Tips for naval invasions? (Millenium Dawn mod)

[The Ruiner]

I could use a few tips anyone is willing to offer on naval invasions because I'm having quite a lot of trouble. I understand planning them and protecting the route and all that, it's the actual combat that gets me. I send a far superior force to some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with 4 divisions and get repelled before I can even land. Then I gotta start all over because it sends the whole stack back to where it started and you gotta replan the whole thing. Does having marines increase the success rate of naval invasions? I saw online that amphibious assault ships can bombard the coast to increase success of landing party, but I don't know how.

[Daliena]

You need capital ships (I think that means missile cruisers in MD but it's been ages?) on the sea tile at the coast of the area you want to bombard, at which point they do it automatically if you have ground troops fighting there.

Any non-marine divisions take a horrible, HORRIBLE penalty to naval invasions. First use marines for the amphibious assault, and once they secure a beachhead, then you ship in the tanks and whatnot.

[andersrlarsen]

i usualy dont invade directly at a port, but instead on tiles next to them.
when planing, i usually select 2 tiles to land on, 1 on each side of the port. the tile i click on first will get 1 unit, the rest will land on second click. (you could select more tiles, but in my experience, troops only land in 2 places, 1 in one place and the rest in a other)

then you dont get any amphibius penalty, and instead could attack from 2 sides, giving you a bonus.

note; keep an eye on the selected target(s) before you start the invasion. your fleet(s) that you assigned to get superiority will pass the area, and you will see wheter or not there are troops in the tiles. you can adjust where to land up to you press the go-button (without having to start planning again), but not after.

if you have to do naval invasion on a port, like for example a isle, you should use marines. 10mar + eng is a good choice (or 20, if you prefer that). mar and eng give bonus to amphibius, and will definetly be useful.
do not under any circumstanses use armor when naval inv. a port!
also, using battleships to bombard is good. just position a fleet (with bb or bc) in ocean tile(s) next to the harbour. (no asignment). if you also have carriers, you can us cas from carrier to support the attack (also use fighter for fighting enemy fighter)

usually when i defend harbors, i use 4cav+mp. i use 72 divisions, and set them on defending ports and supression, and select my entire area. that way they will protect infrastucture, and defend harbors. and 4 cav is usually enough (nearby cav will also come to aid in the defence, and also attack if enemies land next to the harbor)

[Doc_Holliday]

In my experience, using armor for a marine division has not been horrible for me at all. Playing as Germany, I create a 20 width Marine division with 1-2 SPART and the rest Marine battalions with the usual Recon, Engineers, Artillery, and Field Hospitals support. I always land in the Northern middle part of the UK and they always are able to land with or without air/naval support. Most of the time I'm able to take the port, but it's usually because they only have 1 division guarding it. Later on in the game I use the same Marine units and naval invad Leningrad to "sorta" create a second front that the Soviets have to split units up to get to. Again I get the same results.

Another good tip to always use the maximum number of divisions you can use in a naval invasion. Like for it, I can plan a maximum of 10 divisions for a landing. Only 4 would actually fight at once, but it still leaves you with 6 more ready to take the front spot if they fall back.

[Michael]

Originally posted by amarzu:

I could use a few tips anyone is willing to offer on naval invasions because I'm having quite a lot of trouble. I understand planning them and protecting the route and all that, it's the actual combat that gets me. I send a far superior force to some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with 4 divisions and get repelled before I can even land. Then I gotta start all over because it sends the whole stack back to where it started and you gotta replan the whole thing. Does having marines increase the success rate of naval invasions? I saw online that amphibious assault ships can bombard the coast to increase success of landing party, but I don't know how.

The only time I would launch a naval invasion without marines is if... well, I can't think of anything. They're marines, that's what they're for. They're waayyy better at it than any other option.

[The Ruiner]

Thanks guys, latest naval invasion went waayy smoother