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Post by seawolf on May 11, 2020 16:44:18 GMT -6
In a similar thread to suggestions of increasing DD displacement, and the existing changes to CLs, I think it would be useful for CVL parameters to change after 1940
Instead of the initial 16,000 ton 34 Aircraft CVL limit, I think it should increase in 1940 or 1945 to 18,000 tons and 48 aircraft to match the Saipan class CVL
Alternative limits would be the 20,000 ton, 42 aircraft Centaur Class; or the 18,000 ton, 37 aircraft Colossus class
If we're taking into account Cold War carriers, the Clemenceau and Project 85 class CVLs were in the mid 20,000s with around 40 jet aircraft, but I think these are out of the scope of the game as they were(or would have been) laid down in 1955.
I think increasing CVL parameters would make them much more useful in the late game, where they might do better against airbases and full size carriers.
What do you guys think?
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Post by seawolf on May 11, 2020 17:40:07 GMT -6
Additionally, there are two more things CVLs were used for that aren't seen in game. 1st, light carriers were often used for ASW specific missions. While CVs currently have 1/5 the ASW capability of a destroyer(2 vs 10), it would be cool to give a CVLs an ASW capability relative, maybe 1/2 or equal to, their aircraft number. 2nd, light carriers were used for amphibious operations. It would be cool if having CVLs in a region helped launch and support invasions. The Japanese even had amphibious assault ships in WW2 like these, which carrier both landing craft and aircraft. Maybe amphibious support could be an option like colonial service for AVs and CVLs?   |
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Post by aeson on May 11, 2020 17:57:39 GMT -6
I think that at present the bigger issue for CVL utility is that it feels a lot like engagements have a limited number of "carrier slots," which can be filled with either CVs or CVLs, rather than a mix of "light carrier slots" that only take CVLs and "fleet carrier slots" that only take CVs or can take either CVs or CVLs, and if you have enough CVs to fill your "carrier slots" in most engagements then your CVLs don't turn up that often.
Having said that, while I would not mind having the ability to put a larger air group onto a CVL, I don't think that either an increase in permissible displacement to ~20,000 tons or an increase in permissible air complement to 37-48 aircraft would be of significant benefit; you're increasing the cost of the carrier and its air group, but the current 34-plane limit is already adequate for covering CAP and reconnaissance while even increasing the air group to 48 planes probably won't significantly improve the carrier's strike capability since you're still only putting at most 26-28 planes into a single strike - a bit better than the 19-21 of a current 34-plane CVL, certainly, but still nowhere near a 100-plane CV's strike limit of 52-54 planes - and 48 planes still isn't enough planes to have both good CAP and good strike capability unless a lot of the fighters pull double duty. Moreover, being able to put twice as many aircraft into a single strike is much more than twice as good, because bigger air strikes require relatively fewer escorts to deal with CAP over the target and are much more likely to saturate/overwhelm the target's air defenses, thus probably minimizing losses and maximizing hits scored.
CVs and CVLs can have an ASW rating of up to 12. If you want to use a carrier for ASW, there is nothing stopping you from doing so.
Also, ASW is perhaps the one mission where a full-size CV's larger air group isn't really much better than the smaller air group of a light fleet or escort carrier - you don't really need a particularly large air group to cover solo or two-plane anti-submarine patrols, you probably don't need to send a big air strike against a submarine caught on the surface, and even if you did need a big air strike for it you won't have much time to put one together unless the patrol aircraft that found the submarine damages it enough to keep it from disappearing - so I don't know that a significantly-lower ASW score would really be justified for a CVL unless you're doing something exploitive, like the 5-knot 5-plane 1100t CVL with one catapult which is technically a legal CVL within the game.
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Post by seawolf on May 11, 2020 18:24:54 GMT -6
I think that at present the bigger issue for CVL utility is that it feels a lot like engagements have a limited number of "carrier slots," which can be filled with either CVs or CVLs, rather than a mix of "light carrier slots" that only take CVLs and "fleet carrier slots" that only take CVs or can take either CVs or CVLs, and if you have enough CVs to fill your "carrier slots" in most engagements then your CVLs don't turn up that often.
Having said that, while I would not mind having the ability to put a larger air group onto a CVL, I don't think that either an increase in permissible displacement to ~20,000 tons or an increase in permissible air complement to 37-48 aircraft would be of significant benefit; you're increasing the cost of the carrier and its air group, but the current 34-plane limit is already adequate for covering CAP and reconnaissance while even increasing the air group to 48 planes probably won't significantly improve the carrier's strike capability since you're still only putting at most 26-28 planes into a single strike - a bit better than the 19-21 of a current 34-plane CVL, certainly, but still nowhere near a 100-plane CV's strike limit of 52-54 planes - and 48 planes still isn't enough planes to have both good CAP and good strike capability unless a lot of the fighters pull double duty. Moreover, being able to put twice as many aircraft into a single strike is much more than twice as good, because bigger air strikes require relatively fewer escorts to deal with CAP over the target and are much more likely to saturate/overwhelm the target's air defenses, thus probably minimizing losses and maximizing hits scored.
CVs and CVLs can have an ASW rating of up to 12. If you want to use a carrier for ASW, there is nothing stopping you from doing so.
Also, ASW is perhaps the one mission where a full-size CV's larger air group isn't really much better than the smaller air group of a light fleet or escort carrier - you don't really need a particularly large air group to cover solo or two-plane anti-submarine patrols, you probably don't need to send a big air strike against a submarine caught on the surface, and even if you did need a big air strike for it you won't have much time to put one together unless the patrol aircraft that found the submarine damages it enough to keep it from disappearing - so I don't know that a significantly-lower ASW score would really be justified for a CVL unless you're doing something exploitive, like the 5-knot 5-plane 1100t CVL with one catapult which is technically a legal CVL within the game.
Totally agree on the first point. It seems that carrier forces are limited to 6 flattops and main forces usually have about 4. That doesn't really make sense when both sides have 12+ fleet carriers plus light carriers. As to the second point, I think the game-play viability of having CVLs is why navies consistently used, and continue to use them, in real life. CVLs are cheaper, build quicker, and are more expendable than traditional carriers. A current CVL in game costs about 1/4 of a fleet carrier, and carriers 1/3 of the aircraft. Not to mention if you lose one its much less damage than losing a CV. I think more generally, classifying a CVL like the Centaur or Saipan as a fleet CV gives me the same feeling as classifying a Baltimore as a BC would, so I would prefer if they were classified as CVLs. I wasn't actually aware of the last point. That's really cool that technology pushes the ASW level up. That being said, I think an ASW rating of 1/2 or equal to the air complement (for CVLs, CVs can keep 12) would make sense given that they were often equipped specifically as hunter killers |
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Post by aeson on May 11, 2020 19:16:56 GMT -6
That being said, I think an ASW rating of 1/2 or equal to the air complement (for CVLs, CVs can keep 12) would make sense given that they were often equipped specifically as hunter killers My apologies; I thought you had meant an ASW rating of 1/2 (of a CV's ASW rating), not an ASW rating of 1/2 (of the air group size). I think an ASW value equal to half the size of the air group might be a bit much, at least at the top end of the proposed range - especially if the air group of a carrier on trade protection contributes to the Air ASW score, though I don't know if it does since there's an ASW score attached to the ship itself.
The problem with building a bigger CVL with a larger air group is that that starts to detract from the CVL's cost advantage over a CV - especially once you start looking at operating costs, because the cost of operating 100 planes is the same whether they're all on one big carrier or split between two or three smaller ones.
Also, regarding your cost comparison, I feel like you're making certain assumptions about the CV and the CVL that are not necessarily true. For example: The CV costs only 3.3 times as much as the CVL despite being 44,500 tons instead of 12,700 tons, having TP4 instead of TP1, being armed with 8x2x4"+8x2x3" instead of 4x2x4", having 4"/4"/0"/3" B/D/HS/FD instead of 1"/1"/0"/0", having ~half again as many MAA and LAA guns, and carrying ~3 times as many aircraft. Saratoga, by the way, is a fairly large and expensive carrier by my standards; I usually don't bother with flight deck armor or more than 3" of belt and deck armor on CVs.
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Post by seawolf on May 11, 2020 19:36:41 GMT -6
The problem with building a bigger CVL with a larger air group is that that starts to detract from the CVL's cost advantage over a CV - especially once you start looking at operating costs, because the cost of operating 100 planes is the same whether they're all on one big carrier or split between two or three smaller ones.
Also, regarding your cost comparison, I feel like you're making certain assumptions about the CV and the CVL that are not necessarily true. For example:
The CV costs only 3.3 times as much as the CVL despite being 44,500 tons instead of 12,700 tons, having TP4 instead of TP1, being armed with 8x2x4"+8x2x3" instead of 4x2x4", having 4"/4"/0"/3" B/D/HS/FD instead of 1"/1"/0"/0", having ~half again as many MAA and LAA guns, and carrying ~3 times as many aircraft. Saratoga, by the way, is a fairly large and expensive carrier by my standards; I usually don't bother with flight deck armor or more than 3" of belt and deck armor on CVs.
I guess that's pretty fair. I do feel that CVLs give more flexibility though relative to budget. If you're Great Britain and want to station carriers in your colonies it would be cheaper to use CVLs, and I'm guessing that's part of why they did it historically |
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Post by aeson on May 11, 2020 21:56:45 GMT -6
I do feel that CVLs give more flexibility though relative to budget. If you're Great Britain and want to station carriers in your colonies it would be cheaper to use CVLs Perhaps. On the other hand, the CV scale goes down to 14,100 tons within the game, you can get an ~80-plane CV down to 20,000 tons or so if you're willing to cut enough corners, and you don't have to keep full air groups on your carriers in peacetime if you're willing to accept the loss of experience, the reduced fleet readiness, and the micromanagement overhead entailed by that. A ~20,000t ~80-plane CV probably isn't going to cost that much more to build than a normal-ish CVL and if you cut the air group down to CVL-ish levels in peacetime it also won't cost that much more to operate when you don't need it, but it's still potentially much more powerful and probably not much more fragile than a CVL in wartime despite probably being a decidedly second-rate carrier compared to whatever your 'normal' carriers look like. |
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Post by seawolf on May 11, 2020 22:18:23 GMT -6
I do feel that CVLs give more flexibility though relative to budget. If you're Great Britain and want to station carriers in your colonies it would be cheaper to use CVLs Perhaps. On the other hand, the CV scale goes down to 14,100 tons within the game, you can get an ~80-plane CV down to 20,000 tons or so if you're willing to cut enough corners, and you don't have to keep full air groups on your carriers in peacetime if you're willing to accept the loss of experience, the reduced fleet readiness, and the micromanagement overhead entailed by that. A ~20,000t ~80-plane CV probably isn't going to cost that much more to build than a normal-ish CVL and if you cut the air group down to CVL-ish levels in peacetime it also won't cost that much more to operate when you don't need it, but it's still potentially much more powerful and probably not much more fragile than a CVL in wartime despite probably being a decidedly second-rate carrier compared to whatever your 'normal' carriers look like. Ya, and I mean historically Hiryu didn’t weigh much more than Saipan. But I feel around 40 and 50 aircraft you hit a point, historically, where carriers were used differently. Especially if the matchmaker treats CVs and CVls differently, it would be useful to have them at their historical limits, rather than arbitrarily limiting CVLs to 16,000 tons and 34 aircraft. I guess my question is, if you’re going to have a distinction between CVs and CVLs at all, why not put it at the historical limit? |
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Post by aeson on May 12, 2020 10:26:29 GMT -6
I guess my question is, if you’re going to have a distinction between CVs and CVLs at all, why not put it at the historical limit? Probably because the 'historical limit' is not perhaps as clear-cut as you make it out to be due to the existence of ships like Courageous, Illustrious, Hiyo, and Unryu. The line got drawn at a level that would allow for approximation of an Independence or a Commencement Bay rather than at a level which would accommodate a Saipan or a Majestic; it might not be ideal, but it works and the larger historical CVLs can be approximated well enough as CVs, especially since there doesn't seem to be much differentiation in the usage of CVs and CVLs within the game anyways.
Also, if you want to push for historicity, what even is a 'light fleet carrier' before the Second World War or maybe the mid- to late-'30s? Ryujo's relatively tiny, but its air group is at least nominally much larger than that of Eagle or Furious, about the same size as that of Courageous or Glorious, and not that much smaller than that of Akagi or Kaga; similarly, Ranger, while not as small as Ryujo, is very much at the lower end of the interbellum carrier scale - only about as big as some of the Second World War light carriers by displacement - and yet manages to fit an air group about as big as that on any non-American aircraft carrier until Implacable. Go back a little further and Hermes and Hosho are about as good as any other carrier in service. Illustrious, meanwhile, is about as large as a Treaty-compliant carrier could be by displacement and yet has a relatively tiny air group - just 36 aircraft until the adoption of a deck park increased that to ~60.
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Post by director on May 12, 2020 11:33:17 GMT -6
If it were up to me (which it isn't LOL) I'd draw the distinction between a CV and a CVL by displacement at 10 or 12k tons, with a mid-1940s upward bump of 5k tons.
Escort carriers should be limited by size and speed - and permitted no armor - if we were to add them to the mix.
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Post by seawolf on May 12, 2020 12:07:05 GMT -6
I guess my question is, if you’re going to have a distinction between CVs and CVLs at all, why not put it at the historical limit? Probably because the 'historical limit' is not perhaps as clear-cut as you make it out to be due to the existence of ships like Courageous, Illustrious, Hiyo, and Unryu. The line got drawn at a level that would allow for approximation of an Independence or a Commencement Bay rather than at a level which would accommodate a Saipan or a Majestic; it might not be ideal, but it works and the larger historical CVLs can be approximated well enough as CVs, especially since there doesn't seem to be much differentiation in the usage of CVs and CVLs within the game anyways.
Also, if you want to push for historicity, what even is a 'light fleet carrier' before the Second World War or maybe the mid- to late-'30s? Ryujo's relatively tiny, but its air group is at least nominally much larger than that of Eagle or Furious, about the same size as that of Courageous or Glorious, and not that much smaller than that of Akagi or Kaga; similarly, Ranger, while not as small as Ryujo, is very much at the lower end of the interbellum carrier scale - only about as big as some of the Second World War light carriers by displacement - and yet manages to fit an air group about as big as that on any non-American aircraft carrier until Implacable. Go back a little further and Hermes and Hosho are about as good as any other carrier in service. Illustrious, meanwhile, is about as large as a Treaty-compliant carrier could be by displacement and yet has a relatively tiny air group - just 36 aircraft until the adoption of a deck park increased that to ~60.
Generally I agree with everything you said here, the line wasn't often clear cut. But I think I can make a point why it would work in game Courageous, Illustrious, Eagle, Hiyo, and Furious are well above 20,00 tons, so they would still be classified as a CV. Unryu, Soryu, Hiryu, and Ranger are less than 18,000 tons but carry more than 48 aircraft, so after 1940 they would still be classified as CVs Ryujo would be intially classified as a CV, but in 1940 would become a CVL, which makes sense historically as more capable carriers replaced it The only ships that actually make a weird cut would be the Joffre class, but they would likely have been closer to 19,000 tons and carried more aircraft than their original design So, if the limit were set at 1940 to 18,000 tons and 48 aircraft, all historical carriers should fit their designations, including late war CVLs |
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Post by seawolf on May 12, 2020 12:12:07 GMT -6
If it were up to me (which it isn't LOL) I'd draw the distinction between a CV and a CVL by displacement at 10 or 12k tons, with a mid-1940s upward bump of 5k tons. Escort carriers should be limited by size and speed - and permitted no armor - if we were to add them to the mix. Escort carriers would be cool to see as a distinct class! Escort Carriers were actually sometimes larger than CVLs, going up to 20,000 tons although the fastest ones were ~23 knots Historically, some of them actually had magazine armor protection and TPS |
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Post by dia on May 12, 2020 16:23:36 GMT -6
If it were up to me (which it isn't LOL) I'd draw the distinction between a CV and a CVL by displacement at 10 or 12k tons, with a mid-1940s upward bump of 5k tons. Escort carriers should be limited by size and speed - and permitted no armor - if we were to add them to the mix. Escort carriers would be cool to see as a distinct class! Escort Carriers were actually sometimes larger than CVLs, going up to 20,000 tons although the fastest ones were ~23 knots Historically, some of them actually had magazine armor protection and TPS I made some suggestions about escort carriers about Conversion of AMC's to Carriers regarding making the escort carrier a thing within the CVL class. |
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Post by director on May 13, 2020 0:31:06 GMT -6
Yes, given their key role in suppressing U-boats in the Atlantic (and their role in transporting aircraft overseas, which the game doesn't model) - and given the terrible record regular CVs had in the same work - I support making CVEs a separate class.
My own personal rule-of-thumb is, if it was converted from a merchant ship and has a speed of less than 20 knots, it's an escort. If it was purpose-built and has a speed of less than 20 knots, it's an escort. Anything faster is a CVL or CV... I'm sure there are lots of exceptions to this, as just about every ship can be 'reclassified' if you squint hard enough. ("It's a dessert topping - that's also a floor wax!")
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Post by noshurviverse on May 13, 2020 1:55:17 GMT -6
One thing I would throw out there is that, by my understanding, ASW carriers worked best when they could coordinate with traditional ASW ships, such as DDs and KEs. Perhaps this could be represented by having CV/CVLs provide a bonus to all ships ASW score in the area they are operating in, provided they are in the appropriate stance.
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