Current Situation: Fighters can only destroy Fighters and bombers bombers can only destroy infrastructure, tanks and cruise missiles.

Problem: Nothing really, except bombers could have other applications.

Suggestion: Allow Air forces to attack Navy.

Why is this better? Well I’ll admit I’ve never used my navy, but every maxed Navy would be exactly the same so there are no real tactical options in terms of wearing down your opponents navy – just a roll of the dice. If bombers could be sent in against Navies at the cost of an attack move (or two) it would give the player choices and greater risk/reward. It would also give those without a Navy some glimmer of hope in a war against someone with a Navy.

How would it work?

I would suggest that the enemy fighters still defend against the incoming air force as they do now, but the odds of success are weighed more in the defenders favour because the Navy would also defend itself. So first the attackers have to get past the defending fighters, then the attackers have to get past the navies defences, then the bombers have to do sufficient damage to the navy to take out 1 or more ships. I’ll let someone smarter than me do the numbers…

Do you choose good odds of shaving 40+ infra or do you aim for the navy with worse odds greater risk of losses. If both sides have navies, taking out a couple of ships before the navies go head to head could make a crucial difference. The cost of attacking a navy would be greater in terms of attacking losses, but the cost of replacing an airforce is far cheaper than the cost of replacing the more expensive Navy ships. Perhaps even include a low odds of success chance of destroying a blockading ship.

approved for discussion

An interesting concept, the navy would be a nasty anti-air once a destroyer, cruiser and aircraft carriers are fielded.

How about making some new aircraft types, a triangle if you will:

• Naval Bombers - Strong against Navy attack, weak against soldiers, tanks and infrastructure.
• Close Air Support - Strong against tanks and soldiers, weak against navy and infrastructure
• Strategic Bombers - Strong against infrastructure, weak against navy, soldiers and tanks.

Alteration of the thread intent, but I do agree that Naval forces should be a target, less effective mind you considering that ships tend to shoot back compared to some infrastructure, and awkward spotting ability. Unless satellites can help boost that? I dunno.

That is my opinion and input.

Uh, Strategic Bombers are excellent against all target types, just FYI.

Sweet, increasing the chances of destroying an outnumbered defenders navy in a single blitz? Sign me up!

/sarcasm

For that reason however I am against this idea, it only hurts an already suffering defensive navy.

Depending on the type of weapons they carry. A B-52 loaded with dumb bombs, flying at high altitude will have a tough time hitting moving naval vessels.

Simple solution to this. Many of todays frigates are air defence frigates, attacking a navy without knowing what ships are in it might turn out to be costly

You'll be pleased to know that every naval ship today has some form of Air Defense.



Why would you use dumb bombs when you can use Stand-Off Muntions like the AGM-84 Harpoon?

You assume that every nations with Strategic bombers has that kind of technology in it's arsenal.
Remember that the technology for CN spans a large time frame going from a simple Yak-9 to F-22 Raptors.

I posted a suggestion for the development of weapons/technologies through R&D points, but since that suggestion is still pending review to be either approved or denied for discussion it's best not to wander too far off topic.

To alden, if both navies are the same size does an attacking blitz on a navy not equal odds of being defeated twice? I'm not being funny, I literally don't know having never used my navy.

But I'm talking about low odds of success - you're airforce could be wiped out by the defending airforce/navy without scratching a single ship. All things being equal, if the attacking air strength is 765, the defending air strength would be 765 + navy strength giving the defender a big advantage.

Perhaps an option could be added to bring your airforce into naval defense, at the cost of the days infra air strikes.

The main appeal for me is that it gives tactical options. You could go for the navy, be lucky, and have a great start in war. Equally you could waste two air attacks and two air forces and weaken your own air defenses (once the war-chest has run out).

If having aircraft carriers raises your aircraft limit, aircraft should be able to attack ships.
Simple as that.

What about using missiles to target Navy vessels, something cruise missiles can do as well, mind you, we need more missile types, bio and chem would be nice.

Missiles have come up before Vs navy, the downside with them for me is that there is no risk involved. Spending $20K to take out a ship worth $2 million just doesn't work. The risk factor of the air force goes some way to balancing things because your airforce might not come back, but your CM never comes back anyway...

I'd like to see this, but I'd also like to see battleships used to shell land targets, and fire additional cruise missiles

yeah these all seem like good ideas

But doesn't the naval ships also have anti CM systems?



That suggestion died a long time ago, but I still support it.

Phalanx point defense turrets anyone?

This, however I would like to see a bit more depth (new ship class that is anti air, new aircraft that act as fighter bombers that fill the void between bomber and fighter atm- these would have higher chances of success but do less overall damage)

How about this...

Base Aircraft Limit increased +30 (80)
Aircraft per carrier increased + 5 (10) (max 50)

Aircraft attacks per enemy day +1 (3)

However, each plane can only be used once per enemy day. Planes cannot be used the day they are bought in order to attack, but are used to defend if you are attacked.

Navy can be targeted. Fighters can strafe ships, and do damage as well as bombers. The defending Navy can defend itself (each boat will have air defense strength) and any fighters on your naval ships will also be used to defend it.

Or, the limits can be boosted by a lot more, and each plane can be used only once per day.

Air vs ships eh? There is no reason not to do it from a realism stand point. Alden is right that this would allow a 3-1 gang bang to hurt even more. Perhaps a compromise, you can use aircraft on blockading navy ships but otherwise, no.

Well even given that situation, you still have the ability to do the following with an update blitz -

Two attackers attack before update, 2x3 = 6 naval battles, and perhaps up to 4 naval air attacks.
After update, a third attacker joins, giving 3x3 = 9 more naval battles and up to 6 naval air attacks.

That means that you can have up to 15 naval battles and 10 naval air attacks against you before even being aware you got attacked.

Even with an average of 1 ship lost per attack, that's still probably 1/2 of almost everyone's navy lost immediately :\

Until something about that possibility is gone, I cannot support FURTHER allowing a defender's navy to be immediately destroyed.

Then what? Place an attack flood control?

I don't mind your military being decimated instantly when you can replace the entire army instantly too (like soldiers/tanks/air) but I do not want to be in the situation where whomever attacks first simply wipes out the enemy nation's military instantly and essentially permanently.

This is a step in that direction and that direction is one I do not want to go.

What if air attacks made on navies worked like spy ops/defeat alerts where only the first one or two such attacks could be made against a single nation. Once the air attacks alloted are used up on a given day, no further air attacks could be made against that nation's navy regardless of the nations arrayed against in it.

What I'm thinking is that Air Forces and Navies could interact with each other, passively. Navies could give defense bonuses against Air Strikes and Air Forces can give defense bonuses against Naval Battles. Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates would have the highest Air Defense values. (Battleship is a wild card since it's assumed the Admin is using WW2 standard for BBs.) I'm not sure if material should be lost in said situations. I'm thinking they would act more like an AADN.

This also gives advantage to the Defender over the Attacker.

Why would a defender even want a navy? When he's outgunned three or six to one it isn't going to be of much use. If anything this would give the defender a way to get at the enemy's navy.

This is just an idea for Airforce/Navy stuff:

How about we have the choice of dividing our fighters into either defending land or navy? You could divide it however you want but fighters you have guarding your navy can only protect the navy while fighters on land can only defend attacks on your infrastructure. If you split your fighters up as even as possible (if you have all extra aircraft things) you would have about 52 or 53 fighters for land or navy. You'll also have that amount diminished by however many bombers you have. So that brings up the question of if you want your navy defended against bombers more than your infrastructure.

perhaps. Then in peace time people could have the option to set their air force to defend their navy all of the time, which might actually help against the blitz scenario.

The idea is lame, because I wouldn't want to spend time targeting boats, but perhaps when air craft carriers attack 5 planes should be included.

^This. From what I have seen of the naval system so far(indirectly mind you, I could be wrong about this), A defender in a 3 on 1 can hold out for a little while, but will be bled to death within a short period of time. Which does not even consider that nukes are very bad for some classes of ships. I don't see the point in spending all that money on something that is going to die in a few days regardless if you end up on the wrong end of a beatdown.

Which brings us to what do the people with no navy do against the nations that do? Right now there is nothing you can do, period. So some form of air attack on naval vessels would be a good thing in my opinion.

In CN, the max amount of ships you can buy 8 per day, while you can completely fill the air craft cap within a few minutes. This suggestion would allow people to use air crafts against ships when desperate.

I agree with the latter 2 points, but think the main idea fails for one reason. It wasn't mentioned that the ships can fight back.

Include the ability for ships to respond to air attack and you remove the beatdown problem in favor of just another tactical choice.

Do I risk my planes against his planes in my two attacks or take a risk against his ships?

Yes, that would force people to keep buying back non-nuclear proof ships. (Cruisers and Frigates.)

Might be a good way to rehabilitate the cruiser concept in-game. Somehow the cruiser got the short end of the stick and yet the Aegis cruiser is one of the most advanced systems in the world. They totally manage the carrier fleet battlespace. Assigning them air defense capability would go a long way to rectify that game mechanics lapse.

Yes! Always thought this but, never posted.

That is an awesome idea!!! However the ship defenses to aircraft would have to bee very high. So you couldn't take out a ship with out a ton of aircraft. So the cost factor between the two (ship/naval bombers) are not to crazy. Maybe even not be available till after you have an aircraft carrier.

Everyone would just go for the enemy's navy instead of his infra, because having a navy when your opponent does not is a serious advantage.



It buys you time before the extreme pounding starts. Against 3 opponents with a full navy, your full navy should still last for almost a week before they can finally use battle support, even in nuclear wars (assuming you have nukes too).

I like this idea

You'd have to limit aircraft purchases if you wanted to make airforces capable of attacking navies.

Easiest way would be to get each ship some sort of built in AA capability and then come up with a formula where 'w' number of attacking bomber strength rating has the potential to inflict 'x' through 'z' number of ship hits.

Problem is that this would totally ignore the question of carrier based aircraft dedicated to ship/sub attack missions (something they've ALWAYS done almost as long as there have been carriers) except in the most indirect, abstract way possible--carriers provide for 5 extra aircraft per carrier up to 5 carriers when they are in Battle Support mode. Of course you can't get into Battle Support mode until you've cleared out all the Break-Blockade capable ships. Imagine the Battle of Midway being fought in a manner that the Americans had to sink all the Japanese battleships, cruisers, frigates, and destroyers in surface engagements before they could go after the Japanese carriers with their aircraft!

Broken game mechanic on aisle 5...bring a mop.

No, to do this and do it right, you'd have to redo the way aircraft are done in the game. Separate out aircraft into land-based and sea-based. Increase the number of missions that aircraft can do to 3. Mission types now include 'Ground Support', 'Strategic Bombing', 'Air Superiority', and 'Sea Attack'.

Divide land-based aircraft into 'Fighters', which would include both dogfighters as well as tactical air support aircraft and would be able to perform all the missions (it's assumed that fighters performing the Strategic Bombing mission are bomber escorts) and 'Bombers', which includes everything else designed to drop ordinance and can perform all missions. Note that Fighters must be given a mission or they sit on the ground--they don't fly defensive air missions by default. This also means that a certain number of them can be destroyed on the ground (as with cruise missiles) if they aren't used. Also, Land-based aircraft may only attack ships in Battle Support mode--the assumption here (and this is borne out by RL) is that ships generally are not attacked by land-based aircraft unless they are relatively close to shore.

Sea-based aircraft, based on carriers and landing ships can perform the Sea Attack mission only unless they are on a carrier in Battle Support mode. At that point they have the full range of missions available to them. In the Strategic Bombing mission they act as Fighters (yeah, yeah yeah...A-6s dealt damage to infrastructure along the coast of Vietnam during the Vietnam War, let's not make this overly complicated).

Ships would naturally have the ability to defend themselves from aircraft attack. Their AA number could simply be based on their attack Strength or some formula incorporating it.

Note these changes have several interesting effects. For example, if you wanted to go for broke and do three rounds of Strategic Bombing missions, you can--at a price. The enemy would then get to send Bombers against you unmolested. The number of missions could also be increased to 4. Actually I think that idea has some merit.

Well hopefully you've gotten to this point of my quick essay and agree with most all I said. I just hope it's not another case of something that gets glanced at by 'The Powers That Be' and ignored.

Here's my idea. Let's make it more life like. You have fighters from the ground bases and fighters from the aircraft carrier. So this is where you need to decide. Do you spend that money on an aircraft carrier to defend your ships or do you hope your ground based fighters get to your navy in time to defend it? Let's go into more detail.

The aircraft carrier should become more expensive, but give more in return. Instead of 5 more ground based planes, let's give the aircraft carrier another 15 Naval based fighters. These fighters can only take place in guarding the fleet and keeping your blockade in place once you have it. So to counter the 15 new planes there has to be a major hike in cost and upkeep. 2 million dollars to 3.5 million dollars on the initial cost and 30K to 45K in upkeep. Just because you have more fighters doesn't mean they are going to be useless. If an airborne attack on your fleet is spotted then the 15 fighters from each aircraft carrier can be launched immediatley to defend it. Thus giving you the best capable defense of your fleet. However, if you loose fighters, you need to bring that aircraft carrier back to a port then buy the fighters and put them on the ship. Therefore giving you a 3 day window in which your carrier is useless.

Now comes the if you wanted the ground based fighters to defend your navy. Your thinking, great I have 40 or so fighters to defend my navy compared to 15. Well that may be bad. Your fighters may not get to your navy in time, depending on where your navy is located in the world compared to your homeland. If they don't get there in time, but get to the fight during the battle. Your fighters may be targeted by your own navy to defend themselves. Therefore, you need to make a decision. Have 40 or so fighter defend your navy from land and risk them getting shot down by your own navy on accident or have 15 fighters with support of your navy .