Naval composition

Depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with the navy and what it will be up against.  For example, Germany’s navy builds will usually be different then US or UK because of it’s mission.

Subs are great for offense, especially against fleets w/o a destroyer, they can be devastating.  Carriers are great for defense and for amphibious assaults.  While it’s nice to have a big gun in the fleet like a battleship, you also want to have fodder that can take hits for you (subs or destroyers).

I tend to buy more carrier in 42 2E because it shortens my fighter’s movement from one place to other.  I find it very useful due to the larger map compared with previous version.

Other than that I tend to get more destroyers used for sea zone blocking and trading.

I think the general principles apply:
more smaller units to protect the bigger ones, always.

If someone is going Aircrafts and carriers (CVs for Carrier Vessel) the other side should buy more submarines.
If one side is going submarines then the other side should buy Destroyers.

If you manage to have a lot of islands invasion, or a lot of debarkments in Europe less defended territories, then having 2 cruisers or 1 Battleship could help on the long run to removed enemy’s Inf faster by using Shore bombardment, on every occasion you get. But planes and CV are a better investment for Amphibious Assault and protecting transports. But not against subs…

(You see where the circle is going… :wink:)

In most games Sea Zones don’t have any economic value by themselves, so what this means is that all combat ships on the board are really there to protect the transports. If you build a navy without transports, then usually the reason you are doing this is just to destroy an enemy navy that does have transports and prevent it from invading your land territories. Most experienced players with that latter gameplan in mind (for Germany say) will generally focus on air purchases rather than naval ones to attack an opponents fleet. It’s been this way since Classic, and still true in 1942.2, but the major difference in the basic rule of thumb is that now transports do not participate in combat! They have an attack/defense value of 0 and can’t be taken as fodder, so for each transport you buy you’re going to need surface ships to protect it.

The way to think about it is this, how much defense do you need to deter an opponent from hitting your fleet with everything in range? Or put another way, how much defensive power do you need to keep enemy aircraft/ships from sinking your transports?

This will change depending on what units survive the first round, and what units your opponent is buying, but I would suggest that the core of any defensive fleet in 1942.2 is the fully stacked carrier deck/destroyer combo. This gives you the carrier defending at 2, and two fighters defending at a 4, and a destroyer for fodder/sub deterrent at a 2. To get through this and make a decent trade in total unit value, the attacker has to bring almost twice as many units into the fight to kill the defending fleet and still come out clean.

I’d say that is pretty much the minimum you need to move a transport, and be reasonably confident it’s not going to get immediately blown out of the water, just by land based enemy aircraft alone.

Battleships are awesome, of course! They can bombard, and absorb a hit for free, and if you are willing to purchase new battleships they can provide an overwhelming naval advantage in the long run, but they are also expensive. So expensive that most nations can’t afford them. And when you can buy 2 destroyers for 16 ipcs, which gives you a statistically better defense in most situations, can deter subs, and can split in two directions to block if they have to, it becomes harder to justify the battleship purchase.

I would think about it like this, if, every round you buy a battleship for 20 ipcs, your opponent also buys 2 fighters for the same amount to counter, they will eventually outclass you in the first round of combat. Just as an example, 4 attacking fighters vs 2 defending battleships, the attacker has a slightly better than 50% chance to win, and this number goes up the further you take it. 6 fighters vs 3 battleships is better than 60% and so on. Now of course, no one in their right mind is going to send naked battleships out without cover from smaller ships, but it demonstrates the vulnerability of the big ticket buy.
Now 2 battleships cost 40 ipcs, for that same price you could have 2 destroyers, 1 carrier deck, and 1 fighter, which gives you greater defensive power (even taking into account the battleships taking free hits.) With the first build (battleships) you only have two shots in the first round of combat, whereas if you go with the second build (carrier/destroyers/fighter), you have 4 units returning fire in the first round of combat.

The defensive advantage gets magnified the more ships you buy, because the opening round of combat is so important in determining the outcome. That’s why I think you start with carriers and destroyers, and then build out the rest of the fleet around those. Once you have enough carrier decks, fighters and destroyers in your core fleet, then you can start to flesh it out. With subs for an attack advantage, or cruisers to bombard, or battleships to absorb hits in the first round and bring down the fodder cost of an all out attack by the enemy.

The key advantage of carrier decks, is that the fighters can be moved around. They aren’t locked onto the deck, and there may come a time when you don’t need them anymore to defend the navy, at which point they can do other things. In the meantime the deck gives you the option to increase the effective range of your existing fighters, or to drop new ones in a sea zone directly, onto a previously purchased carrier.

The key advantage of destroyers is that they are the cheapest naval unit which can block naval movement. They can stop a sub, they can stop a transport, they can stop an entire enemy armada, and they only cost 8 ipcs. A well placed destroyer can prevent the enemy fleet from hitting your own with anything but air. As long as you have enough defense to deter the all air attack, the destroyer can allow the rest of your fleet to move out with greater flexibility.

Subs are interesting in 1942.2 mainly because they are so cheap, but a single destroyer can make them vulnerable especially to fighters and bombers. So I would say, as a general rule, destroyers and carriers are your best buy on this board.

@Black_Elk:

In most games Sea Zones don’t have any economic value by themselves, so what this means is that all combat ships on the board are really there to protect the transports. If you build a navy without transports, then usually the reason you are doing this is just to destroy an enemy navy that does have transports and prevent it from invading your land territories. Most experienced players with that latter gameplan in mind (for Germany say) will generally focus on air purchases rather than naval ones to attack an opponents fleet. It’s been this way since Classic, and still true in 1942.2, but the major difference in the basic rule of thumb is that now transports do not participate in combat! They have an attack/defense value of 0 and can’t be taken as fodder, so for each transport you buy you’re going to need surface ships to protect it.

The way to think about it is this, how much defense do you need to deter an opponent from hitting your fleet with everything in range? Or put another way, how much defensive power do you need to keep enemy aircraft/ships from sinking your transports?

Subs are interesting in 1942.2 mainly because they are so cheap, but a single destroyer can make them vulnerable especially to fighters and bombers. So I would say, as a general rule, destroyers and carriers are your best buy on this board.

Your post is very interesting.

I would just add this point about Germany.
You can combine aircrafts and submarines to destroy Allies transports and escorts warships.
Germany can more easily afford to loose a 6 IPCs (Subs) unit before loosing a 10 IPCs unit (Fg) or a 12 IPCs (StB). So it is possible to use Subs as cheap fodders.
It can be an interesting tactics to throw in the Baltic Sea or Med Sea a continuous flow of Subs to limits the number of casualty amongst more expensive planes while attacking Allies navies.

Yeah I tend to use subs this way as well in 42.2, with a creep or flow, where they are separated off from the main fleets and used in combination with aircraft to cover the zones between an enemy surface fleet and my own, or else cover the zones where an enemy may want to park their surface fleet for amphibious assaults. I think this is a definite change from classic or revised, where there was a stronger incentive to keep subs with the surface fleet as defensive fodder. In 1942.2 they are not particularly great in this role, since they only defend at a 1, and cannot return fire against attacking aircraft. I find this has a kind of curious effect, where I use the subs to “guide” my aircraft onto enemy surface fleets (which seems kind of bizarre, since that is the behavior you’d expect more from a destroyer working in coordination with air) but subs seem highly effective when used like this. They can dive immediately and position themselves in places where other ships can’t. An interesting example of this is the British sub which starts in sz 39. If the British forego an all out attack on 37, and instead wipe the Japanese destroyer in sz 61, this sub can move into sz37 without having to engage the Japanese, and not being at risk from the Japanese counter (since the destroyer in sz 60 is not it range). This British sub can then cover the coastline of 61 and 36 in combination with the Royal Airforce during the second round.

Basically subs give you the flexibility to set up counter attacks, and to deadzone certain areas of the sea, preventing the enemy from moving into them without risk. My approach for that is usually to position the subs at least 2 spaces away from any enemy destroyer, but at the same time leading in front of your main surface fleet, That way the enemy surface fleet can’t strike your own, without first coming under attack by subs and air. Depending on who buys the first ships, most nations can play cat and mouse this way for a while. With Germany the real challenge is to keep the following sea zones free of enemy ships (in descending order of importance): sz 5, 6, 8, 3, 7, 13, 10, 23, 1 and of course 17 and 34 around the Suez canal, though ideally that should be more likely Japan’s responsibility.

sz 5 is the most critical since it borders Germany directly, and covers 5 other key territories at the same time. If the allies get here with transports, and G has no chance of you destroying their fleet with land based air, Fortress Europe will start to collapse in short order. It is one of the few “shuck” spots that remains in 42.2. just one move to England and back, unloading into these key territories. So as Germany, you have to either control it or at least prevent the Allies from stacking it with ships for as long as possible.

The next layer of defense is sz 6, 7, 8 and 3, since these are all one move with Allied transports from sz 5. These can all be covered by German fighters based in NW. Europe, or France as well as by German uboats off the coast of England. So as long as you can prevent the Allies from moving a major surface fleet into one of those sea zones, you can prevent the direct invasion of the capital.

After that are the major transits across the Atlantic, sz 10, 1, 13 and 23. These are harder to cover without subs, since they can usually only be reached by bombers, (unless you put your German fighters out of position), but if you can cover them early on, while keeping the British locked off UK, its securing the Med and winning the battle of the Atlantic. Stalls the allies from a fast move out, and forces them to buy yet more defensive fodder before throwing their transports forward.

As Allies, moving across the Atlantic, the situation is basically inverted, so you want to keep this stuff in mind, and try to set up your transports with enough coverage to counter whatever Germany is bringing against you. The ultimate goal being sz 5, and a direct threat on Berlin.

That’s just an example using Germany as the focus. But the US can also use subs pretty effectively in the Pacific, or Japan, or occasionally the UK (if they are trying to combat a German carrier build, or maybe put the squeeze on Japan if they make a mistake with their ship movements.) The trick in every case is to decide how much is too much, and when to stop buying unnecessary ships. This is where the Air on Naval dynamic comes into play more readily, because fighters can do double duty. They can attack on land or at sea, and they can defend the core territories when needed. That is frequently the situation which Germany finds itself in, where they just can’t afford enough ships to establish a defensive fleet of their own, so they instead set up just to have an attack option against a major Allied fleet. The same thing can happen with Japan, in a full KJF. Or possibly against UK, if Germany is going all nuts in the water. In such situations, provided you have enough fighters and bombers to back them up, even a few subs can become a much more deadly attack threat. So that’s how I see them used, that and the chance to take a hit on stacked carrier deck, if ever the opponent leaves one uncovered by destroyers (2 vs 2, since the fighters can’t shoot back!). Taking all that into consideration, I would say that for the UK, Japan, and the US (the nations usually looking to move troops in transports) the carrier/destroyer/fighter combo is the go to, whereas for Germany, unless they have serious Sea Lion or Africa ambitions, you’re better served by purchasing Air and maybe subs. But you also have to realize when to seize the initiative with those subs, if you’re going to buy them. Its better to start early, and creep, rather than waiting for a massive enemy fleet to materialize on your doorstep, by which time your subs might not make much difference anyway.

Also, one final point in favor of the carrier/destroyer combo, your allies can land fighters on your carrier deck as well! So you are not just adding flexibility for your own fighter force, but for your friends too. Experienced players will frequently exploit this and the turn order, to fly in extra defenses or provide a landing pad for friendly fighters that might need to be evacuated from other areas of the map.