Fleet action / organization

[Hollywood7]

Bumbling through my first set of sea actions in a random PBEM and am having some issues getting my sea forces in the right place and supplied appropriately.

Supply is obviously a key factor in every phase of this game, and I'm learning the hard way as to how to manage supply with oceangoing units.

Have some questions:

1) Is there a way to supply ships at sea?
2) How important is an HQ at sea to combat capability of ships? Do you need a "flagship" HQ at sea in close proximity to action?
3) How important is an HQ for re-supplying ships in port?

Carriers:
Any tips on their usage?

Units: Better to have a destroyer and cruiser in same unit as a carrier or just stack separate units?

I will think up some more but any input would be helpful on these.

Thanks.

[Jeffrey H.]

1. If the HQ your ships are assigned to has cargo ships intrinsic to it, you can transfer supply just like an SFT transfer, to the limit of your Seacap.
2. Dunno. Never bothered with it.
3. Dunno, I think when a ship gets to port it tries to draw supplies from it's parent HQ, wherever that is. Obviously it's best to take a ship back to it's parent HQ, which should be in a port city.

Carriers, I hate them. The plane holding capacity just isn't enough to make a big diffrence. With the addition of torpedo bombers against the AI they are kind of fun on the open waters. But they are still not very useful.

I always make separate units, but mainly becuause I use them for different tasks and in most cases the tasks don't crossover.

[Hollywood7]

Thanks for response. I've yet to get the Seacap to work for ships at sea, but will give it another shot tonight. Thanks for tips.

[LazyBoy]

With organisation don't be afraid of combining and splitting units as needed.
It cost 1 PP to create a unit but you get that back disband one.

[british exil]

I create a small HQ just for sea duties.

As soon as a ship or fleet enters port they get their aupplies automatically.
I think but am not sure, that a fleet if near to HQ will receive their supplies whilst at sea, unless they are in the middle of an ocean or no direct link is found to a HQ.
I base my HQ in a port HQ.

And no, you do not need a HQ ship. Any HQ that is sat in a ship gets no supplies delivered to them.

But best is just to save a game and try things out, if it goes wrong you can always reload and do not need to start from scratch.

Mat

[Josh]

I think you got your most questions covered now, but here's my 2 cts;
 
1) yes you can *if* your HQ is placed in an coastal city and, like Jeffrey says, has cargoships in it. Supply transfer needs some cargoship capacity in the HQ, but when you try to strategically move heavy units like heavy armour *then* you really need lots of cargoships.
 
2) not important, just like with you airfleet.
 
3) Also not important, unless the distance gets too great (on very very large maps) then sometimes weird things can happen.
 
Carriers, I love carriers if for game flavour only, especially the lvl 3-4 can hold a large number of planes. But the hardest hitting part of my fleets are still Cruisers (high AA capacity) and BB's, especially BB's are deadly against enemy ships *and* coastal bombardment.
 
Me I create different stacks but that's because of they way I produce them. I set a coastal town, or coastal factory, to producing say U-boats and let them do that for a few turns. This way I get U-boat units of say 4-5 subs. Same with Destroyers and Cruisers. BB's and CV's are big and expensive so they get produced one or less at a time, so they get their own unit. Note you can rename *one* unit/counter, to say Bismarck, but you can't rename every unit in a 10 Destroyer unit... well you can always rename it TF 10 or something.

[Krafty]

I actually find carriers to be very useful. A level 3 carrier can hold quite a number of carrier fighters. Enough that they can provide air cover for landings or far off places that arent near an airbase or town (and its a waste to make airbases I feel, in raw, pp, and eps)

A number of dive bombers on a carrier or two in a large stack of ships can annihilate enemy artillery, and light tanks, which are the biggest threats to any landing. The only way you can take a city on the coast, from the interior, is with a healthy portion of artillery to lower their entrenchment and readiness. Other wise not being able to surround a city on more than 3 sides, thats held by a perfectly built unit of smgs and mgs, makes them nigh invincible. If you want a landing to succeed, your going to have to find a way to deal with the mobile response force thats going to be waiting for you.

If you cant reach their island or nation from your own lands by air...you absolutely need carriers.

Carriers are certainly less useful on smaller maps with less water.

[Hollywood7]

Thanks all for the input. Having some more variable success with these items so much appreciated.

With Carriers - how do you load up aircraft:
a) Can you fly a formation of fighters to the Carrier and a separate formation of dive bombers or
b) Do they all need to fit as one SF with the Carrier itself so all air attacks at the same time?

[Jenska]

Almost everything here has been answered to some extent, but some are not clear, and for new readers, I'll put them all in one post.
1. Ships can be re-supplied at sea from ANY HQ with cargo capacity. Just like strategic HQ-HQ supply transfers on land. NOTE, the cargoships MUST be part of the HQ SF, not just present in the port.
2. HQ's being transported are inactive units, just like any other. No Supplies recieved, none delivered, no production received, no combat bonus. Sometimes this can be convenient, as you can transport a tiny HQ, and have it collect all the stored prodcution as soon as it disembarks (providing it survives that first turn).
3. SEA and AIR units do not get combat bonuses from HQ's
4. When SEA units dock at ANY port (HQ or not), they attempt to draw supply from their parent HQ, wherever it is. This can be a HUGE drawdown, so beware of the size of your sea formations if you end the turn in port. Change their HQ if necessary to get the best supply distribution if you can.
5. Carrier SF's are a single unit, unlike cargo ships with loaded units. Any air action includes ALL the aircraft. Note to #4, Carriers can suck up vast quantities of supply.
6. ON larger maps, carriers make great island airbases. Fly (transfer) your 5-n planes from carrier to destination land base, fly (transfer)new planes from source base to carrier. Repeat. (note to self, DON'T get it sunk). This may not be such a great idea with the new naval AI in v2.14
7. Production can go from a port (connected) city to an HQ connected via a port, subject to distance rules, similar to the land supply line rules. If I remember right, there do not have to be cargoships in the ports, but it helps if you need to move more stuff as well. BIG BUT though, any transfer of this sort is subject to interdiction by both air and naval units along the supply line.
8. Note to #7, this happens automatically, and at a huge disadvantage if you have no convenient ports, to any unit being supplied from an HQ on a different land mass.
9. Produced sea units arrive in the port creating them, but they belong to the HQ to which the production was directed. If that HQ has no supply (to the port), the ships will have NO AP when they arrive.
10. Off topic to #7. This is true of aircraft as well. They will be delivered anywhere they can reach and will NOT be interdicted by naval forces; I'm not so sure about air interception.
11. SeaCap works just like land Cap (rail/truck). Its simply a strategic transfer of a unit or SF from one SF to another. Like #1, cargoships must be part of the HQ SF.