Fleet Sizes

Who attacks with a balanced fleet?  If you want to see the values of subs (and they’re AWESOME, don’t get me wrong), you have to assume that it’s an overwhelming advantage for the attacker.  Otherwise the fleets just stare at each other.

when i said “balanced” I didn’t mean balanced in power. I meant “a fleet that is well balanced in its capablities”. A fleet with alot of subs is really bad if your opponents fleetpower is made from 60 planes and 30 Carriers and a few DDs. (that is an unbalanced fleet).

A well-balanced fleet would be something like 2ac 2ftr 2tac 1bb 1cruiser 3DDs 3 subs 4 trans and 8 land units.

Extra DDs and subs are for playing the area denial/movement blocking game. By the time the fleet gets reinforced, it can be down to one DD and no subs and still be in good shape.

Units and bb/cruiser plus the 2ftr/2tac are your land invasion support. Amphib shots give continuous benefit as long as you continue to make raids.

BB second hit allows you to walk over your first enemy picket ship for free even if he hits.

If there are no large enemy threats nearby you can split the fleet to protect transports in multiple zones at the end of a strike round. One half gets the bb, the other the cruiser, each gets an ac/ftr/tac 2 trns and 4 land units, leaving each reasonably capable to small attacks independently.

While this fleet is together it will take a large enemy force to kill it. It is more likely to have to return home to get more land units than retreat for damage done to it, unless you walk into a trap.

This composition gives you the ability to do anything you could possibly want to do from sea (including tactical bombing!). Both Japan and the US can put together this force easily from starting units (US will have 3ftr/1tac on the ACs instead).

You could of course add more to this but at that point it would be a strike fleet or a defensive fleet. With fewer units you start sacrificing capabilities.

Easy answer:

Carriers,

Fighters,

destroyers,

Subs,

…. That’s it.

In the PAC, you need more dds and subs to act as fodder.  In the Atl, mostly loaded carriers w/a dd or 2, or some subs are all you need to protect the transports.  Airbse in Gib is key for the allies.

Maybe this puts me with Kreuzfeld?

Subs ROCK!!!

Buy just enough DD’s to ensure you can block and attack enemy subs where you want, especially enemy subs convoy damaging you.

I like to trade subs for destroyers, though.

Not a fan of destroyers.  They are expensive - nearly as expensive as a fighter, and cannot attack land in any way (like carriers, cruisers, battleships, fighters, tacs, bombers).  Also, if you have few destroyers, then you have more chances to (as people have pointed out) trick your opponent who is just putting everything in a battle calc by attacking his fleet WITHOUT any destroyers so the subs are not eligible casualties.

I could say a lot of things from all my experience, but I’ll just give you this rule of thumb.  I like to have about 4 Allied destroyers in the Pacific for blocking.

Oh, and it’s worth saying again.  Bombers and subs.  Tremendous bang for the buck and not expensive to add them.  Carrier and 2 fighters is 36 bucks by comparison.

One more comment, as far as the whole purpose of fleets being to facilitate transport of ground units.  WRONG!  Carriers greatly extend options for your fighters/tacs, and make all kinds of attacks possible that otherwise would not be.  You could even airstrike ground units or tactical bomb facilities from carrier based aircraft - NO TRANSPORTS REQUIRED!!
ALSO - almost forgot - oh my goodness, CONVOY DAMAGE.  Again, subs are vastly superior to destroyers, obviously, for this purpose.

Good afternoon Gamerman01.  Do you use the US airbases on Wake, Midway, and Guam for the bombers?  I played a game once before as the US doing this but I think I focused too much on this tactic and did not invest in the destroyers or subs as you have suggested.

Hi Dafyd!

I don’t usually have many bombers in the Pacific, but yes those airbases can all be key!  I’ve been finding that putting about 5 fighters on a combination of Midway and Wake on US1 seems to cause the Axis player to delay an attack until J3.  And then there’s always the nasty naval base to Midway (or possibly Wake) when the Japanese player thinks he’s going to block you off with 1 or 2 destroyers!  I think I pay more attention to these seemingly minor islands with airbases than my opponents often do, even as Japan……  Indeed, I have found myself collecting the weird Japanese perimeter island NO in more games than not, lately  :-o  It starts innocently enough… just snagging Guam, Midway, and Wake…  Then all you need is Solomons (very key landing place for attacking bases on Queensland or fleet in 62/63) and Gilbert and you’re there  :wink:

I can stop grabbing islands whenever I want. Just one more objective…

@WILD:

When you said that subs are the best all around attack/defense unit you lost me for a minute. We know that when subs are attacked they aren’t too good defensively (def @1), but if you are buying enough to make them 40% of your fleet to soak hits, then yea they are cheap and will keep your high end units firing longer (still not too sure though)

Ok. One way to think about this is. Imagine that art is 2 attack and 2 defence, they cost 4 and do not give a bonus to inf. How many inf would you have in your main force then?

THe price dfference between art and inf is the same as dd vs sub. The number of dice you get is very similar .

I would even in such a scenario have about 70-80% inf and the rest art. (+ whatever i buy in tanks and planes).

Subs is the infantery of the sea.

The ability to INF to picket vs. the inability of subs to do so should not be overlooked.

Good point - in that way, destroyers are the infantry of the sea

But Kreuz was absolutely right, that subs are the infantry of the sea when it comes to cheapest fodder, and it often makes sense to spread them out, 1 per zone, for example

Long time lurker….

For this reason, I always buy both subs and destroyers in equal parts.  You have  the flexibility of a destroyer picket when you need it, or to provide some fodder from an air only attack, and you have the cheap subs to provide fodder for the massive fleet attack/engagement.

Sometimes, balance is the min/max…

Welcome from out of the shadows!  You should post more!  :-)

The more I play the more I see DDs as “sea infantry” and subs as specialty units primarily good for killing DDs economically, sticking in blockade zones, and forcing opponents to buy more DDs than they’d otherwise like to spend on.

One little trick I’ve learned recently is that buying single subs and putting them in zones where your opponent doesn’t want to leave his whole fleet is a good way of bleeding off his DDs so that when he runs out you can place subs as a way to build a navy in a zone that would otherwise be vulnerable to a strike.

The sub/DD game is like a little minigame within the game. Whichever one your opponent has, you want the other one as a counter. Opponent has subs, you need DDs you have no choice. Opponent has DDs you have more choices but subs are the cheapest way to get the job done.

This is one of the rare topics that everyone seems to agree upon, because its pretty theoretical rather than applied.

Cruisers and Battleships are too expensive, use the ones you already have but build more sparingly if at all.  The bombardment shots are too easy to block and are not first-strike.

Carriers are awesome, the only drawback is that they can take hits (esp from kamikazes and subs) which would render them unable to support planes.  Carriers cannot attack but they can permit you to shuttle-stage your fliers (so as many as 4 planes can actually use the carriers on a single turn).  The fact that US, UK, Japan and Germany start with copious numbers of planes contributes to this belief.  It is actually a good idea to build even more carriers than you can fill with planes, because they can soak hits and provide free landing spaces for non coms and allied fighters.

Destroyers are too pricey, but they are the only cheap ship that blocks movement and sub ambushes.  This means you can’t live without them, but that you cannot build your stack out of them either

Subs are tempting, they are the best unit for the price until you consider that their special rules require that you must also have a traditional fleet to support your sub strikeforce, they can never really operate on their own unless your opponent is already suppressed.

Transports full of attack teams cost 14 IPCs, so they are almost as expensive as any two small units or a carrier, highlighting the challenge of playing the US.