Germania Rules the Waves?

[legionare117]

Coming from a family of sailors (my great-grandfather was a junior officer on the SMS Tegetthoff during WW1, but that is a story for another time), and as such I have always had a fascination with naval warfare. The Kriegsmarine has always had a special place in my heart in particular, mostly due to their use of submarine warfare. What I have been wondering for some time is whether or not in Hearts of Iron IV, the Kriegsmarine could stand a chance as a surface blue water navy? It would undoubtedly be sub-optimal and take far too many resources away from the army, but I believe it would be incredibly satisfying to see the Royal Navy knocked down a peg or two.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Of course you could focus on building an large navy. That is not reccomended early game of course, since you have to focus on the ground an air early on. Once you secured the eastern and western flank you can of course focus on expanding your naval industry, especially with all those dockyards and coastline you captured. If things dont go as planned on mainland europe you probably should consider moving to an uboat fleet of course. Preventing resources from colonies and trade getting to britain will be key to slow down their production. Having air superiority would be crucial if you want to stand a chance against the british navy aswell of course. If the axis win on mainland europe and can delay US intervention as long as possible they have quiet an huge potential, especially if you conquer those colonies and secure tons of much needed resources.

 

[Victor Cortez]

The problem I see with a "Germania Rules the Waves" strategy is that it doesn't simply mean to have a large navy, it also means to have bases in strategic areas.
If Germany has s big fleet but no way to secure ports on the Atlantic cost, what good is that navy?

 

[shri]

Better to build a few good ships (one main fleet + one reserve fleet, the nucleus of this fleet is your existing ships + a few more), a strong U boat fleet and strengthen your land based aircraft so much so that the RN fears entering the English channel.

 

[Aries666]

I just hope that in HOI4 the German player has to make a significant investment in their navy in order in invade Britain. In HOI3 it was far too easy, just build enough BB and DD to keep the fleet in a fight long enough to unload your troops and then reinforce the 1st wave once you have a port. Even worse were para-drops onto a port followed up with quick taxiing of troops over the channel, though solving that is a different problem.

 

[LordOfWar16]

@Aries666 since the whole system has been greatly improved it is alot harder to invade britian. Especailly due to the fact that they made the british channel wider for gameplay purpose. You cant simply put your fleet on one tile and quickly let your transports invade while they distract the british navy anymore. Fleets are large spreads (depending on mission and doctrine) of ships in one or multiple sea regions now, which consist of multiple seatiles. That means intercepting the enemies transport has an much larger chance. Other than that you can no longer built battleships in munich or vienna like you basicly could with the old "IC" system. You have to build them at docks at the coast, which of course kinda limits you a bit. I'd say before you didnt conquer france there is little point in actively enlarging your fleet, especially since you will lack alot of resources anyway.

 

[Aries666]

All good stuff, the whole naval aspect needed improving really. My other major pet peeve was needing to engage a fleet 10-20 times before you started sinking ships. You would think that having done enough damage to a fleet that you force it to retreat you would sink a couple of ships as they make their escape.

 

[Sorime]

I just hope that in HOI4 the German player has to make a significant investment in their navy in order in invade Britain. In HOI3 it was far too easy, just build enough BB and DD to keep the fleet in a fight long enough to unload your troops and then reinforce the 1st wave once you have a port. Even worse were para-drops onto a port followed up with quick taxiing of troops over the channel, though solving that is a different problem.

I totally agree with you but I think I should still add that when you don't want to be gamey you should start by not using gamey tactics

 

[Adonnus]

I totally agree with you but I think I should still add that when you don't want to be gamey you should start by not using gamey tactics

I wonder: would having a large fleet of CV's and BB's in the channel prevent reinforcement from convoys by itself? Or would you need to get DD's and CL's to do convoy raiding?

 

[LordOfWar16]

I wonder: would having a large fleet of CV's and BB's in the channel prevent reinforcement from convoys by itself? Or would you need to get DD's and CL's to do convoy raiding?

all ships can do convoy raiding. The problem is finding and intercepting them of course. You could of course add some destroyers and cruisers to the zone to quickly patrol in the area and spot convoys and your battleships and planes from the carriers will try to come to aid them. Overall, when an convoy is attacked it creates an naval battle, just as if 2 navies attacked each other. Other ships from both sides can join in of course.

 

[Adonnus]

all ships can do convoy raiding. The problem is finding and intercepting them of course. You could of course add some destroyers and cruisers to the zone to quickly patrol in the area and spot convoys and your battleships and planes from the carriers will try to come to aid them. Overall, when an convoy is attacked it creates an naval battle, just as if 2 navies attacked each other. Other ships from both sides can join in of course.

By that logic, the bigger the fleet, the bigger the detection chance?

 

[LordOfWar16]

By that logic, the bigger the fleet, the bigger the detection chance?

technicly, yes. It obviously comes down to how good your ships are at spotting and how easiely the enemy is deteced aswell. The further spread out your navy is, the more likely it is for enemies to slip through of course. You can see the spread of an fleet on the left side below the admiral portrait.

Basicly an similar deal with planes. You have to detect the enemy before you can intercept it, of course. Radar helps alot with that of course, but having sufficient planes patrolling helps alot aswell.

 

[Wyrm]

I find that the greatest aspect for making any amphibious landings more realistic is limits on port capacity, both for loading/unloading troops as well as supplies. So no more dumping 30+ divisions at a port in one hour

 

[LordOfWar16]

I find that the greatest aspect for making any amphibious landings more realistic is limits on port capacity, both for loading/unloading troops as well as supplies. So no more dumping 30+ divisions at a port in one hour

well, landing so many divisions in one port certainly will cause massive problems with supplies. It certainly would be interesting to see how it would work out if ports had an maximum capacity/hour for example. As far as we know expanding ports adds naval capacity and supply throughput to them. It is a bit odd that basicly all of japans trade seems to flows to and from one port.

Well, we will see an naval invasion soon in world war wednesday anyway. Either the germans invading the UK or the UK/US invading germany.

 

[PhroX]

The problem I see with a "Germania Rules the Waves" strategy is that it doesn't simply mean to have a large navy, it also means to have bases in strategic areas.
If Germany has s big fleet but no way to secure ports on the Atlantic cost, what good is that navy?

Yeah, though even with Atlantic ports Germany's navy would still be limited somewhat. Ideally, you'd want bases further afield than that, though to some extent you can make up for that if you can get Japan into the war as soon as possible. Getting to a position of beating the RN in a straight up fight in the North Sea is not really feasible. But if you can threaten the Empire, then you can force the RN to redeploy and weaken itself locally. This was really the issue the Kaiserliche Marine had - despite all their power, they had no way of projecting that power anywhere useful (and in some ways, a big part of why Germany was Britians "rival" in the early 20th century - the latter chose a "rival" that wasn't really a threat to them).

 

[Denkt]

Convoy raiding should be much more potent in HOI4 as the convoys are sunk, what they carried are lost.

We don't know how naval invasions work but maybe the enemy navy can intercept your navy that convoys your invasion force, each convoy sunk could be like 500 manpower + their equipment gone. In that case even a smaller navy can be a huge problem if you wan't do to an amphibious invasion.

A strong German navy can potentially make an allied invasion of Europe an impossibility which is a very big deal as the allies can potentially field a stronger army then Soviets. Yes it is risky to invest alot of resources in the navy but everything is risky.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Convoy raiding should be much more potent in HOI4 as the convoys are sunk, what they carried are lost.

We don't know how naval invasions work but maybe the enemy navy can intercept your navy that convoys your invasion force, each convoy sunk could be like 500 manpower + their equipment gone. In that case even a smaller navy can be a huge problem if you wan't do to an amphibious invasion.

A strong German navy can potentially make an allied invasion of Europe an impossibility which is a very big deal as the allies can potentially field a stronger army then Soviets. Yes it is risky to invest alot of resources in the navy but everything is risky.

we actually know how naval invasions work. Once you execute the naval invasion the troops will be shipped by convois to their destiny. If intercepted they create, just as with regular convois, an naval battle, in which military vessels can rush to join. If the convois get sunk, so are the troops of course. Best case would be that the enemy ships are intercepted before they can attack the convois of course.

You better have naval superiority before even attempting to execute something as fragile as an naval invasion.

 

[Denkt]

If the ai is smart the raiding ships should target convoys in range first because that is the thing of value. Even if you lose all your ships but take out like half their invasion force, you probably won that engagement strategically.

 

[trionwolf]

to an extent i disagree with your presumption that you cant supply an invasion force on a beach head or from port, the best example of this is Normandy were they supplied the entire operation until the broke out of the hedgerows from artificial "mulberry" harbors. And as to unloading divisons to support the assault it would depend on Size of elements + ships and available landing scraft. 30 divisions in an hour is a little preposterous but over the course of a day, i could see that if not more.

 

[CrasherZZ]

the Kriegsmarine could stand a chance as a surface blue water navy?

Intriguing question. Italy and Japan were natural allies to Germany because they had the capacity to draw off and tie up the some of the RN. IMO, if Italy and Japan can do a better than historical job of neutralizing the RN, then Germany could get enough breathing space to build up a blue water navy.

The real question is, should it even try to do that because the SU is really the main threat to Germany? The cost of investing in a big navy could very well be defeat by the Russian juggernaut. On the other hand if investment in a big navy results in the prevention of a D-Day invasion, the Russians could be stopped.

It would be interesting to see how that plays out. The problem is that Germany needs a lot of help and some luck for it to happen.