naval battle

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    • Ender, as best I can tell, in-game aircraft carrier units have no naval gunfire range. So their offensive and defensive strength points only apply in close ("melee") combat, when the carriers (or their stack) makes direct contact with an enemy stack of naval units.

      Personally, I have never put it to the test, because I go to great lengths to protect my carriers on those occasions when I actually produce them. Their value is their ability launch strike aircraft -- either naval or tactical bombers -- not to get into a naval gunfire duel with battleships or any other surface ship.

      I have seen a number of players use carriers as "damage soakers" for battleship divisions, but I personally think that is a complete misuse of a high-value offensive unit.

    • MontanaBB wrote:

      Ender, as best I can tell, in-game aircraft carrier units have no naval gunfire range.
      They don't. If you check your warships in the research tree, you will note that battleships, cruisers and destroyers all have an 'attack range' but carriers do not. So you can only use them in close combat, as you point out, but you cannot use them to bombard from a distance.

      Fully agree that using them as a damage soaker is a bit of a waste, but in extremis, that can mean the difference between losing your battleship or not, and can be useful. Under normal circumstances, I typically detach my carriers and move them away if my battleships are moving in for the kill.

      One role that carriers can be used for that is invaluable is to search for an enemy fleet that you know is there, but has disappeared into the wide open sea. Against an active competent opponent, you will rarely get the chance to catch his battlefleet bombarding coastal units, because the first thing he will do (especially if you have a stronger fleet) is vanish in order to keep his fleet intact and have it as a fleet-in-being. So, when I know that there is a strong enemy fleet around (e.g. if I am the UK and playing against Germany) and have the luxury of a carrier in my fleet, I can use my aircraft to search for them even if they are out of range of land-based aircraft. Of course you have to be really careful not to go offline and leave your aircraft circling over enemy warships or you can lose your planes (did that a couple of times in my noob days, very very frustrating).

    • I was doing well with a few carriers and support ships, but now I need to take on computer controlled Canada. It built a navy of at least 20 level 5 cruisers along with an equal compliment of destroyers and subs.

      So now I building battleships and will spend a week leveling up cruisers and battleships. But I'm still trying to get the hang of the battle. If I attack with a big stack ( 4 battleships, 12 cruisers, 15 destoyers, 18 subs, and 6 carriers ), the battleships will start firing when they get in range, and the rest of the stack will stop closing.

      Now Canada's Cruiser fleet starts closing. It's range is 10 km less then my battleship's. It's speed is 15 km/hr more at 50 km/hr. If don't move, it will attack in less then 15 minutes. If I go in full retreat I should get an extra half hour at least but his volley still comes before the one hour of my next attack. So all I get is one free shot with no fight back. Maybe 'forced march' would get me there, but those could be valuable hit points lost.

      If I split my stack, and run some cruisers, destroyers and subs at it, it could destroy them with one defensive volley and not even be slowed down. And it would still have its' attack volley ready to go. But if I don't attack with the split off group and just leave them in the path, I think the cruisers have to attack. I don't think they could just move through a target without attacking, and therefore lose their volley against the battleships. Since the Canadian fleet would have a three or four hundred strike power, I wouldn't want to waste allot of ships, so if I just dropped one destroyer at a time in its' path would it never get a shot at my battleships? I still don't think it would be slowed down and would eventually be right on me.

      So then maybe the carriers would kick in. Just don't want to have planes on the carriers in case I lose a couple. Maybe if I kept a couple empty. Would be nice to have the navy bombers mop up after the carriers are gone.

    • ender611 wrote:

      I was doing well with a few carriers and support ships, but now I need to take on computer controlled Canada. It built a navy of at least 20 level 5 cruisers along with an equal compliment of destroyers and subs.

      So now I building battleships and will spend a week leveling up cruisers and battleships. But I'm still trying to get the hang of the battle. If I attack with a big stack ( 4 battleships, 12 cruisers, 15 destoyers, 18 subs, and 6 carriers ), the battleships will start firing when they get in range, and the rest of the stack will stop closing.

      Now Canada's Cruiser fleet starts closing. It's range is 10 km less then my battleship's. It's speed is 15 km/hr more at 50 km/hr. If don't move, it will attack in less then 15 minutes. If I go in full retreat I should get an extra half hour at least but his volley still comes before the one hour of my next attack. So all I get is one free shot with no fight back. Maybe 'forced march' would get me there, but those could be valuable hit points lost.

      If I split my stack, and run some cruisers, destroyers and subs at it, it could destroy them with one defensive volley and not even be slowed down. And it would still have its' attack volley ready to go. But if I don't attack with the split off group and just leave them in the path, I think the cruisers have to attack. I don't think they could just move through a target without attacking, and therefore lose their volley against the battleships. Since the Canadian fleet would have a three or four hundred strike power, I wouldn't want to waste allot of ships, so if I just dropped one destroyer at a time in its' path would it never get a shot at my battleships? I still don't think it would be slowed down and would eventually be right on me.
      If you are fighting against an AI fleet you should usually be able to beat it with minimal losses because the AI behaves in very predictable ways. If you spend a week levelling up your cruisers and battleships, you should presumably be able to level them up to the same level as his cruisers? So the thing to do is not attack with your first bombardment from maximum range but close so that both your battleships and cruisers will get to fire on the first round. Alternatively, you could split your cruisers off from the main battlefleet and stack them with a few destroyers.

      Are ALL of those 20 cruisers in the same stack? Typically the AI will not stack 20 cruisers together I think, but if they are you have an advantage because 20 cruisers stacked together will have a big penalty on the SBDE. Your 4 battleships will fire at 100 percent, so if you have 12 cruisers, you can split them into two fleets, maybe 6 with the battleships and another 6 on their own, and fire at his fleet using both stacks. This way you will hit him with maximum damage.

      One other thing you can do is split off your subs and send them off to intercept the cruisers. Do this only after one or two exchanges of fire, so that you have sunk a few of his ships. When the subs intercept, his fleet will fight the subs, and your battleships will be able to decimate them over the next few turns. By the time he has wiped out your subs, you should have destroyed enough cruisers to beat him.

    • I like that approach. The subs won't take much of the hit point load in the stack anyway. I'll move them in close and wait for a more manageable destroyer/cruiser count. The computer player has maybe 15 cruisers together with destroyers and probably subs ( I've just been probing with subs, not naval bombers ). Then there are a few packs of 3 or 4.

      Hitting with all guns ( except destroyers ), will get the battle done quicker and that should be the least damage to my ships. I will lose allot of cruisers but I need to cut down on the oil consumption anyway.

      I still will have the carriers with the battleships to absorb hits, as they can do the job cruising at 70% for the rest of this game that I'm in. Thanks

    • ender611 wrote:

      I like that approach. The subs won't take much of the hit point load in the stack anyway. I'll move them in close and wait for a more manageable destroyer/cruiser count. The computer player has maybe 15 cruisers together with destroyers and probably subs ( I've just been probing with subs, not naval bombers ). Then there are a few packs of 3 or 4.

      Hitting with all guns ( except destroyers ), will get the battle done quicker and that should be the least damage to my ships. I will lose allot of cruisers but I need to cut down on the oil consumption anyway.

      I still will have the carriers with the battleships to absorb hits, as they can do the job cruising at 70% for the rest of this game that I'm in. Thanks
      Glad to help. Take out the few packs of 3 or 4 first. With your fleet concentrated, a 4 battleship fleet should be able to wipe them out with minimal losses. That way, once you have tackled his main fleet, you won't have to worry about these smaller stacks making nuisance attacks or threatening your convoys.

      Also, with the destroyers, check once you have closed whether you have more than he does (and of course take relative levels into account). If you have a lot more destroyers than he does, close the range further and let your destroyers join in the battle. If he has more, keep your distance and avoid closing the range.

    • ender611 wrote:

      ... now I need to take on computer controlled Canada.
      ...
      More tips:

      AI often patrols his ships on identical routes betwen same points several times a day.
      If you attack them while they driving, they will not shoot back at once but they will track you unless you drive too far.
      Thereby, in a kind of roundabout, you can shoot down the enemy fleet without own damage. :thumbup:

      That takes a bit time of course - if you want it fast, take some level 4 missiles, if in range - or, easyest 8) , just take all the provinces of the AI, then all their remaining troops disappear immediately ..

      Browser games are an ingenious business idea to lure out money ..
      ..... >> more or less cleverly camouflaged as a real game <<
      .... .. so beware of caltrops, spring-guns and booby traps. :00008185:
      Warning! Texts above this signature may contain traces of irony! :D

    • Restrisiko wrote:

      More tips:
      AI often patrols his ships on identical routes betwen same points several times a day.
      If you attack them while they driving, they will not shoot back at once but they will track you unless you drive too far.
      Wow didn't know that. So if the AI ships are moving and you fire at them, are you saying they will continue to their destination and not fire back at you. That way, if you fire and then start moving away from the ship they will just not fire back?

    • MartinB wrote:

      So if the AI ships are moving and you fire at them, are you saying they will continue to their destination and not fire back at you
      Correct.

      And not just AI naval units. All AI units will continue to their pre-programmed destinations UNLESS they are interrupted and physically stopped by melee combat. So you can safely use shoot-and-scoot tactics against AI artillery and surface naval units and you are essentially getting a free shot. The trick, of course, is not to be within their range when the music stops.

      And the same is also true of human player-controlled units . . . unless the human player is actually paying attention when you take your free shot and reacts before you are out of range again.

    • Because CoW is a board game and not a simulation :00008185:

      But with High Command and the appropriate fire control setting, all ranged fighters (ships and artillery) can drive, stop and shoot, and then continue driving automatically.

      Browser games are an ingenious business idea to lure out money ..
      ..... >> more or less cleverly camouflaged as a real game <<
      .... .. so beware of caltrops, spring-guns and booby traps. :00008185:
      Warning! Texts above this signature may contain traces of irony! :D