Germany, taking on the world with Battleships?

[froglegs]

It is my experience that the best non-CV surface fleet to use constists of 8 CA, I CVL,8 DL, 1 DD for 18 ship fleets and 14 CA, 1 CVL, 14 CL, 1 DD for 30 ship fleets.

Be sure to turn on "force engagement".

This fleet is cheap, fast, and effective. For a country like Germany it requires no researching of CVs and the German naval doctrine is not designed for CVs.

Damaged CA will repair ~twice as fast as BBs, BCs, and CVs. This fleet will close on enemy fleets faster than a BB fleet and can retreat from a bad situation as well. It also does well against enemy BB/BC fleets.

If you expect to engage enemy CV fleets, put it on night engagement rather than day or both. Assign an admiral to it that is a tactician and with a rating of 4 or better. This CA fleet works well for Japanese and American fleets as well.

The CLs are preferred over DDs because of greater gunnery and the i DD is just in case of SS engagement. Also, put radar on all ships as well as the normal scout planes -- put radar on the DDs.. Radar will help you close on CV fleets at night.

CA + radar, scout plane, fire control
CL + radar, scout plane
DD + radar

You can't shoot what you can't see!

 

[Pang Bingxun]

Using one DD seems wrong. If using DD you should only use DD and use them as DD-ASW.

 

[froglegs]

DD with either ASW or radar is a nickel-dime thing (as in don't sweat the nicke-dime horse s__t). That means it don't really matter. I use radar since it it cheap and I don't have to build a line of both attachments. By the time you get to a class 5 DD, the ASW value is high enough already and even class 4 is good enough.

The only thing I sometimes change is to replace the spott plane on the CA with AA -- and that would only be if I was expecting to see a lot of enemy CVs.

Basically, bad weather and night time is your best friend in my CA fleet battles.

The MUST thing is to have forced battle turned on. Otherwise you will get retreated from a lot of battles that you really should win. You need to close, not run.

 

[Mr_B0narpte]

The MUST thing is to have forced battle turned on. Otherwise you will get retreated from a lot of battles that you really should win. You need to close, not run.

I've had that happen so much to me. Seems that carriers, regardless of the situation, scare the living daylights out of all enemy ships (that aren't themselves carriers).

 

[Dichromate]

It is my experience that the best non-CV surface fleet to use constists of 8 CA, I CVL,8 DL, 1 DD for 18 ship fleets and 14 CA, 1 CVL, 14 CL, 1 DD for 30 ship fleets.

Be sure to turn on "force engagement".

This fleet is cheap, fast, and effective. For a country like Germany it requires no researching of CVs and the German naval doctrine is not designed for CVs.

Damaged CA will repair ~twice as fast as BBs, BCs, and CVs. This fleet will close on enemy fleets faster than a BB fleet and can retreat from a bad situation as well. It also does well against enemy BB/BC fleets.

If you expect to engage enemy CV fleets, put it on night engagement rather than day or both. Assign an admiral to it that is a tactician and with a rating of 4 or better. This CA fleet works well for Japanese and American fleets as well.

The CLs are preferred over DDs because of greater gunnery and the i DD is just in case of SS engagement. Also, put radar on all ships as well as the normal scout planes -- put radar on the DDs.. Radar will help you close on CV fleets at night.

CA + radar, scout plane, fire control
CL + radar, scout plane
DD + radar

You can't shoot what you can't see!

This is decent for killing carriers, but how does it do against fleets with battleships?

It's not such a situation with the AI, but I could imagine a scenario where several such fleets could be defeated in detail by fleets with a concentration of BBs. Any idea of how much damage you'd manage to inflict with say, your 18 ship fleet against 6 BB's, a Cvl or two and 8-10 light cruisers and/or destroyers? I kind of have a feeling that with good admirals you'd have a fairly good chance of smashing even the 30 ship variety with relatively minor losses, since a player will tend to do things like maximize their fleets speed by leaving obsolete ships at home, whereas the AI sometimes doesn't.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

As a rule of tumb BC are not made to engage BB. BB kills BC, CV kills BB, BC kills CV. At least more or less. CV ist the best choice, at least in the long run and if the weather is fine.

 

[Dichromate]

As a rule of tumb BC are not made to engage BB. BB kills BC, CV kills BB, BC kills CV. At least more or less. CV ist the best choice, at least in the long run and if the weather is fine.

While that's true on absolute average, the difference between BC and BB is small enough that luck, unit experience, doctrines and the skill and traits of your commander are going to matter a hell of a lot as well.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

BC is fast and has big guns. BBs has big guns and a big armour. See defence of BB is likely to matter against BC.

 

[froglegs]

This is decent for killing carriers, but how does it do against fleets with battleships?

It's not such a situation with the AI, but I could imagine a scenario where several such fleets could be defeated in detail by fleets with a concentration of BBs. Any idea of how much damage you'd manage to inflict with say, your 18 ship fleet against 6 BB's, a Cvl or two and 8-10 light cruisers and/or destroyers? I kind of have a feeling that with good admirals you'd have a fairly good chance of smashing even the 30 ship variety with relatively minor losses, since a player will tend to do things like maximize their fleets speed by leaving obsolete ships at home, whereas the AI sometimes doesn't.

My 18 ship CA fleet also does well against BB fleets -- again -- forced engagement on, radar equiped CA's and screens. I am not certain, but it seems to me at times that fleet speed effects gunnery damage. In the old Sea Power game from 40+ years ago, it was harder to hit a fast surface ship than a slower one. I have personally many times beaten a BB fleet that seemed much better than what I had -- but upon occasion things do go badly -- and that is to be expected. Even in a losing battle the CA fleet almost always does more damage than it recieves where damage = IC repair points X repair days (where a sunk ship is a total loss of ICXdays).

Consider history -- the dreadnought was a new version of the "ship of the line". The "ship of the line" was seldom used in battle except when either blockading a port of breaking a blockade of a port. In a fixed battle a fleet line moved at the speed of the slowest ship. A "ship of the line" was useless on the high seas. It could not outrun anything. Frigates were the prime ships on the high seas. The CA became the new frigate and the BC was creasted to be a CA killer. Reading about WW1 you find that the construction of CA's was cut because those funds went to BC construction. This really hurt UK at war start because they had all their BC at home for the great fleet battle like Jutland that those ships were never designed to fignt in and the Germans had CA fleet all over the world that UK had trouble dealing with. Another thing -- way too much of ship construction was about "bragging rights" rather than utility.

Even when the Iowa class of so-called battleships was constructed, they were designed first for speed. The Iowa had equal guns to say the Alabama (although its 16 inch guns were an earlier 1922 version since they were lighter and took up less space) and actually less armour overall. Normally , all design improvements for a BB mean either bigger guns or more armour or both. The Iowa had neither. I suggest that going to a equal at best gun and less armour but greater speed makes the Iowa a battlecruiser rather than a battleship.

I digress!

Try the CA fleet -- you will like it!

 

[Commander666]

Even when the Iowa class of so-called battleships was constructed, they were designed first for speed.

Excellent points. And I think installing modern Tomahawk cruise missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles on all four Iowas in the 1980s very definitely attests to their true BC design. No other "battleships" survived technological progress.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

In terms of AoD the latest battleships have speed 30 as have the latest battlecruisers and the latest CA. An exception are super heavy battleships.

 

[froglegs]

In terms of AoD the latest battleships have speed 30 as have the latest battlecruisers and the latest CA. An exception are super heavy battleships.

Ship speed in the game is basically all screwed up.

For most nations all class 2 DD's and above, all class 2 Cl's and above, all class 2 CA's and above, and allclass 2 CV's and above should do at leats 30 knots. The Wasp and 1 or 2 of the Japanes CV's did only 29 knots. All class 2 BC's and above should do 30 knots or more.

The Iowa's should really do 33 knots, but I would give them 30 just to make it an even number.

Since most ships are held back in speed, I would drop class 5 BB's to 27 knots and consider Iowas to be class 5 BC's.

The two navies that should be the "norm" for deciding ship speed are Japan and USA since they had the most of the modern ships and that was where the action was.

 

[AdamPA1006]

Well an update, I kinda finished my game, or atleast the naval part. Took down all of UK and US fleets, with minimal losses myself. Remember this is no CVs, but using super heavy battleships. I had a great time and it made the naval combat atleast a little harder so it was more fun.

Final tally for Friedrich Der Grosse, Frederick would have been proud. This is mostly all US kills.

CV-12
BB-6
BC-0
CA-7
CL-6
DD-17
TP-36

Total-84

 

[Rommel41]

So in this game I am now playing, which started off as a multi-player game with my friend as the US and I as Germany, I had to build a navy from scratch...starting in 1939!

So he and I started the GC 1936 on normal\normal to build a German/American war-machine that would take on Russia, the Allies, China and Japan! However, he had to quit as the war started Sept 1st, 1939. I let the game sit for a few months and then picked it back up when I decided to try to win as Germany anyway. I had given the US most of my techs at that point and he had geared the country to build a HUGE navy and large air corps. I was tasked with the army for world conquest, and I had a decent Luftwaffe. So I had no navy build except for a 2x 10 build of IV subs (which were going at 0%) and had not bothered with techs for navy either. Things were fairly bad for Sealion or any hopes of America!

I persevered and took on a decisive build of BC V's and 2x LC IV's (soon V's), but they were not going to be ready before the winter of 1940 and the Bismark wasn't scheduled to launch before May 1941. The first (Lvl II!) carrier I launched was on February 13, 1943. I had MC of the Italian navy during this time and won several victories and defeats against the Royal Navy with most of Italy's heavy hitter's at the bottom of the Med and Bay of Biscay by 1942. My submarines and surface fleet stayed in port from 1940-1942. I managed to build a SAG of 1xBB IV's, 2x BC V's, 2x BC IV's, 2x CA IV's, 1x CA V's, 6x CL V's and 4x DD IV's by July of 1942, but it still only sortied a few times and soundly thrashed a few DD's and CL's as well as a hand-full of CA's, but the US carriers and the Royal Navy never showed their muscle.

Later though, in 1944, the US finally started launching carriers against the European and Afirkan coast's, and I intercepted two with the same fleet above (adding another BB IV, BB V, 2x CA V's and 4 CL V-VI's) and I sank a BB and a II or III CV, but then I had two battle's against the UK in which this fleet sank 2+55 and then, with late arrival of my CV fleet, I crushed their main fleet with 25+2 losses! The BB's, BC's and CL's did most of the fighting and I lost 0 ships (Huge repair bill on most everything but the Tirpitz) but the CV's showed up and magically sank all the big ships I had fought to the death against! Several months of battles against British and French supper-stacks and the following two years facing off against American carrier groups left me standing tall, but by July of 1947 I've had to give up on the the BB fleets or BC fleets of being able to take on the, now massive, CV fleet's the US has operating in the North Atlantic. Of course this is also because my own Carrier's are starting to roll off the line and I can go toe-to-toe with them.

Total account of enemy ships lost to Kriegsmarine action by May 8, 1947.
Capitals 67 / Screens 164 / Subs 35 / Transports 30 / Convoys 798 / Escorts 133.

Total AXIS naval losses from enemy action by May 8, 1947. German share of losses in parenthesis '()'.
Capitals 23 (0)/ Screens 67 (2)/ Subs 46 (21)/ Transports 62 (0)/ Convoys 721 (278)/ Escorts 60 (34).

About half of the enemy losses are from my CV's, but the old battle-wagons are still taking huge numbers into the history books with them! A much prouder end than a nuclear testing target!

 

[Emmanuel_M]

As a side question : is the single DD so usefull in your SAG suggestion ?
I think that CL only increases gunnery (important for this fleet composition) and cuts the "research" cost, while having no many problems against subs. Are high tech subs THAT good ?

As for CAs and subs "theoretical" efficiency please remember that the Red Fleet didn't rely on CVs during the cold war, and that historically BBs/BCs were made obsolete more by torpedoes then missilse (which allowed lgihter ship to have almost the same gunpower as heavier capital ships) far more than by CVs (which were still the main part of USA combat surface fleet and worlwide force projection doctrine, though). The main superiority of CVs above other ship classes should be their ability to carrier strike on LAND airports.

 

[Mr_B0narpte]

Ship speed in the game is basically all screwed up.

This is because naval combat in AoD does not reflect the reality of the situation, in other words naval combat in AoD is "all screwed up". This is particularly true of submarines, given the AoD engine they are either all powerful (by increasing their sea attack value) or inherently weak. This is because AoD naval combat does not, or cannot, include submarines submerging. I acknowledge that this is somewhat represented by the 'visibility' statistic, but one the submarine is in battle, this has little to no effect AFAIK. With DDs having a higher sub attack then the submarine's sea attack, and with the DD's higher speed, the submarines become sitting ducks that just cannot 'run away' as they were able to do IRL by submerging.

IRL the Allies needed a combination of a strict and comprehensive convoy system, air attacks, and screens escorting the convoys in order to defeat the U-boat threat. In AoD, you just need DDs. The 'hunter-killer doctrine' IRL failed, the benefits the technology gives in the game do not reflect this reality IMO. The most efficient way to get a submarine into combat was to spot it attacking a convoy, not by arbitrarily going out into the Atlantic in search of u-boats.

For most nations all class 2 DD's and above, all class 2 Cl's and above, all class 2 CA's and above, and allclass 2 CV's and above should do at leats 30 knots. The Wasp and 1 or 2 of the Japanes CV's did only 29 knots. All class 2 BC's and above should do 30 knots or more.

Therefore any further increase of DDs would be crippling for naval warfare, as submarines would become near redundant.

EDIT: Actually, visibility might affect a submarine's success during the battle. After looking at the Third Reich Mod 1.07, where subs were highly over-powered, the only change from 'vanilla' I could see was that visibility of IV submariners was reduced from 7 to 4.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

Nuclear subs were quite powerfull due to their low visibility. Use them in groups of up to 6, use forced angagement and they may sink "superior" fleets because the enemy does not manage to detect one enemy ship. If one sub is detected there is the risk that the enemy concentrate its firepower on it.

 

[Mr_B0narpte]

Ah ok thanks, so visibility does effect combat during battle. Nuclear subs have a slightly lower sea attack as their equivalent DD's sub attack, but with 1 visibility they must be deadly! What is the basic algorithm for naval combat between a submarine and a DD? I guess it's a mix of sea v. sub attack, visibility, unit speed, max firing distance, positioning and the weather.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

Donnot forget th most important one: sub detection and sea detection.

 

[Tomnoddy]

In my last 4 or 5 games I've made it a rule "never build any gun capitol ships".

But this doesn't mean you can't have a mean SAG. Disband the oldest BBs/BCs/CAs and you'll find there's plenty of life left in the more modern ships of the starting Navy, provided you kit them out with good brigades and the most modern screens you can build.

It applies to UK, Italy, USA, Germany and Japan... dunno about France since nobody plays that nation to experience naval combat!

The Tier 1 and 2 CVs and CVLs are significantly slower than surface ships of the same vintage so are at great risk of being caught in melee by these. I just use the early CV to escort my transport fleet (along with a few obsolete, slow CA or BB to soak damage) and retreat 4 hours into every battle.

I research CV from 1936 but it's usually 1939/40 at least before you can field a significant force of those 28 knot beauties! In the meantime, your trusty tier 2/3 BB/BC/CA can rule the seas. Most nations start the game with tier 4 CL already researched so I give them a nice escort of CL w/fire control and Radar brigades. Later I sometimes upgrade to Tier 5 CL with fire control and improved hull.

The CAs get Fire control, Radar and Secondary Armament. The BCs get all that plus a spotter plane, and the BBs add Capitol torpedoes when the tech is researched in 1940.

With new brigades they can stay competitive for some time.