torpedo destroyers useless?

[DrwHem]

so i thought that if i built around 30 destroyers with torpedoes that i would be able to overwhelm the screeners and get a few capital kills. but nope. didnt sink a single ship.
so are these working as intended? is it just a waste of time building them? trying to figure out to asymmetric strategies to take down japans navy.

[Катя Мяу <3]

(Edit, wrong forum)

[mk11]

If you want to fight the enemy navy (rather than use subs or planes) then you need light cruisers with lots of guns to destroy the screens mixed in with destroyers with torpedoes to sink the capital ships. You also want some capital ships to soak the attacks from enemy capital ships and aircraft.

[DrwHem]

yea i have all of the torpedo tech. i focused it to the detriment of every other part of the naval tree. still have yet to score any kills.

[Navy~]

it is not enough if you just have torpedoes you need some light cruisers with alot of light attack so you can destroy their screens easily, and only after that your torpedoes will penetrate to capital ships line. there is an amiral promotion that gives you torpedo screen penetration too.

[drewbstar]

Originally posted by DrwHem:

yea i have all of the torpedo tech. i focused it to the detriment of every other part of the naval tree. still have yet to score any kills.

Here's your problem.

You want a good balance on your fleet comp, including research and templates.

Unless you are Japan with the long lance torpedos or have an Admiral with the related traits, your torpedos are going to do terrible against the enemy fleet if its at 100% screening.

Destroyers are best used for cheap spam and ASW. They will lose, hard, against all other ships (excluding subs) for this very reason.

There are multiple strats, but I've personally found 3 ways to really do it:

Traditional: Lots of capitals (BB and CV) in a deathstack with a lot of CL/DD.
Expensive, hard to manage, a lot to learn. Takes good knowledge and experience to not self-implode with oil use and dockyard reservation.

HOI4 Special: Subs with snorkels, lots of Naval bombers. Easy, cheap, and effective. Naval bombers delete the screens, subs kill the convoys and capitals. It's the meta for a reason.

"Hybrid": This is what I've been trying lately. It's allowed me to destroy significant parts of any enemy navy with comparitively minor effort. Do the sub/naval bomber spam like normal, but set aside a little time for a small stack of CLs and maybe a battleship. I managed to sink several capitals and dozens of destroyers in the channel in record time with this method.

Buff CLs with very strong soft attack, good AA/RADAR, and let it fly (air catapault 2). With a little air cover I've seen 7-8 1936/1940 CLs completely demolish dozens of the Royal Navy's destroyers, to which my subs and bombers sank capital ships entirely by themselves. Set to patrol, engage at low risk, repair ASAP, only fight with green air + bomber support. I landed in Dover with 0 problems in 1940 with this method.

I've been meaning to expand some of my mine laying/torpedo use outside of subs, but the general idea is there.

[PotatoScav]

Originally posted by DrwHem:

so i thought that if i built around 30 destroyers with torpedoes that i would be able to overwhelm the screeners and get a few capital kills. but nope. didnt sink a single ship.
so are these working as intended? is it just a waste of time building them? trying to figure out to asymmetric strategies to take down japans navy.

Their next DLC will have great buff in submarine only sell for 0.99 $ , i heard that .

[Leo3ABP]

OP, here is the quote from the wiki that explains why your strategy of spamming destoyers to "overcome" enemy screens is not working:

Torpedoes: the probability that a torpedo can target ships past the screening group is 100% minus the enemy screening efficiency. To target ships in the carrier group (including convoys) it needs to pass an additional check of 100% minus the enemy carrier screening efficiency.

That means that with 100% screen efficiency on enemy fleet your torpedoes will not even fire on enemy capitals. You need to whittle down enemy screening ships to get a chance to fire torpedoes at enemy capital ships. Using torpedoes against screening ships is quite useless because of very low chance to hit due to low ship profile of light ships (speed/visibility ratio). So unfortunately for you, simply spamming torpedo boats in hope to overwhelm enemy fleet with torpedo saturation will not work, at least not on the scale of you trying to use it.

I highly recommend to either study the HoI4 wiki on the subject of game mechanics if you want to make specialised ships/fleets and min/max, or just do a balanced fleets/ship-designs that make sense, and they will work to a reasonable extent.

[Mikey]

no leo, torpedoes will fire, the hit chance on screen ships is just extremely low

[Leo3ABP]

Originally posted by Mikey:

no leo, torpedoes will fire, the hit chance on screen ships is just extremely low

with 100% screen efficiency torpedoes will still fire on screen but not on capital ships. OP wanted to fire torps on capitals hoping to overcome the screens so I was explaining that this will not happen unless enemy screens are below 100%

[Mikey]

well you worded yourself very badly then seeing as you wrote "with 100% screen efficiency on enemy fleet your torpedoes will not even fire"

[CrazyEight]

Torpedoes are MONSTROUS. But they aren't good against screen ships (Light cruisers and Destroyers)

Basically Torps ignore armor and deal high damage. They take down big and slow moving ships. Smaller ships can easily avoid them. Keep in mind that one of the jobs of screen ships is to keep torpedo boats away from big, vulnerable ships. So if your torpedo boats cant get close enough there isn't much they can do.

[Leo3ABP]

Originally posted by Crazy Eight:

Torpedoes are MONSTROUS. But they aren't good against screen ships (Light cruisers and Destroyers)

Basically Torps ignore armor and deal high damage. They take down big and slow moving ships. Smaller ships can easily avoid them. Keep in mind that one of the jobs of screen ships is to keep torpedo boats away from big, vulnerable ships. So if your torpedo boats cant get close enough there isn't much they can do.

There is no concept of range in HoI4 naval combat, so "getting close" is not really applicable here. Basically each side in combat has three deployment "lines" plus "underwater" for subs. Light ships go into the first line (can be viewed as being closest to the enemy) capitals in the second line, and aircraft carries into the third. Submarines go underwater naturally. There are rules about what weapon can engage ships in which line, to save me time I will not go into detailed explanation of the mechanics there because it is all in the wiki in a much better format. Suffice to say that in order for destroyers to be able to fire their torpedoes into second enemy line (where their capital ships are), the number of light ships in the first enemy line must be less than optimal screen ratio for a fleet (3 light ships per capital ship in a fleet). The lower the screen ratio, the higher the chance that your destroyer torpedo attack will target an enemy capital ship in the second line. To target an enemy carrier there must be no capital ships in the enemy's second line iirc. Meaning that even a single battle-cruiser will protect a carrier from all potential attacks while that BC is alive and fighting.

[The Explorer]

zZZ

[Aluminate]

I always go Destroyers with Torp's, 1x Anti Air, light battery and depth chargers. Loads of them... like only them. Works well when using Fighters near land. Makes any naval invasion a very costly one.

[Billy_Bligh]

Originally posted by drewbstar:

"Hybrid": This is what I've been trying lately. It's allowed me to destroy significant parts of any enemy navy with comparitively minor effort. Do the sub/naval bomber spam like normal, but set aside a little time for a small stack of CLs and maybe a battleship. I managed to sink several capitals and dozens of destroyers in the channel in record time with this method.

Buff CLs with very strong soft attack, good AA/RADAR, and let it fly (air catapault 2). With a little air cover I've seen 7-8 1936/1940 CLs completely demolish dozens of the Royal Navy's destroyers, to which my subs and bombers sank capital ships entirely by themselves. Set to patrol, engage at low risk, repair ASAP, only fight with green air + bomber support. I landed in Dover with 0 problems in 1940 with this method.

I've been meaning to expand some of my mine laying/torpedo use outside of subs, but the general idea is there.

Hybrid all the way for me (UK). I don't have any DDs in my strike fleets, torpedo-equipped or otherwise. I keep the DDs separate and, depending on the year/tech, armed with multiple depth charge launchers. Then off they go into dedicated fleets on permanent anti-sub patrols. I then have strike fleets with 10-12 capital ships and 30-40 CLs, all equipped with torpedo launchers and rapid fire turrets. 4 or 5 2-ship patrol fleets with catapult-equipped CLs to spot the enemy, trigger the strike fleet, and then run away. It seems like a compromise design, but it scoured the oceans clean of (AI) Axis fleets in no time, with very little loss. Subs I have multiple 10-boat fleets looking for enemy convoys.

I mean, you wouldn't do it in R/L, but in HOI4 against the AI... it works.