Naval Musings

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Naval Musings - 3/4/2020 4:51:27 PM

Benedict151

Posts: 596
Joined: 3/4/2016
Status: offline

It was soooo tempting to title this 'naval gazing' but I managed to resist... anyhow, playing SC WW1 has made me go back and read a few books on the subject (a 'good thing') - and buy a couple of new ones. My primary reading interest for WW1 is naval (and to a lesser extent air) which of course is not the main focus for the game (and have others have observed the naval side of SC is a rather curious beast - although I find it entertaining and am glad it is present). Nevertheless a few thoughts have struck me in the past few weeks following my reading/re reading.
By the way I am not at all sure any of the following would make the game 'better' but one or two might be worthy of a little more thought...

Submarines - could they lay mines? Both the British and Germans used subs to lay mines. Whilst they could not carry as many as destroyers or specialist minelayers they could lay them rather more secretly and so inflict losses through surprise (and as an aside Jellicoe was worried about the Grand Fleet being led into a submarine 'mine trap').

Destroyer (DD) and Submarine restricted 'operational range' - whilst this is hard to model in SC it was a factor in planning operations by both sides, esp. early in the war. I was thinking that you could perhaps approach this by giving early war subs and DDs only 5 supply points rather than 10... but this is potentially confusing for the player and would have unwanted combat effects when they were at 'full supply'. However one could approach it by saying every time such vessels attacked their supply was reduced by 2 rather than 1. Research should modify this.

British coastal convoys - to an extent London relied on coastal convoys for supply (the railways although good could not handle all the requirements) and the disruption of these convoys and their protection was a factor for both sides when planning operations (and basing). I can see a real can of worms with convoy routes running from (say) Bristol to London and Newcastle to London (with Britain effectively sending convoys to itself) but maybe one or two nautical national morale hexes could be placed along the east coast (or SE coast) e.g. just off the Thames estuary (and/or 'the Downs') and on the east coast (e.g. Scarborough, Yarmouth) - something that might make the German player consider the naval raids that were launched during the war (and on more than one occasion almost resulted in a major battle).

British Scandinavian Convoys - I note that Norway will start trading with the British if it swings to +20% pro Entente... I have not yet seen this happen in game so I don't know if a Norway - Britain convoy route appears on the map.
If it does not then I do have a feeling that it should (so there would be a convoy route to Britain instead of/as well as to Germany). Protecting/raiding the Norway-Britain convoys played a not insignificant part in the North Sea operational planning and fighting. A possible downside is that the convoy route would be close to the blockade hexes. I have a suspicion that this convoy route should be present & functioning before the +20% Entente threshold but that is probably a change too far (and confusing to boot).

regards
Ben