Carriers= Stupid?

[Zardnaar]

ISNce coming back I have tested a few things and have come to the following conclusion.

Carriers are stupid.

This is Germany, did not switch doctrines vs the USA.



They are level 5 ones, Bohm is a level 7 admiral.

I have tested things over the last few weeks with Italy, SA, UK, and Germany and there really is no point in building battleships, battlecruisers, or super heavy battlerships as at best they are very expensie shore bombardment.

In vanilla HoI2 BCs as Germany could at least wreck carriers in bad weather/night as I have sunk a few around the Gulf of Mexico and Norway.

AoD your fleets just bounce off AI fleets. Battleships etc matter a bit more vs fleets with no carriers but if you just build carriers yourself regardless of the doctrine/conditions/ fleet composition you do even better.

Sub spam can also work as Germany but it is mainly for admiral training and you sink the occasional ship.

My CAG
X6 CV (level 5)
X2 CVL (level 3)
X10 CL (levle 5)

 

[Pang Bingxun]

CAG is the brigade attached to a Carrier Vessel. The Fleet is called Carrier Taskforce, short CTF.

 

[Commander666]

This is Germany, did not switch doctrines vs the USA.

Your 6 (or greater) more modern CVs won against 9 older USN CVs. What is stupid about that?

More than doctrines matter. What was the condition of the enemy fleet when the engagement started? What was the skill level of the opposing commanders? What other factors are not included in your conclusion?

The only thing that really might be called "stupid" is that the AI is very poor at doing timely retreats, and you may get similar total annihilation between non-carriers fleets. So, does that make all ships stupid?

 

[Zardnaar]

CAG is the brigade attached to a Carrier Vessel. The Fleet is called Carrier Taskforce, short CTF.

Good point, I had a brain fart.

 

[Zardnaar]

Your 6 (or greater) more modern CVs won against 9 older USN CVs. What is stupid about that?

More than doctrines matter. What was the condition of the enemy fleet when the engagement started? What was the skill level of the opposing commanders? What other factors are not included in your conclusion?

The only thing that really might be called "stupid" is that the AI is very poor at doing timely retreats, and you may get similar total annihilation between non-carriers fleets. So, does that make all ships stupid?

No I am just starting to come around to the idea of using carriers all of the time and not building BCs, BBs or SHBB regardless of what nation or doctrine you have.

 

[Zsar1]

The only thing that really might be called "stupid" is that the AI is very poor at doing timely retreats, [...]

I feel it worth to notice that the AI since at least 1.07 is not merely poor in that regard, but simply unable.

I stumbled over the retreat code for naval battles a few days ago and found it commented out; at some point the AI may have been able to, but now it cannot order its fleet to quit an ongoing battle. The fleet itself will of course eventually try to disengage if it feels too outmatched, but the same is true of player controlled fleets and this decision tends to come too late to prevent a catastrophic outcome.

 

[Commander666]

Interesting. I tend to remember timely AI retreats before also. But sometimes I am still witnessing AI retreats (discussing v1.08) - especially when human has CVs and AI none at start of engagement. I would guess that the worst cases of AI catastrophic fleet annihilation seems to involve CTFs. Or maybe its is just that I don't use SAGs to patrol the ocean... so carrier battles are mostly what the big encounters are?

 

[Mr_B0narpte]

Part of the problem for the US navy is that it seems it grouped BBs & CAs (and potentially other capitals) with its CVs and screens - this can upset positioning. And looks like it had a colossal stack of ships (at least 30!) - obviously un-necessarily increasing the stacking penalty. No fleet should exceed 30 ships in total, let alone have 30 capital ships + 30 screens!

I imagine speed was also a factor in making is so decisive, some of those old capital ships have speeds of just 20 knots.


But part of this is speculation as the mechanics for AoD's naval combat system are quite mysterious.

 

[Count of Reval]

In your case, very experienced Superior Tactician attacked an enemy with (slightly better than) up-to-date carrier fleet which was moderately big, had an adequate screen cover and ships in fine shape.

The target was a mixed fleet of probably older ships without an adequate screen cover. As they were most likely forced out from Miami naval base, maybe while much of the country was already occupied, the enemy ships might have been not in their full strength, facing supply problems, some of them out of commission scrapyard ships.

In a real life parallel, if an attacker has a range, speed and positioning advantage, it makes sense that target rather gives a defending battle, intending to exhaust and repel the attacker, and doesn't try to execute hopeless chaotic retreat.

Aircraft carriers were/are the "kings of the sea", so their domination isn't particularly strange.

Of course, as a game, it's an abstraction, and -- as players have different expectations -- there's no game which is universally "perfect".