Naval Warfare In HoI 3 FTM

SonofWinter said:

BC – Battle Cruiser
CA – Heavy Cruiser
SS – Submarines

What are they used for and does anyone build them? I’ll be blunt. From what I’ve read BC or CA are two very useless sorts of ships that don’t do anything. I’ve also seen my sub packs get stomped by the super-stack of the RN, once they get caught out in the Coastal areas of England.

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Battlecruisers' only real advantage over BBs is their speed, but this is mitigated by their other stats. Some players like to use them as primary combatants due to the higher average speed their fleets can achieve, which gives them an improved chance to close against CTFs. The flip side, though, is that they are significantly less survivable and powerful than BBs, so that they still make very poor anti-CTF platforms. CAs, on the other hand, deserve the title of poor man's battleship, since their cost is so much lower; they therefore have a role for smaller countries for whom BBs and CVs are out of the question due to cost issues. SS groups are useful, but only for strictly convoy raiding roles. They have near zero impact on naval balance of power beyond that.

SonofWinter said:

1. Is there a reason to research the Naval Doctrines of these ships?

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Only if your overall strategy is centered on them.

SonofWinter said:

2. Is there a reason to build them?

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See above.

SonofWinter said:

3. Is there a way to use subs that makes them useful to Germany and bad for the UK?

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Yes, but only if you choose your areas of operation with care and fully commit to your submarine warfare efforts. Dabbling yields no benefits.

SonofWinter said:

4. What am I doing wrong that allows the subs to be spotted so quickly and getting shot up to hell?

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Operating in the home waters of the second most powerful navy in the world.

SonofWinter said:

5. Should my subs be convoy raiding somewhere else?

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Definitely. You need to send your subs farther afield into the Atlantic, away from the North Sea and Channel areas. Use a larger number of smaller groups, so that you can spread your raiders out across the blue water areas of the Atlantic and make it harder for the enemy to engage more than a few subs at any one time. But bear in mind that if that is ALL that you do in the naval arena you will still eventually get swept away. You need to take other steps to hinder the RN, such as placing naval bombers (NAV) in range to bomb the RN fleets in those brown water areas, with fighter cover to protect them of course. It would also be helpful if your land strategy could involve ensuring the British lose the Suez Canal, and preferably Gibraltar as well if you can manage it. Japan's involvement can help if it draws RN forces away to the Far East, but that is a two edged sword as it could bring unwanted early hostilities with the USA, assuming you are trying to delay their entry.

All ships can be great if you focus on them. For example BCs are much like BBs but have far superior AA and speed, but lower firepower and hull instead. And they are cheaper / faster to build too.

If you focus research they are not bad at all, a BC with much research into armor and main guns can be more durable and have better firepower then early or not researched BBs.

You pick one or the other, I don't think any ships is really bad with the current balance. With enough focus on research and building them you will get great ships for a pretty cheap costs eventually.

Alex_brunius said:

If you focus research they are not bad at all, a BC with much research into armor and main guns can be more durable and have better firepower then early or not researched BBs.

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But if you can afford to "focus" research on BCs and build them, why not build BBs instead, that are superior and yet cost ~20% more? BBs are more durable and less likely to take your IC/research investments to the bottom of the ocean.

JoeRambo said:

But if you can afford to "focus" research on BCs and build them, why not build BBs instead, that are superior and yet cost ~20% more? BBs are more durable and less likely to take your IC/research investments to the bottom of the ocean.

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Why would you focus your research on BCs and build BBs? That doesn't sound smart at all

Why build anything except BBs with that argument? Screens are even more likley to take your investments to the bottom of the sea?

The way I look at it all gun based fleets will take casualties no matter if they are centered around BBs or BCs, so if you don't want to take casualties you can just disband them all and build CVs + CAGs and land based air instead?


Since airpower is such a large threat having ships that actually can shoot back (like BCs) is a good advantage for them over normal Battleships.
And what good is your fleet if it's not there at all when you need it? (again speed is not unimportant).

If their speed helps them catch CVs easier, then that would be a real advantage for BCs (but since I can't confirm thats how it works we should leave that out for now).

I do favor Battleships too, because their advantages are where it normally counts (hull and sea attack). But they are not that terribly much better that BCs are useless IMO.

Alex_brunius said:

All ships can be great if you focus on them.

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Simply no. Given the current FTM 3.05 engine and assuming techs are 1938 or better (a bit less for CVs) only 4 ships are worth building: CVs, CVEs, CLs or/and DDs, subs. Everything else is neither cost effective nor necessary nor having any visible benefit. The last reason to build BBs/BCs/CAs in HOI2 have been removed - the chance to catch carriers and actually sink them in bad weather and the shore bombardment abilities.
That said if you are in for role playing go ahead. But from an efficiency point of view the build of all capital ships except carriers makes no sense.

Regards,
Thorsten

What I meant was ofcourse that all ships can be great in normal fleet to fleet engagements (without a Carrier deathstar on the other side).

Gun-ships haven't been great against Carriers since, HoI2? So that part should be implied by the context.

BC and CA I don't presonally use so I won't talk about them.

SS I use extensively so.

1 with up to date doctrines and careful management they will wreak havoc.
2 stacks of 3 maximum, though I prefer 2
3 I have a message for every time a sub sinks a ship in a convoy. Which allows me to get to that point with a click and immediately see if there is an enemy fleet in the vicinity. If there is then I change the convoy raiding zone by several hundred kilometers.

You will loose submarines nevertheless, but before you do they will sink many times their worth in IC.

In general I never have more than 8 flottillas at sea at the same time.

Battlecruisers are alluring because of their cool factor, but they were in the end one of the most expensive failed experements in naval history. If aircraft carriers were not around in WW2 they would have suceeded in their role of destroying convoys and anything with less firepower than they did.

NERFGEN said:

You will loose submarines nevertheless, but before you do they will sink many times their worth in IC.

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I wouldn't be so sure about that. A submarine flotilla costs you 4 IC * 240 days = 960 ICdays

A pack with 10 convoys cost 200 ICdays (2*100), so 20 ICdays for each convoy.

In the end you need to sink 960/20 = 48 convoys with each sub flotilla to just break even.

This also assumes your subs have no research/doctrines (in which case they will be more expensive to build) and that you have 5.0 practical value.

SonofWinter said:

So a sub Wolfpack of 2 subs, needs to sink about 96 convoys, before it pays for itself? Well, that just made my choice NOT to build SS as Germany, super easy.

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If you throw in a few escorts too that number is significantly reduced though since they are over 4 times as expensive, but that assumes your enemy is building them... (which I'm not sure if the AI is).

Submarine warfare is an area where the return on investment is not a straight linear comparison. 'Dabbling' with subs is a pointless exercise that is inefficient and a waste of IC and research. On the other hand a total commitment to the field can utterly cripple any nation which relies on convoys to function. In this regard the decision to employ subs is very much a question of commitment. Building 1 sub...pointless. 2 subs...pointless. 3 subs pointless, and so on and so on until a certain point is reached where suddenly an Nth amount of subs results in utter and complete strategic dominance once no enemy convoys can function.

SonofWinter said:

So a sub Wolfpack of 2 subs, needs to sink about 96 convoys, before it pays for itself? Well, that just made my choice NOT to build SS as Germany, super easy.

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But do have in your mind that you do not use the subs for the simple math above, you are hoping to get troops OoS and resource stocks to dwindle too. On top of that for a nation with smaller IC than you have you divert a larger percent of their IC to convoys, it might matter.

SonofWinter said:

Its England and by 1939 they have resources they've been collecting for 3 years and 8 months. I doubt they will run out anytime soon. Which means I'm not likely to make a difference with my subs, unless they US doesn't come into play until 1945. Historically, it is not likely to work, since SSs seem to be highly over priced for what they do and the US will drop a navy into the North Atlantic by 1942 and rape my Wolfpacks, if I'm understanding this correctly.

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You do difference with sinking the supply convoys, supply is shipped from London continuously. If units do not get supply out in the empire you will find their org. dwindle and eventually be at zero.

SonofWinter said:

Good to know, thanks Thorsten.

Now, the other burning question, what is the difference between using DDs vs. CLs as escorts for my CVs.

Also, what is a CVE, is that an Escort Carrier?

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Yes, a CVE is an escort carrier. CVE's don't benefit from doctrines and are really slow, but you're not supposed to use them as a replacement for regular carriers. CVE's paired with destroyers are the best sub hunters in the game, and that's why you should build them if you can afford to.

There are a few differences between DDs and CLs that make the choice of primary screen difficult. CLs can operate further from a port, have better armor and thus are more likely to survive a battle, and have better sea and air attack stats. DDs have much better sub detection and attack stats and are a lot faster, which means your average fleet speed is faster (very important! average speed plays a huge role in determining the starting distance between fleets). So really the choice is up to the player based on his/her preference. If you want fleets that can operate farther, then go with CLs. If you're fighting in the Pacific then using CLs for escorts is a good idea. If you operate close to shore then destroyers are better. If you're getting swamped by enemy subs then destroyers are better, but if you're mostly fighting surface groups then CLs are better. So really, it mostly depends on who you're fighting and where.

To go counter with common wisdom on this forum, when I play a European nation I group my fleets into groups of 2xBB, 1 CV, 1 DD, 2 CL. It's a well-rounded setup that can tackle whatever is thrown at it. Using just 2 of those fleets I can sink a large portion of the Royal Navy as Germany or Italy. I've never tried that config as Japan or the US, so I don't know how well they'd do in the Pacific.

SonofWinter said:

Now, the other burning question, what is the difference between using DDs vs. CLs as escorts for my CVs.

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Bromgrev hit the high points. The only thing that I would add is that CLs, being more durable, have a significantly lower chance of being sunk in any given engagement. The offshoot of this is that you can cut down somewhat on the need to include "spare" screening vessels, thus yielding a leaner fleet composition. Leanness is an important factor, as it affects the overall visibility of the fleet and the stacking penalty, thus having an impact on both positioning and overall efficiency.