How useful are land based guns?

[southkraut]

I'll add another point to why airbases are far better than coastal guns OR ships: They're always exactly where you put them, and they're always included in battle. No random placement as with batteries or ships, and no random selection as with ships either. Not even any random events that knock them out.

[klavohunter]

I'll add a 4" gun to most possessions to help defend them from invasion in whatever calculations are made behind the scenes.
I'll use 6" guns instead in places where I expect they might actually get a chance to fire one day.

Sometimes, if experience shows me there is a lot of combat at a certain location, or if I feel worried about my airbases getting shelled, I'll add bigger guns.
My current Germany game had me plonk down a 14" gun battery in my closest port to the Soviets in the Baltic, though that was from a 1920 Versailles start, where I was working with nearly no fleet at all early on!

I don't recall my coastal guns ever shooting or sinking anything quite yet in RTW2, but I feel they do provide a deterrent value. After I installed that 14" gun battery, the Soviets didn't try and get close to my ports during coastal raids, when they memorably did once before it was installed.

Jun 6, 2019 9:03:43 GMT -6 southkraut said:

I'll add another point to why airbases are far better than coastal guns OR ships: They're always exactly where you put them, and they're always included in battle. No random placement as with batteries or ships, and no random selection as with ships either. Not even any random events that knock them out.

Weirdly, my heavier-than-air airbases weren't appearing in battle at all for my first war and for part of my second war.  I scrapped my zeppelins since they were useless, and I feared they might be somehow preventing my other airbases from spawning...

[brygun]

Small 4 in batteries have some usefulness as coast watchers. The enemy gets reported to you and they may even delay to bombard them.

typically I build 1 x 6" per listed port for a flag. Optionally put on several 4" as the coast watcher. Rarely put down anything bigger.

I wish, as AFAIK it doesn't, they coastal batteries added to resistance to invasions.

[arminpfano]

I scrap all batterys right at start, before building the legacy fleet. You get some scrap money, and you save the maintenance fee for all future. Up to now one of my best ingame investment decisions ;-)

[XthLegion]

As a general rule, I consider them a poor investment for damage rendered. There are specific circumstances I would use them and these are if I own Egypt and Panama to protect the canals from invasion. Also, if I am dependent on an external source of oil, Burma’s for instance, I would consider coastal batteries. I also concur with the advice to add airbases to these same areas as they become available. I did have one USA invasion of Bermuda defeated by batteries and an airbase, but that was the exception. They can be useful providing firepower to shelter damaged or retreating friendly vessels from attacking ships. When they become available, airbases are superior, despite their weather and daylight restrictions.