Cruisers - Combined Arms

Do you also think about letting BB rolls Shore bombardment after a Naval combat in the surrounding SZ during an amphibious assault?

@Young:

I would make shore bombardments every combat round during an amphibious assault.

Just this will not totally work because Cruiser will be far better against BB on the same IPC basis (4 times better):
Overall %*:   A. survives: 78.3%    D. survives: 19.5%    No one survives: 2.3%

Everybody will buy 2-hits Cruisers and count on Planes (with Carrier) for an increase Amphibious support attack.

What about a first round plunging fire @4?
Can be First Strike, if you wish.
It gives 2 rolls @4 in the opening combat round.
And only one after this first round.

That way, it can slightly counterweight the combat advantage of Cruisers, since the opening round is the most important.
And, most often, after this first round, Battleships all have taken 1 hit and are damaged.
They wouldn’t operate at their full combat capacities, anyway.

In addition, a 2 shot@4 in the first round imply that a Cruiser unit could be destroyed in a single round in a 1 on 1 Naval battle.
This would make Battleship more impressive in small naval skirmishes.

@Baron:

I’ve just got this idea:
CRUISER
Attack 2
Defend 2
Shore Bombard 2
Move 2
Hits 2
Cost 12

I like this because it leaves also room for either Light Cruiser or BattleCruiser, custom pieces.

@Young:

What was it CWO Marc was saying about the fire power on Cruisers essentially the same on destroyers? this would help validate the att @2 def @2 similarities between the two units.

@CWO:

Cruiser + Destroyer?
This has potential, and I’ll need to think about it in more detail later today.  Here are some preliminary thoughts for now. First, these two ship types did have somewhat diffferent fundamental abilities, with some overlap.  US destroyers and cruisers (the ones I know best) both tended to have 5-inch dual-purpose guns (usable in AAA and surface-attack roles), and both typically had torpedoes, but many cruisers also had 6-inch or 8-inch guns for heavy bombardment, whereas destroyers had anti-sub depth charges.

A wartime bonus of having cruisers and destroyers working together was that the cruisers would sometimes top up the fuel tanks of the destroyers, since destroyers were often looking for refills.  (They often mooched from battleships too.  The Iowas class battleships, whose armour allowed them to venture into seas too dangerous for tankers, were nicknamed “armoured oilers” by US destroyer crews.)  Second, the “destroyer leader” concept is interesting, since it did actually exist in WWII.  I’ll need to read up on how it actually worked, but as I recall it was used (at least in part) to justify the construction of certain ship designs that were, arguably, either very big destroyers or very small cruisers.  I think the Tribal class sort of falls into this category, as did certain Italian cruisers.  Also, if memory serves, destroyers sometimes operated in formations called flotillas, with a light cruiser serving as the flotilla’s flagship (though not always under the command of a genuine flag officer, i.e. an admiral).  Anyway, more to come later.

Maybe this A2 D2 unit combat values similarities could give an orientation for CWO Marc comments on historical Cruisers and Destroyers?

That would be fun if somehow history could provides some back up on this 2 hits Cruiser.  :-)

@Young:

What was it CWO Marc was saying about the fire power on Cruisers essentially the same on destroyers?

I was saying that there was some overlap between cruiser and destroyer armament (in terms of type), but I also noted that there were major differences too.  I should have been clearer about the overlaps because even in cases where cruisers and destroyers carried the same type of weapons, they didn’t carry the same quantities.  To illustrate this with concrete figures, here are some numbers drawn from (as examples) the WWII-era Fletcher class destroyers and the Baltimore class heavy cruisers.

8 inch/55 caliber guns (surface-attack)
Fletcher class destroyer: No
Baltimore class heavy cruiser: Yes, 9 (in 3 triple turrets)

5 inch/38 caliber dual-purpose guns (AAA / surface-attack)
Fletcher class destroyer: Yes, 5 (in 5 single mounts)
Baltimore class heavy cruiser: Yes, 12 (in 6 double mounts)

40 mm Bofors heavy AAA guns
Fletcher class destroyer: Yes, 6 to 10
Baltimore class heavy cruiser: Yes, 48

20 mm Oerlikon AAA autocannons
Fletcher class destroyer: Yes, 7 to 10
Baltimore class heavy cruiser: Yes, 24

21-inch torpedo tubes
Fletcher class destroyer: Yes, 10
Baltimore class heavy cruiser: No

K-gun depth-charge launchers
Fletcher class destroyer: Yes, 6
Baltimore class heavy cruiser: No

Depth charge racks
Fletcher class destroyer: Yes
Baltimore class heavy cruiser: No

Thanks for the last post, it helps get a real sense of perspective behind A&A units.

So, Cruisers should be better in Naval Combat against Destroyer.

How Cruiser such Baltimore Class can be a match against Battleship?

Do you think a bunch of Heavy cruisers can outmatched a lesser number of Battleships?

@Baron:

Maybe this A2 D2 unit combat values similarities could give an orientation for CWO Marc comments on historical Cruisers and Destroyers?
That would be fun if somehow history could provides some back up on this 2 hits Cruiser.  :-)

Regarding a unit’s hit rating, which in my mind reflects (in the case of a ship) resistance to battle damage offered by armour protection, torpedo bulkheads (if any), watertight compartmentalization, damage control abilities and so forth, a useful rule of thumb is that, in  very general terms, a balanced battleship or cruiser design was considered to be a design in which a ship’s armour protection was proportional to its own main armament.  In other words: a 16-inch-gun battleship ought to have adequate armour protection to allow it to stand up in a fight against another 16-inch-gun battleship.  “Stand up in a fight” does not mean immunity from damage; it means being well enough protected to fight the enemy on reasonably equal terms.  Likewise, an 8-inch cruiser ought to be adequately protected by its armour against 8-inch shellfire, and a 6-inch cruiser ought to be adequately protected by its armour against 6-inch shellfire.

This rule of thumb only applies to battleships and cruisers (and arguably only to battleships and cruisers of fairly orthodox design).  It doesn’t apply to carriers, most of which had little or no armour, and which in any case didn’t have heavy guns as their main armament.  It doesn’t apply to destroyers, which had no armour at all (hence heir “tin can” nickname).  And it doesn’t apply to battlecruisers, most of which had big guns but traded weak armour protection for increased speed (“eggshells armed with hammers”).  Some oddball battlecruisers even reversed the equation: the Scharnhorst class has 11-inch guns but were intended to be up-gunned to 15-inchers; their armour was under-strength relative to their never-fitted 15-inch guns, but over-strength relative to their 11-inch guns.

I think your old post should be added here for more historical details on Cruiser:
@CWO:

WWII cruisers can more accurately be divided into the following types:

• Battlecruisers.  These were basically cruisers that were the size of battleships, which carried heavy guns of the same caliber as battleships (though typically in smaller numbers), which were more lightly armoured than battleships, but which generally had higher speeds.  Hood (for which A&A 1941 provides a sculpt) is a clear-cut example of a battlecruiser; her 15-inch guns were actually larger than those of the more modern KGV class battleships, which carried 14-inchers.  Kongo (for which A&A 1941 provides a sculpt) was also a battlecruiser, though she was rebuilt and (arguably) reclassified as a battleship prior to WWII.  The Scharnhorst class ships were also battlecruisers, but with the interesting twist that they were over-armoured relative to their 11-inch guns (rather than under-armoured, which is usually the case with battlecruisers).

• Heavy cruisers.  As I mentioned, heavy cruisers were defined by the Washington Naval Treaty as any cruiser with guns larger than 6-inch caliber.  In practice, however, cruisers “with guns larger than 6-inch caliber” fell into two types (or three, if you count the above-mentioned battlecruiser type).  One type was the 8-inch gun cruiser, which was the most predominant type (to the point where “heavy cruiser” and “8-inch gun cruiser” were roughly synonymous).  The other – and much rarer – type involved cruisers which had guns larger than 8 inches but which were too small to be considered fully-fledged battlecruisers.  (I sometimes refer to such vessels as “ultra-heavy cruisers”, but this term wasn’t actually used during WWII.)   The Deutschland class Panzerschiffe fell into this category.  The Deutschlands were essentially ships which were the size of a heavy cruiser, which had the armour of a light cruiser, and which had the 11-inch guns of a low-end battleship.

• Light cruisers.  These were defined by the Washington Naval Treaty as any cruiser with guns of 6-inch caliber or less.  The term “light cruiser” was roughly synonymous with “6-inch cruiser”, which was the most common type.  A significant number of cruisers, however, were what I call “ultra-light cruisers” (a term which, like ultra-heavy cruisers, wasn’t actually used during WWII).  In many cases they were designed as 5-inch gun anti-aircraft platforms, like the British Dido class and the American Atlanta class.

From what you said, in this specific point:

It doesn’t apply to destroyers, which had no armour at all (hence heir “tin can” nickname).

It is clear that Cruiser can be able to endure much more damage than Destroyer.

For now, IMO the 2-hits Cruiser A2 D2 ShB2 C12 vs Destroyer A2 D2 C8 is acceptable from the historical perspective.
Not because of the same A/D value, but base on the Shore Bombardment capacity and heavier armour figured by the 2 hits.
Submarines get only 1 hit and are probably in the same category as the Destroyer when taking damage, because a hole in the hull make it useless for submersible operation.

In addition, the 2-Hits Cruiser gets the better hand in a face-to-face on the same IPCs basis against Destroyers.
2 2-hits Cruisers against 3 Destroyers:
Overall %*:   A. survives: 58.7%    D. survives: 37.2%    No one survives: 4.2%

About Subs, the game is still the same because Subs have First Strike against Cruiser. And, on offense, Subs are still better against them.
24 IPCs,
4 Subs against 2 2-hits Cruisers
Overall %*: A. survives: 79.2% D. survives: 20.8% No one survives: 0%

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=4&aDes=&aCru=&aCar=&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=&dBom=&dTra=2&dSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=2&dBat=&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Tra-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

But, when Cruiser on offense against Subs, they will probably be as good as Destroyers.

@Young:

Based on everything I have read, I would take away the 2 hit advantage on Aircraft Carriers, but allow them to carry 3 air units to justify their 16 IPC cost, or if that’s to strong… give them a defense @1.

That will unbalance things.
If you want a more balance Carrier, just input 14 IPCs 1942.2 Carrier A1 D2 M2, 1 hit, 2 planes.
But Naval Base won’t be as useful for repair, since Carrier will be highest rate of IPCs/hit.
People will rather loose a Cruiser than Carrier.

Keep it OOB, it is fine.
The real issue with 2-hits Cruiser is the 4 times weaker Battleship in Naval Combat.
No one will pay such as 20 IPCs if you can get much combat value with a lesser investment.

Shore bombardment is not a decisive ability.

It is still less the case if you play OOB that: any Naval blocker forfeit the Shore bombardment in an Amphibious assault.

@Baron:

How Cruiser such Baltimore Class can be a match against Battleship?
Do you think a bunch of Heavy cruisers can outmatched a lesser number of Battleships?

As is true with a lot of things, the answer is “it depends”, so generalizations have to be treated with caution.  One-on-one, a (let’s say 16-inch) battleship would in principle be able to outfight a (let’s say) 8-inch cruiser, if the cruiser didn’t use its (often but not always superior) speed to simply run away.  16-inch guns have longer range than 8-inch guns, so if a battleship’s speed was equal or superior to that of a cruiser (which generally wasn’t the case), the battleship in principle would simply stay outside 8-in shellfire range but inside 16-inch shellfiure range and keep firing until the cruiser is sunk, while sustaining no damage to itself.  A cruiser, however, would usually have the speed advantage, so it would be up to the cruiser captain to decide whether he’d run or whether he’d fight.  If he chose to fight, he’d have to quickly close the distance to 8-inch shellfire range, but not get so close that he’d be within range of the battleship’s 5-inch dual-purpose guns, which would only make his situation worse.  His situation would already be bad enough: the cruiser’s 8-inch guns would heavily damage but would not sink a battleship armoured to resist 16-inch shellfire, but the battleship’s 16-inch guns would (in principle) make short work of a cruiser armoured to resist 8-inch shellfire.  Short of ramming the battleship outright (and I can actually picture some British captains being Nelsonian enough to do that if the mission was important enough), a single cruiser fighting a single battleship wouln’t have much chance of sending the battleship to the bottom.

The catch, of course, is that a one-on-one duel between a battleship and a cruiser is almost unimaginable.  Battleships usually don’t travel unescorted, for various reasons, not least of which is the fact that admirals don’t like the idea of a flotilla of enemy destroyers getting within torpedo range of a battleship.  One way to keep those fast and dangerous destroyers well away from your dreadnoughts is to intercept them with your own destroyers.  Destroyers started life precisely in that role, as “torpedo boat destroyers” (hence their name) because when the Whitehead torpedo was introduced in the late 19th century, surface-ship officers were horrified at the idea that a little torpedo boat could punch a hole – from a distance! – in the waterline of a cruiser or battleship.  (One Royal Navy officer of the time called these newfangled infernal machines “damned un-English” as an expression of his contempt.)  Also, as WWII progressed, battleships operated more and more as part of task groups or task forces, with ships of many types, so the prospect of a one-on-one duel with a cruiser was pretty close to zero.

@Baron:

But, when Cruiser on offense against Subs, they will probably be as good as Destroyers.

In real life, cruisers do not carry out offensives against subs.  They’re not equiped for it.  Subs, on the other hand, have no problem with sinking cruisers, as the crew of the General Belgrano found out during the Falklands War.

@CWO:

@Baron:

How Cruiser such Baltimore Class can be a match against Battleship?
Do you think a bunch of Heavy cruisers can outmatched a lesser number of Battleships?

As is true with a lot of things, the answer is “it depends”, so generalizations have to be treated with caution.  One-on-one, a (let’s say 16-inch) battleship would in principle be able to outfight a (let’s say) 8-inch cruiser, if the cruiser didn’t use its (often but not always superior) speed to simply run away.  16-inch guns have longer range than 8-inch guns, so if a battleship’s speed was equal or superior to that of a cruiser (which generally wasn’t the case), the battleship in principle would simply stay outside 8-in shellfire range but inside 16-inch shellfiure range and keep firing until the cruiser is sunk, while sustaining no damage to itself.  A cruiser, however, would usually have the speed advantage, so it would be up to the cruiser captain to decide whether he’d run or whether he’d fight.  If he chose to fight, he’d have to quickly close the distance to 8-inch shellfire range, but not get so close that he’d be within range of the battleship’s 5-inch dual-purpose guns, which would only make his situation worse.  His situation would already be bad enough: the cruiser’s 8-inch guns would heavily damage but would not sink a battleship armoured to resist 16-inch shellfire, but the battleship’s 16-inch guns would (in principle) make short work of a cruiser armoured to resist 8-inch shellfire.  Short of ramming the battleship outright (and I can actually picture some British captains being Nelsonian enough to do that if the mission was important enough), a single cruiser fighting a single battleship wouln’t have much chance of sending the battleship to the bottom.

The catch, of course, is that a one-on-one duel between a battleship and a cruiser is almost unimaginable.  Battleships usually don’t travel unescorted, for various reasons, not least of which is the fact that admirals don’t like the idea of a flotilla of enemy destroyers getting within torpedo range of a battleship.  One way to keep those fast and dangerous destroyers well away from your dreadnoughts is to intercept them with your own destroyers.  Destroyers started life precisely in that role, as “torpedo boat destroyers” (hence their name) because when the Whitehead torpedo was introduced in the late 19th century, surface-ship officers were horrified at the idea that a little torpedo boat could punch a hole – from a distance! – in the waterline of a cruiser or battleship.  (One Royal Navy officer of the time called these newfangled infernal machines “damned un-English” as an expression of his contempt.)  Also, as WWII progressed, battleships operated more and more as part of task groups or task forces, with ships of many types, so the prospect of a one-on-one duel with a cruiser was pretty close to zero.

Thanks for this detailed answer.

Since the Battleship have the bigger guns with the greater range and a consequent armour, this would satisfy a first-shot plunging fire extra-attack to help counter-weight the  Battlecalc real advantage of the 2-hits Cruiser.
So, all Battleship can make a First Shot Att/Def @4, immediately after Subs Surprise Strike phase, and before regular combat.
Any single hit unit casualty is immediately removed.

Just to tie up a loose end from earlier today before I go home, I did some checking and I don’t think the “destroyer leader” idea is really applicable to the concept of cruisers and destroyers working together as a combined-arms team.  Destroyer leaders (aka flotilla leaders) were simply large destroyers or small cruisers with some facilities aboard to house the officer who commanded a flotilla of destroyers – in other words, basically a ship with some extra office space.  This didn’t confer any combined arms advantage, any more than the presence of similar flagship facilities aboard larger ships conferred any combined arms advantages to admirals commanding task forces; what these offices really represent is the command-and-control system that exists in any naval formation consisting of more than one ship, so it’s nothing that would apply specifically (and only) to a cruiser+destroyer pairing.

simply no….

@Young:

Going back to the drawing board, if we reset attack and defense values back to oob rules… would increased shore bombardment capabilities alone be enough to boost Cruisers and Battleships as favorable purchases?

Shore Bombardments

Cruisers @3
Battleships @4

• Sea combat no longer negates bombardments during amphibious assaults
• All sea units that can bombard may do so regardless of how many units are landing
• Bombardments repeat every combat round during an amphibious assault

This one has some loopholes:
All sea units that can bombard may do so regardless of how many units are landing.

You cannot get rid of pairing with ground unit, otherwise their will be some Europe Dieppe straffing assault in which:
1 or 2 Infantries are scrapped while allowing many cruisers to drop the German’s stacks without any big retaliation.
German’s rolls can do overkill but there is only 1-2 Infantry lost.

Maximum, 1 Shore bombardment / unit making the debarkment.
This one must stay in your OOB rule, for sure.

I agree about returning on the drawing board.
Unfortunately 2-hits Cruiser A2 D2 C12, is still too much OP against costlier units such as Fg, TcB, StB, Carrier and Battleship.
Even a 10 IPCs 1-hit Cruiser A3 D3 M2, is much weaker.

About infinite Shore bombardment, I have no idea.
A 12 IPCs Cruiser will get the attack factor of a Fg at 10 IPCs.

In itself, not a problem.
It is more an issue from an historical depiction POV.

I think we have just demonstrated in the last few pages, how its basically impossible to fix the naval roster with just one unit in isolation, or by just using the combined arms or “special boost” type model.
:-D

@Young:

Based on everything I have read, I would take away the 2 hit advantage on Aircraft Carriers, but allow them to carry 3 air units to justify their 16 IPC cost, or if that’s to strong… give them a defense @1.

I see these as a workable solution, not least because of how frequently people in my playgroup gripe about the way damaged carriers are handled OOB. With fighters either getting trapped on deck, or unable to land on a stranded/damaged carrier. In a lot of cases the carriers end up being sunk or sacrificed anyway, and usually this just gets pushed out 1 round. I know we’ve discussed the 3 aircraft carrier in the past, and Baron offered a lot of ideas on why it might be preferable.

In general I adopt the view that YG had, looking more at how these units function as abstract game pieces, rather than historical analogs, but I still would like to strike a balance that serves the game from both perspectives.

On this last point, I think the attitude comes from a sense the the names of these pieces are sometimes arbitrary.

For example in the older games like Classic, destroyers and cruisers did not exist as a game piece. Though of course they existed in WW2! So if you’re a player like me, what you do is just imagine that the abilities of ships encompass the existence of other invisible units, representing them in the abstract. I think thats why I dont have an issue with things like warships transporting infantry, because I just imagine that the warship is escorting some invisible transport vessel not physically represented itself, but embodied by the warship that you can buy.

I could also imagine that say, we need yet another intermediate ship in A&A. And then people just adding in a new unit like “frigate”, or “light” or “heavy” or “battle” cruiser some random name,  just because it’s needed to fit the desired unit abilities. Some intermediate unit at the Attack/Def values, with a reasonable name to fit, since that’s basically what happened when cruisers and destroyers were introduced.

@Young:

Going back to the drawing board, if we reset attack and defense values back to oob rules… would increased shore bombardment capabilities alone be enough to boost Cruisers and Battleships as favorable purchases?

Shore Bombardments

Cruisers @3
Battleships @4

• Sea combat no longer negates bombardments during amphibious assaults
• All sea units that can bombard may do so regardless of how many units are landing
• Bombardments repeat every combat round during an amphibious assault

Bombardments repeat every round makes a lot of sense to me. Sea combat not negating bombardment is also interesting. But I know from previous experience designing tripleA games, that bombardment can be heavily abused if there is no restriction based on how many units offload. The prime example of this, was a common tactic where players purchased a big stack of bombardment capable warships and then used a single infantry unit on amphibious to bombard the hell out of coastal capitals at a relatively cheap cost. In a very extreme example, say you had a dozen cruisers that could all be activated by a lone amphibious inf unit, destroying on average 6 enemy infantry for a cost of just 1 attacking infantry lost. In Classic and Revised it wasn’t as bad, because only Battleships could bombard, they were very expensive, and the overall money in play wasn’t very high. But in a game like G40, where you can afford a lot more ships, the bombardment restriction based on how many ground are unloading is important. If going this route, I would keep the first line, and the last, but ditch the one in the middle.

As I was typing this out, I see Baron beat me to the punch on that last point.

Also, given what CWO has said about possible historical unit pairings, it doesn’t seem like there are many great options for a combined arms enhancement with cruisers. Just focusing on bombardment alone might be easier.

Many players in my group have also expressed a certain distaste for the the whole idea that units which are destroyed on bombardment get to return fire. I have to agree that this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If the desire is to just find a way to kill off attacking ground during an amphibious assault, perhaps this should be handled via a special roll? Based not on the defending units normal defense value, but rather just make it a simple roll, similar to aa guns, which determine how many attacking dudes get killed before they ever get off the beach?