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Newly into the WWI version and naval combat is...well let's say has never been my favorite aspect of this series. It feels even more problematic in this version because the Germans actually have a semi-serious navy. I am playing the Entente in a couple of hot seat games with my son (he's running different CP strategies on land).

When his High Seas Fleet sorties (late 1914 has happened in all my games thus far so no tek levels differences involved), they hammer away with the subs doing their initial damage and then they get their capital ships out and run that carousel attack sinking just a ridiculous amount of my ships because of the attacker advantage that provides.

My initial effort was to have my subs in a scouting line ahead of the main fleet which was deployed just ahead of the blockade line which was held by the CA/CL and the DD's running about to deal with the $%^# stupidly effective subs. That got wrecked badly so I moved my DN/BB's behind the blockade line and let the CA/CL eat some of the damage of the GHSF and try and counter-attack the stalled units. He more or less ran an American football play and used his lighter forces to crack open the blockade line and then plunged into my fleet through that gap with his capital ships and, again, carosouled me to death.

How does one use the vastly superior British fleet to actually be vastly superior?

You can use mines and subs on the close blockade and your ships on the far away blockade. If he's trying to get to your ships on the far-away blockade with his capital ships, he's going to have a bad time.

Imho it's all about scouting, seeing the enemy first is a HUGE advantage in naval warfare here. Some of the mechanics (and other stuff) is explained in my old thread here https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5000634
The important thing is that you have to actively patrol and scout with your subs/planes/airships. Any static fleet formation is just doomed, no matter its structure, if the opponent knows how to use silent subs effectively. Once he sees your disposition, he'll just adapt his attack pattern.

Talking Naval actions, how do you reload mines on destroyers?

ORIGINAL: WayneBGood

Talking Naval actions, how do you reload mines on destroyers?

Not at all. Each country has "mine slots", usually 1+2*naval tech. So for example Germany starts with 3 slots, which means they can have 3 mines deployed simultaniously at any given time. As a consequence discovering but not triggering an enemy mine (eg with a silent sub or air recon) effectively negates one of their slots.