How to Build a Good Navy as Germany

[Shadow_UltimateLife]

I've played a few games of HOI4, and done well. I'm looking to improve, and one of my biggest weaknesses is the navy. What ships should I build, and what tips should I know for the naval aspect of HOI4. Thank you for your time.

[Dagoth Brain Made Of Tired]

You don't you hope you can bomb the enemy ships out of the sea with planes and just build german subs with snorkels.

[drewbstar]

The "HOI4 Special" as it stands, is to spam subs with snorkels and naval bombers. This is extra effective as Germany due to your Admirals, focus tree, research bonuses, and simple geography.

Keep your subs out of shallow seas unless you control the air.

In short, flood the English channel with bombers and you'll chip away at the Royal Navy because the AI has no idea how to properly take care of its Navy. Put your subs out to the deep oceans to sink their convoys of oil and troops. Once you've chipped away enough, you can Sealion either through the Channel or go East and invade from Denmark/Norway into NE/Scotland.

AI UK almost never properly defends its coastline. I've literally landed unopposed, marched into London, and THEN fought a land battle.

[Shore]

It's universally accepted if you're playing an axis country to prioritize submarines with snorkels and some torpedo destroyers with radar late game, you can even make fast carrier fleets (CV+DD). This goes for Germany as well naturally. It cannot compete with allied navies through capital ships, so you must instead counter it with fast torpedo attacks after completely starving the country of oil through submarine convoy raiding.

This works because oil starvation cripples naval forces which make them sitting ducks for torpedo attacks.

It's best to start early with this tactic, give your naval sub captains the skill for reduced visibility and torpedo visibility, find out which countries your enemy is importing oil from, and park your subs on the supply line starting from THEIR coast, not the enemies. This allows you to save manpower and IC, and prevents interruption. You can use the same tactic to block other imports like tungsten and steel, which will cripple their ability to produce more ships.

[mark.r.hendrickson]

There are many ways to do it.

Subs and tac bombers are super effective, and can operate in deep water where the RAF can’t go.

NAVs and cheap mine layers work well and are actually cheaper than subs. Minelayers get you the naval superiority, and the RN can’t deal with NAVs.

There are other ways though. It is possible to build a surface fleet which can take on the RN without help from the air, but…. I don’t believe it to be possible to do this before USA enters the war.

The strength of the RN is their battleships. These can be defeated by destroyers with torpedos coupled with cruisers. It can also be defeated by super heavies (my favorite). Even just straight up 1936 battleship technology is far superior to the first generation technology the brits have. Carriers also super effective.

All tactics are viable, but mining destroyers and NAVs is the cheapest.

[OXKART]

ya navy bombers... on and off so u don't get shot down as fast. ill throw in some trash ships pull in the enemy ships and send in air units.. when u pull every thing back , alot of the time the ships will dock close . send in air to the ports and eat them up.. ill keep my new ships back and try and build up a fleet. its not easy to up grade every thing in the game. and there not a lot of oil u can waist so BB's and carriers i don't build them. i do like a top of the line cruzer . speed range and good do it all type builds. there good with support air and screen ships. subs are built fast and don't eat as much fuel.i use them just to keep the other navy active.

[Mimir]

If you want to build a surface fleet, you could dare to sail out once you have 2 (3 is safer though) updated units of 2 BBs + 8 screens (at least 4 LCs). SHBs are better but takes longer time. Just keep them close to home and only operate if both stacks are ready. Sprinkle that navy with whatever else you got in case you run into the allied deathstack. Start in an area you have air superiority and some naval bombers to soften up and deal with remnants. I prefer to aim for only BBs (or SHBs) and LCs as that saves a lot of research. I also like to refit old designs to keep the navy as updated as possible. Refit guns and fire control first, preferably when you can improve by 2 steps, and never engine and armor (cheaper to build new than refit old, check the refit cost when doing the designs). There are of course other ways, but I kinda like having real superiority with surface ships. Now I've started to actually enjoy the naval side of the game...

[kingarthur772]

That Germany and other Countrys [like Poland, the Commonwealth-States etc.] have never a Chance to get an big Surface Navy like Britain, Japan or USA is fully sure.

All Navys are very interessting since 1.6 and DLC "Man the Guns".

The only way is to improve what you have all the time of the Survace Navys there. And build up new Ships are possible [like 2 Battleships and 3 Heavy Cruisers in Germany].

Upgrading in Guns, Technology (like Radar, Fire Control etc.), AA and Armor etc. was and is atm. the best way to get an passable Surface-Navy.

1. Improve your existing Panzerschips [Graf Spee, Deutschland and Scheer] with new Techs and Weapons [Radar and Fire-Controll-Systems are a must have]

2. Improve your light Cruisers of the K-Class [Königsberg, Köln, Karlsruhe] with new Techs and Weapons; they are very good Patrol and Security-Ships in Norway- / German Coasts, East-Sea

3. Improve your light Cruisers of the Leipzig-Class [Leipzig, Nürnberg] with new Techs and Weapons; they are a little bit better then the K-Klass and are much more usefull for security of the Trade-Lines farer from the Coasts; but not so good as whished; I use them on the northern Trade-Line over Britain.

4. Improve your light Cruiser of the Emden-Class [Emden] with new Techs and Weapons; I use it as Experimental-Ship for new Weapons, Technology, Armor-Upgrades etc. It´s the oldest new Ship you have in the German Navy, which limits his Working-Era.

Like the K-Class it´s good for such Patrols- / Securuty-Duty and as Test-Ship / Practice Ship.

5. Like the light Curiser Emden the old 2 Line-Ships [Schlesien, Schleswig-Holstein] are good in the East-Sea-Duty and as Test-Ships / Practice-Ships. Use them for Coast-Bombardment too to get an easyer Landing from Sea.

Upgrades there are Guns, AA, Fire-Controll and Radar; downgrade the Armor to Battle-Cruiser to get more speed

6. Upgrade your Minelayers with everything, esp. AA, Secondary Guns, light Armor, Radar and Fire Controll-Systems.

7. Don´t forgett your Torpedo-Boats, which get upgraded very fast!


Then the new buildup-Programm:

Most of the Surface-Ships are already there; 2 new Battlecruisers / Battleschips [Scharnhors-Class], 1 new heavy Cruiser [Admiral Hipper] and the 16 new Destroyers [1934 (4x) / 1934 A-Class (12x)]

Build them up before the War starts.

The same with the new Subs of Type II and VII. They will be your workhores later on, esp. in Training and sinking enemy Ships / Convois.

Like the Comrads said already, Type VII and later IX can be upgraded with Snorcels. Therefore they loose the Heavy Gun and have only Torpedos and AA-Guns left.

I make smaller Groups of the Subs, like in History.

f. e.: Type II A [Training], Type II B / C / D [more advances Variants Step by Step as Coast-Ships to sink enemys and laying Mines]

f. e.: Type VII A [Training], Type VII B [Test-Ships / Training], Type VII C (later C/41) [Attack-Ships against Convoys and enemy Ships], Type VII C/42 [the max. latest Variant of Attack-Ships of that Type]

Naturally the German Navy had never Aircraft-Carriers, but they were in WIP, so why not build up then and bring up 2 of the Graf Zeppelin-Class and the 2 never finished Admiral-Hipper-Classes as light Carriers.

Atm. that´s the best you have from 1.6 "MTG" up to now 1.10.7 "BftP".


I don´t know what get changed with 1.11 "Barbarossa" and the DLC "No Step Back" in the Navy with Buildup and R & D, but there are changes to the existing "MTG-System we have now".

In some Parts it should get purged to get an easy to manage Part like the Tanks get now and get combined like the Tank-System with AA, Guns, Engines, Armor etc. But there we have no further Infos.

[hermes]

if you truely wanna naval larp, heavy cruiser spam with light attack but also make sure u have 4 destroyers for every capital ship. People here wjo say subs are meh, its true but if you wanna build an actual navy just make heavy cruisers with a bunch of light cruiser guns (one heavy cruiser gun so its still a heavy cruise) remove the armor. Destroyers just do max engine and speed and cheapest gun.


Dont produce carriers, battle ships, light cruisers they are bad and bb and carriers cost too mucu to be effecient

[Mimir]

Originally posted by hermes:

Dont produce carriers, battle ships, light cruisers they are bad

Well I build my navy differently, I guess it just goes to show that there are different ways to do it. I do however object to the notion that LCs would be bad, they are in fact awesome with the downside of taking longer to build than destroyers. LCs with armor has a high surviveability which I consider to be vital if you have a small navy to start with. The main benefit of a HC + LC navy would IMO be that you save a lot of research. And BBs takes years to build.

[hermes]

Originally posted by Mimer:

Originally posted by hermes:

Dont produce carriers, battle ships, light cruisers they are bad

Well I build my navy differently, I guess it just goes to show that there are different ways to do it. I do however object to the notion that LCs would be bad, they are in fact awesome with the downside of taking longer to build than destroyers. LCs with armor has a high surviveability which I consider to be vital if you have a small navy to start with. The main benefit of a HC + LC navy would IMO be that you save a lot of research. And BBs takes years to build.

fair enough, i just go with heavy cruisers, i really don't do much with light cruisers except convoy escort with them. and yeah, BBs take a long time.