Question about Naval Stacks

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    • Lawrence Czl wrote:

      What is in their stacks and what levels?
      they don’t have stacks, they have six destroyers creating a wall, 2 subs. One sub sitting in a port, another heading about a day away from his waters. Then he has 2, two stacks of cruisers sitting in Cuba’s waters, and then a cruiser sitting by itself. So yeah, it’s hard to wipe out his navy with one fell swipe so my question is, what is the best way to approach this. I have a balanced mix of cruisers, destroyers, and subs. With one aircraft carrier awaiting naval bombers.
    • When possible the best strategy is to hit a force of his with a superior force. If you can sink more of his ships than you lose, that is good. So, I would pick off one of his stacks and run. Then repeat.
      a) You could hit lone cruiser with a mixed cruiser/destroyer/sub stack. Cruiser has decent anti-air. Cruiser is weak against subs.
      b) You could hit a lone destroyer with a mixed cruiser/destroyer/sub/air carrier stack and naval bomber patrol from air carrier. If the six destroyers are each by themselves, they could be hours away from the end of their line. L1 destroyer has range of 20 km. L1 cruiser has range of 30 km. So L1 cruiser has attack of 10 versus L1 destroyer attack of 3. If you have two cruisers in your stack, you can do a lot of damage to a destroyer at range before it can even get close enough to return fire. The idea is to do significant damage before he can get reinforcements to the battle.
      c) A cruiser/destroyer stack is better than either alone.
      d) Any surface fleet should be supported by subs in the area.
      e) A sub pack can be used to attack a lone cruiser or destroyer as well.

      Mixed stacks tend to fare better. it takes longer to lose a ship. If you can get to the next day change, you will also get some healing of your naval stack. You can experiment with different stack combinations. The higher your attack to his defensive fire ratio, the higher your damage per round tends to be.
    • Build a battleship, then wipe him out by firing at maximum range. He will try to close the distance, so after you fire, you start moving away. If his ships get close to yours, detach a couple of destroyers to fight a holding action, then continue reducing his fleet at a distance. After a while, you would have sunk enough destroyers to approach him and engage at close quarters.

      Naval combat takes a LOT of patience. Don't use your resources on carriers, build battlewagons instead.
    • MartinB wrote:

      Build a battleship, then wipe him out by firing at maximum range. He will try to close the distance, so after you fire, you start moving away. If his ships get close to yours, detach a couple of destroyers to fight a holding action, then continue reducing his fleet at a distance. After a while, you would have sunk enough destroyers to approach him and engage at close quarters.

      Naval combat takes a LOT of patience. Don't use your resources on carriers, build battlewagons instead.
      Exactly right. Aircraft carriers may have dominated the real WW2 naval war, but in COW battleships are still the more cost effective, more versatile weapon for fighting other naval units. Like Martin said, use hit-and-run/shoot-and-scoot tactics that never give your opponent the opportunity to lay a glove on your battle group. Close-quarters melee combat between big stacks of naval units is for suckers. Always use superior, ranged naval gunfire whenever possible -- and that implies battle groups of 2 or 3 current level battleships, properly escorted by 2 to 3 destroyer squadrons per battleship. L1 battleships are too damn slow vs. destroyers and cruisers, so you need to keep the BB research level current if you're going to produce them. If your battle group is about to be overrun by faster DDs or CCs, then detach part of your DD escorts (and subs if you've got them), make the enemy engage the DDs and subs in close combat, and shell the bejeebers out of the enemy from a distance with your BBs. There are multiple variations on these tactics, but the strength of your BBs is the ability to damage and destroy weaker naval units when they cannot even shoot back.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by MontanaBB ().

    • MontanaBB wrote:

      MartinB wrote:

      Build a battleship, then wipe him out by firing at maximum range. He will try to close the distance, so after you fire, you start moving away. If his ships get close to yours, detach a couple of destroyers to fight a holding action, then continue reducing his fleet at a distance. After a while, you would have sunk enough destroyers to approach him and engage at close quarters.

      Naval combat takes a LOT of patience. Don't use your resources on carriers, build battlewagons instead.
      Exactly right. Aircraft carriers may have dominated the real WW2 naval war, but in COW battleships are still the more cost effective, more versatile weapon for fighting other naval units. Like Martin said, use hit-and-run/shoot-and-scoot tactics that never give your opponent the opportunity to lay a glove on your battle group. Close-quarters melee combat between big stacks of naval units is for suckers. Always use superior, ranged naval gunfire whenever possible -- and that implies battle groups of 2 or 3 current level battleships, properly escorted by 2 to 3 destroyer squadrons per battleship. L1 battleships are too damn slow vs. destroyers and cruisers, so you need to keep the BB research level current if you're going to produce them. If your battle group is about to be overrun by faster DDs or CCs, then detach part of your DD escorts (and subs if you've got them), make the enemy engage the DDs and subs in close combat, and shell the bejeebers out of the enemy from a distance with your BBs. There are multiple variations on these tactics, but the strength of your BBs is the ability to damage and destroy weaker naval units when they cannot even shoot back.
      dang! I haven’t researched battleships but I’ll start ASAP. For now I guess I’ll just hunt his lone ships with wolf packs since I have the subs to do so. Guess I’ll just make it costly for him to replace the ships while I ready battleships
    • MontanaBB wrote:

      Exactly right. Aircraft carriers may have dominated the real WW2 naval war, but in COW battleships are still the more cost effective, more versatile weapon for fighting other naval units.
      You never fought againts true naval power player...

      I wrote it already several times, i repeat it again:
      My own examples of strong navy:
      I 've played with strong navy at least three rounds. My own TOP3:
      3rd place of might of naval power: Marokko on 22er, game lastet 150+ days, i had more then 30 day break between day 50 and 80+, But my KI was as strong, that last player on map (USA) could not kill me till my return on map. After that we fought another 6+ weeks. That round i used 1st time carriers. And yeah armed carriers are most powerfull ship on sea... I had may be 12 till 15 Level 5 carrier. It was enough to destroy enemy coastal factories.


      2nd place of most powerfull single fleet and 2st place of naval power of all my rounds:
      Australia on 25er historic map, i quited on day 75+ after all allies left me alone in a fight vs superior might on map: player who picked GB, while other players picked minor powers for fun. My k/d ratio was 1,5+ Australia vs GB!!!
      I had not a single elite unit at this time, enemy had 80% elite units opened and used 3 of them.

      My single strongest fleet counted 80% of all my navy and 60% of all my units.

      Also i had 15+ BB's (efficience of single kind BB between 90% and 100%), 12+ carriers, and and and. Weaponary of carriers: 4 kinds of naval bomber, 3 kinds of fighters and 3 kind of TB's, best naval victory: versus 20 units strong "close"-combat ships like BB/cruiser/DD - i lost may be 10% flyers and some DD's and subs.


      Well,
      1st place of single fleet and 1st place of navy of all my round and of all my enemies i've seen:

      one of 1st x4 games on 100er map on CoW. Game was freezed on day 48 or something close. I had several 10 carriers strong fleets. In total of 30+ Carriers and 10+ nuclear carriers, (and yes, 15+BB and 10+ nuclear BB), But main power were armed carriers. And i mean ARMED!!! In this round i had most powerfull airforce i ever had and i ever 've seen in CoW. My main Fleet could use 80+ aircrafts. And "Bridge"-carriergroups had guaranted that my main strike fleet was never disarmed. Other ships was only guards for my carriers, nothing else. Also 10 BB/NuclearBB, 10 cruiser, 15 DD and 20 sub, main guard fleet, was not my main naval powerfleet and used only for defending area of order. And if i say main guard fleet, i mean this fleet had 100% efficiency. You know what i mean, if not, that is not my fault.


      Enjoy power of navy..

      The post was edited 3 times, last by Last Warrior ().

    • murb09 wrote:

      dang! I haven’t researched battleships but I’ll start ASAP.
      Okay. Hold on. I don't want you to run off and start building a massive fleet of battleships just yet, Murb. You need to understand their downside. BBs are expensive to produce and they require 200 tons of oil per day in daily upkeep, and the required research takes away from research time that may be more important in the context of your game on a given map. In order for BBs to be most effective, you need to build 3 or 4 of them to get the maximum benefit of their massed firepower, and then you need to produce 6 to 8 DD squadrons to provide a proper escort screen against submarines and other smaller naval units. That's a big commitment of research time, production resources and ongoing costs of oil consumption, not to mention the upfront costs of building one or more L3 naval bases.

      Bottom line: in most games, especially those played on the 22-player European map, big navies and capital ships tend to be an expensive sideshow. That said, if you're in a game where a navy is a real advantage -- like the 50-player Pacific map -- then you should consider having one or more battle groups once your empire reaches a size which can afford to support them. If I am playing a landlocked country or one that has only a small, easily defended coastline, then I try to delay or avoid building any naval units (beyond a handful of subs and DDs) as long as possible.

      In order to maintain my 24/7 research schedule to produce the key ground and air units for my army, I usually treat BB research and production as an "extra" and I will usually drop 3,400 to 6,800 gold units to work them into my research schedule IF (and that's a big IF) I believe BBs will give me a significant edge in a given game. In most games played on the smaller maps, I produce mostly DDs to escort my own ocean-going convoys of ground units, and subs for snooping and sinking ground unit convoys of opponents who are foolish enough not to provide provide proper escorts.

      Final piece of advice: learn to budget your resource consumption, and expand your units -- including naval units -- within your present budget constraints. Oil and food are the key end-game resources, and big navies will drain your oil just like overbuilding aircraft or motorized ground units. Very few players wish for more naval units at the end of the game; many wish for more aircraft and/or armored ground units when the crucial showdowns come.
    • Last Warrior wrote:

      You never fought against true naval power player...
      @Last Warrior, if by "true naval power player," you mean someone who builds 5 or 6 L6/L7 aircraft carriers, and then produces 40 to 50 naval/tactical bomber squadrons in order to fight a massive naval war, I will tell you that I have only encountered such a fleet and naval air wing twice, and the solution is not to try to out-build them, but to bait and trap them. One nuclear missile will sink 4 or 5 CVs and 8 or 10 DDs in a single stack, and every aircraft squadron on a sunk CV will also be lost unless they are flying within range of a friendly land air base or another one of your own CVs with excess capacity.

      As I have said elsewhere, better tactics will defeat bigger armies and navies more often than not.
    • MontanaBB wrote:

      murb09 wrote:

      dang! I haven’t researched battleships but I’ll start ASAP.
      Okay. Hold on. I don't want you to run off and start building a massive fleet of battleships just yet, Murb. You need to understand their downside. BBs are expensive to produce and they require 200 tons of oil per day in daily upkeep, and the required research takes away from research time that may be more important in the context of your game on a given map. In order for BBs to be most effective, you need to build 3 or 4 of them to get the maximum benefit of their massed firepower, and then you need to produce 6 to 8 DD squadrons to provide a proper escort screen against submarines and other smaller naval units. That's a big commitment of research time, production resources and ongoing costs of oil consumption, not to mention the upfront costs of building one or more L3 naval bases.
      Bottom line: in most games, especially those played on the 22-player European map, big navies and capital ships tend to be an expensive sideshow. That said, if you're in a game where a navy is a real advantage -- like the 50-player Pacific map -- then you should consider having one or more battle groups once your empire reaches a size which can afford to support them. If I am playing a landlocked country or one that has only a small, easily defended coastline, then I try to delay or avoid building any naval units (beyond a handful of subs and DDs) as long as possible.

      In order to maintain my 24/7 research schedule to produce the key ground and air units for my army, I usually treat BB research and production as an "extra" and I will usually drop 3,400 to 6,800 gold units to work them into my research schedule IF (and that's a big IF) I believe BBs will give me a significant edge in a given game. In most games played on the smaller maps, I produce mostly DDs to escort my own ocean-going convoys of ground units, and subs for snooping and sinking ground unit convoys of opponents who are foolish enough not to provide provide proper escorts.

      Final piece of advice: learn to budget your resource consumption, and expand your units -- including naval units -- within your present budget constraints. Oil and food are the key end-game resources, and big navies will drain your oil just like overbuilding aircraft or motorized ground units. Very few players wish for more naval units at the end of the game; many wish for more aircraft and/or armored ground units when the crucial showdowns come.


      Well, to be fair, it’s day 9, nearly day change in about 6 hours. I cancelled rocket research to begin on battleships. Currently researching medium tanks and the battleship. I already have a level three naval base, it’s Ponta Delgada in the Atlantic. It’s an FOB against Southern USA since he’s playing very aggressively. I’ve already deployed a 6 stack Wolfpack of subs to hunt his cruisers currently busy with Cuba and I have two other stacks of a mix of DD’s and Cruisers ready to strike. Another submarine Wolfpack is forming at my FOB. It’ll be about 7 strong. For now I’m just going to commit to hit and run targets, to try and bait his ships away from his cores so I can send in my destroyers and cruisers to pound his subs
    • @murb09, well, that sounds very sensible, but don't neglect your land and air forces just to build an expensive BB fleet. And, yes, do an oil and food production and consumption budget based on the output of your core oil and food-producing provinces. A single core resource province will produce 3,000 to 3,100 tons of oil or food per day at 100% morale; fully improved with L3 infrastructure and an L5 industrial complex, it will produce 6,000 to 6,200 tons per day. If you're lucky enough to have a double resource core province, its production will double those numbers. The daily oil and food consumption numbers for each unit type are posted under the "i" button on the research page for each unit.

      If you learn to budget your resources, you will never be one of those rookies who comes to the forum to complain about how you can never produce enough food ---- and you will be light years ahead of most of your peers!
    • MontanaBB wrote:

      Last Warrior wrote:

      You never fought against true naval power player...
      @Last Warrior, if by "true naval power player," you mean someone who builds 5 or 6 L6/L7 aircraft carriers, and then produces 40 to 50 naval/tactical bomber squadrons...

      I think some players do not understand the difference between building an extremely powerful stack (at tremendous cost) and building a stack that will do the same job at a much lower price. Yes, a Level 5 Carrier carrying several Naval Bomber squadrons will probably beat a battleship, but at what cost? First, you have to research both Carriers and Naval Bombers to a high enough level, then for each Carrier that you build you will need to also build four or five aircraft squadrons. The resource cost of doing this will be enormous. And it is a foolish waste.

      In economics, there is a concept known as the cost-benefit ratio. And in this game, the most important thing is to achieve your objectives without running out of resources. If you play against a noob, you will probably have the breathing space to research all that and build it up. A good player will probably have sunk your fleet and buggered your core long before you get around to researching Level 5 Carriers, let alone Level 5 Naval Bombers. We all know that in a one-to-one, a Heavy Tank will wipe out a Light Tank, but that does not mean it makes sense to build Heavy Tanks, because by the time you get around to setting up your army, your opponent would have taken your capital and devastated your core.

      Getting back to the OP's question, I still maintain that battlewagons are the best solution to his problem. You can level up your battleships relatively quickly, and you don't have to waste time and resources building up your naval bombers at the same time (because presumably, you also want to level up your air and ground units, and research nuclear weapons as well). Leveling up battleships and building a few is never a waste IMHO, and especially not if you are in a fight with an enemy across the sea, because they will come in useful for when you need to launch a ground attack on him later on.

      The only point I would like to add is that it is never a good idea to cancel research. Research time is a real limiting factor in this game, so the only time I cancel research is if I have pressed the wrong button and researched something really useless, like Rocket Fighters.
    • MartinB wrote:

      In economics, there is a concept known as the cost-benefit ratio.
      Martin, some of us enjoyed the undergraduate economics major so much that we stuck around and got a master's in the subject field. Broadly speaking, I am quite certain that it changed the lens through which I view the world, and more specifically there is rarely a day that I don't use the economics-derived finance principles and applications in my real world job.
    • My favourite weapon of the seas is the submarine. Look at it, the beautiful silver cigar. My navies mostly consist of subs(most of which are used to build submarine lines along my coasts) and destroyers, with maybe three strategically placed battleships sprinkled throughout. If I control an empire that spans an ocean, I'll build an army of around 3-4 carriers to quickly and safely transport my planes across the oceans.
      "That's impossible! The Americans only know how to make razor blades."
      "We could do with some of those razor blades, Herr Reichsmarshall."
      Hermann Goring and Erwin Rommel