Unrealistic Baltic Naval War

[Tisifoni12]

Playing as Germany, it is November 1939 and I have followed a historical path.

As usual my imports of tungsten, which were from Sweden, but I substituted Russia, hoping the tungsten would arrive by rail rather than sea. Of course it is coming by sea and being intercepted by two squadrons of French submarines. I have naval and tactical bombers hunting these with some success. I am reluctant to send out light cruisers and destroyers to protect my convoys as I suspect there is also a French fleet lurking out there.

How realistic is this ?

Access to the Baltic is via Danish, Norwegian and Swedish territorial waters and they are neutrals at this stage.
Ships and submarines need re-supply and submarines carry a limited amount of torpedoes. They can't just sit out in the Baltic for weeks, they need to go to a port, not a neutral port, to re-supply.

So DEVs if you're doing a naval re-work please consider that ships need to be 'cycled' whether that's German u-boats going hunting in the Atlantic from La-Rochelle, or US submarines attacking Japanese supply / trade networks in the Asia-Pacific coastal region.

 

[FindFloppies]

It's all tied up in the level of the rail route from their capital to yours vs available sea routes and the rail routes to those.

If you have not yet taken Poland or at least the Polish Corridor that's probably related. Is the sea connection from Leningrad to a German port or from Konigsberg in East Prussia to the rest of Germany? If the second, well, the Soviets are just delivering it to the closest piece of Germany they can, and transport is your problem past that. Even if the Polish Corridor is taken, the rail route from Konigsberg to Berlin may not be as good as the sea route.

However, if it is being delivered to East Prussia, and going by sea from there, and the Polish Corridor is open, improve some rails on that route, and it will stop going by sea.

 

[Tisifoni12]

It's all tied up in the level of the rail route from their capital to yours vs available sea routes and the rail routes to those.

If you have not yet taken Poland or at least the Polish Corridor that's probably related. Is the sea connection from Leningrad to a German port or from Konigsberg in East Prussia to the rest of Germany? If the second, well, the Soviets are just delivering it to the closest piece of Germany they can, and transport is your problem past that. Even if the Polish Corridor is taken, the rail route from Konigsberg to Berlin may not be as good as the sea route.

However, if it is being delivered to East Prussia, and going by sea from there, and the Polish Corridor is open, improve some rails on that route, and it will stop going by sea.

This is after taking Poland. Were there a way to specify no sea convoys I would trade reduced supplies of tungsten for not losing ships.

The rail network is constantly under attack by the French bomber force, despite I'm pretty sure being effectively out of their operational range.

The AI of course has no idea of considering the conservation of its own forces in its strategic decisions; hence the tendency to send panzer divisions to West Africa . . .

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

You expect free Resource teleportation over thousands kilometers ("by rail" is an euphemism, we all know how trade flows) and complain of unrealistic convoy raiding in a same post?

Historically the Germans did haul ~10-15 million tonnes of ore from Sweden annually by the Baltic sea. That's how realism should work in a plausible WW2 game too.

 

[FindFloppies]

Also, I tend to turn a half-deaf ear to complaints about Germany , still THE most overpowered country in HOI4.
If the French are hitting your rails, put up some interceptors to put a stop to it. It's not difficult.

 

[Kanitatlan]

You can simply block the sea route from use forcing the use of rail. This does presume access to the relevant DLC (Man the Guns) but assuming there is a rail connection that should solve the problem. This is an on going major headache for all sorts of things. I have played a lot as the Soviets and the inability to import via Vladivostok has proven a repeated annoyance as the game insists I must import everything via Murmansk despite Vladivostok actually having a better rail connection. (this is a different problem by the way)

 

[Tisifoni12]

You expect free Resource teleportation over thousands kilometers ("by rail" is an euphemism, we all know how trade flows) and complain of unrealistic convoy raiding in a same post?

Historically the Germans did haul ~10-15 million tonnes of ore from Sweden annually by the Baltic sea. That's how realism should work in a plausible WW2 game too.

No, I'd like the option to reduce the amount supplied to that which could be supplied by rail and opt out of supply by convoy.
I may want '16', but if I can only have '4' by rail, then I'll make do with '4' until the Baltic is secured.

The Germans weren't hauling millions of tons of ore from Sweden through a Baltic with 20 to 50 allied submarines operating in it without any supply issues. Incidentally operating beyond neutral coastal waters (Danish and Swedish).

Incidentally resolved the issue on a re-run by a) also allocating some tac bombers to anti-shipping and b) sending out a squadron of one light cruiser and six destroyers as soon as Poland had surrendered. Instead of losing 2 - 3 convoy ships for each submarine killed the allies lost 2 - 3 submarines to each convoy ship lost.

Would the allies really flood the Baltic with 50 - 60 submarines ?

They might try to send a few, but they'd have to be able to cycle submarines in and out because of supply issues.

 

[Tisifoni12]

You can simply block the sea route from use forcing the use of rail. This does presume access to the relevant DLC (Man the Guns) but assuming there is a rail connection that should solve the problem. This is an on going major headache for all sorts of things. I have played a lot as the Soviets and the inability to import via Vladivostok has proven a repeated annoyance as the game insists I must import everything via Murmansk despite Vladivostok actually having a better rail connection. (this is a different problem by the way)

I haven't invested in MtG as I have no interest in the design ships aspect.

 

[stormsand9]

It's very realistic. You need 200 or 300 hundred naval bombers when the war starts, along with 2 squads (10 planes each) of spy planes) to patrol and monitor your Baltic coast for Allied subs. You'll usually kill all of them by the end of Dec 1939 assuming you're following and playing a historic timeline.

And yes, do take care sending out convoy escorts against them particularily around Denmark and Norway, as the Allies just might send a strike force to kill you. They can't reach near Poland however, so I don't usually send my naval bombers there. I let the Kriegsmarine deal with that area, unless they really start raiding like crazy there. Once you've secured the strait between Norway and Denmark, if there are still subs bothering you now they're easy kills for your destroyers.

 

[Tisifoni12]

Historically the allies (GB and France) did not operate in the Baltic. Because a) moving through neutral territorial waters and b) supply issues.
The Polish fleet was either destroyed, became interned in neutral Swedish ports, or fled to Britain and operated as free Polish forces as auxiliary to the Royal Navy.
The AS (Artificial Stupidity) is not good at considering 'conservation of forces' in making strategic decisions.

Operations in the Baltic were conducted by Germany, Finland and the Soviet Union.

 

[Kanitatlan]

I haven't invested in MtG as I have no interest in the design ships aspect.

And that is a big problem. As far as I can see the ability to block the use of sea zones should not be dependent on dlc as it is a core function of the game. From my experience of the game it is the most clear cut 'ought to be in the core game' issue from any dlc (although somebody is bound to come up with something else I haven't thought of)

 

[Vengirni]

And that is a big problem. As far as I can see the ability to block the use of sea zones should not be dependent on dlc as it is a core function of the game. From my experience of the game it is the most clear cut 'ought to be in the core game' issue from any dlc (although somebody is bound to come up with something else I haven't thought of)

The option to take fleets in peace conferences is also locked behind a DLC (along with some other, less important ones). The lack of it (or its presence with the DLC) significantly changes the balance.

 

[Fulmen]

Little about the naval war in the Baltic Sea in this game resembles the naval war that historically played out there in WW2. What the OP mentioned is just one of a long list of issues. Similar to HoI4's inability to model the land and in particular the air war in the region around the Baltic Sea, much of the problem comes down to the scale HoI4 operates at. We'd need a much bigger map to begin with to simulate coastal guns and sea zones blocked by ice, naval mines and coast-to-coast-spanning anti-submarine nets, and the archipelago warfare fought in the eastern Baltic Sea during 1939-45, MTBs, gunboats and all.

 

[General Tao]

If you block off the naval areas, you'll need a railway connection between Sweden and Copenhagen, which at game start I don't believe exists and I don't think the AI builds new railways. Might be similar for a connection into Jutland (cant remember, not at a computer).

 

[marcelo r. r.]

Once you wipe submarines using TAC's. you can ignore naval there.
they coded Britsh AI to ignore these waters, but yeah French AI can still lurk around sometimes.

Dont bother to be super-realistic.
Just invade nordics on historical date(i guess is 10/APR) is enough to some roleplay, microdetail will just lead to headaches.
Play Phony war, French will move away the fleet at some point before APR 1940 leaving these waters alone, then naval invade norway;.

 

[Tisifoni12]

Little about the naval war in the Baltic Sea in this game resembles the naval war that historically played out there in WW2. What the OP mentioned is just one of a long list of issues. Similar to HoI4's inability to model the land and in particular the air war in the region around the Baltic Sea, much of the problem comes down to the scale HoI4 operates at. We'd need a much bigger map to begin with to simulate coastal guns and sea zones blocked by ice, naval mines and coast-to-coast-spanning anti-submarine nets, and the archipelago warfare fought in the eastern Baltic Sea during 1939-45, MTBs, gunboats and all.

I would suggest two different mechanisms for naval warfare; one perhaps similar to how air warfare is handled for 'on-going' naval conflict; convoy / commerce raiding, ASW and 'inshore water' conflict between MTBs, etc.

A separate mechanism for 'battles' between warships, which would be short encounters lasting only a few hours; the battle of the River Plate, the encounter between Bismarck and Prinz Eugen vs the Hood and Prince of Wales lasted what hours, the Battle of the Philippine Sea lasted two days. The Battle of Leyte Gulf three days.

 

[Eudoxe]

Regarding the Baltic I think we can do with some abstraction but two crucial points are missing:
- it (mostly) freezed in winter. Therefore it shouldn't be available for naval operations in winter, or at least with huge penalty in a proportion of it. It would prevent the totally ahistorical naval invasion of Finland during winter war (which was impossible due to frozen water)
- Military surface ships shouldn't be able to pass the danish straits if Denmark is neutral
(Regarding submarine, the french never did that, but I suppose that it would have been theoriticly possible, but dangerous )

 

[Caeric]

A separate mechanism for 'battles' between warships, which would be short encounters lasting only a few hours; the battle of the River Plate, the encounter between Bismarck and Prinz Eugen vs the Hood and Prince of Wales lasted what hours, the Battle of the Philippine Sea lasted two days. The Battle of Leyte Gulf three days.

I don't think you can qualify Leyte or Phillipine Sea as a single prolonged engament/battle in that sense any more than you can define the Battle of the Atlantic as a single engagement. It was a series of separate engagements over a period of time narratively tied together as a "single" battle as part of a campaign

 

[goodcigar]

One, there's no Arctic sea ice that limits ship access/movement. Two, ship supply currently basically works like magic. In real life ships couldn't generally stay at sea indefinitely. They needed to either go back to their Port for resupply of food/fuel/ammo/etc or needed naval auxiliary supply ships to resupply them out at sea. Only a few nations were really good at that I think and that's the U.S., Japan, Britain.

 

[hannibal_pjv]

Regarding the Baltic I think we can do with some abstraction but two crucial points are missing:
- it (mostly) freezed in winter. Therefore it shouldn't be available for naval operations in winter, or at least with huge penalty in a proportion of it. It would prevent the totally ahistorical naval invasion of Finland during winter war (which was impossible due to frozen water)
- Military surface ships shouldn't be able to pass the danish straits if Denmark is neutral
(Regarding submarine, the french never did that, but I suppose that it would have been theoriticly possible, but dangerous )

Yeah! The frosen Ocean in winter is real thing! They did actually use frosen ice to make ”land” attacs acros frosen Ocean and lakes. Hopefully HOI5 would have certain water areas frosen during the winter… and in spring those areas would be very hazardrous to cros because ice will get weaker!