Building Naval Power

[unmerged(44784)]

I noticed that in Doomsday, my 30-sub stacks don't work on the seas anymore. I tried to transport a stack of 20 transports and 70 submarines, and the transports all died within hours. The subs are now fodder and useless.

How does one go about building a good navy?

Thanks In Advance.

 

[unmerged(56282)]

I have noticed too!

It's odd, submarine are useless!


Why? can someone explicate this? Submarines are targeted by carriers, i think this is not that great.. :wacko:

 

[unmerged(51738)]

Subs are now only good for convoyraiding, like they should.
For detailed explanation of Naval combat: Pro Consul's Naval Primer on HOI2Wiki
Notice though that it is for 1.3a or so.

 

[Traxis]

A stack with 70 Subs and 20 Transports means ALL ships receive a 68% stacking penalty, and 40 of the subs receive an additional 25% command limit penalty, if you are using a Grand Admiral. This is assuming that the info in Pro_Consul's Naval Prime is still correct.

 

[Manoa]

No More Sub Super Stacks

You have to build carriers in DD to have a strong navy. Subs are only good for convoy raiding and even then they can get decimated by NAV or Carriers if they get caught. I find this to be a welcome change overall but I wonder if sub vulnerability may have gone a bit overboard when doing convoy raiding.

 

[unmerged(17563)]

Heres a good suggested stack which I use in MP games as Japan or USA.

8 type 4 or 5 CVs
7 Type 4 or 5 CAs
7 Type 5 CLs
8 Type 5 DDs

With a good Grand Admiral you will win almost every naval engagement. Just make sure to have high level ships across the board cos of the ranges. Don't use BBs or BCs in your fleets as they are sitting ducks and cost too much. CAs are the best capital escorts as they are relativly cheap. The CLs are for air defense and the DDs for sub defense. Everything else is up to the CVs and in major engagements the enemy should never get into range unless he has CVs as well and if he does your will be better if you wait till type 4 or 5 to build any.

 

[Spruce]

subs are convoy raiders - not surface fleet butchers ...

but to be honest I did sank a CV and CA in my first Germany game but it costed me too much sub flotilla's to achieve this

my advice is not to focus on CV early game - but start with cheap CVL's and use your massive BB firepower to take out the old type CV's early game. But beware you should have air superiority !

 

[Permanganate]

The most cost-effective navy is enormous numbers of CV, DD, and TP, with your main combat fleets being 14xCV 16xDD. A navy like this is surprisingly cheap, both in IC.days and research, and will beat any opposing navy if properly used. Just make sure you have some land-based planes to attack enemy Nav because those things are still practically invulnerable to sea/land divisional AA.

 

[unmerged(38672)]

Why is this? Didn´t subs sink many warships during WW2?

Courageous, Royal Oak, Ark Royal, Shinano for example.

 

[Spruce]

Why is this? Didn´t subs sink many warships during WW2?

Courageous, Royal Oak, Ark Royal, Shinano for example.

you can already take a few out of that list cause they were surprise attacks. In my first doomsday game I was also able to sink a UK carrier - but during the retreat the royal navy stripped my sub-fleet. I guess they were also surprise attacks cause my range was only a few km against a CV fleet...

 

[unmerged(44784)]

A stack with 70 Subs and 20 Transports means ALL ships receive a 68% stacking penalty, and 40 of the subs receive an additional 25% command limit penalty, if you are using a Grand Admiral. This is assuming that the info in Pro_Consul's Naval Prime is still correct.

There was no command penalty. This was my force:

Grand Admiral 1: 30 subs.

Grand Admiral 2: 30 subs.

Grand Admiral 3: 20 transports, 10 subs.

They weren't under the same admiral, they were just all in the same sea province.

 

[Brasidas]

Similar logic would lead to believing that 4 field marshalls leading 12 divisions each would not have a command penalty.

Think of sea unit command penalties as land unit command penalties, but without there being an HQ unit to let two full stacks attack without penalty. The battle is under the overall command of one grand admiral, and his command limit is 30 units. Any more stacks will be counted as over the command limit.

Furthermore, there is a stacking penalty for every unit over two. Iirc, its -1% for every unit beyond that. So at 70 combat units, that's -68%. Assuming Raeder or Doenitz are in command of your stack that isn't over the command limit, that's 67% combat efficiency for one 30-stack (100+25+10-68) and 0% for everything else.

Assuming 3 subs in a flottilla, these numbers make some sense to me. Coordinating an attack with 90 subs.. ok. That's only twice as many as were ever massed in a single attack in history. 210? I have sincere doubts about their effictiveness. With WW2 technology, it'd be impossible to make a well-coordinated assault with that many submersed craft.

 

[unmerged(55727)]

All the units that participate in the action belong to the same "stack".
Thus one Grand Admiral was in charge of 80 units.

 

[unmerged(44784)]

The problem is that building a real navy takes too long, especially as a mid-weight power such as Spain.

 

[jxa536]

All the units that participate in the action belong to the same "stack".
Thus one Grand Admiral was in charge of 80 units.

That's the answer, it does not matter how many GA's are in the area, only one will have overall command. He will thus have exceeded his command limits and you will be subject to the penalties. Also the days of gamey 30 stack sub fleets wiping out the Royal Navy are over.

 

[Brasidas]

The problem is that building a real navy takes too long, especially as a mid-weight power such as Spain.

If you must be a superpower starting as a minor by no later than 1939, you'll have to cheat. It wasn't possible in life, it isn't possible in the game. So either change the game (cheat), accept that it will take longer (eg. you can probably build a 15CV fleet by 1941 as Spain, which would be nearly impossible to beat if properly supported by land-based air), or lower your expectations (eg. Spain conquering europe by 1942).

Minors have some flexibility, but not "conquer multiple major naval powers without allies" kind of flexibility.

 

[unmerged(51002)]

Well said!

 

[Aracnid99]

I am so glad that subs have been weakened, it was silly the way ppl could mass 60 subs and destroy the RN/USN. Personally I think they should bring in a special 25% stacking penalty for more than 3 subs.

 

[Aracnid99]

I mean a cumulative 25% for each sub over 3. After all in RL it was v. rare to have more than 10 subs operating together with a max wolfpack size iirc of 16 during 1942.

 

[The Starfox]

Im still able to take out the Royal navy in DD, it simply required an adjustment in tactics.

The way subs have been nerfed has made the naval comabt weird when there is a hudge fleet of subs up against a hudge fleet of surface vessels. Basically, if the number of subs is the same as the number of surface vessels, then the combat can drag out for weeks, as both sides seemingly shoot at each other without being to kill one another. Even when the sufrace fleet has multiple full size carriers in the group.

If you let the combat go on long enough, eventually one side will break, but usualy both sides take a big casualty hit.

So what I did was quite simple but brilliant

I take my big stack of uboats and park them one or two sea zones west of Breast and wait for the Royal navy to enage with their fleet. As the battle goes on non stop, suddenly this big UK naval fleet is piled up in one square and unable to move away without retreating.

Its at this point I call up my 2 groups of 4 naval bombers to do non stop bombing runs on the UK fleet as it fights my subs. As the battle rages for a week or two, my aircraft pick off more and more UK ships. Do this tactic, and before long youll send the bulk of the UK navy to the bottom.

It just turned 1941, and the UK is down to 2 carrieers (had 8) down to 3 battleships (forgot how many it had but it was alot ) and I wiped out its battle cruisers, and it had something like 160 smaller ships and its now down to 105.

The way is now open to invade the home island