Non-Carrier naval suggestions for fighting the USN and RN?

[Paglia]

If you are not going the CV line, you could do the following :

BB/DD :

- increase their doctrines
- speed & AA for DD
- hull & guuns for BB

Don't build new BB/DD before your tech upgrades are ready.

Build a ratio of 1 BB for 6 DD... you will lose lot of DD as those screens will do their job

Support your fleet wit h2 x 3 INT & 2 X 3 NAV

Tactic to implement :

Lure the RN CV in
Send your 1st INT wing to lower down their CAGs and knock them out.. AA will do the rest
Send your 1st NAV wing to hit their ships + send your 2 x 2BB/4DD fleet in
- NAV will hurt their screen & CV
- BB/DD will hurt their screen

... once you've eaten their screen, you will reach their CV.

The 2nd INT & NAV wave are for the following combats... Don't ever send more than 6 air units at the time.


Take note that, in Atlantic and Med, ports are nearby... so their fleet will be able to reach safety quite quickly. There is 2 ways to win despite that fact :

- once they reach safe haven, send your INT/NAV to finish them off and force them to come out
or
- put fleet behind them when you hit them... to prevent them from being able to flee quickly... multiple combats will drain their org and allow you to have more success


Don't be afraid of taking losses
Don't lose your BB
Have multiple fleet at hand

[The Cabl3 Guy]

Why not build BBs in advance of tech to reduce practicals?
I mean yeah the IC might be considered wasted a bit because they wouldn't have much use in actual battle but still.

[Pj Fallon]

Has anyone tried sinking the RN with only air power?

[blue emu]

Why not build BBs in advance of tech to reduce practicals?

BattleCruisers give slightly more Practical per IC-day, and are slightly faster... so an obsolete BC might be able to keep up with a higher-tech BB fleet.

[Saltspring]

I use multi-role fighters to cover my battlefleets as they have much more range than interceptors do and can go much further out to sea.

[Paglia]

Has anyone tried sinking the RN with only air power?

Usually you can get those CAGs down to 0 org, 0 strenght. But you don't get those ships that much as they retreat... and since you are not engaging them in a naval battle, they can flee. You need both AIR & NAVAL to be efficient.

[Saltspring]

With full air superiority you can drive the royal navy ships into a port without good air defenses and sink them there with Navs

[Barvinok]

In FtM, armor and armament techs for screens don't seem to cause a loss of speed. At least, it is not stated, while there is a visible loss of speed for armored units if I research their armor. Is this an error, or do ships suffer less from increased armor?

[Paglia]

With full air superiority you can drive the royal navy ships into a port without good air defenses and sink them there with Navs

I should have added.. in MP games, as I'm almost only playing those games. So I guess an AI could be lured into a port and die there under you NAV/INT attacks if you have Full Air Superiority as you stated. Humans in MP games usually escape in ports too far away for you to send your NAV/INT combo. That's why I added that "you need fleet to finish them off" line... Without it, Humans players just get away.

[Secret Master]

The problem with port strikes is that there are no stacking penalties for having 100 ships in that port with AA, while aircraft do have stacking penalties. If the fleet retreats to a port with dozens of other ships, the aircraft on port strike will be shredded in no time. You gotta watch your port strikes carefully.

As far as I know, in FtM, there is no armor tech per se that acts like armor for tanks on land. The hull tech does increase the damage the ship can take, but it does not reduce speed at all. Because it increases hull values, though, it changes the threshold at which you start seeing positioning penalties from having too much hull present.

Note that sea defense is increased by engine techs because your speed goes up. Also, subs get defensive bonuses from certain weapons due to the advantages they get for stalking surface vessels (acoustic torpedoes are very powerful).

[Darkart]

It depends what you want to do, actually sink their navy or just obtain naval supremacy (basically your force their navy to port because they are out of org).

If you are playing against a good human you will probably never sink CVs with anything other than airpower, and even then it is hard to kill CVs because they can disengage and retreat to the desire province so easily. Also playing on speed 1 gives your opponent time to rotate CAGs, this is very effective because CAGs that rebase to the carrier do not lose org.

So my advice is if you want to SINK all their ships including CVs, and you are playing a human, you will need either CVs or lots of multirole/nav.

A cheaper and just as effective way to victory in multiplayer is to aim for naval supremacy. To do this you need to construct air bases (just level 1) and dot them everywhere you can. This lets you cast a wider net. Research ahead the fuel tanks/drop tanks, but not the engine techs (decrease range). By war you can have multiroles with ~1100km range. You can shred CAGs almost anywhere your navy will engage, lvl 10 radar sets will let you find and enage the CV/CAG before they ever sail into range of your SAG, even in the wide pacific. Without orged CAGs the CVs have no punch and are vulnerable.

At this point you can use any mass of surface ships to achieve supremacy of the seas. Massed DD or CA are very effective (make sure to read the other posts about using many small fleets to get good positioning/avoid stacking penalties). In my Current MP game as USA I think my DDs have hull values of 2.0 in 1942, with speed of 43 knots and ridiculous sea defense. I would just choose one or the other. All DD navy is probably better for germany and all CA navy is probably better for japan. Don't sweat the -33% defense personalty you get for poor screening on the all CA fleet. By rushing all techs you get DDs with hull values like BBs, or CAs with 5.0km+ range by the time war starts. I can't stress how important having such insane range on the all CA fleet is in the pacific. It lets you base out of Tokyo which lets you achieve unbelievable fleet coverage and density that the USA just can't match due to supply line issues.

So basically it is possible to rule the seas without CVs, but you will need land based air cover instead or you are going to lose a lot of ships assuming your opponent has CVs and knows what he is doing. For Germany or Italy CVs are a waste. For the USA CVs are probably the best way to go (with a 12 to 1 CV to CAG ratio). For Japan the above mass CA/multirole strategy is probably your only hope to winning against a good human played USA (from '36).

[Charles Reeps]

So basically it is possible to rule the seas without CVs, but you will need land based air cover instead or you are going to lose a lot of ships assuming your opponent has CVs and knows what he is doing. For Germany or Italy CVs are a waste. For the USA CVs are probably the best way to go (with a 12 to 1 CV to CAG ratio). For Japan the above mass CA/multirole strategy is probably your only hope to winning against a good human played USA (from '36).

Quite a bit of good advice, but in SP I have to disagree with this. If Italy builds just four CVL the balance of power in the Med is significantly altered. An ideal fleet with these is 2CVL, 1BB, 1BC, 2CA, 2CL, 2DD, with the best admiral you can get. The hull penalty may seem extreme, but this fleet gets the best qualities of CTF and SAG: CAGs keep enemy CAGs off your back, and your surface force has both punch and speed. This fleet is even capable of nailing a CV at sea. You should also see what it does to subs!

BTW: with Italy you can even have four BCs with the power of USA New York class BB, and the RN has nothing to match them.