Turning into line advice

[phoenix]

What's the best way to turn BBs from a cruising formation into line - a long battle line, I mean? As in, say, the 4 or 5 parallel cruising lines of the GF squadrons at 3pm on 31 May 1916, which then had to convert to a long battle line, nose to tail, on an easterly turn? Do you have to do this kind of thing manually in the game, and, indeed, in SAI? Do you have to manually take control of each squadron and position it behind the last member of the preceding squadron in the turn? In which case, playing in Admiral mode, is this kind of change impossible? 

Thanks. 

[majorsid]

Usually the AI does the job of transitioning the formation from parallel to line ahead. The divisions should be automatically assigned at the start of the battle to follow a lead division in sequence, unless you changed or reassigned the groups. The initial turn at the start of a engagement should be to port (left if you don't know the terminology) so as to not cut across the formation.

[phoenix]

Thanks. Is that an AI routine new to RTW? I haven't in my immediate RTW2 game got an opportunity to test it, but certainly if I open up Jutland in SAI and give the GF flagship a port turn what happens is definitely not that the following squadrons all form up in line ahead on the flag. They stagger the turn to each squadron lead and hence end up - after a bit of jiggling and speeding up - in the same parallel formation they were in to start with.

But I must be doing something wrong since I just found an old post of mine - over in the SAI forum -  from 2014 where I praised the AI for doing just that - for turning from line abreast to line ahead in the Jutland scenario, without me having to do anything to help it. Maybe they need to be in contact with the enemy to do that. Nevermind. 

[director]

As you research new technologies in Fleet Tactics your capital ships will change from sailing in a long straight line to sailing in a set of short columns. They will automatically move in-and-out of this formation, but be warned - they will only change into line formation when the enemy is in sight of the flagship and will start to move into columns if the flagship can't see the enemy, even for a few minutes.

If you change the flagship's course the rest of the fleet has to speed up to get around to their new position. It can cause muddle and so you are best advised to make only small changes in course.

Jellicoe famously deployed the Grand Fleet across the path of the High Seas Fleet without seeing them. The game does not permit you to do that except by very tedious micromanagement (ie taking manual control of all divisions and turning them in sequence).

[rodentnavy]

Feb 1, 2021 12:36:02 GMT -6 director said:

As you research new technologies in Fleet Tactics your capital ships will change from sailing in a long straight line to sailing in a set of short columns. They will automatically move in-and-out of this formation, but be warned - they will only change into line formation when the enemy is in sight of the flagship and will start to move into columns if the flagship can't see the enemy, even for a few minutes.

If you change the flagship's course the rest of the fleet has to speed up to get around to their new position. It can cause muddle and so you are best advised to make only small changes in course.

Jellicoe famously deployed the Grand Fleet across the path of the High Seas Fleet without seeing them. The game does not permit you to do that except by very tedious micromanagement (ie taking manual control of all divisions and turning them in sequence).

I have found that once in sight of some of my ships (usually either the scout force or scouting elements of the main force) it is possible to arrange for a Jellicoe style crossing of the T before the battle line itself is in sighting distance of the enemy.  It can be very useful. 

[phoenix]

Yes. I thought it must be something like that - requiring line of sight to enemy. Jellicoe specifically didn't want to waste 20 minutes getting into line whilst the HSF were already engaging him, so anticipated, which is why I was trying doing it before the GF had contact. But sighting of the German BCs by the British BCs (or the Engadine's Short) was not enough, it seems, to get the GF to turn into a line, in the SAI Jutland scenario. So, yes, if I want to do it before contact it seems I have to do it manually. I'll know next time such a situation arises in RTW. Thanks all.

[rodentnavy]

Feb 1, 2021 14:14:23 GMT -6 phoenix said:

Yes. I thought it must be something like that - requiring line of sight to enemy. Jellicoe specifically didn't want to waste 20 minutes getting into line whilst the HSF were already engaging him, so anticipated, which is why I was trying doing it before the GF had contact. But sighting of the German BCs by the British BCs (or the Engadine's Short) was not enough, it seems, to get the GF to turn into a line, in the SAI Jutland scenario. So, yes, if I want to do it before contact it seems I have to do it manually. I'll know next time such a situation arises in RTW. Thanks all.

Okay having had a chance to test this by going back to playing the British who can provide large concentrated battle fleets with three or more divisions there does seem something broken.  Divisions under AI control in the current patch behave...oddly.  Normal rule of thumb is one knot slower than the maximum speed of the slowest division behind the flag and and not too many sharp turns. Even heading in a straight line for an hour or so at a time seems to confuse the AI at this point.  Found myself manually having to take control in rear admiral's mode more than once which is not something I generally do and explains another players complaints elsewhere about the length of time battles take.

You should be able to trust the AI to not handle your units stupidly, not brilliantly but at least not stupidly.  

[director]

As you research more fleet techs your divisions will go off on their own less. The random 'Squirrel!' moments don't ever stop but they do decrease.

[rodentnavy]

Feb 12, 2021 16:08:57 GMT -6 director said:

As you research more fleet techs your divisions will go off on their own less. The random 'Squirrel!' moments don't ever stop but they do decrease.

I have played numerous campaigns by this point and normally the division playing like a squirrel crossing the road and then stopping in the middle is the outlier. Something to watch out for but not as frequent as I am seeing.  Besides this is something else, even with battles where I am often at cruising speed or less because of the AI's propensity to cross its own T and my desire to not miss such opportunities and even in later game I am seeing divisions simply unable able to follow a straight line track and keep up with a flag doing 14 knots in 24-30 knot ships. 

The experience is...bizarre. 

[rimbecano]

Feb 15, 2021 7:14:25 GMT -6 rodentnavy said:

Besides this is something else, even with battles where I am often at cruising speed or less because of the AI's propensity to cross its own T and my desire to not miss such opportunities and even in later game I am seeing divisions simply unable able to follow a straight line track and keep up with a flag doing 14 knots in 24-30 knot ships.  

In broad daylight with 20kyd visibility, I might add. Normally I've found it undisruptive enough that I've not mentioned it here, but I recall one instance where it was incredibly disruptive and lasted for hours.

[director]

I'm in favor of modeling the fact that ships sometimes don't get signals or don't turn at the right moment - it's realistic, reasonable and historically valid.

I do have 'WTH' moments when half or more of my battle line turns randomly away from an enemy who is barely in gun range, or dashes madly and suicidally straight at the enemy, or just turns and sails for home. Some median ground would be nice... even the Russians held formation at Tsushima, after all, and both the British and Germans performed pretty well in WW1 as far as station-keeping and obedience to orders goes. (I maintain the issues at Dogger Bank and Jutland were Beatty's fault; your conception may differ).

And as for 'support forces'... that's just another opportunity for the AI to sink my ships. I never, ever use it.

Even if it was symbolic I'd like a chance to rate my commanders' performance after an action. There are a number of junior admirals conga-lining battleships all over the ocean who ought to be court-martialed and shot.

And while we are on the subject... what's behind this bizarre determination for every formation to change to 'line abreast' and 'turn together', even if I directly order 'line ahead' turn after turn after turn? I swear I fight the UI as much as the enemy.

[vonfriedman]

From the previous discussion, it would therefore seem impossible to form the battle line on the right column.
However Winston Churchill, in his critique of tactics in the Battle of Jutland, even considered the possibility of forming the battle line from a central column.

After a return to SAI and a confused battle in which, as commander of the Grand Fleet I was supposed to coordinate the movements of I don't know how many divisions and flotillas, I became even more persuaded that when the number of ships is very large it should be possible to designate a Second in Command in order to be able to divide one's own forces into two groups led respectively and independently by the First and Second in Command. Ditto, if you want, to reunite them again.
To point to a historical precedent, I could mention the night of the Battle of Jutland. where the Grand Fleet was formed in two columns, one with the King George V at the head and the other with the Iron Duke.

Finally, one could object to the rule that entrusts ships outside the visibility range of their flagship to AI, a rule which becomes all the more absurd the more radio communications progress with time. But I don't make this criticism, because I don't know how it is regulated in the new game expansion.

[stww2]

I don't know how feasible this would be, but I think a middle-ground between AI control and direct control (for units outside visual range of the flagship) would be useful. Ideally, you could give broad orders to AI-controlled formations (such as "patrol this area, engage weaker forces and retreat if a superior force is encountered" or "move to this point and see if there are any survivors to rescue"), but would not be able to directly change their course or target choices, and any targets they spotted would be reported using the contact reporting system rather than the player getting to actually see the exact locations and classifications. If you wanted to make things even more complicated, when giving orders to such detached units , there could be a risk of the flagship's position being exposed to the enemy via SIGINT (obviously depending on each side's technological capabilities).

The above may not even be possible to implement, but that would be my dream for orders system improvements in RTW.

[arieswolf]

The chance to have a division randomly pull out of line is way too high. The whole point of line ahead was that it was fool proof in the heat of battle. It should really never happen.

The chance to mis-read orders is fine when ordering a hard turn or complex maneuver.