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Reaching? Why would the UK send CVs into the coastal waters of Germany itself? I'm talking about the Med or East Atlantic. Both the UK and Germany can send interceptors to fight each other over those waters. I'm merely saying that bombing the enemy with NAVs isn't a no-brainer option..

But expecting BCs to not only survive under such contested airspace but to also sink CVs is...after a fashion. You claimed that having air superiority from land based INTs to suppress the CAGs was key to your BCs defeating the CVs, but then when challenged on that you altered the example to make the airspace contested by INTs from both sides. If that is the case, i.e. if the CAGs are operating under a shield of friendly INT cover with neutral skies, how then are the CAGs to be neutralized so that the BCs can have their way as you posited?

Edit: I meant to add that you cannot have it both ways. If your land based INTs have enough control of the coastal airspace to reliably suppress CAGs, then you don't really need the BCs but can rely on NAVs instead. If they do not have control, then the BCs are no better off than the NAVs would have been, except that the BCs are a LOT more expensive and can easily sink.
 
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I said that enemy CAGs can be suppressed by interceptors. I didn't say that the enemy was helpless in the sky. What's wrong with CAGs being attacked by my interceptors, and thus suppressed, while the enemy counter-attacking with interceptors too?

Listen, all I wanted to know was if a BB+DD or a BC+DD fleet would be best vs an enemy who has both carriers and battleships.
 
Edit: I meant to add that you cannot have it both ways. If your land based INTs have enough control of the coastal airspace to reliably suppress CAGs, then you don't really need the BCs but can rely on NAVs instead. If they do not have control, then the BCs are no better off than the NAVs would have been, except that the BCs are a LOT more expensive and can easily sink.
There is one important difference though. BCs won't suffer from enemy AA and NAVs won't suffer from enemy sea attack.

So my conclusion is that if the enemy has a huge fleet with AA ships escorting his carriers, then attacking with BCs would be the best choice.

But if he is lacking in AA and instead has heavy ships with lot's of sea attack as protection, then NAVs are prefferable.

So which one will give you the best result is situational.



UK could be tempted to use the masses of old destroyers and cruisers as carrier escorts since their AA upgrades and their range doesn't matter when fighting Germany. If that is the case then Fast Battlecruisers should work great to counter it.
 
I said that enemy CAGs can be suppressed by interceptors. I didn't say that the enemy was helpless in the sky. What's wrong with CAGs being attacked by my interceptors, and thus suppressed, while the enemy counter-attacking with interceptors too?

Because if you have the capability to use land based INTs to interfere with naval operations, then you have the ability to use land based NAVs to do the same thing, and thus don't need to risk expensive BCs trying to engage targets that are out of their class.

Listen, all I wanted to know was if a BB+DD or a BC+DD fleet would be best vs an enemy who has both carriers and battleships.

You asked if it was workable to employ BCs as anti-CV weapons in a specific manner. I replied that it was not and explained why. You then changed the premise to try to prove that it WAS workable. I pointed out that under the altered conditions it STILL didn't make sense. It sounds like you are not really trying to get information, but rather trying to advocate a particular practice. If the former, then you had your answer already and it made no sense to try to argue with it. If the latter, then just say so and we can debate the point in a more constructive way.
 
So my conclusion is that if the enemy has a huge fleet with AA ships escorting his carriers, then attacking with BCs would be the best choice.

But if he is lacking in AA and instead has heavy ships with lot's of sea attack as protection, then NAVs are prefferable.

Again, faulty premise. Your premise assumes that those two situations are mutually exclusive, but in fact they are more likely to be mutually INclusive. There are only two screening vessels in this game: DDs and CLs. Both of them have good AA values for their hull size. So if the enemy fleet is properly screened, it HAS good AA defense already. The only way he would have "heavy ships with lot's of sea attack" but NOT have good AA is if he also neglected to include a proper number of screening vessels, in which case his positioning would be so handicapped that any decent offensive fleet could hurt him...even a sub wolfpack conceivably.

In short, you are basing your premise on your enemy doing something foolish, which is not a productive way to develop your tactics. Instead assume an enemy that follows at least some basically sound approach, in which case the BCs go right back to not making sense in this context.
 
Interceptors chew-up NAVs in a matter of seconds. That's my experience at least - you need total air dominance to effectively use NAVs.

I didn't change any premise. I simply asked if a BC+DD or BB+DD build was best, deflecting opinions which told me to build CV+CL as irrelevant to my query. You're just arguing for the sake of arguing, and I cba to continue this.
 
Themousemaster: Hmm, I see. Well, the goal is to help Italy as much as possible in a multiplayer game. For that I was contemplating whether BBs+DDs or BCs+DDs would be best.

A great way to assist Italy is to not invite them to the war. Let France fall, build your CV's, then invite Italy to join in.

EDIT: As for the OP BB > BC since BB's are better surface fighters.
 
Again, faulty premise. Your premise assumes that those two situations are mutually exclusive, but in fact they are more likely to be mutually INclusive. There are only two screening vessels in this game: DDs and CLs. Both of them have good AA values for their hull size. So if the enemy fleet is properly screened, it HAS good AA defense already. The only way he would have "heavy ships with lot's of sea attack" but NOT have good AA is if he also neglected to include a proper number of screening vessels, in which case his positioning would be so handicapped that any decent offensive fleet could hurt him...even a sub wolfpack conceivably.

In short, you are basing your premise on your enemy doing something foolish, which is not a productive way to develop your tactics. Instead assume an enemy that follows at least some basically sound approach, in which case the BCs go right back to not making sense in this context.

No I was talking about the MP tactic of screening 3 CVs with 20 DDs all of them with updated AA. Compared to them being screened by 3BBs+6DDs without researched AA.

You do realize that the former combination can have upwards to 5 times as much AA fire and the latter can have as much as 5 times sea attack without any problem?

So actually the only one with faulty premises here is you assuming no one will use more then 1-2 screens per capital ship.
 
No I was talking about the MP tactic of screening 3 CVs with 20 DDs all of them with updated AA.

It is not only MP tactic, in 3.06 H and WH games USA is building a truckload of carriers. To properly defeat them and do legit invasion players need 3 fleets of 9 carriers + 21 escorts with great AA. 1:1 ratio is simply no go when opponent has bonuses from WH and using epic sized CV fleets.
 
I'm talking about a MP game

By this, do you mean that UK will be human played as well?

Then you can likely forget about Gibraltar altogether, until you either get naval dominance or have the chance to DoW and eliminate Spain.

Suez can still be a valid tactic however. The beauty of that method is that, even if the UK knows it's coming, it still has to make a major decision on whether or not to actually fight for it.

If UK tries to defend it, and you decide "meh, why bother", that's several corps of UK forces that are WAY away from where the main fighting will now be, whereas your units are still in Europe, ready to be reallocated wherever they need.

If UK gives it up, then you can easily breach it, letting Italy get out into the world at large... or at the very least, an easy road to India, which is a major pain for UK to try to defend in any instance.
 
It is not only MP tactic, in 3.06 H and WH games USA is building a truckload of carriers. To properly defeat them and do legit invasion players need 3 fleets of 9 carriers + 21 escorts with great AA. 1:1 ratio is simply no go when opponent has bonuses from WH and using epic sized CV fleets.


Just to mention something here...

If you CAN negate enemy CAGs with land based air, then this is the "ideal" situation for a surface force to engage. The positioning and stacking penalties applied to a fleet like 9CV21DD, ASSUMING their CAGs are gone, should allow for a fast, well-admiraled SAG force to get some good shots off. Now, whether a human opponent will let his CAGs fall into such a state of disarray in the first palce is a different question... needless to say, humans tend to be WAY smarter than AIs in the navy.
 
Just to mention something here...

If you CAN negate enemy CAGs with land based air, then this is the "ideal" situation for a surface force to engage. The positioning and stacking penalties applied to a fleet like 9CV21DD, ASSUMING their CAGs are gone, should allow for a fast, well-admiraled SAG force to get some good shots off. Now, whether a human opponent will let his CAGs fall into such a state of disarray in the first palce is a different question... needless to say, humans tend to be WAY smarter than AIs in the navy.

Oh yeah, if the enemy has way more ships than positioning allows for, a SAG might be the way to go.

But to be honest, I can't see a human player letting their CAGs fall to land-based air cover AND having a ridiculous overstacked fleet sitting right off the coast.
 
BCs! A reason to build the 'Lexington's' as BCs at last!
 
If UK tries to defend it, and you decide "meh, why bother", that's several corps of UK forces that are WAY away from where the main fighting will now be, whereas your units are still in Europe, ready to be reallocated wherever they need.
Check one of the Carnage Group's AARs. The UK can do ninja invasions easily as long as it is dominant at sea and let's face it - the Axis will be concerned mostly with Barbarossa and since many MP games start in 1938...
 
Should surface ships be balanced to be a bit faster, in order to give them some kind of chance against CV/CAG?
 
Just reduce the firing distance of CVs and CVLs and increase the impact of weather on air units a bit. That should be enough to give SAGs a fighting chance.

Weather effects seems as the right thing.
 
Should surface ships be balanced to be a bit faster, in order to give them some kind of chance against CV/CAG?

Why? That would be ahistorical. US CV's were some of the fastest ships made. I know people love the surface ships and they sure are pretty. But the game is pretty historic in that SAG's should really stink against CV's. I mean even if the surface fleet was faster all the CV's had to do was turn around and run away while their planes did a number on the surface ships. What the leaders of the time came to realize is that the big surface ships were a waste of resources.
 
Why? That would be ahistorical. US CV's were some of the fastest ships made. I know people love the surface ships and they sure are pretty. But the game is pretty historic in that SAG's should really stink against CV's. I mean even if the surface fleet was faster all the CV's had to do was turn around and run away while their planes did a number on the surface ships. What the leaders of the time came to realize is that the big surface ships were a waste of resources.
So why should anyone build BBs? If there is no reason to build them, then nobody will build them and historically every major navy had BBs and built new ones during the war. Also, if the AI is told to build BBs and they are totally useless, then it will be permanently crippled.

Keep the context in mind - it's not really plausible to build 1205165196 CVs from the start, because BBs were still believed to be the kings of the sea, even if the importance of naval aviation was increasing. If the player can simply use hindsight to win the game, then we won't get historical or even semi-historical results, because people know basic history and will use it to their advantage. Unless some doctrine-based build limits or other limiting mechanism are used, the only way of making BBs at least minimally useful is to give them a real advantage over the carriers in some circumstances. In HOI2 it was weather-based, which was acceptable.

Also, in some ways BBs WERE better than CVs. CVs were harder to maintain in the long-term because of the importance of pilot training (Japanese CVs were useless in 1944 because of lack of skilled pilots) and BBs were quite good at providing naval gunfire support (some say that after Iowas there are no ships in the USN that can provide NGS so effectively). Late-war BBs also served as giant AA platforms and were quite fast, so it's not that every BB was slow.
 
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But even the countries that built BB's during the war (really only the US) didn't use them for CV hunting. They were used for shore bombardment. Let's face it there weren't that many BB vs BB fights in WW2 and most BB's were planned, built or started before WW2 started. Even Japan realized this and tried to convert ships to CV's. I don't know a single country that planned to fight CV's with BC's or BB's come 1940, or built 1940+ BB's for that purpose. So it's really not hindsight.