Naval ranks

[Colonel Warden]

If you read historical accounts you see that naval leaders were commanding larger forces than their HoI equivalents. The simplest fix would be to eliminate Grand Admiral as a title and move the rest up one:

12 - Admiral
9 - Vice-Admiral
3 - Rear-Admiral
1 - Commodore (or Flag Captain)

This would correspond better with actual commands at sea. The highest level of Admiral (Grand Admiral, Admiral of the Fleet, First Sea Lord, 5 Star Admiral) usually commanded from a land base but there's no mechanism for that in the game. So you should delete the Grand Admirals like Raeder, Pound, and Nimitz and that's ok because it's wrong to have them sailing around in the way that they currently do. These people should just be ministers - candidates for the Chief of Navy slot and they are already there in the cases I've checked (Pound and Raeder).

I'd also allow an Admiral to effectively command 24 units in the same way that a Field Marshall can by virtue of the HQ doubling effect. This is about the right size for the UK's Home Fleet and Med Fleet (30 and 19 units in 39) and so the Royal Navy could have effective command of these historical formations.

With this structure, the naval ranks would correspond much better with history. Cunningham could command the Med fleet to victory as he did while Vice-Admirals like Somerville, Nagumo and Spruance could command fleets, as they did, without needing a phony promotion.

Andrew

[TK-422]

Not a bad idea. I would like to retain the additional rank of Grand Admiral/5 Star Admiral, though. Just because officers of that rank might not have commanded fleets in action doesn't mean they shouldn't have the capability of doing so, should the situation warrant. And I like seeing Grand Admiral next to my top sea dogs.

I'd like to see this concept broadened to land and air generals, as well. Since the sleep leader function is broken, officers of less than general ranking had to be artificially promoted to major general just to get them in the game. Having a rank below general officer would be a much better work around than the falsified ranks.

[2Coats]

The current leader ranks are good enough, I like what is suggested here, but dont really see a benefit other than cosmetic. I guess having the same leader ranks titles means less confusion for some players....

[Colonel Warden]

Originally Posted by 2Coats

The current leader ranks are good enough, I like what is suggested here, but dont really see a benefit other than cosmetic.

Try playing the UK and you'll soon see the consequence of the current error. The UK's leader ranks are roughly historical but, with the command limits as they currently are, this is quite inadequate for their navy. The same goes for other naval powers like Japan.

The reason for this seems clear - the game has been designed only from the German perspective - that's the nation which actually had the rank of Grand Admiral. They are given several Grand Admirals in their pool (even though Raeder and Donitz didn't serve concurrently and Boehm/Saalwachter were Admirals. And don't get me started on the skill levels which are ludicrously biased - you would think that the Kriegsmarine won every naval battle instead of being sorry losers time and again. So you have a rank structure which works fine for Germany with its small navy and overrated leader pool. But is quite inadequate for the serious naval powers in the game.

Here are some simple numbers from the 36 scenario:

Germany: 4 Grand Admirals, 9 Admirals, 22 naval units

UK: 2 Grand Admirals, 5 Admirals, 114 naval units

Do the math. Germany has the ability to command 129 naval units at fleet level while the UK can only command 74.

The Pacific theatre is similarly wrong. Spruance, the victor at Midway, was a Rear Admiral. Nagumo, his opponent and the key leader at Pearl Harbor was a Vice Admiral.

This is not fine detail - it's basic WW2 facts which the game gets badly wrong. The suggestion above is a simple way of fixing the problem.

Andrew

[el_slapper]

my God..... ONCE AGAIN, those ranks, as most features in the game, are abstractions. Ranks in real life are different in each country. So they made a choice(German-oriented, it seems), & made it general. A "grand admiral" is not a grand admiral in real life. That's a naval officer efficient enough to lead 12 shipgroups to battle.

[Colonel Warden]

Originally Posted by el_slapper

my God..... ONCE AGAIN, those ranks, as most features in the game, are abstractions. Ranks in real life are different in each country. So they made a choice(German-oriented, it seems), & made it general. A "grand admiral" is not a grand admiral in real life. That's a naval officer efficient enough to lead 12 shipgroups to battle.

I understand that "Grand Admiral" is a one-size-fits-all approximation. What you don't seem to understand is that many naval leaders have been put into the game with their historical rank not their appropriate abstract game rank. This is a natural mistake because most of the game ranks have historical names like "Vice Admiral". A game Vice Admiral can only command three naval units. A real world Vice Admiral often commanded an entire fleet while a Rear Admiral would usually command a lot more than one battleship.

The game can do one thing or the other but should not confuse the two. The result is that the Royal Navy - probably the most professional and successful navy in history - is seriously understaffed. The IJN and USN seem to have similar problems too. The proposed suggestion would fix this problem, improving both the historicity and play balance of the game.

Andrew

[Cpack]

@redawn
You're right, in one game as the USA I have to command some stacks of 9 with rear admirals because of the lack of higher rank admirals.

I would also let the ranks be like they are, but upgrade some admirals for USA, ENG and JAP

[el_slapper]

What does prevent you from promoting them??? Never had staffing problems with USN, just do some promotions for the best elements, & here we go!

[Colonel Warden]

Originally Posted by el_slapper

What does prevent you from promoting them??? Never had staffing problems with USN, just do some promotions for the best elements, & here we go!

You shouldn't have to promote anyone. The navies at the start of a scenario would already have more than enough officers of the right rank plus lots of spares in the reserves. That's obvious because these navies were fully-functioning professional organisations - they weren't bulked out by masses of conscripts suddenly mobilised for war in the way that armies were.

Also, the leader pools for the countries seem to cover more than a single point in time - they cover the period from 36 to 45 and so the players should have lots of choice between leaders of different skill, loyalty and trait. That's why, for example, Donitz is available as a Grand Admiral even though he was only a commodore in 1936 (he wasn't even promoted to Rear Admiral until 1939).

So, for both these reasons, the RN,IJN and USN should be able to command all their units effectively without requiring any promotions. If promotions are required then this demonstrates that the rank structure and leader pool is wrong.

Andrew

[TK-422]

Still agreeing with Redawn.

[Cpack]

Originally Posted by el_slapper

What does prevent you from promoting them???

Maybe a skill level of 0 ????

redawn is right...it's not normal to command fleets with skill-level 0 admirals

At my SP and MP-games I helped myself in giving some Leaders (Admirals and Commanders) more skill or a higher rank.
But for Internet games......

[Johan Jung]

Hey Redawn. I agree with you to 100%

In fact, I have implemented the same changes you propose (the Commodore rank) myself.

[TK-422]

Originally Posted by Johan Jung

Hey Redawn. I agree with you to 100%

In fact, I have implemented the same changes you propose (the Commodore rank) myself.

How, exactly? Do you now have five naval ranks?

[Gwalcmai]

No, but you can edit the text.csv file and rename the existing ones. The fix is only cosmetic, of course.

But I think the idea was that you should just break up the fleets into task forces, as it is assumed that the british Home Fleet would, when in action, be just too much for one officer to command. Why this isn't already done in the setup, or why the germans have so many high ranking, high skill leaders, I have no idea.

[Junkyard_Pope]

I have to agree with Redawn's camp on this as well.

Cosmetic changes don't have to be implemented, but they would be nice.
The Commodore rank is a good idea. Navies should be self supportive.