Naval combat continues to elude me

MJAnderson · Nov 15, 2014

So I'm trying a game as GB and built up my navy. I usually don't do naval countries do this was an experiment for me. I quickly took out the Italian navy, secured the med, took out the German navy and command the seas. So I sent over my 3 carrier fleets (2 CVL, 2 LC, 4 DD per fleet) and 2 battleship fleets to Japan. All very modern. I've been sinking dozens of convoys and have sank 3 of their carriers and several heavy ships using my fleets and land based bombers out of Hong Kong. So they attacked one of my carrier fleets with a BB, 2 HC and 2 LC. When I looked all ships targetted one carrier and were 1km from it. They sank it immediately. I had 100% positioning and they had no planes vs my 4 CAGs. I thought fast fleets would stay out of range? Is there some surprised factor or variable that allows them to engage at point blank range? Not sure how to counter this.

sebas379 · Nov 16, 2014

There is indeed a surprise factored into naval combat I believe. I think that is how I sunk carriers with battleships before. But without more information it's hard for me to say what happened.

-Weather could have been horrible. In a storm, it's hard to launch carrier aircraft, but a battleship can still sail on. Additionally, it shields the BB from deection so they could get a surprise jump on your carriers. I've sunk carriers with battleships and think bad weather had something to do with it.
- positioning penalty.
-Skill of admirals involved. (ties into positioning)
-Stacking penalty. If several of your fleets got involved in the same fight you might be running into that problem.

shierholzer · Nov 16, 2014

MJAnderson said:
I had 100% positioning and they had no planes vs my 4 CAGs.

Fleet positioning is a value without any significance to the mechanics. In general, ships with higher positioning are closer to their optimum (==maximum) engagement range, and bad weather tends to shorten engagement ranges. If given enough time, a BB/CA/CA/CL/CL fleet will run a equally teched CVL/CVL/CL/CL/4xDD fleet down.

sebas379 said:
-Stacking penalty.

While naval stacking is still a thing, it's only affecting air attack.

KroganElite · Nov 16, 2014

Escort carriers are pretty slow and teched up battleships can catch up to them easily.

MJAnderson · Nov 16, 2014

My positioning was 100% (compared to his 90%). I mention it because I know sometimes people blame damage on friendly fire and I don't think that was the case. They enemy didn't run my ships down, they started the battle at 1km and with all 5 ships firing on my fleet carrier (one of 8 ships). Maybe it was weather. I just remember how frustrating it was in my Italy games trying to destroy british carriers...no matter what I did they escaped from naval battles with only a reduction in org. Only aircraft were ever able to knock them out.

unmerged(760343) · Nov 17, 2014

MJAnderson said:
So I'm trying a game as GB and built up my navy. I usually don't do naval countries do this was an experiment for me. I quickly took out the Italian navy, secured the med, took out the German navy and command the seas. So I sent over my 3 carrier fleets (2 CVL, 2 LC, 4 DD per fleet) and 2 battleship fleets to Japan. All very modern. I've been sinking dozens of convoys and have sank 3 of their carriers and several heavy ships using my fleets and land based bombers out of Hong Kong. So they attacked one of my carrier fleets with a BB, 2 HC and 2 LC. When I looked all ships targetted one carrier and were 1km from it. They sank it immediately. I had 100% positioning and they had no planes vs my 4 CAGs. I thought fast fleets would stay out of range? Is there some surprised factor or variable that allows them to engage at point blank range? Not sure how to counter this.

CVL are vunerable as compared to CV. BB 2 HC and 2 LC would have good speed if upgraded and would also have a lot of AA potential. Its ok to lose 1 CVL, you can replace it easy enough and it sounds like you are doing a ton damage to their navy.

Don't forget to keep some anti-sub ships in the home front, the germans will produce more u-boats.

MJAnderson · Nov 19, 2014

Majsharan said:
CVL are vunerable as compared to CV. BB 2 HC and 2 LC would have good speed if upgraded and would also have a lot of AA potential. Its ok to lose 1 CVL, you can replace it easy enough and it sounds like you are doing a ton damage to their navy.

Don't forget to keep some anti-sub ships in the home front, the germans will produce more u-boats.

Well I am curious as to how they did it, since I often play Italy and I've never been able to sink a CV of the british navy with BBs alone. My battles never start at 1km so they just flee before I can get close.

feye1 · Nov 19, 2014

MJAnderson said:
Well I am curious as to how they did it, since I often play Italy and I've never been able to sink a CV of the british navy with BBs alone. My battles never start at 1km so they just flee before I can get close.

Average speed. It's all about having an higher average speed then the enemy if you want to catch the CV. The faster you are, they faster your guns are in range and the less time his CAGs have time to deorg you before you are in range.

If you are just a small bit faster, then you can get deorged before you are in range. I'd say 4 BB - 16 (modern) DD would work against the AI as long as it doesn't doomstack you.

Kovax · Nov 19, 2014

As feye1 says, "average speed". That means less capital ships and more fast escorts. Catching a CV is very possible if it doesn't have fast escorts, because the average speed of the group isn't as high. The UK generally stacks a large bunch of new DDs with its CVs, so they're usually able to outrun anything with a BB, unless you have an exceptionally good or bad commander and/or get REALLY lucky or unlucky with the initial positioning (which is probably what happened to your CV: a combination of few and/or slow escorts, a less skillful commander, and bad luck in placement).

feye1 · Nov 19, 2014

Kovax said:
As feye1 says, "average speed". That means less capital ships and more fast escorts. Catching a CV is very possible if it doesn't have fast escorts, because the average speed of the group isn't as high. The UK generally stacks a large bunch of new DDs with its CVs, so they're usually able to outrun anything with a BB, unless you have an exceptionally good or bad commander and/or get REALLY lucky or unlucky with the initial positioning (which is probably what happened to your CV: a combination of few and/or slow escorts, a less skillful commander, and bad luck in placement).

Meh, if you make sure you have modern DD yourself within a BB Fleet, you can easily close in the British Carrier Fleet, even if it has modern DD itself. That's because the AI doesn't make really good sized fleets. Also, a good leader will definitely help, but is not necessary, especially if you can cover the fleet with INT/MR, which means less bombing on your fleet. You will have enough time to close in and shoot down those carriers before you will be deorged. Italy can perfectly do this job

Basically the same goes the other way around. Let your Carrier Fleets always go with enough modern DD, so you outrun the enemy any time. As long as the enemy is AI, you don't have to worry at all with modern DD as screens in your CTF. Even if you have a less skilled leader in charge. I'd suggest to go DD as main screens, since they can make ur CTF invulnerable and make it possible to get fast SAGs to catch CV. For pure slow SAG vs SAG fleets DD work fine, but CL would be a slightly better choice.

If we are talking about human opponents, things don't change THAT much, but become more tricky since the enemy also has some brains (although I doubt some people actually use it in MP

)

Kovax · Nov 19, 2014

Yes, add enough fast DDs and it doesn't matter how fast the CV is, your BB will catch it (how is that for silly?). If you've got the techs for it, an up-engine CA or two escorted by a ship-load of shiny new DDs makes a great CV-chaser fleet.

unmerged(760343) · Nov 19, 2014

MJAnderson said:
Well I am curious as to how they did it, since I often play Italy and I've never been able to sink a CV of the british navy with BBs alone. My battles never start at 1km so they just flee before I can get close.

Its rare as Italy to sink a CV with your bb and CA heavy fleet but I have done it. (what I was talking about originally was Japan sinking a CVL) Basically you have to have your modern BB and CA with modern CL. Have your antiqued but large starting fleet on convoy raiding or patrolling areas you know the AI is patrolling its BBs. Take your modern fleet and patrol outside the base where the ai is keeping its carrier fleet(s). They will eventually be forced to go back to port when you shoot down all their planes (which you will) and when they come out again they will have a large weakness from leaving port. Eventually you will get lucky and sink one. The best way is to coordinate and try to keep them in port and bring in naval bombers to sink them in port.

was1262 · Nov 22, 2014

I'm not getting this your fleet goes the "average" speed of all the vessels thing. If my carrier goes 24 knots and my destroyer goes 31 knots do the destroyers in the fleet (or CL's) throw grappling hooks onto the carrier(s) and drag them along to speed them up? A fleet goes as fast as the slowest ship or leaves it behind. What's the thinking on this? Is there a game mechanic that makes this necessary? Or, what's it supposed to represent? Just an FYI for me.

shierholzer · Nov 22, 2014

was1262 said:
If my carrier goes 24 knots and my destroyer goes 31 knots do the destroyers in the fleet (or CL's) throw grappling hooks onto the carrier(s) and drag them along to speed them up?

Pretty much.

Secret Master · Nov 23, 2014

was1262 said:
I'm not getting this your fleet goes the "average" speed of all the vessels thing. If my carrier goes 24 knots and my destroyer goes 31 knots do the destroyers in the fleet (or CL's) throw grappling hooks onto the carrier(s) and drag them along to speed them up? A fleet goes as fast as the slowest ship or leaves it behind. What's the thinking on this? Is there a game mechanic that makes this necessary? Or, what's it supposed to represent? Just an FYI for me.

It makes more sense if you keep in mind that there are all kinds of reasons ships are not steaming in a straight line.

If the ships in the fleet are moving to avoid potential torpedoes, it makes sense that they are moving faster with more high speed screens (the screens are doing their job). If the ships think they spot a submarine and move to get away from it (whether or not actual submarines are present), it makes sense that they are moving at a higher average speed with more screens in the fleet. If the smaller ships in your fleet are "slowing" enemy ships by launching attacks that cause them to change course, and you have lots of smaller, faster ships, your capitals have more freedom to steam in straight lines, thus speeding the fleet up.

The point is that ships in WWII naval combats aren't generally steaming in straight lines. But the capital ships have more freedom to maneuver at higher speeds or along better courses if they have higher numbers of faster ships with them. In a more complicated game, we'd have 25 mechanics covering this kind of thing, but HOI3 clearly abstracts it to just a single average speed mechanic for the sake of sanity.

was1262 · Nov 23, 2014

OK that makes sense and I see the idea behind it. I figured there was some reason but never asked before. Thanks!

Chromos · Nov 23, 2014

MJAnderson said:
So I'm trying a game as GB and built up my navy. I usually don't do naval countries do this was an experiment for me. I quickly took out the Italian navy, secured the med, took out the German navy and command the seas. So I sent over my 3 carrier fleets (2 CVL, 2 LC, 4 DD per fleet) and 2 battleship fleets to Japan. All very modern. I've been sinking dozens of convoys and have sank 3 of their carriers and several heavy ships using my fleets and land based bombers out of Hong Kong. So they attacked one of my carrier fleets with a BB, 2 HC and 2 LC. When I looked all ships targetted one carrier and were 1km from it. They sank it immediately. I had 100% positioning and they had no planes vs my 4 CAGs. I thought fast fleets would stay out of range? Is there some surprised factor or variable that allows them to engage at point blank range? Not sure how to counter this.

If they start the battle that close, then it really must have been bad weather. Even BB would open fire at bigger range and stay there.

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Naval combat continues to elude me

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