I am referring to the stupidity of a fleet of battleships without depth charge chasing after enemy submarines. Is there an option to avoid that? Or it's just an (overt) design flaw?
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Is there an option to set strike force (naval) to only sortie against specific enemy ship types?
- Thread starter ecpgieicg
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There weren't any DD with depth-charges as screen??? ( I suggest to fire your responsible Admiral )
I think there is no option to let a SF only fight against specific enemy ship types. ( so you can't give order to attack only CL or bigger and you can't order to avoid fighting subs. )
Having DDs in patrol only reduces the frequency of such silly sorties but do not prevent them. I have seen BBs in strike force joining DDs in Convoy Protection taskforce already in contact.There weren't any DD with depth-charges as screen??? ( I suggest to fire your responsible Admiral )
Ah. That's unfortunately. I wish that gets changed.
I fear we are talking about different things.
Screen: A number of DD or / and CL staying in the same taskforce with BB ( or other capitals ); ratio should be min. 3:1 ( screenship / capital ) to get max screen efficiency. The screen is the protection of your "main"-weapon ( BB ) in that task-force
screening efficiency: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Naval_battle
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Ah. There are screens. But I also have taskforce without screens. Screens are needed in the battle and not necessarily in same taskforce. For example, if you have a good amount of ships in patrol (the mission that identifies enemy taskforces), such that you know your patrol force will not disengage from battle upon detection of enemy taskforce in open sea, said patrol force can function as screen and are in position.
So in the case of my complaint -- and now I know it's of a different topic, there would already been screening DDs in place from Convoy Protection mission and a different task force, and there are also screens that I use within the BB taskforce (by chance, said taskforce has it). The AI does avoid using this heavy taskforce that is on Strike Force mission on subs. But it still calls it from time to time.
I don't really play vanilla HOI4 these days. With Black ICE, it's important to match taskforce range. So you end up with lots of taskforces without screen. It doesn't mean your battles will be insufficiently screened.
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Correct; this is my understanding too.
Yes, but with possibility of these disadvantages
- during the way into the fighting-zone, the BBs were unprotected
- BB may arrive late ( due to distance ) and if your patrol had encountered a stronger enemy TF... your BBs might face a bad surprise
I don't know Black Ice, and whether one have set other "priorities" than in vanilla.
But in the case of any doubt, an old navy-wisdom says: "keep your ships together"
That's the opposite to how it works actually.
If force comparison is unfavorable (relative to risk setting), your TF will not engage. If your strike fleet has favorable enough force rating, but your patrol fleet does not, distance won't make the patrol fleet stay. If your patrol fleet is too weak compared to enemy TFs, they will retreat on first encounter. They will not come back later either. You straight up 'lose' whatever you invest in patrol. Thus, you either minimize or maximize the strengths of individual patrol. (When minimizing, it's not really that most DDs/CLs stay home, but rather -- while some may stay home -- they are broken up into small TFs patrolling the same sea zone. Being initially absent, they are allowed to join when the strike force arrives -- but it's still not reliable and ships on patrol do not always join the main battle.)
BBs need to be at home port for fuel reasons. Focusing available DDs to patrol away from your BBs actually has the effect of strengthening your patrol fleet, depending on the type of fleet you are running into (which you can see ahead of time) enabling them to stay in the engagement with your strike force as opposed to retreating. That adds to the total amount of screens to your main battle force. This makes on-paper individually insufficiently screened TF rather useful.
I am sensing that you are too uncustomed to having only capital ships in strike force to evaluate its usefulness on its merit. Avoiding the unknown and defaulting to the familiar.
I can't remember how badly balanced vanilla HOI4 is with sea combat and initial naval force compositions. From the sound of it, in vanilla, whatever you do it doesn't matter. Is that the case though? I remember the initial force compositions making a good challenge for Germany against RN, for example. Perhaps the land component is so badly balanced, or AI so lacking, that the naval war is trivialized as a result.
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No, not really. ( for example my tank-divisions are ~33w and my infantry is ~ 30w )
1. I'm a friend of trying new things, but those new things must "connect" to the general aim.
Due to the game-mechanics of "naval-supremacy" I don't build BB. I build subs, DD, CL and nav-bombers.
Beside a few exceptions in war-time all my ships are at sea. -> aim: no enemy convois and no enemy ships raiding my convois ( real naval-supremacy )
2. By trying new or uncommon things people often are only focusing on the advantages they will get, which is understandable. But by receiving advantages people sometimes forget to look deeper to see the disadvantages. Sometimes they even refused to look.
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Preferences are mostly subjective; different playing styles are an outcome of this.
That's just the AI being incompetent. If you do that, a fraction of RN fleet with heavier vessels -- even old ones vs your new -- can easily destroy your convoy raiding and protection fleet. The only reason you don't see it is because AI doesn't do it.
Note that I described exactly under what circumstances to use on-paper insufficiently screen strike fleet.
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I am not sure if you will ever have a realistic naval game against AI where you truly see the advantages of different fleet compositions and overall naval strategies. But with Black ICE, at least there is a RN home fleet that is truly capable of doing damage. (And until you fully blockade UK, it actually will do damage to you.) The US fleet kinda never works. The fleets are split. The initial ships are too old. What's in build sequence is no good.
With Black ICE, if you don't have at least good CAs, I expect AI RN to wreck your strategy. You should try Black ICE for a better challenge and if anything definitely turn EAI on at all times.
To get a really good naval game, one has to mod in specific build sequence for AI as the game progresses -- to get up to date DD and CL against subs, for example. No one seems to be doing that atm.
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What do you do if your unscreened TF on the way to a battle gets intercepted by subs?
As I mentioned, unscreened TF is not a universal strategy. It is simply the better strategy in given circumstances. And the strategy is more necessary because BICE rewards matching range among ships within a TF.
What do I do? Simple, 1) They have all been sunk. 2) My ships are all too fast to be caught by subs and too well armored to care about the damage.
Why are they all sunk? That comes to 3) my ships patrolling/raiding the path would join in. They sunk the subs to begin with and in any case would have detected their presence in the relevant sea zones ahead of time.
Lastly, I always have ports nearby. (I never end up using range for the convenience of leaving strike fleet far away from possible conflicts --- because doing so is not really convenient. Range is required for early control of sea zones for invasions and such.)
No sadly and it's been complained about a lot. A lot of Fuel wasted with Battlefleets chasing enemy submarines everywhere.