Need some help with the naval side of things

[Doctoxic]

Hi all

Just loaded up a game and am looking at the UK's Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow - am at a loss as to what to do so apologies for even more questions.
(i'm playing with the option where you have to manage all the fleet stuff yourself)

1) Why is the grand fleet tab flashing? I seem to recall something in the manual about leader promotion but none of them seems to be promotable.

2) Jellicoe has a LOT of leaders should i give them all a Dreadnaught or something? Realy not sure hpw best to organise the naval units.

3) I want to get the blockade up early but not sure how many ships i should allocate there - i'm assuming not all as they'll lose cohesion and i'll need to cycle units in/out? Hence maybe i do need to allocate ships to the lower ranked units.

4) Whats the best "posture" for ships in the blockade box?

5) Whats the best posture for ships left at Scapa - i'm assuming they have a chance to join any battle in the blockade box if the Germans Grand Fleet tries to break the blockade?

Thanks

[HerrDan]

Hi all

Just loaded up a game and am looking at the UK's Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow - am at a loss as to what to do so apologies for even more questions.
(i'm playing with the option where you have to manage all the fleet stuff yourself)

1) Why is the grand fleet tab flashing? I seem to recall something in the manual about leader promotion but none of them seems to be promotable.

2) Jellicoe has a LOT of leaders should i give them all a Dreadnaught or something? Realy not sure hpw best to organise the naval units.

3) I want to get the blockade up early but not sure how many ships i should allocate there - i'm assuming not all as they'll lose cohesion and i'll need to cycle units in/out? Hence maybe i do need to allocate ships to the lower ranked units.

4) Whats the best "posture" for ships in the blockade box?

5) Whats the best posture for ships left at Scapa - i'm assuming they have a chance to join any battle in the blockade box if the Germans Grand Fleet tries to break the blockade?

Thanks

The more ships you put in the attlantic blockade box the better for the purpose of blockading, it's good to keep a main fleet powerful enough to avoid being crushed and the others you do as you please, put your ships to interpect ships in the blockade box and you'll start the blockading process and then row back some of the ships to resuply from time to time, the german Hochseeflotte might try to break the blockade and that's why you need to keep a powerful main fleet, also try to blockade the mediterranean as well with another fleet.

[James D Burns]

I’m still learning the game so don’t take anything I say as gospel here. From what I can see there are two main naval threats in game the entente player needs to worry about. CP tries to break the blockade or CP sorties his main fleet and catches a small fleet mid ocean and destroys it in detail.

I doubt that the CP can pull off a landing that he can keep ashore due to the fact the entente can respond with its huge fleet and cut off and isolate the landing force, so guarding vs. a landing isn’t something I’d list as a main threat you need to worry about. In fact I’d see a landing as an opportunity to destroy a large chunk of CP power in the long run no matter how much damage it can do in the short term.

So my advice is create two large fleets with Britain’s heavy ships, one for blockade duties and one for convoy escort in and around the home islands. Until you fight a major fleet battle that sinks a large part of the German navy I’d say risking your big ships in lots of small fleets is a mistake.

The French should probably concentrate their power in the Mediterranean to dominate there and expect little help if any from Britain unless a huge Jutland sized battle sinks lots of German battlewagons first. Again one big ship fleet for blockade and the rest as escort to protect your transports and engage any Austrian Fleets you see.

I would use smaller fast ships in the rest of the world with evasion orders unless you are absolutely sure the main battle fleet of the CP isn’t lurking about.

Try to put 5-6 DD or TB (not 100% sure TB’s work as ASW ships) escorts in each of the shipping boxes (more later as the sub threat grows). Eventually these will want some CLs and probably some CA’s too to help defend if raiding fleets come looking to cause trouble.

Leaders are not treated the same as land unit leaders in the sense there are no containers like armies or corps that leaders can create for ships. Just put them with the ship stack and they will have an effect. If you have a bad high level leader, take him out of the stack and send him inland so he doesn’t gain experience from battles, or send him to some far off backwater to lead a costal fleet or something.

Jim

[Doctoxic]

thanks Jim - some much needed advice

[also just realised i am confusing flashing tabs (which is just the selected tab - doh!) with flashing leaders which are due promotion]

[Doctoxic]

I’m still learning the game so don’t take anything I say as gospel here. From what I can see there are two main naval threats in game the entente player needs to worry about. CP tries to break the blockade or CP sorties his main fleet and catches a small fleet mid ocean and destroys it in detail.

Jim

Thinking some more about this - is there any milage in the Germans doing a big sortie into the channel occasionally to try and sink any ships transporting UK units across to France? (The Channel Fleet doesn't seem that big)

[James D Burns]

Thinking some more about this - is there any milage in the Germans doing a big sortie into the channel occasionally to try and sink any ships transporting UK units across to France? (The Channel Fleet doesn't seem that big)

Yeah it's a real danger that's why I think you should only have two big fleets until you can cause Germany some real pain. I've had ships in the South Atlantic sunk by the CP battle fleet, so nothing is safe until you damage him severely.

Jim

[Swotoro]

Thinking some more about this - is there any milage in the Germans doing a big sortie into the channel occasionally to try and sink any ships transporting UK units across to France? (The Channel Fleet doesn't seem that big)

You can try this, but beware! If you get caught by a major British fleet and severely damaged, you'll take a major morale hit. (There was a reason the Germans left their fleet in port most of the war.) The only real excursions I ever made with my CP fleet was Austria-Hungary to the Med box, and then Germany into the Baltic to try to catch the Russian fleet out and about. Every once in a while I'd send a few ships to the blockade box or the shipping box, too.

[H Gilmer3]

Thinking some more about this - is there any milage in the Germans doing a big sortie into the channel occasionally to try and sink any ships transporting UK units across to France? (The Channel Fleet doesn't seem that big)

I would think this is very dangerous. I have a 9000 power fleet that just beat the almighty crap out of a German fleet that had split up. I got 4 morale out of that.

[fred zeppelin]

I would think this is very dangerous. I have a 9000 power fleet that just beat the almighty crap out of a German fleet that had split up. I got 4 morale out of that.

Naval combat rightly will almost always favor the biggest stack. Which is the precise dilemma both Germany and GB faced during the war. Trying to be everywhere, or even almost everywhere, results in being nowhere.

As Churchill said of Jellicoe, "He's the only man on either side who could lose the war in a single afternoon."