I need some navy tips

[Lautipus]

Hello fellow armchair generals, or should I say admirals?

Let me tell you what I want. Me and a couple of my friends will start a coop and I will play as Japan. I played as Japan in HoI2 where I neglected the navy and never declared war on the USA. I have some experience using the navy in HoI3 (I am not talking about my Hungarian navy now, though it is an interesting AAR), but I never used carriers.

I see that Japan has BC, should I have a BC/CL to preform as CA/CL (described bellow). But mostly, what do you suggest, or which are your pieces of advice regarding carriers, what should be the composition of their fleets?
How do you use them, are they like mobile airbases and you manage only the CAGs?
I am thankful for everything you can share with me.

As Italy I used this tactic, I had a 2-3 main fleets, each consisting of (1-2 BBs, 5-4 CAs and 6 CLs), when one fleet got engaged I ordered the others to help out, but I also had a cruiser fleet in reserve ( 5CA and 7 CL, all of them were the most up to date ships), which I send nearby and when the enemy tries to run out, I cut them down with this fleet. I had much success with this tactic, I managed to destroy the Royal Navy. Later in 1944 as me and Germany made an invasion of the USA my navy destroyed 51 ships at a loss of only 17. Making sure our landings were successful.

 

[marxianTJ]

For Japan you have *lots* of options.

Basically the way you'll want to utilize your navy first is to have a look at what you have to start.



With 3 CVs you have the makings of either 2 fairly weakerish CV fleets or 1 really strong one (some people even go for 4 CVs in a fleet, but that feels *really* expensive to me since the fleet can only be in so many places at once). They go great with Light Cruisers because of the range that light cruisers have. You can also use CVs outside of direct combat and just have them fight from some other place far away as long as you can see the enemy. The AI is very good at harassing you with nearby CVs, but keeping them far enough away to never be engaged in surface battle (one of the things it does pretty well really).

With 6 BBs of varying degrees of quality, you have the makings of 2 or more SAGs right there - for Japan the use of SAGs is 2 fold really. Either they're combat oriented fleets out floating around looking to fight and block sea lanes, or they're held in reserve for the occasion of either amphibious invasion or defense against amphibious invasion. One major drawback of CV based fleets is that, because they run away in combat, they cannot block enemy troop landings unless they completely destroy or de-org the enemy. A SAG however can prevent a landing simply by being in place (as they close to fire in combat).

The BCs can be used the same way and the 14 CAs - in short capital ship construction is not necessarily a priority for Japan from day 1 - screens are.

The type of screen you choose to focus on is the main decision you have to make as a Japan player. If you choose DDs (you will still need to work on your existing DDs for anti-submarine warfare which will be very important for Japan as you can't supply your empire without convoys) your SAGs will be better and you can position more SAGs around the Pacific to shoot things, you'll also have an easier time finding submarines - you can use any sort of capital ship for this activity, or none at all if you think your DD fleets could wander around unmolested.

CLs are stronger than DDs and have longer range allowing the fleet to cover more ground. But they are also slower, so they hurt SAGs who wish to fight CVs at some point. Even with the very best and fastest DDs it's still a tall order to catch a CV, but bigger,slower ships matched with CLs will never catch the CV fleet unless it's very old or they get very, very lucky.

You also start with a CVL - now CVLs are an interesting case, because unlike regular CVs they *can* be matched with surface ships and not cause your big ships to commit suicide on the enemy fleet.

So, if you do choose to emphasize carriers, you can still produce quite a number of CVLs that you can match with your existing surface fleet to provide them with air cover and a wider offensive range - a smoke em' if ya' got em' situation. They'll also help your CV practical quite a bit and are cheaper than full CVs so it makes sense to start out producing those first in the early game.

Or you can try to build *both* CLs and DDs. That is doable as Japan, but your army will suffer for it as your production queue will be quite clogged with ships lol.

I tend to favor SAGs (SH:BB and BB + DD) because I find them to be more fun and less intensive on the micromanagement side of things lol. But they are decided less IC efficient than building CAs or CL-zerg fleets and they are less flexible than CVs by a country mile because they can't bomb interior locations lol.

The key thing to keep in mind is to *never* mix CVs with surface capital ships, because there is a priority ranking for screens, and they will flock to the ship with the highest priority - that being CVs. So what happens in a battle is the CV runs away from the enemy fleet, and thus all of your screens will follow, if you have any other capital ships - they will move forward to engage, and thus be the *only* target in range and will be fired at by every single ship in the enemy fleet (this is why it's really easy to sink enemy capital ships when facing the USA or UK because the AI often puts BBs and CAs in with their CV fleets and thus your whole fleet is only actually firing at a very small number of targets that have no screens).

 

[Kovax]

There are two ways to use CVs. The one is to put them in a fleet with some fast escorts and send them into the province with enemy ships. If you have the aircraft set to "CAG Duty", they will fly defensive CAP for the fleet if attacked by air, and (oddly enough) the carrier will also be able to "fire" them as "guns" at extreme ranges. If your average fleet speed exceeds that of the enemy, and you're not unlucky enough to start out practically next to the enemy fleet, the enemy can never close into range to shoot back, plus your CAGs don't take damage in the normal way from enemy AA, and will generally hold up much longer.

The other way is to park the carriers in an adjacent sea province and send the CAGs on "Naval Strike" missions. This is safer for the carriers, but your CAGs will take a lot of damage due to the enemy fleet's massed AA.

If you have a CVL, it's not a "top priority" ship (lower than a BB or BC), so it won't pull all of the escorts back with it as it hangs back behind the fleet, the way a full CV would. Ideally, you'd want it to be a notch faster than your slowest capital ship, so the BBs hold the line while the CVL maintains its range to the enemy.

BTW - The "Rebase to Carrier" mission inflicts no ORG penalty, so if your CAGs get beat up, rebase them to land (the ORG hit is meaningless if they're going to be out of combat for a long time to repair) and bring in a fresh group. Obviously, you're going to want a few spare CAG groups to rotate in as needed.

 

[Lautipus]

@marxianTJ Thank you for your long explanation, I will take some more time to read it through and experience with it when I will have some time.
@Kovax Thank you as well, you actually explained it more about how to use them, so you both complement each other very well.

I hope that also others will find it interesting and helpful!