So what's the naval "meta" nowadays?

[Wave]

I've been doing a few short runs with Italy in the WtT and I just started thinking of the somewhat conflicting advice on naval and naval air play that people give in these forums. Firstly, I'm not a min-max player so my goal so far has been to research super heavy battleships ASAP and hope that I can have some fun with them. But out of interest, what is the current naval min-maxed multiplayer strategy?

Some points I recall having read:

• 4 Carriers, some heavy cruisers and a shitton of screens per flotilla is the backbone, enough of these kill everything
• Italy doesn't need carriers as it can use land based naval bombers
• In addition to the above, land based naval bombers only do one bombing run per battle (?!) (Does this actually mean that carriers are still more viable as your NAVs essentially won't do crap?)
• Kinda off topic but massed convoys are the ultimate plane killer if you get stuck over them
• Subs in packs of 2-3 are the best option (Does this mean you don't want to have more than 1 flotilla per sea-area or gazillion of small flotillas in all sea-areas? Given that Mediterranean consists of only 5 areas, the first sounds weird)

In all honesty, last time I have played naval focused game was back when 500 late-war NAVs researched with the bugged bonuses destroyed everything and their moms with port strikes and massed light cruisers was the ultimate killing machine so it might be a time to update my knowledge

 

[Goshawk]

I just spam the sea with destroyers and set them on patrol-do not engage. Never have to worry about naval invasions ever since.

 

[BulgarianFocusTree]

If you're cheesing/have a focus tree that boosts the research, high level destroyers can slaughter the early game. I imagine you could use this to buy time to research and float high level Battleships or Superheavies, if your country is large enough to support them.

 

[Synicus]

I read a post with some extensive testing, cant recall the topic though.
the result was that 4 carriers owns a lot but a stack of regular battle ships proved to be nearly unstoppable (10 or so).
small subs numbers per zone, is just good for spotting so you can send your battle ships over.
and yes carriers are much better than land based planes. (both is even better).
you'll need carries with you bb's or all fleets will just retreat and out run the bb's

 

[Dalnar]

You can't have too big fleets, because otherwise the enemy will always flee from you (unless doomstack) and you want to have a battle and win. So the key is to have powerful, but average sized fleets. Stacks with too many battleships (especially slow ones) won't do much good.

On the other hand, if you create large destroyer forces, they will be destroyed, because they will get ballsy and stay in fight and few light cruisers will make short work of them.

Also for carrier fleets, you need to use ships that have same or higher speeds. Watching some streams it seems that a lot of people put slow battleships with carriers, essentially gimping the speed advantage.

 

[Synicus]

Hmm, Soryu class Carrier is 2kn faster than a kongo class BB
you can also make alt versions with better engines.

edit: small amounts of subs also suckers them into close combat

 

[Wave]

I read a post with some extensive testing, cant recall the topic though.
the result was that 4 carriers owns a lot but a stack of regular battle ships proved to be nearly unstoppable (10 or so).

My goal is to test the max armor upgraded SHBB, it seems like the armor rating is going to be so good that even max guns upgraded SHBB can't pierce it

I guess fast screens and slow heavy ships will just result in horrible ass-wiping as the screens will jump forwards to suicide while the heavy ships are trying to close in?

Did the situation change DD/CL-wise, is it sensible to have both in the fleets or will DDs just get annihilated and be useless unless fighting submarines?

I'm not very worried of battling AI Royal Navy, but as far as my experience goes, they doomstack quite a lot with different BB or CV fleets, so perhaps having a single doomstack of a couple of carriers and a ton of surface force camping nearby a land mass so that air superiority can be reached with land based fighters will prevail? Does taking Gibraltar and Egypt have any effect on the RN in HoI4? In HoI3 you could starve them from supplies but I suppose that doesn't happen anymore?

 

[caedussl]

you'll need carries with you bb's or all fleets will just retreat and out run the bb's

That explains why I couldn’t sink the Baltic Soviet fleet’s two battleships for THREE years despite the Kriegsmarine, and Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian fleets all patrolling and search and destroying in the Baltic/North Sea. Damn thing kept sinking light cruiser after light cruiser and I’m honeslty not sure we even got it before the Soviet’s were liberated.

 

[Mztr44]

I can only imagine it has to be heavy cruisers. You can build them 4 to 1 per year compared to battleships. They are pretty fast, have great range, and decent health and firepower. They clear CLs and DDs like crazy and hurky enough to take a couple hits from a BB without sinking. If you're a major nation and have a couple battleships you can hide behind them, all the better, but not necessary. The only thing I haven't put them against is SHBBs because the AI doesn't build them. Anything else though, a stack of thirty or so will just annihilate. I would almost hazard to say they are TOO efficient.

 

[Lord of Beer]

Hasn't changed in 1.5

Subs are a bit better since convoys can't escape by clicking on another port anymore.

 

[longfalcon]

Hasn't changed in 1.5

Subs are a bit better since convoys can't escape by clicking on another port anymore.

can confirm. BBs and SHBBs slay everything else.

however, you need a faster fleet to catch the errant BCs and CAs that escape the first few clashes.

 

[Less2]

can confirm. BBs and SHBBs slay everything else.

however, you need a faster fleet to catch the errant BCs and CAs that escape the first few clashes.

Alternatively, split off into smaller battleship groups to lure them in.

10 Battleships will scare off basically anything, but the AI will happily charge 3 BCs into 4 BBs.