How do I Effectively Use Naval and Aerial Units?

[Frantic]

Most of my playtime has been spent on Kaiserreich, but the game mechanics should be the same as vanilla.
I'm still not quite sure how to use naval and aerial units well. For land units, I usually just spam infantry with arty and medium tanks. However, I'm not quite sure how to deal with ships and planes, because I just forget about them. I use planes when enemy planes are being a nuisance to my land units and fight for air superority and use them for ground support for land units to help lower organization. I usually only use the navy to move troops around, but I can see the potential they have elsewhere.
So what are the best things to build and research, and how do I use the naval and aerial units?

[brutus_bg]

HI!
It depends somehow on the difficulty you're playing and whether or not you're using a mod (changes the efficency of air strikes, e.g.).
For the Air- i'm using it more or less the same as you (Int for defence, Tac/CAS for bombing, ♥♥♥ for escort, Strat- ... for prestige, if winning the game xD)

The naval units... usually there is Carriers and everything else. Eventually the exception are the Destroyers+ASW for anti- sub protection/ patrols. The range and the high attack mean that the CV rule the seas (and if low on IC/ need them sooner, the CVE also would work).
So the fleets i'm using are usually 1-5 CV and 10 DD. Also adding cruisers, a battleship or two, if possible. But in the end the work is done by those two types.

And a special type of Air units- the Naval bombers. They could sink ANY type of boat. So i use them to repell D-Days and the AI (especially the US and Japanese) uses them to hunt and sink my precious carriers.

[Frantic]

Originally posted by brutus_bg:

HI!
It depends somehow on the difficulty you're playing and whether or not you're using a mod (changes the efficency of air strikes, e.g.).
For the Air- i'm using it more or less the same as you (Int for defence, Tac/CAS for bombing, ♥♥♥ for escort, Strat- ... for prestige, if winning the game xD)

The naval units... usually there is Carriers and everything else. Eventually the exception are the Destroyers+ASW for anti- sub protection/ patrols. The range and the high attack mean that the CV rule the seas (and if low on IC/ need them sooner, the CVE also would work).
So the fleets i'm using are usually 1-5 CV and 10 DD. Also adding cruisers, a battleship or two, if possible. But in the end the work is done by those two types.

And a special type of Air units- the Naval bombers. They could sink ANY type of boat. So i use them to repell D-Days and the AI (especially the US and Japanese) uses them to hunt and sink my precious carriers.

Thank you for the reply!
I think I understand how to operate planes, but I have no clue on how to use ships, so I'm gonna have to play as nations that use ships more often. But from your post, I think I have the basic idea on what to look for when building a navy. I just have to learn how to use the ships in practice.
Thanks again!

[brutus_bg]

That's the best way indeed... Probably every DH aficionado will give advice and war stories, but you'll get best results after a game with Japan or UK, e.g.
Have fun conquering/ libearting the world!

[Stevcorp]

Aircraft are very role specific. Each plane has a particular job. You can't research every one, so you need to figure out what you want.

Fleets are a quality thing. Sub wolfpack < Cruiser patrol < Battleship group < Carrier group.

[Hat8]

Originally posted by FranklyFrantic:

Most of my playtime has been spent on Kaiserreich, but the game mechanics should be the same as vanilla.
I'm still not quite sure how to use naval and aerial units well. For land units, I usually just spam infantry with arty and medium tanks. However, I'm not quite sure how to deal with ships and planes, because I just forget about them. I use planes when enemy planes are being a nuisance to my land units and fight for air superority and use them for ground support for land units to help lower organization. I usually only use the navy to move troops around, but I can see the potential they have elsewhere.
So what are the best things to build and research, and how do I use the naval and aerial units?

Airpower sucking is a weak point for the game.

Strategic bombing isn't really all that useful. AA guns maul bombers and they can't stand up to fighters at all even with escorts. The cost of repairing the bombers is massive and the factories "destroyed" just repair themselves anyway.

Air supremacy is useful because it gives you good recon but that advantage doesn't really outweigh the fortune in fighters that had to be spent to win that supremacy.

Tactical bombers and Close Air Support pick away at divisions but they're expensive to build, upgrade and reinforce. You need to spend a lot of fighters to get air supremacy and then pay even more for the bombers. That's a lot of resources being redirected away from tanks and infantry.

Hopefully, the new patch fixes this as modders haven't really done anything to address this.

[eahaas73]

What about naval air support and bombers? I haven't dropped paratroopers yet. How are they? I know ground support is useful. Wrecks moral and supply when the enemy line and infrastructure is bombed.

[Frantic]

Originally posted by eahaas73:

What about naval air support and bombers? I haven't dropped paratroopers yet. How are they? I know ground support is useful. Wrecks moral and supply when the enemy line and infrastructure is bombed.

From what I read, naval bombers wreck fleets and convoys, but I've never used them. Maybe if you're against Japan or something naval support would be nice.
I think I used paratroopers once or twice before because I happened to have them. They can be great for cutting off a weak part in an enemy's line, but only if you have air superiority. If not, don't bother. Also, be sure to find a way to resupply them, or they might die out.

[Hat8]

Naval bombers are grossly overpowered.

Paratroopers are pretty good. Better use them if you make them though, they cost a fortune.

[Jonen]

Paratroopers are kind of a gimmick - build only if you have a plan that needs an airdrop, and use them for that (and try to plan for other uses for them) and do remember there's a nonzero chance your paras will get destroyed before you can get to them with other units.

Air transports are only for ferrying paras - yes, they can drop supplies, but that is pretty much only useful if you have gotten encircled or dropped paras.

TAC and CAS can go after navy, but NAV is much better (but sucks at dealing with land).

Missiles are only really useful for nuke delivery (and v1 is pretty much only useful for cross channel pot shots). (Also, if you run out of fuel, missiles will turn around and head back to their silos, just like bombers. Not really relevant to using them, but funny mental image.)

Escort fighters cap the range of the bombers they are attached to, so consider having a few unescorted NAV anf STRAT bombers for hitting far away targets (strats for nukes, NAV for patrolling oceans far away from enemy fighter cover).

And tac/cas/multirole will eat up a moving divisions if they get a chance, but air will focus ground attack/support missions on the province in their AO within their range with the least amount of enemy units in it. Exception: They will ALWAYS bomb enemy units in combat if possible.
When setting up kill zones for CAS-Caracoles, you want a nearby airbase, a designated target province (try to acheive control of the other provinces in the region) and keep the enemy retreating out of the target province. If the enemy is stationary, or more specifically, dug in, you are wasting fuel for your aircraft.
(Also keep that in mind for protecting your divisions from enemy air - keeping a single, dug in division with AA brigades in a province to the rear of a region can draw off enemy air attacks and do a number on their bombers.)

Naval.

Submarines exist solely to kill convoys - at least until you get modern torpedo naval brigades, at which point your submarines (or any ship, really) thus equipped will sink anything. TM1 does not upgrade to TM2. TM1 only makes ships better at killing convoys.

Destroyers and light/heavy cruisers are escorts. Battleships, battlecruisers and every type of carrier are capitol ships. You want at least as many escorts as capitol ships in a fleet, or you will anger the RNG.

Submarines and transports are separate and should not be mixed into fleets of other ships (transports may have an escort of surface warships, but those are solely intended to kill enemied that attack you - do not send transports on missions not intended to transport stuff).

Three stats to consider for any fleet composition are speed, range and firing distance - you want to set a minimum for your fleet and drop any ship which does not meet the minimum.

Range determines how far you go - the underway replineshment techs can raise range a bit.

Speed helps you get a favorable position in combat and determines how fast your fleet moves - transports tend to be the slowest ships of their tech level, which is why you can send older, slower ships on babysitting duty. Speed is not changed once the ship is built. Speed lets the fleet choose range. Speed lets it get away from NAVs faster. Speed lets it pursue and destroy a defeated enemy fleet.

Firing distance determines whether you damage the enemy. A destroyer with a firing distance of 20 that can keep out of the 14 distance of a battleship will eventually kill the battleship with no damage in return.

The distance your fleet tries to get to is determined in part by the lowest range capitol ship in your fleet. (Exception is, IIRC carriers). If you wanna cheeze, ensure your escorts have a higher firing distance than the capitol ships.

You can raise the firing distance with fire control and seaplane brigades (which also add damage and help you spot enemies).

Carriers are the kings of distance all CAGs and LCAGs have big firing distsnces. Escort carriers are kind of meh, but they can maybe help you get a murderfleet with battleships and heavy cruisers into optimal range. Else only use them for ASW and shore bombardment.

There are Three types of fleet:

Surface action groups are designed for gun battles - big battleships and cruiser escorts are king. With battlecruisers you can send small surface action groups raiding convoys and hope they can outrun trouble, but frankly BCs are mostly not worth it. Destroyers can be used in SAGs to ward of submarines (since the other surface warships kind of suck against subs and its embarrassing to have to retreat from a much smaller fleet pinning you in place for NAVs to bomb - on that note - NAVs always bomb ongoing combat in their AO - make sure to support your fleets with aircover if possible). Also, destroyers are cheap and fast to build, it is hard to have to many destroyers (though Heavy cruisers are the infantry of the sea).

Carrier Task forces. Any fleet with CVs or CVLs. CVEs only if you want to add more stuff for the enemy to shoot at, CVEs belong in SAGs or ASW groups. Any escorts work - if you fear surface action, go with heavy cruisers, light cruisers may be nominally better at dealing with air attack (or are at least cheaper and faster to repair/replace) and destroyers for numbers.
Feel free to mix different age carriers together if the enemy does not have carriers. If the enemy has carriers, make sure to keep up and preferably ahead in the CAG tree, as firing distance will determine who manages to hit who - you probably wanna keep older carriers out of your main battle line in that case.

Marine Amphibious force - your transports go here, combine with some corps of Marines (check the allowed invasion size in your amphib warfare tree and do not far exceed that when planning amphib ops) if you wanna take beaches. You want some spare transports - if transporting a corps of three divisions, you need three transports, and if you go below that you loose divisions. A group of twelve transports, which looses 9 due to enemy activity, will deliver all three divisions safe and sound even if the three remaining transports are at 1% strenght. So have a bit of a buffer - transports that sink will turn out to be empty if it is possible for them to be empty. You want your transports to run away from combat ASAP.
Adding escorts can keep the enemy from making your transports run away with destroyer or submarine harassment. Carriers make great tools for keeping the enemy at a distance. Keep in mind, if a fleet had transports in it, it will attempt for a 200 km (maximum with no modifiers) engagement distance, but transports can be slow.

Other types of fleets:
Submarine wolfpacks (all subs, all the time)
ASW groups (dds and cves, other carriers if you have nothing better for them to do).
Shore bombardment groups - when your current crop of transports are faster than your old surface warships, group the old naval reserve mothball into a SAG and send them to provide shore bombardment.

...

If all else fails fleets of 30 decent destroyers (or, as a "destroyer division" is 5 ships, 150 destroyers) can cheeze a lot of smaller enemy fleets by exploiting the fact they are cheap and fairly easily replaced.

Radar, AA and IH are inferior choices for naval brigades - the best naval brigade is TM2, (TM1 is worthless), fire control and floatplanes.
And CAG/LCAG are absolutely essential.

Naval scramble is a good mission to assign to a good fleet - it will stay in port until an enemy is detected in the relevant sea zone at which point it will go forth to kick ass. Detection includes enemy sinking transports.
Mind you, it does mean you may end up with your fleet massively outgunned, so use with caution.

YOU CAN NOT RETREAT FROM A NAVAL BATTLE UNTIL AT LEAST FOUR HOURS (game clock) HAVE PASSED. It is therefore wise to do recon to be aware of what the enemy may have in a seazone before undertaking big operations, and scrubbing ops in favor of handling big enemy fleets if they show up.
Carriers are best for dealing with enemies thanks to their range, BUT if they have no ORG (like after they have conducted a port strike, the enemy may approach freely). If you intend to do port strikes with carriers, consider doing it with battleship escort. Also, if your port with your main fleet has been hit by a port strike? Sailing out and hitting the enemy may be the best time for killing their CVs (but be aware the AI does like mixing carriers and battleships).

Also - multiple fleets in the same sector engaged in combat do not have to retreat all at oncw - considee escorting transports with surface fleets and retreating only the transports out of combat.

[JAGGzilla]

Good advice Jonen, I've been playing DH regularly for years and I just learned a couple things.

[Jonen]

Most of that is from memory from the old paradoxian HOI2 wiki, but I've seen no indicators the naval warfare has been overhauled fundamentally in DH.

Rule 1 for naval warfare is simple: you do not have enough convoys (even if you are germany and you conquer Norway through Sweden) and the enemy has too many.