Analysis of naval brigades

[Alex_brunius]

First lets look at general things like cost, what it should be and how it compares with the price of ships.

Small naval brigades all cost 280IC days for early model and 350 IC days for late models.

This could be compared with the most common destoryers (lvl 3-4) that cost 280 and 420 IC days. So to upgrade an old destroyer with asw or radar will actually cost MORE than building another one.
But If your brigading a Superheavy Battleship instead the cost would be less than 4% of the total cost.

I think that naval Brigades and refits on ships always should be consider cost effective technological upgrades and that they therefor should be available at a reduced cost but in much more tiers (levels).

For example It would be much better if each AA tech and each Radar tech unlocked new brigades aswell to reflect that you could refit the ships with more modern radar and AA-guns each year when researching in a fast pace.
Imho a brigade should represent a desire to keep that ship up to date in a particular field and upgrade it continuslly as more advanced radars exc becomes available.

So my suggestions? Reduce cost for small brigades to 1/3 and introduce alot more levels spread out in the tech trees.

Now lets look at their stats one at a time:

Naval anti air.
+ 1-2 air detection and + 1-2 air attack (currently).
I don't think more and faster loading guns whould help you detect planes further away, lookouts on a ship were already crucial and I doubt anyone looking for surface ships would miss airplanes appear at the horizon.
My suggestion, remove air detection and add a slight bonus to sea attack since guns are guns, no matter caliber and some of the retrofitted AA actually was Dual purpose 5" guns (destroyer guns).
+ 0-2 Sea attack and + 1-6 air attack is my suggestion. (6levels)

Naval ASW.
+ 1-2 sub detection and + 1-2 sub attack (currently).
Those stats are actually good. Dead on if you ask me. Extending it to 6 levels like said earlier would give later versions more punch.
+ 1-6 sub detection and + 1-6 sub attack.

Naval fire controll.
+ 1-2 sea attack, + 1-2 shorebombardment and +5-10km distance.
Makes perfect sence more accurate computers(calculation machines) will help you land all shells on target. But the range thing puzzles me. If anyone can justify it please do because I don't understand why its there no matter how much I like it
+ 1-4 sea attack + 1-3 shorebombardment in 7tiers with each tier alternating. (since there are 7 calculator/computer techs)

Naval improved hull.
+ 1 sea defence and + 1 air defence (currently)
Retrofitting hulls never was a good Idea and never worked out in practice either. Instead I suggest something that during the war was shown to be imperative to ship survival:
Naval improved damage controll.
+ 1-3 sea defence + 1-3 air defence. Unlocked by doctrine techs. (3levels)

Naval radar.
+ 1-2 sea detection and + 1-2 air detection.
Radar was probably the most revolutionary and important thing that helped the allies win controll of the oceans. This should be a special brigade thats also available to Subs. Added air defense is justifyed with that earlier detection gives you precious time to prepare AA ammo, formations, damage controll and crew or vector nearby friendly airplanes/CAP to intercept. Convoy raiding is all about detection and twice as long detection range will give you 4times as high chance of spotting a target. I don't think I have to explain the night attack bonus .
+ 1-6 sea detection, +1-6 air detection, +1-6 air defence, +5 visibility, + 5-30% night/rain/storm attack/defense and + 1-3 convoyattack. (6levels)

Naval torpedoes.
+ 1-2 convoy attack.
This one puzzles me the most, you can't attach it to subs and no other ships used torpedoes to sink convoys unless they were in a big hurry (It was preffered to capture convoys and use them and their cargo yourself). Torpedoes was however used with great sucess in night combat against enemy warships. Removing the large version is probably a good idea too since no ship will hit targets more than 20km away with slow torpedoes.
+ 2-4 sea attack + 20-40% night/rain/storm attack (In 2levels unlocked with 36' and 38' destroyer techs)


Ive seen other suggest this one before and I think its brilliant so Im going to copy them and suggest it myself too:

Naval improved engine.
Actually since its a ocean refit for long range aswell it will include things like larger fuel tanks and more storage. This brigade would be ALOT more expensive than the others, at least 2-3 times as much.
+ 2-4 maxspeed, + 1-2 convoy attack, - 0.1-0.2 fuelconsumption, and + 500-1000 range. (both levels unlocked by assembly line + ship assy line)



Critique or further suggestions / ideas is welcome =)

 

[Balesir]

Nice suggestions! I agree with all except perhaps the comments about 'Naval Anti-Air' not improving air detection. IMV it would be unusual (and a bit dumb) to upgrade the ship's AA gunnery without also upgrading the AA radar and fire control. Maybe you were thinking that both this and a 'Radar' brigade should be added together? But DD may only 'hold' one upgrade...

Maybe, rather than having these brigades as 'upgrades' to a basic ship, the basic ships should include nothing for the areas they cover and the normal thing should be to include them all?? That way, it would not be possible to build a modern DD or BB - and then upgrade the AA and/or radar further! But it would mean that the 'brigade' parts of the ship could be left upgradable while the basic hull is not.

 

[theokrat]

Naval anti air.
+ 1-2 air detection and + 1-2 air attack (currently).
I don't think more and faster loading guns whould help you detect planes further away, lookouts on a ship were already crucial and I doubt anyone looking for surface ships would miss airplanes appear at the horizon.
My suggestion, remove air detection and add a slight bonus to sea attack since guns are guns, no matter caliber and some of the retrofitted AA actually was Dual purpose 5" guns (destroyer guns).

+ 0-2 Sea attack and + 1-6 air attack is my suggestion. (6levels)
I would suggest airdefence, rather than seattack (which, in the game is usually used at the range of several kilometers). Airdefence for the simple reason that with enough AA you should be able to reduce the effectiveness of attacking aircraft.

Naval fire controll.
But the range thing puzzles me. If anyone can justify it please do because I don't understand why its there no matter how much I like it

Why not, better gun control presumably means you can handle the shells over a larger distance. The range as we have it is not the maximum theoretical range a gun can fire due to its physical restrictions, but the maximum range over which it can be used effectively. So why not?

Naval torpedoes.

IMO this should be renamed "prize command"

 

[blue emu]

My main reservation regarding your proposed changes is that every change you suggested makes the brigades more powerful, while reducing their cost by 2/3rds.

Is this balanced? Would the new tactic be to build cheap, crappy ships and good brigades... thus using the ships simply as "shells" to hold the brigades?

 

[Balesir]

My main reservation regarding your proposed changes is that every change you suggested makes the brigades more powerful, while reducing their cost by 2/3rds.

I hear your concern, but the current state where it's cheaper to build a new destroyer flotilla than to put modern anti-sub gear in an old one is somewhat odd.

Is this balanced? Would the new tactic be to build cheap, crappy ships and good brigades... thus using the ships simply as "shells" to hold the brigades?

Actually, I think this as WAD might be a good idea. Have the basic ship as a 'shell' and default to adding 'brigade' elements to it to make it combat effective. This way the 'brigade' elements can be made upgradable without letting modern ships (which, presumably, have modern gear already) be upgraded and leaving old ships still not quite up to the modern ones because the basic shell is, well, old.

 

[blue emu]

... This way the 'brigade' elements can be made upgradable without letting modern ships (which, presumably, have modern gear already) be upgraded and leaving old ships still not quite up to the modern ones because the basic shell is, well, old.

Precisely my concern.

An Improved Battleship (model-IV) is a 1936 tech. Compare a BB-IV with five fully upgraded brigades (no Hull brigade) from your list above, to a top-of-the-line Modern Battleship (model-X, 1948 tech) with no brigades:

BB-IV, with modern brigades:
Sea Attack: 31
Air Attack: 9
Air Defense: 10
Sub Detect: 8
Sub Attack: 6
Surface Detect: 7
Night/Rain/Storm A/D modifier: +70

BB-X, no brigades:
Sea Attack: 28
Air Attack: 6
Air Defense: 9
Sub Detect: 1
Sub Attack: 0
Surface Detect: 1
Night/Rain/Storm A/D modifier: 0

This is partly what I meant when I asked "do you consider this balanced?"

If you feel that the existing brigades are not cost-effective, then the most obvious solution is to drop the cost, not to raise the stats dramatically... which would require a total re-balancing.

 

[Balesir]

An Improved Battleship (model-IV) is a 1936 tech. Compare a BB-IV with five fully upgraded brigades (no Hull brigade) from your list above, to a top-of-the-line Modern Battleship (model-X, 1948 tech) with no brigades:

Right - but consider a DD III with late ASW brigade vs. a DD VII with late ASW brigade:

DD III
Sub Detect: 12 (10 without brigade)
Sub Attack: 9 (7 without brigade)

DD VII
Sub Detect: 18
Sub Attack: 18

You would do better to build another DD III and it would cost less, but also you have refitted your ships with the latest gear but they are not even in the same league as the new vessels. Not being as good I could understand, but not even in the same ballpark seems odd, to me.

And it's not a case restricted to DDs; same with anti air brigades on light cruisers:

CL IV with late AA
Air Detection: 7
Air Attack: 10

CL VII with late AA
Air Detection: 13
Air Attack: 17

Here the costs are more balanced between ship and brigade, but the brigade (refit) is still hopelessly unworthwhile.

It looks to me that brigades have been balanced to bring the old ships up to slightly worse than the next model of ship without brigades - forgetting that you can fit brigades to the new models, too!

If you feel that the existing brigades are not cost-effective, then the most obvious solution is to drop the cost, not to raise the stats dramatically... which would require a total re-balancing.

I think maybe a rebalancing is really what is needed. Reduce the factors for the 'raw' ships, effectively putting more of the effectiveness into the brigades (and assuming that the default build is with the brigade(s) appropriate to the ship). This would require some work to design (I might have a go later on), but could 'kill two birds with one stone' in that smaller ships would have slightly specialist roles, by default, since there is a limit to the brigades added.

 

[Alex_brunius]

My main reservation regarding your proposed changes is that every change you suggested makes the brigades more powerful, while reducing their cost by 2/3rds.

Is this balanced? Would the new tactic be to build cheap, crappy ships and good brigades... thus using the ships simply as "shells" to hold the brigades?

Please observe that I only suggested reducing the price of small brigades. Even if I wasnt very clear about it I think that Capital brigades already do have a resonable price.

I also have to admit that when writing this suggestion I wasn't thinking mainly about balance but about how much they would improve the ships in the real war.

The real deal was as far as I know that a ships with modern radar was tremendously much better than a ship without, and that they didnt cost that much to refit once you had the research done. I also recall reading a study about American AA that claimed once radio proximity fuses was installed it improved the effectiveness by 7 times!

The biggest brigade bonuses listed would only be unlocked by pretty late game techs 41' - 45'. The first brigades you get wouldn't be much more powerful than the ones availabe now.

But I do agree with you Emu, This would on afterthought need some rebalancing of the ships and perhaps raise the basic stats of the later models some more.

Perhaps reducing the max slots of battleships to 4 and providing 6 worthwhile brigades would allow more custom ships. Even a battleship couldn't hold everything and space was very restricted by the big blast radius of the main guns, this is why the japanese built pagoda masts.

BB-IV, with modern brigades:
Sea Attack: 31
Air Attack: 9
Air Defense: 10
Sub Detect: 8
Sub Attack: 6
Surface Detect: 7
Night/Rain/Storm A/D modifier: +70

Actually since I stated that Torpedoes refit should be available to only small ships the real stats would be:

BB-IV, with modern brigades:
Sea Attack: 27
Air Attack: 9
Air Defense: 10
Sub Detect: 2
Sub Attack: 0
Surface Detect: 7
Night/Rain/Storm A/D modifier: +30

(And the ASW brigade is only for small ships at least in my Arma 1.1 game).
The cost for the BB-IV would also be higher since all the brigades likely have undergone several upgrade cycles to keep modern as well as initial cost. I wouldn't consider it terrribly unbalanced.

Even if noone actually did build old battleships with new techs It wouldn't suprise me if they actually turned out to be pretty cost effective in reality, at least given the tremendous cost in both time and money to design a new one.

 

[Balesir]

Well, it took somewhat longer than originally anticipated, but I have a schema of naval "brigades" that I'm happy with.

They are more-or-less along the lines of Alex_Brunius's original suggestion, but although it would be lovely to have single unit modifiers for night and bad weather that's not how the game currently works. As a result I have excluded them, so that the schema is moddable. I have no time in the near future to code the mod files - if someone is able to I have no objection provided you let me have a copy!

My starting point was the current brigades, but I did away with the torpedo and hull models as the former seemed just silly and the latter I could find nowhere being done as a minor refit. Where ships were uparmoured it took a long time and was generally done to WWI ships between the wars.

In place of these attachments I wondered what to include - BBs can use 5 'brigades' so it seemed essential to have 5 types. I looked at what was commonly listed in ship stats and what was often removed or added in refits and settled on spotter planes (SP) and secondary armament (SA). SP are developed alongside early carriers, plus some late models that represent early helicopters (dunking sonar was tested in 1946 and Germany used small helicopters toward the end of the war, so although Air ASW by helicopter didn't get going until the mid-50s I figure it's not too big a stretch to place it with 'modern air carriers' in 1948).

Capital ships and all cruisers may have spotter planes - in line with common practice, BBs would generally keep theirs through the war but BCs and cruisers will find radar and other attachments a better bet from 1940-ish if they have not swapped earlier. Secondary armaments are possible only on BBs, BCs and CAs - and I'm not sure about the CAs.

I have juggled the figures so that, at around the year of introduction, each ship model is almost identical to the same model in ARM DD with comparable 'brigades' added. Upgraded/refitted units will be considerably better than in the base game, but still significantly less able than the most recent model with the same attachments - speed and armour, especially, do not improve.

The attachments, especially the small ship versions, should be thought of as a complete rig of 'removable equipment' - the ASW 'brigade', for example, gives some bonuses to AA etc. This is to prevent non-specialist AA and ASW ships from falling too far behind in those areas, and I think is reasonable, since if a ship is in for refit of a full ASW rig it would be only sensible to replace aging AA armament and radar at the same time. Ships will still be considerably better in their speciality than non-specialist ships of the same type.

The proposed design is in the form of a spreadsheet - it was made with Open Office 2.3 and saved in xls format so most should be able to find something to open it with. The spreadsheet is 47 kb zipped - if some kind moderator would either allow me to post it or PM me with an address to send it to I will be happy to make it generally available via this forum.

 

[BiB]

Attachment added to Balesir's post.

 

[Balesir]

Attachment added to Balesir's post.

Thanks, BiB!

If anyone has questions how to read/use the sheet please ask.

 

[Paul_M]

I like naval brigades and their ability to simulate the retrofitting that went on in navy's, this is something I think is critical for Italy and Japan but even the UK and the US need this.

I think you need to consider "Improved Hull" to be as you said "Damage Control" or else minor interal stuff rather than armour plate welded to the outside of the ship.

I agree with you completely with regards to the Torpedoes. I am not at all sure why these things don't just add to you Sea attack value. Its possible that the combination of that and fire control would be too good. Its also possible they are there to allow for the creation of effective surface raiders.

Radar is probably currently the worst offender, it should add Naval and Air detection, plus remove night combat penalties. It should not have any effect in combat in storms since in that case the sea state is the problem, but it should make it more likely to detect someone in bad weather. Radar, when the crews were able to use it properly, made a huge difference in combat.

Anti-Air, well blue emu and I went round this topic one time. My personal opinion is that the whole aircraft vrs ship model is based on some wishful fantasy fulfilment and not the reality of the war but leaving that aside the attachment should increase Air attack and Air defence and not add to the detection, but the increase in Air Defence should be 1 higher so +1 Air Attack and +2 Air defence. This is based on the discussion with blue emu and the assignment of light AA guns to Air Defence and the dual purpose guns 4" to 6" to Air Attack. Yes and fix the model so that there is fleet air defence.
A good starting point is that in 43, 100 aircraft flying from Rabul engaged 3 CL(AA) and 4 DD's, in the 10 min engagement 17 aircraft were shot down (not sure how many damaged) and only 1 bomb hit a ship for negligable damage. In HOI2 terms that is either 2 or 3 CL V-AA-Radar units (I am inclinded to view the CL as a division of 2 ships) and 1 DD V unit vrs a single naval bomber unit II or III.

Fire control should add to the shore bombardment value as well.

Anti-submarine Warfare needs to be made less expensive. The only ship realistically you are going to stick it on is a DD and solely for the purpose to extending the useful life of an older DD and currently the cost of the brigade works against that. Dropping its cost to 0.6 IC and reducing its build time to scale with a DD's say 60 days would be best. It is after all only the addition of sonar and either some sort of hedgehog or else more depth charges. It needs to be cheap to make it a cost effective unit since frankly you will have lots of old model DDs.

I am not sure that so many steps is a good idea though. Also I think the AA brigade should key off the land AA brigade and not the fixed AA guns (since the AA guns on ships and AA battalions were more closely related then the large fixed AA guns). As a point the electronic computers should not add fire control since no one would (could) install an electronic computer on a ship in the time period, even when the Iowa's were in serivice in they still had the mechanical computers. I think 3 levels of brigades would be reasonable, 6 goes far to far just thinking from a balance point of view.

 

[Balesir]

I like naval brigades and their ability to simulate the retrofitting that went on in navy's, this is something I think is critical for Italy and Japan but even the UK and the US need this.

I agree - these attachments basically represent the 'realistically upgradable bits' of naval vessels.

I think you need to consider "Improved Hull" to be as you said "Damage Control" or else minor interal stuff rather than armour plate welded to the outside of the ship.

Even with 'damage control' I regard it as more of a doctrine thing than actual parts of the vessel structure that can be upgraded. Newer ships might make DC easier because of better design, but it's not generally something you can retrofit. Hence I haven't included it in the 'brigades' listed.

I agree with you completely with regards to the Torpedoes. I am not at all sure why these things don't just add to you Sea attack value. Its possible that the combination of that and fire control would be too good. Its also possible they are there to allow for the creation of effective surface raiders.

Radar, fire control and spotter planes are the way to do that as I have set it up. No torps - sorry!

Radar is probably currently the worst offender, it should add Naval and Air detection, plus remove night combat penalties. It should not have any effect in combat in storms since in that case the sea state is the problem, but it should make it more likely to detect someone in bad weather. Radar, when the crews were able to use it properly, made a huge difference in combat.

I certainly give radar both surface and air detection bonuses, but the weather and night thing would need a code change - in fact, a change to the whole way it's handled in game - to implement, unfortunately. I agree it would be a logical thing to include, though.

Anti-Air, well blue emu and I went round this topic one time. My personal opinion is that the whole aircraft vrs ship model is based on some wishful fantasy fulfilment and not the reality of the war but leaving that aside the attachment should increase Air attack and Air defence and not add to the detection, but the increase in Air Defence should be 1 higher so +1 Air Attack and +2 Air defence. This is based on the discussion with blue emu and the assignment of light AA guns to Air Defence and the dual purpose guns 4" to 6" to Air Attack. Yes and fix the model so that there is fleet air defence.

Hmm, I give AA bonuses to Air Attack and Defence, and also to Air Detection. My reasoning is this: it would be a very strange AA refit that did not upgrade the AA radar to the latest model as well as the AA guns, plus the later AA suites had radar assisted targetting and the refit of AA capability would/should bring about an increase in focus by the crew. Plus, as I say below, the attachments as I have envisaged them are rather more 'general' than the 'vanilla' versions.

Fire control should add to the shore bombardment value as well.

Yup - I have that covered.

Anti-submarine Warfare needs to be made less expensive. The only ship realistically you are going to stick it on is a DD and solely for the purpose to extending the useful life of an older DD and currently the cost of the brigade works against that. Dropping its cost to 0.6 IC and reducing its build time to scale with a DD's say 60 days would be best. It is after all only the addition of sonar and either some sort of hedgehog or else more depth charges. It needs to be cheap to make it a cost effective unit since frankly you will have lots of old model DDs.

OK - I should explain that the values I have proposed take a very different view of the whole idea of 'naval brigades' than this. If brigades are a minority fitment, why not add them to modern vessels and make the most effective vessels afloat, instead of adding them to obsolete craft that will still be worse than the modern ones, anyway?

My approach is this:

• Make naval attachments/'brigades' an integral part of the value/power of all naval units.
• Assume that any new vessel will be built with the builder's choice of attachments already included.
• Have the attachments on a vessel represent all of the upgradable elements of the ship's structure and heavy equipment.
• A refit of an existing ship is an upgrade or replacement of the attachments already on it, rather than an addition of previously absent attachments to it.

Thus, rather than just making ASW attachments cheaper, I have made the assumption that all DDs will have some attachment - pick from ASW, FC, AA or RA (or possibly mines - but that is currently just an idea awaiting the implementation of a mechanism to represent them in-game ). In that context, the ASW attachment is a suite of equipment that can be installed on a destroyer flotilla that includes the radar, the fire control, the AA guns and so on - but which is focussed on making the DDs efficient sub hunters. Remember that DDs can only have one attachment - so it has to do everything. In like manner, the DD AA attachment has ASW gear included - it's just not as extensive as that in the ASW package. You need to take a look at the 'comparison' sheet in the file I posted and play around for a bit to see how all the attachments and the new ship values fit together. It's the end result that counts - and I'm pretty happy with it, if I do say so myself!

I am not sure that so many steps is a good idea though. Also I think the AA brigade should key off the land AA brigade and not the fixed AA guns (since the AA guns on ships and AA battalions were more closely related then the large fixed AA guns). As a point the electronic computers should not add fire control since no one would (could) install an electronic computer on a ship in the time period, even when the Iowa's were in serivice in they still had the mechanical computers. I think 3 levels of brigades would be reasonable, 6 goes far to far just thinking from a balance point of view.

On several tech steps for each attachment: the time period covered really does need that many (or close) for some types of attachment, I think. There are not that many just in WWII, but you need a few otherwise you won't get upgrades - which is the whole point! If you had three levels, all you would get would be inter-war, WWII and 'modern' (1948) - meaning obsolete ships would get one (pre-war or early war) refit/upgrade while everything else gets nothing until the cold war...

On AA tied to static or mobile AA: naval AA includes DP and HADC stuff, as well as autocannon, multi-MG mounts and such like, which I think mirrors some of the site-specific static stuff pretty well. The fire direction and radar capabilities were like static AA, too - so I'm happy with the link as it stands.

On electronic computer fire control - I agree. I did toy with the idea of adding a very late model, but couldn't really justify it, even by 1964. You might, optionally, add one in linked to 'early semiconductors' - but I think it really needs a 'Basic Semiconductors' tech added in for that

The one 'technological liberty' I did take was to include the possibility of helicopter spotters (and ASW, very late on). Germany did use a few helicopters in 1944/45 and the US trialled choppers with sonar dippers in 1946, so I don't think it's too big a stretch, even though the technology was not really deployed until around 1952. I don't have the ASW elements until 1948 tech, in any case, and before that it's not really worth upgrading much.

 

[Alex_brunius]

As a point the electronic computers should not add fire control since no one would (could) install an electronic computer on a ship in the time period, even when the Iowa's were in serivice in they still had the mechanical computers. I think 3 levels of brigades would be reasonable, 6 goes far to far just thinking from a balance point of view.

I agree The first electronic computer ENIAC was not for installing on a ship...

BUT! Its sole purpose was to calculate more accurate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory. With these better values punched into the still mechanic FC system they could be even more accurate. The time period was actually more busy on this front than any other and I'd argue that all the other brigades can have 3levels but FC need 6
I don't care much about balancing but beeing able to calculate trajectorys correctly is going to improve the damage output of a ship more than anything else, some might argue it would do ALOT more than 20%.

And for the balancing, im not suggesting +6 sea attack only +3 or +4 by the very end of the game.

Radar, fire control and spotter planes are the way to do that as I have set it up. No torps - sorry!

It would be cool if you could have torps for small ships and spotter planes for the capital ones using the same brigade id.

 

[Balesir]

I agree The first electronic computer ENIAC was not for installing on a ship...

ENIAC was definitely not the first electronic computer - that would be either the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (the ABC), which was electronic but not programmable, or Colossus, which was electronic and programmable (albeit in part by rewiring). However...

BUT! Its sole purpose was to calculate more accurate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory. With these better values punched into the still mechanic FC system they could be even more accurate. The time period was actually more busy on this front than any other and I'd argue that all the other brigades can have 3levels but FC need 6

But that would be more of a doctrine thing, no? No refitting of the existing fire control would be needed - just adjustment and new tables for those already in place?

And for the balancing, im not suggesting +6 sea attack only +3 or +4 by the very end of the game.

Which I already get to with the four levels I have included

It would be cool if you could have torps for small ships and spotter planes for the capital ones using the same brigade id.

Hmm, I'm really not convinced that substantive refits of torpedoes were carried out on destroyers - nor that any destroyers were fitted out specifically as torpedo vessels. Torps were, by WWII, a weapon used from small, fast boats (MTBs/PT boats/E-boats), submarines and airplanes. Only secondarily (to finish off already crippled targets) were they used from larger ships.

The brigades actually work out nicely by ship class as follows:

Destroyers may take any one of:

• ASW vessel
• Escort AA vessel
• Escort Radar vessel
• Escort Fire Control (battle/gunboat destroyers)
• (Putative) Minelayer/sweeper rig

Light Cruisers may take any two of:

• Light spotter plane rig
• Escort AA rig
• Escort Radar rig
• Escort Fire Control rig
• (Putative) Minelayer/sweeper rig

Heavy Cruisers may take any three of, Battlecruisers any four of and Battleships any or all of:

• Full spotter plane rig
• Capital AA rig
• Capital Radar rig
• Capital Fire Control rig
• Secondary armament rig

 

[Alex_brunius]

Hmm, I'm really not convinced that substantive refits of torpedoes were carried out on destroyers

I said small ships not destroyers

By the way how does this quoted from wikipedia sound?

"On 25 August 1941, Kitakami returned to Sasebo for conversion to a "torpedo cruiser" with ten Type 92 quadruple torpedo tube mounts for the 61-cm long-range oxygen-propelled Type 93“Long Lance”torpedoes (a total of 40 tubes), in line with Imperial Japanese Navy plans to create a special “Night Battle Force” of torpedo-cruisers. Modification was complete by 30 September 1941, and Kitakami is assigned to the Japanese First Fleet,"

Thats some pretty extensive torpedo refits and there are several acounts of small ships crippling CAs or even BBs with torpedoes. Both in the night fighting around Ironbottom sound and in the more famous Battle off Samar.

The pure firepower of 40 torpedoes is mindblowing considering they are almost invisible at night and that a single one can be enough to sink a unlucky battleship.

 

[Balesir]

OK - that shows it was done to some CLs - thanks for the info! I don't see much evidence that it was effective, but that's not really the point in this context!

So - effects would be? I'm thinking higher Sea Attack and Convoy Strike - sort of like Secondary Armament, but without additional Shore Bombardment (not that SecArm helps SB that much, anyway).

 

[Alex_brunius]

OK - that shows it was done to some CLs - thanks for the info! I don't see much evidence that it was effective, but that's not really the point in this context!.

Actually It was refitted to many japanese ships DDs aswell as CAs but the kitakami was the most extreeme case I could find

They had some luck with their "night fighting force" with battles like Battle of Tassafaronga

Mostly thanks to the Long lance torpedoes. They were superior to all other torpedoes at the time and I would almost like to include the torpedo naval brigade as a japanese national advantage.

Partly because I don't even think other nations tried this approach. But if radar for some reason isn't developed so early or the war starts a year or three before I belive they had some real potential to give Japan a serious ace in the sleeve when it comes to nightfighting.

Bonuses in game? hmm ofc +sea attack
The night battle bonus should really be massive considering the only weakness was range and range in the night was more or less point blank. But sounds like its impossible or at least very tricky to mod into the game
For +convoy attack my motivations for not having it should be in the opening post.

 

[Balesir]

Bonuses in game? hmm ofc +sea attack
The night battle bonus should really be massive considering the only weakness was range and range in the night was more or less point blank. But sounds like its impossible or at least very tricky to mod into the game
For +convoy attack my motivations for not having it should be in the opening post.

Hmm, I have basically given convoy attack to everything that gives sea attack, on the basis that the functions are similar and bigger guns with more range gotta help, right?

As I think about how convoy attacks work, though, it might be that it needs a total rework - can anyone give me specifics of how convoy attacks work? What are the actual chances and factors for increasing convoy attack? I won't be able to work on it for a while, but I'll give it some thought when I can.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Well if you want to just plain sink the convoys then ammo will be a sooner problem then your number of guns considering your only opposition is likely to be a few old outdated ASW equipped destroyers with 3 inch guns at best.

And no convoy could outrun any surface fleet. So you would have plenty of time in most cases.

However unless your a lone german battleship chased by the entire british home fleet, the favourable action would have been to board the convoy transports and just capture both them and their cargo alive. To bad the engine doesn't allow for this .

This is why Im against giving convoy attack improvements to surface ships unless perhaps with late radar / spotter planes or improved engines that help them detect and close to the convoys faster and better improving their interception. Problem was rarely to sink the convoy with a sufrace fleet but to find them in the first place.