yes, I feel that without radar guidance, the simpler radar (not verified by in game experience, just historical) in the missile own radar probably locks on the thing that gives the clearest return signal. In this case the broadside destroyer that was closest by. Just steering to strongest return was the early missile tech historically, easily enough to do with analog electronics. Having the logic to distinguish between radar returns and keeping track of the designated target, is another thing. Early times done with radar beam riding, like Terrier and Talos (although those primary role was SAM), were the amount of targets was limited by the number of guidance radars available on the firing vessel.
No doubt. But my missiles are not radar guided yet. They require visual line-of-sight targeting, so presumably someone is keeping the target in their crosshairs while steering the missile to the target, and that target was not the DD Bisson!
@@RvTWargames I suspect based on my own observations that once fired, code-wise the game treats all SSM missiles equally regardless of type, era, or tech. Obviously techs matters, but I believe tech only influences whether a missile will miss or not and whether it will avoid interception or fall for countermeasures (chaff, ECM, CWIS, or RMAAA) plus the defenders own anti-missile tech increasing interception and miss chances. And tech influences how and when missiles can be fired like in your case. But in terms of behavior during the transit and locking on I don't think there is any difference between a visual line-of-sight targeting missile and radar targeting missile.
@@RvTWargames Passive radar missiles have the ship as the radar emitter with the missile looking at the reflection. Semi-active or active have a radar on the missile. I don't think ANY of the missiles in RTW3 have a tether line with that sort of range.
@@b1laxson Close! Semi Active RADAR Homing (SARH) uses an off board target illuminator. It seems like the early missile are probably supposed to simulate TV guided, Optically tracked missiles a la Fritz X on steroids.
Missile Combat 102: your ships will block lines of fire. Have your DD missile attack on "line abreast". Once a DD squadron has fired turn them around and back to "line ahead" for the torpedo phase of the fight.
Missile combat 101: have low value ships like destroyers sale ahead not just as launchers but as targets to receive incoming missile attacks. During the missile phase manually steer your high-value ships like battleships and cruisers to the back. Only after the main missile exchanges have gone on do you bring the cruisers back to the front where they can start using their guns
That is always the problem when one is trying to hit ships behind another ship. The first one will indeed take up most strikes. And the bit about not facing the enemy, they will indeed turn and launch the next round if able, so that is one way to throw away missiles.
For Morocco invasion: you will need to have enough ships there to make the invasion happen. IIRC it uses the "West Africa" sea zone. Thus you need to sail over some of your ships.
Yeah, I just checked and it IS in West Africa! ;-( Had been wondering if since he is ALLIED with Italy, if THEIR ships would allow a Med invasion--no clue! And we won't find out unless he swaps the invasion to an actual Med target! ;-)
@@pterrok5495 I can't remember if allied forces count for for when the game checks if you have enough force compared to the enemy - but since Italy isn't an ally I don't think that applies anyway. That being said, the battle generator will not take into account allied forces when it comes to the actual battle so if it does happen he'll be stuck with whatever 2nd hand ships he has there so it'll be a loss regardless.
I'll double check the number of ships in West Africa. Don't believe the French have any / many. I did have a message that invasion was not possible because of weather, which implied that an invasion was doable. Nonetheless, I'll sail some ships there.
Allow me to go off on a tangent that the AI targeting and after action report that this episode really set me off on. These examples and my own experiences really highlights that the core engine of this game is really at the end of it's life for the Rule the Waves series. And maybe even overstayed it's welcome. The AI constantly targeting a sinking ship despite the player repeatedly switching targets, the fact a DD took 13 missile hits and the game still has ships targeting it with guns because the game can't differentiate a ship slowly sinking from shell holes with one ripped apart by fire and explosions (the DD in this case is listed as sinking through progressive flood, really?). The bizarre ship identification someone else pointed out (the AI identifying everything as CVs), AI control being a near death sentence for damaged and detached ships, carriers getting stuck in coves, advanced ASW corvettes losing gun duels to submarines, aircraft development straight up stopping (looking at you PBs) in some cases. The 1880s-1900s era is a mess. DD's always being out of range even in late game. The fact you have to use roleplaying to stop unrealistic battles because the battle generator was built around generating battles in the 1900-1920 era. I could go on. The problem is, at the end of the day Rule the Waves is WW1 naval simulator and the aircraft and missile aspects of it had to be shoehorned in. As much as I love this game I don't think I'll be buying new RtW content until they completely overhaul the game engine. I'm not looking at fancy 3D graphics mind you that's not the point. I just think the current game engine is way too limiting for the eras RtW3 covers. I know an engine upgrade was mentioned for the upcoming DLC, but it sounds like it's mostly for UI upgrades. We'll see.
@@RvTWargames Most of those examples I've listed have been mentioned on the forums at some point. The sinking ship and units targeting sinking ships one has been beat to death and unfortunately the devs do not seem to think anything is wrong with how the game handles ships sinking. At least that's the impression I got. I suspect with the other examples the current game engine just can't support these suggestions.
It is indeed very confusing about the CV misidentification. It must be a known bug by now. Sometimes I chase misidentifed CVs across half the map only to find myself with a destroyer kill. Such a lovely game but the bugs are still annoying. They have not even fixed the "entire carrier fleet gets stuck in cove" issue yet.
Yes, of all ship types, you'd think flattops are the most easily spotted. Though I guess if your reconnasisance place is keeping its distance because of air defences and CAP then what you can make out from the horizon (or even on radar) might be a lot less than we'd think. So perhaps it's a feature, not a bug.
Scharnhorst in the drydock for a few months + 2 destroyers for 3 CL's and 6DD's.. good trade - but seeing how early engagement missile exchanges work, that's the real positive from this battle imo.
Yes, it was tricky discovering the French radar-targeting advantage. I really that tech. Allowing the French to fire first and then wait until I'm in visual range is a massive disadvantage!
Huh, is there a missile tech he is missing for locking onto radar contacts? Kinda sad where he has the missile advantage but then the frenchies get to shoot first anyways.
In the 2ns half of the battle, shooting the 'fire at will' missiles at the DDs makes sense as they MIGHT have missiles! You, as human, know they had already fired them all, though. Guess the AI can't count. ;-p
I could be wrong but because you used coordinated strike your light jet fighters were circling around your carriers waiting for the strike aircraft to take off. Because of this the jets were using up fuel, lowering the range they had for the mission. I’ve haven’t seen this issue myself though so I am mostly guessing. Maybe it was because you used coordinated strike for multiple carriers?
I forgot to mention but it’s possible jets also have less fuel than pistons. Let’s assume that a jet fighter has the same range as a piston plane, 500nm. Let’s also assume that a piston plane has half the cruise speed of a jet. If it takes 2 hours for the piston to reach max range then the jet will only take 1 hour to reach max range. Therefore, the jet has less time to spend in the air than the piston. For the fuel of the jet to be the same, the max range would need to be 1000nm. Of course if the jet is on escort mission, it should travel the same speed as the piston, thus it should hopefully use less fuel. But I could be completely wrong though. It’s just a theory.
Also on your CV load out it appears you are 4/5 th fighters and 1/5 th attack planes. O_o. Normally Im closer to 50-50. One CV load out theory is that increasing your fighters is also making it as if they had shot down your attack planes. Like the missile age swarm attacks the few extra attackers are the ones that overwhelmed the defenses making them more important to sinking ships. (not a great explanation)
To be fair this is VERY EARLY Anti Ship Missiles, So.... trying to hit another ship that is behind a ship is pretty hard. Its not too surprising that all the missiles slam into that DD in front. A waste of ammo to be sure but.... well at least the missiles hit something, right? Like the Missile Seeker is just locking onto whatever is closest. Even though that's not really what your aiming at. Edit: No big news? Your new Jet Attacker just got Called a LEMON as rolled off the Assembly floor. I'm guessing thats REALLY BAD. also spain is complaining about not having enough cruisers, Useless info but funny.
I wasn't holding my breath for the the first generation of Jet Attack aircraft reliability to be great. My new HJF is currently a question mark and my LJF is also poor. I just hope other countries are facing similar teething troubles with new technology.
@@RvTWargames If I recall there is what 5 quality ranks? Poor is probably about the best they could do for a first try. But yeah everyone probably having quality problems.
Your CV load outs are strange to me. If you have jet ability the CV ought to be all heavy jet fighter and jet attack. Light jet fighters dont have advantages compared to HJF. Only HJF can get night attack for instance. LJF can go on un-converted carriers where HJF can't. Recommend removing LJF squads and raising amount of HJF.
Iv memory serves we only recently (like a few videos ago) got Heavy Jets and Jet Attackers. And I think the Jet Attackers are being worked on right now.
We are in month one of producing Jet Attacks. Three manufactured so far. One per carrier perhaps? The HJF are also new. Obviously I want to swap them in and take out the LJF but I also don't want to cripple my carrier air wings pilot quality, which is already POOR for several squadrons. Indeed, I am relunctant to commit the CVs unless it's for a very important aim, like invasion, until pilot quality gets to at least FAIR. Reducing my LJF qualty squadrons from Expert and Veteran doesn't seem a good move at this point. BTW, I have no unconverted carriers.
Morocco is part of WEST Africa, not the Mediterranean. (Don't know why, it has more in common with the Med then the West African Coast) Hmmm 1954...... Hopefully you get those 2 techs the Game mentions, they should be coming up SOON ish. Radar guided missiles are obviously under missile tech and Tactical data systems..... I'm not sure actually, Radar tech maybe? In the meantime if you really want to (ideally during your next Peace) can probably replace your seaplanes with Helicopters. (eventually the game is going to ask why your still using Seaplanes, just like it does with Zepplins) I know they don't do MUCH at the moment but they will with time and Technology, at least you can use them for scouting and picking up survivors I guess? Personally id argue putting your ships in Line Abreast when doing missile attacks so they all line up evenly, thus they can fire all at the same time even with out more advanced Tech. Screening I think still helps with Mutual Ship Defense even in the missile age but that is debatable.
I have had one message saying that the invasion wasn't possible because of the weather plus it is in range, so I presume it is possible. But I'll add some ships to West Africa to see if that makes it happen. (Though I'm not really bothered for taking Morocco, it's just a device to make some interesting battles happen).
How do you get the pre-battle widget to come up with info about your forces, commander etc? Is that a mod or something? I don't think my game has that.
The DD Bisson class was fulfilling it's role as the "missile sponge" - sailing in front of the high-value targets (CLs) to intercept incoming fire
yes, I feel that without radar guidance, the simpler radar (not verified by in game experience, just historical) in the missile own radar probably locks on the thing that gives the clearest return signal. In this case the broadside destroyer that was closest by. Just steering to strongest return was the early missile tech historically, easily enough to do with analog electronics. Having the logic to distinguish between radar returns and keeping track of the designated target, is another thing. Early times done with radar beam riding, like Terrier and Talos (although those primary role was SAM), were the amount of targets was limited by the number of guidance radars available on the firing vessel.
No doubt. But my missiles are not radar guided yet. They require visual line-of-sight targeting, so presumably someone is keeping the target in their crosshairs while steering the missile to the target, and that target was not the DD Bisson!
@@RvTWargames I suspect based on my own observations that once fired, code-wise the game treats all SSM missiles equally regardless of type, era, or tech. Obviously techs matters, but I believe tech only influences whether a missile will miss or not and whether it will avoid interception or fall for countermeasures (chaff, ECM, CWIS, or RMAAA) plus the defenders own anti-missile tech increasing interception and miss chances. And tech influences how and when missiles can be fired like in your case. But in terms of behavior during the transit and locking on I don't think there is any difference between a visual line-of-sight targeting missile and radar targeting missile.
@@RvTWargames Passive radar missiles have the ship as the radar emitter with the missile looking at the reflection. Semi-active or active have a radar on the missile. I don't think ANY of the missiles in RTW3 have a tether line with that sort of range.
@@b1laxson Close! Semi Active RADAR Homing (SARH) uses an off board target illuminator. It seems like the early missile are probably supposed to simulate TV guided, Optically tracked missiles a la Fritz X on steroids.
Missile Combat 102: your ships will block lines of fire. Have your DD missile attack on "line abreast". Once a DD squadron has fired turn them around and back to "line ahead" for the torpedo phase of the fight.
Yup, using line abreast for missile firing / absorbing.
Missile combat 101: have low value ships like destroyers sale ahead not just as launchers but as targets to receive incoming missile attacks. During the missile phase manually steer your high-value ships like battleships and cruisers to the back. Only after the main missile exchanges have gone on do you bring the cruisers back to the front where they can start using their guns
Indeed
That is always the problem when one is trying to hit ships behind another ship. The first one will indeed take up most strikes. And the bit about not facing the enemy, they will indeed turn and launch the next round if able, so that is one way to throw away missiles.
Yes, you're right. Even crippled ships need to face the enemy before they try and return to base.
For Morocco invasion: you will need to have enough ships there to make the invasion happen. IIRC it uses the "West Africa" sea zone. Thus you need to sail over some of your ships.
Yeah, I just checked and it IS in West Africa! ;-(
Had been wondering if since he is ALLIED with Italy, if THEIR ships would allow a Med invasion--no clue! And we won't find out unless he swaps the invasion to an actual Med target! ;-)
@@pterrok5495 I can't remember if allied forces count for for when the game checks if you have enough force compared to the enemy - but since Italy isn't an ally I don't think that applies anyway. That being said, the battle generator will not take into account allied forces when it comes to the actual battle so if it does happen he'll be stuck with whatever 2nd hand ships he has there so it'll be a loss regardless.
I'll double check the number of ships in West Africa. Don't believe the French have any / many.
I did have a message that invasion was not possible because of weather, which implied that an invasion was doable. Nonetheless, I'll sail some ships there.
Thanks for this great series Dickie!
You're very welcome, Klaus. It's fascinating and fun to do.
Allow me to go off on a tangent that the AI targeting and after action report that this episode really set me off on. These examples and my own experiences really highlights that the core engine of this game is really at the end of it's life for the Rule the Waves series. And maybe even overstayed it's welcome. The AI constantly targeting a sinking ship despite the player repeatedly switching targets, the fact a DD took 13 missile hits and the game still has ships targeting it with guns because the game can't differentiate a ship slowly sinking from shell holes with one ripped apart by fire and explosions (the DD in this case is listed as sinking through progressive flood, really?). The bizarre ship identification someone else pointed out (the AI identifying everything as CVs), AI control being a near death sentence for damaged and detached ships, carriers getting stuck in coves, advanced ASW corvettes losing gun duels to submarines, aircraft development straight up stopping (looking at you PBs) in some cases. The 1880s-1900s era is a mess. DD's always being out of range even in late game. The fact you have to use roleplaying to stop unrealistic battles because the battle generator was built around generating battles in the 1900-1920 era. I could go on. The problem is, at the end of the day Rule the Waves is WW1 naval simulator and the aircraft and missile aspects of it had to be shoehorned in.
As much as I love this game I don't think I'll be buying new RtW content until they completely overhaul the game engine. I'm not looking at fancy 3D graphics mind you that's not the point. I just think the current game engine is way too limiting for the eras RtW3 covers. I know an engine upgrade was mentioned for the upcoming DLC, but it sounds like it's mostly for UI upgrades. We'll see.
Good tangent, but tell it on the officals forums to get added to the backlog of changes for new editions of RtW! (If you haven't already)
@@RvTWargames Most of those examples I've listed have been mentioned on the forums at some point. The sinking ship and units targeting sinking ships one has been beat to death and unfortunately the devs do not seem to think anything is wrong with how the game handles ships sinking. At least that's the impression I got. I suspect with the other examples the current game engine just can't support these suggestions.
It is indeed very confusing about the CV misidentification. It must be a known bug by now. Sometimes I chase misidentifed CVs across half the map only to find myself with a destroyer kill. Such a lovely game but the bugs are still annoying. They have not even fixed the "entire carrier fleet gets stuck in cove" issue yet.
It must be, Cus CVs don;t say IN LINE with other ships like that, so those are obviously not Carriers.
Yes, of all ship types, you'd think flattops are the most easily spotted.
Though I guess if your reconnasisance place is keeping its distance because of air defences and CAP then what you can make out from the horizon (or even on radar) might be a lot less than we'd think. So perhaps it's a feature, not a bug.
Scharnhorst in the drydock for a few months + 2 destroyers for 3 CL's and 6DD's.. good trade - but seeing how early engagement missile exchanges work, that's the real positive from this battle imo.
Yes, it was tricky discovering the French radar-targeting advantage. I really that tech. Allowing the French to fire first and then wait until I'm in visual range is a massive disadvantage!
Huh, is there a missile tech he is missing for locking onto radar contacts? Kinda sad where he has the missile advantage but then the frenchies get to shoot first anyways.
I don't remember him getting that tech yet.... Id remember even though its been a while.
Yes, there is a radar guided SSM tech (and another SAM one too). Both due now, in 1954. The French seem to have it. 😒
In the 2ns half of the battle, shooting the 'fire at will' missiles at the DDs makes sense as they MIGHT have missiles! You, as human, know they had already fired them all, though. Guess the AI can't count. ;-p
That + constantly checking every turn to see if the reloads where ready to launch would be a massive chore!
I could be wrong but because you used coordinated strike your light jet fighters were circling around your carriers waiting for the strike aircraft to take off. Because of this the jets were using up fuel, lowering the range they had for the mission.
I’ve haven’t seen this issue myself though so I am mostly guessing. Maybe it was because you used coordinated strike for multiple carriers?
I forgot to mention but it’s possible jets also have less fuel than pistons. Let’s assume that a jet fighter has the same range as a piston plane, 500nm. Let’s also assume that a piston plane has half the cruise speed of a jet. If it takes 2 hours for the piston to reach max range then the jet will only take 1 hour to reach max range.
Therefore, the jet has less time to spend in the air than the piston. For the fuel of the jet to be the same, the max range would need to be 1000nm. Of course if the jet is on escort mission, it should travel the same speed as the piston, thus it should hopefully use less fuel.
But I could be completely wrong though. It’s just a theory.
Also on your CV load out it appears you are 4/5 th fighters and 1/5 th attack planes. O_o. Normally Im closer to 50-50. One CV load out theory is that increasing your fighters is also making it as if they had shot down your attack planes. Like the missile age swarm attacks the few extra attackers are the ones that overwhelmed the defenses making them more important to sinking ships. (not a great explanation)
To be fair this is VERY EARLY Anti Ship Missiles, So.... trying to hit another ship that is behind a ship is pretty hard. Its not too surprising that all the missiles slam into that DD in front. A waste of ammo to be sure but.... well at least the missiles hit something, right?
Like the Missile Seeker is just locking onto whatever is closest. Even though that's not really what your aiming at.
Edit: No big news? Your new Jet Attacker just got Called a LEMON as rolled off the Assembly floor. I'm guessing thats REALLY BAD. also spain is complaining about not having enough cruisers, Useless info but funny.
I wasn't holding my breath for the the first generation of Jet Attack aircraft reliability to be great. My new HJF is currently a question mark and my LJF is also poor. I just hope other countries are facing similar teething troubles with new technology.
@@RvTWargames If I recall there is what 5 quality ranks? Poor is probably about the best they could do for a first try.
But yeah everyone probably having quality problems.
Your CV load outs are strange to me. If you have jet ability the CV ought to be all heavy jet fighter and jet attack. Light jet fighters dont have advantages compared to HJF. Only HJF can get night attack for instance. LJF can go on un-converted carriers where HJF can't.
Recommend removing LJF squads and raising amount of HJF.
Iv memory serves we only recently (like a few videos ago) got Heavy Jets and Jet Attackers. And I think the Jet Attackers are being worked on right now.
We are in month one of producing Jet Attacks. Three manufactured so far. One per carrier perhaps?
The HJF are also new. Obviously I want to swap them in and take out the LJF but I also don't want to cripple my carrier air wings pilot quality, which is already POOR for several squadrons. Indeed, I am relunctant to commit the CVs unless it's for a very important aim, like invasion, until pilot quality gets to at least FAIR. Reducing my LJF qualty squadrons from Expert and Veteran doesn't seem a good move at this point.
BTW, I have no unconverted carriers.
Morocco is part of WEST Africa, not the Mediterranean. (Don't know why, it has more in common with the Med then the West African Coast) Hmmm 1954...... Hopefully you get those 2 techs the Game mentions, they should be coming up SOON ish. Radar guided missiles are obviously under missile tech and Tactical data systems..... I'm not sure actually, Radar tech maybe?
In the meantime if you really want to (ideally during your next Peace) can probably replace your seaplanes with Helicopters. (eventually the game is going to ask why your still using Seaplanes, just like it does with Zepplins) I know they don't do MUCH at the moment but they will with time and Technology, at least you can use them for scouting and picking up survivors I guess?
Personally id argue putting your ships in Line Abreast when doing missile attacks so they all line up evenly, thus they can fire all at the same time even with out more advanced Tech. Screening I think still helps with Mutual Ship Defense even in the missile age but that is debatable.
I have had one message saying that the invasion wasn't possible because of the weather plus it is in range, so I presume it is possible. But I'll add some ships to West Africa to see if that makes it happen. (Though I'm not really bothered for taking Morocco, it's just a device to make some interesting battles happen).
@RvTWargames yeah invasion battles are always fun.
How do you get the pre-battle widget to come up with info about your forces, commander etc? Is that a mod or something? I don't think my game has that.
No. That's just a standard feature I believe, assuming you're using the most uptodate version of RtW3 (1.00.00.59 I beleive)
@@RvTWargames I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the reply.