The rest of you who have to work, however, maybe won’t be so appreciative <3
Keep your poncho’s and umbrellas close, and if you feel your hair standing up try and get low, friends!
I know many people who play hoi4 and genuinely are unsure how navy works, they don’t understand how Germany sinks their “Pride of the fleet” carrier fleet with subs, and why they don’t have superiority on their own coast, and the answer is often a few, tiny details that you miss, that almost always cause issues. Especially as paradox made sub spam worse(not judging you, but I have names)
First off, Naval Range, most times when people talk about losing navy, or not understanding it, Naval Range is their primary misunderstanding. Just owning a port does not mean your ships have their range extended to the area around that port, all fleets have one singular “home port”, this home port dictates their range, if their home port is Florida, they won’t follow your orders to sail into the South China Sea, to change the home port of a fleet, select your fleet, hold control, and right click on the port you’d like them to operate close to or onto.
Their are two ways to grow your naval sphere of influence, these are naval invading enemy ports to use them as your home base, taking new allies in a region to operate as your home base, or in general taking ports that are further out in order to follow chains of ports. The other way is to make ships with longer range, this is expensive and often produces worse ships that dont have a strong strike fleet.
Second, what your fleet is actually doing, there are about 4 actually important fleet operations, each ships is uniquely suited to one or two of these.
The first is Patrol, easily the most important, this is one of two ways to increase superiority in a region, Patrolling ships will sail randomly in a sea, and based on what you have their engagement set to(Dont engage<Always engage) will attack enemy fleets, the bulk of your fleet should always be on Patrol if you have the fuel and Naval forces to do so, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Carriers are basically built around this, but all ships are effective at patrolling.
The second is Strike Force, Fleets set to Strike Force will not sail around, they will sit in port lazing around and repairing, but when a fleet on Patrol discovers an enemy fleet, strike force fleets will immediately move to join the battle, this is where you set your slow, heavy vessels while your lighter cruisers patrol, this is so that you don’t waste fuel, and so that you can easily detect enemies while patrolling, and use your actual damaging fleet to destroy their ships.
The third is Convoy Raiding, ships that are convoy raiding will not engage any enemy fleets(excepting that they are on Convoy Defense) and will exclusively attack convoys, Submarines are outstanding at this, as they can flee from enemies using convoy defense, and can quickly torpedo enemy convoys before units on strike force help the convoys, convoy raiding is extremely useful, as you can use it to blow up troop transports, instantly killing enemy divisions, or you can stop the enemy from receiving materials and supply for military factories or Ports. Convoy Raiding generated Superiority, and is the second primary way you should gain superiority in a region
The last important one is Naval Invasion Support, when you Naval invade, enemy divisions get massive buffs to killing you, ships that are set to Naval Invasion Support will give “Shore Bombardment”, Shore Bombardment reduces enemy Organization and Defense Score based on how many and how powerful the ships you have set to Naval Invasion Support are, Battleships and Super heavy’s are built for this, granting gigantic Bonuses for a small amount of vessels.
The third thing I’d like to mention is which ships do what, this one will be quick, I’ll mostly talk about when you should make ships and what I suggest you should compose them of.
-Destroyers can deploy mines and search for subs, they can also bear torpedoes, they are light and should be much of your fleet, let them be light, you can always make more destroyers, they should be mostly guns with one mine module and sonar.
-Submarines deal heavy damage, but have basically zero armor, against larger fleets they can also be detected easily, they work well in large fleets where they won’t be shot and can torpedo enemies easily, or work well on convoy raids, you should compose them mostly of Torpedoes, armor can and should be light.
-Light Cruisers are your ships of the line, when patrolling they are what kill Destroyers and help deal damage against heavy ships, let them have Medium armor, don’t bother with Sonar, and give them maybe one AA placement for every 2 gun emplacements.
-Heavy cruisers are like Light cruisers except heavy, give them heavy armor, a bit of AA, and mostly guns to take down enemy destroyers.
-Battleships are for coastal bombardment, or if you have a glut of them, strike force fleets, Battleships should be have the same ratio as cruisers, but focus heavily on Armor as they will be the main thing enemy ships target, they can dish out heavy damage, and will destroy anything in their sights.
-Heavy Battleships are sort of a waste, they can carry a few more guns but will die to air really fast, if you DO build them, make it 50% AA, 50% guns, this gives you shore bombardment equivalent to other battleships, but let’s them not die instantly.
-Super Heavy Battleships are an amazing example of callousness, they will almost definitely die in the most stupid way, that is their curse, the super heavy ship battery is so murderous however that they are genuinely worth it, I recommend two super heavy batteries, a single Duel Purpose gun for basic damage, and full the rest of its slots with AA or special components in order to maybe have it live for a bit longer.
-carriers are the core of a truly powerful navy, not all nations can have good carriers and thats okay. Carriers carry planes, the basic carrier should have mostly airfields with one AA gun to counter enemy ships, make it heavy armored and don’t worry too much about the engine. As for the planes you put on them, Carrier Naval Bombers and Carrier Fighters will shred enemy fleets if they don’t have enough AA.
SPECIAL BOATS
-Coastal ships are cheap, but have shit range, otherwise they are the same as light cruisers to my knowledge,
-the Midget Submarine will die, but that is a sacrifice you are willing to make, you can genuinely make enough production of these to make one a day, they have enough damage to sink one enemy ship, for their price they are really good, but they can be a manpower sink, only use them if you are down to lose 5 million shitty ships to sink 5 million enemy good ships, use midgets subs as a dedicated fleet.
-the Torpedo Destroyer is a destroyer that has torpedoes, it is way to expensive to justify, don’t bother.
(A note on carriers, to put planes on carriers, select your deployed Carrier-Able planes.
, to make planes carrier able, click the boat icon on the corner of them in the research menu, research the carrier variant of the boat, and start producing them. Carriers that are docked will appear as an Airport but with no Plane limit, put carrier boats on this as if it were a normal port and the carrier will use them in battles, carriers have a limit based on how you made them in the fleet designer.)
Fourth, regional Superiority, if you have superiority in a region, you get better detection, and can send troops through the region, to get regional superiority, have a fleet either convoy raid to patrol in that region, to put a fleet in a region, make sure they can reach it, than select the fleet and right click on where you’d like them to operate.
And Finally, other Misc Things, Naval Bombers are extremely killy to enemy boats, set them to Naval Patrol and Naval bomb in order to have them engage, they are most effective in regions with air superiority, so send them with fighters.
Next, In fleet battles, subs can be invisible, this means that they only die to mines, you can detect them either with naval patrolling planes, or with ships that have Sonar, once you detect them they will flee, kill them all!
The retreat button is your friend, if a battle looks dicey or you just realized that an enemy has a massive strike force, book it man!
A fleet composed of multiple ship strike groups can have each strike group do different things. compose a strike group to have a specific purpose, put it on a fleet, and assign that fleet to a region with a home base in it.
In battles, ships that are damaged will attempt to flee, in fact ships that are currently predicted to be losing will always flee, fleeing just means that they go to the nearest port and than get back to it.
Ships are extremely expensive, dont be afraid to stop producing them, the sea isn’t important when Berlin falls.
When you win a battle, an icon will appear on the water of a battleship, it is blue, when you lose a battle, the image of the battleship will be red. This same thing applies to convoys except convoys will have the image of either a sailing ship or convoy, I can’t tell.
The icon for winning a naval battle makes me coom.
Feel free to ask any questions, or offer criticisms, I feel like I covered it pretty good but I’m not perfect and hoi4 is a big ass game