Best fleet composition to sink enemy Carrier fleets?

[mk_mortimer]

Hi guys,

The question is pretty self-explanatory.

Which are the best fleet build-ups (type and number of vessels) to sink enemy carrier led fleets?

Looking for both best cost-effective builds and ideal builds.

I heard that fast fleets (made up of battlecruisers and destroyers) are best, but would like to hear more suggestions!

Thanks.

 

[themousemaster]

What is the carrier fleet?

If it's making the mistake of mixing CVs with "big ships" (CA+ in size), then just go at them with a capital fleet yourself (with some form of air cover, of course. Land based is great vs CAG groups). You'll eventually dink their unescorted capital ships (due to how the naval model works), and then you can chase them around (you wont sink them, but they won't be able to do anything either if they are retreating every 3rd hour of gameplay)

If it's just CVs and escorts, then pick an escort faster than the ones the CV uses, and make fleets exclusively of those. Again, with land based air cover wherever possible.

If it's a CV doomstack, then congratulations, you've found one of the game's broken-as-heck mechanics. I hope you didn't actually need to use the oceans for anything.

 

[Guderian1992]

2 ways to deal with them:

The first method (air superiority):
1. Set spies to military espionage and keep track of CV group movement.
2. Once near a port with a decent airbase, send 9 INT and 6 CAS to the location.
3. Move you naval detachment of 15-20 at or post 1938 tech DD (skip armor upgrades)
4. Begin air superiority & naval strike missions in the naval province you want to intercept the CV group at.
5. Intercept the CV group only after the CAGs have faced off with your INT.
6. Win the battle.

The second method: (Naval stack)
1. Spend 2-3 years building only DD.
2. Depending on your IC, stack all DD into 1 group.
3. Hurl it at the CV group.
4. Win the battle.


In my opinion, dealing with CV doom stacks is possible and I have done it before, may do a little video to show its easier than you think but you NEED air superiority, so at least the same amount of CAG as the stack in INT.

The only doom stack I have never been able to deal with is STR doom stacks which glide past my INT and decimate all my IC...

 

[mk_mortimer]

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation!

 

[Guderian1992]

Intel is usually the issue with naval battles going dreadfully wrong. Since the AI tends to stack units on the border with little surprises, players aren't used to relying on intelligence missions or radars to track enemy movement. What you see is usually what you anticipate.

In the case of naval battles, due to the fog of war and the sheer size of the oceans, you need intel in order to make the best decisions. Whenever I go to war with a country, I always switch my active spies there to military intelligence so I can gather necessary information and make the best decisions possible. Of course this isn't without its drawbacks, spending precious leadership on decryption tech and having spies die to a mission other than lowering national unity may be a big no no to some, but I prefer it especially since most players don't update their encryption techs nor does the AI most of the time.

The reason for my intel rant above is to clarify how important tracking enemy ships and more importantly knowing their compositions is. It allows you to set up ambushes or even naval invasions without much worry if you know where the enemy is and what they're up to.

To add to all this, your strategic goal is what you should base your naval strats on. Do you want to develop naval superiority in an ocean or even the 7 seas? Do you want to orchestrate a naval invasion? Or do you want to secure your supply routes/convoys?

If you want to achieve naval superiority, carriers alone are the least of your worries per se, you could bypass them altogether by sinking any surface action fleets (BB/BC/CA/CL/DD) and that would render their tiny fleet irrelevant if you maintain your navy properly and minimize losses. Again, intel is key to determine navy compositions before engaging. But as a rule of thumb, air superiority and CAS/NAV on naval strike will go a long way if you cba with intel and just want to wreck everything. But personally I enjoy the planning and execution of a good take down rather than click spamming a naval province till no enemy ships exist anymore.

 

[mk_mortimer]

Best fleets to escort my convoys? I usually just use some spare DD's

 

[Guderian1992]

Depends on what the enemy is using for convoy hunting:

If its subs you're spot on (make sure to research small warship ASW).

If anything else, you need to counter it with your own fleet or else your DD will get wrecked.

I usually don't bother with the game's built in convoy escort mechanic, I send out my ships to counter any subs I find with intel or radar, or otherwise use the naval mapmode to see where the convoys are being hunted and just park a DD detachment there to find and destroy them.

The use of NAV or Multi Roles (FTR) is great on Naval Stirke duties as well because they tend to catch subs very often (more than ships as far as my experience goes).

 

[Kovax]

I've had better luck against CVs with mixed CL +DD doomstacks than with either of them alone. The DDs have the higher speed to engage the carriers, but don't have a lot of firepower to deal with the carrier's own escorts. The CLs take a bit longer to catch them, but are better at inflicting and absorbing damage once they get there. Mixing the two gives you a decent compromise, but requires researching engines for both (you only need to research guns for the CLs). On the world map, the game uses the speed of the slowest unit in the fleet, but on the tactical map, it appears that the fleet's average speed is used instead. Putting a few DDs in the fleet makes the CLs move faster, as irrational as that seems. I could be mistaken, but that's about how it seems to play out.