When to use Carriers and Subs?

[Jamey]

I'm finishing up a game as the USA and have not really made use of Carriers or Submarines. In fact, I bypassed Destroyers and Torpedo boat entirely and built most of my fleets with Scout Cruisers.

Does anyone use the specialized ships? If so, when and with what fleet composition?

I've generally found that fleets in V3 wind up as doomstacks or destroyed, so I guess I'm not sure exactly how I'd use them.

 

[Dman1791]

Yeah, there's not really much point in using anything other than max capital ships. Torpedo Boat-Submarine fleets might have something of a niche as specialized raiders, but a max capital fleet outdoes it in basically every other way IME. The only thing carriers are better at than capital ships is convoy escort, which is pretty much entirely pointless when you can just defeat the enemy fleet instead.

 

[SilentReflection]

Carriers are have better offense but worse defense than Battleships. Also, if you have 40% Carriers in a fleet with an admiral who has the innovative trait and does not have the traditionalist commander trait, you unlock arguably the strongest interception order for your fleet.

A fleet of torpedo boats & submarines is very effective at convoy raiding. It would also be faster than any fleet using capital ships or carriers.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Until we get a better way to give orders to fleets, I prefer fleets that are jacks of all trades instead of specialized convoy raiders and what have you.

 

[Helmut von Dandy]

I usually have a handful of fleets that are 50% light ships and 50% capital ships that I use for blockades, naval invasions, and defending against invasions, and then a bunch of smaller 100% light ship fleets that I use for convoy raiding. Once submarines are unlocked I'll turn those into 50% submarine fleets. Instead of focusing those on key chokepoints I'll use a larger number of small fleets and target a wide number of nodes further away from the main fleet activity. Then I'll pretty much forget about them and let them do their thing. Usually the enemy navy will be too busy trying to invade me or take down my large fleets to do anything about them, but even if they do it's usually not a big deal. I've never really bothered with carriers because it's usually too late in the game by the time I unlock them.