A Comparison of CAs, BBs and SHBBs

Because of the random nature of the range setting, and the influence of speed, and all DD fleet has a reasonable chance of getting an hour in close early on. Once it gets it, the Screens target Screens, Caps target Caps, causes ALL the DDs to tear into your screens, with reasonable odds of sinking a few. Now for the next round, the Capital fleet has a positioning penalty, due to the fact they are inadequatly screened, meaning the all DD fleet gets to dictate the range.

Which is why it leads to the question of does the Zerg fleet own the 6/24 Capital/Screen fleet.

Manziel said:

i dont like carriers and almost never use them. but i did a calculation in a thread some time ago that showed that gunfire has more firepower for the same investment. but of course, a complete calculation would also need to take upgrading into account

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Not like Carriers

i have never seen this. desired range is only determined by the lowest range capital ship.
it could however be the problem that your fleet was not able to close to desired range. i have never experienced this with CVLs but i could be possible

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Now that I think.

I was playing as CCCP and this battle was in 1940 or so and I was not properly ready so my positioning was very low. That range was probably the enemy's better range not mine.

blue emu said:

Perhaps you should read my thread "Naval Firing Range, Decoded!".

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Just read the three pages of it.

Good knowledge.

I will apply it the Mod 33 Japan game I just started. Will not affect much my Carrier forces but makes for more optimal use of Cruisers and such.

Manziel said:

i wrote a little (well, almost 5 pages :/ ) analysis about the usefullness of different capital ships with the aim to examine the usefulness of CAs. i hope you enjoy it and have a lot of feedback.

current version: april 2nd
http://mitglied.lycos.de/manziel/efficiency_of_CAs.pdf

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What about BC ships?

EDIT: the chart on the paper just helps show that BB have a higher visibility than CA which we already know. anybody knows that high visible ships are going to be the targeted more times, which was true in real life. Bismarck vs Hood battle, Yamato and Musashi vs CAG battle in leyte gulf.

It would be interesting how you got "best fleet" conclusion? I take it this is only for gun-fleets only.

One thing is i feel is missing for a definite stand on naval combat is:


I am not yet sure if its independent of the targeted ship, or if it is related to eg the ICd costs in some way. Anyway, assuming it is not, one key feature is the concentration of firepower. Firepower itself is easy enough to judge, the cheaper the ship, the better the bang/bug ratio in the game, so in principle we could get the most firepower with the cheapest ship we can ensure to get in range, which is either a super-DD fleet or a Cruiser-CVL fleet.

Yes i neglects one possibly massive influence: the killing bonus. A ship only needs 80% of its costs to get fully reinfoced AFAIK, if 1 successful shot= 1 strengthpoint damage then this would mean that of 100 shots the last counts as much as 25 of those before.

I have the suspection that there is a counter intuitive effect, in that the more you can invest into the navy the cheaper your vessels should become. A superpower can easily create the basis for a successful CA fleet, but a minor could be confronted with the choice of either 2-3 CA or 1 BB. If the fleets he expects to engage are large in numbers than the BB will more likely sink them, while the CA can be expected to distribute their shots evenly, causing repairable damage...

I have done some investigation of this and from very rough statistics I am fairly sure that damage is unaffected by the target. My conclusions are roughly as follows. (Beware I am working from Doomsday and not Armagedon)

If you are going to meet lots of enemy fleets without CVLs then well positioned CV fleets will achieve the best unit loss ratios. If the enemy fleet manages to close then there is always time to run away and repair. This makes CV fleets good fro skirmishing which can be very useful as a player against the AI. I suspect player versus player would render CV fleets much less useful.

Ifyou cannot maintain range then you want to optimise a number of things. There is a potential skirmishing strategy for BBs based on trying to make sure you never lose one. This works if you can sink a couple of enemy ships and then escape before you lose anything. My analysis indicates this just doesn't work due to getting so many more smaller ships for your money.

If you go for a put screen fleet then you have the problem that you can rely on closing and are dependent on luck and good naval doctrines. This is definitely a weakness of this solution but DDs do provide the highest cost effectiveness ratio (see below for more details).

If you want to guarantee to close then you need CVLs. To get a sensible range you then need to supplement with more capital ships. If you want to keep the CVLs afloat through the battle then you need a reasonable capital to screen ratio. This leads to the need for a cost effective capital + screen fleet and hence the question "what is cost effective". This is covered by three characteristics for a ship model

a) Firepower per IC
b) Ships per IC
c) Adjustments

Where adjustments are

1) Small lumps of firepower spread out more evenly and hence tend to allow the enemy to engage more of their defense scores, a more even damage spread and hence fewer enemy ships actually sunk.#
2) Low defensiveness per ship results in a increase in doubled hits from the enemy although more ships to spread shots over has the opposite effect.

I have carried out analysis but not bothered publishing it showing that (a) and (b) completely dominate everything else. Analysing specific models leads to a very interesting anomaly. CA1 and CL3 have the optimum firepower per IC of CA and CL models and both have the same range. This means that a fleet of CA1 plus CL3 screens should be close to optimal. I have bench tested a few combats for this mix and they are quite dramatically more powerful than other mixes. In particular the cost difference gives them a massive advantage over Manziel's proposed fleet.

There is a temptation to consider using a cheaper screen than the CL3 since CL1 is significantly more effective in firepower plus ship count combination but is never going to get in range. The same issue applies for DDs but DD1 is sufficiently cheap to consider a CA1+DD1 combination on the basis that most losses will be cheap DDs. Again this force has a substantial advantage due to being little over half the price of Manziel's fleet. The DD option is, however, only sensible for a skirmishing style where you make sure that losses are focused on the DDs to fully exploit their low cost. This is difficult particularly due to the conflict between low tech ships and hich tech doctrines.

The combination of CA1 and CL3 is interesting as you now don't care much which ships sink as they are all very similar in performance and cost (the CLs are slightly more cost effective). Having done the analysis I am feeling quite keen on a game as Brazil or other second line power that can still build these amazingly cheap and effective ships.

In general I have decided that researching better ships in HOI2 is only a reasonably good idea for CVs (and then only for the CAGs) or if you are really desperate for greater range. As far as I can see the cheapest ship is the best. In my Fatherland AAR I have decided to stop all ship type research and build the lowest tech I am still allowed to build.

As an aside, for DDs there is a big drop in cost effectiveness after DD3 although DD1 remains the most cost effective.

Ultimately my conclusion is build the cheapest ship you are allowed to build. Older ships are almost always better with very few exceptions (CV2 is probably better than CV1, BB4 is better than BB3).

I'm not keen on sticking fire control on CLs as the cost doesn't justify the effect when you can achieve the same by using different models. When you load a scenario and think "isn't my naval tech crap" just bear in mind this is a good thing.

K I started a game as Spain and have focused on Fleet in Being research while starting serial builds quite early of CA-I and CL-II (should have done CL III but guess I remembered your post wrong) .

Its '40 and since I allied with Germany I started the war in late 39 and Ive been able to build about 40 Cruisers over all and grouped them in a large fleet of 30 (rotating out the damaged ones) , along with a couple CVLs, and the fleet has held its own very well. Completely demolshing anything except the über stack of Royal Navy Battleships , which I let them fight without retreating,,,,the result was a Victory with no kills, but no losses either.

Going to keep it up and switch over to CL IIIs and see if/how long it will take to destroy or be destroyed by the RN and then USN.

One slight issue I would have wth Kanitatlans cocnclusion is the assumption that improved models are researched for the fire power upgrades, for me they are not. They are researched for the operational range and speed upgrades, which while of limited combat benefit, offer a vastly more flexible fleet simply by allowing it to cover more ground, not to mention allowing a fleet facing a looseing battle to get away.

A 30kt+ fleet with a 3000km range is a lot easier to use than any DD1 fleet, no matter what the combat profiles are. Of course, against the AI, this is irrelevant, as any well managed navy will will.

Just an observation -

In terms of building a cost efficient but effective fleet of 30 ships where everyone *Fires* if optimal range is reached - there is a case for going with going with DD-III/FC after you've researched Ad.Computing and get the 10km range enhancement.

(not using base but my current game numbers - no MInister modifiers though so comparitively the same)


CL-III/FC 806icds 80icds per sea attack
DD-III/FC 378icds 54icds per sea attack

FC2 gives the DD-IIIs a range of 27 which puts them within range when coupled with any CA up to IV.

Blue Emu should revise the cruizerg doctrine by stating that for the CAs, you need but keep a few of the heavy cruisers unbrigaded and give the rest FCs, since the fleet will try to close to the range of the vanilla CAs.

I'm facing a decision now as Germany: It's April 1940. My initial naval build of 60 SS IVs, 8 CVLs, 15 CA IVs, and 32 CL-FC IVs has been complete long ago. The British and French Navy are defeated. I need to decide what my next generation fleet will compose of: CTFs, BB SAGs, or the same Cruizerg fleet. I am currently researching or finished researching all 1941 models.

My goal is the defeat of the American Navy. What do people think?

Does turning HOI into a mathematical problem not spoil the immersion of the game?

dvandyke said:

Does turning HOI into a mathematical problem not spoil the immersion of the game?

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He he he. It is a geek thing, my friend. We want to know how stuff works, it is an urge like most kids have for a cookie jar. You could put a rat trap in that sucker and we'd still reach in! :rofl:

I think the valid point you have, however, is that knowing the game mechanics so well gives a player an advantage. That is true, but, players at this stage usually have house rules and intentionally stay away from things that give them such advantages. That, in fact, *improves* immersion into the game, because then it is all about role playing (like EMU giving HA +10 coolness).

Also, mods like DAIM are built on the same knowledge: the AI only produces the best units. If you haven't tried DAIM, give it a shot. If you don't have a *lot* of knowledge of game mechanics, I promise you that you will be run over by the AI (even as the Soviet Union) without a bunch of save/reloading! :rofl:

I could go on and on, but just one last point. With the source code now released for HOI2, there is only one way we can make it better, and that is by figuring out how it works! You see, the intent of this analysis is ultimately to find ways to achieve great strategic balance. No one wants a single naval unit, for example, that will destroy everything that it sees. You want strong subs, yes, but you want destroyers that keep them in check. You want strong BattleShips, but you want fleets of Heavy cruisers that can teach them a lesson, and so on.