why there are no frigates and corvettes in hoi4?

[rhuan]

for most of history there were ships called frigate, most of the time, they were medium sized ships used for escort and patrol, with its charateristic being having only one deck gun, during WW2, the term "frigate" was used for ships bigger than corvettes, but smaller than destroyers, they had the same mission as before, and, aditionally, for anti-aircraft mission.
Corvettes, however, were used only for patrol and coast protection, but they are, still, the smallest warship possible, ranging from 500 to 2000 tons of weight, smaller ships than Corvettes are called slop-of-war, but aren't really used today or were used in ww2.
So i have to ask, why we can't have such ships? of course researching 2 more hulls would be annoying, but two ships being the best for patrol and anti-sub action would be really cool, as well as being more realistically.
I don't see Paradox "forgetting" two entire types of ships, so what is the reason?

 

[rhuan]

just researched and, Sloops were used in ww2 and still are, but they are, still, just like a normal ship, and they are quite light, with just 1,250 tons.

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

I don't see Paradox "forgetting" two entire types of ships, so what is the reason?

The reason is to force the players dedicate at least Destroyers for anti-submarine duties and artificially drive up subrmarine significance even further than just whacky game mechanics alone (e.g. with fleet pinning) would allow.

In turn, the likely reason to elevate subs was suggested in the "HoI4's anti-naval bias and what does it mean" thread in the relevant section.

 

[him_15]

Just use outdated destroyer hull and put only a deck gun on it to represent them.

 

[stormsand9]

I believe the reasoning the devs have given is representing ships smaller then destroyers just means Even more micro to be doing- even more processing for the game to handle, so they cut all that out and made destroyers the smallest surface vessel available. And frankly I think that's a reasonable choice. Sure it sucks you can't build river navies or super small ships to lay your mines, but microing Navy and refitting Navy is already a nightmare without the addition of ships smaller then destroyers.

 

[Kanitatlan]

I believe the reasoning the devs have given is representing ships smaller then destroyers just means Even more micro to be doing- even more processing for the game to handle, so they cut all that out and made destroyers the smallest surface vessel available. And frankly I think that's a reasonable choice. Sure it sucks you can't build river navies or super small ships to lay your mines, but microing Navy and refitting Navy is already a nightmare without the addition of ships smaller then destroyers.

This is a key point but there is also the issue that most smaller ships were special craft with specific duties that the game doesn't fully simulate. For example, the Flower class corvette, probably the prolific smaller ship, was a dedicate convoy escort. It was in game terms a small slow destroyer - single gun, asdic, radar, depth charges, sometimes light AA. The only thing the game doesn't support is building a slow destroyer with exactly the right range for convoy escort work and it is telling the whole range of this type of vessel really weren't destroyers; they were based on long range fishing hulls (and their engines) without the usual destroyer 'designed for speed'. This was job that normal destroyers had difficulty with as the requirement was to be able to sail with a convoy from one side of the atlantic to the other. Regular destroyers couldn't do that but the in game convoy escort mission doesn't require it. However, the convoy escort mission does require ships to have sufficient range to reach the zone covered and that might require a better ship where an old destroyer with a slower long range engine would suffice.

There are a whole bunch of other missions for these small vessels such as coastal patrol, short range minelaying and sweeping, coastal naval dominance and things like that. Things could be added to the game to represent stuff like this but the underlying issue isn't lack of the ships types being in the game, it is lack of game mechanisms to simulate what they did. Just on the mine warfare front you would have to add a whole range of complexity about exactly where mines were being laid if you wanted to introduce the small vessels involved.

 

[Ossiv]

Frigates, corvettes, escorts and torpedoboats were all smaller ships than fleet destroyers. In game German interwar torpedoboats are represented as Early Destroyers. Producing Early Destroyers through the war with the armament of your choice gives you ships that represents ships smaller that wartime destroyers. We don't need more ship classes that historically did not have universal definition: an American destroyer-escort could be more or less like a British frigate or a German T-Boot. You can name the ships as you want.

 

[PK_AZ]

So i have to ask, why we can't have such ships? of course researching 2 more hulls would be annoying, but two ships being the best for patrol and anti-sub action would be really cool, as well as being more realistically.
I don't see Paradox "forgetting" two entire types of ships, so what is the reason?

What will they bring to the game, that Early Destroyer Hull with reduced armament do not?

for most of history there were ships called frigate, most of the time, they were medium sized ships used for escort and patrol, with its charateristic being having only one deck gun, during WW2, the term "frigate" was used for ships bigger than corvettes, but smaller than destroyers, they had the same mission as before, and, aditionally, for anti-aircraft mission.
Corvettes, however, were used only for patrol and coast protection, but they are, still, the smallest warship possible, ranging from 500 to 2000 tons of weight, smaller ships than Corvettes are called slop-of-war, but aren't really used today or were used in ww2.

No.
1. According to wikipedia, term 'frigate' originated in XV-century mediterranean, less than 600 years ago. Battle of Salamis, just some random battle I could find in a minute, was fought in 480 BC, about 2500 years ago. 600 is hardly 'most' of known history.
2. Such 'frigates' ceased to exist somewhere in late XIX-century, their role being taken by so called 'cruisers'. Then, in WW2, Great Britain decided to introduce new ship type, smaller than contemporary destroyers, and called them 'frigates'.
3. As a sidenote, while term tends to be used for what we would call 'medium sized warship', I wouldn't say it was true during ww2. (River: 1370 long tons; Cleveland: 11700 long tons; Essex: 27000 long tons).
There is no 'direct' continuity between age-of-sail frigates, and ww2 (and therefore modern) frigates. What happened was simple name reuse, for cultural reasons. And this myth has to finally die, because it lead to seeing universal truths (like 'frigates are medium-sized ships', or 'corvettes were used only for patrol and coast protection') where there are not (ww2 corvettes were ocean escorts, while max ship size increased so much that whole concept of 'medium-sized' needs redefinition).

 

[Joshua Happytree]

the term "frigate" was used for ships bigger than corvettes

The term was rarely used in WWII times (RN mainly). USN used DE hull classification and FF itself is a post-WWII reclassification of DEs into FFs. So as everyone said your in-game cheap DDs that are equivalent to RL DEs are your FFs.

This was job that normal destroyers had difficulty with as the requirement was to be able to sail with a convoy from one side of the atlantic to the other. Regular destroyers couldn't do that

The requirement for DDs (fleet destroyers) is to screen bigger ships during the whole voyage so naturally RN and USN DDs were able to cross Atlantic. Only DDs built to operate in Baltic or Meds didn't have sufficient range because they didn't need to.

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

your in-game cheap DDs that are equivalent to RL DEs are your FFs.

DDs in vanilla are not exactly cheap and there's no way to drive their cost down to be significantly below that of submarines - which was the case historically. A proper sub-chaser should cost at most half of what HoI4 allows now, and probably even less for those for coastal duties only.

Per metric tonn of displacement, submarines are inheritantly more expensive than surface ships both large and small (uness maybe really small and inefficient ones, i.e. below 100 t). With even the smaller ocean-going subs hitting 800-1000 tonnes, you should not be expected to hunt them down with 1500-2000-tonners which is what vanilla suggests if we look at ingame costs and compare those to historic figures.

Vessel Type	Example Class	Unit Cost (USD, ~1945)
Fleet Destroyer (DD)	US Fletcher-class	~$10–12 million
Corvette/ESC	British Flower-class	~$1–2 million
Submarine Chaser	US *PC-461*-class	~$500,000–1 million
Medium Submarine	German Type VII U-boat	~$2.5–4 million
Large Submarine	US Gato-class	~$5–6 million

 

[LastButterfly]

I believe the reasoning the devs have given is representing ships smaller then destroyers just means Even more micro to be doing- even more processing for the game to handle, so they cut all that out and made destroyers the smallest surface vessel available. And frankly I think that's a reasonable choice. Sure it sucks you can't build river navies or super small ships to lay your mines, but microing Navy and refitting Navy is already a nightmare without the addition of ships smaller then destroyers.

This makes about as much sense as saying "we didn't include the ability to do naval invasion because that would require more micro for army and nobody wants that". The game's lack of a coastal theater representation is a major reason why navy representation is such a problem, making smaller naval power inexistant and a defensive naval stance impossible. But implementing it would require a major overhaul of navy as a whole and that's faaar more than they're willing to do.
Navy is a nightmare because it's being shoved away at every turn instead of being worked on.

 

[Crecer13]

In the Soviet Navy, the "Frigate" class did not exist, since ships were classified by their purpose, not by size. At the same time, the "Frigate" class corresponded to Soviet anti-submarine and patrol ships.

In the US Navy, the "frigate" class included large destroyers DL - Destroyer Leaders, of the "Mitcher" type, which, in their tactical and technical elements, corresponded to the Soviet subclass of destroyers: "Flotilla leader"

 

[Joshua Happytree]

In the US Navy, the "frigate" class included large destroyers DL - Destroyer Leaders, of the "Mitcher" type, which, in their tactical and technical elements, corresponded to the Soviet subclass of destroyers: "Flotilla leader"

That was AFTER WWII and before 1975. USN back then was the only one to do that, everyone else meant FF to be cheaper and smaller than DD. In 1975 USN came back in line with others.

the "Frigate" class corresponded to Soviet anti-submarine and patrol ships.

I'd disagree. Frigate corresponds to Soviet "Storozhevoy korabl' ", "guard ship" literally and "escort ship" by meaning. There were some lower rate ASW ship classes ("Small ASW ship" in Soviet terminology) but they equal Western corvettes or WWII-era sub chasers as they were not intended for nor capable of acting as part of blue water navy. Most ASW ship were 1st rate thus being an exact equivalent to DDs (and DLs in some cases). Though Soviet classification is messy and misleading in general. Some Soviet 1st rate "ASW ship" classes had more extensive AA capabilities than Western AA CGs while others had more ASMs than Western ASuW CGs. Still officially they were called ASW ships. A kind of Soviet take on "cruiser gap" Total mess as in some cases, however rare, Soviet Navy still classified ships as cruisers, destroyers and corvettes.

 

[Crecer13]

That was AFTER WWII and before 1975. USN back then was the only one to do that, everyone else meant FF to be cheaper and smaller than DD. In 1975 USN came back in line with others.

I'd disagree. Frigate corresponds to Soviet "Storozhevoy korabl' ", "guard ship" literally and "escort ship" by meaning. There were some lower rate ASW ship classes ("Small ASW ship" in Soviet terminology) but they equal Western corvettes or WWII-era sub chasers as they were not intended for nor capable of acting as part of blue water navy. Most ASW ship were 1st rate thus being an exact equivalent to DDs (and DLs in some cases). Though Soviet classification is messy and misleading in general. Some Soviet 1st rate "ASW ship" classes had more extensive AA capabilities than Western AA CGs while others had more ASMs than Western ASuW CGs. Still officially they were called ASW ships. A kind of Soviet take on "cruiser gap" Total mess as in some cases, however rare, Soviet Navy still classified ships as cruisers, destroyers and corvettes.

Large anti-submarine ships of the 2nd rank were called frigates in Western terminology.
And we both mistranslated the term Storozhevoy korabl'. It would be more correct to say Sentry Ship

 

[wosung]

IRL range was a major issue in the Battle of the Atlantic. In the first years of the war many ASW ships just didn't have the range to escort convoys all the way. Thus, they escorted outgoing convoys to MOMPs - Mid Ocean Meeting points - left them there to sail along and at the same time took over ingoing convoys. For the first years the Atlantic gap was not only an air gap.

HOI doesn't reflect this fundamental aspect of WW2 at all.

 

[Joshua Happytree]

Large anti-submarine ships of the 2nd rank were called frigates in Western terminology.

1. There were no "Large ASW ships of the 2nd rank", all large ASW ships belong to the 1st rank.
2. They may be called in Wikipedia but have not been IRL. I don't know it might have been the case before 1975 USN reclassification of FFs but certainly not in 90s and later on. And "larger large ASW ships" were even classified as CGs (and they really were cruisers). That was the origin of the "cruiser gap" even though Soviet Navy had just a handful of ships officially classified as cruisers.

And we both mistranslated the term Storozhevoy korabl'. It would be more correct to say Sentry Ship

Nope, guard ship

List of ships of the Soviet Navy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the Soviet Navy, frigates were classified as guard ships (SKR)

In the Soviet Navy, smaller ships [smaller here means smaller than cruisers, battlecruisers, not smaller than guardships] under the designation of Large Antisubmarine Ships (BPK) alongside those classified as Large Missile Ship (BRK) were also categorized as destroyers by NATO.

 

[Pokkeri]

Just use outdated destroyer hull and put only a deck gun on it to represent them.

Paradox just purely hates navy. Submarines have been overpowered for a decade and paradox has just made it worse. Götterdämmerung just made fleet subs and cruiser subs available for every country. There is a reason why EVERY SINGLE mp game I have ever played bans everything past sub II's. Corvettes are NEEDED for ASW fleets to atleast have a chance to protect shipping.

Submarines don't need to go back to base in hoi to rearm torpidoes, subs are extremely annoying because surface fleets don't differentiate between submarines fighting a battle and an actual battle happening. This is clearly favourable to continental nations that don't need naval supremacy. (i.e Germany) while nerfing naval heavy countries and island nations (Britain, USA, Japan).

 

[Crecer13]

1. «Большие противолодочные корабли 2-го ранга» не о, все большие противолодочные корабли относятся к 1-му рангу.
2. Возможно, в Википедии их так и называют, но в представлении жизни они такими не проявлялись. Не знаю, возможно, так была до переклассификации FF ВМС США в 1975 году, но точно не в 90-х и позже. Более крупные противолодочные корабли даже классифицировались как крейсеры (и они действительно были крейсерами). В результате и произошел «разрыв в крейсерском деле», хотя официально в составе ВМФ СССР было всего несколько кораблей, классифицированных как крейсеры.

Нет, сторожевой корабль.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Список_кораблей_ВМФ_Советского_Военно-Морского_Совета

I am not a naval expert, but just by opening the Internet I see that large anti-submarine ships of Project 61 are 2nd rank ships.

 

[Joshua Happytree]

large anti-submarine ships of Project 61 are 2nd rank ships.

So the project was comissioned in 1960 as Guard ship, then reclassified into Large ASW ship in 1966, then reclassified into Large guided missile ship in 1977, then reclassified into Large ASW ship again, then reclassified into Guard ship again in 1992 And the mess was caused by the fact that by Soviet Navy standards of 1970-1980s it was solidly in Guard ship category. Ships of 3'000-4'000 tons had this classification whereas Large ASW ships displaced 6'500-8'000 tons. So Project 61 was only half as large as a "true" Large ASW ship. Project 61 originates in 1960s so you're right to point they spent longer being Large ASW ships than as a Guard ships but I didn't find any other examples, it seems they were the one and the only. Probably Soviet version of "cruiser gap" ("destroyer gap" here) so it was mis-classified against all norms due to political needs. But again you're correct to point at this one.

Corvettes are NEEDED for ASW fleets to atleast have a chance to protect shipping.

1. Corvettes can protect shipping in the Meds or Baltic but corvettes cannot protect transatlantic or transpacific routes by definition or they won't be called corvettes. You try to build a corvette for that, you end up with a frigate or a destroyer.
2. What's so special about corvettes? There's a ton of other hull classes not represented in the game because a ton of them will be a nightmare to manage for a player. HOI4 is not a pure naval warfare game, one has to draw a line somewhere.

 

[vermicious knid]

Thinking in terms of fixing what is currently fixable using existing mechanics. What about a module that increases the range of a light hull while also reducing the cost, speed, hit points, and attack stats? Seems like that would accomplish the goal of modeling cheap ASW ships.

Another thought would be abstracting them entirely. Add an option to buy convoys that include a dedicated escort component giving them increased ability to fight back. Basically a maritime armored train.