Usefulness of Different Ships

[MichiganKOM]

I notice that when I sort my ships by "combat strength," a monitor is placed ahead of a frigate. Clearly two guns aren't more powerful than fifty, so can anyone explain what "combat strength" means? Even an ironclad frigate is lower in "combat strength" than a monitor.
Also, has anyone made good use of smaller ships like 4th-rate steamers and ship's tenders? In a real navy a ship's tender helps to repair ships - do they serve this purpose in the game or are they just cannon-fodder?

[Nugcrusher]

I don't know much about the ships and there strengths. That said, however, I did have one success as CSA in the spring '61 campaign. Over a time of 2 yrs I built 4 ironclad "casement" sea-going rams...ten guns each.

Hoping for the best (but having absolutely no clue) I sailed up from NC and defeated the various US fleets around Hampton Roads. Not only a victory but I also captured 5 wooden frigates, and one of those was a 40 gun steamer.

10 guns vs 40,,,but that is consistent with reality. The Merrimac (an iron clad "casement" type...Mar., 1862) wrecked havoc on the wooden ships it encountered in the same Hampton Roads. It was the protection...iron vs wood, not gun vs gun. The "Monitor" type you mention may have only two guns but it is iron.

Earlier, with about 12 or 15 ships ,,,many were those 4th-rate steamers, 2 40 gun steam frigates, and a couple of the tenders, but no iron rams, I tried to break the same blockade, and was absolutely slaughtered.

[Turd Ferguson]

a monitor has more combat strength because it is next to unsinkable in combat. The higher the combat strength, the better they will perform in combat.

[Targaryen22]

Pretty sure the monitor is also iron armored, as well as having turrets. which a frigate does not, and is not. Timber>iron

[MichiganKOM]

Thanks for the replies. It makes sense for "combat strength" to combine offense and defense, but I'm still a bit confused. An ironclad frigate should have as good defense as a monitor and many more guns, but it's still rated lower in combat strength. Also I still don't know how best to use the small ships. Maybe they should be concentrated into fleets that will only blockade and have nothing to do with forts.
Hopefully more detailed information about naval battles (including fort bombardments) will be made available. I've read what the manual says, but it isn't enough information to plan fleets effectively.

[williamcarter1993]

Originally posted by lilbitz5:

Thanks for the replies. It makes sense for "combat strength" to combine offense and defense, but I'm still a bit confused. An ironclad frigate should have as good defense as a monitor and many more guns, but it's still rated lower in combat strength. Also I still don't know how best to use the small ships. Maybe they should be concentrated into fleets that will only blockade and have nothing to do with forts.
Hopefully more detailed information about naval battles (including fort bombardments) will be made available. I've read what the manual says, but it isn't enough information to plan fleets effectively.

Frigates are wooden at the time, not iron. So a 2 gun monitor or 10 gun casemate ironclad would decimate a 40 gun wooden frigate.


Fort bombardments is pretty much- the combat strength of your fleet vs the combat strength of a fort. Sometimes you have enough and sometimes you do not. Remember, forts are usually brick and some wood with massive artillery, sitting up high overlooking a river with guns marked in, meanwhile ships are wood, flammable, or iron, and are being fired down upon. I don't really bombard forts much unless I have like an absolutely massive fleet, but you'd still take casualties. You can read about Farragut running past the forts at New Orleans, Mobile Bay, Fort Donelson initial riverine attack, and find out that even if eventually the US won these battles their navy took big damage from forts they encountered.





also when it comes to the small ships there's nothing to..DO. you can't control ships individually like you can brigades on the battlefield. If I was you I'd keep the smaller ships for either blockade raiding or riverine warfare, like on the MS river, and use the bigger ships/ironclads for blockading.

[Alex]

The usefulness of smaller ships is about quantity over quality. 4th Rate steamers aren't that great and are indeed essentially "cannon fodder"...but you can crank out a lot of them very quickly. This allows you to ♥♥♥♥ out a bunch of quick fleets onto rivers if for some reason you need this. Ironclad ships in general take awhile to crank out - something like half a year-ish, I think.

[dazedandconfused]

Originally posted by lilbitz5:

Thanks for the replies. It makes sense for "combat strength" to combine offense and defense, but I'm still a bit confused. An ironclad frigate should have as good defense as a monitor and many more guns, but it's still rated lower in combat strength. Also I still don't know how best to use the small ships. Maybe they should be concentrated into fleets that will only blockade and have nothing to do with forts.
Hopefully more detailed information about naval battles (including fort bombardments) will be made available. I've read what the manual says, but it isn't enough information to plan fleets effectively.

Just because the frigate has armor, that doesn't equate it to a monitor. Consider the huge profile differences, and the fact the frigate has lots more "stuff" to be potentially damaged exposed above the waterline. Types of guns matter, too

[Superpower34]

I sent the smaller ships (mostly ones I caputred) to river fleets for the Mississippi. They don't provide a punch really but it does give you the quantity aspect. I did notice that a lot of the river combat does seem to have width of 3 though. So keep that in mind.

Also, don't rush your ships I to service if they are in awful shape.

[Nats]

Turreted ships get to fire better during the first phase of the battle when forces are moving to engage.

I tend to split fleets up into river squadrons of smaller boats, and ocean going fleets for blockading ports.

Also remember naval admirals with admin skill get to repair and improve readiness quicker than others. Cunning admirals get bonuses in the early phase of the battle.

[Polygon]

Not to repeat any previous comments, but another thing to consider is frigates were at the mercy of wind to be able to engage, turn and shoot, whereas with a steam ship, like the monitor, wind was mostly inconsequential. Furthermore, not only were they iron but very low profile which made them almost impervious to a hit, but they were hard to hit in the first place, not to mention in up close and personal engagements. Add to all that, it had turret guns, and these are major combined advantages.

[Abelardo]

Originally posted by dazedandconfused:

Types of guns matter, too

This also.
I don't know if they are considered in the game, but I do know about a naval combat between a Corvette and an Ironclad. The corvette having sixteen 40-pounds cannons against two 300-pounds cannons in the monitor turret.
You can guess, that 16 v/s 2 meant nothing since everything that was shoot from those 16 cannons literally bounced. Meanwhile any shoot that could hit from those 300 lbs ones, could, also, literally, penetrate and cross making a hole from side to side.

Yes, a Corvette is nothing compared to a Frigate, in this case but... again, I don't remember the type of cannons being mentioned. O.O

[Fail_Knight]

Ship combat is not decided by simply bringing more guns to the gun fight. There are several quite important factors, such as the armour values of the involved ships and the penetration values of the involved guns.

Ironclad Monitors are rated so strongly by the game because they have an armour value of 7", the 2nd highest of all ships in the game, only beaten in this regard by the Ironclad Warship, which is an Industrialisation 4 unlock and thus exceedingly late game. A normal frigate gets 0.50" of armour.
They might have only 2 guns, but both of these are 11-inch Navy Canons with a penetration value of ~3.07" while a standard frigate has 42 guns of the 32-pounder Navy Canon variety, 2.40" penetration, and 8 guns of the 8-inch Navy Canon variety, 2.10" penetration. Even with the frigate winning in weight of fire due to having a lot of guns, their punch against armoured vessels is pretty low.
Turrets also multiply firepower somewhere in the equations, so having 1 vs having none (0)counts for more than you might think.

I'm currently looking a bit at the navy autoresolve code to see how everything works exactly, but some of the factors that go into the calculations:

• Armour
  
• (average?) Gun Penetration
  
• Ship firing strength, a combination of number of guns, firepower of these guns, accuracy of the guns, RoF of the guns, ammo state of ship, commander experience
  
• Simulated distance of engagement, affected by ships speed and weather
  
• General condition of the ship (provisions and readiness I believe)

[MichiganKOM]

Originally posted by Fail_Knight:

Ship combat is not decided by simply bringing more guns to the gun fight. There are several quite important factors, such as the armour values of the involved ships and the penetration values of the involved guns.

Ironclad Monitors are rated so strongly by the game because they have an armour value of 7", the 2nd highest of all ships in the game, only beaten in this regard by the Ironclad Warship, which is an Industrialisation 4 unlock and thus exceedingly late game. A normal frigate gets 0.50" of armour.
They might have only 2 guns, but both of these are 11-inch Navy Canons with a penetration value of ~3.07" while a standard frigate has 42 guns of the 32-pounder Navy Canon variety, 2.40" penetration, and 8 guns of the 8-inch Navy Canon variety, 2.10" penetration. Even with the frigate winning in weight of fire due to having a lot of guns, their punch against armoured vessels is pretty low.
Turrets also multiply firepower somewhere in the equations, so having 1 vs having none (0)counts for more than you might think.

I'm currently looking a bit at the navy autoresolve code to see how everything works exactly, but some of the factors that go into the calculations:

• Armour
  
• (average?) Gun Penetration
  
• Ship firing strength, a combination of number of guns, firepower of these guns, accuracy of the guns, RoF of the guns, ammo state of ship, commander experience
  
• Simulated distance of engagement, affected by ships speed and weather
  
• General condition of the ship (provisions and readiness I believe)

Thanks, this is the kind of information that I think is most relevant. Somehow I think a 4th rate steamer will be pretty useless.

[Polygon]

Originally posted by Fail_Knight:

Ship combat is not decided by simply bringing more guns to the gun fight. There are several quite important factors, such as the armour values of the involved ships and the penetration values of the involved guns.

Ironclad Monitors are rated so strongly by the game because they have an armour value of 7", the 2nd highest of all ships in the game, only beaten in this regard by the Ironclad Warship, which is an Industrialisation 4 unlock and thus exceedingly late game. A normal frigate gets 0.50" of armour.
They might have only 2 guns, but both of these are 11-inch Navy Canons with a penetration value of ~3.07" while a standard frigate has 42 guns of the 32-pounder Navy Canon variety, 2.40" penetration, and 8 guns of the 8-inch Navy Canon variety, 2.10" penetration. Even with the frigate winning in weight of fire due to having a lot of guns, their punch against armoured vessels is pretty low.
Turrets also multiply firepower somewhere in the equations, so having 1 vs having none (0)counts for more than you might think.

I'm currently looking a bit at the navy autoresolve code to see how everything works exactly, but some of the factors that go into the calculations:

• Armour
  
• (average?) Gun Penetration
  
• Ship firing strength, a combination of number of guns, firepower of these guns, accuracy of the guns, RoF of the guns, ammo state of ship, commander experience
  
• Simulated distance of engagement, affected by ships speed and weather
  
• General condition of the ship (provisions and readiness I believe)

Originally posted by Fail_Knight:

Ship combat is not decided by simply bringing more guns to the gun fight. There are several quite important factors, such as the armour values of the involved ships and the penetration values of the involved guns.

Ironclad Monitors are rated so strongly by the game because they have an armour value of 7", the 2nd highest of all ships in the game, only beaten in this regard by the Ironclad Warship, which is an Industrialisation 4 unlock and thus exceedingly late game. A normal frigate gets 0.50" of armour.
They might have only 2 guns, but both of these are 11-inch Navy Canons with a penetration value of ~3.07" while a standard frigate has 42 guns of the 32-pounder Navy Canon variety, 2.40" penetration, and 8 guns of the 8-inch Navy Canon variety, 2.10" penetration. Even with the frigate winning in weight of fire due to having a lot of guns, their punch against armoured vessels is pretty low.
Turrets also multiply firepower somewhere in the equations, so having 1 vs having none (0)counts for more than you might think.

I'm currently looking a bit at the navy autoresolve code to see how everything works exactly, but some of the factors that go into the calculations:

• Armour
  
• (average?) Gun Penetration
  
• Ship firing strength, a combination of number of guns, firepower of these guns, accuracy of the guns, RoF of the guns, ammo state of ship, commander experience
  
• Simulated distance of engagement, affected by ships speed and weather
  
• General condition of the ship (provisions and readiness I believe)

Do you know if attacking and defending also play a factor in this combat calculation?

[Fail_Knight]

Originally posted by xvii-Polygon:

Do you know if attacking and defending also play a factor in this combat calculation?

There does not seem to be a difference between attacker & defender in naval battles, but the autoresolve does seem to diferentiate between an actual battle and a raid.