Moving Ironclads to the Gulf?

[Captain_Orso]

I thought about this for a while too. The fact of the matter is that in Real-Life™ riverine boats are not built to be at sea/river for long periods of time. They have limited supply and are not suited to be sailing in open waters. Taking that into account to measure my actions when sending ironclad to the gulf I send them from harbor to harbor. This gives them a chance to recover cohesion and hits every turn that they reach a harbor. To do this effectively to bring ironclads to the Gulf you will need a large number of harbors all along the east coast.

Personally I don't like to restrict my strategy like that so I just do without ironclads on the Gulf and build a naval fleet strong enough to do what needs to be done.

[Stauffenberg]

I thought about this for a while too. The fact of the matter is that in Real-Life™ riverine boats are not built to be at sea/river for long periods of time. They have limited supply and are not suited to be sailing in open waters. Taking that into account to measure my actions when sending ironclad to the gulf I send them from harbor to harbor. This gives them a chance to recover cohesion and hits every turn that they reach a harbor. To do this effectively to bring ironclads to the Gulf you will need a large number of harbors all along the east coast.

Personally I don't like to restrict my strategy like that so I just do without ironclads on the Gulf and build a naval fleet strong enough to do what needs to be done.

Oh honour rules, between those with a requisite grasp of historical realities, is surely enough?

[Captain_Orso]

Honor shomor, I got tired of getting my expensive ironclads smoshed by Wear-N-Tear™

The historical relevance just makes it easier to swallow

[GraniteStater]

We gotta get Jarkko sucked into this thread (I erroneously confused his name in another thread on this subject).

He's posted about building Fleets O'Doom, cruising around and absolutely reducing CSA maritime Forts to tinder. Then, you can steam where you want.

[Stauffenberg]

Honor shomor, I got tired of getting my expensive ironclads smoshed by Wear-N-Tear™

The historical relevance just makes it easier to swallow

Wear-N-Tear™
Damn, I would have lifted that were it not for the ™.

Anyway, until we get the CSS Hunley in action (yes the submersible:coeurs , one can hardly complain about floating shingles making it around the Keys...
in December...

[Longshanks]

Ironclads are pretty underrated in the game I think. Or perhaps they were overrated in RealLife(tm) (hee, hee). Also, where my "mortar platforms" at, Willis?

[rattler01]

I have thought of this before, but I don't really have an idea for a simple fix, as a avoid fort button would be OP. Right now in order to go from New York to Texas and not be bombarded the USA most own the following forts: Macon, Caswell, Pickens, Gaines, and Jackson. All other forts do not seem to get qualifiy for the ZOA rules that enable bombardment.

@Longshanks. Amen brother. Not only that I think there should be armored (In-game) and unarmored gunboats for a extremely cheap buy so the CSA can guard all those rivers along the Atlantic coast from USA landings. Do you agree if every USA player used the navy the way mine and MK game just went, we would see a major change to limit the USA's options? There is also the idea of river ramming ships that were somewhat effective earlier in the war.

[Chuske]

I have thought of this before, but I don't really have an idea for a simple fix, as a avoid fort button would be OP. Right now in order to go from New York to Texas and not be bombarded the USA most own the following forts: Macon, Caswell, Pickens, Gaines, and Jackson. All other forts do not seem to get qualifiy for the ZOA rules that enable bombardment.

Think perhaps the solution would be to treat coastal and river differently. You would only tackle a fort on coast if ordered to bombard or try to enter a harbour or estuary, easy to stay a out of range otherwise. On a river you HAVE to pass the fort. Guess that would need to wait till AACW2.

Does anyone else find it confusing working out where the double adjacency etc rules apply and when naval guns will and won't bombard? In my last PBEM I lost Paducah and CSA absolutely dominated the river from there and when I got Pope across from Charleston MO to Columbus his gunboats cut me off. I then put naval guns in Charleston but because its same river region as Island 10 his boats could move back to island 10 and back to block the river without getting fired on. If I tried to get my ironclads in from Cairo the Paducah guns would pepper them with holes.

[Chuske]

Is this the thread you mean?

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?11304-Bombard-strategy-vs-forts&highlight=fort

We gotta get Jarkko sucked into this thread (I erroneously confused his name in another thread on this subject).

He's posted about building Fleets O'Doom, cruising around and absolutely reducing CSA maritime Forts to tinder. Then, you can steam where you want.

[GraniteStater]

Think perhaps the solution would be to treat coastal and river differently. You would only tackle a fort on coast if ordered to bombard or try to enter a harbour or estuary, easy to stay a out of range otherwise. On a river you HAVE to pass the fort. Guess that would need to wait till AACW2.

Does anyone else find it confusing working out where the double adjacency etc rules apply and when naval guns will and won't bombard? In my last PBEM I lost Paducah and CSA absolutely dominated the river from there and when I got Pope across from Charleston MO to Columbus his gunboats cut me off. I then put naval guns in Charleston but because its same river region as Island 10 his boats could move back to island 10 and back to block the river without getting fired on. If I tried to get my ironclads in from Cairo the Paducah guns would pepper them with holes.

Thanks for the link above.

Man, I couldn't keep DAR straight if you gave me Tara on a silver platter. Your thinking is spot on, IMHO; can steam away a good sea league or more on the coast, but are shot at if engaging the fort up close and personal. River movement is open season by the gunners on land.

[Stauffenberg]

Does anyone else find it confusing working out where the double adjacency etc rules apply and when naval guns will and won't bombard?

Nope, it's as clear as the muddy Mississip... where it's a mile wide... in the fog... at night... with no moon.
At least to a Guild Navigator anyhow.

The mind does a sort of "dimension shift" pondering this dynamic.
Damn, need more spice.
And you can blame Orso for this sudden contagion of emoticons--I can't get them off at this point.

[GraniteStater]

"And how can this be? He is the Kwisatch Haderach!"

Watch out for those worms, man - I had one take a small Corps out in the West Texas box.

[Captain_Orso]

Things with regards to bombarding forts has changed drastically since 2008. Basically, you can hardly count on reducing the compliments of a fort with naval guns anymore.

I have a testing scenario with a fleet of about 20 ironclads (Union) lead by Foote (over 3000 FP!!). If I bombard a pre-war fort (1 Coastal Artillery, 1 Fort Artillery, 1 Bge Garrison with 3 reg.) with them I get 4 hits at the most and receive on the average of about 30. The hits almost all go to the Fort Battery, which will eventually be destroyed. But the Coastal Artillery has a much higher protection (30) compared to the Fort Battery's 2; plus the Coastal Artillery has 12 hits vs the Fort Battery's 8. Your ironclads have 12 protection.

After the Fort Battery is reduced the Garrison starts taking hits, but IIRC not as many as the Fort Battery. On top of that, the Garrison has many more hits to loss than the FB. Plus, since you will never reduce them in one turn, they will be getting replacements during your long-haul bombardment. So as long as the defender keeps some 1st Line Infantry in the pool, they will practically never run out.

You might think that the numbers will swing to your side after time, but you would be wrong. To bombard, you either have to be stationary in front of the fort with your bombardment button pressed, which will give you 1 bombardment per turn. Each turn you are at sea, your fleet will lose 0.5% cohesion per turn; this does not include cohesion loss from those 30 hits, nor weather. When your cohesion drops to about 70% (I've never found out at what exact %) you will stop getting hits on the fort, but will still be getting hit by it; and the Coastal Artillery being in a fort and stationary will lose no cohesion other than from hits, which they will promptly regain during the rest of the turn.

Well, what if you move your fleet back and forth in front of the fort and force them into a bombardment dual, that way you get as many hits as possible within the shortest period of time, thus reducing the chance of cohesion loss. But this doesn't take into account the fact that while your fleet is moving, especially ironclads in coastal regions, will be loosing more than the minimum 0.5% cohesion per turn, plus be taking Wear-n-Tear™ hits on top of that. It's like rubbing them over a huge cheese grater.

Okay, maybe ironclad in coastal regions are not the best choice. Let's try Armored and Steam Frigates. They move much more smoothly in coastal waters, and can therefore force the bombardment many more times that ironclads before dropping cohesion so far that they don't hit anymore. But Steam Frigates have protection 2 and Armored have 6. You can force move bombardment per turn but will get ground up much quicker at the same time.

So what do you do? One word: invade.

[Longshanks]

Excellent post, Cap'n! Ironclads are also not all that effective against regular ships either. Try a scenario with 10 confederate ironclads against 20-24 union ships-of-the-line and tell me what you get. And to think they all ran away from ONE ironclad back in March '62!

[Chuske]

Excellent post, Cap'n! Ironclads are also not all that effective against regular ships either. Try a scenario with 10 confederate ironclads against 20-24 union ships-of-the-line and tell me what you get. And to think they all ran away from ONE ironclad back in March '62!

Yeah ironclads seem surprisingly weak. Also seems there is an interesting tactic/exploit that Carpetbags bad used vs me namely "carpet brigging". A whole load of brigs with maybe 1 or 2 frigates is a relelatively cheap but effective navy for the CSA, and can do a surprising amount of damage to heavier Union fleets.

I'm wondering how naval combat is carried out? Seems the hits are spread out over the brigs while the lesser but heavier US ships get pummeled by the larger number of guns on the brig mulitude. Anyone else either tried the brig-daddy tactic or faced it?