Managing Fleet Questions - all DLC enabled

[TheMoe]

I tried playing Germany, with a focus on building up my fleets, and I ran into some issues with the AI's and my success.

I watched some Man the Guns fleet tutorials on YouTube and the predominant suggestion was to:
1. Build 2 dd, 2 light cruisers fleets as scouts, putting the float planes and radar on the cruisers.
2. Setting the fleet not to engage with the idea that they would somehow keep the fleet spotted until your strike fleet arrives
3. There were mixed opinions on the AI management of ship repairs, with the "split from fleet" option enabled and "repair high priority" or something along that line which simply meant to repair your ships when they took light damage.

What I found is that the scout fleets frequently found submarines and that the subs escaped before my strike fleet could arrive, and pretty much the same with convoys, even though the strike fleets were stationed very close to the scouting area. So, I changed the scouting fleets to attack with low level of risk. The damaged ships didn't split off very well, using the game settings and strangely, instead of going back to their original 4 ships groups (one fleet with 4 x 4 ship groups), they were ending up in the "extra ships" area at the very bottom, and sometimes a whole group would end up there all together, instead of rejoining their fleet.

The only things I would say were very effective were the small naval bombers, which sunk submarines left and right, and the subs themselves took out a lot of unescorted convoys.

The guys on YouTube made the above setup look like it would work very well, and that was four months ago, so the game was a bit more buggy than it hopefully is now. What works if I want to engage in ship to ship and disrupt convoys? How might I structure my fleets differently?

BTW, I was sure to have the ratio of 4 dd to each capital ship in order to screen them from torpedoes.

As a follow-up, should I spend the factory points to upgrade the older ships or just send them out in a less effective capacity and gradually add new ships? I guess I could put some of the older ships into special fleets that don't come back for repair and simply fight until they die.

 

[porta80]

Ok.
1. Scouting fleets only need light cruisers with the flaoting planes, even 1 cl is enough.
2. Set the dd`s in a separate fleet to patrol on low risk so they engage the subs the scouts have spottet, they will also engage spotted unescorted convoys that way and your big navy is the strike force for other big navy's.
Do not set your fleets to the channel or the other sea tiles directly around the UK to be safer from airplanes.

Other approach is build some BC 1940 design with light cruisers also 1940 design they will slaughter everything away in the sea tiles west of UK between Greenland and Spain.

 

[Mousetick]

IMHO FWIW YMMV:
- Recommendations #1 and #2 are sound and effective for pure patrolling, that is for a task force which purpose is only to find and pursue enemy ships until a strike force arrives and engage. It's best to use ships with the highest speed, highest detection and lowest visibility possible for optimal spotting and evasion. Due to how the game simulates spotting, only 1 ship is enough (typically a CL) for such task force, but that can be considered meta-gaming or cheating or unrealistic.
- I never use the Automatic Split-off for repair option, as I find it a bit risky and don't really trust the AI to do the right thing, so can't speak about it. I prefer to set the task force on medium repair priority and have it go to port for repairs as a whole. I sometimes use the manual repair order whenever there is a lull to get a moderately damaged task force back to full strengh.
- A typical strike force composed of several large capital ships may not be very effective against isolated submarines. It may be too slow, and it is oversized for the task at hand, consumming much fuel in the process. If the enemy submarines escape before it arrives, it may also be an indication that the speed and/or sub detection of the patrolling task force which spotted them is insufficient.
- As you found out, if you set the patrolling task force to engage at low risk, it will be able to attack submarines, but its small size (2 DD + 2 CL) makes it very vulnerable to enemy surface fleets and bombers. If you want to use a surface task force to hunt enemy submarines, consider creating a more robust, specialized ASW group, perhaps by adding a CA and/or CV, and the necessary screens.
- As you found out, naval bombers are very effective (specially at tier 2 and later) against submarines and convoys, even more so if supported by land-based radar. A dedicated ASW surface task force is therefore not really necessary, except in zones where bombers cannot reach.
- A task force set on Patrol or Strike mission will not attack enemy convoys by themselves. Convoys which happen to be present in a naval battle between fleets, will take collateral damage, but this is just incidental. To search for and attack enemy convoys, the task force must be set to the dedicated Convoy Raiding mission. Submarines are the most effective at it. If you observed that your patrolling or strike force ignore enemy convoys and don't attack them, that is the expected behavior, that is not a bug.
- In the 4 months that followed the release of the 1.9 version along with La Resistance DLC, there were no bug fixes AFAIK that would affect the naval mechanics discussed here.

The above comments apply in general, and are not specific to Germany, which may require a more tailored setup.

 

[TheMoe]

Ok.
1. Scouting fleets only need light cruisers with the flaoting planes, even 1 cl is enough.
2. Set the dd`s in a separate fleet to patrol on low risk so they engage the subs the scouts have spottet, they will also engage spotted unescorted convoys that way and your big navy is the strike force for other big navy's.
Do not set your fleets to the channel or the other sea tiles directly around the UK to be safer from airplanes.

Other approach is build some BC 1940 design with light cruisers also 1940 design they will slaughter everything away in the sea tiles west of UK between Greenland and Spain.

Hello Porta80! I sure loved your video on how to set up Germany as a winning strategy. Would you consider doing another one with a naval focus? Thanks for the great reply here as well. You've contributed considerably to my enjoyment of the game!

 

[TheMoe]

IMHO FWIW YMMV:
- Recommendations #1 and #2 are sound and effective for pure patrolling, that is for a task force which purpose is only to find and pursue enemy ships until a strike force arrives and engage. It's best to use ships with the highest speed, highest detection and lowest visibility possible for optimal spotting and evasion. Due to how the game simulates spotting, only 1 ship is enough (typically a CL) for such task force, but that can be considered meta-gaming or cheating or unrealistic.
- I never use the Automatic Split-off for repair option, as I find it a bit risky and don't really trust the AI to do the right thing, so can't speak about it. I prefer to set the task force on medium repair priority and have it go to port for repairs as a whole. I sometimes use the manual repair order whenever there is a lull to get a moderately damaged task force back to full strengh.
- A typical strike force composed of several large capital ships may not be very effective against isolated submarines. It may be too slow, and it is oversized for the task at hand, consumming much fuel in the process. If the enemy submarines escape before it arrives, it may also be an indication that the speed and/or sub detection of the patrolling task force which spotted them is insufficient.
- As you found out, if you set the patrolling task force to engage at low risk, it will be able to attack submarines, but its small size (2 DD + 2 CL) makes it very vulnerable to enemy surface fleets and bombers. If you want to use a surface task force to hunt enemy submarines, consider creating a more robust, specialized ASW group, perhaps by adding a CA and/or CV, and the necessary screens.
- As you found out, naval bombers are very effective (specially at tier 2 and later) against submarines and convoys, even more so if supported by land-based radar. A dedicated ASW surface task force is therefore not really necessary, except in zones where bombers cannot reach.
- A task force set on Patrol or Strike mission will not attack enemy convoys by themselves. Convoys which happen to be present in a naval battle between fleets, will take collateral damage, but this is just incidental. To search for and attack enemy convoys, the task force must be set to the dedicated Convoy Raiding mission. Submarines are the most effective at it. If you observed that your patrolling or strike force ignore enemy convoys and don't attack them, that is the expected behavior, that is not a bug.
- In the 4 months that followed the release of the 1.9 version along with La Resistance DLC, there were no bug fixes AFAIK that would affect the naval mechanics discussed here.

The above comments apply in general, and are not specific to Germany, which may require a more tailored setup.

Wow! What an incredible response! Thank you very much for answering not only my questions, but the next ones I was going to ask as well. I think I'll be far better prepared as a start a new game in the next couple days as Germany with a naval focus, then I might try playing England or Italy with a naval focus as well. It's very helpful to understand the mechanics behind the orders. Thanks again to both of you!

 

[porta80]

Hello Porta80! I sure loved your video on how to set up Germany as a winning strategy. Would you consider doing another one with a naval focus? Thanks for the great reply here as well. You've contributed considerably to my enjoyment of the game!

Na sorry, the naval game has one major problem for the AI, research is to limited.
A minimum investment from a player and the ai is totally screwed, you just need 4 techs to research and 15-20 nic is enough to kill all navys ai puts against you.
Either 1940 bc and cl combination with top 2 doctrines on the left a total of 10 ships (2bc +8 cl) is enough you can reach that until 1940 or you go sub 3 with snorkel and 2 doctrines on the right. Just belongs to the focus you take plan z or the other one.

Or even easier build some naval bombers 1940.

 

[TheMoe]

Na sorry, the naval game has one major problem for the AI, research is to limited.
A minimum investment from a player and the ai is totally screwed, you just need 4 techs to research and 15-20 nic is enough to kill all navys ai puts against you.
Either 1940 bc and cl combination with top 2 doctrines on the left a total of 10 ships (2bc +8 cl) is enough you can reach that until 1940 or you go sub 3 with snorkel and 2 doctrines on the right. Just belongs to the focus you take plan z or the other one.

Or even easier build some naval bombers 1940.

I didn't understand all of what you wrote, but I get the gist of it. You're saying that it's quite easy to beat England's fleet or any AI fleet with basic tech, or I can just build a bunch of navy bombers and take all the ships out. Yes, I agree about the navy bombers and hopefully that will be something that is addressed in future releases. One should not be able to take out the entire Royal Navy with tech I naval bomber spam.

I'll experiment a bit with some different naval fleets and see what I think. I guess for me the bottom line is that most of Paradox employees are on vacation during the summer and this is the game we'll have until mid-Fall 2020 or so, or until they decide to release some new patch. There are certainly some bugs which I found and then there's some excellent advice from Mousetick about how to get around them for the current build. I'm happy with that.