Question About Anti-Destroyer Tactical Formations

[bcoopactual]

Hello All,

I'm looking for some advice about anti-torpedo tactics.  In my current war with France I'm getting absolutely hammered by destroyer charges in fleet engagements.  I've had six or seven capital ships torpedoed total in various engagements although fortunately I've only lost one of them so far.  I feel like some of my ships have more patches than original hull by now.  It certainly makes for an entertaining game but I'm looking for some effective tactics that might be more effective than what I'm doing now.  

I've evaluated my battles and I've come up with some possible root causes.  Some I'm already making corrective actions for but you can comment as you like if there is something else you would recommend or if you disagree with my conclusions. 

The last part is what I specifically made this thread for and that is the difference in actions for ships when in Screen mode vs. Support mode but I'll get to that later. 

1.  I don't have enough destroyers to match the enemy numbers.  I had eight destroyers in Northern Europe.  The enemy frequently brought 16 or more to a fleet engagement so he always had a lot more tin cans swarming around and it seemed like no matter which way I turned I had enemy DDs bearing down on me.  I would sink my share of enemy DDs but that's not much comfort when they are cheap to replace and a torpedoed capital ship significantly changes my options since I have a limited number of them available (I started building dreadnoughts late because I didn't have a quality large caliber gun.  I haven't had more than 4 BB and 3 BC's available for fleet actions this entire war while I try to get my new class built and in the theater.)

So I've built a new class of 16 1,100 ton DD's and put them all in theater so I usually don't have as bad of a numbers problem.  I also have a new class of 1,100 tons destroyers under construction. 

2.  My CL's don't have sufficient anti-DD armament.  My most recent classes of CL's are armed with 6 inch main guns and torpedoes only to maximize their armor protection and effectiveness against other CL's.  The 6 inch guns are fine against DDs but I believe that the CL's are preferentially targeting larger ships (which is expected and fine) and since they don't have a secondary armament, the destroyers are getting in underneath without being engaged. 

I've increased the tonnage of my latest class of CL to bring back a secondary armament of 8 x 4 inch (Q1) guns but they are still under construction. 

3.  My final possible cause is one that I'm not as sure about and I wanted some advice for.  I play in Admiral's mode exclusively.   My normal setup for fleets is to have my destroyers in screen mode for my capital ships and my light cruisers in support mode once the enemy is spotted (I shift them from Scout to Support).  Looking at the SAI manual for a description of how those modes work I read this:

"Support divisions will follow some distance

behind the supported division or on the

disengaged side and endeavour to stay out

of the line of fire. Typically used for

destroyers supporting a battleship or

cruiser division. Supporting destroyers will

launch torpedo attacks or counterattacks

on enemy destroyers when they deem it

appropriate.


Screen divisions will form a screen a short

distance in front of the lead division.

Typically used for light cruisers or

destroyers screening heavier ships."

I usually put my DD's in screen mode because they have a chance to spot mines and protect my capital ships (I'm usually on the offensive and in enemy territory).  Does the above description mean though that they aren't looking to protect against destroyer charges if they are in Screen mode?

Thanks for any help and advice.    

[mycophobia]

I believe screen mode dds will engage other destroyer. In general however i feel best response against incoming dd attacks is simply to turn your bb line away from the incoming dds and don't give broadside. Late game dd are decently hard to sink based on my experience, so better safe than sorry imo. And I also try to have a greater dd presence, which seems to deter ai from launching dd attacks.

[Deleted]

Good old topic!

[serious mode]
1) Be more torpedo aware. Know that in which relative position you provide the enemy with a launch opportunity and once in that position, ALWAYS assume a torpedo is inbound, and take evasive action accordingly, immediately.

2) Sailing in a straight line behind the enemy ships while running the game in continuous mode is bound to be torpedoed as I've seen on some videos... Rather use superior speed and intercept enemy line from the front, or at least strive to.

^also applies to day battles.

3) The light ships, CLs definitely to screen. They may lag behind a bit but the added guns help a lot. Screen is closer to the front than support and doesn't run to the moon like scout. But after this long I realize that once the action starts they will always scatter about no matter what role they're set to. Therefore, refer to 1)...

4) Heavy rain. I'm pretty comfortable at fighting in light rain, heavy rain is a big no no. While each to his own, set a weather level you're comfortable with. If the weather drops below this, disengage and don't think twice.
[/serious mode]

Well just my 2c really!

[cv10]

Feb 4, 2018 20:46:01 GMT -6 skwabie said:

Good old topic!

[serious mode]
1) Be more torpedo aware. Know that in which relative position you provide the enemy with a launch opportunity and once in that position, ALWAYS assume a torpedo is inbound, and take evasive action accordingly, immediately.

2) Sailing in a straight line behind the enemy ships while running the game in continuous mode is bound to be torpedoed as I've seen on some videos... Rather use superior speed and intercept enemy line from the front, or at least strive to.

3) The light ships, CLs definitely to screen. They may lag behind a bit but the added guns help a lot. Screen is closer to the front than support and doesn't run to the moon like scout. But after this long I realize that once the action starts they will always scatter about no matter what role they're set to. Therefore, refer to 1)...

4) Heavy rain. I'm pretty comfortable at fighting in light rain, heavy rain is a big no no. While each to his own, set a weather level you're comfortable with. If the weather drops below this, disengage and don't think twice.
[/serious mode]

Well just my 2c really!

    I agree with all of this.

    Depending on what mode you play in, and how much you like to micromanage smaller ships, I've found then sending my own destroyers out to meet an oncoming enemy destroyer attack to have decent results. I enjoy it, as it's a battle within a battle so to speak.

[fredsanford]

Bring a lot of destroyers of your own. If you see an enemy DD attack threatening, put yours on flotilla attack to clean them out. You can put your CL's on Support, subordinate to DD divisions (not the capital ships) to back up the DD charge with superior gunpower. If the CL's end up drawing fire from the enemy BB's- fine, then your BB's get unopposed shots.

Edit: As implied above- don't fight fleet battles at night or poor weather. Go home and try again later.  Flotilla attack as above to help disengage.  Make the other guy worry about torpedoes.

[dorn]

As others suggested do not be so offensive in bad weather. 

Task
First you need to define your target. This is not be torpedoed so you need damage destroyers, slow them down not to be dangerous to you. This does not mean you need sink them. Of course sunk destroyer is not dangerous anymore but it is better to damage and slow down all destroyers than sunk only part of them and rest of them continue on torpedo attack delivering you fatal blow.

Anti-DD armament
For this purpose you need define you anti-DD armament. The chance to slow them down is increased by number of hits not necessary by hitting with high caliber. So early in the game 4" guns are optimal (high ROF and could be numerous) and later 5" guns are optimal as 4" are not necessary giving enough damage. 

Battleships (battlecruiser) design
So for your battleship design (you can even do refit), bring many of 4/5" guns, no problem to have 24x4" guns. Do not bother to armor them as armor cannot help them against heavy hits and you need more numbers that small number of guns with better protection. Early use casemates as singl guns have ROF penalty, later singl/double/triple mounts. I usually do not go with quadruple mounts and very rarely with triple mounts as you risk by one hit to loose too many anti-DD guns and weight savings are minimal. For the pre-dreadnoughts anti-DD are usually tercially guns. For dreadnoughts there are secondary guns which can later be director controlled increasing significantly their effectivity.

Armored cruiser design
Same as battleships. There are large enough. If you use medium secondary armament (5-6") think about 3-4" tercially guns. They can be later as their effectiveness drop substitute for better fire control.

Protected cruiser design
For my large protected cruisers build at the beginning of century and used with the fleet I usually build them with 2 variants:
a) 8" guns, 5-6" guns secondary, 3" tertiary later used for better fire control
b) 6" guns with 3" secondary - for large cruisers there are cheap, just a little increase of displacement and costs, but they can help against destroyers quite a lot

Fleet destroyer
My destroyers defending the fleet are usually large and more gun oriented as if you play on Admiral or Rear-admiral level it is difficult to be effective with your torpedo attack. So I usually use torpedo attack only if I need finish some ships or if I need to slow down faster disengaging ships but the main task of destroyers is thwart any enemy torpedo attack. For this destroyer with a lot of 4-5" guns is preferred.

[hogzkrieg]

Apologies in advance if I'm hi-jacking the thread here, but on the subject of Destroyers, is there a way to get them to reliably perform a torpedo attack? When I say reliably I don't mean actually score hits with their torpedo's but rather actually launch them in the first place?

I usually play Rear Admiral mode and using the Flotilla Attack button doesn't really seem to have much impact. Even in Captain's mode when I manually send them in against capital ships but they don't always seem to fire torpedo's.

The AI that I'm fighting doesn't seem shy in letting loose their torps so I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong.

Sorry again for the hi-jack!

[director]

A lot of good points here. For my response I'll assume you are addressing the armament question and are building sufficient DDs. 'Sufficient' being, for me, "I'm less than a million in the red, let's build 2 more DDs!" Now, you're a skilled player with a naval background and you've probably already thought of all of this - I'm only going to offer some things you likely already know but need a new perspective on. These are some observations I've made from my own play. I hope they help you too.

1) In the dark or bad weather, send the big ships home. Even if it means giving up that fleet-battle mission. DON'T TAKE BAIT and SIDESTEP THE AMBUSH.
2) Think of the enemy's position versus yours as terrain. If he is in front of your beam he is 'uphill' and rocks will be rolling down. If he is astern of your beam then he is unlikely to fire 'uphill' at you (his torpedo speed minus your speed might not equal enough range to hit you). But if he is uphill and within torpedo range, ROCKS WILL BE ROLLING and THE AI NEVER MISSES (he does but you should think he doesn't).
3) Change course every two 'ticks' or so when his DDs are coming. Not only will that hopefully throw off torpedoes already on the way but it may deter him from throwing more rocks.
4) THE AI ALWAYS HITS with torpedoes. Settle for less - instead of pressing in to smash his dreadnoughts, try to 'wing' one and finish it off when the rest run. Be Calder and not Nelson - Jellicoe and not Beatty.
5) Use your scouting elements to hold or draw in the enemy's capital ships while moving your battle line to get between the enemy and his base. When he has to get past you in order to get home, ROLL MANY ROCKS. Tactics must serve operational manuever, and position IS key.

Yes, it's not always possible to get the enemy to charge at you (it's just very nice when you can). But I've come to learn that some missions are unwinnable - the ones where my ships are split into penny-packets and scattered over the ocean, or where the visibility is poor (for me, not for the AI). Quarterbacks are always told, "don't try to force it - play the position instead of trying to win the game by yourself". I think that's the biggest lesson I've had to learn in RtW (still working on the patience part since my poor Byzantine Navy used to eat torpedoes on a regular basis).

I'll just say that enemy torpedo attacks are a matter of position and timing. Get 'uphill' when you can, and weave even though it throws off your gunnery (and improves the AI's somehow). Draw the enemy onto your prepared position whenever you can; manuever for his base before bringing your big ships into battle if you can.

Some last points:
6) Wherever you have all or part of your battle-line there too you should have 16-24 DDs, I think.
7) Those DDs should be designed with guns as the first priority and a decent margin of speed as the second, with torpedo armament third.
8) When the enemy DD charge comes, force him to come 'uphill', open the range and shred him with firepower. Give your DD squadrons enemy DDs as targets and put them on 'independent'. Execute a simultaneous turn-away, open the range and then shred him again when you turn back.
9) DD's are the cavalry of the sea (CLs are the heavy cavalry). If he risks it, kill it - it makes your torpedo charges easier, later.

So for me it's like real estate - position, position, position. Think of a DD charge as an opportunity to destroy a detached element of his fleet. Don't press - don't force - just play the game. Manuever OUTSIDE contact when you can and count on the enemy running for home no matter his force advantage. Stand 'uphill' from him... and ROLL ROCKS.

[director]

Hi hogzkrieg -

Torpedo attacks seem to be a function of some command-and-control techs. What I've found that works (sometimes) is:

Set the 'Torpedo Attack' flag on the flagship. Set the DD squadrons to Independent and set their target to the ship you want attacked. Then hope and pray.
Alternatively, take over command of the squadron yourself, put them on max speed and run them right at the enemy. Try to get ahead of his beam (yours won't fire at a retreating enemy, even if he isn't moving).

[fredsanford]

Feb 5, 2018 8:16:12 GMT -6 hogzkrieg said:

Apologies in advance if I'm hi-jacking the thread here, but on the subject of Destroyers, is there a way to get them to reliably perform a torpedo attack? When I say reliably I don't mean actually score hits with their torpedo's but rather actually launch them in the first place?

I usually play Rear Admiral mode and using the Flotilla Attack button doesn't really seem to have much impact. Even in Captain's mode when I manually send them in against capital ships but they don't always seem to fire torpedo's.

The AI that I'm fighting doesn't seem shy in letting loose their torps so I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong.

Sorry again for the hi-jack!

If you are talking before 1912-14 or so, that's not surprising.  Torpedoes are short ranged and slow before then, so your DD's will be reluctant to close with the enemy unless visibility is poor (night or rain).  Otherwise, you have to be patient with the flotilla attack- give it time to develop.  It will also help a lot if you are ahead of the enemy. Torps are not that much faster than their targets (in early years they're even slower), so firing from behind or even abeam (unless really close) make for a difficult or impossible shot.

Captain or RA mode should not be necessary to get good results with mid- to late-era DD Flotilla attacks.  You just have set them up right.

Edit: Director's layin' down The Word. Read and Heed.

[bcoopactual]

I appreciate the responses.  The problem isn't the "Don't get torpedoed-101" entry level lessons like don't fight at night or in heavy rain and turn away from the enemy when the destroyers charge.  I've got that stuff down after a significant learning curve but I've been playing the game long enough that I generally know better now*.  Once dusk hits, I break contact and then sail back in close to sunrise if the AI hasn't returned to port.   

My problem in this war with France is when I turn away from a destroyer charge, there is usually another group of destroyers headed in from another direction. 

   

This has been pretty typical in the fleet fights that weren't interrupted early by darkness.  The French have very inconsiderately refused to line up their groups in a nice straight line where the axis of attack is easily defined.  

As I mentioned and fredsanford and others reinforced, part of the problem was that he was using twice as many destroyers as I was and I've already made good headway towards fixing that problem with 16 new destroyers commissioned in the last year-and-a-half and 16 more on the ways right now.

skwabie , At night I'll estimate the path that I think the AI will take to get to his nearest port and move to get ahead of him.  Most of the time it doesn't work because it's zigged or zagged first and so the timing is off and the counter runs out but it does work occasionally I agree.  

cv10 , I always play in Admiral's mode.  

fredsanford , I haven't tried Flotilla Attack as a defensive tactic.  I always assumed they would just attack the larger enemy ships leaving my capital ships to their own defenses but that's an interesting idea and I'll definitely try it next time I get the chance, thanks.  

dorn , my capital ships all currently carry fourteen 5 inch (Q0) guns in single deck mounts.  My BB and BC's have stood up very well to enemy heavy caliber fire and I don't want to remove the armor it would take to put the additional secondaries on.  I would prefer to deal with the destroyer problem by using my own CL's and DD's or by changing tactics but you may be on to something.  Maybe I do need to give up something somewhere to increase my BB/BC secondaries so they can defend themselves.  

My new light cruisers currently building will carry five 6 inch (Q0) guns on the centerline and eight 4 inch guns (Q1) as secondaries in shielded mounts.  At that tonnage, I can go with eight 4 inch or four 5 inch guns.  The 5 inch guns have more pop but I don't need to sink the DD's, I just need to screw up their torpedo runs by making them duck and turn away.  I think a broadside of four 4 inch guns would do that better than two 5 inch guns but I'd like to hear your or anyone else's thoughts if they disagree.    

hogzkrieg , don't sweat that, it was close enough to topic and it's pretty much standard operating procedure on this forum anyway.  We always get back to the original topic when we are ready to do so.

As far as your question, I don't personally have a good answer for you although I think director is probably right.  As I always play on Admiral mode, my destroyers usually fire torpedoes on their own using whatever AI logic they have.  I very seldom seem to be able to influence them.  I think 95% of the enemy ships I have torpedoed were ones that I had already crippled with gunfire so they were essentially drifting.  Torpedo warfare is not my thing.  I also don't specifically train for it (I choose Gunnery and Night Fighting instead) so part of that is on me.  I assume my ships would be better at it if I trained specifically for it.      

director , I like your idea of thinking of position in terms of terrain with high ground and low ground.  I'm going to try to adopt that into my tactical decision making process.  

One more possible problem I need to add to my original post as I was considering your responses was I almost never use the "turn together command".  I'll pause the game to turn away when destroyers are charging but I never think about bringing up the division window to click that box.  That would probably increase the misses against the follow-on ships in the division since they are not steaming through the same patch of water for the turn.  

It would be nice to have the turn in series/turn together status for whatever division you have selected be added to your GUI and then have a shortcut added to toggle from one mode to another.  it would reduce the interruption to gameplay that it takes to access that choice now.  


*The last battle being an exception.  It was a battlecruiser encounter that started at night in contact with the enemy.  Unless your battlecruiser can turn like a Tron light-cycle you are pretty much screwed and sure enough one of my two BC's took a fish right away.  That ticked me off so I charged my other BC in after their enemy BC to get even and of course I deservedly paid for my loss of composure with another torpedo for my trouble.  Now all of my battlecruisers in area are in the yards for at least the next two months.  Sigh...

[cv10]

Feb 5, 2018 9:40:57 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

I thought that as well, but when I finally learned how to order a flotilla attack ( thank you fredsanford for showing me how to do that!) I noticed that the my destroyers would also go after their destroyers, and the number of destroyers I was sinking went up by a noticeable amount.

[bcoopactual]

Feb 5, 2018 10:05:45 GMT -6 cv10 said:

Feb 5, 2018 9:40:57 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

I thought that as well, but when I finally learned how to order a flotilla attack ( thank you fredsanford for showing me how to do that!) I noticed that the my destroyers would also go after their destroyers, and the number of destroyers I was sinking went up by a noticeable amount.

Thanks for the confirmation.  That's the kind of ideas I was hoping to get out of this thread.  Thanks again to you both.  

[jwsmith26]

Lots of good info here. I would only add that I try to stay ahead of the curve on research related to destroyers. I set both Light forces and Torpedo tech to high. This won't have much effect early in the game but by the teens my DDs typically far outweigh the AI's ships, which means they are usually faster, more capable of absorbing damage and much better armed than the AI DDs. This makes my DDs quite deadly to enemy DDs and much more capable of fending off flotilla attacks.

Of course this means backing off on other techs, which may not fit the strategic goals for your style of play. Personally, I consider that I have two main weapons in my fleet - my capital ships and my destroyers and I put most of my effort into developing both. The end result is that the enemy is usually on the receiving end of a flotilla attack and I see very few coming my way.

[rimbecano]

Feb 5, 2018 8:39:16 GMT -6 director said:

2) Think of the enemy's position versus yours as terrain. If he is in front of your beam he is 'uphill' and rocks will be rolling down. If he is astern of your beam then he is unlikely to fire 'uphill' at you (his torpedo speed minus your speed might not equal enough range to hit you). But if he is uphill and within torpedo range, ROCKS WILL BE ROLLING and THE AI NEVER MISSES (he does but you should think he doesn't).

This is one of the reasons my capital ship mix tends to be dominated by battlecruisers: speed may not be armor,  but it is torpedo protection. Unless the enemy is fleeing headlong, I'm generally creeping "uphill" of him,  which aids my flotilla attacks and suppresses his.