Optimal task force size?

[Xinamon]

I have used the auto balancing button for a while. I wanted to know some good task forces and sizes, especially for submarines

[Fear_Naught]

Tbh idk man. I mean when i play america i use task forces like the US did historically but its whatever i feel like so i would make the Main Heavy Force with all my BBs and CAs then i would create seperate Task Forces led by a Fleet carrier and Escort Carrier followed by a bunch of CLs DDs and a few SS.all in all one task force for me is about 25-30 ships and i have like 10 Task Forces for 1 Navy (Admiral) known as US Pacific Command and then a smaller one with all my old Ships for the Atlantic Command but mainly to convoy escort. As of right now, SS are OP due to the torp stack. i would recommend doing a death stack with subs.
Oh what nation are u playing lol that would help. Britain is the same.... get whole fleet in UK, Merge then divide in half and create your tasks forces but i prefer to make a heavy fleet and some flottilas and forces in the North Sea, Norway and Western Approaches and All of the Med.
Germany just focus on Subs your Navy will get wiped out by UK and France even if theyre AI controlled.

[Xinamon]

Originally posted by DomsTheBombs:

Tbh idk man. I mean when i play america i use task forces like the US did historically but its whatever i feel like so i would make the Main Heavy Force with all my BBs and CAs then i would create seperate Task Forces led by a Fleet carrier and Escort Carrier followed by a bunch of CLs DDs and a few SS.all in all one task force for me is about 25-30 ships and i have like 10 Task Forces for 1 Navy (Admiral) known as US Pacific Command and then a smaller one with all my old Ships for the Atlantic Command but mainly to convoy escort. As of right now, SS are OP due to the torp stack. i would recommend doing a death stack with subs.
Oh what nation are u playing lol that would help. Britain is the same.... get whole fleet in UK, Merge then divide in half and create your tasks forces but i prefer to make a heavy fleet and some flottilas and forces in the North Sea, Norway and Western Approaches and All of the Med.
Germany just focus on Subs your Navy will get wiped out by UK and France even if theyre AI controlled.

thanks for the response

[Random]

The Auto balance task force button is what the AI uses to create its fleets. So what you see is what the AI will tend to have out there.

Compositions to do their tasks optimally would be as follows:

30 Subs = Raiding task force. More is overkill as they are just fighting convoys. 20 is fine initially, but you will want to bump them up to 30 in order to do as much damage to naval invasions as possible. More then 30 is pointless as they can only fight 1 battle at a time, so you are better off with 2x 30 subs as opposed to 1x 60. These raiding groups should also be placed on a single admiral with appropriate traits like silent killer.

10-15 DD + 2-3 CL = Escort Task groups, The counter and opposite of the 30 sub raid groups, escort groups designed for ASW. Multiple fleets under a single admiral set to escort your convoys protecting trade lines and invasions. Any more is unnecessary, 10DD is fine initially but you will want to build up to a point where you can add a few CL in order to fend off tiny strike forces from minor nations.

10DD (+1 VERY optional CL) = Spotting fleets. you can safely get away with very small fleets like 5 DD initially, however you will want to up these as it will affect the discovery speed of enemy fleets enabling your strike fleet to actually get to work. The 1CL should be pretty well covered in catapults to boost its detection to the max, as this is a NON COMBAT group.

ALL mining destroyers + ALL Minesweeping destroyers, should be kept together in 2 doom stacks of each type. These are non-combat ships that are treated as "teleporting" around their assigned locations so also cannot be spotted by enemy spotting fleets. If you are a major and can spare a few dockyards, you should just have a build Queue of mining destroyers going down the bottom with a rally straight to their fleet. These 2 fleets should be placed on a single admiral and their work location can literally be the entire planet! (however start in your local neighbourhood first or an ocean of interest like the entire atlantic + med)

LOWBROW Strike fleet = X Carriers + X of BS/BC + 3Xnumber CL + 9Xnumber DD
EG: 4 Carrier + 4 BS/BC + 12 CL + 36 Destroyers.

Honestly strike fleet; unless you are for some reason focusing on multiple theatres (against minors), should generally be ALL of your remaining fleet. This is because if a major power moves into an area where you are using "just enough" fleet to have superiority, they can effectively wipe you out with very little loss resulting in your total fleet count being whittled down to a point where you can no longer contest them.

For a real fleet you want something closer to this:

4 Carriers + 8 BS/BC + >30 Light Cruisers + >100 DD.

Extra BS/BC to spread leaked torpedo damage, excessive CL count to wipe enemy DD's in a flash, and a sizeable DD wall to NEGATE enemy torpedo damage, as well as fire their own torpedo's at enemy capital ships once the CL's have done god's work. you can obliterate any fleet in the game by just adding more CL and DD, while mostly ignoring your capital ships, but having "some" can help tip the battle in your favour.

Notice there aren't any CA (heavy cruisers?) that's because they are utter trash, and should be IMMEDIATELY refitted to CL. CA can NEVER have enough heavy piercing value to even go through BC armour and are basically only good at fighting naked carriers or other heavy cruisers. Thus they are total garbage, and basically a waste of a capital ship build time, considering you could've made a BC in the same time with maybe only 1-2 months variance.

BC vs BS, honestly this is down to doctrines. Their armour is actually not important, as both BC and BS can pierce each other. So a BC can stand toe to toe with a BS, as they have equal health values. what does vary is their organisation which a BS will have more of if you go base strike, however I believe they are equal if you go FIB, and thus go BC if FIB or BS if Base strike. Another considering is that BC's are also faster, and honestly that is a good thing as it enables you to chase down any fleet with Slower BS in it. So Dealers choice, up to you, both good.

Light attack and piercing is the MOST IMPORTANT attack orientated combat stat in the MTG.

Armour is useful, and honestly putting a single armour module on an end game carrier can make a very large difference in damage received from enemy destroyers, as it negates their light attack value almost entirely (they do still have torpedoes though but still damage reduction)

CL of each generation with 2 light cruiser batteries and 2 secondary gun emplacements WILL have sufficient piercing to pierce the armour of the previous Tier of enemy CL. So 1944 CL's that are built correctly will have 10 light AP, allowing them to shred 1940 CL's which have 10 armour. Destroyers do not have any armour and will utterly obliterated by CL's because of this.

in MP a human player could and should adapt to any fleets they see. if they see people using subs to block raids, they could then add like 5 ASW DD's to their raiding fleets, but then they could be attacked by lowbrow strike fleets, so its all scissor paper rock.

Eitherway the above is the standard and will pretty will wreck the AI no matter what they think they are doing.

[Xinamon]

Originally posted by Random:

The Auto balance task force button is what the AI uses to create its fleets. So what you see is what the AI will tend to have out there.

Compositions to do their tasks optimally would be as follows:

30 Subs = Raiding task force. More is overkill as they are just fighting convoys. 20 is fine initially, but you will want to bump them up to 30 in order to do as much damage to naval invasions as possible. More then 30 is pointless as they can only fight 1 battle at a time, so you are better off with 2x 30 subs as opposed to 1x 60. These raiding groups should also be placed on a single admiral with appropriate traits like silent killer.

10-15 DD + 2-3 CL = Escort Task groups, The counter and opposite of the 30 sub raid groups, escort groups designed for ASW. Multiple fleets under a single admiral set to escort your convoys protecting trade lines and invasions. Any more is unnecessary, 10DD is fine initially but you will want to build up to a point where you can add a few CL in order to fend off tiny strike forces from minor nations.

10DD (+1 VERY optional CL) = Spotting fleets. you can safely get away with very small fleets like 5 DD initially, however you will want to up these as it will affect the discovery speed of enemy fleets enabling your strike fleet to actually get to work. The 1CL should be pretty well covered in catapults to boost its detection to the max, as this is a NON COMBAT group.

ALL mining destroyers + ALL Minesweeping destroyers, should be kept together in 2 doom stacks of each type. These are non-combat ships that are treated as "teleporting" around their assigned locations so also cannot be spotted by enemy spotting fleets. If you are a major and can spare a few dockyards, you should just have a build Queue of mining destroyers going down the bottom with a rally straight to their fleet. These 2 fleets should be placed on a single admiral and their work location can literally be the entire planet! (however start in your local neighbourhood first or an ocean of interest like the entire atlantic + med)

LOWBROW Strike fleet = X Carriers + X of BS/BC + 3Xnumber CL + 9Xnumber DD
EG: 4 Carrier + 4 BS/BC + 12 CL + 36 Destroyers.

Honestly strike fleet; unless you are for some reason focusing on multiple theatres (against minors), should generally be ALL of your remaining fleet. This is because if a major power moves into an area where you are using "just enough" fleet to have superiority, they can effectively wipe you out with very little loss resulting in your total fleet count being whittled down to a point where you can no longer contest them.

For a real fleet you want something closer to this:

4 Carriers + 8 BS/BC + >30 Light Cruisers + >100 DD.

Extra BS/BC to spread leaked torpedo damage, excessive CL count to wipe enemy DD's in a flash, and a sizeable DD wall to NEGATE enemy torpedo damage, as well as fire their own torpedo's at enemy capital ships once the CL's have done god's work. you can obliterate any fleet in the game by just adding more CL and DD, while mostly ignoring your capital ships, but having "some" can help tip the battle in your favour.

Notice there aren't any CA (heavy cruisers?) that's because they are utter trash, and should be IMMEDIATELY refitted to CL. CA can NEVER have enough heavy piercing value to even go through BC armour and are basically only good at fighting naked carriers or other heavy cruisers. Thus they are total garbage, and basically a waste of a capital ship build time, considering you could've made a BC in the same time with maybe only 1-2 months variance.

BC vs BS, honestly this is down to doctrines. Their armour is actually not important, as both BC and BS can pierce each other. So a BC can stand toe to toe with a BS, as they have equal health values. what does vary is their organisation which a BS will have more of if you go base strike, however I believe they are equal if you go FIB, and thus go BC if FIB or BS if Base strike. Another considering is that BC's are also faster, and honestly that is a good thing as it enables you to chase down any fleet with Slower BS in it. So Dealers choice, up to you, both good.

Light attack and piercing is the MOST IMPORTANT attack orientated combat stat in the MTG.

Armour is useful, and honestly putting a single armour module on an end game carrier can make a very large difference in damage received from enemy destroyers, as it negates their light attack value almost entirely (they do still have torpedoes though but still damage reduction)

CL of each generation with 2 light cruiser batteries and 2 secondary gun emplacements WILL have sufficient piercing to pierce the armour of the previous Tier of enemy CL. So 1944 CL's that are built correctly will have 10 light AP, allowing them to shred 1940 CL's which have 10 armour. Destroyers do not have any armour and will utterly obliterated by CL's because of this.

in MP a human player could and should adapt to any fleets they see. if they see people using subs to block raids, they could then add like 5 ASW DD's to their raiding fleets, but then they could be attacked by lowbrow strike fleets, so its all scissor paper rock.

Eitherway the above is the standard and will pretty will wreck the AI no matter what they think they are doing.

thank you for the response