Chasing down ships query

[xeno]

I'm a new player (3rd week in game) and enjoying the heck out of this game (shoutout to Tortuga and Kotori for their videos that sparked my interest!).

Now I'm playing a Germany in my third game and fighting Russia in the Baltic in 1911. I've reduced a BB to 15 knots according to the hovering over it, tried chasing it down with a flotilla of 27 knot DDs. Totally failed to catch it, it out-turned me and killed all the DDs.

So why with a 12 knot speed advantage I cannot get even one DD in position to torp? And why a damaged BB can out-turn 700 ton DDS? What am I doing wrong?

Am finding this aspect of the game a little frustrating, as several times I'm been chasing ships I should be catching, but it's not happening.

Again, great game - just this bit so far! That and in 2 previous games as the US (both to 1970) my researchers cannot discover SSMs - grrrrr!

[hawkeye]

What was the weather like?

If there is a lot of wind (and thus waves), your DDs will not reach their maximum speed (top-right of the map, something along the line of "sea state limits speed" should be shown in those cases).

You can right-click on one of your DDs and it shows you how fast it is _actually_ going (bottom right)

[xeno]

Weather was clear, just night.

[dorn]

If you are chasing directly, it could be difficult as enemy can change course and adapt.It is better to get superior position by right maneuvers outside visual range at night.

[Deleted]

The ingame reports aren't precise. The 'crews' give speed with 'some' margin of error. Don't trust information verbatim. They'll say 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.
So that "15 knots" could have been "18 knots" for a closing rate of 9 knots.

If the 700t DD's are too close to a resisting target they'll do this weird wiggly thing which I think is evading? Just pull them out when that happens, nothing you can do.

AI is extremely aware of your torpedo units so there is not a high chance of hits unless you saturate the general area, which is difficult.


Try to deploy very light units in the wings, or in reserve. Directly chasing ships doing upwards of 15 knots (being conservative) in 700t DDs, I do not like this idea. Its better to interdict their line with the light units, so that they too are closing.
If you committed more firepower (artillery) to this task you might have been more successful.

[aeson]

It is worth mentioning that if you're turning with your opponent and they're making tight turns inside of you then it takes a massive speed advantage in order to pull ahead of them in the turn of you're at any reasonable distance from them. Say a ship is turning in a circle with a radius of a thousand yards. If you're a thousand yards outside of them and following them around the circle, you literally need to be going twice as fast as they are while if you're two thousand yards outside of them you need to be going three times as fast - and that's just to maintain position; you need to be going even faster if you want to overtake them while going around a circle. If you want to overhaul somebody, don't chase them around in tight circles.

[Deleted]

How I use DDs: when the enemy battle line breaks apart, I turn off the DD squadron AI and use them manually.
1) order your BBs to follow the enemy
2) use your DDs to go around and attack the enemy main forces from the 270 to 90 degree angle (basically a frontal attack)
3) the enemy may try to evade, but if the AI really wants to avoid your torpedoes, it has to basically turn back right into your main units
4) you still have a decent chance to score some torpedo hits, because you are getting closer to them with a speed difference around 50kts (enemy BB 20kts + your DD 30kts), instead of around 10. So even if the AI tries to evade, it may still get hit by your torpedoes.
5) this tactics are more useful if the enemy doesnt have enough firepower (enemy battleships casemates either destroyed, or flooded by a storm), or if you have a signifficant torpedo advantage (9 torpedo launchers on a 1916 destroyer, or lets say 15 launchers + great torpedo tech on a 1930´s destroyer)