Has anyone ever sank a Carrier with anything other than air power?

[Secret Master]

Well, I can't speak for individual DD names, but the naming and icon conventions usually work for me.

The 1936 UK start has these ships in the queue (crappy though they may be).

Both the subs and DD icons have multiple ships. And they are named "flotilla."

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

The contries I play with those flotillas have names; BB/BC/CA/CV/CL usually also have names. Paradox also remenbered to include a "pride of the fleet" in this game. The pride of the fleet is usually only one ship not a flotilla. I wont argue this, especially with you. But IMHO what I have just told you is inconsistent with a ship in HOI3 being a flotilla instaead of just one ship.

Edit: Even if DDs are flotillas and heavier ships just one ship, I am sure the next time I stack a bunch of them together someone will jump on me saying how that should not be allowed to happen. Even if at Jutland there were around ~70 heavy ships in one "sea zone".

 

[Secret Master]

Only DDs and subs are flotillas for the purposes of HOI3. Capital ships are single ships.

As for Jutland being doomstacks, the UK did have 28 WWI era dreadnoughts at the battle (BBs for our purposes) in addition to 9 BCs and 8 CAs.

 

[nimrod123]

You said this:



And I showed you the Battle of Jutland. Historically there were a much higher number of ships in that battle and they did not collide nor sunk themselves to oblivion. BTW where did you see written that in TFH a BB/BC/DD etc. (some have names too: “Arizona”, “Hood"…) means that it is not actually a single ship but a squadron of at least 3 ships?

DD's are flotilias of 5, that why most of the stats line up with CL's

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Only DDs and subs are flotillas for the purposes of HOI3. Capital ships are single ships.

As for Jutland being doomstacks, the UK did have 28 WWI era dreadnoughts at the battle (BBs for our purposes) in addition to 9 BCs and 8 CAs.

DD's are flotilias of 5, that why most of the stats line up with CL's

Thanks for clarifying that for me. When I mentioned around 70 Heavy ships I was accounting for all heavy ships on that battle (RNs and IGN).
Since a single BB (Iowa-class) can have roughly the same amount of displacement of around 21DD (Fletcher class), I still consider ok to have 35DD flotillas in a "sea zone". BTW the displacement of the Yamato was the equivalent of around 35 (!) Fletcher class DDs.
Thanks again!

 

[spacemanspiff]

Ok, so carrier fleets exhibit strange and somewhat unexplainable behavior, and superstacks of ships are effective because at some point their number of ships somehow supersedes the stacking penalty.

 

[Secret Master]

Thanks for clarifying that for me. When I mentioned around 70 Heavy ships why was accounting for all heavy ships on that battle (RNs and IGN).
Since a single BB (Iowa-class) can have roughly the same amount of displacement of around 21DD (Fletcher class), I still consider ok to have 35DD flotillas in a "sea zone". BTW the displacement of the Yamato was the equivalent of around 35 (!) Fletcher class DDs.
Thanks again!

Yep, and I think SHBB costs are comparable in terms of IC.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Ok, so carrier fleets exhibit strange and somewhat unexplainable behavior, and superstacks of ships are effective because at some point their number of ships somehow supersedes the stacking penalty.

Nope. From my experience it is the speed of the ship not the amount. A huge stack of BB are useless against CV because they are slow; a doom stack of BC/CA/CL are also almost as useful as BBs. 10 DD (or less) flotillas with very fast engines can close in and sink/damage CVs and their escorts but they would be easy prey for normal SAG; this is why I stacked 35DDs, I needed the firepower to be able to fight heavier surface ships.

Edit: In TFH the stacking penalty is capped at 80% (handicap in ship positioning), with a very good admiral and up-to-date doctrines those positioning problems can dramatically be reduced. This means that despite the huge stacking penalty the ships can still fight with optimal positioning (therefore reducing or eliminating friendly fire).

 

[spacemanspiff]

Edit: In TFH the stacking penalty is capped at 80% (handicap in ship positioning), with a very good admiral and up-to-date doctrines those positioning problems can dramatically be reduced. This means that despite the huge stacking penalty the ships can still fight with optimal positioning (therefore reducing or eliminating friendly fire).

Ah-Ha! I don't have TFH yet so thanks for the clarification.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Ah-Ha! I don't have TFH yet so thanks for the clarification.

You are welcome.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Well I have finished my tests! No combination of ships comes close to a pure DD fleet if you want to hunt down CVs. At least 50% of the engagements one or more CVs are sunk or heavily damaged. The next best combination is BC+DD but its effectiveness is appalling compared to a pure DD fleet. BB+DD or CA+DD are a waste of time and effort. Good hunting folks!

 

[corazhor]

barros - i believe you lose the effects of the admiral with over 30 ships in the fleet. I think positioning can be wholly ignored; it doesn't seem to impact combat nearly as much as ship technology, and the target choice/target chance doctrines. I don't think admiral traits help much either. I wish i could do some tests to confirm that admirals have minimal or non-existant impact - could you rerun your tests with no admiral commanding the fleet and see how it goes?

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

barros - i believe you lose the effects of the admiral with over 30 ships in the fleet. I think positioning can be wholly ignored; it doesn't seem to impact combat nearly as much as ship technology, and the target choice/target chance doctrines. I don't think admiral traits help much either. I wish i could do some tests to confirm that admirals have minimal or non-existant impact - could you rerun your tests with no admiral commanding the fleet and see how it goes?

Ship technology is important especially main armament, engine and AA; higher hull is good too but not mandatory because less hull lets us stack more ships, therefore more firepower (…). The doctrines are also very important but believe me when I say that Admirals have a huge impact. If you are lucky to have one with potential to reach level 9, when he reaches there it is goodbye friendly fire!!!

Edit: Maybe it is a bug in the game but I have noticed that after the admiral reaches at least level 8 with up-to-date doctrines FF is not a problem anymore (even in a 100CLs stack).

Edit 2: Some screeshots of positioning with and without a level 6 admiral​

Good doctrines:

Level 6 admiral:

Effective positioning:

Same fleet, effective positioning without that level 6 admiral:

 

[DazKaz]

Excellent stuff Barros thank you.

So what I need to do is to engage with 2 fleets. One standard CTF, or SAG and another fleet of say 10 well tech engine DD for running down the damaged CV.

I think this scenario would satisfy my thirst for blood and my need for a bit or realism/role play.

Thank you again for all the testing, and to everyone else that has contributed to the thread.

The attached transport invasion problem in my testing still needs to be addressed mind.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Excellent stuff Barros thank you.

So what I need to do is to engage with 2 fleets. One standard CTF, or SAG and another fleet of say 10 well tech engine DD for running down the damaged CV.

I think this scenario would satisfy my thirst for blood and my need for a bit or realism/role play.

Thank you again for all the testing, and to everyone else that has contributed to the thread.

The attached transport invasion problem in my testing still needs to be addressed mind.

You are welcome. The only combined surface fleet that is able to do damage/sink CVs are BC+DD but it only happened =<10% of the time while a pure DD fleet scored in 50% of the battles (with enough BC in range they toast the CV). But yeah that would work or with any SAG/CTF after dealing with the heaviest ships you could detach the DD and go after the CVs and their escorts.
BTW TP are not a problem for the DDs, enough of them wreck everything! This is a screenshot of the aftermath of a French invasion on the capital of this test game (after sending all my 63 DD their way):

Ps: it looks like the invasion is still going on but it is not.

 

[DazKaz]

BTW TP are not a problem for the DDs, enough of them wreck everything! This is a screenshot of the aftermath of a French invasion on the capital of this test game (after sending all my 63 DD their way):

Ps: it looks like the invasion is still going on but it is not.

Yeah but they should not be a problem for for any ship with enogh fire power to take care of their escorts, while trying to land troops on a beach.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Yeah but they should not be a problem for for any ship with enogh fire power to take care of their escorts, while trying to land troops on a beach.

Like I said before I agree 100%. That looks like a design flaw/bug.

 

[Secret Master]

Hmmm, looks like a bug to me. I though all that swarm of screen nonsense had been taken care of back in SF. I need to do some testing.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Hmmm, looks like a bug to me. I though all that swarm of screen nonsense had been taken care of back in SF. I need to do some testing.

With all due respect a much bigger nonsense in HOI3 TFH naval warfare is the de facto invulnerability of any TP/LC/AS/DD/CL attached to a CTF and CVs themselves (with the exception of air power ). The only surface ships that are able to do some damage/sink CVs, their escorts and attached transports are ahead of time DDs because they are ~50% faster than CVs. Even the very fast CLs cannot catch them unless they reach the same speed advantage over the CV (L); for this to happen the CV(L) must be very old or the CL engine needs to be ~8 years ahead time.

Edit: Because of this it is now a very good idea to put your green admirals in charge of a single CV instead of a sub (but that CV must have air cover).

 

[Big Nev]

Hmmm, looks like a bug to me. I though all that swarm of screen nonsense had been taken care of back in SF. I need to do some testing.

Yeah, whilst I agree that IRL two or three hundred destroyers would "wreck everything", they couldn't all get in at once & would end-up torpedoing & ramming each other if they tried.

I’m not sure capping a stacking penalty is such a good idea. If we want larger fleets to be effective, reduce the stacking penalty slightly or increase the effect of the admiral, but I think a cap has been proven a bad idea as it re-introduces doom stacks.

While doom stacks worked IRL, the very important point is that only a very small proportion of a fleet of 50+ ships (5 CVs, 5 CLs & 8 DDs) & would be able to engage an enemy.