Understanding Naval warfare

Stimo

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Hi all,
As I stated in another post, I'm not new to TOAW for I bought ACOW years ago and gave it up after a few months of drawning, but I'm now motivated again.

I started over with reading the manual and playing tutorial scenarios again and again in order to build my own understanding of the game.

I now start a "real big battle" : the Double Eagle Rising v3.2, and I need some help understanding what happens at sea.
Considering what I saw, TOAW wasn't meant to play naval warfare :
- when a convoy is sunk, ground units it cargoed are safe and are to be attacked in order to be destroyed
- when a ship sunks, it's artillery still floats exactly as the kind of artificial island Churchill dreamt about
- when a scout ship locates an enemy fleet, it can circle around it counting units and then freely escape, without being shot at, at any moment
- when ordered to "Attack" an enemy-held sea hex, my ships' strength is "0" whatever I involve in the attack...
- when I emphasise "minimise losses" to my scout ships, they never escape a fight

I have more specific questions :
- is one (maybe light) ship able to prevent a large fleet (thats doesn't succeed in sinking it and it's cargo) from occupying its hex ?

I'd like to read your personnal theories about TOAW naval warfare, general thoughts and particular points, thank you all !
 
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jim_carravallah

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I think the circumstance you discuss is based on where the "convoy" is sunk.

My experience with TOAW III is that any "embarked" unit destroyed at sea (not adjacent to any land hexes) results in the loss of the unit.

If that same unit were attacked from the sea in a hex adjacent to land, any defeat eliminates the ability to move by sea, by, in effect forcing the ground unit to disembark. In that circumstance, the disembarked unit has the ability to "land" or "attack" a land hex on the next turn.

I haven't encountered "artillery" remaining in a hex where a pure naval unit is sunk. I've noted that planes on an aircraft carrier may persist in a hex after the carrier is sunk, which kind of mimics launching aircraft before an air attack hits the ship. There appears to be a glitch where carrier based planes will remain in the hex several turns after the carrier is sunk. When I discover the situation, I attempt to get the planes to a land base or another carrier as soon as discovered. As I manage air attacks other than taking out bridges more in the abstract, I haven't noticed whether aircraft which "persist" remain in the hex indefinitely when dispatched for an attack on ground units.

What you describe as "scouting" slightly mimics reality in naval warfare. Ships on the open sea can "see" and "count" units before they can engage enemy units or be engaged by those enemy units.

That said, the ability of TOAW units to "scout" is significantly out of phase with reality because it uses turn based movement and combat rather than simultaneous movement and combat. In real time, a naval unit which can traverse 100 or more KM in a typical turn time frame would not stop and wait for the enemy unit to "take" its 100 KM before the first unit moves again.

The information on TOAW indicates that naval movement and combat is abstracted because of the turn based nature of movement and combat.
 
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