A noob friendly guide to ship designs and task forces in MTG

This is a small noob friendly guide to ship designs and task forces in MTG

Introduction

Disclaimer

I consider this guide done, but if you have suggestions I would be happy to hear them.
If you have any questions you can ask me on Twitter, in my Twitch Chat[www.twitch.tv] or comment under one of my videos on my Youtube Channel.
I will also read all comments to this guide as well, but I can't really directly answer you.

I hope this guide will be useful to you.

Ship Classes

I will use abbreviations for different ship hulls:

• SS = Submarine
  
• CSS = Cruiser Submarine
  
• DD = Destroyer
  
• CL = Light Cruiser
  
• TCL = Torpedo Cruiser
  
• CA = Heavy Crusier
  
• PCA = Panzerschiff class
  
• BC = Battlecruiser
  
• BB = Battleship
  
• CV = Carrier
  
• CVBB = Converted Battleship
  
• CVC = Converted Cruiser
  
• CVE = Escort Carrier
  
• CVBBE = Escort Converted Battleship
  
• CVCE = Escort Conveted Cruiser

Purposes

These will be the abbreviations for different purposes:

• AP = All-purpose (Jack of all Trades) or Anti Ship Design
  
• SR = Ship Raiding
  
• AA = Anti-Air
  
• ASW = Anti Submarine Warfare
  
• AMW = Anti Mine Warfare
  
• ML = Minelayer
  
• SP = Spotting

A small Explanation of the Navy

First you need to know how the UI works, but I will go through some things that are specific for the navy. If you already know how the UI works then you can skip this part.
I will explain the buttons that are in every fleet window and how you use them:

I will go through from left to right:

1. Delete task force The delete button should be obvious that it deletes everything that is selected completely
   
2. Create a new task force If you click on this button you get this new window
   Here you can select some ships and create a new task force with them. I personally use them to split off the submarines from my death stack. I will explain later more to that.
   
3. Split the selected task force in half The next will half the current task force in two.
   
4. Halve the current selection of ships The next will halt the current selection of ships.
   
5. Set the selected task forces as reserve fleet The following will put the selected ships into reserve. I will explain more to what that means later.
   
6. Merge the selected task forcesThis will merge two task forces into one.
   
7. Distribute selected ships in balanced task forces This button can be really handy when creating starting out because this automatically creates many varied task forces of the selected ships. I normally don't use this button because it doesn't leave any ships inside the reserve which will be needed for what one of the next button does.
   
8. Refit Ships The next button will be helpful if you want to refit ships. This is a good idea if the ship designs you start with are bad. Then you just select all ships you want to refit, press that button and select the ship design you want them to be refitted to. If you hover over the design it will tell you how long it will take for one ship to be refitted.
   
9. Repair Now! This will tell your ships to instantly go to a harbour and repair. Normally you don't have to press that because they automatically go into a harbour when on missions.
   
10. Automatic Reinforcements When you press this button it will create a new task force composition and everytime a ship in this task force gets sunk it will be automatically replaced with ships from the reserve. So if you don't have any reserve this won't work as intended.
    
11. Automatic Split off This will give the ships the permission to split off into a detached task force when they are damaged and sail to the next harbour.
    
12. Repair Priority With this button you can change at what damage the task force will go into a harbour to repair.
    
13. Engagement Rule The last button will change the way it behaves if it spotted an enemy fleet. With an engagement always comes a risk and normally want your ships to engage at medium or low risk. Sometimes if you don't care about what will happen to those ships you want them to always engage.

Then there is the button on the bottom right. This is the task force composition editor.
Here you can add ships with specific types to build your own fleet and you can even create task force templates which you can load. If you remove ships from a task force composition they will automatically split off and go into reserve. Creating a task force composition will also activate automatic reinforcements.

Handling your Navy

In the beginning of the game you normally create a death stack of all ships you have. For that go into the navy mode select every fleet that you have and put them into reserve. Then select the reserve and press G or the merge button. Then you can occasionally train them so you gain XP which you can put into navy technologies and navy doctrines. It is always good to retrain them as much as you can but most nations can't do that because they only have limited oil.
Later on if you get into a war you should split off at least one strike force and smaller convoy escort and patrol task forces. Also split your SSs into small or big ship raiding task forces. Put everthing else into the reserves (Maybe not coastal defense ships because they are trash) so they can replace lost ships. You can find explanations on how the task forces are supposed to look like in this guide as well.
You then need at least one spotting fleet per province and you HAVE to put them on fo not engage. Your strik force reamin inside of the port until your spotting fleet spots enemy ships and then sails to the location where it was spotted and tries to engage it. This helps to preserve fuel because your big ships which consume the most are mostly inside a port. Raiding and convoy escort fleets don't need specific spotting fleets because they do their spotting themselves and therefore need a high surface detection and sub detection to engage the enemy ships.

Ship Designs

Those next designs are just what you can build with all 1936 tech and here are some tips on what to do with later techs and ship models. Keep in mind that those are just some lose guidelines which you can follow if you don't have enough experience.

• It's a good idea to add radar to all of your ships. But radar 1 is practically useless for most ships except spotting ships and subs. After the second radar it also adds sub detection which will be crucial in convoy escort and after the third it even adds light, hard and AA attack. On DDs you want it because of the sub detection and on CL and above you want it because of the extra attack. But it doesn't add any torpedo attack so there is no point in putting radar on a Torpedo Cruiser or single purpose ships like mine layers.
  
• Float planes are practically useless in combat so in practice it doesn't make much sense in putting them on any ship which purpose isn't spotting. But the extra spotting can be useful in evading enemy ships or when you don't have a spotting fleet. If you build special raiding fleets that involve capitals it can be a good idea to build those capitals with float plane catapults.
  
• Usually you don't need more than 3 main batteries, but you could add more. It will get really expensive if you do So keep that in mind when designing a ship like this.
  
• Always add dual purpose guns where now are light battery II or secondary II as soon as you research them
  
• When refitting ships try not to replace what is already on them and try to add stuff where nothing is. It can get really expensive otherwise. Only if you have something on them like mine laying euqipment which you want to have gone. Also swapping slots of module will cost you as well so be careful.
  
• When you get the 1940s ships you get more slots to fill with every ship type. What you put in there depends on what you are already building and what you need. If you don't have carriers it never is a bad idea to add AA. On destroyers you should either add one more depth charges if you have troubles with subs. If not just add more torpedos.
  
• You can never go wrong with torpedos and it always is a good idea to build screen with a high torpedo attack. I personally wouldn't add torpedos to heavy cruisers, but there is nothing wrong with doing that. With a high amount of torpedo attack you can basically melt away every of the enemy capitals.
  
• It sometimes is a good idea to refit the screens you have in the beginning of the game. This is most important for the Japanese, where most of the cruisers have mine laying equipment and at least 40 destroyers have nothing on them. it will take time to refit them, but in the end it will pay off.

Submarine Designs

SS = Submarine, SR = Ship Raiding, SP = Spotting

1936 - SS - SR

CSS - SR

CSS - SP

Explanation

Always add the best Snorkel to your Subs, because it affects the chance for your subs to get spotted in combat. Even Snokel 1 gives you such a big bonus that they are practically unsinkable.
On the other hand if you have many problems that your Subs get sunk too much you can try adding the Schnorkel instead of radar so that it is harder to spot.
The Cruiser Submarines are subs that can be used by Japanese and French players from the start of the game or by unlocking it via the German Focus Tree or American Focus Tree. They are practically the same as the 1940s Sub in terms of slots, but can add reconnaissance or fuel tanks instead of extra Torpedo Tubes. Those extra options give the CSS a unique role where can it can be used either as a long range raider or a spotter. But this comes with a big trade-off: They are the same or worse in every way compared to the 1940s sub. It is slower, is easier to spot and also costs 70 more to build. Every other stat is completely the same as the 1940s sub. So the only real use case for it is when you don't have the 1940s sub or you want to use the special slots for long range raiding or spotting.
In terms of spotting they are incredible. With those Float Plane Catapults you can get quite a high amount of spotting. You can get about 40 surface detection with a production cost of about 930. A spotting cruiser for example has 60 spotting and costs more than 3 times as much. Also your naval doctrine gives you a bonus of +25% spotting in base strike and fleet in being and +50% spotting in trade interdiction for all your subs. There is only one tech in one naval doctrine that gives you a bonus on surface detection for light cruisers and that is in trade interdiction. With that high of a bonus and the base spotting of those subs being that high as well and much cheaper than comparable cruisers, it is a good alternative to normal spotting fleets.

Destroyer Designs

DD = Destroyer, AP = All-Purpose, ASW = Anti-Submarine Warfare, AA = Anti-Air, AMW = Anti-Mine Warfare, ML = Minelaying

1936 - DD - AP

1936 - DD - ASW

1936 - DD - AA

1936 - DD - AMW

1936 - DD - ML

Cruiser Designs

CL = Light Cruiser, TCL = Torpedo Cruiser, CA = Heavy Cruiser, PCA = Panzerschiff Class, AP = All-Purpose, AA = Anti-Air, AP = Spotting, AR = Ship-Raiding

1936 - CL - AP

1936 - CL - AA

1936 - CL - SP

TCL - AP

TCL - AA

1936 - CA - AP

PCA - AP

PCA - SR

Explanation

So basically the Panzerschiff class is a heavy cruiser with really high range and you can use them for raiding above the water.
It also is really good against other capitals because of its high piercing.
Cruisers are the most important part of your navy. They are the most versatile and can even survive on their own. That's why it is a good idea to only build good cruisers as a minor nation. I once played Portugal and dominated the British navy only with cruisers. You can also use the AP Cruisers as for ship raiding where work really well, because of their high amount of light attack and high speed. Often they are able to kill all the convoys and flee from the battle before a protecting navy even engages. So use them, but use them well.

Battleship/-cruiser Designs

BC = Battlecruiser, BB = Battleship, SHBB = Super-Heavy Battleship, AP = All-Purpose

1936 - BC - AP

1936 - BB - AP

SHBB - AP

Explanation

The idea here is that these designs will obliterate every other ship (except for Subs) that will come their way. That's why they have so many AA on them. The only thing that can really hurt big ships like these are planes. But if you have carriers you don't need that much AA on a ship because the planes from the carrier do a pretty good job in protecting your ships.
Battlecruisers and battleships are pretty much interchangable. Battleships have more armor while battlecruisers have more speed. It mostly depends on personal preference. Therefore you can just build battlecruisers that are fully specced like battleships but with battlecruiser armor making them battlecruisers. But if you want to use battlecruisers as part of your fleet then you should only put in level 1 modules except for engine and radar.
Also always go for the best battleship/-cruiser armor because upgrading the production costs doesn't increase with higher levels of armor when battleship/-cruiser armors are compared seperately.

Carrier Designs

CV = Carrier, CVBB = Converted Battleship, CVC = Converted Cruiser, CVE = Escort Carrier, CVBBE = Converted Escort Battleship, CVCE = Converted Escort Cruiser,

1936 - CV - AP

CVBB - AP

CVC - AP

1936 - CVE - AP

CVBBE - AP

CVCE - AP

Explanation

Escort Carriers are pretty much useless. The only reason you should ever build them if you need a carrier as fast as possible. If that is not the case than it is better to just build a normal carrier because one normal carrier has 60 deck size and costs less than two escort carriers with a deck size of 20.
Other than that it is always a good choice to go for Carriers if you want to focus on navy except if your industrial capacity is too low. You don't only need to build the carrier which are expensive and for most nations you have to build them from scratch with a low amount of dockyards, you also have to build the planes otherwise they will be useless. But you also need enough screens and other ships to protect them, because they are really vulnerable. The countries where I would go with carriers are Britian, France, Japan and USA, but also Germany, Italy and Soviet Union could also work with a bit of luck.

Building, Upgrading these Ships and Making your own Templates

If you want make these ship builds, it's normally better to duplicate and build it with already existing ship builds.
It costs you 5 naval experience to assign a new module to an empty slot and only 3 if up-/downgrade an existing module. But if you change to another module it costs you 6 navy experience and removing a module completely and leaving the slot empty will cost you 1 experience. The only exception is downgrading your catapults, because this will also cost you 6 navy experience.
In Conclusion you should always build on top of existing templates and don't build new ones. But you have to remember always to duplicate them before building a new one.
As soon as you want to build a new version of a ship, because you got an upgrade for a module, for example you got a better radar, you can just change your existing template. At this point it doesn't matter much if you make a duplicate and name it mk2, but I would higly recommend that.

If you want to build cheap ships for one task only like minelaying, it's better to just skip on modules you don't need than going with an earlier hull. The best example for this are cheap raiding subs as someone like Germany. Going from Early Subs to 1936 Subs you gain 1500km range, double the HP to 20, 8% more reliability and 5 less Detection and all of that for 340 than for 310 production cost.

Always add Radar 2 or higher to your ASW ships, because those add also sub detection, but Radar 1 doesn't. Other than that add Radar and also catapult planes to every ship from CA and up for spotting. CL and down don't have the range to take advantage of the extra surface detection you get out of those two.

Fleet/Task Force Compositions

Raiding Task Forces

Big Submarine Convoy Raiding Task Force

• 10-30 SS

Small Submarine Convoy Raiding Task Force

• 5-10 SS

Surface Convoy Raiding Task Force

• 1 CL
  
• 4 DD

Explanation

You should normally use the small Task Forces, but the big Task Forces can be more effective sometimes. For many countries like Portugal and Germany, it can be a good idea to make fast ships with low armor and let them convoy raid your enemies. Those are normally too fast for the enemy to pursue which in term lets you literally destroy enemy convois.

Convoy Escort Task Forces

Basic Convoy Escort

• 10 DD

Convoy Escort with AA

• 1 CL (AA)
  
• 10 DD

Convoy Escort with probability of small enemy fleets

• 1 CA
  
• 1 CL
  
• 1 CL (AA)
  
• 15 DD

Explanation

You should try to use ASW DDs, but you sometimes can get away with normal AP ones as well.

Patrol Task Forces

Basic Patrol Group

• 1 CL
  
• 9 DD

CSS Patrol Group

• 2 CSS (SP)

Explanation

Don't forget to set your patrol group on "Do Not Engage" so that they try to avoid every encounter.
You want one patrol group for every sea province taht you are patroling in for maximum effectiveness.
You can just use every Light Cruiser and Destroyer, but for maximum effectiveness you want to use special spotting cruisers. I personally would use ASW DDs for those fleets, but AP DDs are good as well.

Battleship Task Forces

Light BB Task Force

• 2 BB
  
• 2 CA
  
• 4 CL
  
• 4 CL (AA)
  
• 24 DD

Medium BB Task Force

• 4 BB
  
• 4 CA
  
• 8 CL
  
• 8 CL (AA)
  
• 48 DD

Heavy BB Task Force

• 8 BB
  
• 8 CA
  
• 16 CL
  
• 16 CL (AA)
  
• 96 DD

Explanation

I don't have much Experience with battleship task forces and normally they aren't as good as carrier task forces.

Carrier Task Forces

Main CV Task Force

• 4 CV
  
• 4 BB
  
• 8 CA
  
• 16 CL
  
• 48 DD

Light CV Task Force

• 2 CV
  
• 2 BB
  
• 4 CA
  
• 8 CL
  
• 24 DD

Escort Carrier Task Force

• 2 CVE
  
• 1 BB
  
• 2 CA
  
• 4 CL
  
• 12 DD

Explanation

Carrier task forces normally don't need dedicated AA light cruisers because the planes from those carriers are normally enough to protect your ships. Also there is acutally no point in producing escort carriers. (If you want more information to escort carriers look in the explanation of the carrier designs)

Afterwords

Also if you don't have the time or are too lazy to actually set up those fleet composition there is a handy button which automatically splits them into balanced fleets.
The problem is that they tend to not reflect the fleets you need right now. I would recommend setting up one of these above and just put everything left into reserve. If you set it up right then there be automatic reinforcements when a ship of your fleet is sunk.

BCs and CAs are basically useless against other capital ships because they lack the sufficient armor to withstand them. They are most useful against the ships directly under them. The exception for them is the Panzerschiff class with their really high heavy piercing which makes them a cost effective counter against capital ships. At least for the early years of the game.

The best way to destroy carriers is by port bombing them with naval bombers. Other than that naval bombers are really effective against ships and can really destroy your ships. That's why you always wanna have a fair amount of AA ships in your fleet. Also the only reason you should go for DD AA is if you can't afford enough CL AAs. One CL AA is about the strength of 2-3 DD AAs.

Postscript

This is just some information that don't really affect the whole guide too much

If you can't tell, the focus of this guide lies on the ship variants and not the Compositions.
I didn't find a guide for those with actual pictures where you can easily just copy them.
The only thing close to that was a video from DustinL but that is a video and it's time consuming to scrub through this whole thing to find the right ship you want to outfit right now.

A Video Guide

If you want I can make a video series where I explain everything from beginning to end and can go more into detail. If I make this kind of video series I will load it up to youtube on my channel and also link it in here.

My Social Media

Also if someone has questions on the matter of navy you can visit me on my Twitch[www.twitch.tv] und ask me in my chat. I will try to answer every question! But only English or German is allowed in the chat.
If you want you can check out my other social medias on my website[imperatorsibilus.tv].

[TheOrangeBox]

Great guide Thanks

[Sibilus.tv]

@SqueguinGamerKevin
You can just ignore ships in general

[SqueguinGamerKevin]

was gonna buy this game but my head is exploding not even halfway through the tutorial

[Jalan Medan Merdeka Utara]

@Sibilus
Actually how does the game portray irl module to the in-game? Because if remember, when i see the panzerschiff design, the game portrays it with only one gun turret meanwhile irl it had 2 turrets. could we assume that one turret in-game portray two turrets irl?

[Sibilus.tv]

@luthfi_gmrz
Unfortunately not. I am not sure though how much the spotting bonus from radar affects the raiding efficiency, but the advantage you get from snorkel is much more worth it. I have to work on the guide a bit more when I have the time to.

[Jalan Medan Merdeka Utara]

@Sibilus
I see. also one last question. For the sub can i put snorkel and radar at the same time? does sub 1944 have ability to do that?

[Sibilus.tv]

@luthfi_gmrz
Most of the time it is better to go for 1940s subs with snorkel.
You could also build fast light cruisers to surface raid the enemy which can be really good.
A BB navy can be really fun too, but you always have to balance them out with stuff like destroyers or light cruisers to protect them from enemy torpedoes aso. Massing torpedo destroyers can be really fun as well.
As you can see, there are many options and not one is the definite best option to have fun. Just test it out and see what works best for you.

P.S. Also 1940s SS with snorkel are the absolute best for cost. It takes long for them to kill anything. But because they are so hard to spot, you can pin enemy navies for forever.

[Jalan Medan Merdeka Utara]

I want to ask, is that possible to create cheap battleship? Especially with the MTG dlc, the capital ship dockyard is limited to only 5. I want to create a strong BB task force as minor nation or should i just spam SS, DD, CL, and CA instead?

[Xpertmen]

Hey man, I actually playing with Portugal at the moment. In the beginning (until 1939/40) I´m doing only 1936 SS-SR. Once i go to war the subs perform well but the size of my navy and fuel are quiet precarious, I have basically one fleet of 30 subs. So wanted to ask what your plan for navy (and in general to play with portugal, Im trying to avoid going monarchy and annexed brazi,too easy)? How many dockyard do you have? Whats your fleet composition by 1940 and what should I aim? And finally is it worth to buy italian/british ships?

P:S if you have a good guide (as this one) for army or air please please send the link.

Best regards
Xpert

[Snoodle]

This is some DustinL stuff huh. Your CLs have the wrong templates and AA ships are entirely Battleships. No DD should cost more than 850-900 IC. Battleships are generally not very good unless you have Coastal Designers and go AA on it, and carriers are not very good unless you're fighting in an area with no ground based air. Ground based air FAR outclasses ANY ship. Having 1000 Naval Bombers in a fight will wipe any fleet without their own counter air or an AA BB