jma286
Junior Member
Posts: 97
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Post by jma286 on Jul 11, 2019 14:51:28 GMT -6
I had a battle last night as Germany against the British in the North Sea where I didn't make contact with the enemy ships until after my first strike was returning to the CVs. My planes sank two British BBs and damaged another, so my own BBs made quick work of the 3 survivors when they arrived on the scene (including a 67500 ton Yamato redux with 20" guns which had fortunately been slowed by a couple 1,000 lb bombs).
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Post by tordenskjold on Jul 25, 2019 10:04:31 GMT -6
A 1943 convoy battle SE of Cape Hatteras in 1943 between CSA and Germany. With the odds (i.e. numbers) largely against me, the logical choice was to blunt and possibly slow down the enemy force from the air as soon as the first sightings were reported. For a short period, my BC vanguard exchanged a few salvoes with that of the enemy though, but the major combat load was carried by CVs and planes (I managed to use up the torpedo storage of nearly all of them for the first time since those limitations were introduced). Ultimately, my inferior force managed to keep the enemy fleet at sufficient distance to allow most of the cargo ships escape into the night and towards the safety of Wilmington, had it not already turned around due to the damages suffered. Oh, and that engagement also featured some memorial air battles as well, sometimes involving several dozens of planes at the same time and 10+ destroyed or damaged in the same minute. This is what happend whithin three minutes:
And again, half an hour later: On the downside, I had my first CV ever sunk by air attack (CV Manassas took four bomb hits and went down), so despite all engagements mentioned earlier in this thread, this is possibly the closest I got to the point by now. This is also visible in the statistics: While both sides recorded a total of some 70 gun hits each (and of these, around 30 were suffered by one of my CLs which had fallen back after damage to the machinery), the whole battle saw 65 torpedo hits and 66 bomb hits.
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Post by aetreus on Jul 27, 2019 14:56:41 GMT -6
Just has a side note I dont think I have ever had to use light or even medium bomb load outside of my very early dive bombers, battles ranges are so short that I no longer even care about aircraft range. This is a valid point as well. Early on it was discussed how extended air-strike ranges would naturally bring about the end of the age of the surface ship, but as anyone can see that isn't yet a part of the game. Maintaining large battle-lines is a viable strategy currently for as late as one wishes to play.
Once battle selection becomes preferentially a 300 mile+ engagement, likely lasting into 2 days, then players would naturally begin to feel an investment into large battleships as a liability, or at least as an asset which tactics would be hard pressed to properly utilize.
Initial battle selection is a big part of it, but I think that another part would be increasing the reliability of air scouting and the ability of recon to maintain contact with the fleet and their targets. Probably starting around 1935, there should be techs that allow aircraft to much more precisely give the location of their spot(improved radios, direction finding, eventually IFF gear that can give precise distance/bearing). Aircraft should get better at spotting too, either via training and doctrine improvements or via airborne radar technology(air search radar plz?). Having the tools to make scouting a bit easier would help too. I'd like to be able to simply command a sector search manually, rather than having to rely on the morning search to spot targets. Either via the search mission spreading aircraft over an arc, or a button that will force a squadron to issue another search on the defined arc. Lategame should lose the limit on night operations for aircraft. Night carrier ops became possible by the mid 40's, and by 1950 most carriers had night squadrons for both CAP and attack purposes. That would give battleships a very real use-by date, with it being impossible to evade land-based and carrier air simply due to nightfall.
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