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BTW, what the heck does this question have to do with naval warfare?

ah... I thought I had clicked on the quick questions thread... moving it. But thanks for the answer.

Cheers
 
Average speed is highly useful in carrier combat vs a surface fleet, because if the surface fleet is faster on average than the carrier fleet it has a good chance of starting with the carriers within firing distance when the battle begins. In combat between two surface groups average speed isn't as important, because both sides will want to charge toward each other anyway.

I would add that high positioning and high average speed also effect a fleet's chance to successfully disengage and escape. So in either circumstance, SAG vs CTF or SAG vs SAG, high average speed can be valuable in helping a SAG escape destruction if they are badly outclassed or start losing the engagement and try to withdraw.
 
I limit my fleets to 6 ships and have all my admirals at 1 STAR. Then I let them get yoked out with their skills to get maxed, then I can promote them. But I see no reason to ever do 2 CVs + 2 DD + 3 CL. Why put an extra ship into the fleet and cost yourself all that free XP gained from the admiral being lower rank?

i never use rank 1 admirals as I tend to pack fleets together for battles
 
A song to my heroes.

Having read this thread and many others regarding Naval warfare plus the odd AAR I decided to test a few fleet compositions.

I fired up UK 1936 and researched navy as best I could. FtM 3.05

I decided to try out 4 different fleets.


No.1 the Big bad Carrier fleet, or the Alex(_brunius) after the man who inspired me.
6CV 7CL. Hull penalty of 35%

No.2 Bog Standard BB fleet
3BB 5DD Hull Penalty 5%

No.3 BB CL fleet or ZID fleet (in honour of Zid who plays in Cpt.Easy's "carnage" series MPAAR)
5BB 7 CL Hull Penalty 18%

No.4 Bits and Pieces, or Von Bromgrev (In honour of the Fleet he used in his Teutonic dreams AAR.)
This had to be tweaked since TheBromgrev played with the HPP rules making the CA screens (as they bloody well should be!!!)

2BB 2 CVL 2CL 1DD Hull Penalty 11%


I redeployed the fleets to Malta saved game and DoW Italy. (I had Noneutrality to build ships like a madman, hence the ease of DoW Italy.

Having noted and reloaded and tried several times over there seemed to be two fleets that engaged me over and over.
Fleet 1. 3 CA 2 CL 1 DD
Fleet 2. 3BB 1CA 8DD

The pattern of these two fleets was so repetetive that I used them as a foundation for testing.
All fleets would have lvl 4 commander Phillips.

First off was No.1 Fleet Alex_brunius
As expected the Fleet won the engagements. The fleet rarely sunk opponents, but their org was virtually nil. Submarines are sunk promptly, not one survived the CV Fleet. Since the CV fleet has 12 CAG's they did not suffer much org loss.

As a result I promptly reloaded and set up:

No.5 Fleet. Run-of-the-Mill-Carrier-Fleet-that-doesn't-stack.

3CV 4CL Hull Penalty 0%

Unsurprisingly it too stayed well away from harm and reduced org of enemy ships. However 6 CAG's simply isn't enough. They take too many rounds of combat to get the job done, and when facing a 11+ fleet, they will be out of org when they win.

Next I tried the No.2 Fleet

It is too small. There are not enough ships. Remember Murphys law on warfare: Teamwork is important, it gives the enemy more people to shoot at.
I frequently saw one of my precious BB's reduced to 15-25% strength.

No.3 Fleet or the Zid's Fleet.
I saw this fleet when I read one of Capt.Easy's "Carnage" AAR's. Zid Playing the UK had gathered 5 BB's and 7 CL's to HURT the axis. To be honest I did not think it would do much harm beeing big and old. Boy was I wrong.

First time around I forgot to give it new ships. That means 2x lvl3 BBs (Nelson and Rodney) and 3x lvl1 BBs. + 7x lvl1 CL's.
What happened? It ran right through the opposition sinking many ships.

Then I reloaded with Lvl4 BB's and lvl 5 CL. the result of the "Modern Zid Fleet" was even more carnage.
Another reload with lvl4 BB's and 7 lvl5 DD's, the result? Carnage!

No.4 Fleet "Von Bromgrev"
I was exited at trying this. I had to modify it to make it work. It didn't...:rolleyes:
The two CAG's were depleated quickly. The CAG's org loss was incredible. I won the battles, but the CAG's were spent.

I reloaded and made No.6 "the Improved Von Bromgrev"
1 CV 4BB 7 CL Hull Penalty 26%

It did a lot better. The CAG, still only two squadron strong, took half as much damage. More BB's must take credit, but I was wondering if the CAG's share damage if they are one group. Never mind.

I tried the fleet with 7 DD's rather than CL's, and little difference did I find.

Having done all this wonderful "science" I promptly decided to try a Better Zid Fleet.
5 Lvl5 BB's + 7 lvl5 CL's. Hull Penalty 31%

To make a long story short. It worked like a charm. The highly modern BB's destroyed the opponents quickly.

Since there was still a few beers in the fridge I decided to be philosophical about it.

How to get best concentration of Force?

I started to compare my various "Zid Fleets"

The Vanilla Zid fleet (or the one where I forgot to put in modern Ships)

2x BB III Sea Attack 17 -> 34
3x BB I Sea Attack 15 -> 45
7x CL I Sea Attack 5 -> 35
total -> 114

The Zid vol.1 fleet

5x BB IV Sea Attack 19 -> 95
7x CL V Sea Attack 7 -> 49
Total -> 144

Then a Zid Vol.2 fleet

5x BB V Sea Attack 23 -> 115
7x CL V Sea Attack 7 -> 49
Total -> 164


Most people would leave it there, but most people have to walk more than 3 meters to haul a new beer. I started to ponder how we in the Army have managed to increase concetration of force.

It was clear that pursuing bigger and better BB's would spell HEAVY Hull Penalties. The Zid Vol.2 (mark V BBs) has 31% Hull penalty, bumping it up to mark VI wouldn't help that much.

Then the penny dropped.

The Zid Vol.3 fleet.

6x BB VI (with 1936 Hulls) Sea Attack 25 -> 150
7x CL V Sea Attack 7 -> 49
Total -> 199

With 31% Hull Penalty.

As a bonus I use 50 days less to produce them.

At this point I should have some sort of conclusion.... I don't.

Naval strategy is dependent on what country you play. Gun fleets can work if you have Spitfires gunning down enemy CAG's and a few Naval bombers to hammer the enemy fleet.

Building CV fleets is about as mentally challenging as opting for a BMW over an old Vauxhall. It is just obvious.

The nearest I come to 'facts' is that A: CA's are useless as capital ships, and B: you should always have a 11+ strong fleet to ward off enemy aircrafts.

NB: I am deeply grateful for TheBromgrev, Capt.Easy, Zid and Alex Brunius, Secret Master, Valentian, Eqqman and others work on this site.
 
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did you try 4 CV 4 CL? Curretnyl my carrier fleets are two 3CV 3CL fleets working together, but might experiment with 4CV
 
No.4 Bits and Pieces, or Von Bromgrev (In honour of the Fleet he used in his Teutonic dreams AAR.)
This had to be tweaked since Von Bromgrev played with the HPP rules making the CA screens (as they bloody well should be!!!)

2BB 2 CVL 2CL 1DD Hull Penalty 11%

I'm honored :) I've tried that fleet in the FtM version of the mod and it isn't as good as it was in SF, due to some naval combat changes introduced in FtM. I should also point out that as you observed, the fleet did spend a lot of time repairing in port, but never suffered any losses.

No.4 Fleet "Von Bromgrev"
I was exited at trying this. I had to modify it to make it work. It didn't...:rolleyes:
The two CAG's were depleated quickly. The org loss was incredible. I won the battles, but the CAG's were spent.

When you say org loss, what exactly are you talking about? The org loss the CAGs suffered?

I reloaded and made No.6 "the Improved Von Bromgrev"
1 CV 4BB 7 CL Hull Penalty 26%

It did a lot better. The CAG, still only two squadron strong, took half as much damage. More BB's must take credit, but I was wondering if the CAG's share damage if they are one group. Never mind.

I tried the fleet with 7 DD's rather than CL's, and little difference did I find.

I'll agree here. The battleships are the real damage dealers in a "combined arms fleet". That's what I noticed in my AAR at least. In my US Invasion AAR, that I unfortunately haven't updated in a long time, I used fleets of 2xBB+1xCV+3xCL and they did quite well. However, as you mentioned, the CAGs took quite a beating and those fleets spent more time in port than patrolling. This fleet is very similar to the historical German fleet envisioned in Build Plan III and Plan Z, so I chose this composition for role-playing reasons rather than gameplay ones.
 
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Hello Bromgrev, hope you like the honorary 'von'. The org loss you were wondering was the CAG's. Against any sizable enemy fleet the AA is simply too strong for two CAG's.

I think that it is wonderful to try roleplay rather than just challenge the match engine. That is why I was looking forward to the Von Bromgrev fleets. They seem sound, but ultimatly it is hard to recreate the proposed usage.

I did have a lot of fun trying it out though.
 
Playerguy11

No I did not try the 4CV 4CL.

I ended up trying the 3 CV 4CL since it has been advocated over and over on the forum as anything from "sufficient" or "optimum".

I would hazard a guess and say that 4CV 4 CL is better than 3CV 4CL. However you need as many CAG's as you can get. With a stacking penalty of 2,5% whilst on CAG duty, meaning you can have 10 CV's as the optimum Carrier fleet. I find this so abhorrently ahistorical (not to mention expensive) that I did not bother testing it out. It just wins...

For me 6CV's seems fine. I don't know if people have houserules on CV's but around 5-6 CV's in a fleet would make the game enjoyable.

Hope it helped.
 
I would hazard a guess and say that 4CV 4 CL is better than 3CV 4CL. However you need as many CAG's as you can get. With a stacking penalty of 2,5% whilst on CAG duty, meaning you can have 10 CV's as the optimum Carrier fleet. I find this so abhorrently ahistorical (not to mention expensive) that I did not bother testing it out. It just wins...
You mean kind of how the 8 CVs + 8 CVL + 18 CVE "just win" in the very historical battle of Leyte Gulf? ;)

All in all about 1500 airplanes were used = 30 CAGs.

Even if not in the same fleet, they were certainly attacking the same targets (which is the only thing thats interresting for HoI3 stacking purposes). Air/Naval battles with 500-1000 airplanes (10-20 CAGs) did happen historically. Another historical example would be Battle of the Philippine Sea (1000 US airplanes versus 500+ Japanese ).

Near the end of the war (at Okinawa) over 400 US Carrier Airplanes were launched to just sink a single japanese ship (Yamato).

Having 20 CAGs strike the same target is in no way "abhorrently ahistorical", It is what won the war for USA...
And yes it is expensive (this is why they won and not Japan that couldn't afford it).
 
You mean kind of how the 8 CVs + 8 CVL + 18 CVE "just win" in the very historical battle of Leyte Gulf? ;)

All in all about 1500 airplanes were used = 30 CAGs.

Even if not in the same fleet, they were certainly attacking the same targets (which is the only thing thats interresting for HoI3 stacking purposes). Air/Naval battles with 500-1000 airplanes (10-20 CAGs) did happen historically. Another historical example would be Battle of the Philippine Sea (1000 US airplanes versus 500+ Japanese ).

Near the end of the war (at Okinawa) over 400 US Carrier Airplanes were launched to just sink a single japanese ship (Yamato).

Having 20 CAGs strike the same target is in no way "abhorrently ahistorical", It is what won the war for USA...
And yes it is expensive (this is why they won and not Japan that couldn't afford it).

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was a series of battles encompassing many fleets IIRC?

The US had a lot of hardware, but to imply that one fleet would efficiently wield so many units is streching it.
Leyte Gulf had four major battles, all connected through the victory plans of the IJN.
The command issues hampered both sides during the battles.

I guess we read history with different glasses Alex.

At any rate the 10 CV fleet... just wins....
 
I have HoI3 glasses. In HoI3 it matters nothing if you have 5 "fleets" with 2 CVs each in the same seazone or if you have 1 fleet with 10 CVs.

I usually use 6 or 8 CVs myself in the same seazone at max. This also gives you a good historical flavour since it's the usual size of a US taskforce or the Japanese Kido Butai strikefleet at their peak.
 
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That is a nice analysis Stabber, but i feel it has a flaw - your opponents were Italian tin cans and lets be honest, those are not the first rate ships/doctrines. You can beat them with modern CA/CL fleet just as easily. You can't really evaluate any setup without testing it against modern RN/USN carrier/battleship fleets.
 
No.1 the Big bad Carrier fleet, or the Alex(_brunius) after the man who inspired me.
6CV 7CL. Hull penalty of 35%

...

First off was No.1 Fleet Alex_brunius
As expected the Fleet won the engagements. The fleet rarely sunk opponents, but their org was virtually nil. Submarines are sunk promptly, not one survived the CV Fleet. Since the CV fleet has 12 CAG's they did not suffer much org loss.
Actually there are quite a few tricks to make this setup alot more lethal, that are just not available to other fleets.

If you want to make it really optimized and start to sink enemies in short order you need to do the following:

* Train your CAGs, by using them in ground attack roles you can easily have the CAGs up to 50-100% experience and their leaders with 2-4 levels higher. This will increase your damage with 60-120% in combat.
* Make sure to tech rush the doctrine "navalstrike tactics" as it can increase your damage by 5% per level, easily 20% extra if you research it much ahead of time and 30-40% extra compared to ignoring it.
* Make sure to tech rush the "air launched torpedo" and "light bomb" techs. Having them both at level 1943 instead of no level will increase your CAG damage by 75%

When you combine these the total potential from fully trained/researched CAGs is increased by more then a whooping +300%! (1.9*1.2*1.75)


Also be mindful of the weather and time of day. Bad weather and night-time are easy to miss and will make your CAGs look alot less lethal then they potentially can be!

Good luck with your Carrier warfare :)
 
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Actually there are quite a few tricks to make this setup alot more lethal, that are just not available to other fleets.

If you want to make it really optimized and start to sink enemies in short order you need to do the following:

* Train your CAGs, by using them in ground attack roles you can easily have the CAGs up to 50-100% experience and their leaders with 2-4 levels higher. This will increase your damage with 60-120% in combat.
* Make sure to tech rush the doctrine "navalstrike tactics" as it can increase your damage by 5% per level, easily 20% extra if you research it much ahead of time and 30-40% extra compared to ignoring it.
* Make sure to tech rush the "air launched torpedo" and "light bomb" techs. Having them both at level 1943 instead of no level will increase your CAG damage by 75%

When you combine these the total potential from fully trained/researched CAGs is increased by more then a whooping +300%! (1.9*1.2*1.75)


Also be mindful of the weather and time of day. Bad weather and night-time are easy to miss and will make your CAGs look alot less lethal then they potentially can be!

Good luck with your Carrier warfare :)

Thanks :)

The test wasn't aimed at optimum fleets from the beginning. I went overboard when I saw the "Zid" fleet performance from a roleplaying perspective, and things got out of hand.

I used a crude "cold shot" method analyzing what the AI would do if I trusted him with my navy. That means good and bad weather, and day and night fighting.

The average results confirmed the fact that a big carrier fleet is the best option. Even if left to the AI it will wreck havoc with impunity. Gun fleets by their very nature will go toe to toe with the enemy and risk getting damaged.
 
That is a nice analysis Stabber, but i feel it has a flaw - your opponents were Italian tin cans and lets be honest, those are not the first rate ships/doctrines. You can beat them with modern CA/CL fleet just as easily. You can't really evaluate any setup without testing it against modern RN/USN carrier/battleship fleets.

Hello JoeRambo, and thank you :)

The state of the RM is pretty good compared to the Lvl1 Light cruisers and Battleships of the RN, but I see where you are going.

The sad fact is that it is damned near impossible to try it out anywhere else.

If I have a go at the USN, they send a mega stack at me, since they have many fleets in the same harbours. In addition the USAAF bungle up my Carriers.

If I try my luck against the KM the Luftwaffe interfere both with intercepts and naval bombing.

Going against the UK or Japan spawn the same difficuleties.

I chose to go against the RM because of Malta. Fighters from Malta made sure that there would be no unwanted Naval Bombing. (I have yet to find a suitable nation to copy that)

Secondly the RM fleets had to engage me when moving from their station, thus making it possible for me to try my various fleets in all kinds of weather and day or night. That means that two constant RM Fleets, would engage me in every test, giving me a solid base for testing.

And thirdly the state of the opposition fleets were not the most important part since the Big RM Fleet (3BB 1CA 8DD) offered a proper challenge, and I was interested in learning the relationship between different fleets vs a constant opponent.
 
The sad fact is that it is damned near impossible to try it out anywhere else.

A sad fact about science. Though we would always want randomised controlled trials, sometimes we have to make do with observational studies.

I am honoured to have lended my name to the Zid fleet. Let´s just hope that no one names the 5 CA 1 BB +screens fleet the Zid fleet. From experience I can say that it performs... less admirably.
 
At this point I should have some sort of conclusion.... I don't.

Naval strategy is dependent on what country you play. Gun fleets can work if you have Spitfires gunning down enemy CAG's and a few Naval bombers to hammer the enemy fleet.

Building CV fleets is about as mentally challenging as opting for a BMW over an old Vauxhall. It is just obvious.

The nearest I come to 'facts' is that A: CA's are useless as capital ships, and B: you should always have a 11+ strong fleet to ward off enemy aircrafts.

NB: I am deeply grateful for TheBromgrev, Capt.Easy, Zid and Alex Brunius, Secret Master, Valentian, Eqqman and others work on this site.

This pretty much matches my experience, although I tend to spread out smaller fleets, and then dogpile when a major engagement happens.

And the no-brainer part of CTFs is that if you double up on CAGs, then even when your CAGs are all messed up, you instant-replace them and keep going.
 
I wouldn't say CAs are totally useless. They really have killer AA now. Upgrade them to 44' put 10+ in the same seazone and watch the enemy CAGs drop like flies.
 
They shouldn't be capital ships, though. They have a strange tendency to engage the enemy's BBs and get mauled then. They can be more potent as screens in HPP, since they can support your BBs/BCs by providing additional firepower or protect your CVs/CVLs from the enemy's BBs/BCs if they manage to close in. Against old BBs they can be real killers in both HOI3 SF Vanilla and in HPP and their construction time is shorter.

In Vanilla I would almost always go for CTFs. The only exception is when a given country cannot afford them, but has a strong airforce and good doctrines and practicals for BBs but terrible ones for CAGs and CVs. This may be Italy's case, since they don't have the resources to create a grand navy and have good airforce and army as well. Maybe it would be prudent to build CAGs only, without CVs, since CAGs share the practical with INTs. This might be a good idea in case of the SU if you are trying to catch up naval-wise with other countries, too. With proper airfields in Europe and Asia they could pound the UK and Japan effectively, I think.
 
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Cybvep: Thats just an AI/game mechanic problem. CAs being faster then BBs shouldn't close in at all if outgunned.

The same thing can be said about BCs. Should they also be screens? The line needs to be drawn somewhere.
 
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