Bombur
Posts: 3642
Joined: 7/2/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
Personally I do not understand the desire to reduce naval units so much that they are unplayable. -I don´t want to make the unplayable, I want to have them played like the were historically. Surface ships are still important, but they must avoid areas where the enemy has air superiority. quote:
Land based aircraft already have a huge advantage over naval fleets in that they have a long range and you can attack with as many planes as you have available and in range so you could attack a fleet with 30-40 or even 100 planes if you had the planes. -I actually want land based aircraft (except specialized ones) to be LESS effective against warships, but also take less losses. quote:
Carriers have already been reduced by the number of planes they can carry, the high cost to build a carrier and the limited and weak planes available to put on the carriers. In test game 3 I am not even using my carriers in 1939-40 because of these changes. -But you should be able to use these carriers against ships (like in the Taranto raid, or Norway operations) or to hunt submarines. What they cannot do is to keep air superiority over the battlefield. quote:
I will not use them until I can put viable planes on them. aircraft carriers are the most powerful weapon platform ever invented and in WWII they ruled the seas and they still do. They should be the most powerful weapon in this game also. I would bet if you could find the statistics that you would find that 100's of planes where lost for every capital ship sank in the 6 years of WWII. -Actually aircraft carriers were the most powerful weapon only in the absence of significant land based aircraft opposition, as the Japanese learned in Midway even if land based aircraft usually don´t sink carriers (there only one case in WWII), repeated attacks by LBA could disorganize your defenses enough to make your ships easy targets for CV based planes....the USA actually avoided carrier operations against Japanese land bases until late 1943, and their raid on Rabaul just happened when the bases was significantly reduced. It´s true that 100´s of planes were lost for each capital ship sank, but many of these losses were the result of fighters, like in the Marianas Turkey shot. quote:
The lopsided wins by airpower where only in the first couple years of the war after that naval doctrine changed and they made advances in AA and most importantly RADAR and the tide turned. -And also advances in fighters.... quote:
Even in the Battle of Midway the USA took horrible horrible losses of planes and pilots to win that battle, whole squadrons where lost, wave after wave was shot down until one last wave got lucky and got through. we lost 150 planes and sank 4 carriers and a cruiser. the Japanese lost 248 planes and sank 1 carrier and a destroyer. -The vast majority of bomber losses in Midway happened to Japanese Zeroes, Japanese ships had weak flak. And also the vast majority of Japanese losses were planes destroyed in the hangars of their carriers (although the attacks against USA carriers also resulted in heavy losses to IJN, but these were small attacks). When the enemy lacked enough air cover, ship losses to aircraft in the end of war was also massive (the USA attack against Japanese carriers in the Marianas Turkey shot, the repeated attacks against Kurita´s central force and the battle of Cape Engano). So, my point is that air cover above the fleets make all the difference quote:
my point is that for every battle you can point at that planes won a easy victory i can point at more where they took terrible losses. Fleets where far from easy targets for aircraft. -Right, but in all these situations the fleets had air cover (even the Repulse and POW also had some air cover-a few Buffaloes). Another event you can quote as a victory for surface ships is the crossing of the Channel by Gneisenau and Schanhorst-again the battleships had air cover) Maybe the only exceptions are Japanese attacks against USA surface fleets in 1944-45 (but I doubt if the USA had a large surface fleet without air cover in 1944-45). But then there is a small trouble ...kamikaze losses are always 100% regardless of enemy opposition....
< Message edited by Bombur -- 10/22/2010 12:05:00 AM >
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