[Hearts of Iron 4] Early War Destroyers ASW Too Good?

[Ian C]

Does anyone feel early war Destroyers are overpowered in detecting and destroying subs? Maybe I'm not using them properly and I need to let the game settle in (patches, tweaks etc.) but when playing The Reich I'm seeing the Royal Navy taking out quite a lot of them in 1939-40. I have them in packs of about 10-20.

I'm thinking particularly about the period after mid-war where ASW turned into something far more effective at dealing with subs. Currently in the early war period Subs seem to be less elusive and easier to kill and ASW too effective. It concerns me in terms of having some kind of realistic Atlantic War during 1939-43.

Thoughts?


If anyone is interested in fine details and possible tweaks for a ASW Realism Mod (I've already made the framework), from the base unit stats we have:

Destroyer I     (1922)
Sub Detection 60, Sub Attack 10

Destroyer II    (1936)
Sub Detection 80, Sub Attack 13

Destroyer III    (1940)
Sub Detection 100, Sub Attack 16

Destroyer IV    (1944)
Sub Detection 140, Sub Attack 20

Improvements:
ASW Upgrades: (Max Level 5) Sub Detection +0.02, Sub Attack +0.04 per level each


Submarine I    (1922)
Evasion 40, Surface Detection 20, Sub Visibility 20, Surface Visibility 20

Submarine II    (1936)
Evasion 45, Surface Detection 40, Sub Visibility 15, Surface Visibility 10

Submarine III    (1940)
Evasion 50, Surface Detection 40, Sub Visibility 10, Surface Visibility 10

Submarine IV    (1944)
Evasion 55, Surface Detection 40, Sub Visibility 5, Surface Visibility 8

Improvements:
Sub Stealth Upgrades: (Max Level 5) Sub Visibility (Stealth) -0.05 per level

[Boggit]

I don't have the game yet, but I agree with your thoughts in general.

1939-41 the war was with the U-boats. 1942 onwards the spiral distinctly changed in the Allied favour. 1943 onwards was really, really bad for the U-boats. By the end of the war Germany had lost 75% of its U-boats to allied ASW. A very dangerous service to be in.

[jamus34]

I haven't looked at this at all but does the game some how replicate the really poor us torps of the era?

[sandman2575]

Naval war, like air war, needs some serious rebalancing.  ASW is far too powerful early on. Even 'first tier' destroyers like the Clemson are sub murderers.  By the same token, subs are perhaps too lethal given how cheap they are to produce.

To jamus's question -- they aren't. Would be nice, but HOI has never tried to model ww2 naval warfare with that kind of fidelity to historical realism.

[Ian C]

does the game some how replicate the really poor us torps of the era?

I can mod this in very easily. It can be added as one of the US National Spirit Modifiers




EDIT: I think this is correct. All it needs is a relevant value to reduce accuracy by.

Code Select Expand

poor_us_torpedoes = {


allowed = {
always = no
}

allowed_civil_war = {
always = yes
}

removal_cost = -1

picture = generic_navy_bonus

equipment_bonus = {

submarine = {
torpedo_attack = -0.06
}
}
}

Naval war, like air war, needs some serious rebalancing.  ASW is far too powerful early on. Even 'first tier' destroyers like the Clemson are sub murderers.  By the same token, subs are perhaps too lethal given how cheap they are to produce.

This is what I was looking for. Thanks, I'm glad it's not just my perception of it.

To jamus's question -- they aren't. Would be nice, but HOI has never tried to model ww2 naval warfare with that kind of fidelity to historical realism.

With the wealth of knowledge on this forum I'm sure we can hone this game into something even better, even if it is small historical touches here and there.  The game is the easiest to mod so far. I have some moderate scripting skills and graphics experience. Grogheads Historical Accuracy Mods anyone?

[Barthheart]

...
With the wealth of knowledge on this forum I'm sure we can hone this game into something even better, even if it is small historical touches here and there.  The game is the easiest to mod so far. I have some moderate scripting skills and graphics experience. Grogheads Historical Accuracy Mods anyone?

GHAMs ? Maybe shorten that to GrogHeads Accuracy Mods - GAMS!  :D  O0

[Ian C]

GHAMs ? Maybe shorten that to GrogHeads Accuracy Mods - GAMS!  :D  O0

Great idea> no end of non-copyright images to re-hash:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ww2+girl+posters&biw=1213&bih=836&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIs9aKor7NAhWHJMAKHcgOAG4QsAQIIg#imgrc=_

[Pete Dero]

A short 4 part documentary on the subject :

Part 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LttiRF5GtKw&list=PL0HntDFk20-ODGG5YMUgQIR3FxwBSO9s9&index=93

Part 3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGjrTX6HmeA&list=PL0HntDFk20-ODGG5YMUgQIR3FxwBSO9s9&index=92

Part 4 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXc7Jodj5eE&list=PL0HntDFk20-ODGG5YMUgQIR3FxwBSO9s9&index=91


As far as I know the results I get in game are quit reasonable :

- low losses when using the subs on convoy raiding
- high losses when using them to hunt warships
- better results in sub hunting when combining naval planes and destroyers
- the chosen research path should correspond with your intentions if you don't want to see high losses (if you chose trade interdiction as research, don't use them to hunt warships)
- low losses in the open ocean, high losses in the English Channel

Even in the beginning of the war the subs in reality were in real danger.  They had to spend most of their time above water what made them vulnerable to detection (especially by air) and once they were detected they were no longer the hunter but the hunted.

I don't know if you can check the combined losses somewhere in the game to verify this, but my feeling is that the results are somewhat as expected.

The air losses on both sides however seem to be rather high.
One year of fighting over the English Channel gives me these results :

German losses :  1900 fighters
Allied losses : 1300 fighters, 700 bombers and 1200 supports

[sandman2575]

Have to say, it's disappointing HOI naval warfare is still governed by the "Combine All Your Ships Into A Single Death-Star Fleet" school of thought. The fleets AI Japan puts together make the Kido Butai look like a flotilla of catamarans.

[jamus34]

Have to say, it's disappointing HOI naval warfare is still governed by the "Combine All Your Ships Into A Single Death-Star Fleet" school of thought. The fleets AI Japan puts together make the Kido Butai look like a flotilla of catamarans.

MD must love this game then   ;D

[bobarossa]

PD:  The battle of Britain lasted ~4 months and resulted in 1000 British and 1800 German losses.  Other than being balanced the other way, your numbers don't look too bad.

SM:  I think it was HOI1 that initially had an AI that would move all German divisions to SouthWestern France and leave them there (in prep for attacking Spain?).

[Ian C]

Have to say, it's disappointing HOI naval warfare is still governed by the "Combine All Your Ships Into A Single Death-Star Fleet" school of thought. The fleets AI Japan puts together make the Kido Butai look like a flotilla of catamarans.

There's a thread on that here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/solutions-for-megafleets.951547/

It's quite easy to fix and I think I may have found a remedy.

By default the AI has minimum fleets of size 50 and max of 100. I think this is Port Capacity Usage size.
So, on a per-vessel basis,  BB/CV = 4,    BC=1.5,   DD/CA/CL=1,   SS=0.5.

We just need to alter the value in the 00_Defines.lua which is lacated at Hearts of Iron IV\common\defines. That post I linked to suggests the battle of Matapan as a rough guide, in which case the Max Fleet size should be redefined to something like 3.2. However, we would need to look at other engagements, particularly the Pacific naval war to get a reasonable max value for the AI.

[Boggit]

The air losses on both sides however seem to be rather high.
One year of fighting over the English Channel gives me these results :

German losses :  1900 fighters
Allied losses : 1300 fighters, 700 bombers and 1200 supports

Do you really think so? It's a relatively small area compared to other areas of operations, and was the focus of some high volumes of air forces, not to mention intense fighting given the strategic importance of the channel.

[Pete Dero]

The air losses on both sides however seem to be rather high.
One year of fighting over the English Channel gives me these results :

German losses :  1900 fighters
Allied losses : 1300 fighters, 700 bombers and 1200 supports

Do you really think so? It's a relatively small area compared to other areas of operations, and was the focus of some high volumes of air forces, not to mention intense fighting given the strategic importance of the channel.

In my case as Germany this meant about 50% of the fighters were lost.  I wish I had correct numbers but I can't find in game how much entered the fight in total, only the losses are available as far as I know.   Maybe I had worse technology, maybe they had better radar, ... , but I don't have enough feedback in the game to check this.

[Boggit]

The air losses on both sides however seem to be rather high.
One year of fighting over the English Channel gives me these results :

German losses :  1900 fighters
Allied losses : 1300 fighters, 700 bombers and 1200 supports

Do you really think so? It's a relatively small area compared to other areas of operations, and was the focus of some high volumes of air forces, not to mention intense fighting given the strategic importance of the channel.

In my case as Germany this meant about 50% of the fighters were lost.  I wish I had correct numbers but I can't find in game how much entered the fight in total, only the losses are available as far as I know.   Maybe I had worse technology, maybe they had better radar, ... , but I don't have enough feedback in the game to check this.

Difficult to get a good idea then. FWIW, against a historical background it gives broadly correct numbers, but as you say it's difficult to check the numbers in the game.