What Makes the Best Raiders?

[jorgencab]

Jun 19, 2019 23:48:36 GMT -6 stevethecat said:

I go for long range CLs, armed with 5 inch guns, no torps and a couple of sea planes. The Key is making sure that they aren't in the active fleet when war is declared because you can guarantee that the game will pick them out of the hat to fight off a battlecruiser division.

On that note I would be strongly in favour of having the option of ships be on active duty but not available for missions. Sometimes you simply want a ship to be active but not take part in combat missions for some reason, like this reason for example.

[dorn]

Jun 20, 2019 1:28:00 GMT -6 jorgencab said:

Jun 19, 2019 23:48:36 GMT -6 stevethecat said:

I go for long range CLs, armed with 5 inch guns, no torps and a couple of sea planes. The Key is making sure that they aren't in the active fleet when war is declared because you can guarantee that the game will pick them out of the hat to fight off a battlecruiser division.

On that note I would be strongly in favour of having the option of ships be on active duty but not available for missions. Sometimes you simply want a ship to be active but not take part in combat missions for some reason, like this reason for example.

What about to select ship for trade protection.

[trifler]

Jun 19, 2019 23:48:36 GMT -6 stevethecat said:

The Mechanic of having AMC's as war time only kills the interest in them for me imho, have been bit a couple of times by the politicians declaring peace while I was still working some AMC raiders up for war effectively throwing away a mass of money.

To me, that's not a serious issue, because I see the AI scrap 15+ AMCs and corvettes all the time. Plus, you get unspent money back (If the ship takes $1000 x 18 turns and there are 14 turns remaining when it gets scrapped, you don't spend $14k). Then again, I've never built more than four AMCs per war.

[titanuranus]

I should mention that the reason these raiders are so heavily equipped is that I was unsure if they would be useful as raiders, therefore they must be useful in an actual battle.

[dorn]

Jun 20, 2019 10:36:02 GMT -6 titanuranus said:

I should mention that the reason these raiders are so heavily equipped is that I was unsure if they would be useful as raiders, therefore they must be useful in an actual battle.

Even if they are used to fleet and other duties they are quite expensive.

CL

- you invest 40M to CL which still is easily sunk by airpower or torpedoes or even flash fire than much lighter CLs

- I would rather invest more to turret armour than number of armour as forward and aft firepower remain same

- this cruiser is very strong for 1 vs. 1 combat however when fighting with divison of destroyers this cruiser is very vulnerable compare to cruiser with 3" inclined belt

- later seems that survivability of cruiser is more important than firepower as cruisers are used in different role and more need to think about them as being expendable

CA

- it is quite reasonable design but question is against which ship it will be used as AI designs are usually much lighter design. But if you encounter a lot of 15000 tons CAs, this is excellent design

[arminpfano]

RAIDER EFFICIENCY EXPERIMENT

1) Introduction:
Up to now I have little experience with raiders. Mostly I try to win some decisive battles fast, and then to block the enemy. This works well for stronger economies like Germany, Great Britain or USA. Have´nt played much as Japan or A-H yet, but planning to to, so raiders will be much more important for me then.

This is the background for some statistical comparison. I set up a game and tested different raider ship types in the same (mostly) environment, ceteris paribus so to say.

2) The environment:
- I played the French side against GB
- Start 1920
- XL size, normal settings
- designed all compared raider ship types in 01/1920
- built them, commissioned them, and waited until crews were good
- in the meantime developed tension level with GB
- war started in 06/1924
- I tweaked my prestige and the funding situation beforehand, so I could´t run out of anything. This was not relevant for the experiment itself.

3) The experiment:

- starting at the begin of the war 06/1924 I run totally seven playthroughs

- each time I used one of the ready ship types as raiders, the other ones just stayed for AF or TP in home area.

- I started each type with 10 ships sent to 10 different areas, staying there (some areas with bases, some without)
- I played 18 months, until 11/1925 (seems to me like the average war duration)
- lost or interned ships were not replaced
- I counted the merchants sunk, and remaining raiders, also the survival rate (surviving plus interned ships, re-usable after war)
- same with subs, but starting with 50 boats
- the rest of the gameplay I skipped: just declined all battles (including unexpected --> x), and accepted the enemy VP gain (I ended up with 2000 to 100.000 or so, but still my recommendations for a prolongued war were accepted by the government - in no playthrough the war was ended against my will)

4) The ship types compared:
- AMC: (1800 ts, 2 planes, 21 kn), build when the war started, so these were in action for only 11 months, after build and workup
- AVR: a small AV (2000 ts, 3 planes, 30 kn), as an AMC substitute without the need to scrap it after each war
- CLR: a small CL (3000 ts, 1 gun, 1 plane, 30 kn), as a specialised raider type - fast, but sooo weak
- CLF: a fleet CL (6000 ts, 4x6", 2 planes, 30 kn), to test a "normal" CL which is also usable for other fleet duties
- CAR: a small CA (6300 ts, 1x7", 3 planes, 30 kn), only for raiding, and for "showing the flag" in peacetime (exploiting upheavals!)
- CAF: a normal CA (15000 ts, 9x10", 2 planes, 29 kn), for comparison purposes
- SUB: standard SS subs

5) Modelling of efficiency:
Because of the abstract level of raider trade war this seems to be a purely economical problem: how expensive is it to sink one merchant, using the different raider types? Therefore I calculated the cost of the ship type, including building the ships, and using them up to three "cycles" of 48 month of peace (normal maintenance - not mothballed) and 18 month of war (increased maintenance). Of course the building costs are playing the major role, so it is extremely relevant for amortisation if you can use the ship only in one war, or in several ones. Regarding machine and speed development it is questionable if you can use raiders for more than 15 years. On the other side I very rarely encountered a direct battle between a patrolling cruiser and one of my raiders. It is possible to avoid or decline nearly all battles.

6) Findings:
The ship types showed the following results for the first cycle (build, 48 month peace, 18 month war):
AMC: 24,2 merch/ship sunk, cost 250.000/merch
AVR: 11,6 merch/ship sunk, cost 572.000/merch
CLR: 20,5 merch/ship sunk, cost 716.000/merch
CLF: 26,2 merch/ship sunk, cost 1.271.000/merch
CAR: 25,4 merch/ship sunk, cost 980.000/merch
CAF: 19,6 merch/ship sunk, cost 2.110.000/merch
SUB: 3,0 merch/ship sunk, cost 1.095.000/merch

AMCs are the most efficient raider in this scenario, but this can change easily if the war lasts less than 18 months. And because of the scrapping the AMC have to be build again, loosing important months in which no enemy merchant is sunk.

AVRs seem to be the cheapest alternative, if usable for 3 or more cycles. After 3 cycles the cost/merch is only 238.000. And they can get into action from first month of war on.

CLRs are not much more expensive and maybe a little bit more versatile.

CLFs are nearly double in cost, but usable in different roles, so they can be used as an in-between for trade war, if neccessary (In RTW1 I used to build standard CLs like this and utilize them for everything. In RTW2 I tend to use CLs only for foreign station needs).

CARs are not so much more cost intensive than CLRs, but I think they are not worth the additional charge.

CAFs (and capitals of course) are way to expensive to just hunt merchants.

SUBs are astonishingly inefficient. Even in the chosen period of the mid 20ies, which should be the golden time of the subs, they get diminished very quickly, so the effect of a second and third cycle is minimal here.

7) Conclusion:

AMCs seem to be a very good choice if you expect a longer war. They are effective and efficient, doing a good job. Maybe they need a support for the first months of the war.

The different types of small raiders from AVs to CLs up to small, specialized raider CAs seem to be roughly equivalent in effect. Maybe some more optimization is possible with different machinery or plane specifications. But to me it seems rather a question of personal preferences. For any of the types you can find some good reasons.

Bigger ships are not as efficient. This may be different if you re-use old ships like obsolent BCs or so. In this case you dont have to calculate the building cost, which changes everything. I haven´t checked this scenario.

Subs are not advisable. I can´t see any good reason to employ subs at the moment. The occasional sinking of a warship on top of the trade war is nice, but it is too easy to melt down the sub number by old DDs etc. So the buildup of a big sub fleet seems like a waste of money, which can´t be used for more reasonable goals, like shiny new BCs...

8) Data:

Here is a little Excel file with the data, the calculations, etc. You may check it for mistakes (after midnight now, so there should be some), or for comparing own types. Have fun!

Raider statistics.xlsx (15.58 KB)

9) Closure:

Sorry if this post resembles a scientific paper. Professional socialization effect, I guess...

[jorgencab]

In terms of submarines... I think the additional sinking of warships and their presence in combat can and will be important over time and should not be hand waved away as unimportant.


I have seen quite substantive use out of reasonable numbers of submarines. All the types of trade warfare components can be countered with the right strategy. There might be a slight problem with submarine balance from around 1940 and on.


The problem might rather be the AI ability to counter player raiding strategies rather than some of their uses.


I mainly use a combination of several types of raiders and never seem to go crazy on either types to be relatively successful in general.

A general light cruiser raider can for example be deployed with the fleet instead of raiding when you need them for that. This is something you pay extra for. An AMC only do one thing and you must scrap them after each war, and this is not cheap either given they can only be used for one thing during war. Having options is something that is very difficult to put a direct measure on. Personally my light cruiser have earned me many important victory points for a very cheap price. Any cruiser action where you only need to sink two ships you can generally run around with a few fast cruisers and sin two transport or a coastal gunboat and just run away, this earn you a great deal of VP for example.

Wars are generally won by victory points in some way, sinking enemy warships are often secondary as are the case in real life as well. It is the missions that is important and keep your own fleet afloat. General attrition of ships is not generally seen as efficient, there is always someone bigger and stringer that can and will take advantage of a weak opponent. Even if that oponent is just a local power. Colonial powers have experienced this throughout history all the time.

In general having a mixed way to raid means the opponent need a mixed defence. If you ONLY use submarines and can't defend them with a surface fleet they are and should be easily defeated with the correct tool. So is or should any other type of raider if that is the only raider type used. AMC should be easily defeated by swarming your trade production with small powerful gunboats and cheap cruisers on raiding in the same areas.

[aeson]

Something to bear in mind with the raider comparisons: Sinking merchant shipping is all well and good, but it's not the real objective of commerce raiding within the game - you only get 5 victory points per merchant sunk by submarines and surface raiders, which is basically nothing compared to what you get for a blockade or a fairly small battle. What you really want out of your raiders is unrest generation, because enough unrest will topple a government and end the war with one of the best peace deals the game has to offer, and a disproportionate investment of enemy assets to counter them, because it's almost entirely to my advantage if I can use an antiquated cruiser or a cheap AMC to divert one or more of the enemy's relatively modern warships to trade protection.

Also, while I am as yet unsure about it in Rule the Waves 2, submarines seemed to be significantly better at collapsing an enemy's government than surface raiders were despite sinking significantly fewer merchant ships in Rule the Waves. If that remains true in Rule the Waves 2, then it may not matter all that much that the surface raiders sink more merchants, because commerce raiders win wars by generating enough unrest to force the enemy to the peace table or collapse a government - not by racking up victory points until the enemy admits defeat.

[alsadius]

Jun 20, 2019 16:24:30 GMT -6 arminpfano said:

RAIDER EFFICIENCY EXPERIMENT

(snip)

This is really good research. Thank you. 

[mycophobia]

A bit More on my experience with subs;

1. I agree that their raiding efficiency seems limited as long as sufficent asw are in place. ( going to about double of he minimal amount.)

2. Sub sinking seems to have a bias towards occasional large ship. Especially if your asw is not enough. I’ve lost 2 CV to subs in a two year war before(it was in the 20s). This maybe confirmation bias, but in most 2-3 year war the AI and I are gonna a time least get a capital ship torped (though rarely sunk) with our sub fleet( 20-30 subs , prize rule usually)

3. Sub in battle later on are useful, they can torpedo enemy battles with surprisingly good accuracy if you lead enemies near them( I am on the receiving end of this several times, including lose one BB)

4. Sub effectiveness are probably dictated by doctrine, my guess would be “prize rule” actually make subs fairly poor at hunting merchants compared to cheap raiders and amcs. It will be nice to see if unrestricted sub war makes any difference.

[attemptingsuccess]

Wait. Have you NOT been putting your subs on unrestricted, because that is the best option for them I find. See on unrestricted they don't have to search ships for contraband, then put there crews on lifeboats, then sink them, instead they just sink any ships within an area. That is so much more efficient. Furthermore I believe subs on fleet support are much more likely to sink enemy warships and they also show up in battles a lot more often. I am starting to put my subs on fleet support because they were just so effective on unrestricted.

[director]

Putting subs on Unrestricted increases the risk of sinking liners dramatically. Sinking liners increases the chance that another nation will join the war, resetting the VP totals and greatly extending the costs of the war. It also runs up your losses of submarines each month: I've had to build eight subs per month just to eventually replace losses, and I can't keep my fleet operational and have surface warship construction if I'm spending that much on subs.

I do use unrestricted submarine warfare, but only in cases where I don't share a seazone with the enemy, and where I have good relations with the other powers. That way all I need is a covering force for my home seazone; the rest of the fleet can go into reserve and the submarine production line cranked up.

[ludovic]

One reason to prefer subs as raiders is that they work even when you are blockading the enemy.

Does anyone's experience contradict this? Just like the manual says, when I am blockading the enemy, I indeed don't sink merchant ships via surface raiders. I do sink them via subs.

So if this sinkage affects the timeline of the enemy collapsing, then this is a huge reason to prefer subs despite their peacetime expense. I'm assuming it does affect their unrest because I get messages that claim unrest because of merchant sinkings.

And the vast majority of the wars I am in I am able to blockade the enemy after a good fleet battle in the first few months. Then again, I don't play Japan or A-H that often, so perhaps I might think about surface raiders more if I played them.

[wlbjork]

Nope, I find that subs are even more worthless if I can blockade my opponent.

[vonfriedman]

There is a problem in all this reasoning about AMCs vs subs. With the current rules it seems that it is possible to win the Battle of the Atlantic not with wolf packs of submarines but with hordes of small, poorly armed merchant ships.