As things are, if you build up fleet, you have three reasonable options:
* No cruisers or battleships at all.
* Cruisers guarded against subs by some destroyers.
* Battleships guarded by a bigger number of destroyers against subs and as secondary purpose also as anti-air protection.
While in reality, the third option didn't exist - instead all bigger fleets consisted of:
* Few battleships, flanked by some cruisers and a bigger number of destroyers.
The reason for this discrepancy is that destroyers totally have no chance in CoW against the other ships. While in real life, they could (once they found a way to get at short distance) seriously threaten a cruiser with their torpedo armament and even more so a battleship (which with its low speed had bad chances to escape the torpedos). Destroyers carried only light naval artillery, so they were lost in a ranged battle against bigger warships, but no admiral would have liked them to get close to his big vessels in reality.
Now the way to simulate this in CoW is the existing close combat, i.e. melee battle. In this, both attack and defense value are used, while in ranged battle only the attack value is in use.
Consequently, a destroyer should have low attack value, but a high defense value.
Imagine this:
Destroyer attack against ships: -25%
Destroyer defense against ships: +200%
Destroyer defense against air: -30%
Cruiser defense against ships: +20%
Battleship HP: +5 (80 instead of 75 - not unrealistic since they were not only taller, but also had stronger armour)
Battleship defense against ships: -80% (they never carried torpedos and only had a few small calibre guns for close combat)
Results:
* All three types of ships would be similarly strong in close combat, with destroyers having slight advantages over cruisers and cruisers having slight advantages over battleships. While in ranged combat, bigger ships are even a bit stronger than they are now already. Would be realistic and also allow for more tactical variety - you'd always have to think when to engage which ships in close combat and when to stay at distance.
* Building destroyers to give battleships some air protection would no longer work, which is realistic - they didn't carry much AA.
* So if you build up a fleet, you'd always start with destroyers to have sub protection and strength in close combat. If you want to invest more, you'd continue with cruisers for air protection and the option to bombard land units. And then only if you still want to invest even more, build a few battleships for ultimate firepower and use them flanked by your other ships because they're vulnerable against subs, air AND destroyers or cruisers if these get close. All of this would be realistic.
* No cruisers or battleships at all.
* Cruisers guarded against subs by some destroyers.
* Battleships guarded by a bigger number of destroyers against subs and as secondary purpose also as anti-air protection.
While in reality, the third option didn't exist - instead all bigger fleets consisted of:
* Few battleships, flanked by some cruisers and a bigger number of destroyers.
The reason for this discrepancy is that destroyers totally have no chance in CoW against the other ships. While in real life, they could (once they found a way to get at short distance) seriously threaten a cruiser with their torpedo armament and even more so a battleship (which with its low speed had bad chances to escape the torpedos). Destroyers carried only light naval artillery, so they were lost in a ranged battle against bigger warships, but no admiral would have liked them to get close to his big vessels in reality.
Now the way to simulate this in CoW is the existing close combat, i.e. melee battle. In this, both attack and defense value are used, while in ranged battle only the attack value is in use.
Consequently, a destroyer should have low attack value, but a high defense value.
Imagine this:
Destroyer attack against ships: -25%
Destroyer defense against ships: +200%
Destroyer defense against air: -30%
Cruiser defense against ships: +20%
Battleship HP: +5 (80 instead of 75 - not unrealistic since they were not only taller, but also had stronger armour)
Battleship defense against ships: -80% (they never carried torpedos and only had a few small calibre guns for close combat)
Results:
* All three types of ships would be similarly strong in close combat, with destroyers having slight advantages over cruisers and cruisers having slight advantages over battleships. While in ranged combat, bigger ships are even a bit stronger than they are now already. Would be realistic and also allow for more tactical variety - you'd always have to think when to engage which ships in close combat and when to stay at distance.
* Building destroyers to give battleships some air protection would no longer work, which is realistic - they didn't carry much AA.
* So if you build up a fleet, you'd always start with destroyers to have sub protection and strength in close combat. If you want to invest more, you'd continue with cruisers for air protection and the option to bombard land units. And then only if you still want to invest even more, build a few battleships for ultimate firepower and use them flanked by your other ships because they're vulnerable against subs, air AND destroyers or cruisers if these get close. All of this would be realistic.