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.
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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