Attacking to Stationary Naval Stacks

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    • Attacking to Stationary Naval Stacks

      which tactics you use to attack Stationary naval stacks to don't get damage your big ships ?

      sending flying bomb as a transport ship will work ?

      flying bombs might be useful in this situation ?

      attack with your naval stack and retreat probably won't help without a meatshield
    • I'm playing a Soviet game currently, and here flying bombs have an attack value of 5.4 against surface ships. That means it needs about eight of them to kill a single 40 HP ship, like an L1 battleship.

      You take it from there.
      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.
    • If the enemy stack is mostly battleships with few or no cruisers, patrol a stack of naval bombers overheard and sink them without letting the battleships use their big guns on you. You're trading 1 bomber HP for every 4-5 ship HP.

      If the enemy stack has a lot of cruisers but few or no destroyers, then a stack of subs can engage them in direct combat, and then your gun ships can approach and fire on the enemy. The subs will keep them occupied, so they can't fire on your surface ships. Your subs will take some damage, but not as much as surface ships would take from the big guns. You're trading 1 sub HP for every 2-3 ship HP.

      If the enemy has lots of cruisers and lots of destroyers, but you have more (or higher level) battleships than he does, then group your subs together with your surface units, so the subs soak up some of the damage. They will waste some of the return fire coming from the enemy's big guns. Then close in and get into a gun battle. Since your battleships are doing more damage than his, and you are soaking some damage with your subs, your navy should win with a better than 1:1 damage ratio.

      If the enemy navy is superior in every way, then stay away :)

      Improve your research, build and upgrade your navy, change the situation to your advantage before you attack.

      The only possible exception, which almost never happens, is if you have nuclear missiles in range AND the enemy is stationary AND the enemy navy is large and worth the cost of a nuclear missile. This is almost never true. But if it is... then hit them with a nuke.
    • z00mz00m wrote:

      If the enemy stack is mostly battleships with few or no cruisers, patrol a stack of naval bombers overheard and sink them without letting the battleships use their big guns on you. You're trading 1 bomber HP for every 4-5 ship HP.

      If the enemy stack has a lot of cruisers but few or no destroyers, then a stack of subs can engage them in direct combat, and then your gun ships can approach and fire on the enemy. The subs will keep them occupied, so they can't fire on your surface ships. Your subs will take some damage, but not as much as surface ships would take from the big guns. You're trading 1 sub HP for every 2-3 ship HP.

      If the enemy has lots of cruisers and lots of destroyers, but you have more (or higher level) battleships than he does, then group your subs together with your surface units, so the subs soak up some of the damage. They will waste some of the return fire coming from the enemy's big guns. Then close in and get into a gun battle. Since your battleships are doing more damage than his, and you are soaking some damage with your subs, your navy should win with a better than 1:1 damage ratio.

      If the enemy navy is superior in every way, then stay away :)

      Improve your research, build and upgrade your navy, change the situation to your advantage before you attack.

      The only possible exception, which almost never happens, is if you have nuclear missiles in range AND the enemy is stationary AND the enemy navy is large and worth the cost of a nuclear missile. This is almost never true. But if it is... then hit them with a nuke.
      I guess you didn't understand too
    • maybe you need to clarify your question? Because to me...

      Undaunted wrote:

      flying bombs might be useful in this situation ?
      ...sounds like you're considering using flying bombs.
      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.
    • At the risk of also not understanding the question...

      I fail to see how flying bombs would help. I use a cruiser centered navy very often. I get flying bombs launched at my ships occasionally by a noob and almost always fall out of my chair laughing. The ships will always deal defensive AA damage against the flying bomb first usually making it completely ineffective. If the flying bomb is a transport ship, it's a transport ship and usually even less effective.

      The only way I can conceivably see to damage a fleet and take no damage in return is to lure them to your coast, have a militia in place as a spotter and have a stack of railroad guns bombard them, as it will outrange them. That's really your only option.

      As others have pointed out, your best off attempting to minimize damage to yourself by looking for a mismatch.
    • flying bombs require less resource and manpower

      when you tried to attack stationary navals while your enemy is sleeping

      you can send 1 flying bomb as a meatshield and enemy won't fire for next 30 min

      is it not clear ?

      by the way out of topic , people is using many submarine or naval bomber to see what there is on sea
      basically they can spam some flying bomb and put them on sea as a naval blockade
    • Undaunted wrote:

      flying bombs require less resource and manpower

      when you tried to attack stationary navals while your enemy is sleeping

      you can send 1 flying bomb as a meatshield and enemy won't fire for next 30 min

      is it not clear ?

      by the way out of topic , people is using many submarine or naval bomber to see what there is on sea
      basically they can spam some flying bomb and put them on sea as a naval blockade
      I'll give you credit for a creative use for flying bombs.

      I can think of a few reasons that's not a good idea, but you don't usually appear to value my opinion.

      Try it and let us know how it goes.
    • 6thDragon wrote:

      Undaunted wrote:

      flying bombs require less resource and manpower

      when you tried to attack stationary navals while your enemy is sleeping

      you can send 1 flying bomb as a meatshield and enemy won't fire for next 30 min

      is it not clear ?

      by the way out of topic , people is using many submarine or naval bomber to see what there is on sea
      basically they can spam some flying bomb and put them on sea as a naval blockade
      I'll give you credit for a creative use for flying bombs.
      I can think of a few reasons that's not a good idea, but you don't usually appear to value my opinion.

      Try it and let us know how it goes.
      yes I understand you play always 22p farm maps so you can't imagine high production of resource at 100p maps
    • Undaunted wrote:

      1. you can send 1 flying bomb as a meatshield and enemy won't fire for next 30 min

      2. spam some flying bomb and put them on sea as a naval blockade
      Possibly depending on how critical your rare resources are this could actually be quite effective, especially if your transport ships were upgraded to give more HP. In principle they could also be used for baiting enemy artillery.
    • Since we're talking about "naval stacks" let's assume this is not 1 level 1 cruiser.
      This is some combination of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers that is not easy to kill.
      A stack like this will eat 3-4 transports per shot and then fire again 1 minute later.
      So no, sending small groups of transports will not achieve much except improve the enemy's kill ratio.
      If you use flying bombs as flying bombs (not as naval transports) the result will be the same.
      The cruisers will shoot them down before they can do any damage.

      Basically, if you want to fill the ocean with scouts that can turn into real weapons, build subs.
      Don't build flying bombs. Most experienced players don't build them. For good reasons.
    • z00mz00m wrote:

      Since we're talking about "naval stacks" let's assume this is not 1 level 1 cruiser.
      This is some combination of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers that is not easy to kill.
      A stack like this will eat 3-4 transports per shot and then fire again 1 minute later.
      So no, sending small groups of transports will not achieve much except improve the enemy's kill ratio.
      If you use flying bombs as flying bombs (not as naval transports) the result will be the same.
      The cruisers will shoot them down before they can do any damage.

      Basically, if you want to fill the ocean with scouts that can turn into real weapons, build subs.
      Don't build flying bombs. Most experienced players don't build them. For good reasons.
      This matches my thinking as well. Ships that do bombard, will do considerable damage to other ships, which convoys are, and less damage to subs. Plus subs have multiple uses other than being a target ship in the off chance you can catch a good player offline.
    • He means purely as a naval meat shield vs manpower usage. In that sense, assuming you have level 4 transport ships, then the flying bomb does indeed have the best MP/HP ratio. Only considering non-doctrine modifiers the ratio for the flying bomb is 260/25=10.4. The next best naval unit is lvl 6 aircraft carrier with a value of 13. The best "reasonable" naval unit would be the level 4 DD at 17. I know there are many other factors to consider, but strictly considering MP usage per HP, the flying bomb as a lvl 4 transport ship is the best. In other words, you could produce more "meat" with less MP with this combination.
    • DxC wrote:

      He means purely as a naval meat shield vs manpower usage. In that sense, assuming you have level 4 transport ships, then the flying bomb does indeed have the best MP/HP ratio. Only considering non-doctrine modifiers the ratio for the flying bomb is 260/25=10.4. The next best naval unit is lvl 6 aircraft carrier with a value of 13. The best "reasonable" naval unit would be the level 4 DD at 17. I know there are many other factors to consider, but strictly considering MP usage per HP, the flying bomb as a lvl 4 transport ship is the best. In other words, you could produce more "meat" with less MP with this combination.
      True, but compare the damage battleships and cruisers will do to a sub compared to a convoy. If you're comparing to a lvl 4 transport, axis get battleships to lvl 4 at the same time they get lvl 4 transport technology. A lvl 4 battleship will deal 22.4 damage to the floating flying bomb, but only deal 4.6 damage to a sub. That's a ratio greater than 4 to 1.

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

    • 6thDragon wrote:

      compare the damage battleships and cruisers ...

      Very true, but like I said:

      DxC wrote:

      I know there are many other factors to consider, but strictly considering MP usage per HP

      That's a very good point though about damage vs subs. A BB does about 1/5 dmg to subs vs ships. A lvl 4 sub has MP/HP of 20, so the flying bomb is only twice as efficient. So, like you point out, in terms of MP / (effective HP) the subs are much cheaper vs BBs. Compared to subs you can essentially multiply the MP/HP ratio of flying bombs by 5 to give 10.5*5=52.5 which is worse than the lvl 4 subs MP/HP=20. For cruisers the ship/sub dmg is around 1.8 so it's not as clear. Lets adjust flying bombs to 10.5*1.8 = 18.9. In this case, the flying bomb would just barely be a better meat shield compared to a lvl 4 sub, 18.9 vs 20. Lower level subs (and other units) are a bit worse though. For subs lvl 1-3 the MP/HP values are 40, 29, and 24.
    • DxC wrote:

      That's a very good point though about damage vs subs. A BB does about 1/5 dmg to subs vs ships. A lvl 4 sub has MP/HP of 20, so the flying bomb is only twice as efficient. So, like you point out, in terms of MP / (effective HP) the subs are much cheaper vs BBs. Compared to subs you can essentially multiply the MP/HP ratio of flying bombs by 5 to give 10.5*5=52.5 which is worse than the lvl 4 subs MP/HP=20. For cruisers the ship/sub dmg is around 1.8 so it's not as clear. Lets adjust flying bombs to 10.5*1.8 = 18.9. In this case, the flying bomb would just barely be a better meat shield compared to a lvl 4 sub, 18.9 vs 20. Lower level subs (and other units) are a bit worse though. For subs lvl 1-3 the MP/HP values are 40, 29, and 24.

      Thanks for doing the analysis, this is very helpful to get a complete picture.

      I was at one time convinced that using cheap units inside max-level transports is a good way to add cheap HP to a naval stack. This works well when you have a ton of low-level AA guns, AT guns, militia, or other units you don't really need on land. Put them inside level 4 transports, and all of a sudden they are worth more on water than they were on land!

      I'm now of the opinion that this is highly situational. It's not often that I have a ton of these useless units to throw away. That means I'll be building those units, and if I'm doing that, why not build something more useful to begin with? Subs soak up battleship damage better than transports, and subs can have the advantage of surprise, and they can lock up battleships in close combat. Or why not build another surface stack? Another stack of 10 battleships or 10 cruisers will be able to do damage to the enemy. If you can double and triple-team the enemy stack, it will sink faster, and you will sustain less HP loss as a result. That's much more effective than throwing unarmed transports at an enemy.
    • Yeah, I tend to make a lot of subs anyway so I can easily use them to cause an enemy stack to tic so I can get free shots with BBs. Usually I have enough around to send a 10 stack or two right into them which is even better. However, I could imagine situations where you happen to have several secret labs nearby and spamming some flying bombs as HP meat could be a relatively cheap and fast solution. The main benefit would be the production speed compared to other units that may already be leveled up.