Discussion of Naval Units for Canadian Patriot

[Colonel Kraken]

This thread is at the request of Canadian Patriot in this thread. Anyone, feel free to add to the discussion.

One of the things I found lacking in Civ3 as well, Canadian Patriot, was a logical progression of naval vessels. As with all the units in Civ3, I think naval units should progress in an orderly fashion, in logical progression from era to era. What I mean is: each successive ship should be more powerful/better performing/more useful than the last. This only makes sense as, who would think that a ship (or any unit for that matter) obtained from a recent advance would be weaker or only as strong as a ship obtained from an old tech.

With that in mind, it makes sense to me that each ship is more powerful/useful than the last, even if that means a little a-history. Also, to that end it would seem that you would then only introduce new units when there is a pretty good leap in technology/ability.

I have found the following links that give us pretty good insight into Ancient to Middle Ages naval history:

History of Naval Design
History of the Galley
Ancient Sailing Ships
Naval Warfare
Development of Sailing Ships
A Concise History of the Square Rigged Ship
HMS Warrior: Some Facts and Figures

This information, along with info from a book I have at home on the history of warfare, I would propose the following types of naval units in Civ3. What I'd like to see is a mostly independent progression of cargo ships and warships.

[Colonel Kraken]

ANCIENT ERA:

TRADER: A relatively long ship with a wide beam for carrying cargo. Has one square rig sail for power and no oarsmen so as not to take up cargo room, such as the ancient Phoenician traders.

GALLEY: A unireme or bireme class galley of the earlier Greek type. The first ship made for war with a prow ram as the main armament and a small contingent of missile firing soldiers. These ships were very maneuverable. Ramming was the principal means of attack.

POLYREME: The quintessential development of the bireme/trireme. Much larger than the galley with many banks of oars, with prow and underwater ram, catapults, and missile firing troops. Unfortunately, since they could be outmaneuvered by the smaller Galley, their success was not assured. These vessels were designed to carry a good sized contingent of troops. Such galleys and variants of them remained useful well into the 15th Century.

[Colonel Kraken]

MIDDLE AGES:

CARAVEL: The sailing ships of Magellan and Columbus, these ships were built for cargo and designed with living quarters. Although not especially faster than galleys, the new sail design allowed the ship to sail into the wind and was much more sea worthy than galleys.

GALLEON: Developed from the carrack (which was a refinement of the caravel) with a larger haul and better rigging, these ships were designed to haul more and travel the oceans. Although previous ships had guns, Galleons carried more and better weaponry. Galleons changed the way naval battles were fought, from close in grappling/ramming sessions to firing long range cannon. These ships were dual purpose platforms used for merchants and warships.

FRIGATE: The British defeat of the Spanish Armada, a battle between war Galleons, necessitated sailing ships designed strictly for war. Developments in navigation, rigging, haul design, and number and complexity of guns immensely increased the war fighting capabilities of these ships. Frigates typically had 38 to 54 guns. Frigate refers to vessels with one row of guns; frigates were used for scouts, commerce interdiction, and screening.

SHIP-of-the-LINE: These ships were the culmination of years of sailing warship design and experience. They ranged from 3rd rate 64 gun ships to the 1st rate 130 gun behemoths designed to fight ship to ship in the line of battle. Sailing warships at their zenith.

MERCHANTMAN: Design of merchant ships continued from the galleons of the 15th century into the Indiamen used by the Dutch East India Company traveling to India with gold to bring back spices and other goods to Europe. Development continued into the Clipper ships of the 19th Century. Large, fast, durable, such ships found usefulness into the 20th Century.

[Colonel Kraken]

INDUSTRIAL:

IRONCLAD: Development of the steam engine and screw propeller brought about another breakthrough in warship design. The famous Monitor and Merrimack were odd designs attempting to find a fit for the new technologies; they were unwieldy and better suited for coasts and rivers. Britain's HMS Warrior, however, was a hybrid of the contemporary frigates and a much better design than the Monitor or Merrimack. Warrior was revolutionary - at a stroke, all existing ships were rendered obsolete. Warrior housed all her main guns, engines and boilers within an armored iron hull, and could be driven by both steam and sail. The combination of iron hull, armor-plating, breech loading guns and powerful steam screw propulsion meant that she could outrun and outgun any ship afloat.

DREADNOUGHT: As steam warships got bigger, heavier, and fitted with more armor, the engines had to get increasingly larger. The reciprocating steam engines became so large, in fact, that the engine rooms would nearly fill half the ship. Then, a breakthrough in engine design came at the turn of the century: the gas turbine engine. With several compression stages, these engines could harness nearly all the energy the old engines wasted. These engines required a fraction of the room of previous engines and produced thousands more horsepower. Leaps in screw design, turret design, and rifled, breach loading guns all made for a revolution in warship design. HMS Dreadnought is the most famous, rendering previous warships obsolete.

TRANSPORT: The advent of powerful steam engines allowed for the construction of enormous cruise liners and cargo ships, such as the Lusitania. These ships were the principal means by which governments could ship men and materiel across the oceans. Even though specialized landing craft were developed in WWII, these were merely tactical in nature to carry out the landing assaults. Transports were the raw moving power of navies.

DESTROYER: Dreadnoughts ruled the seas, then something developed that shook everyone up: the torpedo. Striking below the waterline, torpedoes could easily capsize a dreadnought. With the development of torpedo boats to use these new weapons, came torpedo boat Destroyers --shortened to just destroyers. Destroyers took over the role of both torpedo boats and destroyers and became the primary weapon against the new threat of submarines.

SUBMARINE: The effective development of the diesel engine, powerful batteries, torpedoes, and pressurized hulls resulted in the creation of the submarine. Although slow, submarines' underwater diving ability made them deadly when employed in packs and set across shipping lanes ready to ambush transports and targets of opportunity.

BATTLESHIP: Refinements in hull design, armor, guns, weapons control, damage control, and propulsion made dreadnoughts better and better and became known as super dreadnoughts. Such line-of-battle-ships, or just battleships, came to their zenith with the commission of the U.S. Iowa class battleships. These behemoths housed 9 independently firing 16", radar-controlled guns and bristled with secondary armament. Refinements in engine power allowed these beasts to keep up with carriers at 33 knots and were thus called fast battleships. Retrofitting in the 1980s, modernized a couple of these ships with anti-ship missiles and close in weapons systems and other refinements. No contemporary armament could match the awesome power of shore bombardment with the 16" guns and the armor was so thick that no modern missile could bring her down. Unfortunately, the cost of operating these massive displays of might was prohibitive for a peace time navy and they were decommissioned in the 1990s.

AIRCRAFT CARRIER: The attack and devastation of Italian ships in port by British carrier-launched planes at the beginning of WWII, sent shivers down the spines of some navies. Against the wishes of WWI Admirals, the plane would become the premier naval weapon, striking with more power and at a greater distance.

[Colonel Kraken]

MODERN:

MISSILE DESTROYER: The development of guided missiles such as the U.S. Harpoon and French Exocet, allowed navies to attack targets with near impunity "over the horizon." Because of the curvature of the earth, RADAR can only see so far. With the help of scouting helicopters or other means, ships can launch missiles toward a target and allow the missile's on board computer and RADAR to target and destroy enemy ships. The extreme speed of the missiles, their low-altitude flight, and final "pop-up" makes them very difficult to destroy. Quantum leaps in SONAR technology along with on-board, sub-hunting helicopters makes these vessels very effective against submarines.

NUCLEAR ATTACK SUB: The development of nuclear powered propulsion revolutionized submarine design. Now, subs are able to travel faster underwater than above water and keep up with surface fleets, attacking proactively. Developments in SONAR, low-cavitation screws, and wire-controlled, high-speed, high-explosive torpedoes make nuclear attack subs some of the deadliest anti-ship platforms in the world. Many attack subs have now been fitted with anti-ship missiles as well.

BOOMER: Nuclear subs make ideal platforms for ICBMs. Stealthy and always moving, they provide imminent threat to any nation that would seek to initiate a nuclear attack. Such subs can carry over a dozen ICBMs with several multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) each. One such sub can take out a multitude of cities.

SUPER CARRIER: Initially, carriers had one straight flight deck and operations were constricted and chaotic at launch and recovery. Shortly after WWII, the angled flight deck was developed which allowed launch and recovery operations to proceed simultaneously. Heavy jet aircraft necessitated a means to propel them to launch speed, thus, the steam catapult was developed. It didn't take long for carrier operations to become a finely tuned orchestra of operations. Modern carriers, based on the USS Nimitz are often called super carriers because of their immense size. Nuclear powered engines allow a nation to use these carriers to project its power around the world. Only the U.S. has the budget to sustain these immensely costly behemoths.

AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP: Years and years of amphibious assault experience have culminated in very specialized assault ships and attack craft. The USS Tarawa is a prime example. The size of a small carrier, it houses transport and attack helicopters, VTOL close-support jets, and a multitude of landing craft. Marines, Special Forces and other troops can launch an simultaneous airmobile/amphibious assault onto a hostile beach with a high chance of success. These ships are well defended and have a hospital of several hundred beds. These ships are the epitome of amphibious assault.

AEGIS CRUISER: The threat of a saturation attack of hundreds of anti-ship missiles by plane or ship led the U.S. to develop a ship specifically designed to counter that threat. Spectacular developments in RADAR technology allows the AEGIS Cruiser to independently track and target over one hundred missiles at once. Named after the shield of Zeus, these ships are missile shields for today's carrier battle groups. AEGIS cruisers also have the latest SONAR and carry helicopters, anti-ship missiles, and ground attack cruise missiles.

[Captain]

not to rain on your parade, but how do the trader and merchantman factor in as ships in civ 3? we don't have caravans anymore, so there is no way of simulating cargo shipments. therefore, why would anyone want to build these ships when there are valuable military ships to be built instead?

dont' get me wrong, I'd love to see these units in the game, but they currently don't have any purpose.

[Colonel Kraken]

I will be posting my notes, thoughts, and unit stat ideas later. I need a break

[Colonel Kraken]

Originally posted by Captain
not to rain on your parade, but how do the trader and merchantman factor in as ships in civ 3? we don't have caravans anymore, so there is no way of simulating cargo shipments. therefore, why would anyone want to build these ships when there are valuable military ships to be built instead?

dont' get me wrong, I'd love to see these units in the game, but they currently don't have any purpose.

I knew I'd get into trouble without posting my thoughts, notes, and stats.

Well, you would use them, of course, to transport ground units. Each successive transport can travel further and carry more units. That's the whole point.

This is not to say that we have graphics for all these ships, yet . . .

[Harlan]

Very useful, CK!

CP and AW, I say we base our naval more along these lines. Something between the Galleon and Transport is especially needed. It would be a bit wierd to have Galleons floating around as the only transport in 1850 even! Question though: with the advent of Ironclad, wasn't any wooden ship essentially toast if caught?

Regarding graphics, Viewpoint (which CK at least knows about) should have most of this stuff. I believe they even have a merchantman or clipper type (if you look under British ship names, like the Discovery). Now we just need someone who could make Civ3 units out of all that artwork.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

i agree that the naval transport line was somewhat weak. Until the pre-dreadnaughts came out, ironclads were coastal only. In that one thread on the history of all US ships, it appears that few ironcalds were actually built and they were mostly riverboats.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that realized that dreadnaughts came before destroyers. Good descriptions Kraken.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken
IRONCLAD: Development of the steam engine and screw propeller brought about another breakthrough in warship design. The famous Monitor and Merrimack were odd designs attempting to find a fit for the new technologies; they were unwieldy and better suited for coasts and rivers. Britain's HMS Warrior, however, was a hybrid of the contemporary frigates and a much better design than the Monitor or Merrimack. Warrior was revolutionary - at a stroke, all existing ships were rendered obsolete. Warrior housed all her main guns, engines and boilers within an armored iron hull, and could be driven by both steam and sail. The combination of iron hull, armor-plating, breech loading guns and powerful steam screw propulsion meant that she could outrun and outgun any ship afloat.

Is this the pre-dreadnaughts or an even earlier class?

[Colonel Kraken]

AW, HMS Warrior was before the Pre-Dreadnoughts. I believe it was built in 1860. From a distance, it looks like any other sailing ship, except quite a bit longer. The equipment is quite a bit different, too. (Use the link in my first post to read about HMS Warrior).

The Pre-Dreadnoughts were built in the 1890s to about 1905. The HMS Dreadnought, with her then huge 12" guns, relegated all previous ships to Pre-Dreadnought status. This was the result of a naval arms race with Germany. Britains naval hegemony was at its pinnacle.

[Harlan]

AW,
Can you send the unit spreadsheet to CK? CK, what's your email, so we can send you that?

Also, what's the story about wooden Merchantmen facing up to Ironclads? Did they have any chance of survival, or could they easily outrun them? If so, how to represent that in Civ3?

One last thing. The naval links are a good thing. Does anyone have a similar link for the history of artillery? I was looking a little bit recently and didn't find what I wanted. I want A) to make sure we are doing bombard weapons intelligently, and B) want to see graphics to know how field artillery looks compared to culverins and so forth.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

I just got done reading the links. Excellent job of finding these pages. based on this information, and some pages I found earlier, I think I can place numbers of the various ships. However, one importtant question remains. How should 20th century warships fight? Destroyers and battleships are attacking vessels, but missle and AEGIS-class ships are virtual defensless except for their missiles which seems like they should have a low attack and defense, but a high bombard. But that leaves open the ironclad versus AEGIS cruiser debate. From these pages, I'd say that an ironclad or dreadnaught would easily lose to a battleship, but would sink a modern ship IF it could get close enough. In gameplay, this could easily happen so that we'd have modern ships being sunk by ironclads which we all know we make people scream bloody murder.

There's also the issue of battleships. Currently they dont upgrade to anything. In real life, the retrofitted Iowa-class were substantially better than their WW2 versions. I called it an AEGIS BB which could be misleading. I dont think they should upgrade to the much smaller AEGIS cruisers. The Russians, until the collapse of the USSR, had BCGN (battlecruisers/guided/nuclear), but I cant find specs on them, but it sures sounds like the logical upgrade from BB. This is one of those game issues thats so annoying. In reality, BBs are too expensive to maintain, but maintenance is a non issue in the game since all unts cost the same to support. As long as BB are non-upgradable, then they can be built and will be the dominant warship throughout the game.

[Colonel Kraken]

I was hoping to get this post up last night, but as luck would have it, Apolyton went down. I had typed up the entire post, and then I thought, "You know, this is such a long post, I'd better save it." Boy, I'm glad I did. I clicked on "Submit Reply" and came back with page not found. So I hit the back button. Page not found. Well, I'm sure glad I had the premonition to save it.

Well, anyway, here it is . . .

AW and Harlan, thanks for the compliments. With this kind of praise, I'll do anything for you! I love doing research, especially in something I enjoy.

I'm certainly no expert on the subject. Shhh . . . don't tell anyone. But, modern naval warfare was a huge interest of mine in the early 90s when I delved deep into the topic as I had an extreme interest in the game Harpoon. Hear of it? It's so realistic and detailed, the U.S. Navy uses it to train its officers!!!

So, anyway, I know about ships like the Russian BCGNs and CGNs.

AW, I like your thoughts on the BBs. This leads me to ask: (I always assumed it is possible) Can we change the maintenance cost of units using the editor? This really should be an absolute necessity and would really help maintain the realism. That way we could have situations like: sure the BB is the king of the sea, but are super expensive to maintain, or would you rather have almost the same combat effectiveness at a much cheaper price? (i.e. AEGIS Cruiser)

I agree it would make sense for the game to allow an upgrade of Battleships to BBGNs (made that acronym up ). Because of their enormous size, such ships could carry enormous stores of missiles. That's all the Russian BCGNs are all about: big missile carrying platforms. These ships are one of the things the US Navy had in mind in countering with the AEGIS Cruiser. The Soviets' tactics were always numbers, numbers, numbers. Swarm the enemy with missiles --some are bound to get through. Statistics.

It's unfortunate that we can not make units more specific in their attack and defense. It would be nice to say that a Dreadnought can slam a destroyer, but is almost helpless against a sub, so it needs the destroyer to hunt the sub, and subs can't attack subs. I don't think this kind of unit logic/ability can be set up with the existing game engine.

One thing we must all bear in mind when looking at movement rates, attack and defense, etc. is we're not talking merely could this ship totally take out such and such other ship, but many, many factors must be taken into account. Furthermore, we need to make the game units fun and playable. None of us dispute that, it's just a matter of how each of us wants to go about it.

AW, you talked about the defense of an AEGIS cruiser against a Dreadnought. Is it only just a matter of the fact that we know the 12"-14" shells of a Dreadnought could wreak havoc with a modern ship? I don't think that's the whole story. Let's look at the full dynamics of the situation: the resources of the AEGIS Cruiser allow it to detect the Dreadnought well in advance and launch a pre-emptive strike. (Reflected in a higher defense rating?) I do have some thoughts on what the various ratings could be, but they're all at work (and I'm at home right now). I'll post them tomorrow.

I'm kind of rambling here without saying much, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying.

Also, what's the story about wooden Merchantmen facing up to Ironclads? Did they have any chance of survival, or could they easily outrun them? If so, how to represent that in Civ3?

This is a good question because it attempts to take into account other things other than just can the iron balls of an Ironclad smash through the hull of the Merchant. Everyone would agree that, yes, they could. Is it possible that a Clipper ship could outrun the Ironclad? Yes, I'm sure. But does that really matter for purposes of our game? Civ3 cannot model tactical scenarios of such and such a ship getting away in the nick of time. The only way would be to have a a movement rate of equal or greater value, so that if spotted, the Merchant could keep away from Ironsides. But do we really want that? In game terms, I think most everyone would expect that if I find your Merchant with my Ironclad, and you left it un-escorted, you're dead meat. The end.

There's so many different things I'd like to model in the game, but I can't. So we'll work with what we've got. (Sound familiar, Harlan? CtP . . . ? )

Oh, I know what else I wanted to mention. Battleships did not render Dreadnoughts completely ineffective. Most Navies went into WWII with Dreadnoughts: the Japanes Nagato class, Britain's Reknown and Repulse (I think), and all those US' BBs that were in battleship row during the attack on Pearl Harbor. All of these ships with 12" and 14" guns could put some hurt on "modern" battleships. It was just a matter of how likely it was that the dreadnought didn't get smashed to pieces first. Could the dreadnought have gotten those lucky shots in? No doubt.

So Dreadnoughts should be able to sink Battleships, just not real commonly --just sometimes. Let's also not forget to mention that a lot of things that made the Iowa class so effective: RADAR directed firing, superior damage control, more effective armor, etc. would have been a relatively easy retrofit on Dreadnoughts (unlike going from a Galley to a Galleon or even a Galley to a "Polyreme" where the ships have to be of a totally different design). What I'm trying to get at is allowing a Dreadnought to defeat a Battleship sometimes could be seen as the result of such retrofitting. Or, for that matter, we could allow an upgrade from Dreadnought to Battleship.

Hmmm . . . . the possibilities.

This is so much fun. I feel like we're becoming buddies.

Seriously, I am having fun.

Wow, that was a long one.

Patriot, you gettin' all this?

Oh, by the way, me e-mail at work or at home. I spend most of my day at work. (Wed. I work from 8:30 till 9PM)

--Colonel