Best Naval Brigades

[unmerged(5228)]

I wonder which naval brigades would be considered the "best"? In particular I am interested in the best combination of brigades that should be placed on battleships and heavy cruisers.

Battleships have 5 slots to work with so you can pretty much give them almost everything . I was thinking

1)AA
2) Radar
3) Fire Control
4) Secondary Armament

I am torn, however, over what to place in the 5th sloth.

I have a choice between Capital Spotter, Capital Torpedoes, or Capital Improved Hull.

To my untrained eye it seems like Capital Spotter is best. They give quite a boost to 3 or 4 different stats. And there are some nice upgrades.

I thought Improved Hull would have better values up it only increases sea defense by 2 and air defense by 1. I thought it should give a higher return for its investment. And there are no upgrades. Am I looking at it wrong? Are there hidden advantages to improved hull that I'm not aware of?

 

[Dhanun]

I always equip my BBs with Radar, Fire Control, Secondary Armament, Capital Torpedoes and Improved Hull.
Since they'll [probably] have an escort of several Light Cruisers with AAs and Destroyers, IMO, there is no need to occupy a capital slot with AAs.
And since I, normally, put a light carrier in my Battleship fleets, no need for capital spotters either.
Don't know if it's the best way, but works well with me =)

 

[Talar]

Playing as Germany I used this on most major ship, with a few exceptions that got spotter planes. I see AA as a must since I think it helps against carrier attacks, but I have no idea about the actual combat mechanics. My main focus was to survive encounters with enemy fleets so I skipped torpedoes completely since I figured Bismarck & co should be able to handle convoys anyway.

1) AA
2) Radar
3) Fire Control
4) Secondary Armament
5) Improved hull

 

[Simon1397]

There are a few things to take into account here:

Spotters - the upgrade path is linked solely to the Carrier tech path so to get from 1924 spotters to 1947 spotters you have to go through each CAG upgrade; so while this might be viable and desirable as Britain, the USA, Japan & germany it's really not suitable at all for France nor Italy nor any other middling power.

I like to follow von Tirpitz advice that the first duty of a warship is to stay afloat so as Germany I'll always add IH to BC & BB in an attempt to keep them bobbing 'bout.

I'm still on 1.05 (as I'm modding) so I don't know if convoy raiding works now in 1.07 but whether Torpedo's are a worthwhile investment rather depends on that underlying effect.

Note that, in game, carriers do not operate air wings; the mechanics of the game are that they are very long range gun ships. i.e. the firing range of a CV is often >200 km and it is is the doctrines and the position of the fleets that allow carriers to stay out of range of BB and slug it out with other carriers at long range using Sea Attack and Sea Defense values but there are no planes involved. In this respect air defense and air attack values might be considered (AA & FC brigades) worthless except that is that they are used against land based naval bombers (all types) and in game these have had the ability to counter sea power by any Nation.

 

[unmerged(5228)]

There are a few things to take into account here:

Spotters - the upgrade path is linked solely to the Carrier tech path so to get from 1924 spotters to 1947 spotters you have to go through each CAG upgrade; so while this might be viable and desirable as Britain, the USA, Japan & germany it's really not suitable at all for France nor Italy nor any other middling power.

I like to follow von Tirpitz advice that the first duty of a warship is to stay afloat so as Germany I'll always add IH to BC & BB in an attempt to keep them bobbing 'bout.

I'm still on 1.05 (as I'm modding) so I don't know if convoy raiding works now in 1.07 but whether Torpedo's are a worthwhile investment rather depends on that underlying effect.

Note that, in game, carriers do not operate air wings; the mechanics of the game are that they are very long range gun ships. i.e. the firing range of a CV is often >200 km and it is is the doctrines and the position of the fleets that allow carriers to stay out of range of BB and slug it out with other carriers at long range using Sea Attack and Sea Defense values but there are no planes involved. In this respect air defense and air attack values might be considered (AA & FC brigades) worthless except that is that they are used against land based naval bombers (all types) and in game these have had the ability to counter sea power by any Nation.

Thank you for the advice. One thing that bothered me about all the HoI2 games and their expansions was that CVs had to use brigades to simulate CAGs. Using this system individual CAGs are only destroyed when their CV is destroyed. They cannot take damage separate from their mother ship and they cannot gain experience on their own. Also, if you're on the receiving end and you've tripped out your fleets with the heaviest AA brigades but have no CVs you have no hope of destroying enemy CAGs unless you close to surface firing range. During the real War those CAG pilots on each side racked up impressive killes but not without losses. It was hard to take down a massive BB that was sending up a solid wall AA fire. One of the very few things that I enjoyed about HoI3 was the separate CAGs on the carriers. AoD is the best succssor game by far but I was always wistful that separe CAGs were not included as a feature.

I asked the question about naval brigades mainly with refernece to a MP game. I evenutally plan to play either the UK or the US and I wanted to know how to maximize the usefulness of my surface ships. In MP games other players will extensively use land based air power on fleets so AA attachments are a must.

I like the idea of improved hulls but I keep on looking at the stats and they don't seem to give you much of a boost.

 

[Simon1397]

I asked the question about naval brigades mainly with refernece to a MP game. I evenutally plan to play either the UK or the US and I wanted to know how to maximize the usefulness of my surface ships. In MP games other players will extensively use land based air power on fleets so AA attachments are a must.

As US or UK, capital spotter without doubt, helps with firing range and detection.

I agree about the CAG but unfortunately I don't think there is a solution based on the europa HoI2 engine.

I do think there is a bit of developement in naval brigades that can be modded in. The current situation with the FC and AA brigades ending in the 1940's doesn't allow for the enormous upgrade in fire control and AA armament in the post war period so I've modded in new radar (48 & 52), new FC (44 & 48 & 52, off SW computers), new FC_AA (36, 40, 44, 48) to make AA cruisers with FC_AA & AA and cold war capital missile ships (51 & 53) that can counter the USN CAG dominance together with new FiB, SI & BS doctrines to try and keep a balance.

 

[Pier]

As others have said, the Improved hull is a bit underwhelming for me. Also, torpedos seem a bit off on Battle-ships and -cruisers.
Another potential brigade could be a damage control team. Should increase the defensiveness a bit.
Furthermore, I would like to move the Capital Spotter upgrades to the naval bombers, while the trigger for unlocking them should stay at the first carrier tech (development of steam catapults).
Finally, I would love to see the ability of heavy subs to use mines as standard. Many people mod it in, but official dev support is cool.

 

[Nadion]

HoI1 carriers acted like mobile airbases - you could base 1-4 regular squadrons of aircraft on them depending on the carrier level, so Europa engine can deal with - just not sure how well the AI would deal with it.