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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2014 6:40:46 GMT -6
1. Playing on Admiral mode, so the CL is AI controlled. It's not always predictable what the CL will specifically do. But, it won't try to follow your heavies as they turn away. Since it's the lead for several DD divs, I want those ships to move to attack while the large ships get away. If the contact is with an enemy DD force, the CL will tend to be more aggressive and can dominate DD's with gunfire at close range. If I also have a CL squadron that's available, then I may assign it to the CL on "support" orders to help shoot up DD's. If the enemy force encountered shows heavy units in the mix, the CL will tend to try to break contact, but will "drag" the supporting DD's behind it, and can most likely get some torpedoes launched. 2. Multiple divisions. For example, if I'm playing the British, I'll use the 2nd DD flotilla assigned to scout and attached to the lead BB div, and have the two very large 1/2 and 2/2 flotillas as support for the CL. That's 20 DD's right there. There's other DD flotillas that have CL leaders, and you can always attach DDs to the scouting CL squadrons as well. It's not a bad idea to have a similar CL w/ DDs group on the rearmost core division as well. That way you'll have concentrations of DD's at both ends of you lines, and the flotilla attack will (hopefully) go in in multiple directions. The core BB divs can have smaller DD divs supporting each- at about a 1 DD: 1 BB ratio, but whether you're playing Germans or British you should have excess DDs available. Hey thanks fred, much appreciated. I think I can understand your doctrine and like it. Basically use heavy DD support to get the advantage at night and in flotilla attacks. I think from 1916 and onwards both sides get a lotta DDs so we can afford it. Oh, and get ready for some crazy long repair queues for DD's. Poor little fellas get tore up in my navy. I've had DD's damaged in 1916 not ever get repaired b/c the queue gets so long I have to drop the long-repair time DDs to the bottom of the queue. Late in the war, the British have so many DD's that the 8 repair capacity can barely keep up with periodic maintenance, let alone repair large numbers of battle damaged DD's. Don't even get me started on #*$*#*#@%! hurricanes. Better keep them in the dockyards then to expend endless OP points training them each turn I say. Gonna use this tactic next turn and see how it goes!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2014 10:01:38 GMT -6
Wow. I can only say wow. Did what you suggested Fred, 2 BB divisions, 1 CL div, 4 DD divs. 2 of the DD divs are supporting the scout CLs. Met the enemy formation, at night! I put the CL div on independent, enables the flotilla attack and turn the BBs away. The battle turns into a massive melee with ships all over the place. The enemy capital ship BB Hercules soon ate 2 torpedoes. Furthermore, the enemy DDs were getting torpedoed as well! Among my capital ships, only BB konig was torped once, but that's only because the BB div was maneuvering so violently that 3 BBs got detached, was on manual control and I forgot to give them orders in the heat of battle. All the while the enemy supporting units were being hit by mine quite effectively. When things settled down, I think the enemy lost the majority of ships in that formation, 1 BB, 1B, 4 CLs and 8 DDs. I think 1 enemy CL escaped and limped back port. Granted, this was a very lopsided battle where I have much more ships. But I've never had this kind of result at night. I would have sank their capital ships, but the enemy's massive loss of support CL and DD units was unprecedented for me. A very effective tactic indeed and I'm gonna keep using it. The downside of course is ships lose contact a lot especially the DD divs assigned to CL support. Quite obvious since the CLs are already maneuvering a lot and hard for the DDs to keep up. Attachment Deleted
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Post by fredsanford on Jun 21, 2014 13:52:16 GMT -6
Awesome!
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Post by julianbarker on Jun 21, 2014 15:43:20 GMT -6
That raises an important point. Should periodic refit in large fleets mean nothing gets repaired? I have been there myself. As you say, you end up with a long tail of ships that will never get repaired.
Clearly repair queues should be a factor, but the DD queue in 1914 when the RN has few DDs makes sense, the much larger number in 1917/18 if the campaign is still going suggests that the repair capacity should increase if only to be able to refit the ships the RN has at that point.
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Post by fredsanford on Jun 21, 2014 18:19:49 GMT -6
That raises an important point. Should periodic refit in large fleets mean nothing gets repaired? I have been there myself. As you say, you end up with a long tail of ships that will never get repaired. Clearly repair queues should be a factor, but the DD queue in 1914 when the RN has few DDs makes sense, the much larger number in 1917/18 if the campaign is still going suggests that the repair capacity should increase if only to be able to refit the ships the RN has at that point. One thing SAI doesn't have is a "scuttle" button. I think many of the heavily damaged DD's that manage to stagger back to port in the game would have been scuttled in real life. But yeah, considering that 8 repair points works out to 4 DD overhauls per week, so in a year potentially 208 DD's can get annual refits if there's no other damage that needs fixing. I'm not sure on the total size of the British DD fleet gets to, and it depends on losses, but it's up there.
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