2 noob naval questions (Union)

[Al Swearengen]

Hello again, new friends! I've got 2 quick naval questions for you, which will pertain mainly (or only) to the North.

1) How do I figure out exactly how many transports (or riverine units, as the case may be) I need to move ground forces? Does it have to do with "weight," perhaps? I'm clueless.

2) What do players tend to do in the early game (i.e. 1861 to early 1862) with naval units that are NOT blockade squadrons. For instance, where do you position the Chesapeake Squadron (1 steam frigate, 1 brig) in the summer of 1861? Not being confident in my decision, I have been putting such units in the shipping lanes, since their blockade value is quite low.

Thanks in advance. I love this forum.

[deguerra]

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will respond to you, but in the meantime my 2 cents:

1) Exactly right. Each land unit has a weight, and each transport has a transport capacity (not sure what the exact name is). I can't say for sure with CW2, but at least in AACW brigs also had a small carry capacity.

2) Again, this is only my limited personal experience - the early bluewater naval threat from the CSA is unlikely to be high, so I either tended to keep my units near Norfolk or to outright try to get some brownwater blockades of CSA ports going.

[Gray Fox]

1. Ditto.

2. Depending on the difficulty level, you can get up to 45% blockade with your squadrons. You should of course aim for the highest level you can get, which usually takes 4 or more of the eight ship blockade squadrons in each blockade box. The CSA will eventually get a raider steam frigate or two and you should have enough escort firepower in the shipping lanes box to escort your merchant ships or the CSA will gradually pick away at them. Also, if you build all of the ocean going transports that you have and put them in the shipping lanes box, they will add to the amount of money and WS you get every turn. This also seems to work for the CSA. So I try to get all of the transports up and working by the end of 1861.

If you keep at least one transport for amphibious assault duty, then you can dedicate one Division with at least one Marine element to taking out coastal forts from the CSA. The forts by the Carolinas are the easiest to attack. One cannot be reached by land movement and so cannot be easily reinforced by the CSA. Put Grant directly in command of the Division in October 1861. He will be ready for promotion to 3-star after the first assault. I then switch in Lyons to Division command under Grant as stack leader. This gets Lyons promoted to 2-star for future Corps command after the next assault. Then Grant will have enough seniority to get that sixth Army command in 1862.

You can build 16 river/coastal transports in PA. I use these for any invasion of VA so that the ocean transports can continue to bring in cash and WS in the shipping lanes box. If you send the partial blockade squadrons (those with less than 8 ships) to a port and leave them there in P/P, then the other ships in the squadron will slowly be added as long as you have enough of the necessary replacements. A naval engineer in the port will speed this up.

[HidekiTojo]

You wanna put the Chesapeake and Potomac squadrons at Hampton Roads. This blockades Richmond and a bunch of other cities. Its a good way to crank up the pressure on CSA early in the game. Just beware of Norfolk. Eventually they'll launch the Virginia and if you don't have the Monitor tp protect the Hampton Roads blockade fleet then the Virginia will rip them to shreds no problem.

Keep in mind you can see how many naval elements are necessary to blockade a sea province by hovering over it with the mouse. You'll get a tooltip saying how much you need, and if you already have naval elements there then the tooltip will say how many more elements are necessary to fully blockade the province.