Dev Blog #47: Navy & Merchant Fleet

[LukeFF]

Hey everyone! Today, we take a look at the naval assets coming to Korea. IL2 Series. Enjoy! https://il2-korea.com/news/dd_47

[LuftManu]

Okay this one was awesome!

Not only the new water, but also the sailors and interaction if they need to abandon the ship. 
I can smell too the Pacific! 😁

[BlitzPig_EL]

The USN made extensive use of heavy cruisers, and Iowa class battleships in the Korean War, both used in the shore bombardment role. I hope we see them, along with the Essex class carrier that surely is under development. They will also be necessary for the upcoming Pacific theater addition.

 

Oh, and Fletcher class destroyers, how could I forget them?

Edited September 19 by BlitzPig_EL

[JaMz]

Very nice

[CaptainFlemme]

Very nice ! Don't we see a carrier on the horizon here  ?

 

[Avimimus]

Quote

The ship damage model now includes the possibility of watertight bulkheads breaking, hull fractures, and local damage, causing smokestacks or masts to fall off.

 

I'm excited about this. The ineffectiveness of AP rounds against small ships in Il-2 Great Battles has always frustrated me. It'd be great if a boost to their damage against ships, or waterline hit boxes (with lower hitpoints, but a degree of armour) could be added for the existing ships in Great Battles - but it is nice to at least see that this issue looks to be improved going forward.

 

My only question would be whether suppression of guns or damage to bridge crew or damage control teams will be possible. Not that big a deal, but nice to have additional reasons to strafe the deck.

 

Also, that G5 looks so good I want to drive it. Not soon (this project is already perhaps too ambitious)... but someday... it'd be cool.

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, CaptainFlemme said:

Very nice ! Don't we see a carrier on the horizon here  ?

 

Nice catch of the easter egg. The carrier is probably far from finished, but this way we can already see it.

42 minutes ago, Avimimus said:

I'm excited about this. The ineffectiveness of AP rounds against small ships in Il-2 Great Battles has always frustrated me. It'd be great if a boost to their damage against ships, or waterline hit boxes (with lower hitpoints, but a degree of armour) could be added for the existing ships in Great Battles - but it is nice to at least see that this issue looks to be improved going forward.

 

My only question would be whether suppression of guns or damage to bridge crew or damage control teams will be possible. Not that big a deal, but nice to have additional reasons to strafe the deck.

 

It would actually be very nice if the actual tactics from the Pacific can be reproduced where they outfitted the B-25 with 8 machine guns that were a huge help in suppressing the air defense, so the bomber could approach fairly safely:

 

 

[Avimimus]

I really liked ZloyPetrushko's old mod from Il-2 1946 for that reason - suppression worked even if your rounds missed, or even if you flew directly at an anti-aircraft gun. Somewhat realistically - having a plane covered in weapons, screaming in at  300+ mph and clearly turning itself to aim right exactly your gun position might make people dive for cover even before the rounds land.

 

Even if we don't get that suppression effect, the developers have talked a bit about how anti-aircraft gun crews can be killed more easily (while talking about the decision to include the Il-10's options to carry very small bombs in its internal bays).

[LuftManu]

2 hours ago, CaptainFlemme said:

Very nice ! Don't we see a carrier on the horizon here  ?

 

 

 

 

[LukeFF]

59 minutes ago, Avimimus said:

I really liked ZloyPetrushko's old mod from Il-2 1946 for that reason - suppression worked even if your rounds missed, or even if you flew directly at an anti-aircraft gun. Somewhat realistically - having a plane covered in weapons, screaming in at  300+ mph and clearly turning itself to aim right exactly your gun position might make people dive for cover even before the rounds land.

 

Even if we don't get that suppression effect, the developers have talked a bit about how anti-aircraft gun crews can be killed more easily (while talking about the decision to include the Il-10's options to carry very small bombs in its internal bays).

 

I'm obviously not part of the coding team, but given that ground-based AA guns can already be suppressed in GB, I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar here. 

[Airborne2001]

"Another large warship is in development, but we will talk about that after the game is released."

Edited September 19 by Airborne2001

[Jackfraser24]

Maybe one day we can have a player controlled war ship in the game. 

 

Just kidding!

 

On a more serious note, I think the team have really outdone themselves with the things you wouldn't usually notice. I believe when it comes to doing these sorts of games, it's making the little and unnoticable details that matter the most because even though you don't pay attention to them when they're there you will notice them if they're not. 

Edited September 19 by Jackfraser24

[FeuerFliegen]

15 hours ago, Aapje said:

 

Nice catch of the easter egg. The carrier is probably far from finished, but this way we can already see it.

 

It would actually be very nice if the actual tactics from the Pacific can be reproduced where they outfitted the B-25 with 8 machine guns that were a huge help in suppressing the air defense, so the bomber could approach fairly safely:

 

 

 

I was watching the same video the other day and thought about all the unique aspects of this case study could be applied to a combat flight simulator

 

I hope that the bombing dynamics that were highlighted in that video can come to be true in Korea.  In Great Battles, as long as a bomb is touching a ship, it will do the same damage no matter how it hits, how fast, etc.  I would love it if we had incentive to dive from up high and go as fast as possible to give that bomb lots of kinetic energy so that it would penetrate the deck and explode after it does so.  Same goes for skip bombing- I hope that it will give a different effect if the bomb sinks a couple meters before exploding, making it much more likely for the ship to take in water and sink.

 

 

12 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

Maybe one day we can have a player controlled war ship in the game. 

 

Just kidding!

 

On a more serious note, I think the team have really outdone themselves with the things you wouldn't usually notice. I believe when it comes to doing these sorts of games, it's making the little and unnoticable details that matter the most because even though you don't pay attention to them when they're there you will notice them if they're not. 

 

I do hope that we will be able to, at least eventually, control AA positions on the ships.  I think that'd be pretty awesome and could create some intense scenarios.

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, FeuerFliegen said:

I hope that the bombing dynamics that were highlighted in that video can come to be true in Korea.  In Great Battles, as long as a bomb is touching a ship, it will do the same damage no matter how it hits, how fast, etc.  I would love it if we had incentive to dive from up high and go as fast as possible to give that bomb lots of kinetic energy so that it would penetrate the deck and explode after it does so.

 

This should be pretty easy to implement, as the game would know the direction and speed of the bomb, so then calculating the penetration is not that hard. The biggest issue is probably that lots of players will be unhappy if they have to drop their bombs from much higher up.

[MajorMagee]

Early in the war the carriers were vulnerable to any potential communist jet attacks that fortunately never came. Without IFF small formations of friendly high speed jet aircraft approaching from above 15,000 ft were often not detected by the SPBS-9B and SX radars until they were overhead. Even when they were detected at the 35-40 mile nominal range the closing speed meant that any ready to launch CAP aircraft would have been caught unprepared to intercept and prevent an attack inside the 4 minute available time window. 

 

"Naval Aviation In the Korean War" by Warren Thompson ISBN-184884488-3

[Avimimus]

 

15 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

Maybe one day we can have a player controlled war ship in the game. 

 

Technically, one can already provide fire correction for ship mounted guns (as an artillery spotter). The gameplay is a bit simplified compared to historical reality (e.g. less fine corrections for wind, less influence over fire mission length and intensity etc.) but it is technically there.

 

I've always thought that there was a lot of potential to the idea that artillery spotters are the most heavily armed aircraft. Control over 6x105mm guns for instance, or in the Pacific, 8 or 9 406mm guns should be dramatic (and certainly outguns all other planes). A strong case for a flyable E13A and OS2U?

 

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

 

This should be pretty easy to implement, as the game would know the direction and speed of the bomb, so then calculating the penetration is not that hard. The biggest issue is probably that lots of players will be unhappy if they have to drop their bombs from much higher up.

 

Rumour has it that Il-2 Great Battles gives a greater blast radius to bombs with a contact fuse, but less damage to ships than bombs with a delay.

 

Btw. The RP-3 25lb AP rockets can arc underwater to hit a ship below the water-line in Great Battles. This was how they were often historically used. The only difference is that the added damage of a hit below the waterline isn't modelled, so the HE SAP 60lb version of the RP-3 is always more effective in the sim. But the historical tactic does work.

[CzechTexan]

2 hours ago, MajorMagee said:

Early in the war the carriers were vulnerable to any potential communist jet attacks that fortunately never came. Without IFF small formations of friendly high speed jet aircraft approaching from above 15,000 ft were often not detected by the SPBS-9B and SX radars until they were overhead. Even when they were detected at the 35-40 mile nominal range the closing speed meant that any ready to launch CAP aircraft would have been caught unprepared to intercept and prevent an attack inside the 4 minute available time window. 

 

"Naval Aviation In the Korean War" by Warren Thompson ISBN-184884488-3

Load some torpedoes on to the MiG-15s! 😁

[Avimimus]

9 minutes ago, CzechTexan said:

Load some torpedoes on to the MiG-15s! 😁

 

Well, it appears the Mig-15Bis will be allowed to carry bombs (even if they weren't used that way in Korea to my knowledge). So we can do a counter-factual raid. They'd definitely be more likely to get through than the Tu-2 and the Il-10... the thought makes me want the Il-28 a bit (as China could have deployed them)... but I think the A/B-26 would be a higher priority.

 

All cool ideas though.

[[CPT]Crunch]

Excited about the single gun director running command over multiple gun batteries, that should make approaching ships far smoother while remaining very dangerous.  It should play out far more life like with guns targeting a specific air space and not so much all trying to pluck your individual eye balls out.  Far easier on the CPU's cycles.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Fine ships, but where is Fletcher-Class destroyer?

[Avimimus]

Might be of some interest...

 

Reported attack by Migs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Wonsan#North_Korean_air_attack

 

Reported attack by a Yak and an Il-10:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Inchon#Air_attack_on_USS_Rochester_and_HMS_Jamaica

[Avimimus]

After an evening of reading about naval actions in Korea - the list of ships looks really good. The only possible gap is if the mobilised (i.e. armed) civilian ships only have DPRK versions and there aren't any ROK armed patrol ships (it would be nice to have something smaller than a Gleaves for Blue). If that is included - then it looks pretty perfectly chosen.

 

It could do with some Royal Navy representation of course, but still... it looks like an excellent roster for capturing naval operations.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Absolutely need a US DD, and at least a CA to portray the carrier escorts and the bombardment operations.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Fletchers outnumbered Gleaves in Korea by roughly 6-to-1. The Navy prioritized Fletchers (and later Gearing/Sumner classes) because of their superior endurance, weapons, and ability to modernize. 

[Avimimus]

21 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Absolutely need a US DD, and at least a CA to portray the carrier escorts and the bombardment operations.

 

Isn't the Gleaves class a US DD? Am I missing something here?

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

Isn't the Gleaves class a US DD? Am I missing something here?

 

They had been converted into Destroyer Minesweepers by the time of Korea.

[R33GZ]

On 9/21/2025 at 12:28 AM, Avimimus said:

Control over 6x105mm guns for instance, or in the Pacific, 8 or 9 406mm guns should be dramatic (and certainly outguns all other planes). A strong case for a flyable E13A and OS2U

Or a T6 Texan 😁

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

The Gleaves class was essentially obsolete during WW2, hence the downgrade to minesweeper. 

The Fletchers were the most ubiquitous class in this time period.

 

The US CAs and CLs did much of the work of shore bombardment during the Korean War as well. 

For example, USS Toledo, CA-133 served several tours off Korea during war...

 

[LukeFF]

My maternal grandfather was on the USS Gilligan (yes, I know 🙂) during the Korean War, a John C Butler destroyer escort. 

 

[Jackfraser24]

9 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

My maternal grandfather was on the USS Gilligan (yes, I know 🙂) during the Korean War, a John C Butler destroyer escort. 

 

What was his role on the ship?

[LukeFF]

Commissaryman

[Avimimus]

5 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

They had been converted into Destroyer Minesweepers by the time of Korea.

 

Thanks! I just looked up information on the conversion from DD to DMS - it is more substantial than I'd thought it would be! Very interesting!

[Jackfraser24]

10 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Commissaryman

Commissaryman. Sounds like he must have had a lot of responsibility making sure everyone was fed well. 

Edited September 22 by Jackfraser24