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Post by sittingduck on Jul 8, 2021 20:35:10 GMT -6
Ok, just ended a game in 1955 and experimented a bit by going easy on myself as US and using KE's for FS and built the numbers up for minesweeping and TP during wars. I also did not scrap any DD's and used each and every one not with surface units as TP also. I remember having a surface ASW factor in the early 50's of 1,943... and that's not counting aerial assets. If I remember, at one point near the end I had 18 1100 ton KE's on FS and 121 KE's on TP at one time. But I was still losing ships to mines and submarines. My KE's all have minesweeping gear and maximum ASW equipment. I know the ASW is halved but, USA!, what's money? All of the DD'S had maximum ASW for their weight and I don't remember how many dozens (6 dozen maybe?) were on TP. I would divide the number of ships assigned to TP by my sea zones and spread them around evenly. My AF "fleet" DD's were spread out in a similar manner and the smallest number of AF DD's in any zone was 18.
What was going on? Is there a certain strength I have to reach to stop the losses? Is the game built to take a certain number of ships during a war despite building up what I thought was a more than sufficient number of escorts, etc.? The large units weren't affected so maybe that was the win, but KE and DD'S were still being attritted by a couple each month. What's the secret to stopping the steady loss of blood from submarines and mines?
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Post by seawolf on Jul 8, 2021 22:16:12 GMT -6
Ok, just ended a game in 1955 and experimented a bit by going easy on myself as US and using KE's for FS and built the numbers up for minesweeping and TP during wars. I also did not scrap any DD's and used each and every one not with surface units as TP also. I remember having a surface ASW factor in the early 50's of 1,943... and that's not counting aerial assets. If I remember, at one point near the end I had 18 1100 ton KE's on FS and 121 KE's on TP at one time. But I was still losing ships to mines and submarines. My KE's all have minesweeping gear and maximum ASW equipment. I know the ASW is halved but, USA!, what's money? All of the DD'S had maximum ASW for their weight and I don't remember how many dozens (6 dozen maybe?) were on TP. I would divide the number of ships assigned to TP by my sea zones and spread them around evenly. My AF "fleet" DD's were spread out in a similar manner and the smallest number of AF DD's in any zone was 18. What was going on? Is there a certain strength I have to reach to stop the losses? Is the game built to take a certain number of ships during a war despite building up what I thought was a more than sufficient number of escorts, etc.? The large units weren't affected so maybe that was the win, but KE and DD'S were still being attritted by a couple each month. What's the secret to stopping the steady loss of blood from submarines and mines? Ships on TP duty do not protect other warships from submarines, only transports, so your AF DDs, by region, are the only one's defending (CVs also have a effect). The losses of DDs and KEs are basically unavoidable, especially for those on TP duty, but by concentrating the AF DDs you will lose less per turn. And you're correct in that the main point is to save the heavy surface units. In terms of MS duty, 18 on FS doesn't sound like a lot for the US, because MS is also done by region...ie having 121 minesweepers on the East Coast has 0 effect on the mine protection in any other region(Although I'm not sure how yours are distributed). Basically: ASW: Per Region, protects warships, needs AF/FS DDs or KE's with ASW value, the more concentrated your forces are the more effective it is(You want a high level of ASW to number of ships in each region) TP: Global, needs DDs or KEs on TP duty, only protects merchants, TP ships can show up in coastal raids and convoy attacks. MS: Per Region, protects warships, every ship with MS gear is worth the same(Edit: Apparently larger MS warships have an increased value), and their status doesn't matter(IE a TP KE will also minesweep the region it is in) One final thing you can do is add TPS onto your KEs and DDs, although it costs a lot for what you get it will severely curtail those turn to turn losses. Edit: Another note, in the current version of RTWII there's an apparent TP soft cap of 1500, ie, having 1500 TP value and 1900 TP value does the same thing, apparently that's unintended and won't occur in the next version.
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Post by aeson on Jul 9, 2021 4:54:09 GMT -6
every ship with MS gear is worth the same Last I checked, the value that showed up in the Minesweeping column of the Area Overview tab appeared to have a size dependency, with Minesweeping value per ship increasing by 2 or 3 for every hundred tons of displacement until reaching a maximum value per ship at 1,000 tons.
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Post by director on Jul 9, 2021 9:12:18 GMT -6
ASW is a process comprised of materials and practices that does not keep the enemy's one submarine from sinking your newest, best, most expensive battleship.
TP is the product you use after the enemy's one submarine sinks your newest, best, most expensive battleship.
CTRL-ALT-DEL are the keys you use to excuse yourself so that you may try that turn again.
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Post by sittingduck on Jul 9, 2021 11:29:13 GMT -6
Director: You get a slow eye roll and weak fist shake, ...and there's another eye roll for good measure.
Aeson: I didn't know about a tonnage curve, thanks.
Seawolf: I assumed TP covered warships too. Do FS ships sweep mines if equipped to do so? Hadn't considered that. The summary was very helpful. Thanks.
(edit) Seawolf: The ASW number indicated on the main screen below Tension Levels has nothing to do with Fleet protection, just TP?
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Post by seawolf on Jul 9, 2021 13:03:51 GMT -6
Director: You get a slow eye roll and weak fist shake, ...and there's another eye roll for good measure. Aeson: I didn't know about a tonnage curve, thanks. Seawolf: I assumed TP covered warships too. Do FS ships sweep mines if equipped to do so? Hadn't considered that. The summary was very helpful. Thanks. (edit) Seawolf: The ASW number indicated on the main screen below Tension Levels has nothing to do with Fleet protection, just TP? 1. Yeah, it isn't obvious at first but TP doesn't cover many warships, if at all. I'm not even sure if TP ASW value even protects other TP ships from submarines. 2. FS, AF, TP, as long as its in active service(not Reserve or Mothball) the MS ships will sweep mines in their region. 3. The ASW value is split into TP ships and Aerial ASW(Left/Right if I recall), I'm not sure if the aerial ASW protects your fleet at all, but the left value is only TP ships, and doesn't indicate anything about fleet protection
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Post by rodentnavy on Jul 9, 2021 13:09:05 GMT -6
I found out quite by accident that my fleet losses to submarines dropped dramatically when I started using old destroyers as colonial gunboats due to never being able to build enough corvettes, this is certainly something to bear in mind if your navy has out of home areas regions to cover.
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Post by nimrod on Jul 9, 2021 13:45:28 GMT -6
Tonnage affecting MS value is new to me. Thanks!
I would second Rodentnavy's experience - one of the big reasons I generally don't scrap ancient DD's... That along with them getting outfitted with mines in the late 10's or 20's.
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Post by stevethecat on Jul 10, 2021 5:33:50 GMT -6
Old DDs are also great torp/mine sponges. My 40 year old 700t DD has been sunk? Oh noes, nevermind.
The downside is that having them on active duty inevitably spurs the battle generator to give you those awful 2 DDs vs enemy light fleet missions. Which at this point I quit out of to try for something less miserable.
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Post by dia on Jul 11, 2021 6:12:01 GMT -6
Old DDs are also great torp/mine sponges. My 40 year old 700t DD has been sunk? Oh noes, nevermind. The downside is that having them on active duty inevitably spurs the battle generator to give you those awful 2 DDs vs enemy light fleet missions. Which at this point I quit out of to try for something less miserable. This is why I only put old DD's on TP only and make my torp/mine sponges really cheap and quick to build KE's. Lot's of them. The size of the sponge doesn't matter, a 200t KE will soak up hits just as well as a 700t DD. And will be more numerous and won't get dragged into battles either.
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Post by nimrod on Jul 12, 2021 10:32:04 GMT -6
Old DDs are also great torp/mine sponges. My 40 year old 700t DD has been sunk? Oh noes, nevermind. The downside is that having them on active duty inevitably spurs the battle generator to give you those awful 2 DDs vs enemy light fleet missions. Which at this point I quit out of to try for something less miserable. I think like DIA in general. Ancient DD's pull TP duty in the home territory or TP / AF in the secondary / tertiary theaters. Their job is to free up the more modern DD's with higher ASW value to be on active fleet.
I'll pay closer attention but my impression has been that TP and AF ships experience the same sub attack rolls - sub and mine attack rolls seem to be on an individual ship basis and the TP and AF status doesn't seem to modify the sub attacks (I think the ship status might modify mine rolls). I believe RF, MB and R either removal a ship from receiving an attack roll or seriously reduce the chance of a successful roll.
Building small KE's is situational for me, if the enemy has over 100 subs post 1930-1935; than I generally need all the torp sponges and ASW value I can get ASAP. 50 enemy subs in 1923, well I'm probably not going to worry about a bunch of SSC's that can't attack my home region.
Current game playing as France in 1930-1932 (1900 start) I scrapped my original 6 or so coal powered CLs - they were generally pulling Raider and TP duty in the far reaches of the empire when able, or put on AF to handle the occasional incursion. I.E. they emancipated the more modern DD's to perform AF duties, while keeping some fleet strength in the Pacific... They were scrapped as I still hadn't researched mine rails (which would have given them some value), and their non-existent armor and AAA suites were becoming far to much of a liability.
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Post by dia on Jul 12, 2021 13:35:00 GMT -6
I'll pay closer attention but my impression has been that TP and AF ships experience the same sub attack rolls - sub and mine attack rolls seem to be on an individual ship basis and the TP and AF status doesn't seem to modify the sub attacks (I think the ship status might modify mine rolls). I believe RF, MB and R either removal a ship from receiving an attack roll or seriously reduce the chance of a successful roll.
My impression is that TP and AF ships are in separate pools because having KEs and DDs ships on AF does protect your capital ships. The logic I figure is that the larger your pool of AF ships, the less chance an individual ship has of being targeted. Dependent on enemy submarines and other factors of course. But if you have 50 actual fighting ships on AF and add an additional 150 cheap escort ships to AF, the chance of one of your fighting ships being targeted is significantly less. Iirc, outside of tactical battles, I don't think ASW value themselves contributes to protecting your ships from subs aside from contributing to the global sinking of enemy subs. When it comes to actually preventing attacks it's all numbers and sponges. When you're in battle you want a high ASW value from the ships spawned, so fleet DDs should have good ASW, but when it comes to strategic protection of ASW ships you want a high number of hulls. In my experience, having a small number of high ASW valued fleet DDs isn't enough to protect your fleet during strategic turns.
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Post by nimrod on Jul 12, 2021 15:20:32 GMT -6
My impression is that TP and AF ships are in separate pools because having KEs and DDs ships on AF does protect your capital ships.
In my experience, having a small number of high ASW valued fleet DDs isn't enough to protect your fleet during strategic turns.
Your impression is correct. They are in separate pools for their job; manual and official word from on-high confirms this. Likewise an undersized AF escort force is the doom of capital ships.
I was obviously unclear on what I intended.
An attempt at clearly writing my intent:
I believe that I lose the same amount of escort (DD / KE) ships regardless of if they are in TP or AF. I'm not sure how FS factors in but I think they are the same as TP and AF as far as losses to submarine attacks go.
To give an example with impression numbers rather than hard numbers: If I'm dealing with about 100 enemy SS in 1933 and I have about 60 escorts, than I lose an average of 2.3-2.5 escorts per turn regardless of how I split up the fleet ratio. Be it a 50-50 split (AF to TP) or an 25-75 split for the escorts, I still seem to lose on average 2.3-2.5 escorts per turn. I do notice a difference in my capital ship losses if the AF escorts numbers get low, in this impression based example, let's say about 40% of the escorts assigned to AF (or around 2 escorts per capital ship); at that level I think I generally see a capital ship being torpedoed about every other to maybe every third turn with early 1930's SS's.
If the escort loss ratios are independent from fleet status, which I think they are, than I like to put the older DDs on TP where they still act as torpedo sponges and save the newer escort designs for AF where they can engage in battle. If I'm facing 100 SS than I usually do a crash course to get a ton of small KEs out into the seas. These low value torpedo sponges generally stay on active fleet while the older ships stay on TP duty to keep them from battle while still being a sponge as far as the calculations go. If I'm against mid 1910s SSC's without an enemy base in my home sea zone like Italy vs Russia; than I generally don't go the mass KE route and I instead invest into something that will last until the next war. In the Italy vs. Russia example, you are dealing with very low fleet support levels out of your home zones and the small KEs just don't add value for the critical support / supply levels they occupy.
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Post by archelaos on Jul 19, 2021 5:15:47 GMT -6
Is there a point in putting cruisers in TP role if enemy is using surface raiders? Does it help in any way to catch raiders, or should they just stay in AF?
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Post by JagdFlanker on Jul 19, 2021 6:48:38 GMT -6
Is there a point in putting cruisers in TP role if enemy is using surface raiders? Does it help in any way to catch raiders, or should they just stay in AF? page 30 of the manual:
Cruisers assigned to trade protection will patrol against enemy raiders and provide heavy convoy escort
Raiders run a risk of being intercepted by enemy trade route patrols and brought to battle. Note that a raider winning a battle but suffering significant damage might be forced to scuttle itself or seek internment in a neutral port.
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