Naval Bombers are now useless!

[Hystorian]

I've been playing this game off and on for years. Tried a few iterations of Italy. In the final one, I had nearly a thousand naval bombers with air cover from the best fighters lifting off from three airfields and the English fleet stuck in the Egyptian sea. After six months of sorties...not one English ship sunk! This game is completely useless as a strategic level game with the dynamics are always changing and far too often result in an unworkable and unplayable factions. I am done with HOI4 forever. Waste of my time...

[Bored Peon]

Need more information.....
- Did you know that transports and planes never heal?
This is how you can suddenly have HUGE losses or kills in naval bombings because the damage is applied and the wing loses as many planes as it takes to cover the damage done.

- What was the agility/air defense design being used?
If you overloaded the planes and had a design with a low agility and low air defense you were just throwing people into a meat grinder. Made that mistake myself with a few designs.....

- Which air frame is being used?
Different air frame have different options, like only the light air frames get dive brakes which increase their defense while naval attacking. This helps prevent ships doing damage to the planes. Large frames Naval Bomber are ONLY good as scouts, any time they go in combat you lose too many and they take too long to build.

- Which air doctrine and naval doctrine trees were you using?
Certain trees giving better bonuses for naval attacks, including hit bonuses.

- What was your reliability and air safety like?
I take any air safety and reliability choices I see because when you have 1000s of planes those "small percentages chances" become quite frequent. Had a game last week using medium fighters, I was killing like 10 enemy fighters a day with no losses, but was losing planes to reliability and air safety often enough I could not get an advantage over the AI.

- Did you train the pilots first or just throw them out fresh?
Raising the pilot skills two levels makes a HUGE difference in how often you hit and take damage. I have noticed when you send out the fresh pilots they cant hit @#$%. Train them up and then they become effective. Also too many losses from combat, reliability, and air safety can lower the wing's level.

- Did you use any Aces?
Aces make a HUGE difference to a singular air wing, then that wing helps generate more aces.

If you already know some of this, do not feel offended, it was more for anyone else reading the topic as they maybe can learn something from it.

Honestly though, I kinda stopped building naval bombers and only use them to port strike them annoying gits hiding in a port while projecting naval supremacy into an ocean zone. Mostly because the expense of resources, manpower, and fuel was just better spent on the navy in my opinion. Unless you are playing a country with an abundance of aluminum and rubber.

[The Real Private Kowalski]

did you have half of your naval bombers on naval patrol? naval bombers can't hit what they can't see

[HappySack]

If you have no spotting from scouting ships, radar, or planes set on naval patrol then your naval bombers won't even know where the enemy ships are so don't blame the game for you not knowing what you're doing.

[Bored Peon]

If the fleets are hiding in harbors you have to bomb them out unless you can exceed the naval supremacy to invade and force them to sea.

This happens because the AI cannot repair them or are stuck in a long queue to repair due to lack of shipyards set to repair or a low level port trying to repair a huge amount of ships.

The AI will also hide in port if they cannot see your fleets to send out the fleets set to strike force.

[CaptainSpacetime]

Have a Greece game going and my naval bombers sunk a bunch of ships in the Aegean.

You bungled OP.

But I do always get a laugh out of this sort of thing:

Originally posted by Hystorian:

I am done with HOI4 forever. Waste of my time...

All these people who are supposed HUGE FANS been PLAYING FOR YEARS make a minor mistake or run into a tiny bug and suddenly it's I'M DONE DEAD GAME GARBAGE

[Nelly]

Originally posted by DaveQwerty:

did you have half of your naval bombers on naval patrol? naval bombers can't hit what they can't see

Originally posted by HappySack:

If you have no spotting from scouting ships, radar, or planes set on naval patrol then your naval bombers won't even know where the enemy ships are so don't blame the game for you not knowing what you're doing.

Probably a stupid question:
When i set naval bombers on patrol AND naval strike. Will they fly patrols till they find sometihng and than attack? Or are they stuck on land because the naval strike has higher priority

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Nelly:

Originally posted by DaveQwerty:

did you have half of your naval bombers on naval patrol? naval bombers can't hit what they can't see

Originally posted by HappySack:

If you have no spotting from scouting ships, radar, or planes set on naval patrol then your naval bombers won't even know where the enemy ships are so don't blame the game for you not knowing what you're doing.

Probably a stupid question:
When i set naval bombers on patrol AND naval strike. Will they fly patrols till they find sometihng and than attack? Or are they stuck on land because the naval strike has higher priority

I just leave the wing of 10 on Naval Patrol. The 10 aint really enough to inflict decent damage without causing great harm to themselves.

[Nelly]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by Nelly:

Probably a stupid question:
When i set naval bombers on patrol AND naval strike. Will they fly patrols till they find sometihng and than attack? Or are they stuck on land because the naval strike has higher priority

I just leave the wing of 10 on Naval Patrol. The 10 aint really enough to inflict decent damage without causing great harm to themselves.

10 is only the size for naval bombers with large airframe. I mean multiple 100 wing set on patrol and strike

[HappySack]

Originally posted by Nelly:

Probably a stupid question:
When i set naval bombers on patrol AND naval strike. Will they fly patrols till they find sometihng and than attack? Or are they stuck on land because the naval strike has higher priority

If multiple missions are selected in this case, naval strike will be prioritized when enemy ships are spotted otherwise they will keep scouting.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Nelly:

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

I just leave the wing of 10 on Naval Patrol. The 10 aint really enough to inflict decent damage without causing great harm to themselves.

10 is only the size for naval bombers with large airframe. I mean multiple 100 wing set on patrol and strike

That only happens if you mount the naval weapon first.
If the naval weapon is second it will got to 100 in a wing.

[maremia]

The matter is simple, use seaplanes with torpedoes in the double mission of patrol and maritime attack escorted by fighters if the enemy can send you fighters.... Extermination of the fleet that passes through there guaranteed if you maintain air supremacy with your fighters.

Put 100 to 300 of these naval forces by sea and if you can defend them with fighters, you will crush his ships .

[Nelly]

Originally posted by HappySack:

Originally posted by Nelly:

Probably a stupid question:
When i set naval bombers on patrol AND naval strike. Will they fly patrols till they find sometihng and than attack? Or are they stuck on land because the naval strike has higher priority

If multiple missions are selected in this case, naval strike will be prioritized when enemy ships are spotted otherwise they will keep scouting.

Thanks mate