Does anyone remember the Battle of Midway?

[Brad55]

I think this comes down to being a game and the point is play balance, not historical accuracy. People get hung up over & over in threads here about simulation accuracy, and don't seem to give much thought to play balance.

Having said that, since you invoke Midway I can't help but point out that perhaps THE critical key to victory for the US at midway was getting the CV-5 Yorktown there, in good enough (barely) shape to get planes off her deck. Yorktown was literally the cat with 9 lives, the Japanese went through repeated battles (most notably Coral Sea and Midway) being absolutely SURE they sunk the Yorktown with torpedo and dive bombers, but ... each time it limped home a near wreck, and they patched it up with chicken wire & chewing gum & push it back out to sea again to limp to the site of the next battle. Even the American crew abandoned it at Midway being sure it would sink, but it was still there the next day so they went back on board & began salvaging it.

The closing irony is, with Yorktown once again surviving significant air damage, it was limping back yet again to Pearl. But then by chance a Japanese sub stumbled on her, and ... ffftttt ... two torpedoes sent her down.

So the experience of Midway ironically actaully suggests that Civ4 may not be THAT unrealistic

I would have to disagree. I think the battle was over months before any real shots were fired thanks to American code-breakers deciphering JN-25.

 

[Steiner-Davion]

No you don't. One Exocet or any other AShM missile would bury a carrier.

Let me preface my response to this completely in accurate and quite ignorant post by saying that I am a former US Navy Surface Warfare Officer, and Damage Control Assistant. YOU ARE WRONG, plain and simple. The only way this would be possible was if everything went horribly wrong with a green crew, ie they ALL just checked on board straight out of boot camp with no training in damage control procedures. Do some research and look into the fire that occured onbaord the USS Forestal back during Vietnam, and that was when she still had a wooden deck. Warships are so compartmentalized, that they are incredibly resilient when it comes to flooding. The crew has an incredible amount of training when it comes to fire fighting and damage control. One missle in the right area might take any ship out of the action for a while, but it would hardly destroy it. Secondly, there are too many layers of defense for one lone missle to get through any Battle Group's defenses unnoticed. And the sheer number of missles required to overwhelm a single Aegis class Destroyer or Cruiser is huge, let alone overwhelm all of the Aegis class warships in a Battle Group. No the best way to counter a CSG (Carrier Strike Group) or ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group) is significantly cheaper and requiring no where near the amount of technology required for a simple anti-ship cruise missle.

I would have to disagree. I think the battle was over months before any real shots were fired thanks to American code-breakers deciphering JN-25.

Well our code breakers did in fact break the Japanese code, the was used to plan the attack on Midway, all that did was tell us where the attack was going to happen. Midway could have gone quite differently if we didn't have the Yorktown there to provide its Dive Bombers to the mix. All of our Torpedo Bombers were short down without any fighter escorts. Our first wave against the Japanese Fleet was all but obliterated by their Fighter CAP. And the only reasons our second wave succeeded was because we caught them with their pants down, flight decks filled with planes and ordanance, as the Japanese tried ot decide if they wanted to finish off the US Fleet OR Midway itself. If we didn't have the extra Carrier (USS YORKTOWN at the battle, things in the Pacific would have bene a hell of a lot different).

 

[MarkM]

I would have to disagree. I think the battle was over months before any real shots were fired thanks to American code-breakers deciphering JN-25.

Well, at the risk of going off-topic further -- yes, that was also critical, but all the intel in the world about japanese plans wouldn't have mattered if there were no actual ships with which to stage the intercept. Kind of like having insider information on a stock but no money to buy any with

What the intel allowed us to do was get assets in place to make it a contest. Even with that advantage, there was no guarantee we'd win, we did not know EXACTLY where to find the carrier group, they still could have found us first, and we were still outmatched even though we scrambled everything we could there. If we didn't have that code broken there simply would not have been a battle (well not of note -- the battle would have been a land battle, on midway).

So actually the code break works more like a recon flight, in civ terms?

 

[Polycrates]

I must say that I find the opening of this quote quite unbelievable, I remember a recent interview (though not in detail) with a former American joint chief whose view was that the UK had lost their standing as a world power when then got rid off the old large aircraft carriers and relied wholely on a couple of small ones carrying a few helicopters and harriers.

We (UK) must have listened, we are now building 2 Invincible class carriers, 65000 tonnes, 48 Aircraft. Not a match for the American Nimitz class carriers but a step in the right direction. As I understand it the American Navy has plans for 8 new Gerald Ford class (to replace nimitz)carriers 100,000 tonnes, probably 90-100 aircraft, and a total cost of 110-130 billion dollars. Doesn't sound obsolete to me

Modern Navies, and in particular the aircraft carriers, and their support fleets are absolutely key to world power, The American fleet is what supports its status as a world power, the ability to deliver that enormous amount of fire power / Air support into any theatre world wide is not matched by any other nation. Whilst ships are sinkable, well protected fleets make it very difficult to sink any individual ship. I think Civ is providing a more accurate representation than is being suggested.

Just because militaries are building something doesn't mean it isn't obsolete. I think "standing as a world power" is the key quote there - they're massive floating dick-waving instruments. And sure, as tools of power projection against the sort of tinpot countries that western armies like to beat up on, they're still perfectly effective. Against a real power, though, I don't like their chances.
A recent US exercise (essentially a mock-up of an invasion of Iran) ended up with 2/3 of a carrier battle group (including the carrier itself) lying at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, as a result of just a bunch of cruise missiles, fishing boats and cessnas. In a war with an actual power (let's say US-China), my money would be on the surface fleets lasting all of ten minutes (even discounting nukes), and missile subs then doing all the heavy lifting naval-wise.

 

[Tirse]

I would have to disagree. I think the battle was over months before any real shots were fired thanks to American code-breakers deciphering JN-25.

Well, that was definitely a start, but there were other factors, like Nagumo's air strike against Midway base that sort of betrayed his position, or the fact that American torpedo bombers took all the attention of Japanese fighter cover (of all the crews, just one pilot survived that attack), thus allowing the dive bombers a clear shot. Anyway, back to the game.

I have written this already in another topic, and I repeat here: while I think that land battles in Civ4 are handled more or less Ok (if not in detail, the end result is usually believable), naval combat is really messed up. I remember when, first time playing Civ3, I noticed my aircraft cannot sink some stray galley, and was very sure it was a bug; I simply couldn't believe they went with the same nonesense in Civ4.

Of course, this is merely a part of a much broader picture that also has:
- battleships "intercepting" subs attacking a stack that has no destroyers;
- submarines fighting against full firepower of a battleship (artillery duel? );
- destroyers with 3/4 firepower of a battleship (heavy cruisers, if anything);
- chance of sinking a battleship by hitting it with 20 galleons (happened to me);
- absolutely ridicoulus "invisible" destroyers that can only be seen by other "invisible" destroyers, but for some unknown reason fail miserably in sub detection (yes, this can easily be modded out, but it's not the point);
- carriers reduced to minor support role;
Let's not get into finer points of modern naval warfare...

It almost looks as if the game makers tried (with various levels of sucess) to make land battles "realistic" (as much as the rock-paper-scissors system allowed; I still miss zones of control and stack destruction rules from civ1/2...), they totally gave up on naval warfare, and just came up with a random set of rules. Inability to sink ships with aircraft is just one of the worst cases. The argument that allowing this would make air force too powerful doesn't mean anything IMO, as IRL this is exactly the case - undertaking any sort of major military action under conditions of opponent's air superiority is suicide. It was the case since WWII and it probably stays that way in forseeable future.

IMO the reason for this is that the game makers wanted to avoid extra complications that would have arisen from creating an entirely separate ruleset governing naval combat. Stretching rules for land battles to naval warfare led to oversimplification and situation where "bigger stack always wins" (heh, they even didn't bother with extending the "rock-paper-scissors" system byond ship of the line vs frigate situation). It's worth noting that in vanilla/warlords air forces also seemed to recieve no love at all, aircraft were not even "real" units back then ("real" as in getting promotions/experience). It seems that initially naval/air combat was intended merely as a addition to land warfare.

 

[Lordclane]

mmm first of all you must take in account this is an game. I agree with you that airplanes chould also destroy units but it must with some luck factor or something. If your air units could destroy enemie units than it would beimpossible to invade someone who has an good airforce. FOr example if i want to invade and is send my navie out with its carriers and all sort of ships it would be to easy for the defender to just destroy my fleet.

Right! That is exactly and precisely why the Germans never pulled off Operation Sea Lion. Establishing air supremacy over England was a necessary precondition.

 

[Lordclane]

guess again.


carries are to huge for 1 missile (perhaps a very lucky shot)

**************
Their size is why I said a large carrier might withstand one cruise missile hit. Modern anti-ship cruise missiles have large, shaped charge warheads that burst through the Aluminum (largely replacing steel) hulls of modern warships and create a BIG hole. A Nimitz-class carrier, more than 1000' long-- could withstand one punch that big, but would be unlikely to withstand two.

This doesn't take away the fact that carriers remain a potent part of the moern naval arsenal. Their ability to project air power assures that. However, they require their own air superiority, which can be contested by other aircraft, and are very vulnerable to "smart" cruise missile attack.

 

[Lordclane]

The sinking of the Tirpitz class Bismark during WWII was facilitated by air, but actually finished by other battleships and cruisers, much like in the game. However, Japan's mammoth Yamato was completely destroyed by aircraft -- wait that was at Midway wasn't it?

The Yamato was at Midway, but I believe it was sunk by aircraft at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. However, most carriers at Midway were sunk by aircraft-- the Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu. Actually, they were irreparably damaged; their actual sinking was accomplished by scuttling or torpedos from nearby Japanese destroyers after their surviving crew were evacuated.

 

[Brad55]

Let me preface my response to this completely in accurate and quite ignorant post by saying that I am a former US Navy Surface Warfare Officer, and Damage Control Assistant. YOU ARE WRONG, plain and simple. The only way this would be possible was if everything went horribly wrong with a green crew, ie they ALL just checked on board straight out of boot camp with no training in damage control procedures. Do some research and look into the fire that occured onbaord the USS Forestal back during Vietnam, and that was when she still had a wooden deck. Warships are so compartmentalized, that they are incredibly resilient when it comes to flooding. The crew has an incredible amount of training when it comes to fire fighting and damage control. One missle in the right area might take any ship out of the action for a while, but it would hardly destroy it. Secondly, there are too many layers of defense for one lone missle to get through any Battle Group's defenses unnoticed. And the sheer number of missles required to overwhelm a single Aegis class Destroyer or Cruiser is huge, let alone overwhelm all of the Aegis class warships in a Battle Group. No the best way to counter a CSG (Carrier Strike Group) or ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group) is significantly cheaper and requiring no where near the amount of technology required for a simple anti-ship cruise missle.




Well our code breakers did in fact break the Japanese code, the was used to plan the attack on Midway, all that did was tell us where the attack was going to happen. Midway could have gone quite differently if we didn't have the Yorktown there to provide its Dive Bombers to the mix. All of our Torpedo Bombers were short down without any fighter escorts. Our first wave against the Japanese Fleet was all but obliterated by their Fighter CAP. And the only reasons our second wave succeeded was because we caught them with their pants down, flight decks filled with planes and ordanance, as the Japanese tried ot decide if they wanted to finish off the US Fleet OR Midway itself. If we didn't have the extra Carrier (USS YORKTOWN at the battle, things in the Pacific would have bene a hell of a lot different).

That's a valid point but I find it hard to believe, with absolute certainty, that the Yorktown would have even been in the area had the Americans not known the attack was going to be at Midway.

After the Battle of the Coral Sea she was pretty badly banged up and was only made "sea worthy" because of the imminent threat at Midway.

 

[Soneji]

Let me preface my response to this completely in accurate and quite ignorant post by saying that I am a former US Navy Surface Warfare Officer, and Damage Control Assistant. YOU ARE WRONG, plain and simple. The only way this would be possible was if everything went horribly wrong with a green crew, ie they ALL just checked on board straight out of boot camp with no training in damage control procedures. Do some research and look into the fire that occured onbaord the USS Forestal back during Vietnam, and that was when she still had a wooden deck. Warships are so compartmentalized, that they are incredibly resilient when it comes to flooding. The crew has an incredible amount of training when it comes to fire fighting and damage control. One missle in the right area might take any ship out of the action for a while, but it would hardly destroy it. Secondly, there are too many layers of defense for one lone missle to get through any Battle Group's defenses unnoticed. And the sheer number of missles required to overwhelm a single Aegis class Destroyer or Cruiser is huge, let alone overwhelm all of the Aegis class warships in a Battle Group. No the best way to counter a CSG (Carrier Strike Group) or ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group) is significantly cheaper and requiring no where near the amount of technology required for a simple anti-ship cruise missle.




Well our code breakers did in fact break the Japanese code, the was used to plan the attack on Midway, all that did was tell us where the attack was going to happen. Midway could have gone quite differently if we didn't have the Yorktown there to provide its Dive Bombers to the mix. All of our Torpedo Bombers were short down without any fighter escorts. Our first wave against the Japanese Fleet was all but obliterated by their Fighter CAP. And the only reasons our second wave succeeded was because we caught them with their pants down, flight decks filled with planes and ordanance, as the Japanese tried ot decide if they wanted to finish off the US Fleet OR Midway itself. If we didn't have the extra Carrier (USS YORKTOWN at the battle, things in the Pacific would have bene a hell of a lot different).

I never meant sunk by my statement, you are fogging my statement. One strike could put a carrier out for a long time, I also was not thinking of larger US carriers either like the USS Nimitz, but had in mind smaller UK ones the now rather pish looking HMS Ark Royal for example. My father spent 24 years at sea for the RN (just to willy wave, seems like fun everyone else enjoys) he was a CO, paddy diver, bomb disposal expert, with millions of other jobs to his name. I also think he would argue against you considering he was on the faithful HMS Sheffield, Type 42 Destroyer, sunk by fire, after being hit by one Exocet during the Falklands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War#Sinking_of_HMS_Sheffield

At least in strategic terms, a Destroyer was felled instead of a carrier.

Neither was I talking about a battlegroup as you seem to refer to. The situation in my head was simple, a carrier in water. With one very lucky AShM strike you could quite easily knock it out of operation. Nothing else in the equation. I was not thinking in terms of battle in theatre, which I understand is very different.

 

[Cytral]

No, it was a suicide mission they sent it on at Okinawa. They didn't even put enough fuel in Yamato tor return from the battle, didn't give it any air cover, and it was pounded unmercifully for hours, until it's main magazine caught fire & in a way it blew itself up.

true, a sad end to the world biggest battleship

very fortunate for the allies

 

[Cytral]

A lethal sea bombardment promotion would be great as it would allow you to simulate carrier-based strike planes without having to create another unit just to fill that niche.

As for missile strikes against carriers, the key to taking out a carrier is to overwhelm the defending destroyers and cruisers with more inbound missiles than they can shoot down. Aegis-equipped ships are very effective at detecting and intercepting missiles. Strangely the bigger threat is having a diesel submarine slip into the middle of the battlegroup and put several torpedoes in the carrier's belly - a diesel running on batteries is harder to detect than a nuclear sub. I guess that's another argument to bring back stealth attack for submarines.

1 of the Dutch diessel subs managed to score a "hit" on a US carrier during a NATO exercise

 

[Shirina]

In a war with an actual power (let's say US-China), my money would be on the surface fleets lasting all of ten minutes (even discounting nukes), and missile subs then doing all the heavy lifting naval-wise.

Contrary to popular belief, China is only a regional power, not a "real" power. This is especially true of its navy, which isn't even "blue water" capable. The most powerful ships China has are a few old Sovremenyy-class destroyers they bought from Russia. They have a few "home-grown" destroyers that carry a substantial number of SSMs but they're virtually defenseless against aircraft and missiles. Many Chinese ships don't even carry SAMs of any type, nor do they possess CIWS systems.

The bulk of their airforce belongs in a museum. They still produce MiG-21s, a vintage Vietnam era aircraft, though they re-named it the J-7. Their AAMs are copies of Soviet designs like the R-27 variants which, in a word, sucked, and certainly nowhere near as capable as the AIM-120C or D models used by the US. In short, the Chinese military is several generations behind what the US currently has, much less comparing it to the new DDX stealth destroyer, the F-22, or the F/A-35.

However, they require their own air superiority, which can be contested by other aircraft, and are very vulnerable to "smart" cruise missile attack.

The only vulnerability a carrier has in terms of cruise missile attacks is if the entire battlegroup fails to detect the missiles soon enough, and the odds of that are pretty low. Unless it's a full-on sneak attack by a back-stabbing enemy that was a friend an hour ago, they'll probably be detected ... especially if the missiles are the older Soviet models since they fly at high altitude and dive on the target.

Even then, 1 or 2 missiles won't sink a carrier. The goal of a missile attack is to "mission kill" the ship, not necessarily sink it. Modern naval strategy centers around making the ship unable to carry out its mission. Warfare in this day and age happens so fast that putting a ship out of action for 6 months is just as good as sinking it and requires a lot less firepower.

Now, if you were somehow able to hit the island of a carrier or send a missile right through an open elevator door and into the hangar deck, you would probably have a mission kill, at least for a few days. The object of any intelligent naval officer is to prevent the carrier from conducting flight operations. Trying to sink it would be a waste of very expensive missiles that most countries don't have a lot of. An enemy commander would have to realize that there are 9 more carriers just like it and 6 more that can be hauled out of reserve if necessary. Munition conservation would be paramount.

 

[Cytral]

Contrary to popular belief, China is only a regional power, not a "real" power. This is especially true of its navy, which isn't even "blue water" capable. The most powerful ships China has are a few old Sovremenyy-class destroyers they bought from Russia. They have a few "home-grown" destroyers that carry a substantial number of SSMs but they're virtually defenseless against aircraft and missiles. Many Chinese ships don't even carry SAMs of any type, nor do they possess CIWS systems.

The bulk of their airforce belongs in a museum. They still produce MiG-21s, a vintage Vietnam era aircraft, though they re-named it the J-7. Their AAMs are copies of Soviet designs like the R-27 variants which, in a word, sucked, and certainly nowhere near as capable as the AIM-120C or D models used by the US. In short, the Chinese military is several generations behind what the US currently has, much less comparing it to the new DDX stealth destroyer, the F-22, or the F/A-35.






The only vulnerability a carrier has in terms of cruise missile attacks is if the entire battlegroup fails to detect the missiles soon enough, and the odds of that are pretty low. Unless it's a full-on sneak attack by a back-stabbing enemy that was a friend an hour ago, they'll probably be detected ... especially if the missiles are the older Soviet models since they fly at high altitude and dive on the target.

Even then, 1 or 2 missiles won't sink a carrier. The goal of a missile attack is to "mission kill" the ship, not necessarily sink it. Modern naval strategy centers around making the ship unable to carry out its mission. Warfare in this day and age happens so fast that putting a ship out of action for 6 months is just as good as sinking it and requires a lot less firepower.

Now, if you were somehow able to hit the island of a carrier or send a missile right through an open elevator door and into the hangar deck, you would probably have a mission kill, at least for a few days. The object of any intelligent naval officer is to prevent the carrier from conducting flight operations. Trying to sink it would be a waste of very expensive missiles that most countries don't have a lot of. An enemy commander would have to realize that there are 9 more carriers just like it and 6 more that can be hauled out of reserve if necessary. Munition conservation would be paramount.

so its basicly back to the cold war days

quantity versus quality

 

[Joe Harker]

wait that was at Midway wasn't it?

Battle of the Leyte Gulf in 1944.

X post from above.

 

[Minmaster]

heh we had this discussion when civ3 was around.

 

[Evie]

Battle of the Leyte Gulf in 1944.

X post from above.

No, the Yamato's sister-ship Musashi is the one that went down at Leyte.

Yamato itself went down later, during the Okinawa landings (1945),

 

[GoodGame]

You're totally right. One change is to create a fighter-bomber that is strictly naval and can destroy through bombardment. Another realism is that land fighters in general won't be capable of landing on carriers, so really no reason to allow normal fighters on carriers.
The simplest change would be to create a promotion for fighters that is required for fighters to base from a carrier or other ship, and simultaneously enables lethal bombardment against ships.

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that aircraft can't seem to sink ships? Between World War I and World War II, the big advance was that aircraft dominated naval encounters.

 

[LDG]

You're totally right. One change is to create a fighter-bomber that is strictly naval and can destroy through bombardment. Another realism is that land fighters in general won't be capable of landing on carriers, so really no reason to allow normal fighters on carriers.
The simplest change would be to create a promotion for fighters that is required for fighters to base from a carrier or other ship, and simultaneously enables lethal bombardment against ships.

OK, would you then allow any fighter to have this Promotion as a part of their xp progression (which would make Naval Fighters less highly promoted for normal Air Operations than others) or would you attach this promotion to a new unit "Naval Fighter" as a free promo, but then change the Strength, Range, or Cost of the unit vis a vis "Fighter" units?

As long as we are at it, might as well mention a "See Submarines" promotion, only available to Bombers (and Airships, which would get it free?) to make ASW aircraft... what do you think?

 

[Lordclane]

No, the Yamato's sister-ship Musashi is the one that went down at Leyte.

Yamato itself went down later, during the Okinawa landings (1945),

Indeed, it was the Musashi. I stand corrected.