Escort mission fail

[GS_Guderian]

Hi,

my Brasilian Carrier Taskforce (pimped III) consisted of two CVs with 30fg/25db/25/tb each and screens of 3 Tier I CLs and 5 Tier I DDs.

Twice I encountered enemy surface raiders (British DDs I and CL I) attacking divisions en route to Africa.

My admiral engaged in rain and the DDs encountered as usual very fast in 'the middle'. While British DDs were shredding my transports my DDs didn't do anything but sitting in the 'middle' of the battle info screen.

Transports were on retreat, DDs watched as they sunk. My Taskforce had green check for fire. My DDs didn't show any info like waiting or retreating. They stayed directly opposite to enemy DDs until battle was finished.

Happened twice with different divisions.

Why wouldn't my DDs ever fire?
Why did they close range to enemy if they never intended to fire? (I had more DDs and more CLs)
Any idea?

 

[kviiri]

I think this stems only from confusion about the visualization.

"The middle" is not a fixed location in the HoI 4 naval visualization. It's sort of an invisible middle point between your fleet and their fleet - and if the enemy fleet is retreating, the middle line moves their way too. If your DDs sat in the middle and the enemy fleet was also appearing (almost) stationary, that sounds like a chase - your destroyers were aggressively trying to catch a retreating enemy fleet (something that tier 1 destroyers aren't very good at). They probably didn't fire because they failed to get the target in range before they got disengaged.

That said, the naval system of HoI 4 is rather sad and chasing down individual destroyers and so is often next to impossible without carriers to deal long-distance damage because long chases without exchanges of fire end the combat - despite your fleet actually being able to catch them.

 

[GS_Guderian]

It was pure sadness, to watch how my poor Infantry got slaughtered by those DDs while mine seemed uninterested to help.

If they weren't in range and still trying to get into, the game should at least tell me. Usually I get a xx km to next target info.

 

[kviiri]

Well the game probably did tell you that, but using the sad visualization that's hard to interpret until you're used to it.

 

[Wizard12]

While I think it's fine that surface raiders are capable of running away from combat, what isn't right is that fleets on convey escort don't really escort transports but just seem to follow them at a distance. I'm not so knowledgeable on these sorts of things but didn't the Americans have a large escort when they shipped units off for operation Torch?

Maybe what should happen is that if a convoy raiding battle occurs, some ships (probably DDs or Cls at most) appear with the convoys to defend them, and the rest of the fleet catches up upon hearing that an enemy surface fleet has been encountered. Submarines should have a chance to get inside the escort "net" and have shots at the convoys without having to go through the screening escorts - this could be a factor that is improved via doctrines and admiral traits.

Or perhaps they should introduce the generic "escort" unit from Hoi3 to represent frigates, armed merchant cruisers, patrol carriers and the like and have them appear in convoy raiding battles automatically. They would be more expensive than convoys so you couldn't just spam them, but maybe there would be a way to get it balanced...

 

[Meglok]

Hi,

my Brasilian Carrier Taskforce (pimped III) consisted of two CVs with 30fg/25db/25/tb each and screens of 3 Tier I CLs and 5 Tier I DDs.

Twice I encountered enemy surface raiders (British DDs I and CL I) attacking divisions en route to Africa.

My admiral engaged in rain and the DDs encountered as usual very fast in 'the middle'. While British DDs were shredding my transports my DDs didn't do anything but sitting in the 'middle' of the battle info screen.

Transports were on retreat, DDs watched as they sunk. My Taskforce had green check for fire. My DDs didn't show any info like waiting or retreating. They stayed directly opposite to enemy DDs until battle was finished.

Happened twice with different divisions.

Why wouldn't my DDs ever fire?
Why did they close range to enemy if they never intended to fire? (I had more DDs and more CLs)
Any idea?

Couple of suggestions.
If you know raiders are present go to search and destroy to hunt them down before you send transports across. The escort mission is more effective vs subs, not so much vs raiders that may turn out to be battle cruisers or pocket battleships.
Try to avoid sending in your carriers in bad weather (I know it is hard as the map sucks). Bad weather turns carriers into aircraft ferrys with no guns and no armor.
Put some land based planes over the sea zone between Brazil and Africa. Not only will all planes join in a naval battle but CAS and NAV will engage raiders on their own.
Get more screens. I know, it's Brazil and NIC is at a premium. But DDs and CLs are eggs shells with hammers, they will die in droves. If you are going to invest in CVs ( a questionable choice with Brazil) you had better invest in a bunch of DDs and CLs and have better than Level I tech.

About CVs with Brazil. That is a huge investment in both NIC, MIC, resources, and research for Brazil, probably more than Brazil can afford even if she controls all of South America. You can save a bunch of time, effort, resources, and research by going for a surface fleet, fighters, CAS, and NAV and still control the passage to Africa. The only thing Brazil needs is to reliably move to West Africa. From there you can walk to Europe and Asia. Just an observation from previous Brazil play.

 

[GS_Guderian]

Hi,

thx for advice. I should mention that this happened in a mp game. The alliance of Turkey, Persia and Brasil is taking over the (AI) world. And I have the duty to rule the seas.
Therefore I build these carriers, which work
perfectly in general terms. AI is happy to feed her navy.

Nevertheless it stunned me, that same tech lvl DDs and CLs didn't feel like helping their comrades at all.