Naval supremacy - english channel / north sea

[gandalf]

Playing as german. Got only the vanilla game. (No Dlc's what so ever). Just killed poland, french, belgium and holland. Year is 1939. I am trying operation sea lion. But it seem not possible at all to invade england as it seems near unpossible to get supremacy in the channel and/or in the north sea no matter how many uboats i put there. Also got some air force. But england has large air force as well.

Is there anything else that can add to naval supramacy in those 2 sea areas ? Or any other "trick" to invade england at the end of 1939 or beginning of 1940 ?

[TeamSpeakEnjoyer]

Separate your submarines and capital ships. Put 6-8 destroyers for each capital ship in your capital ship fleet. You can put 2-4 destroyers to submarine fleet as well. Submarines will do convoy raiding, capital ships will do patrolling. If you keep building capital ships put them on “strike force” Lastly and most importantly support your naval operations with naval bombing and air superiority.

Ps: You can try to invade Gibraltar if Italian AI has a good navy. If they can pass Gibraltar then they will help you in Channel.

[mk11]

A couple of things that sometimes work:

1a. Put all your air over Southern England. The UK will respond by sending its air there.
1b. Then shift all your air to the Channel and put all your navy active in the channel (make sure you do not have any ships under repair that prevent a task force counting)

The AI is slow to respond to the shift to the channel so you may get navy supremacy for a few hours that is long enough to launch the invasion.

2. If you have built Nav then just whittle away at the UK in the channel but keep your fleet ready in the Netherlands (far enough that they don't get port striked). If you damage capital ships the task forces will head for repair and then you may be able to get supremacy.

[Gamer Maid]

It always worked for me with paratroopers if you are fast enough after or during the fall of France but it seems too late now.

You can also produce the older submarine which has the best naval supremacy / industrial cost ratio but you will still need a lot before to be able to cross. You can still send some subs in the Altantic raiding the allies convoys to force some ships of the british navy to change its orders and sunk them with planes while they are moving in the english channel then if you use the tricks the previous comment was talking about you should be fine.

Also, put your ships for naval supremacy in strike force at the last second when you are ready to go and with ALL your airforce on the english channel.

[Gamer Maid]

A dude made a quick video about it if you want to :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCifP-v90oU

[S2]

If youre playing on harder difficulties it might be necessary to starve the UK of their oil imports and wear their stockpiles down by the mentioned convoy raiding submarines. You will need around 8 submarine battle groups of each 20 submarines to cover ocean tiles in every direction.

Once they run out of fuel, their Air force and Navy cannot effectively fight anymore.