Modern Navy Ideas

[G-Force Junkie]

I just thought about naval warfare in the late industrial/modern era and came up with a few ideas.

- Aircraft carriers come with carrier air groups automatically upon construction, and end the use of aircraft carriers for airbases by land-based air groups.

- With the new CAG design on the carriers, add an order for air strike on the list of buttons among the movement and fortify buttons.

- You should be able to specialize ships for specific purposes, such as adding cruise missile capabilities to destroyers to make guided missile destroyers or the anti-air AEGIS system to a light cruiser (thus creating an AEGIS cruiser).

- Allow construction of lighter and less expensive capital ships such as heavy cruisers and battlecruisers as well as fleet support units like light cruisers and destroyers.

- Upgrade capital ship units (battleships, carriers, battlecruisers, and heavy cruisers) to be powered by nuclear reactors after discovering nuclear power, being parallel to the advent of nuclear submarines, but make it expensive to simulate retrofitting an older vessel to modern capabilities.

- In the modern era, make carriers the all-powerful capital ship with aircraft bombardment (vice usage of the big guns) superior in every way to the firepower of the battleships, battlecruisers, and heavy cruisers, but allow the other capital ships to be refitted with guided missile systems to compensate for the inferior firepower. But the refitting will cost a bit and it would be more practical to get the firepower stock on a carrier than refitting another type of capital ship after building it, so this would cause a fall out in the number of non-carrier capital ships seen in the navies of the world.

- Have submarines upgrade to attack submarines, and make SSBNs a separate class of warship.

- Have the ability to organize ships into fleets that can operate in a certain radius of squares, yet can only go so far from a friendly port.

This seems to be a lot of micromanagement, but I think that it could be implemented well to more accurately modern naval warfare than in Civ3.

 

[rhialto]

I just thought about naval warfare in the late industrial/modern era and came up with a few ideas.

- Aircraft carriers come with carrier air groups automatically upon construction, and end the use of aircraft carriers for airbases by land-based air groups.

I'm actually rather partial to this idea. Let's say there are two separate basic carriers types, the "light" ones of ww2 and many modern navies, and the heavy supercarriers of the modern US navy. Then we have the air wing an integral part of the unit capabilities instead of having it as separate units to build. Refits and upgrades to the carriers will then represent changing over the air wing to the latest naval aviation aircraft.

- With the new CAG design on the carriers, add an order for air strike on the list of buttons among the movement and fortify buttons.

What's CAG? In naval terms, it usually means a cruiser with guided missile armament, but that doesn't seem to be your intended meaning here.

- You should be able to specialize ships for specific purposes, such as adding cruise missile capabilities to destroyers to make guided missile destroyers or the anti-air AEGIS system to a light cruiser (thus creating an AEGIS cruiser).

That's called refitting and upgrades.

- Allow construction of lighter and less expensive capital ships such as heavy cruisers and battlecruisers as well as fleet support units like light cruisers and destroyers.

Outside scenarios, I'm not sure how well this would work. Most players claim not to build destroyers or cruisers, because they essentially fill the exact game role of the battleships, but with a weaker gun.

- Upgrade capital ship units (battleships, carriers, battlecruisers, and heavy cruisers) to be powered by nuclear reactors after discovering nuclear power, being parallel to the advent of nuclear submarines, but make it expensive to simulate retrofitting an older vessel to modern capabilities.

This is disagree with. Nuclear power made a fundamental change to submarine operations, as it meant that a) they could operate underwater for extended periods because the reactor did not burn oxygen, and b) nuclear reactors are virtually silent compared to the traditional diesel/gas powered turbines used in submarines. Nuclear power revolutionised submarine warfare in a way it doesn't for conventional capital ships.

- In the modern era, make carriers the all-powerful capital ship with aircraft bombardment (vice usage of the big guns) superior in every way to the firepower of the battleships, battlecruisers, and heavy cruisers, but allow the other capital ships to be refitted with guided missile systems to compensate for the inferior firepower. But the refitting will cost a bit and it would be more practical to get the firepower stock on a carrier than refitting another type of capital ship after building it, so this would cause a fall out in the number of non-carrier capital ships seen in the navies of the world.

I agree the carrier should be the modern queen of the seas, challenged perhaps only by the submarines. Adding missiles and corresponding monstrous bombard ranges to cruisers is historical. But not to battleships. No modern battleship (if any are even in active service now) has such armament. I think it adds a fun dimension to the upgrade paths that the battleship, teh end unit of naval upgrades for a huge part of the game, suddenly becomes eclipsed and becomes almost a liability to keep around.

- Have submarines upgrade to attack submarines, and make SSBNs a separate class of warship.

- Have the ability to organize ships into fleets that can operate in a certain radius of squares, yet can only go so far from a friendly port.

Limited range is pretty unrealistic for modern ships.

This seems to be a lot of micromanagement, but I think that it could be implemented well to more accurately modern naval warfare than in Civ3.

That's not micromanagement, as these aren't things you are doing every turn for little direct gain. Upgrades are every 20 turns or so at most, even under radical schemes to add many units on the upgrade path (such as in RaR). And having good bombardment for most modern ships is just common sense. Plus no one complains about MM when operating war units in an war.

 

[Kosez]

Carriers are queens of the seas. But I have a romantic relationship with battleships. I hope one day there will be some version of CivIV with battleships as queens of the seas. They are absolutely gorgeous.

 

[searcheagle]

I agree the air units should come with aircraft carriers. Carriers are expensive enough and when add in it air units, carriers just aren't worth it.

FYI-CAG-Carrier Air Group

As long as there is not unit modificiation in the game, it won't be added just to the naval portion either. As far as different units, Carriers should be split, like rhialto

 

[Dachs]

If aircraft come with aircraft carriers, they should be specifically naval ones, and should have better air to air capability than land-based bombers and fighter-bombers.

(...)This is disagree with. Nuclear power made a fundamental change to submarine operations, as it meant that a) they could operate underwater for extended periods because the reactor did not burn oxygen, and b) nuclear reactors are virtually silent compared to the traditional diesel/gas powered turbines used in submarines. Nuclear power revolutionised submarine warfare in a way it doesn't for conventional capital ships.(...)

True, nuclear power did more for subs and carriers than for other warships, but you should at least increase their range a few squares. Nuclear power increased the effectiveness of the modern navy, and try fighting a British WWII oil-powered cruiser against a modern nuclear-powered Ticonderoga-class one.

And nuclear power is not necessarily quieter. The Russian Kilo-class diesel-electric and British Unseen-class were both quieter than nuclear subs, but they have to come up to the surface periodically to "snorkel" and recharge their batteries. Nuclear subs do not have to do this, but there is ambient noise from the reactor that most sonarmen can spot. Even though the American Ohio-class SSBM is the quietest submarine in existence, it is that way because of a disproportionate amount of cost, because it is a missile "boomer" and must be quiet for defense and to protect the Trident missiles stored onboard.

Speaking of missile subs, there should be a separate class of SSBM that comes with five-ten tactical nukes or ICBMs, but attack subs should be made with an equal number of cruise missiles, to simulate the Tomahawk missiles now carried by most 688(Los Angeles)-class US attack subs.