The Cold War Deluxe; 1950-1991

[warmwaffles]

I'm BACK YESS OMG vingrjoe released that Virginia Class CGN and Muffins with those space ships were taunting me OMG...

I am never posting anymore funny pics here again.....I got in trouble for do in that

El did you get the progress report with the review?

 

[El Justo]

I agree.
As pointed out by historian James. F. Dunnigan it was very hard to
sink a Dreadnought with naval-gunfire including hits from 13-16 inch guns.
One should remember that most Dreadnougths were not sunk
by naval gunfire.
Thus it should be close to impossible to sink an Iowa with the warheads
SSM:s have.

In my opinion the only real threats to an Iowa are a massive air-raid
(not likely with regard to US air-superiority) or a multiple submarine attack.

Rocoteh

Rocoteh,

i agree totally. there is really no match for the NJ head-on. a stack of Kirovs and some commie subs may do the trick but anyone who plays the US and doesn't escort the Iowas are risking alot. i never leave her alone. she always floats w/ the Tico's and CVNs and alot of air support.

now, the NJ has taken some damge for me and especially according to vingrjoe's neat AI summary on which targets the AI selects. it's in the C&C forum.

EDIT: here's the link. cool stuff...
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=115192

 

[El Justo]

I was playing the updated PBEM file as the US and man Drivebymaster has got the life. after building up my industry with Factory, Nuclear Plant, and Oil Refinery the M-60s just poured out.

in the Communist War, south america declared war on me for no reason but at that time my industry wasn't putting out m-60s yet so using marines and GI i captured the city in northern Mexico and then went south but lost one marine and one GI against an APC (knew it was going to happen just thought i may get lucky).

i retreated my other marine back to safety and killed off a miniscule offensive by South America who tried to gain one of my southwestern cities that was unguarded.

after signing peace with the commies. i built up my industry and poured out m-60s. when i got 20 m-60s i invaded cuba and captured the island in two turns with the help of air support mostly my 2 B-52s.

then i launched a offensive against the Mexican penisula in order to drive the south americans out of north america. by that time i had 20 mbts on the main land to invade. so continued the offensive against Mexico City and lost 1 m-60 but they lost 2 APC and 2 foot units. then i took the rest of the stack and attacked the city south of Mexico City.

i lost none of my troops because B-52s had killed one APC and had damaged the remaining APC. then that turn i went to Panama City but instead of attacking i placed my troops in the jungle tile because that turn i had no air support to destroy and weaken the units so i would have some casualties. the next turn i used my B-52s to bombard my enemy and captured Panama city.

summary: playing the US is sweet the B-52s rocked and the Soviet Union only fought me out at sea while i saw no gain of land in Europe by either side. i may launch an amphibious assult to take the rest of South America which would help my Alliance get the domination victory.

Blackbird,

very nice. what level are you playing at?

 

[El Justo]

I'm BACK YESS OMG vingrjoe released that Virginia Class CGN and Muffins with those space ships were taunting me OMG...

I am never posting anymore funny pics here again.....I got in trouble for do in that

El did you get the progress report with the review?

i will check out vingrjoe's Virginia.

yeah, settle down w/ those humor pics though i loved the kobe bryant one.

i haven't read the report yet but i will.

 

[warmwaffles]

I loved the Kobe one too......but I am done posting those here in fact all of my future work is going over to EVO-Games.....and over there I have a crap load of funny pics

 

[El Justo]

here's my latest as USA demigod level - Jan 1972

i think i've found the best level to play @ w/ demigod. it's not rediculous like Sid. it's a bit more realistic i guess and definitely not too easy. anyone can cream the AI but to have to work at it is the thing...

peace has finally been declared after several yrs (yes, yrs) of continuous war. i never did seal off my yugo or german corridors but i did fend off multiple soviet and chinese offensives.

i've had very few casualties overall. i've probably, no definitely, lost more aircraft than ground units all game. i've taken a very, very cautious approach and have used every single instrument in the US arsenal to fend off attacks. it's worked but i haven't been able to extend as far as i had wanted to. i wish there was a way to award the civer who limits overall casualty #s. public opinion would be quite pleased if they looked at my casualty stats.

M1s are now rolling off the assembly line. hanover fell to a swarm of them. however, WP did not have a significant garrison there. i now control a nice piece of western europe.

i just built the B1B Bomber Plant in seattle. i expect one in about 22 turns.

i lost yet another B52 just before peace was declared. i think that's now 3 of them.

i've repositioned my troops now that peace has been declared. i intend to launch a 6 Corps assault south into serbia instead of yugoslavia. i hope to push on to istanbul and begin my quest to roll back the sino empire. hopefully, this'll seal the WP off yet again in the area of yugoslavia.

my euro allies are really dragging their feet. i've been hoping that since WP is getting cordoned off that they'd take the initiative and vick a city back from the Reds. nope. nothing. just a few more cruise missile attacks. haven't seen the Vulcans in a half dozens turns or so of the most recent war.

my last round of build ques consisted mainly of f15s and a10s. they are clearly the cream of the crop for defense and bombardment respectively.

i've rerouted my Atlantic Convoy to instead head to the Med and land the 6 transports full of mech units (nearly all M1s w/ some Dusters and Paladins, too) onto what remains of the Athens (burnt by chinese) area. these few land tiles belong to Greece still. they still hold Crete. i hope to flank Sino-Soviet positions and gain access to the Black Sea and into the ME maybe.

check out the chinese workers around greece constructing what looks like earthworks but who knows what they're doing.

 

[vingrjoe]

El Justo, I was playing a couple of turns of TCW when some thoughts came to mind. What factors do you use to determine a ships defense strength ? Is size a factor ? I ask because I noticed the Carriers have a higher defense than Missile Cruisers and Destroyers. I was thinking with regards to my thread about Air Defense, that to represent real tactics, the cruisers and destroyers should engage air threats first, along with any fighters on Air Superiority missions.

What are you thoughts ?

BTW, I just received "The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet" , 15th Edition, by Norman Polmar. It's a sweet book, it covers from the 1980s to the early 1990s. Great for referrencing. A few weeks earlier I bought another book by him, "the Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy", very interesting. I'm getting alot of ides for Cold War ships.

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

El Justo,

I'm playing on Regent and plan on putting up an update on my conquests today i may start a story in the Storytelling forum.

 

[El Justo]

El Justo, I was playing a couple of turns of TCW when some thoughts came to mind. What factors do you use to determine a ships defense strength ? Is size a factor ? I ask because I noticed the Carriers have a higher defense than Missile Cruisers and Destroyers. I was thinking with regards to my thread about Air Defense, that to represent real tactics, the cruisers and destroyers should engage air threats first, along with any fighters on Air Superiority missions.

What are you thoughts ?

BTW, I just received "The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet" , 15th Edition, by Norman Polmar. It's a sweet book, it covers from the 1980s to the early 1990s. Great for referrencing. A few weeks earlier I bought another book by him, "the Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy", very interesting. I'm getting alot of ides for Cold War ships.

vingrjoe,

i guess we used a number of determinants for what stats the ships would recieve. size and armor thickness was one. the speed of the vessels also came into play. subs are a whole different ball game though.

however, i'd certainly be open for debate on whether to modify them so long as it enhances reality & AA warfare, etc. is the issue to make it so that the DDGs, et als are the 'front line of defense'?

sounds cool on the books and anything that gives you more ideas about Cold War sea units is a good thing in my book

 

[El Justo]

El Justo,

I'm playing on Regent and plan on putting up an update on my conquests today i may start a story in the Storytelling forum.

okay. why not post it here? i'd be happy to link it up to the 'Intel' post on the first pg of the thread. i intend to link your previous report up but haven't quite yet.

 

[Rocoteh]

A short comment on the history of naval stats in TCW:

In the first version of TCW many of the naval stats were based
on my estimates and suggestions.

After playtesting and feedback El Justo and Klyden made revisions
and I guess nearly all naval stats since that have been changed.

Nothing wrong with that. I do not regard my thoughts on stats as "holy".
Since I not have had time to playtest the latest versions I will wait comments
on the current stats.

Rocoteh

 

[vingrjoe]

I never meant to bash the stats or how they are determined, just wanted to help refine them if needed and if necessary.

Yes, El justo, I was looking at making the DDGs and CGs the first line of defense against air threats. But if it would cause game imbalance, then I'm not going to push it, I'll save it for my own game.

 

[Klyden]

For ship stats, they fall into a couple broad categories:

For defense:

Armor (most ships of this era do not have armor with a few notible exceptions like the Kirov and Iowa).

General size of the vessel. (This is more reflected in the hit points)

Crew quality and training back ground.

Point blank defenses (ECM, anti-missile)

In addition, subs are also judged on their quietness and ability to avoid detection.

Offensive qualities:

Guns

Missile ability

Electronics

We did some tweaking with the ship stats to work better with the sub warfare function of things along with how the subs interacted with each other. (IE, subs became more offensive and more vulnerable to attack if others got the drop on them). The other big change was the speed of the transports being dropped to 4 in order to make it harder to move things by water. (You have to have more secure control of the sea lanes to move troops into danger areas). By and large, I think the scenario has seen a lot of playtest with this and in general, it has a good "feel" to it. There is obviously some more room for tweaking of units. Some of it will be related to conjecture and opinions, but there are probably some needed tweaks.

Part of the thing that stands in the way of fixing things "the way they should be" is the limitation of the game engine. Making the larger ships have more hit points and a higher defense generally means they will be on top of the stack, which means they get attacked first. At first that does not sound quite right, but lets consider a few things.

First, there is no question it is much harder to sink a large warship compared to a smaller one. Case in point, a mine came very close to sinking a OHP class frigate in the Gulf. Had a war been on, the ship would have been abandoned and sunk. As it was, the ship was so badly disabled, it had to be towed away and eventually a dock ship took it back to the US for repairs. The USS Tripoli (amphibious assault ship and much larger) hit the same type of mine and while there was some minor flooding damage, the ship was not really disabled to the extent the smaller ship was.

The next question comes how do you make the attacker go through the escorts? The answer is you really don't, because historically, things don't work that way. How many escort ships were sunk in the carrier battles in the Pacific? In game terms, most escorts get a shot at the attacker (defensive fire) that can cause them some damage, then the attacker dukes it out with the capital ship they are after. There is little reason within the modern age of missiles to think that they can't target a big ship and have a chance of hitting it by going past the escorts. Same for sub launched attacks.

Now, that is to say there are not good reasons to have escorts with the capital ships. There are many. The defensive fire is one. Another is that if the capital ship survives the attack, the AI may decide that one of the escorts is now a better defender because it is at full health and now you have to chew through the escorts. Escorts can help against sub attacks as well if you use them right. (I usually have some escorts stacked with the ship I am trying to defend and also some in the spaces around so that an attacking sub has to go through them to get to the stack I am protecting). Finally, many of the escorts have better AA ratings than the big carriers (at least for the US). These come into play when the bombers show up.

Also a game engine limitation is how subs and ships interact with each other. How do you make a ship that is very good against submarines but not very good against surface targets in the game? One of the things we did with dropping sub defenses in general is also make this a bit more easy to accomplish. Ships with low attack are generally ok with subs, but can struggle with other ships. The other side of the coin is a lot harder. The New Jersey should have an incredible time trying to sink a sub because there is no ASW equipment on her and she does not even have sonar, yet with the massive attack, no sub will stand against her. Carrier attack is a bit easier in that it can be said either to represent on board weapons or in the case of the US carriers, the ASW helos they carry. This is something that is a limitation of the game engine.

Another thing to consider within this frame work is that many of the vessels have different versions of the same hull and that there were updates throughout the life of the vessels. Case in point. The Spruance class was designed primarily as a fleet escort vessel whos primary job was to defend against subs. The ship was made to run as quiet as possible and most of its armament was with submarines in mind. The ships overall armament was rather light and successive upgrades throughout the life of the ship have added harpoons to all of them and some even have had tomahawks added. This is hard to represent in game without constant upgrades and other issues and I think after a certain bit, it just bogs the "fun factor" down for the scope of the game. Can things be more detailed? Absolutely. Are they necessary to the feel of how the game should go? That is something open for debate from one person to the next. Obviously, another limitation is available graphics.

Hopefully, this helps explain the "why" part of things.

 

[Rocoteh]

I never meant to bash the stats or how they are determined, just wanted to help refine them if needed and if necessary.

Yes, El justo, I was looking at making the DDGs and CGs the first line of defense against air threats. But if it would cause game imbalance, then I'm not going to push it, I'll save it for my own game.

vingrjoe,

I understand that. I think it should be very interesting to
hear your opinion on the stats.

The basic problem when to evaluate stats for Post WW2 naval
units is that there have been so few wars with naval combat after
1945.

The sinking of Eilath 1967 only showed that old destroyers were
vulnerable to attacks from SSM:s.

However I think The Falklands war 1982 show that given a more
competent Argentine leadership the whole British operation could
had ended in a disaster since British naval losses and ships damaged
were at very serious level.

If one apply this to a general war between US/NATO and Soviet 1982
surface ships would probably been the great losers in most
air to surface combat.

Edit: Note on the attack factor. When I made estimates for naval stats
in the first version of TCW, I regarded the attack factor as the ASW
factor for surface ships (with the exception of the Iowas of course).

This is logic. No naval thinker have planned for surface combat with
guns after 1950. The guns are for AA not surface battles.

Still I think the high attack factor for the Iowa class is correct.
One can not rule out they could have engaged Soviet ships in surface
combat when one think of the long range of the 16 inch guns.

I recommend this link:

http://freespace.virgin.net/gordon.smith4/F41argaircraft.htm


Rocoteh

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

Operation South America Overhaul

After building some transport and transported my army to the Panama penisula. From there i loaded up and started landing troops near the Baranquilla. This began the largest amphibious assult known to man with over 100 divisions landing on the beaches. From there i used B-52s to destroy the APC and attacked with one tank and took the city.

From there i attacked Caracas but it was a bloody conflict. i lost 5 tanks too only 3 APC. Then i lost 3 tanks to some AMX 13 and foot units. But finally i captured it.

i'm getting ready to attack Bogota. heres my forces so far:

 

[warmwaffles]

WOW Blackbird!!! How in the hell did you get mexico?? who took it?

 

[I_batman]

The next question comes how do you make the attacker go through the escorts? The answer is you really don't, because historically, things don't work that way. How many escort ships were sunk in the carrier battles in the Pacific? In game terms, most escorts get a shot at the attacker (defensive fire) that can cause them some damage, then the attacker dukes it out with the capital ship they are after. There is little reason within the modern age of missiles to think that they can't target a big ship and have a chance of hitting it by going past the escorts. Same for sub launched attacks.

Klyden, your comment above got me asking the question, "If subs can target specific ships in a stack, is there any reason why surface ships with guided missiles cannot target specific ships in a stack in the civ game?" Is the reason purely to make it more fair in game play? I may be answering my own question by stating that it defeats the purpose of a stack of ships, but maybe forces players to use outlying picket ships like you do in your gameplay.

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

WOW Blackbird!!! How in the hell did you get mexico?? who took it?

I used B-52 and a invasion force of 20 M-60 MBTs. i took it from the South Americans. Thanks for the compliment hope to post another update tommorrow

 

[Klyden]

Klyden, your comment above got me asking the question, "If subs can target specific ships in a stack, is there any reason why surface ships with guided missiles cannot target specific ships in a stack in the civ game?" Is the reason purely to make it more fair in game play? I may be answering my own question by stating that it defeats the purpose of a stack of ships, but maybe forces players to use outlying picket ships like you do in your gameplay.

Thats a good question. Realistically speaking, there are certain counter-measures that would be in place to help the escorts protect a larger vessel including ECM and some other measures including getting the missile interested in them instead. That does not necessarily help with why surface ships can't attack any specific target and subs can. My feeling is that although a sub might be detected, in general, subs are going to get a shot in before the escorts can do something and there is not a lot of countermeasures you can take against either a missile launched right on top of you or a torpedo in the water vs an incoming missle that was launched some distance away. Subs also can have direct control over their weapons (wire guided torpedos) while many times the missile is on its own for guidance in the terminal phase.

With a stack of ships, it is certainly possible to damage something, but then very hard to put it away. This does not make a ton of sense from the standpoint that you would think a crippled ship would be harder to protect. This might be something that has to be dealt with as a limitation of the game engine.

 

[vingrjoe]

I've been trying to play this scenario, but by the time the late 1960s come around, it takes 5-10 minutes between turns. Is there some tweaks or settings to adjust to help speed up the game ?

I have an Athlon XP3000+ processor, 1.5g Ram, 2 HDs(1 30 gig and 1 70 gig, neither are full), a 256 mb video card, I'm running WinXP OS.

Maybe I should just start wars to help thin the global population.