Getting crushed by Japanese navy as USA - any help?

[unmerged(47610)]

ok so upgrade to 1.3b and made a mixed fleet by putting together my SAG and CTF and dropping 5 DDs and a CVL - so 6 CVs, 6 SHBBs, 3 CVLs and 15 DDs

went up against one of their 30 stacks and won... but "barely".. I sunk one CL and alot of my ships were badly damaged

 

[unmerged(105989)]

Also, check your fighter doctrines. They upgrade CAG efficiency and lethality, which means that in an even fight, the side with the best fighter doctrine will probably win. Efficient naval war requires you to research both fighter and naval doctrine paths, as well as pumping out lots of ships. The good news is that, as you know, CAGs continually upgrade, even if they're based on older carriers. Good news there.

 

[KevinG]

First of all I have version 1.3 and second of all the battle began at the range I already specified. No one closed on anyone. It opened at 24KM and finished at 24KM. WHAT I want to know is it possible for two fleets to not detect each other until they are already on top of each other, making the range at the beginning of the battle very close to begin with. Therefore giving full advantage to the big guns of the BB's.

BTW my fleet was destroyed not the other way around!

The starting distance does not matter much because no shots are fired in the first hour and after that if your CTF is up to date in doctrines and has good leaders they move outside the range of the BBs. Since that didn't happen in your situation that means that the BBs would have closed in on the CVs eventually anyway because their preferred firing range is 24 km. Even if you started 100 km apart the BBs would have closed.

As for what exactly makes BBs close in on CVs, like I said it depends on doctrines and leaders. I have also noticed, and this has been tested and confirmed by other people, that ship model makes a difference as well. Some people claim that speed makes the difference, others say its the model. Since speed goes up with model there's really no way to tell what the deciding factor is, but in my experience the latest model ships are better at getting to their optimal range if they fight older ships.

 

[KevinG]

ok so upgrade to 1.3b and made a mixed fleet by putting together my SAG and CTF and dropping 5 DDs and a CVL - so 6 CVs, 6 SHBBs, 3 CVLs and 15 DDs

went up against one of their 30 stacks and won... but "barely".. I sunk one CL and alot of my ships were badly damaged

In 1.3b you really shouldn't mix SHBBs with CVs, especially if you're going up against an AI stack of CVs AND BBs. If you go up against a mixed CV/BB fleet then 100% it will try to get in range of the CVs and NOT THE BBs. Therefore no matter what their BBs will never be in range to hit you until you sink all their CVs and vice versa.

 

[unmerged(144541)]

I know that no shots are fired in the first hour. but what doesn't add up is that my CV's (which started the battle at 24KM in the first hour), according to you should have been at about 100KM an hour later. How is that possible? And my carriers did not do that!

 

[unmerged(47610)]

so what is the best 30 stack CTF?

10 carriers, 5 CVLs, 15 DDs?