WW1 Royal Navy quality worse than the Hochseeflotte in wargames

[Boggit]

The discussion seems geared toward the battlecruiser action; sexy but only one part of the story. The Grand Fleet's  quality was as good as the Hochseeflottes.  Remember, it was the Germans who turned and ran.

Indeed.  Agree completely.

That's why the blanket modifiers are too much in many cases (notably the quick magazine explosions) - because they were primarily limited to a relatively small and very specific part of the British Fleet, yet the rates are being applied to the whole fleet in a skewed manner. 

My point about the blanket damage control bonus for the Hochsee Fleet is also not the best way to go, although for the different reason I previously posted (heavier German armor and poor British Ammunition provided fewer critical hits in the first place!)

Just wondering whether Steam and Iron (on my hotlist) deals with this along the lines you suggest? If not, then they should listen to you. I know John Tiller's Jutland just gives a better hit chance for the German's, but NWS hold themselves out as naval wargame specialists.

[Warship NWS]

Just speaking for our NWS productions - we never use "blanket" modifiers for our simulations to cover for every battle during a time frame. Doctrines, tactics, equipment, training, etc.. changed during the war based on combat experience and refits which would negate the historical accuracy of using "blanket" modifiers. Specific historically based modifiers may apply to scenarios to cover for individual battle combat environment conditions or other general variables only. 

During Jutland the Germans were not - in general - "better" gunners when compared to the British. The combat environment and specific engagement situations during the various skirmishes allowed for some slight advantages to one side or the other during the fluid battle. End result, the battle in its entirety cannot, in my professional opinion, be used to calibrate the combat mechanics for every battle fought during WW1. Jutland is a broad case example but hardly the only possible engagement that could have occurred, or that did occur, during the war. Overall when you consider that the hit rate was relatively abysmal for both sides at around 2-4% a ~1% difference is not that significant, as is noted by various sources, when the massive amount of complex mechanical, human, and environment variables that contributed to the battle are taken into account.

Thanks.

[Nefaro]

The discussion seems geared toward the battlecruiser action; sexy but only one part of the story. The Grand Fleet's  quality was as good as the Hochseeflottes.  Remember, it was the Germans who turned and ran.

Indeed.  Agree completely.

That's why the blanket modifiers are too much in many cases (notably the quick magazine explosions) - because they were primarily limited to a relatively small and very specific part of the British Fleet, yet the rates are being applied to the whole fleet in a skewed manner. 

My point about the blanket damage control bonus for the Hochsee Fleet is also not the best way to go, although for the different reason I previously posted (heavier German armor and poor British Ammunition provided fewer critical hits in the first place!)

Just wondering whether Steam and Iron (on my hotlist) deals with this along the lines you suggest? If not, then they should listen to you. I know John Tiller's Jutland just gives a better hit chance for the German's, but NWS hold themselves out as naval wargame specialists.

S&I has similar bonuses/penalties blanketing the respective nation. 

I had brought this up on the NWS forum shortly after the release when I noticed that the German Navy was getting a nation-wide bonus in crew quality, above and beyond the crew quality ratings for individual ships.  There was a fair amount of people in general agreement with my suggestion to restrict the catastrophic explosions on all British warships, and cut the nation-wide German crew bonuses that pretty much give the German Navy a small bonus in every performance aspect.   But, naturally, there were still a few people who wanted it to stay the way it is now (IIRC some alluded to the rather gamey "balance" aspect).

The developer was considerate of the argument, and said that it may be open for a change in one of the updates if enough people thought it important enough, but there wasn't any unanimous outpouring for it so it was never changed AFAIK.  He suggested the "quick" fix would be to open scenarios and adjust the crew quality manually with the scenario editor, to offset the bonus, but that was just a band-aid suggestion.  Don't get me wrong, the S&I developer was very accommodating with all our other interface & gameplay feedback and included a very large amount of it, so I've been quite impressed with his flexibility and the wonderful updates post-release.  The posts I seen on Jutland just outright said that they were not going to change it, and to not bring it up anymore.  There is, however, a couple optional settings in Jutland for an all-or-nothing adjustment to shell break-up (which is generally modelled okay IMO) and British Powder Handling.   I've tended to turn powder handling off in Jutland just because that when it's on, all ship types in the Brit Navy blow up on a regluar basis enough that one often goes tits-up quite early in battle (once again - believable with Beatty's Battlecruiser squadron.. that same exaggerated rate not quite so much for BBs, ACs, and the others).  In both games.. and especially in my last few S&I games playing the Brit side, I've had at least one (and sometimes two) ships blow up in the early stages of the battle.  Not to mention many of my crit hits against the German vessels beings quickly fixed within a few minutes (like taking out turrets with gun hits and them being up and operational quite quickly... flooding and fires coming under control very quickly, etc.)  I have trouble sinking equivalently-sized German warships, even when outnumbering them 3- or 4-to-2 before my whole ammo load is exhausted. 

However, the over-pronounced insta-deadly explosions for the whole British Navy, and the notably superior fire, and especially repair rates, of the German Navy still rub me a bit wrong despite my love of S&I overall.  I think both games got quite a lot right, but the sometimes invincible German ships and the oft-early disintegration of British ships are overly pronounced enough to be frustrating at times. 

Would I buy S&I again?  Absolutely, because I love the subject matter and it does most everything right even despite looking like the original Harpoon from ~1992.  :P


EDIT:  Chris is here so it's a good time to ask the detailed questions.    :D

So the bonuses (such as the German Hit Bonuses & such) are all scenario-specific?  What about random scenarios? Or the ones created by the campaign generator?  I was pretty sure I had seen German bonuses in random scenarios, too. 

I do know that I've regularly had Brit ships disappear in a cloud of smoke fairly quickly, and on a regular basis, even in small scenarios involving cruisers & such.  I don't know how, exactly, the extra Brit magazine explosion chances are handled but I've been on the receiving end of it quite a bit while German magazine explosions are extremely rare.

[Warship NWS]

As I am the designer of WCNAW I will confer with FW, designer of SAI, before I reply to make sure we are on the same page with my response. Note, my responses will have to be short and generalized a bit as my time is very limited right now as we are getting ready to launch the SAI campaign expansion very soon plus I have to cover other admin duties here at NWS.

Thanks.

[Bismarck]

So you don't want to use the easy manual editor?  Just great - fine mediocrity. Ignore a problem you think is significant and lay it all on the deb, ignoring his other customers. Why have edit functions if people don't use them?

[Nefaro]

So you don't want to use the easy manual editor?  Just great - fine mediocrity. Ignore a problem you think is significant and lay it all on the deb, ignoring his other customers. Why have edit functions if people don't use them?

??!

I don't want to go in and manually modify every ship in every scenario before playing.  While I've done a little scenario editing before, and some small bits of modding, I'm not one to find much enjoyment in it for very long.  I'm not even sure if the random ones can be done that way, either.   I'd rather enjoy playing it with some quibbles about a few modifiers than spend much of my time, with the game, in the editor.

At this point, I don't expect either WWI game's mechanics to be changed, or an option added, so it's a moot point anyway.

[Warship NWS]

This is FW's response,

Naval historians and gamers all have their opinions and theories about different aspects of naval combat and national advantages or disadvantages. The modifiers in SAI are based on our best opinions at NWS, but of course others might hold a different opinion. S&I has modifiers that govern national characteristics as well as specific modifiers in the different scenarios and campaigns. German ships have a 10% accuracy bonus, but considering all the other factors that affect gunnery, this is very slight as an advantage. German ships also get a bonus to damage control which is of the same order.

British ships have a higher risk of blowing up from turret flash fires, with the battlecruisers having a larger risk than other ships. The risk is however considerably lower than suggested by battle data. Finally, in the campaign, the risk of flash fires will be reduced the more ships have blown up, simulating attention to ammo procedures after the problem has become evident.

If you do not like these values or have another opinion about the national characterisics, these values are governed by the file Nations.dat, which is a text file and can easily be modified to values that you are comfortable with.

/Fredrik

Now I would note, SAI is intended to be an operational campaign simulator with the ability to resolve battles in real time at a tactical level. Modelling the "human" element is not, nor has it ever been, an exact science, nor were evolving doctrines for naval operations.  "Nationality" ratings, in terms of SAI, should not be looked at as a "blanket" modifier but more of a general naval operations doctrinal adjustment for SAI. Some countries - on average - did have better doctrines for naval operations then others such as ammo volatility/storage, damage control training/equipment standards, gunnery salvo doctrines, useful operational experience, etc.. .

The above is FWs perspective - and as noted above, the nationality ratings can easily be adjusted to whatever the gamer feels is more appropriate based on their personal opinion. The crew ratings per ship can also be adjusted per scenario.

Now my view on the topic,

In WCNAW, a purely very detailed tactical naval combat simulation,  I use a crew rating per ship and there are some nationality modifiers that take into account doctrinal, DC equipment standards, and training considerations that are determined by the year of the scenario and nationality in question. Each ship can be given an adjusted crew quality rating that further modifies the general fighting effectiveness of the ship.

Note, combat experience should not always be considered equivalent to effective, or flawed, doctrines. A navy could have good or poor training, effective or flawed doctrines, and/or useful or ineffective operational or combat experience. Example, the IJN at the start of WW2 had considerable operational and reasonable combat experience (vs mostly ineffective armed forces) but very questionable blue water naval operational doctrines - note, they had never fought an effective blue water navy before engaging the USN. (The RN had no way to muster enough naval firepower to even create a challenge for the IJN in the Indian and SW Pacific regions at that time). The USN had very low operational combat experience but typically more effective naval doctrines (especially for CV combat operations and damage control) - for the exception of DD surface combat tactics which were severely ineffective until around 1943.

I would consider the RN at the start of WW1 very experienced at naval operations but with some various flaws with their doctrines in combat. The Germans were not as experienced at naval operations but some of their doctrines were, to some extent, better then the British. Was it enough to give the Germans a decided advantage? Not a chance. At best the general effect was barely marginal and the British did improve their doctrines to some extent as the war progressed. In the end, neither navy had enough firepower to destroy the other in any one engagement. Thousands of shells were expended at Jutland, as an example, for a very low return in results and both sides, when given the proper exploitable opportunity, caused variable amounts of damage to the enemy through reasonably effective gunnery.

In the end, I am a semi-advocate of "national" ratings and we did have long discussions on the topic - but - I understand FWs point of view. To some extent national doctrine considerations did have a role to play in naval engagements. How much of a role is sometimes a matter of opinion based on how one interprets the available historical facts of how each nation designed and fought their ships in combat during the wars. To make matters more complicated - doctrines very often evolved through combat experience, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. A nation could go to war with a set of doctrines that would work vs one military force but not as much against a different military force.  This was the case for land, air, and naval combat throughout history.

Thanks.

[MengJiao]

@MengJiao

+1  You said it, brother!

    I was just explaining the evolution of boardgames last night: as the narrative understanding of past events has gotten more complex (eg Glantz on the East front, lots of revision on WWI technology, Clay Blair on U-boats) games have had to choose more carefully what they want to represent and how by using such things as command points and card draws to cover the more difficult to quantify but very crucial aspects of C(3) I and so on.  So in Elusive Victory, you can put more aircraft up, but then your ability to get them to track and engage the enemy goes down because you are overloading your control system.

    Computer games have a lot more trouble with that sort of thing it seems to me partly because they do have the option of tracking every shell and so on (but not every signal and not every instance of command overload on the bridge or targetting from a destroyer etc. etc.) .  the combat mission games come closest to combining command and control factors and tracking every bullet, which for a nautical battle would get them to the level of simulating good pirates, but not even the most primitive of fleets because of the interlocking decisions that even a bunch of pentconters would have to manage -- there's just a whole other level of design that has yet to be even well-imagined when it comes to naval battles.

   BUT you can do such things in board games oddly enough (since they have to make a choice
about how to summarize the effects of C(3)I and ice and storms and ship design.  So to celebrate your +1, i have purchased GMT games' PQ-17.

   AND its on sale for 40.00!

   I thought it was the groggiest thing I could do at the time.

+1 to that.
I can understand where you're coming from on the C3I games. I really enjoy games that use it - like you said Combat Mission, but I also like those that build up a profile of what you're up against like Harpoon, or back in the day the C64 Red Storm Rising where you had to build up and confirm sonar signatures to form a plan to deal with the enemy. I realise that doesn't deal with the orders aspect, but it does make it more challenging and interesting.

  It's partly a question of what people find interesting in games versus what games can do to produce plausible outcomes.  For example, in Flying Colors, there is a massive simplification: the audacity rating.  This works very well at many levels and (at first glance) serves to give the historical attacker in scenarios enough of an purely gamey advantage to make them undertake the attack.  But when coupled with other factors (particularly the command rules), the audacity rating covers the clarity that the attacker's signals (explicit and implicit) would have in the context where everybody on one side has agreed to make an attack.
  I think this kind of blanket simplification (varying per scenario) works well for age of sail battles covering a few hours and a few 10s of kilometers of ocean.
  But this is exactly the kind of simplification that can really mess up a WWI nautical scenario with varying visibility, 4 or 5 types of signals (flags, radio, light, recognition lights, semiphore -- as well lots of different stuff on the seas, in the air and in the aethers -- subs, airplanes, zepplins, kite ballons, destroyers, cruisers, high level intercepts, direction finding, enemy signals, own signals and/or the lack thereof etc.) and big possibilities for events outpacing the command and signal nets.

   Paradoxically (or so it seems to me), simulating post WWII naval battles (mostly theoretical battles) gives a better chance of more or less accidently simulating the signals and command level because -- at the very least -- something about sensors and signatures and sharing targeting information has to be in the game in some way.  You might say, once the electronics get complex enough, just simulating them at all is a useful simplification like an audacity rating.

[Nefaro]

If you do not like these values or have another opinion about the national characterisics, these values are governed by the file Nations.dat, which is a text file and can easily be modified to values that you are comfortable with.

Well.. that makes it a helluva lot easier to adjust than I thought.  So kudos to FW for having those 10% nationality modifiers available as an easy text edit option in S&I.

[Warship NWS]

FW just reminded me that there is an option in SAI to "reduce" the chance of "flash fires" - just in case that helps any.

Just to recap, there are 3 basic human based contributing variables involved with military history,

a) Doctrines / Tactics - the theoretical concepts and tactics for how ships were built to fight and deployed for war.
b) Training / Cohesive Effectiveness - the general abilities of the crews based on their training either prior or during operational deployment.
c) Combat / Operational Experience - the general experience of the crews to engage specific, or an array of, opponents in various combat situations.

Note, any of the above could be beneficial, or have a negative, effect in combat due to a change in enemy tactics, composition, deployment, etc.. Example, a crew could be heavily trained using flawed doctrines or tactics or combat experience could be based on fighting a less effective enemy force causing over confidence and the use of ineffective tactics vs a more effective military opponent.

The 3 variables above did cause various effects in combat and they were definitely not always inclusive and as such should be looked at as individual attributes for simulations and wargames IMHO.

Thanks.

[panzerde]

Thanks for the information, Christopher.  I can understand the reasoning and why SAI is set up the way it is.  It's also great to know that the national modifiers can be so easily accessed.

Pretty impressive information for a "brief and general" response!  It's that level of attention that makes your sims so worth playing, IMHO.

[Boggit]

Just speaking for our NWS productions - we never use "blanket" modifiers for our simulations to cover for every battle during a time frame. Doctrines, tactics, equipment, training, etc.. changed during the war based on combat experience and refits which would negate the historical accuracy of using "blanket" modifiers. Specific historically based modifiers may apply to scenarios to cover for individual battle combat environment conditions or other general variables only. 

During Jutland the Germans were not - in general - "better" gunners when compared to the British. The combat environment and specific engagement situations during the various skirmishes allowed for some slight advantages to one side or the other during the fluid battle. End result, the battle in its entirety cannot, in my professional opinion, be used to calibrate the combat mechanics for every battle fought during WW1. Jutland is a broad case example but hardly the only possible engagement that could have occurred, or that did occur, during the war. Overall when you consider that the hit rate was relatively abysmal for both sides at around 2-4% a ~1% difference is not that significant, as is noted by various sources, when the massive amount of complex mechanical, human, and environment variables that contributed to the battle are taken into account.

Thanks.

Chris :)
I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with the issues raised. It sounds like you are actually doing some of the things regarding blanket modifiers that Nefaro, Mengjiao, myself and others were concerned about. Does SAI also deal with the command and control issues also mentioned?

[Warship NWS]

Thanks Panzerde,

My favorite area of research is weapon systems and applications in combat, doctrinal theory and tactical concepts, and battle analysis. I enjoy the puzzle and problem solving of how and why battles played out the way they did and researching the theories behind the evolution of doctrines and tactics used by various military forces.

At NWS we work together as a professional team on all of our productions - no ego trips, arrogance, or competition of knowledge.

Thanks and take care friends.

[Warship NWS]

Chris :)
I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with the issues raised. It sounds like you are actually doing some of the things regarding blanket modifiers that Nefaro, Mengjiao, myself and others were concerned about. Does SAI also deal with the command and control issues also mentioned?

Short answer - SAI already takes into account, with degrees of detail that depend on the command level you are playing, C&C of the fleets. Let me know if that answers your question.

[Boggit]

Chris :)
I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with the issues raised. It sounds like you are actually doing some of the things regarding blanket modifiers that Nefaro, Mengjiao, myself and others were concerned about. Does SAI also deal with the command and control issues also mentioned?

Short answer - SAI already takes into account, with degrees of detail that depend on the command level you are playing, C&C of the fleets. Let me know if that answers your question.

Yes it does. Thanks Chris. :)