Invasion-resistant shore batteries

[kotori87]

Ahoy folks! I'm currently fighting a war UK vs USA in 1925, and have invaded Guantanamo Bay. During the initial landings, my capital ships tracked down and destroyed every single shore battery on Cuba, and almost destroyed the air station. Over the next few turns, I fought a number of battles in support of land combat, in which the USN was absolutely devastated. Furthermore, those same shore batteries were attacked and destroyed several more times. Despite now having a vast material superiority in the region and having blasted both shore batteries to smithereens three times, I am still getting messages about enemy coastal fortifications slowing down the invasion. How many more times must I bombard those guns to make them stay down?

[noshurviverse]

I have extremely vague memories of it being mentioned somewhere that a shore battery is assumed to not only represent the gun battery itself, but also inland fortifications. It would also make sense seeing as how it's unlikely your forces would be held up on the beach for months. With that being said, it also doesn't make much sense that the gun batteries could be put back into action if your forces had moved inland, so I suspect an oversight in design or coding.

[alant]

Shore batteries are resilient in real life. Until they are seized by ground forces they can be (relatively easily) put back into action. I don't know how land combat works in RtW/RtW2, but it appears the number (and size?) of shore batteries makes a difference. The size of the island or base or area being invaded doesn't seem to matter. Anyway, it's really a black box I'd like to know more about.

[wlbjork]

I'm not sure that a shore battery can be "destroyed" per say, only disabled/crippled for that turn. Also, note that shore batteries are not fixed in place, but move around between turns - more like a battery of railway guns.

Plus, as stated, each shore battery adds garrison troops and inland fortifications to a zone to delay invasion attempts. I think that this is a good design approach, as otherwise defences are simply too hit and miss.

[nimrod]

OP post was back in August, so seems a little weird that more comments are coming now than with the initial post...

I can understand the points on general fortifications and the smaller caliber guns being replenished from what I'll call Army stocks. But when you have 12"+ guns in turrets, I really think those need to be in a set location and able to be destroyed / disabled for more than just a turn. Likewise airbase destruction / disabling could use some work, it seems to be very tough to shut down operations in a battle. Historically while they were resilient, especially those with grass runways, some damage would slow down their response / repair / re-arming time. This could be due to tending to casualties, avgas leakage, damaged communications or damaged areas or AC requiring crews to take the long way around.

In short, I don't see how attacking land targets is in my interest - seems like too much effort for too little reward.

[alant]

If you destroy the airbase you will kill (permanently) any air units stationed at it. This happened to me at Pearl harbor when the Japanese took out every CD battery and the airbase.

[nimrod]

Thanks for the info alant - that is interesting. I'll have to run some tests / numbers and figure out how much investment the destruction of enemy squadrons warrant. I've never had an airbase of mine destroyed, and the airbases I've destroyed always seemed stocked during the next months battle.

[alant]

The airbase fully recovers between turns, just like shore batteries, but the squadrons have to be rebuilt or moved from another base.

[seawolf]

Jan 22, 2021 21:00:17 GMT -6 alant said:

The airbase fully recovers between turns, just like shore batteries, but the squadrons have to be rebuilt or moved from another base.

Squadrons recover airframes really quickly though

[alant]

Jan 23, 2021 17:12:18 GMT -6 seawolf said:

Jan 22, 2021 21:00:17 GMT -6 alant said:

The airbase fully recovers between turns, just like shore batteries, but the squadrons have to be rebuilt or moved from another base.

Squadrons recover airframes really quickly though

Not when they are erased from the game like mine were, and that isn't a complaint, 14" shells pounding the airbase into the ground like a tent peg will do that to you.