Fleet Compositions? Trying to understand the meta

[SRhistory]

Hi all,

So i played Netherlands and Germany. Both where most up to landwar and air landwar. Now playing with UK and trying to understand navy war. I checked the internet for Fleet Compositions but it's hard to find and some guide are really ??? me. Hope someone can help me out on this and tell me what kind of Navy Fleet Compositions he/she takes and why? Trying to understand the navy war and how to do this. UK got a lot of ships but how to put them together? In HOI3 it was easy ... but in HOI4 well it really puzzled me. For example should i combine CV and CA or BB? Because in HOI3 you never did this. Hope someone can help me out on this and give some advise.

 

[MR2]

I found the following to be helpful when playing a major power in offense mode.

1600 Naval Bombers, then 1600 Med Bombers. 3200 Scout Planes (to find the enemy)
Hunting Convoys - Subs; delete the type I because they use 200 personnel and type II use only 80. Max engines. Max Torp and torp upgrades, Snorkel - no radar! Fleets of 10 set to High Engage role.
Strike Mission - fleets of six CA, CL, DD set to Medium Engage role. These need to be your fastest ships! You can use BC if you want. The key is speed. Torps on CA and BC is a waste of a slot. BC/CA need AA and secondary guns. Level II guns if you can keep the speed up. Level I armor is sufficient because of the need for speed. Put Observation Planes on your Escorts!
Convoy Escort/Patrol Mission - fleets of 50 LC and 100 DD/DE (Destroyer Escort). You want Sonar, Torps, AA, Radar; Observation planes on the CL and Depth Charges on the DE. Set to Medium Engage role.
Invasion Support Mission - Six BB or five BB and one CV plus six CL and DD. Your biggest worry is defending against aircraft, torps swarms, and subs.

An interesting technique I've been testing is deploying Cruiser Subs in a Patrol Mission set to Medium Engage. Minimal Torps, max fuel, Radar and Snorkel for areas that are unsafe for surface fleets and inaccessible by air. Jury is still out on that one.

MOO YMMV (meaning, it works for me).

 

[desphorin]

deathstack your every surface ships while making sure your screening ratio is healthy (minimum is 1:3 but doing 1:4 will allow more buffer for lost ships and poor coordination). You lost some stats from poor coordination but the penalty is very tiny. You also spread damage taken more so you lost less ships (damaged ships got targeted more but if they are escaping the effect is reduced).

If you need patrol, just split 10 DD out to a fleet and split into 10 task forces since spotting is averaged per task force.

 

[el nora]

1600 Naval Bombers, then 1600 Med Bombers. 3200 Scout Planes (to find the enemy)

that is far too many scout planes. you definitely dont need to be making that many. shift that production to making more bombers. if you have the tech and range for naval bombers to be effective, then use navs, they have more damage output. if you dont, then use tacs, better to have a few planes with high mission efficiency than to have more without. mixing them both is a waste of research that could be spent on getting more tech.

Hunting Convoys - Subs; delete the type I because they use 200 personnel and type II use only 80. Max engines. Max Torp and torp upgrades, Snorkel - no radar! Fleets of 10 set to High Engage role.

ss 2 dont cost 80 manpower. all subs are 200. i dunno if i would delete the ss 1, sure they die quick, but they usually deal some damage before they go. their mere existence is helpful simply because you didnt pay for them.

Strike Mission - fleets of six CA, CL, DD set to Medium Engage role. These need to be your fastest ships! You can use BC if you want. The key is speed. Torps on CA and BC is a waste of a slot. BC/CA need AA and secondary guns. Level II guns if you can keep the speed up. Level I armor is sufficient because of the need for speed. Put Observation Planes on your Escorts!

aa is a waste of a slot. armor is a waste of a slot. secondaries are a waste of a slot. floatplanes are a waste of a slot on damage dealers. and why on medium risk?

Convoy Escort/Patrol Mission - fleets of 50 LC and 100 DD/DE (Destroyer Escort). You want Sonar, Torps, AA, Radar; Observation planes on the CL and Depth Charges on the DE. Set to Medium Engage role.

those fleets are split into taskforces of 5 cl and 10 dd each? convoy escort and patrol want vastly different ships with different stats. the dds low detection ruins your cls spotting. better to just use single ship taskforces for patrol set to never engage. and the cl arent doing anything against any dd that come convoy raiding, better just use pure dd taskforces set to low engagement.

Invasion Support Mission - Six BB or five BB and one CV plus six CL and DD. Your biggest worry is defending against aircraft, torps swarms, and subs.

why even have a fleet for invasion support? and do 5 bb even have enough attack to provide the full shore bombardment bonus? using cvcas is smart for naval invasions, but you have to manually set it up, the naval invasion support mission doest use them to support marine landings.

 

[Sledjer]

aa is a waste of a slot. armor is a waste of a slot. secondaries are a waste of a slot. floatplanes are a waste of a slot on damage dealers. and why on medium risk?

When you say AA and secondaries are a waste of a slot, does that also mean they are a waste on the slots that can only be them? I assumed secondaries at least were worth it for the IC because of the hull tax.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

When you say AA and secondaries are a waste of a slot, does that also mean they are a waste on the slots that can only be them? I assumed secondaries at least were worth it for the IC because of the hull tax.

on capitals and carriers the AA slot is definitely worth it, and worth upgrading as well. otherwise no, it's not worth it since fleet AA is pretty useless. maybe on your spotting cruisers and TP boats, in case your capitals die, since sometimes that's the win condition

the secondary gun does nothing on carriers. but otherwise yes, it's worth having as much light attack as possible in your fleet

 

[SRhistory]

Still looking on how I should built my fleet? For example in HOI3 i had 5 BB + 5 DD as a group. What advise is there for HOI4? What works best?

 

[him_15]

I am also looking for a Naval Fleet Composition guide.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

Still looking on how I should built my fleet? For example in HOI3 i had 5 BB + 5 DD as a group. What advise is there for HOI4? What works best?

deathstack every ship except for subs, convoy raiders/experts, and spotters. put them on strike force and dock them in/near where you want to fight. split up 10 destroyers, or a mix of destroyers and spotting cruisers, and put them on patrol in said regions. with air support and/or radar just basic destroyers are plenty for spotting btw.

for convoy escorts use stacks of closer to 10 destroyers for actually killing the subs. you can make hybrid spotter/killers or have the spotters be separate, in which case make small task forces with them (spotting is averaged by task force).

for subs make stacks of 10-20, it doesn't matter a ton.

 

[Tsavong]

Do you get the ai to fight naval battles when you build a surface fleet?
I just played Germany and built a small navy (4 heavy cruiser,2 battleships and the starting fleet) . After the fall of france i set that on strike force and some spotters into the channel, but no british ships...
Then i got bored and set up naval invasions to southern britain. They actually brought some naval power to the channel then, about 7000. I had a little bit more and after a waiting for a battle for a while ,started the invasions. After my troops reached scotland my battleships still didnt fire a shot...

 

[Rumir]

"Hunting Convoys - Subs; delete the type I because they use 200 personnel and type II use only 80. "

As Germany I upgrade Subs I with mine layer equipment and use them in the Balticsea, around Norway and later in the English Channel. This helps for getting enough superiority for landing operations.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Do you get the ai to fight naval battles when you build a surface fleet?

Sometimes. It usually starts as retaliation to convoy raiding: subs get attacked by escorts, which triggers strike force to sink those escorts, which triggers another strike force to sink that one... Even if raid is over before enemy strike force arrives, you still might be able to spot it on its way... intercepting it in time is another matter.

 

[Jays298]

Do you get the ai to fight naval battles when you build a surface fleet?
I just played Germany and built a small navy (4 heavy cruiser,2 battleships and the starting fleet) . After the fall of france i set that on strike force and some spotters into the channel, but no british ships...
Then i got bored and set up naval invasions to southern britain. They actually brought some naval power to the channel then, about 7000. I had a little bit more and after a waiting for a battle for a while ,started the invasions. After my troops reached scotland my battleships still didnt fire a shot...

My theory, based on my Germany experience, is that the UK fleet gets beat up by NAVs and stuck in repairs and or spends a lot of time in the Mediterranean.

I find that if the sea goes green...maybe they are in repair. And if my sea goes red...yep...my doom stack is undergoing repairs.

I'm ok with deathstacks or whatever because it's a lot to manage land , sea, air wars.

 

[Tsavong]

My theory, based on my Germany experience, is that the UK fleet gets beat up by NAVs and stuck in repairs and or spends a lot of time in med

Thats not good when there is an prepared naval invasion and an german fleet with strike force task in the channel...
there should be an script that makes britain set every fleet to convoy inderdiction in the channel when there is an invasion.
At the moment its by far to easy to do sealion and its unimmersive to invade britain when the royal navy does nothing against that.

 

[Sbrubbles]

that is far too many scout planes

1 scout plane is already too many, since scout planes don't really do anything special for spotting navies irc. Air superiority, independent of source, does increase spotting, but may as well use whatever's lying around for that.

 

[Jays298]

Thats not good when there is an prepared naval invasion and an german fleet with strike force task in the channel...
there should be an script that makes britain set every fleet to convoy inderdiction in the channel when there is an invasion.
At the moment its by far to easy to do sealion and its unimmersive to invade britain when the royal navy does nothing against that.

Its too easy to Invade UK and Japan and it has to do with AI not putting enough reserve troops back home.

But even as a player I'd prefer to let the invaders land rather than lose a battleship or two or a carrier. Plus the default AI behavior even as a human player is that the force will not return to mission while repairs are needed.

That's when I'd like to have secondary forces turn from scouting to convoy raiding.

But I think that's just the reality of the situation.

Especially if Germany does port strikes in the channel plus NAVs over the channel and north sea.

 

[ltccone]

As Germany I upgrade Subs I with mine layer equipment and use them in the Balticsea, around Norway and later in the English Channel. This helps for getting enough superiority for landing operations.

That's exactly what I do!

 

[Tsavong]

Its too easy to Invade UK and Japan and it has to do with AI not putting enough reserve troops back home.

Thats another reason. But they could stop the invasion if they just let enough ships there. Then it would be needed to game with parachuts or fight the royal navy actually, ehich would be good.
You write here something about port strikes and navs, but i never wrote sth about that nor did i build Navs in my game i described above.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

Do you get the ai to fight naval battles when you build a surface fleet?
I just played Germany and built a small navy (4 heavy cruiser,2 battleships and the starting fleet) . After the fall of france i set that on strike force and some spotters into the channel, but no british ships...
Then i got bored and set up naval invasions to southern britain. They actually brought some naval power to the channel then, about 7000. I had a little bit more and after a waiting for a battle for a while ,started the invasions. After my troops reached scotland my battleships still didnt fire a shot...

You need to spot their fleet to engage it. If your fleet isn't on always engage/engage at high risk that may be an issue too.

 

[SRhistory]

Ok, thank you all but the whole discussion is still not helping me in a fleet composition. So maybe some of my ideas and hope anyone can help me out. Ratio screen vs capital- 6:1 (because of loses during fight. I believe it should be 4:1). Screen are: DD,CL’s. Capital: CA/BB. For subs: put 10 per group for convoy rading. CV are special to my believ. Should be: 1 cv, 4 cl, 4 aa cl, 20 dd any 4 bc or bb. This is main task force. Shouting: 10 dd only on “not engage” or 1 cl with 5 dd.

Hope someone can tell me if above would work in sp or maybe it doesn’t matter at all?