Navy Germany

[blahmaster6k]

I'd keep the torpedoes even if just for realism in SP. Torpedo boats were a thing in ww2 and fought hard. Gun boats (same thing as a torpedo boat but without torpedoes), didn't really achieve anything AFAIK and were pretty useless.

I don't really play for the sake of realism/historical accuracy except in terms of industrial balance, but you're right about torpedo boats being a big thing irl.

It's a true facepalm that if you "Steal Air Blueprints" from an advanced country like the UK, against +70% duration due to counter-espionage, you are punished with some useless carrier fighter 1 or something like that, but if you steal from Bhutan it gives you key info for a never seen before advanced plane ... They should give free plane + the bonus if you steal from the UK, and block stealing from people without any useful tech.

This is absolutely true, but as long as it works the way it does you can bet me and other players with a competitive mindset will abuse it.

How do you deal with the lack of fuel? It's my biggest problem:

* Large surface fleet with BBs? No fuel after the first battles
* 5k fighters? No fuel, so I part half my airforce

I usually play on veteran and my answer is to trade max oil from everyone except Soviet Union and build tons of Synts. But then I look at the MIL intel chart and clearly the UK, SOV, USA starts catching up with me, since I have to stop building MILs to trade and build SYNTs....

I make sure to take all synthetic and fuel refining techs, build tons of refineries, and import from/conquer the Middle East. I also don't keep all my planes up all the time. I use Interception only for bomber defense because it uses a fraction of the fuel that Air Superiority does. I take my air superiority fighters/CAS down when I'm not trying to make a push or pausing my attack.

More specifically, I always save three build slots in the 100% infrastructure states you get from the autobahn focus for Synthetic Refineries, and build in states in order of max infrastructure. I go Free Trade on Germany in the buildup phase while I'm making Civilian Factories and Refineries, and only reduce back to limited exports once I ramp up my military production enough to need the imports. I also try to start building some synthetics before Sudetenland and the captain of industry leaves, to take advantage of him combined with the buff from MEFO to build them on the cheap. Rushed construction tech from blueprint stealing, Free Trade, Schacht ,and MEFO let you build a large amount of synths pretty quickly. You get more fuel from countries you capitulate, so that can provide some nice temporary boosts as well. I don't usually go heavy on Navy as Germany, so there's not a big expenditure there, it's my Luftwaffe and panzers that use most of my fuel.

In my last Germany run I ran critically low on fuel (2 week supply left) in mid-1942 and had to take down my navy and air force and pause my offensives for a couple months to build up my stockpile again, but I never ran out completely, and could've put things back up if I had to. The offensive I launched following that pause eventually overran Baku. And that run I actually DID build a large surface navy and was using a lot more fuel than I normally do in a Germany run. That run was also in a mod that makes it way harder for Germany to get fuel by giving Iran and Iraq's oil to the UK and making it something like 20 times as expensive to build factories and refineries. In vanilla it's generally a piece of cake to secure plenty of fuel as Germany and never even come close to running out.

 

[Simon_9732495]

OK, I'm in June 1939 again, this time a run with "historical focuses" on. Danzig or war just finished, everthing "normal".

My Main Fleet:

The CVs now all have 30 Fighter / 30 Naval Bombers.
BBs are the 1936 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from the starting queue.
CAs 3 Panzerschiff, 1 1936 from starting queue and 2 1940 light attack CAs like I posted before.
CLs are from starting navy
The DDs I built are empty. (I read the postings, and I'm reseearching 1940 DD hull, and depth charges. They will also get some Torpedos.)


I think I have still _WAY_ too few light attack. I'm going to produce some light attack CLs because I had success with them as Italy.
Plan is to deal with Poland France and the others first and build up some more in the mean time.

MAYBE I try to go raiding with a smaller group somewhere...

(I have 40 Dockyards now)

 

[Simon_9732495]

First contact. January 1940:

Spoiler: First contact

The Royal Navy quickly brings reinforcements:

Spoiler: Reinforcements

I'd say that is a victory:

Spoiler: Victory

(Or is it?)

Spoiler: Or is it?

Over 60 Ships in the repair queue. Puh...

The UK brought land based naval bomber which I refused to use. That hurts...

 

[el nora]

Yes, that is a victory. 60 ships in repairs is peanuts compared to 60 ships lost.

What doctrine are you using? In all this back and forth I've forgotten if you mentioned it. Typically, I go with Base Strike for Germany because it benefits (land) naval bombers the most. But if you're going full navoid, I hope you took Trade Interdiction for the visibility reduction. Alternatively, you can stick with Base Strike to overcrowd your carriers by 15% with no penalty. If you do that, you might as well rush CV3 instead of sticking with CV2.

Those CV fighters could be more naval bombers. CV naval bombers get a 5x multiplier to naval strikes, so those extra 120 planes are as powerful as 600 more land based planes. Carrier fighters are a bit of a non sequitur if you're going to be fighting around Europe. Land based fighters can cover you much better than the pitiful 120 you're bringing on your carriers. Carrier fighters are more useful in the pacific where you don't have air cover from any nearby airbases. And by not researching carrier fighters, you can spend more time researching something else.

Why do you not also include the starting BB in your not-quite-doom-stack? Sure they're hot garbage, but they don't need to be good to soak up enemy fire away from your more modern ships. If they sink, oh well, no great loss. If they survive, they can be repaired and fight again. Just refit their non-gun slots to AA and they can provide some air defense.

Your DD1 should be using higher tier engines. The increase in speed is worth the increase in cost. They exist to tank enemy fire for you, which they do by being both numerous and fast. The extra speed of engine 2 or 3 is worth more in missed shots than the extra bodies are in intercepted shots. Consider also raiding designer DD3 with engine 3. They are not quite as good as coastal defense DD3, but still tank very well.

Your CA should not have any armor. Light attacks don't target CA, all forms of heavy attack have more piercing than cruisers have armor, and torpedoes / naval bombers don't check armor anyway. They should also have light battery 3, not 2. If the steel cost is so crippling, you can produce naked CA and refit the guns on them afterward. That splits the resource cost up into 2 installments of 4-5 steel per dockyard instead of 9 all at once. It does come with the downside of paying the base refit cost, but that's not quite so expensive. It also opens up the strategy of rushing CA3 as early as possible, spitting out hulls with nothing more than a heavy battery 1 and engine 3, and refitting them later when you have access to high tier guns.

Your spotting CL are kind of schizophrenic. Spotters should be set to never engage. They don't need guns. They need more spotting. But then again, it's kind of a waste to have them at all. If you have fighter coverage, your spotting should be trivial enough with naked DD. They will find the enemy fleet just a little slower than maxed out spotting CL. So you might as well not pay the extra ic cost and just relegate your 9 cheapest destroyers to spotting duty.

 

[Pzt_Kami]

@Simon_9732495
What I need to know is how could you prepare your industry for that? I think you need to have at least 50+ NIC by early 1938 if you want to have aby chance making bing enough fleet to challenge UK let alone the whole allies block ?

 

[sekelsenmat]

I'm amazed you won so big. Your fleet looks inferior except in carriers and light attack.

I wonder if carriers are good now, despite all previous talk of them being useless. Sad that we don't have more screenshots showing how much your planes destroyed compared with your BB for example.

I also wonder if using land-based NAVs would give a similar result or it really must be carrier NAVs due to the multiple raids that they provide per plane.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

First you need a mixed Industry with synth Raffs (secured by big AA), Civilian-Industry, Military Industry, Harbors and Dockyards.
Then you need Fuel Tanks (secured by big AA) and Railroads / Streets to build up faster as well as for more Ressources.

If that is given for Germany and many others you can think for a Fleet of Big-Ships, because Big-Ships eat ressources and are the longest to build.

What I do first is to upgrade the older Ships with AA, modern Weapons (like AA II Guns II and Torpedos II) and modern other Upgrades (like Gunsight I / later II, Radar and / or Sonar).

I dont have Pictures, but a good remembering in my brain of the Games I did so far from 1.0.0 to 1.9.3. Until the Versions 1.0.0 to 1.5.x I never changed the Ships and only did Tests with Land- and Airforces. The Navy dosen´t matter in that Versions, because if you changed somtething you had to build the Ship / Ships completely new.

Since the Change in MTG in Patch 1.6.0 (God thanks) I begunn to experiment with the Ships. First like you all with such experiments, then I concentrated to make them realistic like in the real time (1936 to 1970) or how long the Ships were there.

For Germany and all other Countrys I play then the Idea comes up to make all Ships realistic like they were in 2nd WW with the never done Upgrades. It´s not 100 % doable, because you have to decide like Sonar or Radar for DD´s or Crusiers in the normal Gamedecisions and much more with a cool Mod.

The Reason is simple: If you get only heavy Guns on your Ship (like a Standard-Cruiser) then the Ship won´t go anywhere, because with the first Bright-Side-Shoot from all Guns the Hull will breake or if your Crew is lucky get heavy Damage. So every ship is a compromise in Electronics (like Radar, Sonar), light Weapons (like AA, Torpedos), heavy Weapons (like Main- and Secondary Guns) and so on.

So the first Step I´m doing is to build all begunn ships to the End (2x Scharnhorst-BB´s, 1x Heavy Cruiser (Hipper-Class), 1x Pocket Battleship (Graf Spee) all Type II U-Boats and all 1934 / 1934A Destroyers.

The second Step is to upgrade and Refit the older Ships: first the light Cruisers and older Torpedoboats (bring in AA´s, Upgrade Guns, Torpedos, Gun Sight and such)
The third Step is to do exactly the same with the Pocket Battleships and the old BB´s: (see light Cruisers and older Torpedoboats)
The fourth Step is to bring the new heavy Crusiers, Destroyers and Battleships to the newest Stand (Radar, Sonar, Type II Gun Sight, better AA´s and Guns, Torpedos ans such)
While you do the Upgrades Step by step you build up the Type VII U-Boat fleet and upgrade your Type II-Fleets (50 Each):
- 10 Type VII A (Prototypes)
- 10 Type VII B (new Prototyptes with a secondary Torpedo-Launcher)
- 30 Type VII C (Endproduct of the Standard-U-Boat) upgrade them later with Snorcels to C/41-Boats as well as the Type VII A and B which were first Trainings-Boats!

- 6 Type II A (Prototyps and Trainings-Boats) = the Boats in U-Boat-Training fleet!
- 18 Type II B (first Standard-U-Boats for Training) = the Boats in Buildup and in the Standard-U-Boat-Fleet from beginning!
- 8 to 10 II C (second Standard-U-Boats for Training and first Attack-Boats)
- 16 to 18 Type II D (Final Boats for Type II and Attack-Boats (Upgrade Type II A, B and C to that Standard like Mine-Laying, better Engines or such)!

 

[kettyo]

Isn't it an oversight that unarmed vessels provide screening? How on earth they do that? Wouldn't it be a better mechanic if screening was dependent on equipment and speed?

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Unarmed Vessels look for other Ships, Planes etc. too to evade or slide asside from them.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Isn't it an oversight that unarmed vessels provide screening? How on earth they do that? Wouldn't it be a better mechanic if screening was dependent on equipment and speed?

There are no unarmed vessels. To make a valid ship design you must always provide at least 1 gun.

But I agree that despite this it is still absurd. Maybe the entire idea of the 30% bonus for being screened is what is the problem and should be scrapped. If anything a sea of gunboats would make it harder to hit enemy vessels, since they block the line of view. Excessive nr of ships should give part of the fleet harsher penalties. This would make smaller, better fleets more useful.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Excessive nr of ships should give part of the fleet harsher penalties. This would make smaller, better fleets more useful.

That's the purpose of the positioning modifier, if I understand the defines correctly it scales such that if you have 300% or more of the enemy's number of ships, all your ships will do half damage. This can be partially mitigated with the Superior Tactician admiral trait, but it won't get rid of it entirely.

 

[kettyo]

Unarmed Vessels look for other Ships, Planes etc. too to evade or slide asside from them.

But isn't screening is about keeping the enemy away from slower, bigger warships?

How can you do it if you can't shoot at them? Same story if you're much slower than them, they can just storm past you.

 

[kettyo]

There are no unarmed vessels. To make a valid ship design you must always provide at least 1 gun.

Ahh i didn't know, thanks. I thought empty means literally empty

 

[Xiziz]

I'm not to sure what numbers I ended my last GER campaign(on YT, no "meta" designs) with, but 2(1936) BB and 6 CA started the war, Bismarks completed early in time for weiserubung I think.

Early war don't sortie your surface fleet unless you have to(ie to land troops in Norway/raiding parties), use subs to deny England oil then their navy is easy pickings. If you can operate under fighter cover(preferably heavy fighters) it will greatly help neuter the allies carriers.

The naval AI basically does not upgrade its designs(no XP) and hardly researches new naval tech, and constantly cancels and replaces nearly completed ships with new designs when they can). Beating them in vanilla isn't hard atm due to these bugs.

Raiding design company(for 1940 SS) and the left side of raiding doctrine makes a big difference too.

 

[Simon_9732495]

What doctrine are you using? In all this back and forth I've forgotten if you mentioned it. Typically, I go with Base Strike for Germany because it benefits (land) naval bombers the most. But if you're going full navoid, I hope you took Trade Interdiction for the visibility reduction. Alternatively, you can stick with Base Strike to overcrowd your carriers by 15% with no penalty. If you do that, you might as well rush CV3 instead of sticking with CV2.

Not enough research and naval XP to do a lot there. I just took Raider Patrols from Trade Interdiction.

Why do you not also include the starting BB in your not-quite-doom-stack? Sure they're hot garbage, but they don't need to be good to soak up enemy fire away from your more modern ships. If they sink, oh well, no great loss. If they survive, they can be repaired and fight again. Just refit their non-gun slots to AA and they can provide some air defense.

They are so slow (18kn) I feared they will slow everyone down. Is that not a problem?

@Simon_9732495
What I need to know is how could you prepare your industry for that? I think you need to have at least 50+ NIC by early 1938 if you want to have aby chance making bing enough fleet to challenge UK let alone the whole allies block ?

I started with the 2 focuses that give 5 dockyards (=15 total), then I built CIVs maybe for a year or 1.5. Then again 25 Dockyards (=40 total) and then MILs.
Now is March 40 and I have 60 Dockyards after capturing some and building some. (And 142 MILs, 146 CIVs, 18 Refineries)

I'm amazed you won so big. Your fleet looks inferior except in carriers and light attack.

I basically sunk the small fleet I engaged in the first place. After the big reinforcements from the royal navy came in not much happened and soon everyone ran away. (I don't know why)

 

[Simon_9732495]

Ok, getting more courageous. April 40, 4 Month after the first big battle.
I think they may not have repaired everything. Let's search them in the channel.

Spoiler: Naval Battle in the Channel

Spoiler: Result

Not bad...

Edit: And another one some days later:

Spoiler: Naval battle

Spoiler: Result

That was eays

Naval supremacy in English Channel in April 1940... Not bad

 

[el nora]

Not enough research and naval XP to do a lot there. I just took Raider Patrols from Trade Interdiction.

Yea. Makes sense.

The problem with CV is that they cost more than they're worth. TI heavy cruisers under land based air cover is just so much more efficient than anything you can do with CV.

They are so slow (18kn) I feared they will slow everyone down. Is that not a problem?

It slows down the strategic movement of the fleet, which causes you to use more fuel getting from place to place. But on the tactical level, their reduced speed doesn't negatively affect the other ships in your task force while the battle is ongoing.

 

[Simon_9732495]

And some days later I got another big one.

I made a task force with 1CA and 5DD to convoy raid a bit in the Channel, because nobody was there.
And I found some convoys and a Canadian escort fleet and attacked them. My main fleet on strike force joined in.

Spoiler: Beginning of Battle

Soon the Royal Navy came to help with 6 CA and 15DD.
My positioning was not good due to the big fleet joining later.

Spoiler: Battle becomes bigger

I saw at some point a lot of British Bomber joining the Naval battle and that my ~1000 Fighter to Cover may be not enough. So I quickly pulled more Fighters.

Spoiler: British Bomber Join

I could intercept most Bombers and got another good result:

Spoiler: Result

Repair time was short this time.

If I look at the detail Results I can see that my 1940 CAs are dealing a lot of damage.
This is the used design:

Spoiler: 1940 CA

 

[Simon_9732495]

I‘d like to get involved in the Mediterranean Sea. Any advice on this?

I only have 18 SS.
Can I get Italy to move some navy to the western med so that I can invade Gibraltar?

 

[blahmaster6k]

I‘d like to get involved in the Mediterranean Sea. Any advice on this?

I only have 18 SS.
Can I get Italy to move some navy to the western med so that I can invade Gibraltar?

You can't control where your allies put their fleets. Typically the best way to get involved in the African theater as Germany is to position a few divisions in Libya before the war starts so you don't risk them being sunk in naval transport after the war begins. You can use these divisions to take control of the Suez Canal and push into the middle east later, or whatever else suits your purpose. If you want tanks in Africa but need them for Poland and France in the meantime, you can just convert the divisions you sent down there into tank divisions when you need them, and convert your European tanks into infantry so the equipment goes to the African divisions.

The easiest way to take Gibraltar as Germany is to invade Spain and go from there.