Naval units excepting Battleships and Carriers

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    • z00mz00m wrote:

      This thread reminds me of discussions around heavy tanks. Yes, it is possible to win using heavy tanks, if you have the patience. Wait for the research, wait to build them, wait to move them into position. Then hope the enemy is well behaved, waiting for you.

      By the time you research and build and move a carrier-based navy into position, my cruiser navy has already reached the enemy, killed his navy, cleared the coastline, and my army has already landed and taken the enemy's core.

      I've even done this to myself: built a carrier navy (5 carriers with 6 planes each), loaded with planes, sailed into position, and by the time I got there my own cruisers had already finished the job. Because they were able to start sooner, and move faster, the enemy had less time to respond. This is like invading an enemy with AC's on day 4 versus bringing heavy tanks on day 8. Yeah the HT beats an AC one on one, but we're not fighting one on one ;)
      Yep. Here I thought it was a simple debate of the cost benefit analysis of using fleet of BB + CV plus NBs and INTs as well as other things to consider with this approach. Now we have to worry about stacks of 20 subs our opponent never built as well as spies that were never factored into the cost benefit analysis either. Spies are expensive and unreliable.

      We're not saying 10 cruisers plus a few destroyers will beat anything. We're just saying it's very resource friendly, flexible and effective strategy. Any time you can throw more resources at something than your opponent, you have an advantage, this is no exception.

    • 6thDragon wrote:

      z00mz00m wrote:

      This thread reminds me of discussions around heavy tanks. Yes, it is possible to win using heavy tanks, if you have the patience. Wait for the research, wait to build them, wait to move them into position. Then hope the enemy is well behaved, waiting for you.

      By the time you research and build and move a carrier-based navy into position, my cruiser navy has already reached the enemy, killed his navy, cleared the coastline, and my army has already landed and taken the enemy's core.

      I've even done this to myself: built a carrier navy (5 carriers with 6 planes each), loaded with planes, sailed into position, and by the time I got there my own cruisers had already finished the job. Because they were able to start sooner, and move faster, the enemy had less time to respond. This is like invading an enemy with AC's on day 4 versus bringing heavy tanks on day 8. Yeah the HT beats an AC one on one, but we're not fighting one on one ;)
      Yep. Here I thought it was a simple debate of the cost benefit analysis of using fleet of BB + CV plus NBs and INTs as well as other things to consider with this approach. Now we have to worry about stacks of 20 subs our opponent never built as well as spies that were never factored into the cost benefit analysis either. Spies are expensive and unreliable.
      We're not saying 10 cruisers plus a few destroyers will beat anything. We're just saying it's very resource friendly, flexible and effective strategy. Any time you can throw more resources at something than your opponent, you have an advantage, this is no exception.
      so your strategy work for allied doctrine too ? what do you suggest for allied

    • Undaunted wrote:

      so your strategy work for allied doctrine too ? what do you suggest for allied
      I think of all doctrines, allies is the one that struggles the most with this strategy. The speed penalty makes it harder to evade sub rushes and makes it harder to keep in cruiser range when facing battleships. An active battleship player, especially Pan Asian ones, could use your speed penalty against you when combined with their superior range. However against subs, allies do have the best destroyers.

      Personally, I usually include two or three destroyers with my cruiser stacks, but I know plenty of very good allied players who just keep to one.

      I've had opponents try to keep in battleship range but not cruiser range and I force marched my destroyers into them to hold them in place until my cruisers got there so I wouldn't have to forced march the entire stack and I was glad I had three. Same concept goes for catching subs in the process of upgrading. I've been glad I had more than one so I could just lock them in melee and be done with it.

      Plus with allies they have reduced research costs so the benefits of focused research are not as high.

      The way I see it, is if you wait to know you can counter everything your opponent has with overwhelming force all the time, you'll pass plenty of good opportunities for expansion, especially in the early game. It's often best to take calculated risks in order to expand in order to grow your economy. As long as you're growing, you can handle a few minor losses. The trick is to expand while minimizing your losses.

      One last thought. If cruisers were so underpowered, why would they have just increased the cost for them while increasing the range of battleships? The easy answer is that the balance clearly favored cruisers. Now the advantages cruisers have are a little offset by their increased cost, and the dynamic has likely changed a little, but I think the approach is still very valid.

    • I actually like your idea to try in certain situations and it could certainly beat up on some newbs and lead to a fast victory. I will have to try it.

      The Interceptor/NB stacks with CV(Air Carrier) and BB (Battleship) and skipping all other navy sounds good to me if you are dominating on land and economy and you don't face a good player within the first 8 days. This could be good for an active player, but if you have high command, you would still want DD (destroyer) for advance sub spotting when offline traveling and Cruisers (CA) for view range to make your battleships more effective while offline. Constant scouting with aircraft day and night is not that fun and it's a waste to not have your ships doing something or repositioning overnight.

      Low level interceptors and NBs are worthless besides recon and protecting against convoys and don't meet my casualty loss requirements for actual warfare vs any typical enemies I find. Also, your navy risks annihilation by subs and CA cruisers before you can get more than a few of each into a flotilla. 16 hours into day 4 (Pan Asian and Comintern) and you could have to face off with a 10 stack of lev 3 cruisers with 10 subs attached. Your battleships damage and health would be puny compared to these and the damage distribution would be 50-50 ship to sub. Your aircraft would be useless, and you better get them out of there quick and not return. Another counter would be to break off the subs after the first volley and melee the BB/CV group. Your planes would be either useless or a one-shot wonder because the Cruisers are still close enough to get into patrol zone or hit the refueling aircraft. Still a third tactic would be to break the subs away for melee, but back the cruisers beyond BB range and back in again to fire after BBs fire at the subs point blank. This is very feasible for me day 4, perhaps more cruisers if not landlocked.

      I use cruisers a lot early game, and they are useful all game and rack up the most kills by the end due to their speed and multi-use character. They are fast, and the best a landing protection when you don't have air superiority. I have never tried BB/CV only with ints and NBs because I dont think I could perform reliably when AFK while NB/Ints are on deck or patrolling some random useless spot. Late game, I like to add these aircraft and navy ships to round out my military capabilities, but not at the expense of other navy.

    • Undaunted wrote:

      DxC wrote:

      In terms of maximum efficiency and cost/risk balance it seems like the way to go is to just have lots of high level subs and forget all that playing around in the kiddie pool :)
      I agree lol

      I've tried this, multiple times. Even playing Axis (with the best quality subs) the subs are not enough.
      They are bad at spotting. You need something with better view range and better speed. Cruisers or planes.
      They don't have naval standoff weapons, meaning they go into close combat and lose HP in every fight.
      They don't have shore bombardment weapons, so your army and air force have to work a lot harder.

      Don't get me wrong, I like subs and I use them, but they cannot be your only naval unit.
      They are too limited in their capabilities.
      You need at least 1 kind of ship with an artillery type weapon, to kill naval and land based units "for free".
      Either cruisers or battleships.
      Then it's just a matter of deciding how you're going to protect and round out your floating artillery.
      With cruisers, all you need are a few destroyers, and you're set.
      With battleships, you need air cover, and this starts a long descent into carrier madness.

    • z00mz00m wrote:

      They don't have naval standoff weapons, meaning they go into close combat and lose HP in every fight.
      They don't have shore bombardment weapons, so your army and air force have to work a lot harder.

      They are melee, but in my experience with large high level stacks they finish the job pretty quickly without taking much damage. Sea artillery is nice, but it isn't really necessary. Of course there are a lot of variables, but on average a lot of high level subs seems to work well and allow you to keep your artillery and TAC research maxed as well as producing more land units. Despite their limited range they are great for stealth scouting and for coastal barriers/recon. Most of the time you can just keep an eye on enemy navy and strike when and if appropriate.

    • FinnDaddy wrote:

      I actually like your idea to try in certain situations and it could certainly beat up on some newbs and lead to a fast victory. I will have to try it.

      The Interceptor/NB stacks with CV(Air Carrier) and BB (Battleship) and skipping all other navy sounds good to me if you are dominating on land and economy and you don't face a good player within the first 8 days. This could be good for an active player, but if you have high command, you would still want DD (destroyer) for advance sub spotting when offline traveling and Cruisers (CA) for view range to make your battleships more effective while offline. Constant scouting with aircraft day and night is not that fun and it's a waste to not have your ships doing something or repositioning overnight.

      Low level interceptors and NBs are worthless besides recon and protecting against convoys and don't meet my casualty loss requirements for actual warfare vs any typical enemies I find. Also, your navy risks annihilation by subs and CA cruisers before you can get more than a few of each into a flotilla. 16 hours into day 4 (Pan Asian and Comintern) and you could have to face off with a 10 stack of lev 3 cruisers with 10 subs attached. Your battleships damage and health would be puny compared to these and the damage distribution would be 50-50 ship to sub. Your aircraft would be useless, and you better get them out of there quick and not return. Another counter would be to break off the subs after the first volley and melee the BB/CV group. Your planes would be either useless or a one-shot wonder because the Cruisers are still close enough to get into patrol zone or hit the refueling aircraft. Still a third tactic would be to break the subs away for melee, but back the cruisers beyond BB range and back in again to fire after BBs fire at the subs point blank. This is very feasible for me day 4, perhaps more cruisers if not landlocked.

      I use cruisers a lot early game, and they are useful all game and rack up the most kills by the end due to their speed and multi-use character. They are fast, and the best a landing protection when you don't have air superiority. I have never tried BB/CV only with ints and NBs because I dont think I could perform reliably when AFK while NB/Ints are on deck or patrolling some random useless spot. Late game, I like to add these aircraft and navy ships to round out my military capabilities, but not at the expense of other navy.
      I have to agree, this could be more workable in some situations. Especially when you already have an advanced economy built. Probably best if you start as a landlocked Pan Asian country. Pan Asian get bonuses in BB, CV, INT, and NB. If you acquired your coast through conquest, you could defend it for a few days with naval bombers, then spam a few battleships and carriers before upgrading them by skipping a level. You’d still have the micromanaging patrol and limited ability to move while offline concerns however.

      Never try the BB, CV, INT, and NB combination with Comintern, they get delayed access to upgrades for every unit there.

      I tried a vaguely similar conquest a while back. Starting as Korea, I build a few NBs, BBs, and INTs and went after Japan by building a few air strips along my coast to maximize the range my planes could provide protection to the battleships. I was able to take a few cities and was convinced the player quit before moving the battleships out from under the air cover I was able to provide. Again this was around day two I attacked. It wasn’t an experienced player and I wanted to attack quickly while keeping as much troops as possible on my land border.

    • The main advantage of carriers is that they can use their air force inland. Cruisers can clear a coastline; carriers can clear a core. Sure they may not be as efficient in destroying the enemy's navy using NB's (though I LOVE NB's!), but they have a use afterwards. A cruiser navy, after winning naval dominance, can become useless for lack of targets.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.

    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      The main advantage of carriers is that they can use their air force inland. Cruisers can clear a coastline; carriers can clear a core. Sure they may not be as efficient in destroying the enemy's navy using NB's (though I LOVE NB's!), but they have a use afterwards. A cruiser navy, after winning naval dominance, can become useless for lack of targets.

      This is true. I've had cases where there's nothing left to destroy, and the cruisers have to go away and pick a fight with someone else. There's always someone else to demolish ;)

      Imagine an enemy who can be destroyed by a small AB+TB force. It's small because it fits on a carrier fleet, where it has to share space with NB's. Do you even need air power to conquer this enemy? Why not clear the coast, land your army, and destroy them conventionally?

      In other words, if an enemy can be destroyed by a fraction of your air force, then it's not worth optimizing your R&D strategy around this enemy.

      I worry about serious opposition with serious air power. They are not constrained by carrier deck space. They are producing whatever they want and hitting you right away, with no constraints or delays. Good luck protecting your 10-20 bombers with your 10-20 fighters, when the enemy has 2x or 3x as many planes on his land mass. And he's building more every few hours, while yours are stuck at home.

      The last time I had to fight a serious air power, I found a spot on his land mass, shipped my air force, landed the army, built an airfield, and stationed my air force on land. It only takes a few hours to build an airfield. I just had to be far enough away from his planes so they couldn't reach me in time. After that, I could match his numbers without worrying about carrier capacity. And I used standard cruiser+destroyer stacks to protect the invasion force on water, no need for specialized research.

      The most practical way to use carriers IMO is to fill the gaps across the ocean where you don't have islands. Basically you just add a few floating islands, as needed. They don't have to be high level, because they are only used to ship reinforcements. New planes come off the assembly line, and hop across the Pacific. This works if you have naval superiority so you don't have to protect your scattered carriers.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by z00mz00m ().

    • That may be true in a protracted war, but not when you launch a surprise attack, which is quite common when launching a trans-continental invasion, especially on a broad front. Your cruisers don't have time to go to and clear all the locations of a stretched coastline, while there is a decent chance that his main air force is hours away when you land, and your bombers have time to pick off a wide variety of defense stacks in a vast range, both on the coast and inland. Your fighters can provide air cover not just for the disembarkment, but also when the troops move inland; all your air force (granted: limited by carrier space) is operational immediately, without having to bother about 4.5h disembarkment plus 5h+ air strip building time. (They're also invulnerable to destruction of that air strip, of course).

      So yeah, maybe you can field less aircraft, but you have 10 hours extra of using them; and that is during your weakest time, when you are storming those beaches. And of course, nothing is stopping you from shipping planes as well. As soon as you have airstrips on land (after those same ten hours), part of your carriers can return to your own coast to pick up more planes that you've built (or couldn't carry first time), so resupply is also secured (and actually faster and safer than the shipping required in the cruiser method).

      All of that for an increased plane cost of about 12.5% to 16.7% (assuming a carrier costs about the same as a plane here; and that you don't go beyond L3 or L4 carriers), plus a few levels of research. I think that's worth it.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.

    • Yeah, carriers can be invaluable in surprise cross ocean amphibious landings. You’re right, their ability to quickly reach targets deep in an opponent’s core can quickly devastate an unprepared player. Especially coupled with a spy reveal. Your bombers don’t need to scout for vulnerable targets, you know where they are and can go straight for them if you’re willing to time the start of your assault for just after day change. On more than one occasion, I’ve even bypassed AI islands in the Pacific just so it wouldn’t be as obvious I was coming. This is all the more reason to have destroyers so you don’t need to use valuable carrier space on naval bombers whose main purpose is to protect your fleet.

      Carriers are also very valuable when they have a lot of coastline so you don’t need to build air strips all along the way, you can just move your carrier fleet. When you have fast moving land units this can be vital so you don’t have to pause to build more air strips/factories.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by 6thDragon ().

    • Good points. Maybe I need to experiment with carriers some more, but less in a WW2 way and more like a modern American navy. Back in WW2, carriers were used to control the oceans, wiping out other carrier groups, battleships, cruisers, etc. There was a heavy emphasis on dive bombers and torpedo bombers, all meant to hit enemy ships. They could also hit targets on land, of course, but that wasn't their specialty. The modern American navy is all about projecting power onto other continents. The carrier task force squats in the Persian Gulf and controls the skies in the region. They hit anything they want, mostly on land, because nothing is challenging them on the water. This translates to carriers with cruisers and destroyers in an escort role. The carriers send bombers out to inflict damage, and the cruisers and destroyers have a defensive role. Leaving the battleships out saves on research costs and makes the navy faster, since battleships are even slower than carriers. You still have cruisers to take free shots at the coastline. The challenge would be enemy shipping. Just bring more cruisers, I guess......

    • The key question in my mind is: What is the carrier carrying?

      Is it there to bring land bombers to help kill enemy artillery and unprotected armor stacks?

      Or is it carrying naval bombers to protect itself? In which case, I don't think it's worth the hassle. I don't need another soft target to worry about, I need damage output.

      This is why I like cruisers. They are hard targets. They don't take crap from anything. There is no easy counter like there is with other naval units.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by z00mz00m ().

    • Gen. Smit wrote:

      DxC wrote:

      6thDragon wrote:

      Both will need destroyers, but the cruisers will need fewer.
      No, his main idea is to use carriers with naval bombers and fighters, so the only ships needed are BBs and carriers.
      This is a scary idea when you are asleep 0_0
      cruisers need to stay active too low range against battleships , bad def value against subs

      if you have naval bombers and ınterceptors you can send them to patrolling over battleships

    • Undaunted wrote:

      Gen. Smit wrote:

      DxC wrote:

      6thDragon wrote:

      Both will need destroyers, but the cruisers will need fewer.
      No, his main idea is to use carriers with naval bombers and fighters, so the only ships needed are BBs and carriers.
      This is a scary idea when you are asleep 0_0
      cruisers need to stay active too low range against battleships , bad def value against subs
      if you have naval bombers and ınterceptors you can send them to patrolling over battleships
      Sure but to be sure its working they need be of the highest level, otherwise its byebye naval stack. You cant attack what you cant spot.