Am I using naval wrong? Strike forces & patrol vs. convoy raiding

[eastcoastceojam]

Your Strike Force Fleet Compositions are absolutely critical. Your "Battle Fleet" CANNOT have Depth Charges in it, lest your Spotting Patrol Cruisers call in the main fleet for a stack of 8 Submarines that proceeds to sink all of your capitals. ASW DD's are stacks of 12-15 DD's stacked to the brim with Depth Charges. Absolutely no other IC needs to be spent on them, as the spotting is done for them. It is not IC efficient to refit the Main Battle Fleet in Vanilla. Light Attack Heavy Cruisers (No Armor) and Torpedo Destroyers are the most efficient -- remember -- not a single Depth Charge. As UK, I keep the Fleet in Cornwall and my ASW Task Forces are stationed in the following: Guyana, Newfoundland, Iceland, Cornwall or Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and ... some West African Country.

I wasn't aware that having no depth charge modules in your Strike Force ships would make those Strike Forces ignore enemy submarines. Thanks for sharing this info!

 

[bitmode]

I wasn't aware that having no depth charge modules in your Strike Force ships would make those Strike Forces ignore enemy submarines. Thanks for sharing this info!

If you want to hit yourself over the head with a wall of text: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/User:Bitmode/StrikePatrol

 

[dunka2]

I don't think I have seen a correct response in this entire thread, so allow me to assist.

The OP's patrol groups (3 CL + 9 DD) is far too large. Patrol Groups need only be a single "Spotting" Cruiser. A CL with 3 Float Plane 2, a Radar2+, and a Sonar2 Module is absolutely ideal. If you are the UK, you begin with 12-14 "C-Class CL 1936" and refitting them to the above template is the cheapest fix. Obviously AA upgrades would be nice, though not absolutely critical. Okay, you now take your 12-14 Converted C-Class "Spotting" Cruisers and you place them under a "Spotting" Admiral. The UK Starts with one. Add the --Visibility Trait to him. Each Cruiser is it's own Task Force (up to 10) under this Admiral with the extras just chilling to step up when needed. You set them "Never Engage" and "High Repair Priority". You select under that Admiral the 10 Sea Zones you want to patrol. Done. EZ.

Your Strike Force Fleet Compositions are absolutely critical. Your "Battle Fleet" CANNOT have Depth Charges in it, lest your Spotting Patrol Cruisers call in the main fleet for a stack of 8 Submarines that proceeds to sink all of your capitals. ASW DD's are stacks of 12-15 DD's stacked to the brim with Depth Charges. Absolutely no other IC needs to be spent on them, as the spotting is done for them. It is not IC efficient to refit the Main Battle Fleet in Vanilla. Light Attack Heavy Cruisers (No Armor) and Torpedo Destroyers are the most efficient -- remember -- not a single Depth Charge. As UK, I keep the Fleet in Cornwall and my ASW Task Forces are stationed in the following: Guyana, Newfoundland, Iceland, Cornwall or Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and ... some West African Country.

If you can spare 100 Tactical Bombers over the sea zones where are you hunting, that's nice, it helps with spotting speed more than anything, but it's not absolutely critical, especially against AI's. Once you have made Coral Reefs out of the German Fleet, you can move your Main Battle Fleet and a handful of Spotting Cruisers to the Indian Ocean to protect the Raj and Western Australia from the Japanese Navy.

While most of what you say is correct (and that bit about no depth charges is really useful), quite a bit is only good advice for the UK (which OP wasn't playing as). No one else starts with radar as an example, and I'm fairly certain that a spotting fleet with just one ship, even with high level radar, will struggle to find a low visibility, fast fleet in open ocean.

Same with picking the Visibility trait over Lone Wolf. This suits a nation that doesn't plan to go up against another with a larger fleet, but literally anyone else in the game should instead pick Lone Wolf as the penalty to larger fleet impacts screening efficiency, chance to hit, and most importantly, positioning which in turn effects damage output and a whole host of other vital factors. It is good for the UK as their doctrine does nothing to lower visibility, but as Germany it's a waste of a trait unless the admiral is commanding submarines.

 

[Sbrubbles]

I don't think I have seen a correct response in this entire thread, so allow me to assist.

The OP's patrol groups (3 CL + 9 DD) is far too large. Patrol Groups need only be a single "Spotting" Cruiser. A CL with 3 Float Plane 2, a Radar2+, and a Sonar2 Module is absolutely ideal. If you are the UK, you begin with 12-14 "C-Class CL 1936" and refitting them to the above template is the cheapest fix. Obviously AA upgrades would be nice, though not absolutely critical. Okay, you now take your 12-14 Converted C-Class "Spotting" Cruisers and you place them under a "Spotting" Admiral. The UK Starts with one. Add the --Visibility Trait to him. Each Cruiser is it's own Task Force (up to 10) under this Admiral with the extras just chilling to step up when needed. You set them "Never Engage" and "High Repair Priority". You select under that Admiral the 10 Sea Zones you want to patrol. Done. EZ.

Your Strike Force Fleet Compositions are absolutely critical. Your "Battle Fleet" CANNOT have Depth Charges in it, lest your Spotting Patrol Cruisers call in the main fleet for a stack of 8 Submarines that proceeds to sink all of your capitals. ASW DD's are stacks of 12-15 DD's stacked to the brim with Depth Charges. Absolutely no other IC needs to be spent on them, as the spotting is done for them. It is not IC efficient to refit the Main Battle Fleet in Vanilla. Light Attack Heavy Cruisers (No Armor) and Torpedo Destroyers are the most efficient -- remember -- not a single Depth Charge. As UK, I keep the Fleet in Cornwall and my ASW Task Forces are stationed in the following: Guyana, Newfoundland, Iceland, Cornwall or Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and ... some West African Country.

If you can spare 100 Tactical Bombers over the sea zones where are you hunting, that's nice, it helps with spotting speed more than anything, but it's not absolutely critical, especially against AI's. Once you have made Coral Reefs out of the German Fleet, you can move your Main Battle Fleet and a handful of Spotting Cruisers to the Indian Ocean to protect the Raj and Western Australia from the Japanese Navy.

Have 0 depth charges is impossible as long as a single destroyer is in the fleet, because destroyers have 1 depth charge attack even with no depths charge modules.

No destroyers in the strike force: I sleep

Add a single destroyer with no depth charge modules to the task force: real shit

Refitting can be worth it depending on your playstyle, like I posted earlier: to add unholy ammounts of AA to capital ships and contest the med as the UK. Expensive, yes, but I wouldn't touch the central med without it.

TAC and, well, any planes doing missions in the area that add air supremacy (including Close Air Support, but ironically not including Air Recon), indeed increase detection chance. From what I've tested, it increases detection chance by 100% to 200% at 1000 planes, but I dunno the exact math. 100 TACs can help spotting, but really the best thing they do is sink subs. Heck, if you have a lv 1 radar in the area a stack of 25 is enough to grind subs out (and it's great cause it's a cheap fire-and-forget kind of thing). If it's not subs, but instead surface ships that you're fighting, then I also wouldn't bring 100, I'd bring every single plane available on the map, but certainly not for spotting since you're rarely gonna have issues spotting surface fleets.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

Have 0 depth charges is impossible as long as a single destroyer is in the fleet, because destroyers have 1 depth charge attack even with no depths charge modules.

So you can only use Light Cruisers as screens on your Strike Force if you want them to ignore subs?

That kinda stinks, since even a stripped down pre-war Light Cruiser still costs 3x what an destroyer from the equivalent year costs. I guess it makes sense to use only the best screens to protect your precious capital ships, but the greater cost will mean fewer screens overall if you're playing as a nation with a modest ship building capacity.

 

[Znail]

You can avoid this by having a small Strike Fleet suitable to taking out subs (and possibly surface raiders) with a more cautious engagement setting then your main fleet, then they will trigger first and engage subs (and small raiding fleets) and leave your main fleet to deal with larger enemy fleets.

 

[CrasherZZ]

It wouldn't be such a problem if subs weren't so OP. It's pretty ridiculous that three of my subs in the Central Mediterranean can sink hundreds of escorted convoys in a few months time. Playing against the AI in SP of course, but still...

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

You can avoid this by having a small Strike Fleet suitable to taking out subs (and possibly surface raiders) with a more cautious engagement setting then your main fleet, then they will trigger first and engage subs (and small raiding fleets) and leave your main fleet to deal with larger enemy fleets.

Unless there are no enemies at the moment and your doomstack will get called in first anyway because, due to the sheer size, it'll have more depth charge attacks (and way better theoretical survivability) than specialized taskforce >.>

 

[ArzhurG]

Same with picking the Visibility trait over Lone Wolf. This suits a nation that doesn't plan to go up against another with a larger fleet, but literally anyone else in the game should instead pick Lone Wolf as the penalty to larger fleet impacts screening efficiency, chance to hit, and most importantly, positioning which in turn effects damage output and a whole host of other vital factors. It is good for the UK as their doctrine does nothing to lower visibility, but as Germany it's a waste of a trait unless the admiral is commanding submarines.

The visibility trait was suggested for an admiral that only commands taskforces of spotting ships with 'do not engage'. Theoretically those ships should never get into combat (the point of the visibility trait). The lone wolf trait would only be useful, if the ship somehow gets into combat, which it shouldn't. In the case that it does, it should be reinforced by a taskforce with an admiral that does have the trait.

 

[Sbrubbles]

The visibility trait was suggested for an admiral that only commands taskforces of spotting ships with 'do not engage'. Theoretically those ships should never get into combat (the point of the visibility trait). The lone wolf trait would only be useful, if the ship somehow gets into combat, which it shouldn't. In the case that it does, it should be reinforced by a taskforce with an admiral that does have the trait.

Visibility also affects enemy hit chance, so it's actually a lot better than it looks (irc, the rule of thumb is that 1% less visibility ~ 1% less enemy hit chance. The wiki has a more thorough explanation).

There might be a situation, if my main fleet is only slightly smaller than the enemy fleet, where lone wolf is better, but my gut feeling is that even then having the -20% visibility would still win out.