredsanford]

+1 on a "form battle line" button analogous to "flotilla attack" in that your force has to be in proximity to the enemy to issue the command.

[julianbarker]

I am open to persuasion on this.

[tc27]

To me its a 'no brainer'.

If flotilla attack and 'scheer turn' are with the players remit then there is no reason changing the GF into/out of battle formation should not be.


Hope the developers consider it.

[Fredrik W]

I will consider it. However, you should bear in mind that even with the FOW in the game, the player of SAI knows far more of where both friendly and enemy forces are than the admiral in his flagship in 1916. At Jutland Jellicoe knew several hours before that the German HSF was coming straight at him, yet he had to wait before deploying. Not because he didn't know that the Germans were near, but because due to the limitations of command and control and imperfect situational awareness he was not aware of exactly where the German van would turn up, even though his scouting forces had been in combat with the Germans for several hours.

It is easy for us to forget in our age of GPS and radio navigation, but ships at sea hundred years ago didn't know their own location at a better precision than several nautical miles. Add to that the difficulty of estimating the enemy's location, course and speed, limited visibility etc. It would be rather hard to simulate all of this in SAI, so limited situational awareness and command and control has to be accounted for in other ways, for example in the limitations on when a fleet in cruising formation can deploy. As mentioned above, if you want more relaxed rules on this, there are several different levels of realism to chose from.

BTW this is by no means limited to the British. From 1917 the Germans will also adopt a compact cruising formation, as they did historically (having learnt the hard way that a long line is more vulnerable to torpedo attacks, from above and below the surface). When they do, the Germans will use exactly the same logic as the British.

[fredsanford]

Aug 23, 2014 0:04:25 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

I will consider it. However, you should bear in mind that even with the FOW in the game, the player of SAI knows far more of where both friendly and enemy forces are than the admiral in his flagship in 1916. At Jutland Jellicoe knew several hours before that the German HSF was coming straight at him, yet he had to wait before deploying. Not because he didn't know that the Germans were near, but because due to the limitations of command and control and imperfect situational awareness he was not aware of exactly where the German van would turn up, even though his scouting forces had been in combat with the Germans for several hours.

It is easy for us to forget in our age of GPS and radio navigation, but ships at sea hundred years ago didn't know their own location at a better precision than several nautical miles. Add to that the difficulty of estimating the enemy's location, course and speed, limited visibility etc. It would be rather hard to simulate all of this in SAI, so limited situational awareness and command and control has to be accounted for in other ways, for example in the limitations on when a fleet in cruising formation can deploy. As mentioned above, if you want more relaxed rules on this, there are several different levels of realism to chose from.

BTW this is by no means limited to the British. From 1917 the Germans will also adopt a compact cruising formation, as they did historically (having learnt the hard way that a long line is more vulnerable to torpedo attacks, from above and below the surface). When they do, the Germans will use exactly the same logic as the British.

But if this player control were constrained in a manner similar to 'flotilla attack'- i.e. you can't order it until THAT* particular force is in contact, but allow it to 'hold' for say 30 minutes past loss of contact, or until toggled off.  I can see the abuse potential for allowing it to be called for in advance of contact.  Personally as a player, my main interest in this control is to keep the line in place once contact is made.  There's a tendency for nuisance-levels of attempts to return to cruising formation, especially when contact is intermittent due to range or visibility.

*I emphasized 'that' particular force since in game terms, Jellicoe wasn't yet in contact when he ordered his line.  Beatty may have been, but once again, in game terms the GF wouldn't be able to order the proposed line command any more than it could be ordered to flotilla attack at that time. So really, I don't think a line command under those constraints is much of a stretch at all.

[fredsanford]

Another thought/suggestion: Does the submarine attack logic take the target formation into account? If the actual operational penalty were greater likelihood of successful sub attack, that may persuade players not to abuse a line command button even if it could be used any time. Maybe allow forces in divisional columns to zigzag?

C'mon, you know that sooner or later, you're going to want 'real' sub units in the game anyway...

[jdkbph]

I think you're on the right track with this request. There's a fine line between limiting actions to just those available to or taken by our historical counterparts, and reading a book. What we're doing here (or at least what I'm doing...) is employing alternate strategies and tactics, trying to make better decisions, and looking for better than historical results... not just recreating history (valuable though that is).

What I would propose is a button as the OP requested that would be activated whenever any attached naval unit in direct (visual) contact with the flag sights an enemy formation. You might further modify that such that subsequent use of that button (eg, revert to cruising formation) would have a greater tendency to disorganize your formations, taking much more time to re-organize, and leaving them vulnerable and ineffective until they do.

JD