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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.
These are all way to control the Med without a Navy. I have a Navy, I want to control the Seas.
I want to take Gibraltar, then get Naval dominance in the Med and after that take out north Africa, Egypt and Syria (and Malta and Cyprus and Corsica).
The plan is to set up a naval invasion from Marseille to Gibraltar and try to get naval superiority with few Subs, Naval Bombing and distraction. Maybe they pull a fleet out of of the Med if I convoy raid with a surface fleet at the coast of Portugal....
As I said in the first post, I my goal is "engaging the royal navy in an open fight and winning big."
So far the royal navy is still hiding.
While trying to get Gibraltar I set up surface raiding fleets consisting of 1 CA, 1 CL and 5 DD (all 1940 types, the CAs and CLs light attack, the DDs with Torps and depth charges)
Had good success with them and could kill a decent amount of DDs some CLs and a lot of convoys. But no big battle. I think the UK fleet is in the Med.
Distraction it was.
I put 18 Subs on naval invasion support, started the invasion and when Italy joined the war the UK, the UK reshuffled something and the invasion started.
Gibraltar was very weak defended. (Maybe someone could increase the importance of Strait provices for the AI...)
There was immediately a big naval battle between Italy and the UK, but I couldnt make my main fleet join. I put it on always engage, switch patrol, strike force, had patrols out... (There are other threads about this problem.)
So still not another big clash.
Then it was December 1940.
I saw a big UK fleet with 2 BBs 10CAs and 48DDs hunting some italian Subs and I sent my Main fleet directly to the tile of the battle. (Hold and then right click.)
When I was in the battle my positioning was only 30% and I though "Uh oh"
But the battle went great. Could sink 2CAs and 13DDs:
Immediatly after the battle ended I was in it again. This time with better positioning
Some of them could retreat (Why? Is it because of my slow BBs?)
But I sunk a good amount again:
Result: 3CA 7CL 19DDs sunk
So far not the real epic CV vs CV battle but I'm doing good damage to the royal navy.
With Gibraltar and naval domination in the Med it was easy.
Now I'm going to hunt the remaining UK fleet trapped in the Med.
Sorry for the interruptive question, but I think it is better to place it here then to open a new threat:
What is the purpose of CA when you are a major and thus able to build a sufficient number of BB? As far as I understand this thread (especially the first page) they are designated "screen killers" but actually I don't get that. As far as I understand, I need Light Attack to kill the enemy screen. Yet Medium Battery / Heavy Cruiser Batteries provides only heavy attack and when I replace them with Light Cruiser Batteries, I actually get a lot of Light Attack, but the ship is no longer a CA, but a CL...
Sorry for the interruptive question, but I think it is better to place it here then to open a new threat:
What is the purpose of CA when you are a major and thus able to build a sufficient number of BB? As far as I understand this thread (especially the first page) they are designated "screen killers" but actually I don't get that. As far as I understand, I need Light Attack to kill the enemy screen. Yet Medium Battery / Heavy Cruiser Batteries provides only heavy attack and when I replace them with Light Cruiser Batteries, I actually get a lot of Light Attack, but the ship is no longer a CA, but a CL...
Battleships are not built because they are expensive, slow and easy to sink, and cannot be built in large numbers.
As for building a light attack CA, the way to do this is to put one Medium Battery in the main gun slot to classify the ship as a CA, then make the entire row of modules at the top of the designer window Light Cruiser Batteries, preferably level 3 ones, to maximize light attack.
As for building a light attack CA, the way to do this is to put one Medium Battery in the main gun slot to classify the ship as a CA, then make the entire row of modules at the top of the designer window Light Cruiser Batteries, preferably level 3 ones, to maximize light attack.
Yep it's a great game.
I normally don't do much Navy but I think I got a little bit of a clue and it's fun to micromanage a lot about the Navy now.
And despite putting so much effort in the Navy my economy is great.
I could easily attack the Soviet Union in July 1943 with 9000 Fighters and 20.000 Medium 2 Tanks.
I think a reason why I have so many Tanks and Planes is going concentrated industry and not switching to Medium3s.
I did "speedy Medium Tanks". They are just awesome.
Or 11km/h in Combat!! With the tactic breakthrough.
16.37 km/h while going into enemy territory. That's faster than strat redeploy.
(I know I upgraded the speed of the Tanks to much. 13.3 is useless. Forgot that the Guderian Bonus is added after design company and upgrades...)
(And yes I really have only Guns1 and Arty1 researched... So much naval stuff to do... )
Anyway, Map of Soviet Union 1 month afer DOW. Thats beauty....
I just looked a second time. DOW 3rd of July. Now its 2nd of August.
And the USA just joined the Allies. -> Back to Navy stuff soon. Right now pause for Navy and upgrading all my capitals and CLs.
That far in one month? Good grief, I did not think divisions could go that far in 30 days inside their own territory, but here you are doing it through enemy controlled territory. You managed to build a navy on top of this. Simply amazing. I have got to raise my game. Thanks for showing us something different!
November 1941.
Admiral Lütjens has Skill Level 6, Attack 7, Coordination 7
,
and is commanding the Hochseeflotte with 4 CVs, 4BBs, 10CAs, 16CLs, and 100DDs
We are not afraid of the Royal Navy anymore and 5000 Fighter over the channel are too much for the Royal Air Force.
So I set the Hochseeflotte on Strike Force in the Channel and 2 CLs on Patrol.
A big Fleet of the Royal Navy with 4BBs, 5CAs, 6CLs and 37DDs attacked my patrol. Another big battle was coming up.
Hochseeflotte intercepted and joined the battle. With 1318 vs. 175 we were far ahenad in light attack.
The UK commanders tried to retreat immediately, but it was to late.
Only 3BBs and 1CA could run away heavily damaged.
Rest of the fleet was sunk. Another big win.
RIP HMS Malaya
So far I sunk 2BBs 10CAs, 20CLs and 199DDs
And I lost 1CL (on patrol to naval bombers in channel , because I forgot to check air) and 1DD in battle.
That's pretty impressive.
But the UK still has a lot of ships according to my intel:
Next goal: Total naval dominance in all waters around the UK.
1 month later, December 1941, the US Navy enters the theatre.
A patrol found a Task force with 4 CVs under the command of the famous Chester W. Nimitz.
But it had only 1CA 1CL and 3DDs as screens.
That was a huge mistake of the US Navy and the end of the USS Enterprise and 3 more CVs.
Some days later my patrol got came under fire again.
It was the US Navy again and this time they brought 7BBs and 3CAs with proper screening.
They could sink a DD and almost sunk my BB Schlesien but the Hochseeflotte was too strong.
The 7 BBs could escape heavily damaged, but all screens were lost
The BBs USS Colorado and USS New Mexico were sunk soon after.
Not the best start for the US Navy, but they are not beaten yet.
AI gonna AI. It's no fun smashing the US's carrier task force because they always leave it completely unscreened.
And this also goes to show why doomstack ≫ carefully composed taskforce. Both because of the ease of defeating taskforces piecemeal with no threat to your own fleet, and because the positioning penalty for having a larger fleet is a joke. It begins to take effect only at double fleet size, but if you already have 200% the enemy fleet then -25% reducing positioning (which can be offset by admiral skills and traits) doesn't hurt nearly as much as lanchester's square law helps. And since it caps at -50% positioning at 300% fleet size, there's nothing stopping the doomstack from stacking even more.
1 month later, December 1941, the US Navy enters the theatre.
A patrol found a Task force with 4 CVs under the command of the famous Chester W. Nimitz.
But it had only 1CA 1CL and 3DDs as screens.
They could sink a DD and almost sunk my BB Schlesien but the Hochseeflotte was too strong.
The 7 BBs could escape heavily damaged, but all screens were lost
That's a software called MSI Afterburner. -> https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner
I use it to set a sillent fan profile for my GPU. Factory default my gpu fan has already quite high rpm (and noise) at temperatures that are not critical at all.
The in game overlay I use mostly to see the time and how late it is already when playing HOI4. (And ignoring it )
In March 1942 I had my main fleet on patrol in the English channel and then it happened: The big clash with the Royal Navy.
They brought:
4CVs, 6BBs, 2BCs, 2CAs, 8CLs and 39 DDs. (14 capitals and 47 screens, total 61 ships)
We brought:
4CVs, 3BBs, 0BCs, 13CAs, 20CLs and 95DDs. (20 capitals and 115 screens, total 135 ships)
I have to leave right now and can't continue writing. Will press send anyway and leave you with a cliffhanger for that battle.
That's some not bad leveling you got on Lutjens. +3 attack, and while maneuver would have been better than coordination, at least you get positioning from superior tactician. Are you close to unlocking anything else?
