Teamwork and tactics

[lapon2046]

I've been thinking about what kind of roles different ship classes will have. One of the games I play, Hearts of Iron 3, makes the assumption that destroyers and battleships are complementary, and that cruisers and carriers are as well. But as ship range doesn't come into the equation in WoWS, this assessment breaks down.

 

I do feel though, that destroyers will have an advance role in the game, scouting and launching torpedoes if they can get close enough to the enemy. This scouting can be co-opted by the carriers and by float planes  etc that larger ships have, reducing the potential job of the destroyers to get close and torpedo someone, along with preventing the other destroyers from doing the same. Hearts of Iron 3 also assumes that cruisers have better anti-aircraft than destroyers do, which I have next-to-no information on.

 

I see battleships being arty-like attack with heavy-tank like performance and armor, so they will want to close range, but not be too close in case they get torpedoed. Cruisers  with their weaker guns and armor, will be second line troops behind the battleships which are fighting and the destroyers which are screening, scouting and torpedoing. Cruisers torpedo's and guns may serve to deal with things that get through the front lines. If there are carriers, defending them may be the prime objective of the cruisers. If not, I think they will operate as slower but heavier destroyers, like a medium tank.

 

 

Any thoughts? I am really excited to see how this will play out.

[Super_Dreadnought]

If WoT is any indicator, you will only find teamwork and some semblance of advanced tactics in clan games. Don't expect pubs to be able to pull off the formation in that image.

[MM2ss]

I will agree that once it goes live that teamwork will likely go the way of the Quagga.  In the closed testing phases I imagine we will see some degree of teamwork, just from the degree of familiarity that will result from forum trolling and playing together.  Open Beta will be the end of preplanned or live planned teamwork in most matches, though some cooperation will happen naturally in open beta and even in the live game.

[commando2227]

Teamwork? What is this teamwork you speak of?  :Smile_trollface:​

Seriously though,don't expect to see much more than a mass charge.

[Appollosnos]

I love the map/tactics you have in the pics. What I would do is send a couple DDs south to flank the BBs hard.

[Battleship_Unknown2]

I don't think the one-tactics-fit-all approach is going to work for this game. The advantage that the tactics you have suggested have is that they suit the concept of a battle inside a strait... which will naturally permit only low mobility, and limited (if any) opportunities to flank. But I think that many maps are likely to have far less land, where big ships are essentially unencumbered by the potential for navigational hazards. Battles close-in to shore weren't unheard of in WWI or WWII, but they weren't the norm, either. In more open sea scenarios, I think you're likely to see tactics mimic those in real life, and look something like this:

 

 

Now, what's going on here? The destroyers are serving more as defensive, rather than offensive augments to the fleet (and a few around the CVs for AA support). In real life, destroyers weren't seen as the 'front line' of rushers -- they were defenders; a shield against enemy destroyers, as well as being able to offer smoke screen support and AA fire against incoming enemy aircraft. If properly dispersed, destroyers would be placed on the engaged wing of the fleet, so they could quickly intervene with torpedo attacks, etc.

 

Aside from aircraft serving as scouts (and I expect them to be everywhere on the map), the primary scouts should actually be light cruisers. Why? Because light cruisers were just as fast as destroyers, but were designed to be able to penetrate enemy advance destroyer screens to press home reconaissance. They're the front-line fighters in this battle... but the moment they get their information, they fall back on the bigger guns of the battlefleet.

 

Supporting the light cruisers are the heavy cruisers and battlecruisers, which are serving as an extended, fast element to the respective battle lines. While not intended to slug it out in an actual gunnery duel (although this is what happened at Jutland), they are positioned to give maximum firepower assistance to the light cruisers, and simultaneously engage their opposing units in the enemy fleet.

 

Next there is the line of battle itself, with armored cruisers (too slow to serve with the heavy cruisers/BCs), and BBs. These will be the muscle that tangle with the enemy line, and these are also the determining factor in the arrangement of the entire force. If the lead BB (or, in this case, AC), begins to turn in an attempt to cross the enemy's T, the rest of the fleet moves with it. The line of battle sets up all other force distribution -- where they go, others follow.

 

Finally, we have the ACs, furthest removed from the shooting (as they are the ultimate glass cannons), but able to interject their own power anywhere on the battlefield at a moment's notice. They can't take hits, and will maneuver not only to keep the friendly line between themselves and the enemy, but also to keep the enemy ACs from knowing where precisely they are at all times.

 

From this 'starting' layout, I would expect confusion and chaos to ensue in most battles. Players are not naval officers, and some are going to be better at understanding tactics than others. Every game you'll probably have a BB who decides he's a soloer and blunders into the enemy destroyer screen, or a couple of light cruisers who float off and get lost. But, overall, if players know their class, this is what we should see -- fleets behaving as they did in real life. If these games devolve into big, thousand-yard melees, I won't play much past the first week.

[Meriv]

on this I envy NA/RU server, if they will implement teamspeak you will have just to speak english/spanish, in the RU just russian, we in EU got a really big problem with most of the players that doesn't write  nor speak english fluently.

 

this is for the first post. Plus I have no exp at all in warships, this is what I would be doing and what playerbase is going to do

 

Why would DD stop at the middle for fighting against enemy DDs? What we will see  is: BB and CV firing on the enemy fleet while it is swarmed by yours DDs and at the same time your CC fending off the DD that are swarming on our fleet(on the simplyest scenario)

 

Idk how it is in a DD but in my lights tanks/mediums when flanking/attacking an heavy it is always better to go foward than to stop and pull back and in consecuence loosing the momentum, plus on the DD we will have torpedoes on stem too making it better to go full frontal and surpass the enemy.

[Battleship_Unknown2]

Meriv, on 04 February 2013 - 02:06 AM, said:

on this I envy NA/RU server, if they will implement teamspeak you will have just to speak english/spanish, in the RU just russian, we in EU got a really big problem with most of the players that doesn't write  nor speak english fluently.

this is for the first post. Plus I have no exp at all in warships, this is what I would be doing and what playerbase is going to do

Why would DD stop at the middle for fighting against enemy DDs? What we will see  is: BB and CV firing on the enemy fleet while it is swarmed by yours DDs and at the same time your CC fending off the DD that are swarming on our fleet(on the simplyest scenario)

Idk how it is in a DD but in my lights tanks/mediums when flanking/attacking an heavy it is always better to go foward than to stop and pull back and in consecuence loosing the momentum, plus on the DD we will have torpedoes on stem too making it better to go full frontal and surpass the enemy.

It's harder to penetrate the enemy destroyer screen than you might think. Plus, once you were through, only a single battleship turret would have to turn on you and you would be sunk. Yeah, you might launch a torpedo or two, but enemy destroyers closing within 5,000 yards of the enemy battleline should be able to count their continued living in the span of seconds.

[MM2ss]

My theories on naval warfare are based on a few things, namely my training with the Navy and my study of history.

 

I hope to see BB's working in unison to take out enemy heavies, so line ahead and line abreast would be good to see.  Why?  A chance to cross the T on the enemy and even if you can't cross the T, you can focus fire enemy heavy units one by one, taking guns out of the fight.  As we know, things tend to snowball once enemy units start dropping unless there are comparable losses on the attackers side.

 

Cruisers need to provide fire support and screening duty.  They are the rapid response force of the fleet.  Armed and armored enough to be able to attack larger units if needed, possibly sinking some as well as distracting and harassing the enemy force to cause a loss of cohesion.  They are also fast enough to act as DD bullies, so they can keep enemy DDs at bay or just sink them.

 

DD's are the pawns of the naval game, but even if they are not the big gun, they are a potent potential threat.  DD's are AA support, screening units, and with torpedoes a potential equalizer (or at least they can make a BB think twice about just closing range without paying attention).

 

CV's are the long arm of the fleet.  They are also the shield that protects the fleet.  Fighters will have a few jobs, CAP, fighter sweeps, and doubling as scouts when needed.  Bombers (dive, level, and torpedo) are equalizers.  They can take out any enemy unit, though are best used to target major threats, such as enemy CV's and BB's.  They are also the last line of defense for the carrier itself, with the potential to take out an enemy unit that gets in gun range.

 

So, formation wise, I envision the fleet acting in two to four elements.  Element 1, CV's, to the rear or flanks out of gun range, maybe with some escorts (DD or cruisers).  Element 2, heavies, the big stick of the BB's and maybe large cruisers that lack speed (they can snipe some, harass the enemy, and disrupt enemy formations as well as adding more targets to reduce enemy focus fire).  Element 3, fast cruisers, these act as a support and screening force, possibly with DD's, they have to pick off enemy DD's and maybe cruisers as well.  Element 4, DD's, screen the rest of the fleet and make attacks of opportunity, torpedoing crippled, escaping, or lone enemy units, this element will be essentially doing flanking duty as well as helping keep enemy DD's off the heavies and CV's.  Elements 3 and 4 would also have to provide some AA support for the BB and CV elements if escorts are not assigned.

[Meriv]

PrincessRoyal, on 04 February 2013 - 02:15 AM, said:

It's harder to penetrate the enemy destroyer screen than you might think. Plus, once you were through, only a single battleship turret would have to turn on you and you would be sunk. Yeah, you might launch a torpedo or two, but enemy destroyers closing within 5,000 yards of the enemy battleline should be able to count their continued living in the span of seconds.

but isn't destroyer main weapon the torpedoes? How much damage can a DD do to others Dd with main gun? And here comes the arcade, we will have 4 destroyers or something like that per battleshisp plus you can just aim all your turrets at just one DD, how much dispersion will you have? You will be able to oneshot  one of them but you will have 8 torpedoes coming at you from frontal and after passing you you will have another 6 of them, how fast does the turret turn? Can DD dance as lights in wot?

I am speaking as a total ignorant on the topic, just what you should expect from the 90% of wg gamers.

[Battleship_Unknown2]

Meriv, on 04 February 2013 - 02:21 AM, said:

but isn't destroyer main weapon the torpedoes? How much damage can a DD to an another Dd with main gun?

Destroyers weren't heavily armored. You fire a 4-inch or 6-inch gun into an unarmored enemy bridge and everyone in there is going to die. That's one shot from a destroyer, and one crippled enemy destroyer. Now, it won't always be like that, but you'd better believe destroyers can quickly kill other destroyers with gunfire. Plus, they can torpedo each other too.

Quote

And here comes the arcade, we will have 4 destroyers or something like that per battleshisp plus you can just aim all your turrets at just one DD, how much dispersion will you have?

How are our theoretical destroyers getting close enough to swarm this unfortunate battleship? They not only have to clear enemy cruisers and destroyers and BCs, but they also have to close to a range to accurately fire their torpedoes and hope for any success... and that's under the enemy BB guns, which in some cases can fire 4 to 5 times as far as the DD.

Now, will we see the occasional mass destroyer death-ride? Absolutely. And trading 6-8 destroyers for a couple of BBs might be a fair exchange. But I expect such a suicide run to be suicide. You imagine destroyers to be far more resilient than they actually were. Also, if you start losing destroyers, you're throwing away your ability to beat back enemy destroyers, and some of the best AA your fleet has. I'd rather play it safe and use my destroyers to shoot down a lot of incoming enemy aircraft before cutting them loose. Once those CVs lose their planes, they're worthless.

[NGTM_1R]

PrincessRoyal, on 04 February 2013 - 02:15 AM, said:

It's harder to penetrate the enemy destroyer screen than you might think. Plus, once you were through, only a single battleship turret would have to turn on you and you would be sunk. Yeah, you might launch a torpedo or two, but enemy destroyers closing within 5,000 yards of the enemy battleline should be able to count their continued living in the span of seconds.

People thought this at Jutland, but whether it was true then is debatable at best. (Odds are, considering hit percentages, it wasn't.) It's certainly not true based on experience from WW2. This is almost pure fantasy.

[MM2ss]

DD's maneuverability depends on the class.  Some are very fast, others not so much.  For the most part a turret on a CA or BB should have little trouble keeping up with a DD coming in.  As for the torpedoes, the way they are launched will depend on the class of DD as will the number of torpedoes one could launch.  Some launchers require a vessel to turn almost broadside to make a good launch, some tubes are fixed and so the vessel must be aimed at the target to aim the tube.  Torpedoes usually have a safety function, the screw must make a certain number of revolutions to arm the torpedo, so launching from too close means the torpedoes are wasted, launching from too far away means the target can take effective evasive action.  Lastly, damage potential of DD main guns, again depends on the class, ranging from 3" to 5.9" (I do not believe there were any DDs with 6" guns).  So a DD can potentially have a great deal of damage potential due to the guns.  I do not believe many destroyers would be looking good after a few 5" shells (5" was a fairly common gun size for DD's) and some 5" guns can achieve ranges of over 25,000 yards.

 

Frankly, unless you have a useful speed advantage or a substantial armor and gun advantage breaking through a destroyer screen is no easy task, on the other hand, the nature of DD construction means that they can be rendered hors de combat by a few shells, even if they are not actually sunk right at that moment.

[Battleship_Unknown2]

NGTM_1R, on 04 February 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

People thought this at Jutland, but whether it was true then is debatable at best. (Odds are, considering hit percentages, it wasn't.) It's certainly not true based on experience from WW2. This is almost pure fantasy.

So you think the game is just going to be destroyers roving free through the enemy battle line? It happened in WW2 because much of the naval fighting went on at night, when one or both forces had no idea the other was there, and the two fleets collided at extremely close range.

If you want to see what happens when destroyers fight BBs at point-blank range, read about the night action at Jutland. The British rear destroyer screen ran smack into the van of the German High Seas fleet... and except for a single German predreadnought sunk, there was mass chaos and carnage for the British destroyer forces (with battleship guns fired at close range literally ripping the superstructures off destroyers, and destroyers being cut in half by the lumbering dreadnoughts). Again, if WoWS becomes a 1000-yard game where we're all spinning in each other's wakes every battle, I'm not playing. I refuse to partake in some utter fantasyland where I spend my entire game as a BC or BB turning my turrets trying to blow up destroyers because they're too fast and agile to target. I want destroyers to be vauable assets -- light on armored defense, heavy on offensive capability, etc. But if destroyers are too speedy to sink, that's not cool. That's not how it happened, and that's not a game I'll play.

[Meriv]

PrincessRoyal, on 04 February 2013 - 02:26 AM, said:

Destroyers weren't heavily armored. You fire a 4-inch or 6-inch gun into an unarmored enemy bridge and everyone in there is going to die. That's one shot from a destroyer, and one crippled enemy destroyer. Now, it won't always be like that, but you'd better believe destroyers can quickly kill other destroyers with gunfire. Plus, they can torpedo each other too.



How are our theoretical destroyers getting close enough to swarm this unfortunate battleship? They not only have to clear enemy cruisers and destroyers and BCs, but they also have to close to a range to accurately fire their torpedoes and hope for any success... and that's under the enemy BB guns, which in some cases can fire 4 to 5 times as far as the DD.

Now, will we see the occasional mass destroyer death-ride? Absolutely. And trading 6-8 destroyers for a couple of BBs might be a fair exchange. But I expect such a suicide run to be suicide. You imagine destroyers to be far more resilient than they actually were. Also, if you start losing destroyers, you're throwing away your ability to beat back enemy destroyers, and some of the best AA your fleet has. I'd rather play it safe and use my destroyers to shoot down a lot of incoming enemy aircraft before cutting them loose. Once those CVs lose their planes, they're worthless.

I am doing just evil's lawyer, I am already convinced.


why would I be doing a suicide frontal? Because I travel at 40+knots almost 33% faster than normal cruisers (30),ok they can oneshot me but we are 8 in our team of destroyers most of us will survive and launch a bunch off torpedoes inside the caos of the enemy fleet,  BB have a really long range soo after spotting enemy fleet they will start firing, even with the same speed pursuiting me isn't easy(ever tried to pursuit a light in a light at top speed? It isn't a joke at all,even if in wows will be easier since there isn't speed loose of accuracy ), if I pass CC and BB I could even get a good shot on the CV giving a giant bonus on my team.

how I will get at that distance ? Luck and speed, I know that it sounds stupid but it is how it works in arcades game or I wouldn't have got 11 kills in my luchs

The best defense is the attack(a BB and CV being busy at dodging and firing on me is a less BB/CV firing on my owns) , plus to be honest I really don't know which is the DD role (I am just taking the role of the main kind of player) while seeing all that torpedoes tubes makes me dream of E-boats and MAS. Another reason is if I deal a huge damage with a torpedo and I die after I will be able to play in others battles with others ships, while if I defend my carrier with AA defense, how much damage I will be doing? How fast I am doing it? Will I  be one shoted from a sideral distance by the enemy BB ? Will I have that shot of adrenaline that I get after mimicking rambo?

[Battleship_Unknown2]

Meriv, on 04 February 2013 - 02:57 AM, said:

I am doing just evil's lawyer, I am already convinced.

why would I be doing a suicide frontal? Because I travel at 40+knots almost 33% faster than normal cruisers (30),ok they can oneshot me but we are 8 in our team of destroyers most of us will survive and launch a bunch off torpedoes inside the caos of the enemy fleet, BB have a really long range soo after spotting enemy fleet they will start firing, even with the same speed pursuiting me isn't easy(ever tried to pursuit a light in a light at top speed? It isn't a joke at all,even if in wows will be easier since there isn't speed loose of accuracy ), if I pass CC and BB I could even get a good shot on the CV giving a giant bonus on my team.

Okay, well,  you go on predicting this, I guess. I'm going to laugh when the first 16" shell blows your boat up at 15,000 yards and you get to watch the rest of the game -- particularly when your teammates start screaming at you because they've got no AA left and the carriers and BBs are going to the bottom under concerted air attack. If you want to play the game as a one-man team, or an lololol destroyer zerg, you play it that way. Just don't expect a lot of compliments from other players on your 'mad skill.'

I mean, it's like you don't even acknowledge that cruisers and BBs and BCs possess unbelievably heavy seconday batteries that are there only to fend off enemy air assaults and -- you guessed it -- destroyers. Look at the secondary on this Iowa.



Those turrets aren't just there for show. And they're not going to be shooting at the enemy battleships. They're going to be shooting at you.

[lapon2046]

Quote

Why would DD stop at the middle for fighting against enemy DDs? What we will see  is: BB and CV firing on the enemy fleet while it is swarmed by yours DDs and at the same time your CC fending off the DD that are swarming on our fleet(on the simplyest scenario)

In the image I put up, the DD's wouldn't stop. It was only one set of movements, I had a whole battle planned out but as it went on it got more ridiculous. Ill post it here, but only for hilarity sake. This has been a wonderful discussion, I really really cannot wait to see how it all plays out.

[turmacil]

Meriv, on 04 February 2013 - 02:21 AM, said:

Can DD dance as lights in wot?

I dont think we will see many successful "dances" in WoWS. The secondary armament will make it difficult for anyone to predict how to dodge.

On a grander scale I think that most games will have 90% of players charging in waves.

Destroyers and CL's will brawl at close range while the CA's and BB's will snipe at a longer range. Of course the CV's will hang near the back, or whatever is perceived as the most protected part of the map.

The last 10% of players will be playing smart, escorting CV's, covering the flanks of larger ships.

[Meriv]

PrincessRoyal, on 04 February 2013 - 03:01 AM, said:

Okay, well,  you go on predicting this, I guess. I'm going to laugh when the first 16" shell blows your boat up at 15,000 yards and you get to watch the rest of the game -- particularly when your teammates start screaming at you because they've got no AA left and the carriers and BBs are going to the bottom under concerted air attack. If you want to play the game as a one-man team, or an lololol destroyer zerg, you play it that way. Just don't expect a lot of compliments from other players on your 'mad skill.'

I mean, it's like you don't even acknowledge that cruisers and BBs and BCs possess unbelievably heavy seconday batteries that are there only to fend off enemy air assaults and -- you guessed it -- destroyers. Look at the secondary on this Iowa.



Those turrets aren't just there for show. And they're not going to be shooting at the enemy battleships. They're going to be shooting at you.

ok the 20 127/38mm cannons, I took them in consideration, as you said before a 4-6 inch will seriusly damage you, but this is an arcade, first you will giving AI priorities soo they will focus one ship at time(if not wrong) second, being this an arcade if the enemy sinks all your CA/BB/Cv and your only mean of destroying it is by torpedo do you think WG would make it soo frustrating to have to approach with 9 main guns and 10 secondary (just one side) doing a real life barrage of fire? I think they will give some nerf on them(secondary guns) to give at least a small chance to the destroyer to sink it at 1v1 last resort.

and I wasn't refering to a madman lonewolf action but something more like this

[amade]

It took a long while for people to play WoT the way the devs "intended" as people needed to learn all sort of meta-game and game mechanics e.g. learning about camo and spotting, how to passive scout, how to rotate team mates taking damage, how to use terrain effectively, etc. I imagine WoWS would take just as long if not more. My ignorance on tanks was very close to being absolute when I first started playing WoT. My ignorance on WoWS will be the same when the time to try it out eventually comes.

 

Way back in early closed beta people used light tanks to rush the enemy all the time and hope to get lucky and not get one-shotted. It took a very long time for people to begin realize that light tanks are more useful if it stayed alive for more than the first couple of minutes of the battle. So expect the early gameplay of DDs to be similar in which people don't know how to use them properly. In fact, expect nothing to be similar to real world navy tactics until a certain proportion of early testers have managed to grasp the meta-game better.

[turmacil]

At best I think that destroyer swarm tactics would be a bloody way of eliminating the vanguard of a fleet and disrupting the fleets movement enough to allow the big guns more time to kill the BB's.

[lapon2046]

As mentioned, the one-target-per-battery might change the behavior significantly, but yea DD will die a lot.

[Crag_r]

You have not really mentioned Aviation, there will be no need for ships to be doing to scouting as a few ships can carry Aircraft not too mention carriers. But the thing about Aircraft is like in WoT that it is much easier to hit the bigger targets as is near on impossible to hit destroyers or some cruisers with either torpedo or dive bombers.

[MM2ss]

Destroyers are easy to hit with a dive bomber...if you have laser guidance.

[Battleship_Unknown2]

Crag_r, on 04 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

You have not really mentioned Aviation, there will be no need for ships to be doing to scouting as a few ships can carry Aircraft not too mention carriers. But the thing about Aircraft is like in WoT that it is much easier to hit the bigger targets as is near on impossible to hit destroyers or some cruisers with either torpedo or dive bombers.

I would like to think that mechanics will preclude the ability of carriers to instantly convey to their entire force the layout of the whole map. If that is the case, there is very little cause for light cruisers at all, unless it is to provide AA.

What would be preferable would be for carriers to possess an ability to 'dispatch a scout plane' to a location on the map, and then see a certain distance around the route of that plane as it flies to and from the chosen location. Ideally, this ability isn't spammable (IE, I send up 20 scout planes and 60 seconds later know where everything is), and can be defended against (IE, the plane gets shot down while doing its route).

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I think carriers are going to be the unit whose real-world ability is most neutered for the sake of game mechanics. Were we following real-life, a good-sized carrier with a competant CO would know the location of every ship on the map in short order, and would be able to dispatch multiple waves of strike aircraft to destroy several large targets simultaneously, all while possessing the speed to stay out of range of the enemy guns no matter what he did. Clearly, real life cannot convey directly to WoWS or the game might as well be called 'WoCs.'