Vessels unavailable

[ULYSSE]

I am just discovering PB Battle of Normandy.

My vessels become unavailable very quickly in the game and therefore they are unable to fire onto targets on the shore.

Why did they become and what is the remedy ?

Thank you.

[LordDeadwood]

Naval units in both Panzer Battles and Panzer Campaigns are treated as artillery units. As such, they are checked for supply at the beginning of each turn after they have fired. Land units check supply for ammo through their HQ unit, and this process is detailed on p. 83 of the user manual. Naval units however, use "half the default Global Supply Value" (p. 84). In PB Normandy, the global supply value for the Allies is 40, therefore naval units only have a 20% chance each turn to be in supply, or available. I have always thought this is an extremely low value. In the Omaha beach scenario on PB Normandy there are only six naval units, all destroyers. With each one only having a 20% availability each turn, they are almost negligible in their effect on the game. I realize that the Allied naval bombardment on D-Day was certainly less effective than hoped for or planned, but this level of support seems unreasonably low.

[ULYSSE]

Thanks for the explanation.

I read the user manual.

I understand that there is no range test fort he naval units nor for the artillery units.

A random value is generated for the units and compared to the supply value in the hex.

The question is : how is the random value determined and how is it possible to have an impact on it ?

[RickyB]

I am not aware of anything you can do to improve the chance of naval units being available.

And agreed that the naval units are limited in Omaha, although as the designer after all these years I didn't recall it being that low as just 6 destroyers.

[ULYSSE]

Noted. Thank you.

This is not Omaha but Gold, Juno and Sword.

[jp10]

Destroyers could usually get closer to the beaches and would fire mostly direct fire against visible targets they could spot. Indirect fire support against inland targets by larger ships (CA/BB) would require the ship to receive the call for fire, plot where the targets is, pick a spot ahead of the ship and make all their gun settings based on firing from that spot and waiting for the ship to actually reach that spot before firing.
Being larger caliber usually balanced the slower rate of fire than a land battery. If anything destroyers should have only direct fire of moderate effect for smaller caliber. Rocket firing ships should always produce a 'smoke' hex even if they do no damage to any units.