The Naval Meta and How to Counter It

Made a video specifically about carrier over stacking penalty here: • How Does Carrier Over ...
Note: Heavy Attack Heavy Cruisers were using Fleet in Being at the End.
The naval guide I have promised a bunch of times. There are many options in singleplayer and a few options in multiplayer. Go over which ships you should build, the best doctrine for them, and how to counter the meta. Testing Occurs in the second half of the video along with how to counter Light Attack Heavy Cruisers.
Testing For why Night Fighter and Naval Speed Chief of Navy are the Best was excluded because this video would be at least twice as long if included if not longer. But trust me, naval speed is better if you are going fleet in being or trade interdiction. Another point for Fleet in Being is it is better at protecting convoys from subs than Trade Interdiction. Providing bonuses to sub detection to Destroyers and Light Cruisers while Trade Interdiction gets none.
This guide assumes you know the very basics of naval combat. The wiki provides a pretty good run down if you want to read up on the very basics: hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Ship
Twitch.tv/71Cloak

[@Shadower115]

I've played for a very long time and simply never bothered to learn about how exactly the meta works and how the naval combat works properly. Knowing what I need, just to get through it normally. This is great info to know and understand. Might actually start making proper navies now. Thanks for the vid.

[@stefansmiljanic1697]

Well what i like to do is build light and big navies basicaly useing speed to destroy the ennemy but I need planes othervise i get just contested seas if the ennemy didn't bring its full navy

[@newsheed11]

Wauw, guide on yt made by someone who actualy knows what hes talking about. That does not happen very often, great job.

[@mimile4462]

In an actual mp battle, both sides would have a lot of old BS (probably reffited with AA) that will take all the hard attack damages. Your counter to the meta would thus not be as effective.

[@FLUX.2226]

Another advantage of Trade Interdiction: You only need 3 techs to get the maximum benefit, while Fleet in Being requires 7, more than twice as much. This means a navy with FiB might not even have the relevant doctrine bonuses yet when the war starts and get dumpstered by TI's stealth ships. The +20% naval targeting add to this, making TI a better doctrine than FiB imo.

[@CockestMan]

Extremely Helpful, about the only video there is with all meta and strategy up to date compiled in one video

[@Treklosopher]

Excellent breakdown. Very good video.

[@evilgoose6768]

Navy: is already confusing Hoi4 devs: you know what this needs? MORE COMPLICATION

[@Hamun002]

hey man, this is great. I learned a lot about just the basic naval game.

[@ProfessorPicke]

doing gods work with this guide

[@28lobster28]

Another point on Night Fighting, where you fight matters a lot (though more for air than ships). Singapore and Midway both have 2 night time air sorties and 1 day time sortie. Carriers get -100% to night sortie efficiency (multiplicative) so CVs are half as effective in those zones compared to anywhere else (because air sorties are all tied to GMT no matter where you are in the world). Normally 0800 and 1600 are day attacks, while 0000 is a night attack, that's reversed for Singapore and Midway. For ships, that's less important but you do have a few extra night torpedo attacks in those zones since they're firing every 4 hours. English Channel gets night attacks at 0000, 0400, and 2000; day attacks at 0800, 1200, and 1600. Midway (+11 GMT) gets night attacks 0800 (1900 though this can depend on winter/summer for night/day), 1200 (2300), 1600 (0300), 2000 (0500); day attacks for 0000 (1100) and 0400 (1500). Surface attacks go off every hour so it doesn't matter as much to get the night specific buff, but the -5% visibility is too good to pass up. Even with a larger fleet, I think it's still better than 15% positioning (and you'll win anyway if you have the larger fleet). Also I would definitely argue to drop the AA on newly built ships. Refits, might as well keep it. But new build ships, you'd rather have the lower cost and if you come up against planes your ships are going to die regardless. AA might take a few more planes with you but it's still not a good trade.

[@attilakatona-bugner1140]

But aa also reduces incoming damage (on paper, and fleet aa matters a lot) so even little bit of it isn t worth it?

[@28lobster28]

@@attilakatona-bugner1140 I've found that ship AA never trades efficiently against planes, even TACs. Maybe with a truly absurd mass of AA so you got a lot of damage reduction from fleet AA, you could get some benefit. But the damage reduction from fleet AA is capped at 50% and each point of DR cost exponentially more AA value to attain. 22 fleet AA = 20% DR, 160 AA = 30% DR, 675 AA = 40% DR. Even then, planes are much easier to mass and will still kill the ships if given enough time. Adding AA to ships increases the cost more than it benefits the fleet.

[@MrNicoJac]

​@@28lobster28 Yeah, you're quite right. I once lost my whole fleet to naval bombers (because the sea and air zones didn't fully line up, or something? so I didn't have _any_ air superiority, and only realized that _after_ *years* of dockyard output had reached the sea bed) So I used console hacks for a test. Made a Super Heavy Battleship, with all techs and modules etc and the FIB doctrine fully maxed out. I gave it one massive gun, and apart from that _only_ AA. It had ~82 AA - all on its own. I put in a ton of DD4s too, with 31 AA each. The idea was that the planes would attack the only capital ship, and by maxing out its AA, it would not get hit. It still got completely demolished by planes. A ship that, due to the research and build time, you could probable only get in 1950, still dies to 1940 naval bombers... That's when I went to the Wiki, and read that only a _maximum_ of 50% of plane attacks get blocked. And planes are _always_ more cost-efficient than _any ships. So naval bombers essentially make the _entire_ Man The Guns DLC completely irrelevant/useless!

[@thomasdracup8403]

@@MrNicoJac I find it infuriating how poorly balanced naval warfare and industry is compared to land warfare. Naval research takes multiple times longer than it should to produce a basic functional warship whereas you only need 1 research per plane. You can also max out air doctrines as almost anyone before 1940 but only the big 3 naval powers can get close to finishing their naval doctrine at the cost of all their fuel. Naval AA historically was very effective at causing planes to miss because they start taking evasive manoeuvres. They often had fighters strafe the ship to try and suppress any unarmoured AA yet this is completely absent. Another major historical tactic missing from the game is actual shore Bombardment. In the days before operation Sealion was supposed to launch, the Royal Navy sent one of their oldest and most obsolete battleships, HMS Revenge on a raid at Cherbourg that destroyed nearly 10% of the 1,300 troop and supply transport ships that had been gathered. Also in the days after Italy entered ww1 on the Entente side, the Austro-Hungarian navy sortied and destroyed one of Italy’s two major north-south railways which prevented Italian troops reaching the frontline in time. There’s also the raid on Mers El Kebir and many occasions of post D-day coastal Bombardment that caused serious damage, e.g. HMS Rodney destroying 100+ German tanks in one night.

[@dovahkiin7925]

Thank you for the video. Taking all this in mind, in MP, how many of what ships should Japan make? If were only considering a 1v1 between Japan and USA, USA has so many more dockyards and production bonuses to creating ships that the job of Japan killing the USA fleet seems almost impossible to me. Should Japan not make carriers at all and only make Heavy attack/light attack heavy cruisers? How can Japan compete with the USA navy if both players take the advice of this video into account. Thank you🙏

[@71Cloak]

For Japan to win in MP, the USA has to be bad or focusing on Europe First. Complete Air Superiority with land based aircraft combined with 100% naval bombers on carriers. Plus as many ships as you can produce. Catching the USA in a bad battle for them will be required to win. Japan shouldn't win the naval war, they didn't irl and the game is setup like that.

[@geegeenion]

Kamikaze for japan

[@chrisofelt6427]

when I play as USA I make 3 strike forces (starting ships/queue divide nice by 3) so it's 4 Carrier/5BB/6Heavy Cruiser/60DD (BB-heavy attack/Heavy Cruiser-light attack/DD-torpedo's) and if it's a late game naval play (I don't fight navies til 40/41) I'll have dual purpose cannons on everything, your best bet is many many naval bombers and refitting your battleships with radar, fire control, and heavy batteries (do the super heavy BB focus too), you will need to invest in dockyards tho because USA starts with 22 and gets 16 from focuses (38 total) and it's super easy to have 50-60docks before '38 so you won't out produce USA at all, make better ships/fleet compositions

[@uberslink2047]

Algorithm coming in clutch, glad to have found you!

[@carl-robertkarlsson1611]

Would it be a good assumption that for italy the correct choice is fleet in being with the difference between TI and FIB being small and they getting 8 50% cost reductions for FIB, so the minor loss in potency is counteracted by being 4 doctrines ahead?

[@bog_w]

good vid

[@localman9063]

Subbed. I'm so glad I clicked on this video and discovered this gem of a channel. You're doing a much better job than feedback gaming.

[@HBon111]

Why not a few 50kn+ Battlecruisers with a single Heavy Gun 1? Swim circles around the enemy. :DDDD fun for SP anyway.

[@alexphenex8]

What you're telling me is... that i should make Shimakaze-class BC? Sounds something i should've done/tried a long time ago

[@StGene22494]

Theoretically, navies using Trade Interdiction would take less hits due to lower visibility, thus spending less time repairing. Would that be enough to give TD the edge over FiB over the course of a war?

[@cassandrabarton8968]

The trouble with HA CA builds is that there is high RNG against established fleets with large amounts of BBs due to the inability for ha ca turrets to pierce BB armor. Meaning if your unlucky the enemy fleet can tank a lot of your ca hits on their BBs, not the LA CAs you want to be hitting. Also I dont know if this is still true but pre NSB you used to be able to cheat the carrier stacking penalty. When deciding which carriers participate it ALWAY goes top to bottom, additionally it seems that fighter wings always participate in the battle regardlessof any stacking penalty. What that meant was you could take 6 carriers, put pure naval wings on the top 4 (60% of 6 rounded up is still 4) and then fighters on the last 2, and all those wings would participate.

[@FLUX.2226]

Naval piercing isn't linear, CAs can still deal about 90% of their damage to a BB unless it's a SHBB or the tech difference is too great. If you put a group of CAs against a group of BBs with the same total production cost, the CAs will win decisively every single time as they are much more cost effective. This should mean that unless the enemy's navy contains a lot more production than yours, their BBs might not even be that much of a problem.

[@13redlion13]

as you said for single player a lot of things work. I find it more satisfying to have a large fleet of surface ships with battleships, battle cruisers, carriers and screens than spamming sub 3s with naval bombers. It's more satisfying to see that my Battleship has sunk its 10th enemy ship than to see that yet another ship has succumbed to one of my 10000 naval bombers. In general (except maybe using some hardcore mods) it is not necessary to minmax in singleplayer, not even for the more difficult achievements.

[@honeybadger6275]

That's fair but usually I play as germany so it just makes the most sense to get subs out and use naval bombers to wear down the allied navy when they attempt their mini d-days only to fail to take a single port cause I garrisoned them.

[@dr.c0a585]

Yeah, but the sub and naval bomber meta, can be easily countered. I suggest building 4 light cruisers with only AA on it, and when you see the zone full of planes just send them to patrol and they will wipe out lots of planes, and I think it's cost worthy because u will probably lose 2 ships and enemy will lose like 200 or even more planes.

[@darthbigred22]

Interesting I mostly play SP and go carrier heavy

[@MrErdem95]

I've usually gone with cheap designer DP spam BCs and it've worked wonders so far.

[@71Cloak]

Against the ai any 1940 ships will do because the ai almost never builds up to date ships. Against a player both LA and HA CAs will absolutely destroy BCs.

[@MrErdem95]

@@71Cloak Haven't Played SP since 2016 and they worked so far. Can you test raiding doct, cheap designer DP spam bc with night fighting and viaibility admiral trait?

[@71Cloak]

@@MrErdem95 Already have in response to another guy claiming the same thing. The 2 fleets I showed both beat any BCs I designed handedly.

[@aletoledo1]

perfect analysis! What I found was three medium batteries on the heavy attack CAs is the tipping point. Two batteries isn't enough, but three with the rest light attack does the job. That way you still have a CA with some light attack to take out their screens. Also do you have a recommendation on finding multiplayer games? I'd like to find a good group to play with.

[@Pompomatic]

Great vid! Are torpedoes viable against screens? They seem more aimed at targeting capitals, but they can only target the closest row - or can they reach around?

[@Starjumper2821]

Torepdoes can hit screens but all the destroyer captains seem to blast eurobeat so you won't see much damage.

[@klobiforpresident2254]

For the most part blasting eurobeat is historically accurate.

[@yoursweatersux]

Hell of a guide. How did you end up picking up all of this information??

[@71Cloak]

Testing

[@Litterbugtaylor]

As Japan it's super simple, fast af torpedo cruisers with tons of good torps

[@memazov6601]

Guys Naval Production Go Brrrrrrrrrrr

[@jesuschristhomeslice9492]

I never looked into Naval meta, all I've done is build aircraft carriers, cruisers with a lot of AA, destroyers with anti sub equipment, and Submarines and Radar on all my ships. I always choose the Base strike doctrine, with this set up I've never had issues with Naval combat, play as either the US or Japan I'd have the enemy navy wiped out in the first 4 months of the war. The ai just melts

[@TheyCalledMeT]

the ultimate anti screen i tryed a couple times was armored light cruisers, armor so no light attack bothers them light cruiser so they're virtually torpedo immune and then stacked with light attack which is just decimating their destroyers/screens never simulated in a way like you did .. but i would be curious what would happen if you would replace those 5 light attack heavy cruisers with the production equivalent of armored light cruisers

[@71Cloak]

They would get shreaded by LA heavy cruisers. The ai cant deal with the light cruisers you are describing but a player can easily. The LC are in the first row and will be under attack from the enemy CAs but they can't attack the CAs back. Also the CA get a 40% bonus to their naval hit chance from screening that LC will not get.

[@TheyCalledMeT]

@@71Cloak how can they get shredded by LA when LA piercing is below their armor? i'm aware 1:1 they don't stand a chance but did you just pop that out out of an assumption or did you try something very similar? the big weakness of destroyers is .. 0 armor every light attack hits full. having a couple somewhat armored LA monsters amongst them should sink the enemy screens much much faster and the second the screens are (almost) gone the capitals will follow thx to torps

[@71Cloak]

@@TheyCalledMeT you still do damage even when your piercing is less than their armour it just gets reduced. If your LC have 16 armour (armour gets increased by defense stat) then light attack guns with 8 piercing will do (1-0.9*((16-8)/16)) = 55% damage. LC with armour are more expensive than CA s because they have to pay the cost of the armour. This means you can pump out more CAs than LC. In addition, LC can not target CAs directly because of the destroyers screening for them. So the CAs at the start of the battle can immediately attack the LCs and start destroying them but the LCs can't attack back. I have done the testing and you can replicate it if you want but LA CAs wipe the floor with LCs.

[@gaberobison680]

I really need to finish my mod that makes modules historically accurate by just editing defines so that the Mets can become more nuanced than “stack one thing forehead”

[@aydenfellerhoff3160]

nah no shot - literally just googled for a 71cloak naval meta video bc ur one of the best content creators for this sorta stuff in the community rn, and it shows up as "uploaded 1 hour ago" looks like i came at just the right time

[@Hungaricus]

I am a bit late for the party but would it worth it to use pocket battleships for heavy attack?

[@bruhmoment3478]

I remember somehow killing all of the us navy with 13 ships as the Netherlands and I was new to the game.. idk how this happened

[@johannesoudenstad4050]

Can you do some testing with the super fast heavy engine 4 battle ship CV conversions?

[@71Cloak]

No. That would require using 1944 technology battleship technology and then intentionally only using converted battleship hulls. Also there is no real benefit to super high speed on carriers.

[@johannesoudenstad4050]

@@71Cloak Thank you for answering. Some nations have research boosts that allow them to go down battleship and cruiser lines faster, but not carrier line. I was thinking about constructing a super fast fleet of those CVS , fast battlecruisers or heavy cruisers and super fast screens. For hit and run tactics. Because the fleet only moves at the speed of the slowest ships. And speed is also supposed to determine how retreats work. A faster fleet can both more easily run away, and also run down retreating enemies... It was just a thought. Love your videos. Even if it mostly confirms my ideas most of the time. Learning new stuff here and there too. Keep it up!

[@pedrosaur2549]

The one downside to heavy attack cruisers is that you will burn through so much steel so fast building CAs with so many heavy cruiser guns.

[@98LuckyLuk]

Unfortunately LA CA completely stomp everything else once admiral traits and doctrine are involved. The -30% visibility negates enaugh of the heavy attack to overcome any practical screening force.

[@kyallokytty]

question: if you have one spotting ship do you need the rest of the fleet to have good spotting having it? if not, does the spotting ship need to be in the fleet or just patrolling in the sea zone? on the same vein, one ship having sub detection is enough or do I need to have the ships that will cause damage to the subs with sonnars?

[@Leo-jf8ww]

For the first question : to improve the spotting you have a lot of things you can use. Using air supremacy with fighters, static radars and descriptions. After this, what count is the number of ships which are patrolling, their speed and their average detection. And if you have let say a little fleet of 1 cruiser with high detection and 3 DD with regular detection, the game will count the average of the 4 (it comes from a guy from a forum who checked the files of the game, I didn't do it myself so I can not say if it's true). But personnaly, I always use some subs to patrol on the tiles I know the ennemy is, put them in never engage, and they will find the ennemy fleet pretty fast. I even can spot little fleet of DDs like that without investing more than in my descriptions with the spy agency so I don't think that is worth while to invest in refiting cruisers with high detection since I always use little fleet of 10 subs and it works all the time. If the ennemy fleet is not in the sea but have orders there, I just raid their convoys and wait for them to hunt my subs.

[@Stuff_can_be_nice.]

Can someone explain why there aren't any plus signs at the bottom of my screen for navy?

[@jyotsnasrivastava6373]

@71Cloak how light attack works against capital ships? Because the design you showed for SP has only light attack how will it kill capital ships?

[@71Cloak]

The Heavy Cruisers don't its the destroyers that kill the capitals.

[@28lobster28]

There's a base chance for a critical hit with every hit that lands, either 10% if you don't pierce armor or 20% if you do. A few crits will cripple a ship even if the base damage is low. Light attack has a much better chance to hit so you can rack up the crits quickly. In general though, light attack will shred enemy screens and then your torpedoes will kill off their capital ships. Torpedoes are expensive and slow down your DDs a lot so you generally don't build them but most nations have enough torps in their starting fleet to kill capitals as long as you can kill their screens before your screens die.

[@jyotsnasrivastava6373]

@@71Cloak Well then, is it good idea to put some torpedoes on lightcruisers and use them as all rounder ships? Like the design I use in 1936 cruiser hull is 3 light batteries and 2 torpedo launchers. In 1940 additional slot is unlocked so, 4 light cruiser batteries and 2 torpedoes so, they kill capitals. And, it works well in SP tell me about MP.

[@jaydengraham8303]

What would you do for Italy, implying that you are winning the airway before US joins and you can have air superiority within the met and you will have naval bombers out?

[@71Cloak]

Bomb the British Navy until it leaves or dies.

[@Pernix499]

So for a spotting fleet you recommed building light cruisers with aircraft ramps and radar with the highest engine and armors? Or refitting old ones does the job well enough? The problem is that by the time I spot the enemy fleet my strike force cant reach them on time

[@71Cloak]

Speed, surface detection, and surface spotting are the 3 most important stats for spotting an enemy fleet. So refitting or building new can work. I however don't ever build spotting cruisers, I find spotting to be far too unreliable at forcing a battle. Convoy raiding the enemy seems to be much more reliable and messes up their screening efficiency as well.

[@Pernix499]

@@71Cloak is one ship enough? Or how many does one typically need for spotting in a task force?

[@71Cloak]

@@Pernix499 I think most people use groups up to 5. Like I said, I don't use spotter fleets basically ever.

[@Lortagreb]

HOLY SHITTTTTTT

[@bretthuff8971]

I might have missed it in the video, but what is the ideal split for planes on carriers?

[@tadders2172]

55-45 naval-fighter

[@UCKszbcV]

How useful is this meta against the latest patch?

[@warrick1280]

so if i overstack carriers , is 6 recommended?

[@splinter8899]

Meat shields to cover your important ships I get it, but why a high speed matters to this ship, if your navy group max speed is dictated by your slowest ship, in your case, the heavy cruisers, or battleships if any. Also have you attempted navy battles between navys with meat shields and other with fully loaded destroyers?, with destroyers weighted by cost and not volume?

[@koviknia2894]

In battles ships aren't dictated by the slowest ship in speed. Rather, thats what speed is for, the enemy ships will fire at yours and if your Destroyers are ludicrously fast you're not likely to lose them due to their ability to dodge.

[@ewof]

Can you provide the saves and spreadsheats on google drive or something?

[@pWndConan]

What do you do with your starting fleet? When you doom stack, you lower your Maxspeed by a lot, cuz of the outdated ships!? Does max speed matter? Do you refit them?

[@71Cloak]

Fleet speed only matters if you are trying to catch an enemy fleet or spotting enemy fleets. Once you are in a battle fleet speed no longer matters.

[@pWndConan]

So, do you never refit any starting ships?

[@71Cloak]

@@pWndConan not really. You can refit your starting cruisers to be light attack heavy cruisers but you should wait until you have medium battery 3s to do that.

[@sadettinarslan5324]

my patrols can not detect enemy fleets thus my strike force cant engage. please do an engagement guide. i want to some good spotter forces to make engagements.

[@71Cloak]

Fast ships with high surface detection. If their surface detection is higher than your they will run away. If they are faster than you they will also run away. There is also the added issue of fleets needing to actually be out at sea to be detected. If the enemies fleets are sitting in port on strike force no amount of patrolling will get them to engage you, you need to draw them out. Best way to force the enemy to engage you is to convoy raid, if the battle with the convoys last long enough the enemy fleet will show up but the convoys will mess up their screening efficiency.

[@sadettinarslan5324]

@@71Cloak i think my big ass 6-24 fleets scare them. İ dont want to murder them with air force. That is the most boring way. İ want big naval battles.

[@Bruh-ff2tw]

So what’s the best way to use the navy in game then? Assign a death stack to strike force? Build some spotting cruisers?

[@71Cloak]

Convoy raiding is the best way to draw out an enemy strike force.

[@Starjumper2821]

@@71Cloak I usually end up killing all the convoys before a navy on strike force reaches the battle. Is there a way to intercept them or not kill the convoys for a time?

[@71Cloak]

Use fleets with less damage so they just sit in the battle failing to sink the convoys.

[@CorpseFool]

I'd like to see a test done with full doctrine, compared to no doctrine. My tests have suggested that there is very little impact on outcomes from doctrines. I'd also say that excluding admirals is a bit of a flaw here. Admirals can give you a lot of positioning that offsets penalties from larger fleet and such, as well as bonus damage that may let you shift damage brackets and improve damage efficiency. In your HACA v LACA test for example, some of the LACA ended up with very low HP which suggests the HACA are very close to entering the next bracket. That means you'd want to either boost their damage a little bit more, or you'd want to actually take turrets off. There is also a reddit comment chain that suggests screen ratios that aren't 4, but range from 3.5 all the way up to 20. The result of that testing suggested you wanted to be spending about as much IC on screens as what you wanted in not-screens. I also think that carriers should largely be considered separately.

[@Omen09]

13:50 coastal designer debuff doesn't apply here, i wonder if it actually applies in produced ships

[@Omen09]

it doesn't, is it acutally broken?

[@Omen09]

okay, they don't count heavy cruisers as capitals, which makes it quite broken. Unless you actually wanna have more range

[@71Cloak]

I always forget that Heavy Cruisers are counted as a screen not a capital ship by the game. The penalty wouldn't show up in that list anyways but it doesn't actually apply. Funnily enough, the 90 attack become 99 just by training to regular (which provides no bonuses).

[@ICXC07]

how are you maintaining your screen efficiency with such large fleets? shouldn't the over stacking penalty tank your screen efficiency with a fleet that size?

[@SouthParkCows88]

It could be like CVs the penalty for having 4 in a region is out weighed eventually by having several in a region.

[@71Cloak]

Overstacking only applies to carriers if you have more than 4. I will make a separate video just for that later. Screen Efficiency is based on 2 things. Number of screens per capital ship and positioning. With 100% positioning you only need 3 screens per capital, each fleet started with 4 or slightly more. That is why it is recommended that you have a 4:1 ratio of screens to capitals. Positioning is stay at or near 100% because both fleets are approximately equal in size so neither side is taking the larger fleet penalty. Both sides are also starting the battle with 100% of their ships so there is no penalty to positioning from that.

[@ICXC07]

@@71Cloak I thought there was also a fleet size penalty to prevent players from making death stacks?

[@71Cloak]

fleet size penalty - There is a fleet size penalty and I mentioned that. It only applies when one of the fleets is larger than the other. If both fleets are the same size they could have 10000 ships and no penalty would occur.

[@ICXC07]

@@71Cloak could you make a smaller fleet and use the penalty the other player gets to you advantage? or is it not that big a difference?

[@Cdre_Satori]

alright I might be confusing MTG and MTG mod but you havent mentioned anything about usefullness of cruiser submarines,anechoic tiles or air-independent power.

[@muovi2463]

SHBB with all heavy attack.

[@ganegui1753]

How would you build a fleet as a minor what type of shit and composition would you use ? I've been thinking of doing a naval sweden since you get a nice fleet for a minor and you can get a decent number of dockyard easily ( if 20ish is decent) and since you have a lot of steels you do not have to trade so for a minor doing naval thing it would be nice no?

[@71Cloak]

Build subs. They are cheap and you can spam out enough for naval supremacy.

[@ganegui1753]

@@71Cloak which one would be best? and are there anything else I could do ? Since it seems good for convoy raiding but little else I mean I know it impossible to win against the British navy but maybe I can build something that could give the Italian navy the edge.

[@71Cloak]

@@ganegui1753 For Italy, it depends on what you are doing. If you are early warring trying to reform the Roman Empire then just build some destroyers and evade the British navy unless they are really split up. If you are building up to 1940 then you are going to want to make as many light attack CAs as possible with a couple of extra cheap destroyers for screening.

[@ganegui1753]

@@71Cloak I'm asking for mp what does CAs means? and I meant as Sweden what should I build if I want to help one of the axis major defeat the Royal Navy. I'm far too noob to play a major in mp having only 220 hours most of it dating from 2 years ago.

[@skroowi8105]

@@ganegui1753 If you go into your production window and click on the ship designer, in the new window at the top you'll see ship icons with labels like CV, BB, CA, CL, DD, SS. What CA refers to is a heavy cruiser model. By "light attack CA", he means to take a ship from the CA tab and put light attack weapons on them, which you'll find under the "rapid fire guns" tab in the ship designer.

[@ianedgin2819]

what bout converted cv's they are worth if its on an old Light cruiser thats like useless

[@thenarwhalking5604]

So if I know the enemy is going heavy into BBs, the should I slap torpedos on my Heavy cruisers or just my Destroyers?

[@sf3166]

Destroy thrir screen with LC ligth attack spam, and try cheap shots with torpedos.

[@ronanwaring3408]

This is why in real life most large navies had both light and heavy cruisers

[@givemeRtxorgivemedeath]

So is base strike worth it? It looks like trade interdiction and fleet in being are a coin toss

[@71Cloak]

That would depend on if naval doctrines do anything to start with. I have seen some people suggest that they don't do anything at all.

[@shangri-leicht8923]

Per taskforce, i usually use the following composition: 1BB, 2CV, 4CA, 5CL, 8DD, 10SS

[@71Cloak]

You have way too few screens and there is no point in mixing subs with surface ships. Given a ratio of 2cv,1bb,4ca you need a minimum of 21 screens but it is recommended that you have at least 28.

[@boostedremiska]

Are light cruisers really not worth it? in my single player experience light cruisers seem to destroy dds but i have not done any testing

[@MrNicoJac]

SP is not MP. LCs work for me too, in SP. But I haven't compared their stats or performance to these LA HCs - and my suspicion is that the LA HCs will prove more cost-effective in SP too :)

[@ErossMcCloud]

I disagree with torpedo reveal, torpedos are fired every 4 hours in game and with 20 submarines in each fleet and 4 fleets roughly (just an example) that torpedo reveal calculation is being made thousands and thousands of times. Even if it's a small bonus, it still greatly matters

[@ErossMcCloud]

Regardless, very nice and throughout video :)

[@---ii8hl]

id argue that HA HC can be rather easily countered by mixing in 1-2 naked BBs with armor or even SHBB as HCs will focus on SHBB because of its poor positioning, and due to the way piercing works on naval, they get basically no damage from HA HC

[@datboi7893]

interesting insight *takes notes*

[@PIRATEOTR]

Is there a reason to use separate heavy attack and light attack cruisers rather than like all cruisers with a mix of guns?

[@71Cloak]

You could. The important thing is there are breakpoints for soft attack that you want to hit. The breakpoints are 15,30,60. After you reach those points you could choose to not add more guns or add heavy attack instead. Generally speaking though you want to specialize your ships so that they are extremely good at one thing and not multipurpose.

[@MrNicoJac]

@@71Cloak What causes the breakpoints for soft attack to be 15, 30, or 60? :)

[@71Cloak]

@@MrNicoJac Mostly destroyer hit points plus a cushion for bad rng. interwar destroyers have 25 hp and 1940 dds have 50. Being able to 1 shot or 2 shot them and not waste attacks is pretty nice.

[@MrNicoJac]

@@71Cloak Ah, thanks for the (fast, too!) reply 😃👍🏼

[@madogllewellyn]

Soooo.... I have all the updates and DLCs but I don't have Burke or Cooke!?!?! or are they gained in a focus tree?!

[@71Cloak]

I did add some advisors for testing because most nations either have one or can create one from their existing naval commanders.

[@madogllewellyn]

@@71Cloak Good!!!! I thought I was going crazy for a minute lol.... Very well done videos by the way!!!

[@mohammadnajibullah1171]

👍👍👍😊😊😊

[@nonrumor]

Got cutoff at the end

[@71Cloak]

Just cut a second too late. Didn't care to do an outro. Was going to include a bunch more testing that I did to determine that you should use naval speed guy and night fighter but didn't feel like it.

[@kiriseraph9674]

How do you choose a naval designer? I want the norfolk one but I'm playing as Poland, can I ask UK to give me it?

[@71Cloak]

No. You are stuck with whatever you start with. Not all countries have all of them.

[@skroowi8105]

Click on your flag in the top left corner, on the research line click the ship designer. What you see is what you get, and sometimes you have to do a focus to unlock them for use. If I'm remembering correctly some nations can invite British ship designers but again you have to do a focus and they will still be in that ship designer window, you just won't be able to use them until you do the focus.

[@kiriseraph9674]

@@skroowi8105 Ah ok thankyou! :)

[@akunomatata7897]

The naval meta is just naval bombers from the coast

[@ufuker5754]

No naval meta is refit all your destroyers with 1 highest level torpedo you have (replace the minelayer best) then 1936 heavy cruisers with no armor no AA level 1 heavy and full Light cruisers battery produce this about the rate of 1/4 done and naval bombers of course but if you have under 50 screen as start do not even bother navy base strike naval bombers and sub3

[@MrNicoJac]

@@ufuker5754 "And then get all of that deleted by a single stack of naval bombers"* ^ you forgot that part

[@ufuker5754]

@@MrNicoJacfirst of all reeeeeeeeeeee second you are right 3th Just have air force of your own take oi air doctrine and hunt them down

[@ProfessorPicke]

can you do a test on whether armored light cruisers as defense are more cost efficient than destroyers?

[@71Cloak]

I have in the past they are not. Far too expensive per ship. LA LC do counter HA CA though.

[@juncheok8579]

I only play single player so my designs for ships are just historical designs lol

[@Adept893]

14:43 4:1 screen ratio? Didn't that get patched to 3:1?

[@71Cloak]

If my memory serves correct the minimum needed has always be 3:1. However any penalty to positioning and therefore screening efficiency or losing a screen will drop you below 100% screening efficiency. 4:1 ratio of screens to captials gives you a buffer before you lose 100% screen efficiency.

[@Adept893]

@@71Cloak from the 1.9 patch notes "lowered screen ratio for navies from 4 to 3" So if this ratio drops during the battle does the penalty apply during that same battle?

[@71Cloak]

@@Adept893 Yes it is continuously updated, that's why you want a cushion of extra ships.

[@alexanderholt4679]

just tested navalaviation and i can confirm it does nothung

[@Starjumper2821]

Even when you park the carrier and give the planes air mission like you would with land based?

[@alexanderholt4679]

@@Starjumper2821 yeah

[@Tref1366]

Don't you have to spend 150 PP to change designers?

[@71Cloak]

Not with nsb, if you use the flexible contracts it only costs 30.

[@sigurd154]

Doesn't work after 1.12 unfortunately. The new meta is roach destroyers (not even torpedos), heavy cruisers, and then roach subs. And ofc naval bombers when you can. Also don't go beyond 1936 hulls, its not worth it.

[@imnotanumber43]

Battlecruisers are betters than Heavy Cruisers for Hard attack. Unlike Heavy Cruisers they actually have armor and don't have bad visibility penalties from the guns. BCs with Heavy Guns 1 well-screened with a 10-15/1 DD/BC ratio will do much better

[@71Cloak]

I'll give it a test but I highly doubt it. Heavy guns 1 cost 1200 ic each have 31 piercing and 12 hard attack. Medium battery 3s cost 300 ic and have 29 piercing and 10 hard attack each. On top of that a BC hull cost 6700 ish ic with nothing on it, the CAs i was building cost less than 2/3rds of that with full batteries.

[@71Cloak]

So i just tested it to confirm and BC cannot beat either of the CA builds shown in this guide. I test 4 different BC designs based on cosr using heavy guns 1 like yoh said and they got destroyed. HA CA went through them like a hot knife through butter.

[@imnotanumber43]

@@71Cloak Is this with trade interdiction left side doctrine? You need capital ship raiders

[@71Cloak]

Full Trade Interdiction.

[@TheyCalledMeT]

18:49 what is a heavy attack light cruiser? a cruiser fitting heavy attack automaticaly becomes a heavy cruiser

[@TheyCalledMeT]

@@skroowi8105 you're aware there's ONLY cruiser and wether or not you have a medium gun turret (moderate piercing decent heavy attack) mounted decides wether it's a heavy or light cruiser?

[@TheyCalledMeT]

@@skroowi8105 oh great .. the post was removed because it contained a (cut in pieces) link ... in short .. Cruiser hull plus (max) light guns = CL Cruiser hull plus medium guns = CA Heavy hull plus (max) medium guns = BC Heavy hull plus heavy guns = BB

[@skroowi8105]

@@TheyCalledMeT Never mind, live in ignorance. I don't know why you're asking questions when you're just going to use your own answer anyway.

[@TheyCalledMeT]

@@skroowi8105 you didn't explain how such a thing could be built, I told you what game mechanics I am aware of and I wasn't able to find any documentation or description that would fit what you said. Feel free to enlighten me untill now you just made baseless claims

[@Logan-dk8of]

so wouldn't the setup that beats the meta be the meta?

[@dr.c0a585]

Yeah, it can work in SP, but i think even this anti-meta build can be defeated with BBs, because they can probably take whole heavy damage without being in critical condition, however i am on vacation so I cant test it out, when i return in 5-6 days i will probably so if you want results u can probably write reply on my comment then, to remind me

[@jansatamme6521]

All this tells me is that paradox once again didnt put effort into the navy, it makes no sense

[@gaberobison680]

Apparently Paradox thinks slapping a .50 cal MG on a boat makes the hull more expensive. This is why I hate opportunity cost based balancing, you are punished for just trying to play realistically

[@pievanian]

I mean, I guess if your idea of ship based AA is a dude grabbing an MG from the armoury and running out on deck screaming and blazing away purely for morale purposes... but even for a .30 or .50 cal mount if you wanted them to not only usable, but maybe even useful it was a surprisingly complex process.

[@liberphilosophus7481]

Better off going heavy ships because heavy cruisers will never be able to pierce a heavy ship, making heavy ships 5x better than a heavy cruiser in anti capital role while only costing 2x as much.

[@71Cloak]

Piercing is not binary in naval combat. Plus the meta, meta is to ignore hard attack all together and focus solely on killing the enemy screens. The counter the meta, meta is to use heavy cruisers to sink their heavy cruisers. Their heavy cruisers aren't going to have any armour so the piercing just doesn't matter. At which point heavy cruisers are a far more cost effective source of heavy attack than battleships or battlecruisers.

[@liberphilosophus7481]

@@71Cloak I like to go a combined armed approach with heavy ships to destroy capitals and cruisers to destroy screens because hard attack is 10x more likely to target capitals and then carriers regardless of screening efficiency, and because of the high armor the cruisers will deal 70% damage. Seems rather silly but I don't play MP lol.

[@SMH55]

Meta is naval bombers

[@memazov6601]

Subs is always been the Meta and it always is

[@jyotsnasrivastava6373]

Subs are trash can't kill fleets in MP

[@willwalsh7591]

Subs only work when you play against people who have zero understanding of navy. They die insanely fast to any air, or to any designated anti submarine ships

[@jyotsnasrivastava6373]

@@willwalsh7591 True, My zero depth charge destroyer group just scared subs didn't kill them but, just scared them away from raiding STRANGE(I forgot to make anti sub DD so I was using the destroyers I started with in 1936) BUT, its not a good idea to do so. Always make Sonar with depth charge destroyers and all your submarine raiding issues are solved. Subs will die very quickly.

[@cc0767]

Most MP games ban sub 3s

[@MrNicoJac]

@@jyotsnasrivastava6373 Why go Sonar instead of Radar?

[@witherbrine2057]

Submarine is not a meta since Man the Gun.. Basically the New meta is Light Cruiser 3

[@user-yl6ep5jp1h]

Жаль, что субтитров на русском нету

[@stivelars8985]

its really bad design they way they do carrier combat. They should never be hit by CA´s. i miss hoi 3

[@71Cloak]

Why shouldn't they. Carriers got shot at by actual ships in real life. Not always, some battles happened without either fleet ever spotting the other. But some they were targeted when the USA had no other capitals in the battle like the Battle of Samar.

[@stivelars8985]

​ @71Cloak that is not how a carrier force operated. the game cant simulate the actual air naval war. Why would your carrier fleet engage at gunrange, it happen like you said at samar but there they were used not as intendet but as a lure (from the japanese). The US escord carriers were protecting a naval invasion, not in a strikeforce. You test mainfleet strikeforce battels, unless i am wrong. If you got a carrier fleet in strikeforce, they should engage only with planes, the further away the better. You dont have to defend the game, i just find it worse than it was in hoi3 (but less tedious).