Sorry for rehashing a discussed topic, but i wanted to get some feedback. Im building a Soviet Navy consisting of CV's CVL's CL's DD's and SS's. I figure SS's seperate in groups of 2-3's but im interested in hearing some fleet compositions for the surface craft. Thx for the help and your patience.
8 CVs + 10 CLs.
"Experience is something you don't usually get until just after you need it"
Alex could you be more specific? what are you doing with them? Thats your whole fleet? In one fleet (nah...lol)?
I mean per fleet (ex. 2 CV's 4 DD's 4 CL's etc...) I generally see at least 2 screens per capital ship and sometimes additional is recommended. Ive seen people put CVLs with CVs and others use them in their own fleets. I have seen people make fleets of DDs solely and others put them in like the above example and yet others swear by only CLs and no DDs...
Yeah you want as many CVs per fleet (or battle) as possible up until 10 to maximize firepower with the current stacking rules.
I normally use 6 or 8 and it sinks most things I can find in a matter of hours.
As a bonus it will also annihilate any sub in the province pretty much instantly, so you don't have to worry about separate ASW fleets.
"Experience is something you don't usually get until just after you need it"
With that many per fleet how many fleets do you actually have as a major?
Don't forget about fleet hull size. For SF the max hull size for a fleet before penalties is 12. For FTM, it was changed to 10, though I don't the reason why (or why Paradox didn't state it plainly like they did for SF). In FTM, the penalty is 4% per hull point over the limit (this is a hard limit - not like the frontage width rule). Positioning isn't nearly as important for CV fleets as with BB fleets since hopefully your CV fleets won't be in naval combat, but if they are it will make a difference in terms of how much damage you take from enemy naval guns/torpedoes. I don't know if or to what extent positioning impacts defense against air attacks. My guess is that positioning matters as well. Maybe Alex_brunius or another HOI 3 vet could elaborate. It's worth going over the limit a bit to get an extra ship. Playing FTM, I try to stay at around 11 (4% penalty) fleet hull size. There are naval techs that improve CV, CL, BB, DD, etc. positioning as well.
In terms of fleet composition, I suggest 3xCV + 3 or 4xCL as the standard carrier fleet for three reasons. First, the naval techs are grouped together ("Base Strike Doctrine"). Second, CLs do a better job of AA defense compared to DDs, are a bit sturdier (same hull size), and have a bit more sea attack if your CV fleet does end up in a naval battle. Lastly, 3xCV = 6 CAGs which give quite a bit of sea attack when grouped together with only a 30% stacking penalty (CAGs have a 5% instead of 10% stacking penalty for NAVAL strikes only). Alternatively, you can have 3 CAGs fly intercept/air superiority and still have 3 CAGs for a naval or even port strike. For an anti-sub fleet, I would use 1xCV + 1-2CL + 4-5xDD since DDs have the best sub detection and attack (get the ASW tech).
Playing the USA, at the start of the war (late Nov 1941), I had 3 old CVs (hull size = 1.6) paired with 5 older CL (hull size = 1.05), and two new fleets of 3xCV (hull size = 2.0 -> 50% damage reduction) + 4xCL (hull size = 1.25 -> 20% damage reduction). When my European convoy losses started going up, I broke off an old carrier along with some old CAs, CLs & DDs to create an "anti-sub" fleet (1 CV + 2xCA + 2xCL + 4xDD). The 2xCA were included because, frankly, I had no where else to put them and adding them didn't incur a fleet hull size penalty. Plus since this fleet is by itself, it wouldn't hurt to have a little more fire power. FWIW, you may or may not want to ramp up the hull sizes as much as I did. I'm still learning the game, but from what I've seen, if nothing else ramping the escort hull size a bit (at least to 1.2) is worthwhile if you have a little tech research to spare. My old escorts (particularly the DDs) with a hull size of 1 or 1.05 tend to get chewed up pretty fast while the newer models almost always survive (if barely) to fight another day.
Thx for the analysis
Positioning penalty is in my experience FTM 3.05 totally irrelevant for air attacks. This is quickly realized if you try to bomb an AI (or player) megastack fleet with 40+ ships and it will take pretty much no damage. At least the damage being spread out over all ships do much more to reduce it then any potential increase.Originally Posted by TropicLightning
I haven't seen any enemy fleet end up in shooting range with my carrier groups either. And I have seen nothing to suggest ships with bad positioning take more damage from naval guns/torpedoes. If you have done a real analysis on this I would be interrested in seeing it.
Max hull size before penalty was reduced because ship hull sizes were reduced. A BB used to have 4.0 hull but now have less then 2.0 before techs.
Last edited by Alex_brunius; 16-02-2012 at 12:55.
"Experience is something you don't usually get until just after you need it"
I prefer, depending on the major of course to have more fleets as opposed to a single or two large fleets. I also depending on how many carriers i have dont want to put them all together. So im looking somewhere prob 10-12 vessels per carrier fleet likely. I understand the obvious power such a fleet (above) would dish out, but i prefer to have my fleets all over.
The danger of putting 8 carriers with 10 cl is that the planes lose their org extremely fast (not sure about FML never really used them in that expansion) is that once the planes are done, if the enemy fleet still has anything decent, they can sink your entire fleet.
~ERTW
"Never have so many fought so hard for so little to be betrayed by so few." ~ Royal Air Force
Thanks for the explanation re: the changes in hull size & penalty. I know that positioning won't impact air attacks and never meant to imply that. It's air based combat so those rules apply. I have read that it impacts ability to retreat which is why I said "not nearly as important" for CVs rather than irrelevant. Maybe it impacts CVs ability to avoid naval combat entirely. I have no idea.
As for the AI mega stacks, one of my BB fleets was attacked by a 61 ship AI mega stack. Scrolling through the enemy fleet list during the battle, I could see that ships, mostly escorts, were taking damage, but it was completely spread out. Poor positioning can create a lot of friendly fire damage. When I first started playing and didn't understand the mechanics well, I go so frustrated that I couldn't sink this one,lone IJN CV (Kaga or Akagi I think) that had zero organization and barely any strength that I attacked with five BB fleets at once - 55 or 57 ships total. Well, my mega stack had literally almost zero positioning (0.8 if I recall correctly). Almost every ship of mine got damaged and I lost two BB + several DD. The IJN carrier didn't get hit once and retreated. After that I spent considerable time reading up on positioning/stacking etc.
In retrospect, writing "less damage overall" would have been better than specifically mentioning enemy guns/torpedoes. I don't have any hard test data rather it's based upon what I've seen during game play. While learning the game I've started over a couple of times for various reasons (noob mistakes LOL). I'm using the battle plan as last time and the AI reaction so far has been very similar if identical. A few early battles involved the same fleets as before. The fleets are identical as well except for one less escort per fleet (i.e. CL for carrier fleets & DD for battleship) which were removed due to better understanding the FTM stacking penalties. Fleet commanders are also the same as is the relevant ship tech levels. In short, in terms of naval battles, only major change this game was that I ramped two or three levels of positioning tech for BB, CV, CL & DD. Combined with a much lower hull size penalty, my current game fleet has about a 25%+ higher average position per battle. Not only am I sinking ships much faster, but I'm taking about 2/3 less damage over all - CVs included. Previously I lost 1 BB (very close to losing two more) 3 CAs, 2CLs and 8 or 9 DDs. So far (and I'm further along) I've lost one DD and only once has any of the CV fleets been damaged. Last game, all three CV fleets got banged up to some degree.
Clearly there are other factors involved, but given the fact that both games are nearly identical in approach, apart from fleet average positioning, and the consistent dramatic decrease in damage taken, my conclusion is that fleet positioning played some role in the results - even if indirectly rather than directly (i.e like hull size or sea defense). Maybe it's because a much higher rate of damage/sunk ships means less enemy attacks per battle, and I'm sure I'm taking less friendly fire damage. Perhaps the higher CV positioning give a great chance to avoid naval combat altogether.
Carriers and and transports do not have a sea attack, so what role does positioning play for those ships? The positioning section in the manual doesn't say much other than CVs & transports will try to avoid naval combat. As I mentioned above, my thought is that higher positioning for CVs = great chance to avoid naval combat. Pure conjecture on my part though I've read that positioning factors into a fleets ability to retreat which is somewhat similar concept. You mentioned that your CV fleets stay "out of enemy gun range." What is the typical positioning stat for those fleets? Do they have any tech bonuses or large stacking penalties? One would think poor positioning would result in some negative consequence to CVs & transports. Certainly CAG attacks and defense thereof are not affected. It doesn't add to sea defense so what's left other than chance to avoid/escape naval battles? I'd like to see some clarity on this issue as well.
I agree. CAGs get a reduced stacking penalty (5% vs. 10%) for naval strikes, but with 16 CAGs, that's an 80% penalty. If they all launch for air defense, it's 160%! (I've had all CAGs from a carrier in port auto launch for air defense even though I manually set to CAG duty and had separate INT air intercept coverageKilled my intercept damage because of the 90% stacking penalty). That's why I like to use 3CV fleets. 30% stacking penalty for 6 CAG attacks and at worst 60% in other cases (though I always manually select for non-naval strike missions to avoid this.)
Another concern with such a large fleet (at least in FTM) is that you'll have horrible positioning penalties from fleet size and will likely suffer some friendly fire damage from the CLs.
Why would the planes "lose their org extremely fast" ?
In my experience 16 CAGs lose org when fired uppon in half speed that 8 CAGs are and a quarter of the speed that 4 CAGs are.
The more you have to share the damage, the less damage they take each, makes sense no?
If anything the problem would be many times larger if you just have a small fleet. 16 CAGs would be at 75% org if they share the same damage that will take 4CAGs down to 0% org.
No... the stacking is reduced to 2.5% per airwing. So thats 40% penalty for 16 CAGs. (the same penalty people always seem to consider optimal for all other air missions curiouslly enough).I agree. CAGs get a reduced stacking penalty (5% vs. 10%) for naval strikes, but with 16 CAGs, that's an 80% penalty. If they all launch for air defense, it's 160%! (I've had all CAGs from a carrier in port auto launch for air defense even though I manually set to CAG duty and had separate INT air intercept coverage
16 CAGs at 40% stacking = 9.6 effective CAGs if there was no stacking.
20 CAGs at 50% stacking = 10 effective CAGs if there was no stacking.
And in FTM 3.05 I haven't seen CAGs launch for air defence at all (on CAG-duty), seems it has been removed.
If you want you can set 4 of the CAGs on interception mission though...
Thats not a concern. Screens in CV fleets don't try to close and thus never even try to fire = can't hit friendlies.
Last edited by Alex_brunius; 17-02-2012 at 08:50.
"Experience is something you don't usually get until just after you need it"
Way too big for FTM. 5-6CV is far better, you have less stacking penalities and your escorts are more effective (= more sinks) against ennemy escorts.
5 CVs = 10 CAGs with 25% stacking = 7.5 effective CAGs. Less then with 8 CV.
Also. You are aware that escorts in CV fleets don't fire at all against anything else then aircraft? And then they hardly get any stacking at all so you generally want as many as possible?
"Experience is something you don't usually get until just after you need it"
FYI - I'm playing HOI Collections which includes FTM and already patched to version 3.05. I'll go back and test, but I'm pretty sure seeing a 30% penalty for 6 CAGS during a naval strike and 30% penalty for 3 CAGs on air intercept or port strikes. If I can, I'll try to take a screen shot with the stacking penalty shown.
As the the launch "auto-intercept" launch, that DEFINITELY happened to me. I just conquered Japan and set a 3 wing INT group to intercept this annoying one or two plane CAG remnant based in Pusan. The intercept works fine, I check the battle to see how close I am to finally getting rid of them and I see NINE wings - 6 CAGs from my carrier fleet in port at Hiroshima launched despite having them for CAG duty (double check that when I entered the command to avoid that very scenario).
CAGs have never in any version of HoI3 I've played had 5% stacking per airwing. (Regardless of how much I want and have tried to mod the game to work that way).
It was the normal 10% in 1.0 and then changed to 2.5% for certain missions in SF.
For air intercept/port strikes they use the normal stacking though and I have never claimed anything else.
What you have been seeing with CAG-duy is not auto-intercept, just the fact that they join other ongoing air battles in the same seazone they operate in. If you don't have other airbattles but intercept enemy planes somewhere else this isn't a problem.
Last edited by Alex_brunius; 17-02-2012 at 12:55.
"Experience is something you don't usually get until just after you need it"
Not planes in general, CAGs while in naval battles. Thats the primary source of my naval losses when they all lose org in 1 battle and I don't notice somewhere in middle atlantic than cause planes are gone the engagement distance gets rather small and boats tend to sink.
Its the same reason AI carrier fleets sink so bad, because their planes lose org and are never replaced, and it takes long time to bring them up to strength on the carrier. Hence why I use rotations.
~ERTW
"Never have so many fought so hard for so little to be betrayed by so few." ~ Royal Air Force
And the very reason CAGs while in naval battles loose org so quickly is because you are using to few off them engaging to many ships at once...
Which is what Im trying to tell you (but obviouslly failing at).
-_-
"Experience is something you don't usually get until just after you need it"
I understood your posts clearly so I think you have succeeded in telling the right information.
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