Playing 1,9,3 with 4 base DLCs as Germany Stuck on invading England

[jimo2020]

After conquering France (and Yugoslavia) I have been trying to invade England but can't get Naval superiority in the English channel. Threw in 1000+ fighters, 500 Naval bombers and the fleet I had into the channel and basically got crushed. I tried to pull off some English naval forces by bombing in the Med but that did not seem to help much.

It seems Naval bombers are not as effective as they were in HOI3. When I pair them with heavy fighters in the Med they are great at sinking submarines and usually do OK with transports (except the one battle where one transport killed 35 bombers) but they take a beating if they encounter any reasonably sized fleet. Same results with Port Strikes.

Not sure if more Air or more Naval is the way to go.

Saw a few posts from 2017 suggesting that adding subs to he mix (I did not) was effective.

Going to give it a go immediately after taking France to see if that helps.

In addition to any other guidance - what is a good count on the number of Fighters and Naval Bombers? I built 1300 fighters, 480 heavy fighters and 600 Naval.

 

[KubiG37]

There are few ways to quite easily defeat the English AI. The ones I tried successfully:
1) Send everything that can fly to bomb the channel, or other coastal areas. The AI is stupid enough to keep sending ships through, and if you'll have enough fighters, they'll even withdraw their own airforce to not take too much losses. In a year at most you can sink most of their fleet, because they'll replace losses from other fleets.

2) Or lure their navy out of the channel to enable launching a cheesy sneak invasion.
-> You prepare your invasion and activate it (it can't launch)
-> Sent your airforce to cover the zone you are launching through and set some ships as strike force too
-> Take your main surface fleet (not just subs) and sent it to Convoy Raid something away from England
-> They'll start sinking english convoys, the AI will get mad, and since patrols are too weak to kill your fleet the AI will probably launch it's main fleet to destroy you
-> Once they engage in combat they'll no longer provide that "naval superiority" for a moment, and your invasion should launch
-> unless something sinks it along the way (unlikely), they should land safely. Don't worry about supply. AI is too dumb to specifically target your convoys, in the worst case, you can still supply the army via air.

Other tips:
-Due to the way damage to ships is calculated, older planes tend to get wrecked terribly without doing any damage to them (any sinking, specifically, since convoys repair to 100% immediately after battle), use at least 1940 planes, those work much better.
-600 naval bombers is quite a lot. I don't build them at all as Germany. I just use CAS and TAC, since until I attack USSR I don't need them elsewhere, just watch out for excessive losses. Overally you should have more planes in general.

Hope it helps.

 

[him_15]

Convoy raid them until they are out of fuel.

 

[jimo2020]

There are few ways to quite easily defeat the English AI. The ones I tried successfully:
1) Send everything that can fly to bomb the channel, or other coastal areas. The AI is stupid enough to keep sending ships through, and if you'll have enough fighters, they'll even withdraw their own airforce to not take too much losses. In a year at most you can sink most of their fleet, because they'll replace losses from other fleets.

2) Or lure their navy out of the channel to enable launching a cheesy sneak invasion.
-> You prepare your invasion and activate it (it can't launch)
-> Sent your airforce to cover the zone you are launching through and set some ships as strike force too
-> Take your main surface fleet (not just subs) and sent it to Convoy Raid something away from England
-> They'll start sinking english convoys, the AI will get mad, and since patrols are too weak to kill your fleet the AI will probably launch it's main fleet to destroy you
-> Once they engage in combat they'll no longer provide that "naval superiority" for a moment, and your invasion should launch
-> unless something sinks it along the way (unlikely), they should land safely. Don't worry about supply. AI is too dumb to specifically target your convoys, in the worst case, you can still supply the army via air.

Other tips:
-Due to the way damage to ships is calculated, older planes tend to get wrecked terribly without doing any damage to them (any sinking, specifically, since convoys repair to 100% immediately after battle), use at least 1940 planes, those work much better.
-600 naval bombers is quite a lot. I don't build them at all as Germany. I just use CAS and TAC, since until I attack USSR I don't need them elsewhere, just watch out for excessive losses. Overally you should have more planes in general.

Hope it helps.

Thanks for the info. Learned a few things along the way so I am starting from scratch. Will use all bombers next time.
One situation I found effective was to use heavy fighters and Naval bombers in the seas around Italy immediately after taking Poland Sunk 50+ subs and 15 transports for 35 Naval bombers. Seems like a good trade off.

 

[Bunnytob]

I find that, if you can put enough aircraft over the channel and then commit a large enough surface fleet (roughly what Germany would have had in 1940 works well enough), the AI generally won't contest it. The sooner you can land in Britain, the better.
Vichy France and Italy also help because they can fight the British in the med.

 

[Harin]

One thing I learned about sinking warships with land based planes is patience. The planes cannot kill larger ships in one or two strikes. Keep those planes flying. You will take losses and no ships will sink, but their damage accumulates. Open the sea battle window, then open up the details. You will see that you are damaging them. Over time you will see a few sink, then more. It will escalate.

The main tip is to keep monitoring that detail window. It will let you know if you are winning or losing.

To gain the naval superiority the above helps, but also:

• Naval intel with your spies helps.
• Put your fleet on strike force for the channel. Make sure your strike force fleet is close enough to the channel to matter. Once I had my strike force in the Baltic and it did not work. Once I moved it to France, it did.
• Launch your invasion, even if you do not have naval superiority. Occasionally the AI moves its fleet or takes enough losses for you to get a momentary superiority and in that instant your invasion will launch. Just be watchful.
• Once your invasion launches you can change your strike force to the invasion support mission.
• To get a head start on sinking enemy ships, as soon as the war begins, start naval bombing that one sea zone right off the German coast in the North Sea. The AI loves to stacks its submarines and patrol fleets there. Bombing it from day one, non-stop, can sink dozens, if not a hundred subs and destroyers. Many times the AI will even deploy some of its bigger ships for some reason.

 

[1 Star General]

One thing I learned about sinking warships with land based planes is patience. The planes cannot kill larger ships in one or two strikes. Keep those planes flying. You will take losses and no ships will sink, but their damage accumulates. Open the sea battle window, then open up the details. You will see that you are damaging them. Over time you will see a few sink, then more. It will escalate.

I fully agree with the 'patience' bit. One thing I might add - Port Strikes with TAC's help to speed up the process by finishing off ships damaged at full sea. So I put naval bombers over The Channel where they bite off some percentages, and Tac's keep rotating Port Strikes in different zones in the Isles (since AI will bring up hundreds of fighters within a couple of days if you keep attacking ports in the same zone continuously). You can spot which ports do the damaged ships repair in by hoovering over them. It takes time, but it's actually fun hunting those damaged ships down. Worth noting - there's a frequently visited port in the Shetland Islands which actually counts as part of the North Sea air zone. Also, keep peeking at Ireland from time to time.

To get a head start on sinking enemy ships, as soon as the war begins, start naval bombing that one sea zone right off the German coast in the North Sea. The AI loves to stacks its submarines and patrol fleets there. Bombing it from day one, non-stop, can sink dozens, if not a hundred subs and destroyers. Many times the AI will even deploy some of its bigger ships for some reason.

Hmm, interesting, You mean East North Sea, right?... Actually, to my disappointment, in my games the British AI doesn't seem to be minding guarding the Danish Straits at all. I kept patrolling it, but only had major successes hunting in the Channel.

 

[brantodb01]

Yeah I never bother even trying in the channel, Just invade hull via the north sea, it's much easier

 

[Orbs]

Build more Nav, build subs and build 1 huge radar over the channel. When you take France put the Nav on the channel (usually with fighters for air superiority) and do your thing with Yugo. if You built enough Nav you’ll be sinking British ships, including capitals. Eventually the AI will block its own access to the channel due to the high attrition rate. You’ll know this because your Nav will not have sunk anything in a few weeks.

Now move some subs (10 is usually enough) into the channel, youll go naval green immediately, launch the invasion and get the subs back out before they get obliterated by British Nav and/or and British ships returning.

Once you take a port in Britian start sending reinforcements to help the main invasion force. Vanilla AI has never convoy raided me in the channel (remember my subs are gone so I don’t have naval superiority anymore). if you still have air superiority your convoys shouldn’t get Nav bombed either. Just make sure you can supply/support all the reinforcement troops (try and grab more ports quickly with the reinforcements), and roll into Scotland.

I never move my main fleet (because it’s trash, I only build ships that are supposed to go underwater). Main fleet stays hiding in the Baltic. I use subs to get sea zone superiority all the way to New England this way (later in game). Good luck.

 

[Jays298]

Build more Nav, build subs and build 1 huge radar over the channel. When you take France put the Nav on the channel (usually with fighters for air superiority) and do your thing with Yugo. if You built enough Nav you’ll be sinking British ships, including capitals. Eventually the AI will block its own access to the channel due to the high attrition rate. You’ll know this because your Nav will not have sunk anything in a few weeks.

Now move some subs (10 is usually enough) into the channel, youll go naval green immediately, launch the invasion and get the subs back out before they get obliterated by British Nav and/or and British ships returning.

Once you take a port in Britian start sending reinforcements to help the main invasion force. Vanilla AI has never convoy raided me in the channel (remember my subs are gone so I don’t have naval superiority anymore). if you still have air superiority your convoys shouldn’t get Nav bombed either. Just make sure you can supply/support all the reinforcement troops (try and grab more ports quickly with the reinforcements), and roll into Scotland.

I never move my main fleet (because it’s trash, I only build ships that are supposed to go underwater). Main fleet stays hiding in the Baltic. I use subs to get sea zone superiority all the way to New England this way (later in game). Good luck.

This. My first sealion attempt never got off dry land because I didnt put any effort into building navy.

You don't have to go crazy (Maybe 25-30 naval docks). Just one stack of a few capital ships, some cruisers, and a lot of destroyers.

What I usually do it put a task force of subs around the ocean around Spain to raid shipping from UK. That tends to draw out their navy.

You can have your own navy hide out in Brittany.

But when its safe, move it into the channel, wait a bit. Then naval invasion.

England is very easy. Japan on the other hand puts up some resistance.

Another thing that seemed to work was fighting their main navy. Not a sucessful battle but the AI will want to repair ships and not be as reckless as me, putting damaged ships out for naval superiority.