If I upgrade the hell out of German ship speed, perhaps even taking the atlantic fleet designer, I can get pretty quick ships. But is speed enough for surface raiders?
Are surface raiders viable?
- Thread starter PanzerMan7
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I'm guessing it will work fine until you encounter a carrier fleet, land based air will be less of an problem because of your small size of the fleet
As Britain, I always delete all subs and just use the 3 starting BCs as raiders.
Works rather well and even if they run into enemy fleets they can do some damage.
Works rather well and even if they run into enemy fleets they can do some damage.
I'm curious about the thought process behind deleting your starting subs. Is it your intention to recapture the manpower dedicated to those subs?
In my last game as Britain I put all my subs convoy raiding between Africa and South America and in the cape of new hope. They sank a lot of Axis shipping and I never lost a single sub as Axis were unable to send fleets to protect the convoys. Unless you are very short on manpower I don't think it's necessary to delete the subs.
Surface ships are the best raiders, especially Carriers with some NAVs, they sink convoys very fast because they do not need to get to firing range.
Fast destroyer and light cruiser fleets are extremely powerful for surface raiding. Provided you keep an eye on your navy, and your enemy don't send carriers to patrol the oceans. Which is pretty much impossible considering the lack of escort carriers in the game.
In multiplayer, you can cause endless frustration by playing co-op Germany for example, and have one player look after the navy.
In multiplayer, you can cause endless frustration by playing co-op Germany for example, and have one player look after the navy.
They are viable but compared to subs they are much much worse in detection, specially with technology
Submarines can reach 30%+ detection chance when fully upgraded on interdiction. A DD or CL at best will get around 5-10%. Bigger ships even less.
This results in stacks of convoys having a lesser quantity to shoot down.
Trade interdiction increase submarine surface detection by +100%
Others by +50%
Other ships don´t get any increase. So they are viable if you're not planning putting a single penny on research.
Submarines can reach 30%+ detection chance when fully upgraded on interdiction. A DD or CL at best will get around 5-10%. Bigger ships even less.
This results in stacks of convoys having a lesser quantity to shoot down.
Trade interdiction increase submarine surface detection by +100%
Others by +50%
Other ships don´t get any increase. So they are viable if you're not planning putting a single penny on research.
I'd like to point out that, aside from full fleets (which convoy raid just fine when they don't have something else to do with their time), surface raiders tend to be found and attacked more often than properly wielded submarines.
Technically light cruisers have the best detection of any ship. Submarines have crappy surface detection unless you upgrade your trade interdiction to the max and even then they have less surface detection than light cruisers.
So if your only concern is detection and enemy fleets can't reach you, then light cruisers should be the best raiders in theory.
So if your only concern is detection and enemy fleets can't reach you, then light cruisers should be the best raiders in theory.
You should also work down the doctrine line for raiders as it improves their abilities and reduces their visibility.
As others have said, raiders can work and will chew up and spit out the odd asw group they run into as long as the raider group is screened. The problem is when they run into a large surface or carrier group. Even the British AI will patrol with carrier groups from Spain to the North Sea. Your raiders are quickly turned into scrap metal unless you are microing. You have to be sinking a lot of convoys to make the tactic pay off, unless you have other strategic reasons for raiding.
That is either just abusing the poor coding of the ai or a very foolish mp player. The idiotic coding that keep sending convoys and troops through the channel and around the Cape makes it too easy to hammer the axis AI. And if someone in mp was doing that, then doom on them.
Submarines have 30, 40, 50 , 70 Surface detection.
All of them can be upgraded 50% to 100%
Light cruisers have 15 , 20 . 50 . 70 surface detection.
I was thinking of raiding with a country that doesn't have naval superiority, like germany. I imagine a BC with a few CLs could shred convoys and any DD escorts
Submarines are nice mostly because of range. A Sub III with speed 5 have 6250km range, enough to open your available hunt regions to make the allies go crazy.
Using BC`s alongside the subs they will kill any pure DD squad easily.
Also its 3 times the range of a DD. So as long you start cutting his acess to sea regions they can´t do anything. (Reason its important for axis to take africa).
its the main UK fleet the real threat as they can easily wipe out groups of 2 BC´s. And here is where you need to expend most dockyards, in a way to keep the UK fleet busy.
If they ever fix the barely functional naval strike air theater mission (ie, they only attack once despite days or weeks of naval battle), land-based power would be a real game changer as it was in real life. Small navies could hold their own with friendly airpower near the coast against bigger fleets.
They should also probably scrap the whole air superiority affecting carrier fighters in naval battles and simply allow land-based fighters to engage with carrier fighters as they did in real life, assuming they fix the 1 attack regardless of naval battle length bug. Then you could easily use SAGs within range of friendly land-based fighters and not die when a CTFs breathes on you.
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Surface ships can work very well but they will eventually run into a CV fleet and get sunk.
Hmm, I could go for the atlantic fleet designer and get a fast CV with fighters only to support surface ships.
It would work, but the problem you run into whenever you use CVs for convoy raiding is the loss in planes. I'm not sure how effective it becomes as you have to keep replacing planes. If you have the production to spare it doesn't really matter but if you have to prioritize what you can afford to build the losses start to add up.
There are two parts to convoy raiding. Surface detection and the rate at which you kill the convoys you catch.
For surface detection, best is submarines( at least tech 2 version ) with trade interdiction. Destroyer or light cruiser 3 or 4 are also good enough if you have air superiority in the region you are raiding.
For killing convoys quickly, submarines are the worst because they are very slow. Carriers with all naval bombers are by far the best if you have air superiority in the region. Destroyer or LC 3 or 4 with engine upgrades are good alternatives if you don't have air superiority.
You can combine ships that are good at each part to get a good raiding fleet. For example, 4x carrier, 20x submarine with trade interdiction will rape anything and everything in the region they are raiding as long as you have air superiority. The downside of such a powerful raiding fleet is that it is vulnerable to land-based naval bombing because of carriers and you should also make sure to keep an eye on it so that you don't lose the carriers if it is caught by the enemy's main fleet. Something like 5x destroyer, 10x subs is a less powerful but more expendable raiding fleet that is also quite useful. If you have focus bonus for LC or DD so you can get tech 3 or 4 version ahead of time, you can drop the subs and use 10x DD or 10x LC also.
For surface detection, best is submarines( at least tech 2 version ) with trade interdiction. Destroyer or light cruiser 3 or 4 are also good enough if you have air superiority in the region you are raiding.
For killing convoys quickly, submarines are the worst because they are very slow. Carriers with all naval bombers are by far the best if you have air superiority in the region. Destroyer or LC 3 or 4 with engine upgrades are good alternatives if you don't have air superiority.
You can combine ships that are good at each part to get a good raiding fleet. For example, 4x carrier, 20x submarine with trade interdiction will rape anything and everything in the region they are raiding as long as you have air superiority. The downside of such a powerful raiding fleet is that it is vulnerable to land-based naval bombing because of carriers and you should also make sure to keep an eye on it so that you don't lose the carriers if it is caught by the enemy's main fleet. Something like 5x destroyer, 10x subs is a less powerful but more expendable raiding fleet that is also quite useful. If you have focus bonus for LC or DD so you can get tech 3 or 4 version ahead of time, you can drop the subs and use 10x DD or 10x LC also.