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yamato2cz

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Sep 15, 2010
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NEVERMIND THE FORMULA IS WRONG, leaving post here anyway


The "Heavy cruiser" - CA

Ive been going over forum posts, reddit and steam to gather info about this class and made sparse tests of my line of thought.

CAs are semi useful, thanks to the damage calculation formula, let me demonstrate.

Damage formula for Armor stat is this: 1 - (0.1 + 2 * 0.9 * (Armor - Piercing) / Armor), you can use google to quickly find out whats your ships effectiveness against certain armors. CAs, as it turns out, have the best Heavy Attack per IC-and up to 1940 BB armor is even the most effective-lets look at the formula. We will look at both 3 gun slot configuration and max gun slot configuration.

Case for CA

CA 1936, 3 1936 gun-Cost from 4800 for naked to about 6500 for fully equipped. HP of about 240. heavy attack is 28.3, at 25 piercing-enough to pierce early and 1936 BC armor without penalty, will damage early battleship armor with 83% damage output and 1936 battleship armor with 55% of its damage. So, this means that CA can target all AI fleets but those with 1936 BB ARMOR, of which is in game 2 in united Kingdoms fleet, the Nelsons. So, player can invest in CAs knowing, that AI will not field anything that can actually prevent damage output from CAs. Player can also chose to invest in better CA guns straight away and research them in about a year-it will raise its piercing to 29 and heavy attack to 31.5, which will damage 1936 BBs with 78% of its damage, while only costing another 75 ic to build. This will destroy pretty much all AI led fleets without much issue. Damage calculation for early BB armor results in 23 damage and against 1936 BB is 15.5

CA 1936, 5 1936 gun costs 7000-8000 ic for full ship however-every gun battery increases its HP by 40%, which results in final HP of 330 without armor to 335 with armor 2, which is nearly on par with more expensive and far slower early battleship, which costs around 11-13k depending on its outfit all while having less Heavy Attack, with 3 gun configuration standing at 37.8 to 44.1 with 1936 guns, while CA with 5 1936 guns sits at 47.2 heavy attack. Using our previous Armor damage formula, we can calculate that effective damage of this CA is 39 against early BB armor and 25 against 1936 BB armor.

Add:5 gun CA with 1940 has attack of 52.5 for 7000-8000 ic with 29 piercing, for effective damage of 1936 BB armor of 40 damage.

IC calculation per, total IC, damage, health, effective damage

Early BB early 3 gun/IC 11800, Heavy Damage 37.8/312 IC per 1 damage, HP 367.5/32 IC per 1 HP, 31 piercing - 100% damage up to 1936/50% damage to 1940 armor-Effective health against 1936 CA-about 125% of original health

Early BB 1936 3 gun/IC 12100 without armor change, Heavy damage 44.1/274 IC per 1 damage, HP SAME, 36 piercing-72% damage to 1940 armor

1936 BB 1936 3 gun/IC 13000, Heavy damage 44.1/294 IC per 1 damage, HP 407/31 IC per 1 HP, Piercing SAME-Effective health against 1936 CA-nearly twice as much-about 90%

1936 BB 1936 5 gun/IC 15300, Heavy damage 73.5/208 IC per 1 damage, HP SAME, Piercing SAME-Effective health against 1936 CA-nearly twice as much-about 190% of original health

1936 CA 1936 3 gun/IC 5700 without armor 6500 with armor-about armor later, Heavy Damage 28.3/201-229 IC per 1 Damage, HP 247/23.5-26.3 IC per HP, Damage of 23 for early BB amor, 15 for 1936 BB armor.

1936 CA 1936 5 gun/IC 7000-8000, Heavy Damage 47.2/148.3-170 IC per 1 damage, HP 330-335/21-23.8 IC per HP, Damage of 39/25.

1936 CA can be over twice as effective at delivering Heavy damage than early gun BB, 40-50% more effective at HP pooling. 1936 5 gun CA is on par with 1936 BB 3 1936 gun on damage dealt to each other, while about 40% more effective at delivering damage to less armored ships, while delivering much cheaper HP sponge-Large 5 gun CA HP pool means it cant be easily destroyed, and thanks to its speed, it can retreat if damaged. Speed is a factor in intercepting enemy convoys-5 gun CA can one shot convoys if it crits them, two shots them otherwise. It 1 shots early destroyers and crit 1 shots 1936 destroyers. BCs are made completely irrelevant by CAs, thanks to their speed and piercing. Newly build 1936 5 gun BBs will destroy CAs regardless-so IN MULTIPLAYER THEY ARE INEFFECTIVE, people build SHBBs in MP anyway, which render pretty much any capital ship ineffective.

Armorless CAs-Since their armor is very low, you cant count on it to do anything against capital ships-if you expect your CAs to fight escorts, you can add it, but at point of your heavy line being hit by escorts, you should have already retreated.

Add 2.:IF you want to go the CA route, you MUST research damage control technologies and smoke generator-your CAs will suffer from more critical hits than battleships, so these technologies are imperative to make actual use of your higher HP pool, BBs have diminished use from these technologies, as hardly anything damages them enough to cause sustained critical damage. These also help your escort line, since they get more critical damage.

Best doctrine for CA navy is Fleet in being, which adds armor, organization and attack. Attack and HP are both most valuable stat, so taking additional steps to increase it will benefit the player. You can use Raiding Fleet naval designer to further increase speed of your CAs, which should be around 31-35 knots.

Good support ships are all gun CLs with all torp DDs. Torpedoes are important damage dealer against capital line, CL will deal with escorts the fastest-but they do need at least basic armor to protect against DDs light attack.

Case for 1 gun BBs

In case you want "bullet sponge" ships, i found that 1 gun BBs are quite good, for their price.

1936 BB with 1 1936 gun is 8300 IC for naked, with 10200 for 17 light attack through secondaries and some AA, HP is 407/20 IC for 1 HP or 19.5 with 1940 armor. For secondary/AA its 25/24 IC per 1 HP, up to you to decide if its worth it. By building these cheap and well protected ships, you can invest in light attack line/torpedo attack line, for those 8-3k saved IC you can produce all light attack CL for 3000-5000 IC, or several torp DDs each for about 1200.

This build follows line of thought that no escorts-no capitals

Closing thoughts:

If you are strapped for IC, or want cheap cleaning crew for prewar and early war ships, CAs are fairly effective in that role, but from 1940 onward, high armor jump makes CAs as well as most ships pretty much obsolete. They can also perform well in CV screening, because you can build them fast and repair them faster. CAs can also provide killing power against BC raiders.

So, all in all, my last week or so of experimenting results in CAs being ok in singleplayer and being failures in MP.

Why i did this "research" and wrote this post-i was salty about loosing BBs to air power, CAs can run away from planes, BBs mostly cant.
 
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You are basing this on heavy attack and default armour values?

The strength of CA is light attack per IC, and DD swarms with torpedo attack per IC.
Yes. default armor and attack values, without any modifiers-which dont change much, armor is not increased by significant enough amount to beat upgraded attack.

And i know. I was just trying to find justification to use CAs and this posts summarizes all the "pros" i found in regards to fighting with other capitals. I know that CA is for light attack or some other memery.
 
That equation, 1 - (0.1 + 2 * 0.9 * (Armor - Piercing) / Armor), could not possibly be correct. It predicts 0.9x damage at piercing = armor, which is obviously false as piercing above or equal to armor deals full damage. But even worse, it predicts 0x damage dealt at piercing = armor/2. The correct piercing formula on the wiki is 1 - (0.9 * (Armor - Piercing) / Armor). This predicts 1x damage when piercing = armor, and cannot result in 0x damage output for any piercing value.

Helpfully though, that is the damage formula for when the piercing is below armor, not above. I think that the point that @Corpse Fool was making, to my understanding, please correct me if I am wrong, is that that breakpoint is a moving target. CA guns may be the most cost-effective form of heavy attack against unmodified BB armor, but when you account for as simple a modifier as +20% armor from level 4 defense skill on your admiral, they all of a sudden they may not be. I don't know, I haven't done the math on CA vs BB with sliding armor values. But the point is that it is reductionist to make any such claim without at least a graph to go with it.
 
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still doesnt matter for CAs, their armor is just too shit.
Why are you even armouring your CA?
And i copied formula from wiki.
You clearly did not, because it is a completely different formula.

I think that the point that @Corpse Fool was making, to my understanding, please correct me if I am wrong, is that that breakpoint is a moving target.

My real point is that armour is basically useless because of torpedoes and aircraft, while heavy attack is basically useless because of its cost, inaccuracy, and weight.
 
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That equation, 1 - (0.1 + 2 * 0.9 * (Armor - Piercing) / Armor), could not possibly be correct. It predicts 0.9x damage at piercing = armor, which is obviously false as piercing above or equal to armor deals full damage. But even worse, it predicts 0x damage dealt at piercing = armor/2. The correct piercing formula on the wiki is 1 - (0.9 * (Armor - Piercing) / Armor). This predicts 1x damage when piercing = armor, and cannot result in 0x damage output for any piercing value.

Helpfully though, that is the damage formula for when the piercing is below armor, not above. I think that the point that @Corpse Fool was making, to my understanding, please correct me if I am wrong, is that that breakpoint is a moving target. CA guns may be the most cost-effective form of heavy attack against unmodified BB armor, but when you account for as simple a modifier as +20% armor from level 4 defense skill on your admiral, they all of a sudden they may not be. I don't know, I haven't done the math on CA vs BB with sliding armor values. But the point is that it is reductionist to make any such claim without at least a graph to go with it.
Someone better fix the wiki then, the formula is from there. and if thats the case, then my calculations are wrong. Also, damage reduction is limited to minimum 10%, hence why even piercing 1 against armor 100 will still do damage. And yea, its just for damage reduction, not for damage increase.
Why are you even armouring your CA?

You clearly did not, because it is a completely different formula.



My real point is that armour is basically useless because of torpedoes and aircraft, while heavy attack is basically useless because of its cost, inaccuracy, and weight.
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Its so easy to check the wiki yet you decide to be snidy. Now i remember why i left this forum.

Have a good day.
 
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Not that heavy cruisers need even less reasons to use their medium guns but giving them 25 piercing is downright unrealistic. Battlecruisers were specifically armored to counter heavy cruiser/armored cruiser guns. Even at the lower ends like around 9"/229mm armor is enough to resist a CA gun at ordinary battle ranges historically. Honestly making CA guns count as heavy is a mistake in the first place since they weren't meant for fighting capital ships in the first place, that's what you have torpedoes on your cruisers for. They were meant to deal with other cruisers or other smaller escorts in the first place. Would have been far better to have a separate medium attack category for light and heavy cruisers separate from the rest in my opinion.
 
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The naval mechanics would be vastly improved if heavy attack was far more damaging to armor it could pierce. Destroyers should be one shoted by single hit from a BB gun. Cruisers in a few hits. BB’s are vastly underpowered in the game, but they are also cheaper and less costly to operate as well. CA medium batteries should just be higher light attack, not heavy attack.
 
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Destroyers should be one shoted by single hit from a BB gun
Hitting a DD with a 15" gun is (a) something of a challenge (b) a distraction from hitting other capital shops, and (c) if you've run out of HE shells you face a real problem with overpenetration.

A 15" AP shot, unless it hits something vital on the way down through the maindeck, down through the interior decks, and out through the hull, will do less damage to a destroyer than a 6" HE shell would.
 
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Hitting a DD with a 15" gun is (a) something of a challenge (b) a distraction from hitting other capital shops, and (c) if you've run out of HE shells you face a real problem with overpenetration.

A 15" AP shot, unless it hits something vital on the way down through the maindeck, down through the interior decks, and out through the hull, will do less damage to a destroyer than a 6" HE shell would.
And what would a 15” HE shell do? You know, the ones you don’t use on other BBs?
 
And what would a 15” HE shell do? You know, the ones you don’t use on other BBs?
Well, if you land a hit, it'll do the job nicely.

Now, can you land a hit before they launch their torpedoes?
 
Shore bombardment?
Sure, but BBs carried HE explicitly to fight lighter armored ships...like cruisers and dds, because of overpen issues with AP shells. Hood had HE onboard when it fought Bismarck.

Theres a reason the Jeune Ecole didn’t become the dominant doctrine of the worlds’ navies, and HOI4 mechanics show the developers don’t understand that.

Torpedoes are also far far too cheap in game.
 
Considering your gun range is much greater than their torpedo range, with good FD, yes.
Destroyers are pretty fast and hard to hit, especially considering if you're shooting at one from miles away. Even if your fire-control is perfect and your aim is perfectly calculated, no gun from that time period was perfectly accurate. Barrels expand and contract based on temperature, and cause shells to deviate slightly from the intended trajectory. The wind could be different halfway between the BB's measuring instruments and its target. At 15 miles of range, even the tiniest deviation will probably miss the target if it's small enough. At closer range, destroyers are fast enough to flank a battleship faster than a battleship can turn its turrets and avoid fire that way. There's a reason battleships have secondary weapons and mostly don't use their main batteries to attack small ships like destroyers.
 
Destroyers are pretty fast and hard to hit, especially considering if you're shooting at one from miles away. Even if your fire-control is perfect and your aim is perfectly calculated, no gun from that time period was perfectly accurate. Barrels expand and contract based on temperature, and cause shells to deviate slightly from the intended trajectory. The wind could be different halfway between the BB's measuring instruments and its target. At 15 miles of range, even the tiniest deviation will probably miss the target if it's small enough. At closer range, destroyers are fast enough to flank a battleship faster than a battleship can turn its turrets and avoid fire that way. There's a reason battleships have secondary weapons and mostly don't use their main batteries to attack small ships like destroyers.
Totally agree. Would love to see light cruiser or medium batteries able to be mounted on battleships. And remember - even those batteries have the range to take out DDs before they are in torp range.

Remember - my point has nothing to do with Heavy Attack accuracy, but with its damage. Heavy attack is grossly underpowered in the game. A lucky 15" shell can sink anything.
 
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