Are Battlecruisers worth it? (MTG)

[cyboogie king]

I've looked all over the internet and I see how some are saying the BC is amazing while others say it is worthless.

They have faster speed, less cost, but less armor than BB
Wiki says the speed makes them harder to hit, but I'm not sure how speed affects naval combat in this game.

Tell me if I should mix and match, or mass produce one or the other.

P.S: While you all are at it, tell me what the point of heavy cruisers is.

[Tomatemon]

A navy or mtg best update in the game

4 carriers is your heart of your fleet, then the battleships/heavy crusiers are the HP before the carriers, lights and destroyers are support like finding enemy fleet/sub defending

So yes they are useless in a proper battle, but solo, they are fast and run away from said fleet and they prey on the screens (light crusiers/destroyers) guarding the convoys which your subs cant attack.

It is unlikely to defend convoys with your said main fleet so you defend with screens, battlecruisers can kill said screens and run away from the main fleet.

[Tomatemon]

All of germany battleships/battlecrusier served the purpose of getting rid of screens to help convoy raid the british irl.

Historical ships were bismarck and tirpiz

[Tomatemon]

Heavy crusiers are light crusiers with armour

[Tomatemon]

Tell me if I should mix and match, or ma

"Mix"

[mk11]

Heavy cruisers screen carriers without slowing down the task force in the way battleships would (also they are cheaper and as you don't expect the screens to fight much...)

[Mourdeeb]

Heavy cruisers provide the fleet with the anti-air component and some meat. I have seen that in PvP the BB and CV are mass produced because of the hard hitting of the BB and the carrier providing the bulk of the fleet anti air.

Always Mix.
Subs provide the surface detection (much higher than other ships.)
DDs and CLs find subs and kill them
CAs give anti air cover and Kill DDs and CLs
BCs really just kill everything under them and might be fast enough to engage CVs, (if they don't get poned by the enemy BBs...heh)

IMO, Light Cruisers are just expensive Destroyers and Battle Cruisers are just expensive Heavy Cruisers (without the added anti air) I build them in Solo for the nostalgia.

[Tomatemon]

The german 30 heavys cruisers navy pre mtg

[MadMek]

They're good commerce raiders, but only worth it if your enemy uses a lot of screens to escort their shipping. Otherwise such a heavily armed ship isn't needed.

[Operation Iraqi Freikorps]

Heavy cruisers are good as a poor man's battleship, being cheaper and still maintaining strong light attack with light batteries. Heavy cruisers can be used to clear away screens as they are far enough back to warrant heavy attack or torpedoes, and are a good choice for the role. Battle cruisers aren't much better than a battleship, being faster which helps avoid damage (mainly torpedoes), while being cheaper which allows more guns for the same cost. Battlecruisers are useful for surface raiding fleets, but not the wisest choice unless you're facing capital ships in escort fleets.

Cruiser variants have their uses, but if close to shore naval bombers are probably better for sinking ships.

[僕の名前 (仮)]

probably for country that can't afford bigger ships but still need ship bigger than destroyers.

[TasteDasRainbow]

BattleCruisers in my navy often have a flexible role. Anytime you have a smaller naval nation, battlecruisers are the immediate economical choice to reduce the cost of battleships and still have the efficacy of heavy ships in a strike force.

In a nation that is larger, I build battleships normally until 1940, and then I double my production by mirroring every battleship line with battlecruiser lines, as they will flesh out any major losses and will help match my destroyer/light cruiser production.

When running my navies, ideally I have this balance with scaling and balancing my fleets;
Heavy gun Strike force: 1BB:1BC:2CA:3CL:4-5DD; I max this scaling at 4 Battleships
Aircraft Carrier Strike Force: 2CV:1BB:1BC:3CA:3CL:4-5DD; I max this scaling at 4 Carriers
Patrol Group: 1CL:4DD; I max this scaling at 5 Light Cruisers.

Heavy Cruisers are essentially the same question, is it worth to build Heavy Cruisers instead of battleships, as their role in combat is screening carriers or shredding lighter boats. Heavy Cruisers can be extremely useful at destroying enemy navies that are largely composed of destroyers/light cruisers. This is because they are still fast enough to not suffer from torpedoes as bad, their armor is just enough to be less vulnerable, and they shred enemy light boats with their medium guns.

If you are producing carriers and are having a hard time getting out battleships/battlecruisers, then you would want to spam more heavy cruisers. If you have a solid production line, then it's better to focus up to battlecruisers/battleships more for better armor. One thing to keep in mind for situational builds is that the Atlantic is small enough to prioritize armor over speed and range. In the Pacific, it's the opposite, where it doesn't matter how much armor you have if your strike force can never reach combat in time due to slow speeds, or lacking the range altogether. Depending on your country and production capability, different navies are necessary.

For instance, when I play Germany, I need to wait until 40' to start carriers, as well as run an extra line of battleship early, because I need all the biggest armor I can get to survive against the British/US/French navy and maintain reasonable progress at destroying theirs. After I make significant progress at securing the coastal naval regions for Europe, it becomes important for me to improve the engines on my strike forces so that they can go further, and faster, otherwise US strike forces will always reach my patrols before my strike forces do.

[MadMek]

It's weird that battlecruisers are sort of a poor man's battleship in this game when historically they cost nearly as much as a similar battleship and had an unfortunate tendency to explode spectacularly.

To be fair, this was mostly a brittish problem, but all the big naval powers seemed to agree they weren't worth it after WWI.

[TasteDasRainbow]

Escrito originalmente por MadMek:

It's weird that battlecruisers are sort of a poor man's battleship in this game when historically they cost nearly as much as a similar battleship and had an unfortunate tendency to explode spectacularly.

To be fair, this was mostly a brittish problem, but all the big naval powers seemed to agree they weren't worth it after WWI.

Yeah a lot of analysts have come to agree that it was simply a natural misconception as to what performance was necessary on the seas. When Battlecruisers were used in WW2, it was thought that the extra speed would be more beneficial than the extra armor, both because of productivity efficiency and positioning in combat.

The expectation turned exactly the opposite; where designers believed it would be considered a 'souped up cruiser', having the speed of a CA with the guns of a BB, it ended up being the guns of a BB with the armor of a CA, and the speed difference simply wasn't significant enough to be more effective than the extra armor, which was learned rather quickly after these boats were fielded.

Hence in the grace of our hindsight at said production choices, it's more effective to use battle cruisers strictly as a replacement for BB if you can't afford their production, or as a supplement to BB when you have the production to add extra guns and still benefit from the armor of the BB around the BC.

[MadMek]

I blame John "Jackie" Fischer. His crazy speed obsession led to bizarre naval doctrines that seemed, for a start, to be based on a view of naval combat that took place in a vaccume, with a navy's only purpose being to destroy the enemy navy, with no consideration given to all the other roles that a navy plays.

He envisioned speed as the ultimate attribute for a ship, because a fast ship could simply retreat before a superior force, refusing to engage unless they had superior force. This plan seems good until you consider that, for starters, a battlecruiser force that can beat a battleship force will be much costlier, so this superior force may never arrive, and also that the purpose of navies isn't just to destroy other navies.

A battlecruiser fleet is terrible at convoy escort, blockade duties, or breaking through an enemy blockade. Basically, any task that keeps them from running away, either because they're on the offensive, or because that would mean leaving whatever they're protecting at the mercy of heavily armored enemy battleships they can't fight.

His most hilarious brainchild I know of is the "HMS Incomparable", a proposed ship that would have been larger than the Yamato class even, armed with 20" guns, immensely fast, and equipped with only 11" of belt armor. He also imagined that other nations would soon build along the same lines and quickly surpass it, presumably ushering in a new era of naval warfare in which entire nations naval budgets go up in an immense mushroom cloud after being hit by a single shell from a light cruiser.

[Admiral_Trollington]

Escrito originalmente por MadMek:

I blame John "Jackie" Fischer. His crazy speed obsession led to bizarre naval doctrines that seemed, for a start, to be based on a view of naval combat that took place in a vaccume, with a navy's only purpose being to destroy the enemy navy, with no consideration given to all the other roles that a navy plays.

He envisioned speed as the ultimate attribute for a ship, because a fast ship could simply retreat before a superior force, refusing to engage unless they had superior force. This plan seems good until you consider that, for starters, a battlecruiser force that can beat a battleship force will be much costlier, so this superior force may never arrive, and also that the purpose of navies isn't just to destroy other navies.

A battlecruiser fleet is terrible at convoy escort, blockade duties, or breaking through an enemy blockade. Basically, any task that keeps them from running away, either because they're on the offensive, or because that would mean leaving whatever they're protecting at the mercy of heavily armored enemy battleships they can't fight.

His most hilarious brainchild I know of is the "HMS Incomparable", a proposed ship that would have been larger than the Yamato class even, armed with 20" guns, immensely fast, and equipped with only 11" of belt armor. He also imagined that other nations would soon build along the same lines and quickly surpass it, presumably ushering in a new era of naval warfare in which entire nations naval budgets go up in an immense mushroom cloud after being hit by a single shell from a light cruiser.

Thats ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome. what a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ madlad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Incomparable
This thing is hillarious.

These guns were actually fitted to Furious, but removed after a few months following damage to the ship when they were fired.