Can anyone explain how naval combat works on a tactical level?

[canthinkofaname415]

I understand how all ground warfare and air warfare works but battles between ships always confuse me, I don't know anything beyond: submarines need to try to hide as much as possible and just blow up convoys

Carriers are better than battleships but yet somehow they aren't? (Emphasis on question mark)

When giant fleets fight each other usually the bigger one comes out on top


I don't understand how fleet positioning works, or how the distance between them impacts things, or anything.

 

[auraxiannc]

The basic gist I can give off of my experience from HOI3 is this:

Positioning is how well your ship can evade while still being able to return fire. A well positioned submarine can kill warships, a well postioned battleship can sink half a fleet, a well positioned carrier allows its aircraft to efficiently fly back and forth from the battle, and protect them.

Giant fleets do not win, well composed fleets win.

Carriers can be better than battleships, as they use airplanes (which provides recon), allows them to engage other air units and bomb enemy ships and ports outside of normal aerial range (their main advantage is this)

However, in HOI4, planes are built in military factories, draining them away from essential production of ground quipment, further, planes have to be made carrier ready. Battleships are only produced in dockyards, can take more damage, deal more damage, and fight out of the enemies range. They are, however, expensive, and vulnerable to air attack, the same as the carrier is vulnerable to sea attack.

Submarines do not generally join large naval actions. Submarines patrol areas, trying to sink merchant shipping heading to their enemy's capital, they can also sink supply ships, and troop transports.

Also, in a naval battle, there is nothing but smoke, most targets are decided purely on a friend/foe basis, destroyers shoot at battleships, battleships are light cruisers, some bombers attack a battlecruiser.

 

[Axe99]

We'll know in more detail once we have our hands on the game, but I think (not 100%):
- Ships have individual positioning, relative to the other fleet and specific ships in the other fleet. They can only hit each other if they're in range of each other.
- Carriers themselves aren't much good for much (White Plains heroics and lucky shots aside) but they carry aircraft, which can engage other fleets outside of their gun range.
- Battleships within gun range, however, are very dangerous beasts indeed (particularly as their gun range is longer than any other vessel)
- Torpedoes are a separate thing now.
- There are critical hits (but we don't know the detail of how these work).

 

[JerkyJerry]

Giant fleets do not win, well composed fleets win.

Aurasiannc can you give some examples of a well composed fleet?

 

[Donkey Kong]

Aurasiannc can you give some examples of a well composed fleet?

He cant (noone can) at this time. However, it likely means having fleets consisting of both capital and screen vessels. Also, in Hearts of iron 3, you merged your fast ships in a fleet, as one slow ship would slow down the entire fleet.

Anyway, this is how I organize my fleets in HoI 3:

Typical battleship fleet: 4 BBs (maybe some battlecruisers) and 8 destroyers (or 3 BBs and 6 destroyers). It depended on how many ships your fleet commander could command (usually 9 or 12).
Typical carrier fleet: 3-4 carriers and 8 cruisers.

Combining all your ships into one superstack could actually work (for instance a 60 ship fleet as France would crush any Italian fleet in the Med), but I considered that gamey.

 

[canthinkofaname415]

What happens when a fleet of 8 carriers comes across a fleet of 8 battle ships? I'm guessing if the carriers can stay out of range they win but if the battleships get in close they lose?

Also what kind of ranges are we talking about here?

 

[JerkyJerry]

He cant (noone can) at this time.

Do you ever move 2 of your fleets into the same ocean space to attack?

 

[Nicolas I]

Don't forget that aside from fleet composition, the mission given to a fleet will influence their positioning and the speed of their concentration.

Patrol - This will spread out the fleet to increase chances of catching hostile fleets, but it is a high risk of the fleet not all being present for an engagement. This is something you’d use to catch a single german battleship trying to create havoc.

Search & Destroy - This does not spread out the fleet over the region, keeping it intact to be an efficient fighting group when engaging an hostile fleet. Main battlefleet trying to catch another fleet.

 

[canthinkofaname415]

Don't forget that aside from fleet composition, the mission given to a fleet will influence their positioning and the speed of their concentration.

Patrol - This will spread out the fleet to increase chances of catching hostile fleets, but it is a high risk of the fleet not all being present for an engagement. This is something you’d use to catch a single german battleship trying to create havoc.

Search & Destroy - This does not spread out the fleet over the region, keeping it intact to be an efficient fighting group when engaging an hostile fleet. Main battlefleet trying to catch another fleet.

Had no idea that different missions impacted how they did things

 

[canthinkofaname415]

Also is it better to have one admiral commanding an entire single group of boats or divide them up into smaller groups commanded by different admirals?
And a problem I've ran into before is that if I take the division route and tell them to do X task they will all split up rather than stick together.

 

[auraxiannc]

Also is it better to have one admiral commanding an entire single group of boats or divide them up into smaller groups commanded by different admirals?
And a problem I've ran into before is that if I take the division route and tell them to do X task they will all split up rather than stick together.

It's better to have different admirals, as you want Sea Wolves to command subs, and there's a trait for boosting positioning.

A well composed fleet (In my opinion) is
3BB, 4 DD, 1 CA (High Sea's Battlefleet)
1CVL, 1 BC, 3CL, 3 DD (Coastal defense fleet)
2 SS (Submarine Raider fleet)
4CA,3CL (Surface Raider fleet)

 

[TheOrangeGuy]

The CV CAS seems a bit underwhelming, or is it just me? In real life I guess they had their advantages, but in the game it's just stats, wouldn't it be better to bring more torpedo bombers instead? Or fighters,, fighters give a flat combat bonus during air superiority right?

 

[Gort11]

The CV CAS seems a bit underwhelming, or is it just me? In real life I guess they had their advantages, but in the game it's just stats, wouldn't it be better to bring more torpedo bombers instead? Or fighters,, fighters give a flat combat bonus during air superiority right?

Well, it depends what you want to achieve. Torpedo bombers are great versus ships, but not so good at hitting land targets.

Generally speaking I'll be using my carriers to clear the sea so it'll just be torpedo bombers and fighters for me most of the time.

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

One important thing I remember reading is that all ship classes fulfill a necessary role, and you cannot for instance, only tech up destroyers or light cruisers for your fleet escort, but instead need both for their own respective roles. In hoi3 it was too easy to simply choose a capital ship type and an escort ship type to focus on and ignore all the others. Of course we will know if this is the case or not when the game ships.