Cruizergs?? What's that?

[unmerged(77393)]

Since I can't figure out that google search of this forum thingy, I'll just politely ask here.

What's this talk about cruizergs? what are they? I've understood they're a fleet composition, but what exactly is that composition?

If I play as the Soviet Union, how would I compose my cruizerg fleets?

Thanks for any answers

 

[sbr]

It is an Emu term for a fleet made up of cheap and fast to build cruisers. The key is to use FC brigades on the CLs so they are in range when the CAs are and everyone gets to shot at the enemy at once. They are also very cheap to repair and replace.

They key is that the optimum range for the fleet is 90% of the range of the shortest ranged capital ship. So 12 CAs and 18 CL+Fc should get everyone involved at once.

 

[unmerged(77393)]

Ok.. thanks for the reply

but would it work for a slightly-less-ic power like italy? or is there an option for a smaller fleet?

 

[Jadelith]

build 200 destroyers.

win.

 

[sbr]

Ok.. thanks for the reply

but would it work for a slightly-less-ic power like italy? or is there an option for a smaller fleet?

I can't think of any reason you could do it as a lower IC country. In fact i would think it would the a better option than BB's or CV's.

Get your gearing faster and less repair/ replace costs.

 

[blue emu]

Against anything but AI-uber-stacks, I use 18-ship Cruizerg fleets... someting like five CAs, two CVLs and eleven CL-FCs. Remenber not to brigade all the CAs with FC, or they will pull the engagement range out too far for your CLs to fire.

 

[Easy-Kill]

Against anything but AI-uber-stacks, I use 18-ship Cruizerg fleets... someting like five CAs, two CVLs and eleven CL-FCs. Remenber not to brigade all the CAs with FC, or they will pull the engagement range out too far for your CLs to fire.

It's an interesting strategy. I recall remembering the British did this with their light cruisers, build more light cruisers with more lighter guns to act as 'colonial gunboats'. Enough to counter any local threats but with many more than they could afford heavy cruisers.

Infact, I almost always prefer the light cruiser with FC as opposed to the heavy cruiser.

 

[unmerged(60878)]

Wouldn't a cruizerg be very vulnerable to wolfpacks? Neither the CLs or CAs have very good anti-sub stats so it seems they could take quite a lot of damage from them, though I guess the CVLs would help.

 

[unmerged(35723)]

If you are playing vanilla DD, Italy is THE most suitable country to run Cruizerg. You start with an obsolete but precious CA1, which brings your CL3s into battle range. The only investment you need in RM is two serial runs of CL3s and just 2 CVL1s. By your entering the war, you will have 4BBs 8CAs 2CVLs and plenty of CL3s to form a man a 30 flottilla cruizerg fleet. You have a very good chance to defeat Royal Navy. Even if you are unlucky that RM San Giorgio is sunk, Med Fleet does seem to have a habit to fire at 22.2 km, which makes your CL3s in range. Actually, by then you must have had CL4 tech and cracking out CL4s to replace lost CL3s. A CL3 is less than 1/7 of the cost of a BB4 in consideration of gearing bonus.

 

[sbr]

If you are playing vanilla DD, Italy is THE most suitable country to run Cruizerg. You start with an obsolete but precious CA1, which brings your CL3s into battle range. The only investment you need in RM is two serial runs of CL3s and just 2 CVL1s. By your entering the war, you will have 4BBs 8CAs 2CVLs and plenty of CL3s to form a man a 30 flottilla cruizerg fleet. You have a very good chance to defeat Royal Navy. Even if you are unlucky that RM San Giorgio is sunk, Med Fleet does seem to have a habit to fire at 22.2 km, which makes your CL3s in range. Actually, by then you must have had CL4 tech and cracking out CL4s to replace lost CL3s. A CL3 is less than 1/7 of the cost of a BB4 in consideration of gearing bonus.

Jsut to make it clear, without the naval brigades of Arma, in DD you need to mix ship levels to get your CLs in range with your CAs.

 

[Vortex79]

Against anything but AI-uber-stacks, I use 18-ship Cruizerg fleets... someting like five CAs, two CVLs and eleven CL-FCs. Remenber not to brigade all the CAs with FC, or they will pull the engagement range out too far for your CLs to fire.

Emu, how does the Cruizerg fleet fair against a 15/bb 15/dd fleet if expanded to a 30 ship formtion? I'd assume the Cruizergs would get wiped out without dispensing any damage but I may be wrong.

 

[blue emu]

Emu, how does the Cruizerg fleet fair against a 15/bb 15/dd fleet if expanded to a 30 ship formtion? I'd assume the Cruizergs would get wiped out without dispensing any damage but I may be wrong.

The Cruizergs would get wiped out after doing quite a bit of damage. But this is hardly a fair comparison, considering the difference in IC-day costs.

A better comparison would be a 15-BB/15-DD fleet which gets engaged successively by several 30-ship Cruizerg formations which TOTAL the same IC-day cost as the BB fleet. Each Cruizerg fleet fights until it starts taking signifigant casualties (or is about to do so), then breaks off and retires while the next Cruizerg formation moves in and takes over the battle. I would expect to see the entire BB fleet sunk with minimal (or at worst, acceptable) IC-day losses to the Cruizerg groups.

 

[unmerged(35723)]

Emu, how does the Cruizerg fleet fair against a 15/bb 15/dd fleet if expanded to a 30 ship formtion? I'd assume the Cruizergs would get wiped out without dispensing any damage but I may be wrong.

I am sure BB/DD would win. But 1BB4 costs more than 3CA2+3CL4.

 

[unmerged(77393)]

I'm terribly sorry, but I don't understand anything

Could someone post a setup of a good 18-ship cruizerg fleet and a good 30-fleet one, and please explain or point me to an explanation of engagement range and why I need to mix ships or attach brigades and whatnot.

Again sorry for the inconvenience

 

[blue emu]

I'm terribly sorry, but I don't understand anything

Could someone post a setup of a good 18-ship cruizerg fleet and a good 30-fleet one, and please explain or point me to an explanation of engagement range and why I need to mix ships or attach brigades and whatnot.

A link to my thread: Naval Firing Range, Decoded!

Briefly... the actual fleet engagement range depends on many factors, including Admiral skill and traits, Doctrines, fleet composition, random factors (the computer equivalent of "dice"), and so on. One of the most important factors in determining actual fleet engagement range (and the factor most easily controlled by the player himself) is the "optimum" or desired engagement range.

For fleets which contain no fleet CVs, but at least one non-CV capital ship, the optimum firing range will automatically be 90% of the maximum range of the shortest-ranged capital ship in the fleet.

Example: if your fleet contains one SHBB-I, two BB-IVs, two CA-IIIs, one CA-I, one CVL-II and ten DD-IIs, the optimum firing range will be 90% of the maximum range of the CA-I... since it is the shortest-ranged capital ship in your fleet.

The Cruizerg tactic is based on composing your fleet so that the shortest-ranged capital ship in the fleet (the one that sets the optimum firing range) is ALSO the shortest-ranged SHIP (of any sort) in your fleet... in other words, at optimum range, EVERY ship in the fleet can fire instead of only the capital ships firing while the screens just hang around and hope to avoid being sunk.

This can be done in two ways... in Doomsday (with no Naval Brigades) you can build old, obsolete CAs and form them up with more modern CLs. CA-I plus CL-III, or CA-II plus CL-IV, for example. These combinations will ensure that all the ships get into range simultaneously. The second method (available only in Armageddon) is to attach Fire Control (FC) brigades to ONLY the CLs (or at least, to leave SOME of your CAs un-brigaded). This will extend the CL's range out past that of the un-brigaded CAs, again allowing all the ships to shoot at optimum firing range.

A CVL or two makes an excellent addition to this sort of Cruizerg force, since it greatly increases the odds of closing to optimum firing range.

The Cruizerg tactic is relatively insensitive to exact fleet composition... you have a wide degree of choice in composing the fleets. Some people like to use almost entirely CL-FCs with only one CVL and a few CAs to set the range. Others prefer a more balanced force of CA/CVL/CL-FC, with the CL-FC making up just over half of the force.

An example 18-ship force would be:

5 CA (with two or three of them brigaded with FC)
2 CVL
11 CL-FC

 

[unmerged(77393)]

Ok.. so essentially, the light cruisers are the ones doing the shooting, while you adjust the optimum firing range with a capital ship... correct?

So I could basically have any number of light cruisers with a FC attachment, and one capital ship that has a maximum range under the light cruisers, allowing everyone to shoot at the same time.

If this is correct then I have understood it, and appreciate the help

thanks

 

[sbr]

Ok.. so essentially, the light cruisers are the ones doing the shooting, while you adjust the optimum firing range with a capital ship... correct?

So I could basically have any number of light cruisers with a FC attachment, and one capital ship that has a maximum range under the light cruisers, allowing everyone to shoot at the same time.

If this is correct then I have understood it, and appreciate the help

thanks

Yep that is the basic idea but the CAs are shooting too because they are the ones that set the range.

 

[blue emu]

Ok.. so essentially, the light cruisers are the ones doing the shooting, while you adjust the optimum firing range with a capital ship... correct?

So I could basically have any number of light cruisers with a FC attachment, and one capital ship that has a maximum range under the light cruisers, allowing everyone to shoot at the same time.

If this is correct then I have understood it, and appreciate the help

thanks

You've got it... except that the CAs also add an appreciable amount of firepower. In the sample fleet given above, the CL-FCs are responsible for about 65-70% of the firepower, with the CAs adding most of the rest.

Bear in mind that if you are relying on only ONE capital ship to set the range, you could get badly burned if only ONE ship in your force gets sunk (the cap). That's why I use about 30% caps, two CVLs (to ensure against one getting sunk) and all the rest CL-FCs.

Other than that, you've got the idea.

 

[unmerged(60878)]

Does anyone know exactly what it is that seems to make CVLs so good at ensuring your fleet gets the best positioning/range.

Just about everyone recommends using at least 1 CVL in either a cruizerg fleet or a SAG because it greatly increases the chance of closing to the correct range, and the overall performance of the fleet; but why exactly are CVLs so good for this?

Another observation about cruizergs: I assume that a cruizerg is not always the best fleet composition because sometimes you don't want the fleet to close to a range where all the ships can fire. For example, if you know the enemy fleet has a lot of old BBs, then you might want to design a fleet that can sit just out of range of their guns and fire at them with BBIVs or SHBBs, without them being able to fire back. I suppose in this case you would want your BBIVs, or maybe a CVL depending on its range, to be the shortest ranged capital ship.

 

[blue emu]

Does anyone know exactly what it is that seems to make CVLs so good at ensuring your fleet gets the best positioning/range.

It appears to be hard-coded.