Should planes be able to sink Ships?

[Kiltdown]

No risk to plane, no chance to destroy

Bombarding is action at a distance, offering no direct risk from the conflict. There should be no way to destroy the taget unit if there is no risk to the attacking unit.

Now if you add a "strafe" command, that lets a plane attack and be attacked, then that would make sense. I'd rebalance the relative strengths to make it so that there was a good chance that a single jet against a battleship with one point left would still likely lose.

[August Borms]

No, the navy is weak enough as it is.

[Skanky Burns]

I think bombers should be able to sink ships, but if not, Im happy with the way things are.

Before, you could not destroy enemy ships without a navy of your own (with the exception of nukes). And even with a navy you were hard-pressed to achieve any sort of victory despite having more advanced ships.

Now we can just bombard ships down to 1 hit point and then be able to cruise-missile them

[GePap]

Yes!

Yes!

Weakness in the naval game should not be compensated by with weakening the air game. Does anyone build carriers? Whats the point, if they are uselss for command of the sea without BB's around (DD's are too weak). I a building, the SAm, can be given the ability to fight with planes, why not modern ships? (ancient ships no)

[Dauphin]

For realism planes should be able to sink ships, but it has to be built with good game mechanics.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
Y'all probably know my vote, but the closeness of the poll results thus far indicates that as far as Apolyton posters go, options to make air units capable of destroying sea units available via the editor would be a welcome addition.

I'd agree with that.

[BucksRock]

From WWII up to the end of Vietnam only torpedo bombers or dive bombers were capable of taking out a ship. A B-17 was not going to do it. Maybe another tech advance could be made for the expansion pack.

Torpedoes - allows submarines and allows bombers to sink enemy ships.

[Andrew Cory]

Re: Yes!

Originally posted by GePap
Yes!

Weakness in the naval game should not be compensated by with weakening the air game. Does anyone build carriers? Whats the point, if they are uselss for command of the sea without BB's around (DD's are too weak). I a building, the SAm, can be given the ability to fight with planes, why not modern ships? (ancient ships no)

If (big if, perhaps even an IFF (if and only if, assuming that my grasp of higshcool geomatry remains true after so many years) ) fighters can be given some sort of "go after the other guy's air units" command. Currently, about half the point of fighters is missing, and that kinda sucks...

What I would like to see is this:
Fighters: Given the abilty to make air strikes against (and can kill!) other fighters.

Bombers: Another Bombing unit between the base one and the stealth. This one would have the ability to kill ships, but would be horribly vunerable to fighters.

Net effect: Carriers are suddenly usefull, as they can both protect against air units, and also kill sea units. Carriers are also usefull as mobil platforms for delivering bombardment strikes far from "home" territory. If a player allows one close, they are asking for trouble...

[Starker Kull]

I think it is crucial to the game's realism that planes should be able to sink ships. The evolution of the battleship was that with the advent of new, powerful turbine engines, ships could now be big and fast, rather than having to make a choice between one and the other. Once you have a speed advantage (since if you are faster in the water, you generally can choose the time and place of combat), all you need to be a "dreadnought" is further range weaponry than any other ship. Thus, the "battleship" was a heavily armored, fast ship with ONLY big, long range guns, the idea being that they would never use smaller, shorter range guns because they would have sunk anything by the time those smaller guns could be used - i.e. they were a waste of space. These were unbeatable (execpt against another battleship, of course), because of their unmatched RANGE. Enter WWII, with effective torpedoes and the planes to carry them. Suddenly, the primary defense of a battleship, the fact it could sink or at least engage anything floating before being attacked itself, was lost. Planes were effectively flying guns, they could and they DID sink ships in HUGE numbers. This is why in a modern fleet, there is no real place for a battleship, unless you are fighting a foe with no air force or carriers. The aircraft carrier has replaced the battleship as the core of a fleet, because its "guns" have by far the longest and most flexible reach.
I think the game needs to reflect this if it is to imitate a modern navy even faintly.

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Starker Kull
Enter WWII, with effective torpedoes and the planes to carry them. Suddenly, the primary defense of a battleship, the fact it could sink or at least engage anything floating before being attacked itself, was lost. Planes were effectively flying guns, they could and they DID sink ships in HUGE numbers. This is why in a modern fleet, there is no real place for a battleship, unless you are fighting a foe with no air force or carriers. The aircraft carrier has replaced the battleship as the core of a fleet, because its "guns" have by far the longest and most flexible reach.
I think the game needs to reflect this if it is to imitate a modern navy even faintly.

I am thinking that there needs to be some sort of Battleship MK2, just like a battleship (mayhap a bit faster), but can fire at aircraft. The Aegis cruiser would then be less unique, but perhaps its stats could be upped in response...

[King of Rasslin]

Planes should not be able to sink ships. There is no risk to the plane and therefore there should be no risk to the ship, unless there is an enemy naval unit to fight back. Planes sinking ships is for people that don't bother with with making other ships.

It can seriously affect balance on island maps. I think if planes could destroy ships ships should be able to destroy planes. Plus planes are so mobile and ships are SLOW.

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
Planes should not be able to sink ships. There is no risk to the plane and therefore there should be no risk to the ship, unless there is an enemy naval unit to fight back. Planes sinking ships is for people that don't bother with with making other ships.

It can seriously affect balance on island maps. I think if planes could destroy ships ships should be able to destroy planes. Plus planes are so mobile and ships are SLOW.

Well, yes. But then, that's called progress. The solution is to start building more carriers, with fighters, to protect those ships. In real life, if one side has air superiority, they can make life hell for the other side. Game ballance would make it possible for both sides to compete in the fight for air superiority, not make it meaningless. Carriers rule the seas right now. They do this because Airplanes can take out hydroplanes (sorry, went for the meaningless symetry). The only real counter for this (IRL) is more airplanes. To take this out of the ballance is to freeze the sea game in an era just-pre WWII.

There is only one _good_ reason that I have heard against planes taking out ships: "the one icon doesn't represent 1 unit" argument. I think that this is only sorta true. While one legionary may represent 1000 men, I tend to think of one tank as representing about 16 tanks, and one marine (I placed the marine later in the game, beefed up its values, and made it an American UU) as representing about 8 actual soldiers...

By the same token, I tend to think of naval units as representing not more than 7-8 actual ships, and that decreases as time goes on. For instance, I think it is entirely realistic for 1 carrier icon to represent 1 carrier, 1 nuke-sub icon to represent 1 nuke-sub, and 1 Aegis cruiser icon to represent at most 2 Aegis cruisers. Since I can see an several bombers taking out 1 carrier, I can see 1 bomber icon (representing a dozen or so craft) taking out 1 carrier icon (representing 1 carrier)...

I should point out that those same bombers could _NOT_ take out land units for many of the same reasons, they just don't tend to in real life. Even the most devistating air battles to date (Afganistan, a few months ago) could not take Tora Bora, or even Kabul. Although I think we could have destroyed the average Afgan city, I don't know that I want to give a player that kind of power...

[Dis]

I only think specialized units such as dive bomber and torpedo bomber should be able to sink ships. But not regular bombers.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Dissident
I only think specialized units such as dive bomber and torpedo bomber should be able to sink ships. But not regular bombers.

Prince of Wales, Repulse, (Yamato?) any USN ship silly enough to go within range of Bear and Backfire bombers during some hypothetical, unfought war.

Oh! Did you think the Soviets had not figured out ways to blow significant chunks of that navy of yours out of the water? Thank God it never came to proofs.

Salve

[Zoid]

Yes, of course planes should be able to sink ships. I have just two words to say PEARL HARBOR And Dissidents last post makes kinda sense...