How Naval Combat Works

Wargame Red Dragon saw few changes from Wargame AirLand Battle. However the biggest major change is the one that makes the biggest impact. Naval combat. There are naval only maps and mixed naval maps... so using navy will be an essential skill in conquering this game. In this guide you will learn how the naval units work and how they interact with each other in a purely naval battle.

El Introductionones

The naval category of the game is 100% free of activation points. It comes with a lot of options and a lot of choices. This guide will look at the naval category and all of the uses of the various units found in it in a bid to win the sea battle.

1. Weapon Terminology

Any weapon that reads [SHIP] on it is used to destroy ships.

Most of these are ASMs or Anti-Ship Missiles. They can also ONLY be fired at ships.

To counter these you have Anti-missile defense which can be seen in the [DEF] tag... and most often these are area of effect weapons or [AOE]

Not all ships will have both of these... or either of these. When choosing ships for naval combat remember that you will need to have one or both of these on each ship to be effective in ship to ship combat.

There are a few ships that have mortars, howitzers, and rocket artillery. These can be used in ship to ship combat... but will not fit into a proper defense.

2. How Ships Work

One ship fires a missile. It will fly over the top of the ocean and it will move towards the target. The other ship will deploy one anti-missile volley that can only intercept one missile at a time. If there are none available then the missile can either hit or miss. If it hits the strength of the missile is subtracted by the armor of the ship to figure out how much damage is dealt. Ships uniquely have the same armor in the front and back but have weaknesses in side shots.

So if there are three ships firing and three ships defending, it will be impossible to get a hit because the number of defending systems is equal to the number of offending ships.

This means numbers of ASMs firing at once matters. If you can fire more than what they have at once, you will deal damage.

Ships without anti-missile systems need to stay close to the fleet for protection. Stray ships without this kind of protection can easily be destroyed by an anti-ship missile.

3. Re-supplying Your Ships

Each side will gain access to one supply ship, which I highly recommend putting in every single deck you make. It costs a little over 100 points and supplies a lot of resources.

On all supply vehicles are three buttons you can push. These are On and Off buttons. For your ships you will not worry too much about fuel unless one ship is completely out of fuel. You can save supplies by simply turning off the re-fuel button. This will allow you to get more missiles and repairs out of every single supply ship.

Supply ships are also highly explosive. They should not be in the middle of your ships and should sit a decent range from what they're re-supplying. Otherwise, you can lose a lot of hit points if the vessel is to be destroyed by artillery or an ASM.

4. Helos and Airplanes

Ships are very expensive. The Oliver Hazard Perry is a manageable price if you are looking for more anti-missile defense. For a lower cost Bluefore can get the Baek-Ku and Redfore can get Komar very cheaply to add to the naval fleet.

The goal is to increase the number of ASMs and Anti-missile defense systems that you have on your side.

Helicopters are going to be insanely cheap and have a little over 1000 m of range on ships. This makes it so you have a unit that can fire on the enemy without being able to fire back. Enough helicopters can wipe out a ship in one volley.

All helicopters can be re-supplied with the naval supply ship on an island. If you press the land command they will land wherever is the closest possible location to land.

The downside to helicopters is that they ONLY have anti-ship weapons. On a map in which you are able to get naval superiority these helicopters will stop being useful to you once you have won a major battle.

The other air unit is sea planes. They tend to be a little more versatile and more often than not are multi-role fighters.... meaning they can do anything.

Most planes will come with an auto-cannon for strafing runs on ground vehicles or ships, ASMs and some infrared missiles for challenging other planes. Remember though infrareds are very close range so these will not be used in air superiority roles.

5. The Tactic

When engaging in sea battles make sure to stack all of your ASMs to fire in close succession.

You should only fire a few volleys yourself and move back once all of your anti-ship missiles have been used up. Rinse and repeat this same tactic ad infinitum. As you remove more and more of the enemy's ships they will slowly retreat back to safer flanking areas.

Aiming down supply ships should be your key priority. They are expensive and they are necessary for surviving these sorts of pressure tactics.

[Rum]

How naval combat works: it doesn't.

I just wrote the guide for it.

[Lonesome 77]

Just got the game and first skirmish tried out naval--been awhile since I've played a Wargame game for awhile anyways so I wasn't used to it lol, and the naval stuff is very different. I pretty much got slaughtered because I kept forgetting about logistics! I think the last wargame style game I really played was R.U.S.E. where logistics for each and every unit is not included. Anyways, hopefully I can do better having seen this tutorial!

[bishop]

Ships in Wargame don't run on fuel and you should turn spare parts off because it costs about 3000 supplies for one hit point.

[desertfox151]

other important factors:
Ships cause damage to each other if packed too closely together at the time of destruction (this includes any nearby helos)
CIWS for alot of ships is directional. Find out where each ships CIWS is located and position accordingly
ASMs can pack a punch, and when a target is destroyed they will go wild. So also try to keep your ships firing lane clear (hoping someone at Eugen will notice this and patch a self destruct, such as the Harpoons case, or at the least some kind of AI guidance to make the ASM crash at the last known position.)