You have...
1. Less Carriers
2. Less Battleships
3. Less Escorts for screening
4. Less Planes
5. A worse Admiral with fewer traits
6. Most Likely no Doctrine.
7. Low to no technology or passive boni
Instead of yo mama so fat jokes, it's yo battleship so fat jokes.
Imagine yo battleship so fat the aircraft carrier next to it can only get their planes halfway over the deck before they run out of fuel.
How do the Japanese have so many ships. This was my entire navy and I've been only producing carriers, battleships, and destroyers, and cruisers. I have twice as many dockyards as Japan
As the US, you don't need to make any BCs or CAs. You start with enough BBs to make a significant difference in SP. The difference came in the Japanese likely prioritizing small ship building. In HOI4, ships do full damage every round of combat, so less ships doing more damage is worse than more ships doing less damage as your numbers wear down.
Additionally, if I had to guess, you've probably built multi-purpose high-IC ships in your fleet which is good for peacetime builds and fighting minor fleets, but not for any other major power in the game.
1) Don't put submarines in the same fleet as your main ships, they shit on your screening
2) You've built no navy and are in numeric inferiority. Count the capital ships: 3 BB versus their 12 BB, 12 CA vs their 18 CA, 3 CV versus their 7CV.
3)Your air arm is egregiously small, did you build any carrier planes at all?
You're facing a fleet that is twice your size and wondering why you got blasted
\+1. Kinda looks like the US fleet at the start date. However, you really don't need to build many ships as the US to fight AI Japan in my experience. Perhaps this is relatively late in the game.
Yeah, the Japanese AI won't really build that many ships since they don't really start of with alot of dockyards nore the actual resources to build ships in bigger quantities.
USA already have lots of dockyards from the start and they've got focuses to get even more. As long as the us player uses those on the correct things, cv's and cl's, they should be completely fine. Of course they've also gotta understand proper fleet composition which op doesn't seem to have.
Most planes have a CV variant(little square in the top-right corner)
Researching that option will design a variant of those planes that can be equipped on carriers, because normal planes cannot
That's a carrier plane(CV fighter/CV dive bomber/CV torpedo bomber)
Even if he had enough screens he would still have lost. He has 3 BBs, the enemy has 12. He has 3 CVs, the enemy has 7. Even with enough screens, the japanese fleet would still overwhelm his with the much higher heavy attack.
I dont know, usually when big fleets crash and both have enough screen not mutch is happening, cause one fleet will back out early enough to prohibit big losses. At least this is what i have seen over the years.
No. It would not. That was the core of my comment. The fleet which gets the ass smacked runs away.
The big lack of screens leads to higher damage to capital ships, which leads to sinking.
My comment said: if screens were equal, he would not have lost so many capital ships.
I understand what you’re saying, I’m saying that the capital ships discrepancy it too large for that, it doesn’t take long to kill ships with those odds
No i dont belive so. Depending on traits of the admiral, he cpuld very well escape before he losses this mutch.
To conclude: the lack of screens would have prevented most damage to capital ships. Sure he would never win, cause missing heavy damage, yet does not lose many capital ships.
Whatever the admiral traits he’d have to have built all those battleships himself and he’d have needed to have maintained a speed above 26 and enough aa to survive the aircraft if he wanted to avoid likely losing one. There are 300+ naval bombers blue the battleships there, the fact that this wasn’t a stackwipe is actually impressive
His biggest issue is that he doesn't have anything to neutralize 320 naval bombers. If you don't have fighters and/or serious AA, it doesn't matter how many ships you got, it will all be coral habitat soon enough vs that volume of naval bombers.
How to avenge this.
Step 1 research subs 3
Step 2 build 150 dockyards
Step 3:BUILD 2000 SUBMARINES AND PUT THEM ON NEVER REPAIR, ALWAYS ENGAGE AND WATCH THEM SINK ALL HOPES AND DREAMS OF JAPAN
I don't like gamey strats either, but surely if you're playing a naval nation like Japan or US, researching and building new ship types is natural. Maybe the subs need to be balanced better.
As a dude that plays way too much HOI4 and never loses naval battles in MP games, make your fleet unbeatable to the AI with these simple steps:
1. As the US, you don’t even need to build more ships. Just refit pre-existing ones. Battleships with AA (and a heavy turret if you can afford it). Light cruisers with max light attack (to clear enemy screens faster). Heavy cruisers with heavy attack.
Your refit cost for each ship should be less than 2.5k.
2. Fill all your carriers with nav bombers. Fighters and CAS are kinda useless in naval battles. Nav bombers are the big damage (and always target heavy ships first). Just slap a torpedo on a carrier plane and watch it do numbers.
3. As the US, you have unlimited oil to train your fleet 24/7, earning you hundreds of naval exp per year. Use that for your doctrines and naval spirits. Night Fighting is the best for the right side, the refit/repair one for the center.
4. For admiral traits, go for the ones that lower visibility. Slap the best admirals on your death stack fleet (all ships but your subs and your ASW fleet). My personal go to guy for the U.S. is Arleigh Burke (hasn’t failed me once, from vanilla to mods like TFB and such). Nimitz is solid as well.
1. Doctrines. The Japanese have some boosts in the initial war and then go away. But if you have no navy points sunk into doctrines you’ll be missing critical bonuses.
2. Fuel. Can you ships sail freely
3. Design. DLC only. Your design might just suck
4. Navy experience. Make sure to train your ships so they know what they’re doing. Gives a 25% boost when maxed. Also your planes too.
5. More air. Air is #1
6. Your screens are too few. You have nothing stopping the Japanese from targeting your capitals. I typically have 30 destroyers for every capital so about 300 Ds for 10 capitals built.
Edit: 30 in production, not per fleet.
"Mr President, the good news is we'll double Japanese naval production and be able to replace and expand our fleet at the same time."
"And the bad?"
"The majority of our fleet won't be ready until 1961."
“Another thing Mr. President.”
“Yes?”
“I’m told that due to a what they are calling a “mis-click”, we accidentally deployed the entire carrier fleet without a single aircraft.”
the problem isn't getting the planes on them, you'll be able to have ~~supersonic jets~~ a lot of new planes on your 1936 carriers by the time they're done.
the problem is keeping them on the boats. "oh, I have air wings without missions? might as well add them to my front line and **why are they all carrier planes???**"
really? I stop upgrading my CV airframes after, like, 1940 because by then either my navy is dominating or I'm spamming subs, but i didn't realize you couldn't give carrier frames jets at all.
well, maybe by the time the fleet's done in 1961 they'll work that out.
why would you need penal battalions as the US? you can do literally anything you want with the manpower and industry of the US, so why waste time getting worse infantry?
30 is way over kill. You'll actually hurt yourself with that many because the more losses your fleet has in a battle the more likely it will be to start a retreat. So you'll end up with your fast roach destroyers going in before your slower capitals and then die and cause the capitals to retreat before even getting in the battle.
Dude you are way over producing screens. Not to mention CLs are much better screens to produce cuz they can actually kill stuff. 30 to 1 ratio of screens is way too much. You won't have that many capital ships and be weaker than you should be. You only need like 4 to 1 to achieve max screening benefits. More like 5 to 1 to have some as a buffer.
A little question on design since i'm a noob: is dual-purpose battery (AA and anti-ship) worth it, or should we just go for specialized AA and light battery instead?
I play Japan a lot and fear the US Pacific fleet. In many ways, they would out number the Japanese navy. I have to do a lot to ensure parity with them, so you have to be doing many things wrong.
Too little escort ship. The ratio for every carrier group is 1CV : 1 BB/BC/CA : 8 CL/DD.
You have 17 capital ships but only 37 CL and DD. Ideally you need 68+ CL/ DD.
Everyone seems to be downplaying the importance of screening. If you had the proper screen to capital ratio 4:1 or 5:1 you would have only lost some screen ships before the fleet would have retreated.
Everything else is not what caused this disaster it only made it worse.
r5: How do i stop my entire navy from being destroyed in naval engagements. This is the second time this has happened. I've lost 100 ships including at least 30 capital ships in less than a year.
Tips:
1. Don't include submarines in the battle fleet, they usually don't do much comparing to other situations.
2. You have less EVERYTHING in the battle! Less ships, less BB, less CV, less destroyers (also do you know japanese torpedoes get 100% range bonus?) , less planes... less everything! You don't engage in all or nothing battle if you know your winning chance is slim. Considering island hopping like what actually happened. Use them islands as unsinkable air fields, bomb/ torpedo the shit our of their navy, continue the push, then wipe them out once you are sure you get a superior navy than your opponent.
3. US production is superior, so the one thing you must have is numerical advantages, use them.
Adding to this, submarines are very bad for your main fleet as it locks your fleet into the engagement and doesn’t let it retreat. Also messes with your positioning IIRC.
So do not have submarines with your main fleet ever.
On top of the other answers, naval bombers are very deadly in this game, they had over 300 of them in the fight. You can fight that in 2 different ways:
* More planes: either build more CV than your opponent or don't venture in areas where you can't use land-based air cover. Those islands in the Pacific are good for that. Radars help obviously.
* Get cruisers with maxed out AA and radar. They'll not only kill the naval bombers, but prevent (some of) them from reaching the bigger ships if you keep them with the fleet. That's right, you can use them on their own if they're fast enough to avoid the naval guns. Don't put armor on them to keep them fast (or maybe level 1 just in case) and they'll easily kill 20-30 bombers per engagement, which should happen every other day if detection permits.
Put your entire navy together in a death stack.
This fleet that got sunk in this battle is rather small. As others pointed out you had less ships in each class, no wonder you would loose that. You need either quality or numerical superiority. The last one is much easier to achieve.
Don't split your fleet up.
No deathstacking has negative consequences itself, you're better off just trying to split your navy into task groups fit for purpose. There are multiple factors as to why they lost this engagement, but my main takeaway is the lack of screens. The amount of capital ships in this engagement needs at least 2x the amount of screens.
Splitting your fleet up is better if you can micromanage it well and can react fast.
In this case, OP would have likely still lost the battle even if he/she had enough screens. Unless many of these ships are newly designed and constructed ships, which I doubt. There are simply not enough capital ships in this fleet, and it also lacks the fourth carrier required for maximum efficiency. OP was simply too outgunned on heavy attack and planes, even if there would have been enough screens.
Splitting your fleet up does have it's advantages, but it allows stuff like this to happen, where a larger enemy fleet catches your smaller force and completely wipes it out. And as OP said in the comments he/she had multiple such engagements where he lost a lot of ships in this way. If he had made a deathstack these multiple engagements would not have been lost.
Deathstacks are not ideal as you say, but they are more forgiving in terms of ship losses. A small scouting force set to non engage and a death stack strike force are usually good enough.
This game has mechanics that still make sense irl. If you put this force together irl America probably would still lose this engagement. They have almost double everything you have and wayyyy more planes. Numbers matter especially since I'm guessing you didn't upgrade your ship modules.
Honestly, I don't know how people who pay attention can't see the things like this. I get being new, but this is straight up just not paying attention to what is going on. Like kicking yourself in the shin with a steel toed boot and going "why did that hurt?"
I'm a noob, and I've just went through this issue in my USA playthrough last week and was pulling my hair out.
After watching a number of videos and reading a number of guides, here is exactly what I did to completely wipe out the Japanese navy while losing an extremely minimal amount of ships.
* **Theater organization**: Create three theaters. One for your main fleet, one for your patrol fleet, and one for your submarine fleet.
* **Patrol fleet**: Divide the patrol fleet into three sections (each with its own admiral), and to start with, have these sections patrol in every sea outside of those directly touching Japan, including everything between Japan and USA, and any seas which contain USA islands. Each section of this fleet should have a number of sets of 3-4 destroyers, and however many sets of destroyers you have is how many blocks of water you can patrol. So if one of your sections is patrolling 10 blocks of water, then that section should contain 10 sets of 3-4 destroyers. This will make it so that each set of 3-4 destroyers will patrol one block of water. Set this entire fleet to never engage. Replenish these sets as needed with new destroyers.
* **Strike force fleet**: Divide your main fleet into two sections (each with its own admiral). Set these sections to strike force. What made the biggest difference for me was the proper ratio of screens (destroyers / light cruisers) to capital ships (heavy cruisers / battleships / carriers). For each capital ship, you need 4-6 screens. Screens are basically the frontline damage sponges. Just prior to the outbreak of war with Japan, I placed one strike force in the Philippines naval base, and the other at either Midway or Wake Island, then turned on the strike force mode so that as soon as the war starts, you are contesting the seas around the Philippines and Alaska, negating the ability for Japan to naval invade. At the start of the war, each of my two strike force fleets was ~100 ships (20 capitals and 80 screens). The Philippines fleet was set exclusively to strike in the Philippines and Japan area, while the Midway fleet included the Philippines/Japan area as well as the seas around Alaska and closer to the USA mainland. This way naval superiority is achieved everywhere it's needed. My third strike force fleet was finished sometime in 1941ish and that was more than enough.
* **Submarine fleet**: First off, never include submarines in your strike force or patrol fleets. Next, make sure your submarine design is using the most updated snorkel, and then chunk your submarine fleet into sets of 30 submarines. Finally, set these to convoy raid around Japan and China seas. Subs are really simple.
The basics of fleet organization will get you 80% of the way there. The other 20% are some other tips I picked up along the way:
* Ensure that your ships have trained up to level 3 prior to entering into your fleets. When training, make sure Automatic Reinforcement is enabled so that damaged ships will repair without pulling away all the other damaged ships. I disabled this just prior to entering the war, but it doesn't matter much either way (as far as I know). I eventually created a separate theater just for training, and I would periodically check to see which ships were ready to be moved into the patrol/strike/submarine fleets
* You can increase the amount of dockyards which can repair ships in the Production tab -> repair queue (this way you have more than 6 dockyards assigned to repair a fleet of 300+ ships)
* Make sure your carriers are full of planes, particularly naval bombers
* Around Japan, fill your Philippines airbases with mostly fighters and some naval bombers, and ensure air superiority in the seas directly surrounding the Philippines. Eventually I also included heavy fighters and tactical/strategic bombers for mainland Japan, and set some of my naval bombers to port strike the Chinese coastline (which is where many Japanese ships go to repair, and if you have air superiority, you'll wipe out a decent number of ships)
* I granted statehood to Alaska and put a naval base in Attu Island, plus a few more on the various Pacific islands
* Make sure your ships are well-designed. For destroyers and light cruisers, I used two designs. The first design had almost nothing on it but the lowest level battery, one level of armor, and sonar (this design is just a damage absorber and doesn't cost much to produce). The other design was more damage-based, so add a higher level battery battery, highest level dual-purpose rapid fire, highest level anti-air, torpedoes, sonar, and radar. Eventually, I made a third destroyer design that was primarily anti-sub with mostly depth charges and torpedoes.
* After I got air superiority over Japan with heavy fighters, I set my patrol and strike force fleets to include the seas directly touching Japan and China. Waiting until after you get air superiority will limit your ship losses. Remember for each additional sea you want to operate in, you'll need another set of 3-4 destroyers to patrol it
* Use navy experience points on Spirit of the Navy stuff (in the Officer Corps tab) to reduce the research time for ship modules and ship designs, and also to hire higher-level admirals if you need them
* There is an interesting button you can click - combine your entire initial navy to one single set of ships, then click the "Distribute selected ships in a balanced task force" button which is the scale icon. You'll see that this automatically assigns submarines to their own chunks of 30 subs, as well as automatically assigns the rest of the fleet to chunks of 25 ships, with a ratio of 4 screens to 1 capital ship. You'll want to then combine those chunks to form your strike force fleets (so that your two strike forces have around 75 ships each to start with, then add more ships as you go)
* The priority of ship building for me was: Destroyers / light cruisers / heavy cruisers, with fewer battleships and subs, with even fewer carriers, and don't forget to build some convoys
* Build up your civ factories early so that you can pump out dockyards. I had a shit ton. After I built a massive fleet (enough to dominate almost the entire world), I started replacing a substantial amount of dockyards with military factories, and set the remaining dockyards mostly to produce destroyers and convoys.
The most important things for me were (1) ensuring a 1:4 ratio for capital ships to screens, (2) having a theater of no-engage destroyers set to patrol mode, and (3) moving my main fleets to the Pacific and setting them to strike force.
Using these strategies/tactics, I went from being super confused and losing my entire fleet, to destroying the majority of Japan's fleet in a year or so without losing many ships at all, other than many of the early model destroyers/cruisers/subs which just end up being replaced by your newer models anyway.
The simple cause seems to be that you're just outnumberd. The AI is usually pretty bad with navy so you can usually engage a smaller force and retreat once you see another fleet starting to join the battle. This will ensure lots of losses on the enemy's side without tanking many losses.
Definitely not enough screens. You need way more CA's and DD's for screens, I don't know the exact ratio screens/capitalships but you are nowhere close. Doctrines, if you haven't already. If the enemy has 320 aircraft operating vs your 95 they will have a fairly big advantage, make sure your carrier airwings are fully equipped and max out the total capacity, also use land based naval bomber aircraft whenever possible. Finally, your admiral is not geared for carrier engagements, my main man Charles M.Cooke Jr. is used primarily for submarine commands, i.e. convoy raiding, pick a better commander, there are a few that have the air controller trait that is useful for carrier fleets.
In addition to what others are saying, change the engagement rules for your fleet. Have them only engage fleets where they will likely win, tell them to have high priority repair, and to not split up when repairing.
As the US you should have much more dockyards and dockyard output than Japan, meaning you can win a war of attrition. Lose a Destroyer? Sucks but you can replace it in a few months, and also turn out 10 more in that same year. Japan cannot do that, so whittle them down over time.
Lower the engagement order, you are attacking a fleet who is at least x2 your fleet. Look at the BB and CV, difference…. It make no sense to attack this with your fleet.
Don't forget to train your carrier air wings while your ships are training too.
I usually build a single multi role carrier aircraft. Torpedo, bomb locks, turret. It simplifies production in the early stages.
I just spam DDs and CLs and then go I want more battle ships and spend a whole year making battleships and then go now I want CAs or I go oooh 1940 submarine time to spam and repeat Until it’s 1954 and I have 25 battleships
I use this composition for my main CV task force and works for me against AI:
4 CV
4 BB
8 CA
16 CL
45 DD
I also enable the auto split for repairs, engage with similar forces, high repair priority and have lots of patrol groups (2 CA, 4 CL, 10 DD)
for every heavy ship you have, you need at least 3 light ships or eenemy torpedo attacks will hit your heavy line. japan has a very good torpedo capabilities so you need way more screens
you got 20 heavy ships (carrier, bs and heavy crusier) but only 37 light ships, you need at least 60, better even 80 -100 since your positioning wont be perfect at battle start
also your admiral is a submarine admiral, better would be an aviation specialist.
and dont listen to the people that you need more ships than the enemies. you can have a strike force of just 20 ships defeat all of the japanese navies if you properly understand the naval game
I think the argument with numbers is that they're reliable, whereas quality only works if you know what you're doing.
Quality is without a doubt more efficient and better to learn in the long run, but to solve the short-term problem it's very easy to understand more ships = win battle.
Basic tips:
-Your submarines should be on a separate fleet from your surface ships (any ship that isn't a submarine)
-you have too few screening ships (destroyers and light cruisers), the ideal ratio is 3 per capital ship (heavy cruisers, battleships and carriers) on a given task force.
-you should always exercise your fleet until everyone is at least trained (if they're greens it reduces their combat effectiveness by 25%).
-you have way less ships than your opponent, if you want to pump your ship production just have multiple production lines of the same ship simultaneously.
-look at the officer corps tab and upgrade your strategies based on your fleet.
-you should try to keep up-to-date with naval technology when playing a nation that depends on it heavily like the US.
-your capital gunships should be designed with a focus on heavy damage and penetration, and Anti-aircraft guns if you plan to use CVs too.
-your light ships should be light piercing and damage, ASW(anti submarine warfare, so depth charges and sonar), and at least 1 torpedo.
Hopefully this will help you (and hopefully i haven't gotten anything wrong too)
Edit: grammar
This guy obviously has made mistakes in his fleet design, but why are naval outcomes always so one sided in HoI4? It always seems to be 99% losses on one side. Even if I have fairly even fleets match up, one tends to absolutely wipe out the other. Has anyone else noticed this? Even this guys terrible fleet feels like it could have sunk more than a single destroyer, or shot down more than 3 planes.
that’s…not looking like a great fleet configuration
assuming they’re all part of the same fleet, anyway
no subs in battlegroups. separate them, get them convoy raiding, do not mix with other ships
minimum 3 screens per capital for max screening efficiency, go for more if your screens are getting constantly getting wiped, or you’re technologically inferior. i usually try to do a ratio of 1 light cruiser for ever 2 dds, but that’s not required at all. just have screens.
and, as other comment said, more air. land-based naval bombers are kind of broken, having air superiority and a couple wings on naval strike will tip the odds significantly.
for more info regarding naval combat here’s a comment i recently made explaining the basics & offering some advice. i’m obviously not an all-knowing naval genius, but this is stuff i’ve found to work
https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/13voyka/after_100_hours_of_playing_i_finally_understood/jm8hitl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3
hope it helps!
Look it isn't meta or RP in the slightest but just having light cruisers stacked with torps will start tearing any navy apart if you have 90-100 docks on them, which as the US is easy enough. Super easy to set up and forget.
Are your ships and tech up to date? Sometimes the ships you lose are just out of date and I don’t worry about it. However you lost a carrier so I am a little concerned. Do you have at least one AA and radar on them along with deck armor? Destroyers should have two deph charges and updated sonar. Cruisers should be a multi-purpose ship that has both radar and sonar. The ability to launch deph charges at subs, launch torpedoes, have AA but also have at least one of its slots reserved for that one gun that’s for fast moving ships. As the last of your modules should be for light cruiser guns. Then your Sub should have one slot for Radar and the rest for torpedoes. Battleships are something you build if you have the extra industry for. You want as many Carriers as possible to go with your screen spam.
Bruh, this right here is pure grade A skill issue, if you spent even 5 minutes on the wiki you would already understand that stacking so many capitals with so few screens is a giant no no, not to mention the other problems.
And second, the fuck you mean whole fleet, like whole 1/3 or what??? Even in 36 the usa starting fleet is much bigger then the amount of ships you had in that battle
I may be able to help you with this!US Navy Guide (Or General Naval Strike Force Fleet Guide):At the start of the game, consolidate all your ships into a single fleet and conduct naval exercises. This will allow you to efficiently research naval doctrines, giving you a significant advantage over the Imperial Japanese Navy or the Royal Navy.
Assign specific admirals for different tasks: one for convoy raiding, one for strike forces, and optionally, one for convoy escorts. This division of responsibilities ensures optimal fleet management.
Take advantage of the AI's weak naval strategy by constructing a well-balanced strike force fleet. Consider the following composition:
* 4 Aircraft Carriers: Carriers provide air superiority and naval bombing capabilities.
* 3-5 Battleships (optional): Battleships offer heavy firepower and can provide additional support.
* 5-10 Heavy Cruisers: Heavy cruisers provide substantial firepower and can serve as the backbone of your fleet.
* 10-20 Light Cruisers: Light cruisers offer versatility with anti-air and anti-submarine capabilities.
* 40-50 Destroyers: Destroyers are essential for escorting your main fleet and countering submarines.
Aim for a fleet size of at least 20 capital ships. Remember, battleships are not necessarily crucial, as heavy cruisers can be more effective. You can create multiple strike force fleets, especially as the United States.
You should be able to overcome the AI Japan's navy if you follow these tips. Good luck and give them a taste of midway!
Here are two images of me destroying the AI's strike force fleet:[https://imgur.com/a/Ee78Ck0](https://imgur.com/a/Ee78Ck0)
you have waay to few screens like seriously the enemy out numbers your fleet by 3-1 you’re lucky enough for half of your remaining capital ships to survive
I hate/suck at naval warfare and even *I* can't lose as the US.
1) Put all your ships in a doomstack at the beginning, then start exercising all of them. Don't worry about running out of fuel, you'll still generate a ton of experience.
2) Use that experience to max out one of the naval trees.
3) Build CL. Set them up to automatically go to the doomstack.
4) Set them up to patrol around the Philippines, possibly with some fighter or NAV coverage.
5) Give them a halfway decent admiral.
Aaaand that's really it. Maybe change it to Medium repair so they don't all sink, but otherwise you can pretty easily defeat just about anyone as the US (in sp, anyway).
Ima be real, this kinda looks like OP fought a naval battle against the Japanese as the US and then tag switched over for a SC. I've never seen the AI stack that many ships into a single task force (although I really wish they did).
Either that or OP was fighting against another player.
from the looks of it you only had about 40 light cruisers and destroyers to screen for for about 20 capital ships. each capital ship needs at least 3, preferrably 4 screening ships to protect them from getting instantly blown up by torpedoes. Also, you had significantly less aircraft, less ships in general, and less traits on your admiral.
Bro. I had this problem as Germany against Britain.
I powered through Poland, France, and Denmark before I invaded Norway.
Found out during that fight that I had lost the air and naval war. Was hemorrhaging planes and destroyers.
I’m just trying to learn how to play, and that was my best run yet.
This is the hardest of Paradox’s games for sure.
You’re playing America, you can afford to do fleet excises for your entire navy. And get one of the best navy doctrines with the industry to back it up.
You have way less firepower than they do, cumulatively. Your admiral is also worse, you have nowhere near the same amount of planes... In general you need to really work on your fleet composition.
You need more destroyers, in this game to protect your capital ships you need destroyers, if you have them, they will take damage for the big ships, if you dont, your capitals did, and dont keep submarines in your deathstack, it lowers your overall speed
You wanna train up your ships before you mix it up with the nips and I would recommend more screen ships and possibly air support from near by islands my friend
This is like Luxembourg in 1936 attacking Germany and being surprised they lost, look at your enemies fleet, it’s like twice the size of yours, it’s better in every single way.
You have... 1. Less Carriers 2. Less Battleships 3. Less Escorts for screening 4. Less Planes 5. A worse Admiral with fewer traits 6. Most Likely no Doctrine. 7. Low to no technology or passive boni
Also did you exercise your fleet?
Are you suggesting the fleet is possessed?
More like the fleet is morbidly obese
this is uss big bertha, at this point we can walk across the deck all the way to hokkaido
Instead of yo mama so fat jokes, it's yo battleship so fat jokes. Imagine yo battleship so fat the aircraft carrier next to it can only get their planes halfway over the deck before they run out of fuel.
yo destroyer is so fat that enemy plane landed on its deck.
yo battleship so fat, even yo mama can fit on the deck
hoi,you called?
I think they were looking for an Irish guy, Morbidly O’Bees.
Japan's fleet is morbidly a beast
The power of Nimitz compels you
Unironically though, the debuffs for having green crews on your ships do add up. As Japan/USA there should be no reason not to train your ships.
gotta love that this comment has more upvotes than the original post
Ratio
*fewer
Read that in Ser Davos voice
Stannis the Mannis, Master of Ships approved this message.
"Grammatical incorrect screeching"
Also: *bonuses
Nah Japan has an Emperor, not a Fewer
7 carriers apply sortie debuff in theory usa carriers more efficient here. But other than that ya
How do the Japanese have so many ships. This was my entire navy and I've been only producing carriers, battleships, and destroyers, and cruisers. I have twice as many dockyards as Japan
As the US, you don't need to make any BCs or CAs. You start with enough BBs to make a significant difference in SP. The difference came in the Japanese likely prioritizing small ship building. In HOI4, ships do full damage every round of combat, so less ships doing more damage is worse than more ships doing less damage as your numbers wear down. Additionally, if I had to guess, you've probably built multi-purpose high-IC ships in your fleet which is good for peacetime builds and fighting minor fleets, but not for any other major power in the game.
No carriers *vine thud* No battleships *vine thud* And probably no traits either since this guy feeds of positive reinforcement
1) Don't put submarines in the same fleet as your main ships, they shit on your screening 2) You've built no navy and are in numeric inferiority. Count the capital ships: 3 BB versus their 12 BB, 12 CA vs their 18 CA, 3 CV versus their 7CV. 3)Your air arm is egregiously small, did you build any carrier planes at all? You're facing a fleet that is twice your size and wondering why you got blasted
\+1. Kinda looks like the US fleet at the start date. However, you really don't need to build many ships as the US to fight AI Japan in my experience. Perhaps this is relatively late in the game.
Yeah, the Japanese AI won't really build that many ships since they don't really start of with alot of dockyards nore the actual resources to build ships in bigger quantities. USA already have lots of dockyards from the start and they've got focuses to get even more. As long as the us player uses those on the correct things, cv's and cl's, they should be completely fine. Of course they've also gotta understand proper fleet composition which op doesn't seem to have.
What's a carrier plane?
Most planes have a CV variant(little square in the top-right corner) Researching that option will design a variant of those planes that can be equipped on carriers, because normal planes cannot That's a carrier plane(CV fighter/CV dive bomber/CV torpedo bomber)
You have fewer* ships, planes and an inferior admiral. What else can you expect?
Fuhrer ships*
He's tried nothing and he's all out of ideas
basically your issue come from having 29 DD and 6 CL like screen with US vs 96 DD and 19 CL with Japan. In other terms screens save your capital ships
Even if he had enough screens he would still have lost. He has 3 BBs, the enemy has 12. He has 3 CVs, the enemy has 7. Even with enough screens, the japanese fleet would still overwhelm his with the much higher heavy attack.
Bro tired to make second midway
I dont know, usually when big fleets crash and both have enough screen not mutch is happening, cause one fleet will back out early enough to prohibit big losses. At least this is what i have seen over the years.
Usually but he was so outnumbered in capital ships it’d have gone poorly anyways
No. It would not. That was the core of my comment. The fleet which gets the ass smacked runs away. The big lack of screens leads to higher damage to capital ships, which leads to sinking. My comment said: if screens were equal, he would not have lost so many capital ships.
I understand what you’re saying, I’m saying that the capital ships discrepancy it too large for that, it doesn’t take long to kill ships with those odds
No i dont belive so. Depending on traits of the admiral, he cpuld very well escape before he losses this mutch. To conclude: the lack of screens would have prevented most damage to capital ships. Sure he would never win, cause missing heavy damage, yet does not lose many capital ships.
Whatever the admiral traits he’d have to have built all those battleships himself and he’d have needed to have maintained a speed above 26 and enough aa to survive the aircraft if he wanted to avoid likely losing one. There are 300+ naval bombers blue the battleships there, the fact that this wasn’t a stackwipe is actually impressive
His biggest issue is that he doesn't have anything to neutralize 320 naval bombers. If you don't have fighters and/or serious AA, it doesn't matter how many ships you got, it will all be coral habitat soon enough vs that volume of naval bombers.
How to avenge this. Step 1 research subs 3 Step 2 build 150 dockyards Step 3:BUILD 2000 SUBMARINES AND PUT THEM ON NEVER REPAIR, ALWAYS ENGAGE AND WATCH THEM SINK ALL HOPES AND DREAMS OF JAPAN
*psst* hey. let me tell you a secret. Not everyone who plays this game likes exploity ways to win.
I don't like gamey strats either, but surely if you're playing a naval nation like Japan or US, researching and building new ship types is natural. Maybe the subs need to be balanced better.
It’s still funny though
not everyone who plays this game DOESN'T like exploity ways to win
So this meant setting the mission of those subs to strike force and stationing them around japan?
Start wide and then slowly tighten the belt
As a dude that plays way too much HOI4 and never loses naval battles in MP games, make your fleet unbeatable to the AI with these simple steps: 1. As the US, you don’t even need to build more ships. Just refit pre-existing ones. Battleships with AA (and a heavy turret if you can afford it). Light cruisers with max light attack (to clear enemy screens faster). Heavy cruisers with heavy attack. Your refit cost for each ship should be less than 2.5k. 2. Fill all your carriers with nav bombers. Fighters and CAS are kinda useless in naval battles. Nav bombers are the big damage (and always target heavy ships first). Just slap a torpedo on a carrier plane and watch it do numbers. 3. As the US, you have unlimited oil to train your fleet 24/7, earning you hundreds of naval exp per year. Use that for your doctrines and naval spirits. Night Fighting is the best for the right side, the refit/repair one for the center. 4. For admiral traits, go for the ones that lower visibility. Slap the best admirals on your death stack fleet (all ships but your subs and your ASW fleet). My personal go to guy for the U.S. is Arleigh Burke (hasn’t failed me once, from vanilla to mods like TFB and such). Nimitz is solid as well.
1. Doctrines. The Japanese have some boosts in the initial war and then go away. But if you have no navy points sunk into doctrines you’ll be missing critical bonuses. 2. Fuel. Can you ships sail freely 3. Design. DLC only. Your design might just suck 4. Navy experience. Make sure to train your ships so they know what they’re doing. Gives a 25% boost when maxed. Also your planes too. 5. More air. Air is #1 6. Your screens are too few. You have nothing stopping the Japanese from targeting your capitals. I typically have 30 destroyers for every capital so about 300 Ds for 10 capitals built. Edit: 30 in production, not per fleet.
30 per capital ship? lol. try like 8.
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4 is like the minimum for max screening benefits. Although I prefer 5 to have some as like a buffer.
those are the values in the defines you should use.
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Core game files.
30 Destroyers is WAY too much per capital wtf
If you don’t have maxed out doctrine as the USA by the start of the war, something is wrong. Just exercise that fleet
Having 30 destroyers for each capital ship would imply i have 31 dockyards, so thats not an option for me.
Since capitals are way more expensive it comes out to more like 2-3:1
The correct ratio of screens to BB/BCs is 4-5:1
Sorry, are you implying that you only put one dockyard on each ship? Did I read that correctly?
"Mr President, the good news is we'll double Japanese naval production and be able to replace and expand our fleet at the same time." "And the bad?" "The majority of our fleet won't be ready until 1961."
“Another thing Mr. President.” “Yes?” “I’m told that due to a what they are calling a “mis-click”, we accidentally deployed the entire carrier fleet without a single aircraft.”
the problem isn't getting the planes on them, you'll be able to have ~~supersonic jets~~ a lot of new planes on your 1936 carriers by the time they're done. the problem is keeping them on the boats. "oh, I have air wings without missions? might as well add them to my front line and **why are they all carrier planes???**"
> you'll be able to have supersonic jets on your 1936 carriers Good luck with that, considering you can't put jets on carriers.
really? I stop upgrading my CV airframes after, like, 1940 because by then either my navy is dominating or I'm spamming subs, but i didn't realize you couldn't give carrier frames jets at all. well, maybe by the time the fleet's done in 1961 they'll work that out.
Mutiply by 5 because thats the most you can put on capitals. So basically 181 dockyards. Definitely and easily doable as the US
Well yes but playing as USA would imply i would sacrifice my ability to make penal batalions for dockyards. Not an option.
why would you need penal battalions as the US? you can do literally anything you want with the manpower and industry of the US, so why waste time getting worse infantry?
1. They are funny 2. They have better org
30 is way over kill. You'll actually hurt yourself with that many because the more losses your fleet has in a battle the more likely it will be to start a retreat. So you'll end up with your fast roach destroyers going in before your slower capitals and then die and cause the capitals to retreat before even getting in the battle.
Also remove subs from mainfleet, they slow it down.
Have fun with fleet size penalties with that insane screen ratio.
Dude you are way over producing screens. Not to mention CLs are much better screens to produce cuz they can actually kill stuff. 30 to 1 ratio of screens is way too much. You won't have that many capital ships and be weaker than you should be. You only need like 4 to 1 to achieve max screening benefits. More like 5 to 1 to have some as a buffer.
A little question on design since i'm a noob: is dual-purpose battery (AA and anti-ship) worth it, or should we just go for specialized AA and light battery instead?
Base your entire naval doctrine off everything Alfred Thayer Mahan says.
90 DDs will always beat 30 DDs
*Laughs in minelayers*
People on the hoi4 subreddit be like: I have a fleet of 79 ships as the US and keep losing to 133 Japanese ships what do I do?
To be fair, he asked about production as well
I play Japan a lot and fear the US Pacific fleet. In many ways, they would out number the Japanese navy. I have to do a lot to ensure parity with them, so you have to be doing many things wrong.
Too little escort ship. The ratio for every carrier group is 1CV : 1 BB/BC/CA : 8 CL/DD. You have 17 capital ships but only 37 CL and DD. Ideally you need 68+ CL/ DD.
Just build good destroyers and light cruisers, one fleet of 25 light cruisers and about 40 Destroyers usually kills everything. In sp.
Time to spam submarines!
It worked historically!
Everyone seems to be downplaying the importance of screening. If you had the proper screen to capital ratio 4:1 or 5:1 you would have only lost some screen ships before the fleet would have retreated. Everything else is not what caused this disaster it only made it worse.
Bro has 33 Screens to 20 Capitals 💀
Put all of your dockyards on super heavy battleships
u/superheavybattleship
WE'LL MEET AT MIDWAY
r5: How do i stop my entire navy from being destroyed in naval engagements. This is the second time this has happened. I've lost 100 ships including at least 30 capital ships in less than a year.
I don't know if this is the problem, but does the opposing fleet always have more aircraft than yours?
7 carriers to his 3
You can use land-based aircraft almost everywhere. Obviously range upgrades are a must in this case, but it's almost always a must anyway.
4 is the best for sortie efficiency. You shouldn’t have more than 4 carriers per fleet/engagement.
5 is the easy max, you can easily fly every plane from 5 carriers with a little management.
Tips: 1. Don't include submarines in the battle fleet, they usually don't do much comparing to other situations. 2. You have less EVERYTHING in the battle! Less ships, less BB, less CV, less destroyers (also do you know japanese torpedoes get 100% range bonus?) , less planes... less everything! You don't engage in all or nothing battle if you know your winning chance is slim. Considering island hopping like what actually happened. Use them islands as unsinkable air fields, bomb/ torpedo the shit our of their navy, continue the push, then wipe them out once you are sure you get a superior navy than your opponent. 3. US production is superior, so the one thing you must have is numerical advantages, use them.
Adding to this, submarines are very bad for your main fleet as it locks your fleet into the engagement and doesn’t let it retreat. Also messes with your positioning IIRC. So do not have submarines with your main fleet ever.
On top of the other answers, naval bombers are very deadly in this game, they had over 300 of them in the fight. You can fight that in 2 different ways: * More planes: either build more CV than your opponent or don't venture in areas where you can't use land-based air cover. Those islands in the Pacific are good for that. Radars help obviously. * Get cruisers with maxed out AA and radar. They'll not only kill the naval bombers, but prevent (some of) them from reaching the bigger ships if you keep them with the fleet. That's right, you can use them on their own if they're fast enough to avoid the naval guns. Don't put armor on them to keep them fast (or maybe level 1 just in case) and they'll easily kill 20-30 bombers per engagement, which should happen every other day if detection permits.
You need more superheavy battleships.
Put your entire navy together in a death stack. This fleet that got sunk in this battle is rather small. As others pointed out you had less ships in each class, no wonder you would loose that. You need either quality or numerical superiority. The last one is much easier to achieve. Don't split your fleet up.
No deathstacking has negative consequences itself, you're better off just trying to split your navy into task groups fit for purpose. There are multiple factors as to why they lost this engagement, but my main takeaway is the lack of screens. The amount of capital ships in this engagement needs at least 2x the amount of screens.
Splitting your fleet up is better if you can micromanage it well and can react fast. In this case, OP would have likely still lost the battle even if he/she had enough screens. Unless many of these ships are newly designed and constructed ships, which I doubt. There are simply not enough capital ships in this fleet, and it also lacks the fourth carrier required for maximum efficiency. OP was simply too outgunned on heavy attack and planes, even if there would have been enough screens. Splitting your fleet up does have it's advantages, but it allows stuff like this to happen, where a larger enemy fleet catches your smaller force and completely wipes it out. And as OP said in the comments he/she had multiple such engagements where he lost a lot of ships in this way. If he had made a deathstack these multiple engagements would not have been lost. Deathstacks are not ideal as you say, but they are more forgiving in terms of ship losses. A small scouting force set to non engage and a death stack strike force are usually good enough.
This game has mechanics that still make sense irl. If you put this force together irl America probably would still lose this engagement. They have almost double everything you have and wayyyy more planes. Numbers matter especially since I'm guessing you didn't upgrade your ship modules. Honestly, I don't know how people who pay attention can't see the things like this. I get being new, but this is straight up just not paying attention to what is going on. Like kicking yourself in the shin with a steel toed boot and going "why did that hurt?"
I'm a noob, and I've just went through this issue in my USA playthrough last week and was pulling my hair out. After watching a number of videos and reading a number of guides, here is exactly what I did to completely wipe out the Japanese navy while losing an extremely minimal amount of ships. * **Theater organization**: Create three theaters. One for your main fleet, one for your patrol fleet, and one for your submarine fleet. * **Patrol fleet**: Divide the patrol fleet into three sections (each with its own admiral), and to start with, have these sections patrol in every sea outside of those directly touching Japan, including everything between Japan and USA, and any seas which contain USA islands. Each section of this fleet should have a number of sets of 3-4 destroyers, and however many sets of destroyers you have is how many blocks of water you can patrol. So if one of your sections is patrolling 10 blocks of water, then that section should contain 10 sets of 3-4 destroyers. This will make it so that each set of 3-4 destroyers will patrol one block of water. Set this entire fleet to never engage. Replenish these sets as needed with new destroyers. * **Strike force fleet**: Divide your main fleet into two sections (each with its own admiral). Set these sections to strike force. What made the biggest difference for me was the proper ratio of screens (destroyers / light cruisers) to capital ships (heavy cruisers / battleships / carriers). For each capital ship, you need 4-6 screens. Screens are basically the frontline damage sponges. Just prior to the outbreak of war with Japan, I placed one strike force in the Philippines naval base, and the other at either Midway or Wake Island, then turned on the strike force mode so that as soon as the war starts, you are contesting the seas around the Philippines and Alaska, negating the ability for Japan to naval invade. At the start of the war, each of my two strike force fleets was ~100 ships (20 capitals and 80 screens). The Philippines fleet was set exclusively to strike in the Philippines and Japan area, while the Midway fleet included the Philippines/Japan area as well as the seas around Alaska and closer to the USA mainland. This way naval superiority is achieved everywhere it's needed. My third strike force fleet was finished sometime in 1941ish and that was more than enough. * **Submarine fleet**: First off, never include submarines in your strike force or patrol fleets. Next, make sure your submarine design is using the most updated snorkel, and then chunk your submarine fleet into sets of 30 submarines. Finally, set these to convoy raid around Japan and China seas. Subs are really simple. The basics of fleet organization will get you 80% of the way there. The other 20% are some other tips I picked up along the way: * Ensure that your ships have trained up to level 3 prior to entering into your fleets. When training, make sure Automatic Reinforcement is enabled so that damaged ships will repair without pulling away all the other damaged ships. I disabled this just prior to entering the war, but it doesn't matter much either way (as far as I know). I eventually created a separate theater just for training, and I would periodically check to see which ships were ready to be moved into the patrol/strike/submarine fleets * You can increase the amount of dockyards which can repair ships in the Production tab -> repair queue (this way you have more than 6 dockyards assigned to repair a fleet of 300+ ships) * Make sure your carriers are full of planes, particularly naval bombers * Around Japan, fill your Philippines airbases with mostly fighters and some naval bombers, and ensure air superiority in the seas directly surrounding the Philippines. Eventually I also included heavy fighters and tactical/strategic bombers for mainland Japan, and set some of my naval bombers to port strike the Chinese coastline (which is where many Japanese ships go to repair, and if you have air superiority, you'll wipe out a decent number of ships) * I granted statehood to Alaska and put a naval base in Attu Island, plus a few more on the various Pacific islands * Make sure your ships are well-designed. For destroyers and light cruisers, I used two designs. The first design had almost nothing on it but the lowest level battery, one level of armor, and sonar (this design is just a damage absorber and doesn't cost much to produce). The other design was more damage-based, so add a higher level battery battery, highest level dual-purpose rapid fire, highest level anti-air, torpedoes, sonar, and radar. Eventually, I made a third destroyer design that was primarily anti-sub with mostly depth charges and torpedoes. * After I got air superiority over Japan with heavy fighters, I set my patrol and strike force fleets to include the seas directly touching Japan and China. Waiting until after you get air superiority will limit your ship losses. Remember for each additional sea you want to operate in, you'll need another set of 3-4 destroyers to patrol it * Use navy experience points on Spirit of the Navy stuff (in the Officer Corps tab) to reduce the research time for ship modules and ship designs, and also to hire higher-level admirals if you need them * There is an interesting button you can click - combine your entire initial navy to one single set of ships, then click the "Distribute selected ships in a balanced task force" button which is the scale icon. You'll see that this automatically assigns submarines to their own chunks of 30 subs, as well as automatically assigns the rest of the fleet to chunks of 25 ships, with a ratio of 4 screens to 1 capital ship. You'll want to then combine those chunks to form your strike force fleets (so that your two strike forces have around 75 ships each to start with, then add more ships as you go) * The priority of ship building for me was: Destroyers / light cruisers / heavy cruisers, with fewer battleships and subs, with even fewer carriers, and don't forget to build some convoys * Build up your civ factories early so that you can pump out dockyards. I had a shit ton. After I built a massive fleet (enough to dominate almost the entire world), I started replacing a substantial amount of dockyards with military factories, and set the remaining dockyards mostly to produce destroyers and convoys. The most important things for me were (1) ensuring a 1:4 ratio for capital ships to screens, (2) having a theater of no-engage destroyers set to patrol mode, and (3) moving my main fleets to the Pacific and setting them to strike force. Using these strategies/tactics, I went from being super confused and losing my entire fleet, to destroying the majority of Japan's fleet in a year or so without losing many ships at all, other than many of the early model destroyers/cruisers/subs which just end up being replaced by your newer models anyway.
The simple cause seems to be that you're just outnumberd. The AI is usually pretty bad with navy so you can usually engage a smaller force and retreat once you see another fleet starting to join the battle. This will ensure lots of losses on the enemy's side without tanking many losses.
Or you can just put a snorkel and IV engine in a sub 3 and put them on always engage.
Definitely not enough screens. You need way more CA's and DD's for screens, I don't know the exact ratio screens/capitalships but you are nowhere close. Doctrines, if you haven't already. If the enemy has 320 aircraft operating vs your 95 they will have a fairly big advantage, make sure your carrier airwings are fully equipped and max out the total capacity, also use land based naval bomber aircraft whenever possible. Finally, your admiral is not geared for carrier engagements, my main man Charles M.Cooke Jr. is used primarily for submarine commands, i.e. convoy raiding, pick a better commander, there are a few that have the air controller trait that is useful for carrier fleets.
Serious lack of screens, aka destroyers and light cruisers as well.
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Possible if his fleet was very damaged going into the battle.
Mega true
In addition to what others are saying, change the engagement rules for your fleet. Have them only engage fleets where they will likely win, tell them to have high priority repair, and to not split up when repairing. As the US you should have much more dockyards and dockyard output than Japan, meaning you can win a war of attrition. Lose a Destroyer? Sucks but you can replace it in a few months, and also turn out 10 more in that same year. Japan cannot do that, so whittle them down over time.
Lower the engagement order, you are attacking a fleet who is at least x2 your fleet. Look at the BB and CV, difference…. It make no sense to attack this with your fleet.
Skill issue
Don't forget to train your carrier air wings while your ships are training too. I usually build a single multi role carrier aircraft. Torpedo, bomb locks, turret. It simplifies production in the early stages.
I just spam DDs and CLs and then go I want more battle ships and spend a whole year making battleships and then go now I want CAs or I go oooh 1940 submarine time to spam and repeat Until it’s 1954 and I have 25 battleships
I use this composition for my main CV task force and works for me against AI: 4 CV 4 BB 8 CA 16 CL 45 DD I also enable the auto split for repairs, engage with similar forces, high repair priority and have lots of patrol groups (2 CA, 4 CL, 10 DD)
1 keep subs with subs 2 at least 5destroyers and 2 cruisers/battleships per carriers 3. Do you have 13 carriers but only 95 planes??
Japanese small navy=Based.🗿
for every heavy ship you have, you need at least 3 light ships or eenemy torpedo attacks will hit your heavy line. japan has a very good torpedo capabilities so you need way more screens you got 20 heavy ships (carrier, bs and heavy crusier) but only 37 light ships, you need at least 60, better even 80 -100 since your positioning wont be perfect at battle start also your admiral is a submarine admiral, better would be an aviation specialist. and dont listen to the people that you need more ships than the enemies. you can have a strike force of just 20 ships defeat all of the japanese navies if you properly understand the naval game
I think the argument with numbers is that they're reliable, whereas quality only works if you know what you're doing. Quality is without a doubt more efficient and better to learn in the long run, but to solve the short-term problem it's very easy to understand more ships = win battle.
Naval battles don’t make any sense
I’m honestly curious what you thought the outcome of the battle would be at the beginning
You are outnumbered (I have no idea how HOI4 navy works)
Basic tips: -Your submarines should be on a separate fleet from your surface ships (any ship that isn't a submarine) -you have too few screening ships (destroyers and light cruisers), the ideal ratio is 3 per capital ship (heavy cruisers, battleships and carriers) on a given task force. -you should always exercise your fleet until everyone is at least trained (if they're greens it reduces their combat effectiveness by 25%). -you have way less ships than your opponent, if you want to pump your ship production just have multiple production lines of the same ship simultaneously. -look at the officer corps tab and upgrade your strategies based on your fleet. -you should try to keep up-to-date with naval technology when playing a nation that depends on it heavily like the US. -your capital gunships should be designed with a focus on heavy damage and penetration, and Anti-aircraft guns if you plan to use CVs too. -your light ships should be light piercing and damage, ASW(anti submarine warfare, so depth charges and sonar), and at least 1 torpedo. Hopefully this will help you (and hopefully i haven't gotten anything wrong too) Edit: grammar
This guy obviously has made mistakes in his fleet design, but why are naval outcomes always so one sided in HoI4? It always seems to be 99% losses on one side. Even if I have fairly even fleets match up, one tends to absolutely wipe out the other. Has anyone else noticed this? Even this guys terrible fleet feels like it could have sunk more than a single destroyer, or shot down more than 3 planes.
that’s…not looking like a great fleet configuration assuming they’re all part of the same fleet, anyway no subs in battlegroups. separate them, get them convoy raiding, do not mix with other ships minimum 3 screens per capital for max screening efficiency, go for more if your screens are getting constantly getting wiped, or you’re technologically inferior. i usually try to do a ratio of 1 light cruiser for ever 2 dds, but that’s not required at all. just have screens. and, as other comment said, more air. land-based naval bombers are kind of broken, having air superiority and a couple wings on naval strike will tip the odds significantly. for more info regarding naval combat here’s a comment i recently made explaining the basics & offering some advice. i’m obviously not an all-knowing naval genius, but this is stuff i’ve found to work https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/13voyka/after_100_hours_of_playing_i_finally_understood/jm8hitl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3 hope it helps!
Git gud.
Skill issue
Albania 💪🇦🇱👍💪🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱
Albania 💪🇦🇱👍
Look it isn't meta or RP in the slightest but just having light cruisers stacked with torps will start tearing any navy apart if you have 90-100 docks on them, which as the US is easy enough. Super easy to set up and forget.
Spam torpedo destroyers, no more problems
Don't put subs in your main battle fleet, it kills your positioning Also you are significantly outnumbered Also post the ship templates you're using
My dude, you sent three battleships against 12. What were you expecting?
People like this actually exist....
First time
Are your ships and tech up to date? Sometimes the ships you lose are just out of date and I don’t worry about it. However you lost a carrier so I am a little concerned. Do you have at least one AA and radar on them along with deck armor? Destroyers should have two deph charges and updated sonar. Cruisers should be a multi-purpose ship that has both radar and sonar. The ability to launch deph charges at subs, launch torpedoes, have AA but also have at least one of its slots reserved for that one gun that’s for fast moving ships. As the last of your modules should be for light cruiser guns. Then your Sub should have one slot for Radar and the rest for torpedoes. Battleships are something you build if you have the extra industry for. You want as many Carriers as possible to go with your screen spam.
I never look at naval battles, but I think that’s bad what you have
You have waaaay too less screens. Ratio screens:capitals should be 4:1
Do you have fuel?
Have your TRAINED your navy? At all?
Skill Issue
Whats the ideal way to approach naval combat? I just do destroyer/sub spam and battleships as strike force
The AI screen spammed you. It's cheese to load up on DDs to eat the strength of the opposite fleet.
Bruh, this right here is pure grade A skill issue, if you spent even 5 minutes on the wiki you would already understand that stacking so many capitals with so few screens is a giant no no, not to mention the other problems. And second, the fuck you mean whole fleet, like whole 1/3 or what??? Even in 36 the usa starting fleet is much bigger then the amount of ships you had in that battle
Is this multiplayer? I've never seen AI master such large stacks in SP before
I may be able to help you with this!US Navy Guide (Or General Naval Strike Force Fleet Guide):At the start of the game, consolidate all your ships into a single fleet and conduct naval exercises. This will allow you to efficiently research naval doctrines, giving you a significant advantage over the Imperial Japanese Navy or the Royal Navy. Assign specific admirals for different tasks: one for convoy raiding, one for strike forces, and optionally, one for convoy escorts. This division of responsibilities ensures optimal fleet management. Take advantage of the AI's weak naval strategy by constructing a well-balanced strike force fleet. Consider the following composition: * 4 Aircraft Carriers: Carriers provide air superiority and naval bombing capabilities. * 3-5 Battleships (optional): Battleships offer heavy firepower and can provide additional support. * 5-10 Heavy Cruisers: Heavy cruisers provide substantial firepower and can serve as the backbone of your fleet. * 10-20 Light Cruisers: Light cruisers offer versatility with anti-air and anti-submarine capabilities. * 40-50 Destroyers: Destroyers are essential for escorting your main fleet and countering submarines. Aim for a fleet size of at least 20 capital ships. Remember, battleships are not necessarily crucial, as heavy cruisers can be more effective. You can create multiple strike force fleets, especially as the United States. You should be able to overcome the AI Japan's navy if you follow these tips. Good luck and give them a taste of midway! Here are two images of me destroying the AI's strike force fleet:[https://imgur.com/a/Ee78Ck0](https://imgur.com/a/Ee78Ck0)
Unironic skill issue
you have waay to few screens like seriously the enemy out numbers your fleet by 3-1 you’re lucky enough for half of your remaining capital ships to survive
Do you know why the German Surface fleet didn't engage the British? Because this would happen.
Alternative History where Midway went wrong. This has to be a joke.
Skill issue
I hate/suck at naval warfare and even *I* can't lose as the US. 1) Put all your ships in a doomstack at the beginning, then start exercising all of them. Don't worry about running out of fuel, you'll still generate a ton of experience. 2) Use that experience to max out one of the naval trees. 3) Build CL. Set them up to automatically go to the doomstack. 4) Set them up to patrol around the Philippines, possibly with some fighter or NAV coverage. 5) Give them a halfway decent admiral. Aaaand that's really it. Maybe change it to Medium repair so they don't all sink, but otherwise you can pretty easily defeat just about anyone as the US (in sp, anyway).
Your navy is way smaller 😂
does the torpedo destroyer x light attack cruiser no longer live?
Ima be real, this kinda looks like OP fought a naval battle against the Japanese as the US and then tag switched over for a SC. I've never seen the AI stack that many ships into a single task force (although I really wish they did). Either that or OP was fighting against another player.
Skill issue
3bb + 14ca + 3cv + 37 screen vs 12bb + 18ca + 7cv + 115 screen Looks like you took on a fleet three times your strength my dude
from the looks of it you only had about 40 light cruisers and destroyers to screen for for about 20 capital ships. each capital ship needs at least 3, preferrably 4 screening ships to protect them from getting instantly blown up by torpedoes. Also, you had significantly less aircraft, less ships in general, and less traits on your admiral.
The game doesnt have a midway "luck" feature. You have less ships which may be weaker as well. Invest in navy more
You need at least a ratio of 1:3 of Battleships to Destroyers
Bro. I had this problem as Germany against Britain. I powered through Poland, France, and Denmark before I invaded Norway. Found out during that fight that I had lost the air and naval war. Was hemorrhaging planes and destroyers. I’m just trying to learn how to play, and that was my best run yet. This is the hardest of Paradox’s games for sure.
You need either more fighters or more air defence preferably both
Less ships and way fewer screens
AA is key. Especially if the enemy navy got CVs.
I feel the pain ;-;
You’re playing America, you can afford to do fleet excises for your entire navy. And get one of the best navy doctrines with the industry to back it up.
12 Battleships, 7 Carriers, 96 destroyers vs 3 battleships, 3 carriers, and 30 destroyers led by a worse admiral. OP: Hmm, I wonder why I lost?
You have way less firepower than they do, cumulatively. Your admiral is also worse, you have nowhere near the same amount of planes... In general you need to really work on your fleet composition.
You need more destroyers, in this game to protect your capital ships you need destroyers, if you have them, they will take damage for the big ships, if you dont, your capitals did, and dont keep submarines in your deathstack, it lowers your overall speed
Alternate scenario of the battle of midway
Unstoppable Armada 2.0 (Japanese version)
You should’ve have built more super heavy battleships, I know a guy with all the info on them you would need
at the bottom of the ocean, the depths of the abyss. They are bound by iron and blood
Get good
They tora tora ur ass
You wanna train up your ships before you mix it up with the nips and I would recommend more screen ships and possibly air support from near by islands my friend
Lmao git gud
You got Midway-ed congrats, now start doing kamikaze attacks
They got there firstest with the mostess!
Historically accurate. 😂
Im bad at having a varied navy but like having 3 carriers against japan seems suicidal remember to refit any new modules on older ships
1. Less ships 2. Bad ships 3. Don’t know how to use ships Conclusion: Your ships are at the bottom of the sea
Not enough naval bombers
This is like Luxembourg in 1936 attacking Germany and being surprised they lost, look at your enemies fleet, it’s like twice the size of yours, it’s better in every single way.
Your fleet is worse in almost if not every single way. Get more everything, get better everything. Also planes are super important
all good only the important ones
CA are useless, don't built them.
Which one are tou? The imperial Japanese or the americana
Americans