German Hybrid Destroyer - Good or No?

[greigy]

When you unlock the Hybrid Destroyer hull in the campaign, it comes at a point when you need one of two things:
- many torps
- or speed.

I haven't unlocked all techs yet, but the weight of the hull, funnels and towers etc seems to leave the ship too slow and too lightly armed to be of any use.

Anyone else finding this, or do I just need to invest more time in weight saving techs and better funnels?

[Jabberwock]

Paraphrasing George Orwell - All hulls can be useful, some are more useful than others.

[greigy]

lol, so this is just an interesting design, but lacks any other merits?

[Soylent_Greene]

Greigy,

I have found that a smaller CL in the comparable size of the hybrid DD to be better in some ways.
They both can have mine laying & depth charges, the DD has mine sweeping but the CL can mount rather thick armor.

All CLs can have 6"/15cm thick armor all around, making them almost impervious to any DD guns.

Both ship types share similar speeds, the DD is cheaper but less capable.

If you need a Mine Sweeper, build dedicated ones, minimum speed/guns/torpedoes/armor/range, but it is cheap and good for keeping your harbors safe.

Also, in either the DD and CL designs I have found the 3"/7.5cm guns are the more balanced for ROF/Range/Weight/Cost than a bigger gun. A lot of people will tell you the 5"/12.7cm is the optimal, but remember you are an escort, not really going to damage a bigger ship. A barrage of smaller guns makes enemy ships just vanish. Either burned down or crew killed.

Bigger ships, torpedoes... Even if they don't hit they force the enemies to evade, masking many of their gun batteries

[Jabberwock]

Originally posted by greigy:

lol, so this is just an interesting design, but lacks any other merits?

Originally posted by Soylent_Greene:

Greigy,

I have found that a smaller CL in the comparable size of the hybrid DD to be better in some ways.
They both can have mine laying & depth charges, the DD has mine sweeping but the CL can mount rather thick armor.

All CLs can have 6"/15cm thick armor all around, making them almost impervious to any DD guns.

Both ship types share similar speeds, the DD is cheaper but less capable.

If you need a Mine Sweeper, build dedicated ones, minimum speed/guns/torpedoes/armor/range, but it is cheap and good for keeping your harbors safe.

Also, in either the DD and CL designs I have found the 3"/7.5cm guns are the more balanced for ROF/Range/Weight/Cost than a bigger gun. A lot of people will tell you the 5"/12.7cm is the optimal, but remember you are an escort, not really going to damage a bigger ship. A barrage of smaller guns makes enemy ships just vanish. Either burned down or crew killed.

Bigger ships, torpedoes... Even if they don't hit they force the enemies to evade, masking many of their gun batteries

You could try it out as a minesweeper. You could play with the different sliders and components to see how they affect the recon & ASW ratings. I'll bet it's pretty good at one or both of those roles. I agree with Soylent, don't spend money on engines for a support ship. At minimum speed, this one should have better ability to evade/escape than a minimum speed LC. If it ends up in harms way, build another. Also, go minimal crew.

I quibble with Soylent on one point - my combat support ships generally don't stick around for a fight, so a battery of 3" guns make no sense to me. Go with a single 2", 3", or 5" (aft mounted), whatever fits your design. I generally prefer 2.9" to 3", although 3" can be very effective. A 2.9 will be heavier (more ammo storage) but more accurate at close ranges - where you need it if something fast and light is trying to catch you.

I also tend to fill all that extra displacement on my support ships in armor - just not the latest, lightest, most expensive type. And ... since they're already armored ... very occasionally I will create a variant that has strong resistance and anti-flooding - I like to imagine the look on a hunter ship captain's face when I ram him for getting too close. Unfortunately, the max armor on a DD is very low (1.5"), so not very suitable for this.

[vanDyck]

Hmm a DD with 4x3 149,9mm, 6x2 88mm, 8 torp tubes broadside (1x5, 2x3), 35kts speed, solid armor for an DD, and a bit of mine sweeping equipment on 5850ts with a range of ca. 32.000km... sounds for me as a good colonial cruiser actual... sadly they made it a DD and not a CL... lategame needs more small hulls for colonial use or sub chasing/minelaying/sweeping.

[JaM]

I usually use double stacked tubes, with limited ammo.. so i fire one torpedo broadside, turn, fire another and then use DDs to lure enemy torpedo fires instead of them being aimed at my heavier ships.. previously, i used centrally mounted torpedo launchers, but volume was not enough, and in large battles i was just losing track if my DDs still have torpedos or not.. this way, I fire them all, break enemy formation (they are usually nicely bunched up together at the start) and then either switch them to AI control or just maneuver around with them..

[Jabberwock]

Originally posted by vanDyck:

lategame needs more small hulls for colonial use or sub chasing/minelaying/sweeping.

Now that TBs can block straits, minelaying isn't much of a thing until SSMs. Most straits are either blocked or there is no convenient port for a minefield. I did use surface-deployed mines to blow up a few Italians that wandered over to Taiwan last game, but it's rare enough to make it memorable (unless I own Malta, Djibouti, or the French Antilles).

ASW is my new prime reason for saving 30-50 torpedo cruiser hulls (1890, 870t). They're slow & cheap. Speed makes a big difference in ASW, but they're cost effective in the long run. While I'm waiting to use them for that, I scatter them to smaller harbors ... some tonnage to keep the commerce raiding in check.

[greigy]

at the end of the day, unless you are fighting a "great fleet", the enemy always runs away at top speed. This means that I have no ships in my fleet that do less than 38.5knots.

I probably play somewhat atypically, so my tactics won't be for everyone however my key focuses are speed, weight of fire and accuracy.

That said, I would totally expect to take on up to around five AC or heavier with my three to six destroyers. While I tend to get a lot of surrenders at the moment, it's easy enough to do when you have the speed on your side and a bunch of 5" guns on the bow at max length barrels.

All of my ships that can have mines and depth charges, but only tier one minesweeping.

So by the capacity of the hull alone, the hybrid destroyer is just a bad fit for my fleet, even if the gun layout is optimal.


On another note, not sure what people are meaning by colonial shipping?

[Jabberwock]

Chasing them is expensive and time consuming. If you use smaller ships, they don't run away so much. I only use heavy tonnage for dedicated naval invasion ships, everything else is the smallest hull that I can cram the equipment in.

Colonial shipping is transports - they originate from all the sea zones where you have colonies. The 'Country x lost y transports in z sea zone' messages at the beginning of each month is commerce raiding. This is not the same as convoy raiding, where the player actively directs the battle. Convoy raiding affects VP, commerce raiding affects the economy (and can directly result in bankruptcy).