The only bad sea-unit is … the cruiser! The rest is fairly balanced, let’s take the DD as the standard sea unit:
sub = cheap naval hit, worthless if no enemy ships are around, bad defense, superb at keeping the opponent’s navy from spreading out, immune to air fleets => totally worth the cost if enemy ships are a problem. I would advise them to any nation except USSR.
DD = cheap naval hit, neutralises enemy subs, can hit air, 2/2 is decent => The bulk of an all-round fleet should be this guy combined with subs
AC = expensive naval hit, 1/2 is very low, but allows ftrs to engage in sea combat, is multifunctional: even after the enemy ships are gone, it still has the bonus of extra mobility for you’re fighters. => If you need to get fighters across a big distance (pacific!), or fast defense (with help of ftrs)
BB = moderate naval hit: after 1 battle, the BB has repayed itself in terms of cost/hit (it still has 2 hits, even after taking 1), and you get an extra shore bombardment on top => 1 BB is always handy when waging a sea war, because of the free hit…
Cru = expensive naval hit, can shore bombard, 3/3 is good, but 3 DD’s are better than 2 Cru’s because of the extra hit. => only good if a lot of shore bombardments are needed, otherwise, buy a battleship or DD’s. Note that for each shore bombard, 1 land unit is required, so shore bombardment doesn’t repay itself the way it did in revised… So how many times will one actually use the shore bombardment? => I don’t like the Cru… make it cost 10 :)
:oops: Just saw Romulus posted the same arguments in essay-form… Aw well, this is a summary then :|