Naval Task force Taiwan

[SGTscuba]

Melting point - Vanilla SR 2020 - latest update

Southern Asian Sea battles.

Does anybody bother wit this? By 'this' I mean sending out ships into the sea to try and sink as many enemy as possible?

In this case, I will be playing as Taiwan and seeking to clear my waters out nearby, in order to prepare for an eventual invasion as well as allowing my allies to move about a bit to conduct independant ops.

I am using the extended range warships as they now seem to fire at targets even when in neutral waters, unlike before.

At the moment I am using a B-52 Squadron to scout, as it has exceptional range and can spot for 132km, coupled with the Bremen class and BrandenBurg class Frigates. I only have 1 of each of these and I am using my starting ships to cover the Taiwanese Straits against Chinese infiltration and invasion attempts.

I hope at some point to have a small Carrier group centred around a Kitty Hawk class carrier for which the design I have bought, so that I can carry out recon even further, and test some new ideas, as I could probably do all the recon with land based planes, as I have allies surrounding Both China's.(pretty much the whole of Asia are my allies).

I also plan on using subs, which are currently being built, the U-13D from Germany and the Project 636 Kilo-C from Russia, which are being built and have decent attack ranges (52km and 66km respectfully), unlike the subs i started with, which I instantly scrapped because of these major deficiencies, as I did not have spare capacity to build Harpoons for both, and I wished to focus on my more numourous surface fleet, as they were guarding my nation, and not just going into the deep to hunt like the subs.

I am also hoping to deploy the Oliver H Perry and Hydra Meko frigates, which are under construction.


My thoughts for equiping the Kitty Hawk (4 plane slots) are:

-1 F14D Int, 1 F14D F/B, 1 KA-6D intruder tanker and 1 E-2D Hawkeye tracker plane

OR

-2 F14D Int, 1 KA-6D Intruder tanker and 1 E-2D Hawkeye tracker

OR

2 F14D Int, 1 F14D F/B and 1 E-2D Hawkeye Tracker

The first two have the merit of being able to extend the range of the planes, but the first one has small Air Defense, but the escorts will probably make up for this, as well as distance.

The second one lacks a F/B and could be problematic if I want to strike a ship quickly and it is too far from my other ships to get their quickly.

The third one lacks a tanker which will mean more time for the recce plane to come back and refuel and then head back out, and also limits my strike planes range.

I have placed orders for construction of enough planes to cover all these ideas, just incase I decide to change strategy later on.

I am open to all suggestions about this idea.

I have decided to not produce any more Brandenburg Frigates as they do not have a very good AA fit and this is necessary if they are going to be operating without interceptor cover in their hunts.

[tonystowe]

In my current game as Cuba, additional AAR comments to my post later, I have spent a considerable amount of time on anti-ship/anti-sub operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic, and the US Eastern coast. It has been interesting as during the amphib opns conducting by the US I am scrambling to keep up with the number of ships and subs in my AO. During the lull periods I am actively seeking out targets with aircraft, surface ships and submarines. This game has been the most challenging so far.

[GIJoe597]

Does anybody bother wit this? By 'this' I mean sending out ships into the sea to try and sink as many enemy as possible?

I do when fighting a country with a large navy, China, India, Russia for example. However, I mostly use aircraft with anti ship missiles. Mainly land based, but on initial deployment carrier based. My go-to airframe is the F-35C-CV Lightning II (JSF) until I hit the high 150's tech level and can manufacture the F204CV Coyote-B.



If you can get designs for the Zumwalt DDG-1000 it it is well worth it. It is available from the onset from the U.S.A. and has very good stats. The only knock against it is its range. I will at times, particularly early game, use the DDG-71 Arleigh Burke when attacking on the other side of a ocean. It has the highest combat time of any ship I have seen, meaning it can fire without resupply longer than any other ship. Can be useful when far from home. Of course its short fuel endurance means you must send a AOE with it.


I tend to ignore AWACS when using carriers as I prefer having combat aircraft aboard. I will position Cruisers or Destroyers around the Carrier to act as scouts. Hopefully with better luck than the Sheffield had.

[tkobo]

Kill count ! If they field it, i kill it.

As to what aircraft to put on your carriers....ones with a good missile capacity AND a good mid air attack.Fill them about 1/3 with anti-ship missiles.Forget the flying fuel stations.And once in the higher techs, the attack aircraft have a pretty good spotting,so at that point drop the awac also.

[SGTscuba]

since this is just a anti shipping task force I will probably stick with tanker and AWACs as it will give them a much larger viewing range. I lack the mass missile building so using Perry's and Bremen's with their extended range firing are a lot easier to use, and I can also keep them at sea longer without needing to return to gain extra missiles. The missile production is limited to 6, as that is all I can afford, anyone got any good tips for making mroe money, I will post my production levels later or tommorow.

for general carrier strike forces i will just load up CV's will F-35's and use them in close protection, with land based strikes in mind, in order to prepare my invasion force and give the landing force support until i can get the facilities on shore in order to bring my land based planes in, especially with some of the bombers I use such as F117 and F5 as these are the only things I have besides B52's. This means they get little time over the target as I lack the tanker support at the moment.

[SGTscuba]

quick update:

I have now bought some more tanker designs. I have also got the F35C version to put on my CV's.

I am also expanding my naval production from 7 to 9 and my air fabs from 4 to 6. This will allow me to build more carrier groups.

I have large surplus' in Military, Industrial and Consumer goods, but the market price is only 25% my production price so chance for profit are small. I have slight shortages of fuel, no production of coal or ore and a very small amount of surplus in everything else.

I am planning to expand my missile fabs from 6 to 60 at some point in time, but I realise that I need to make more money in order to be able to fund this first.

My research fabs are increasing from 9 to 13 in order to try and get more modern designs.

Buying up the French Nuclear sub designs, and their SLBM, I am planning on using some of my missile cap to build nuclear weapons, which will help me to then beat back the Chinese back by destroying critical facilities, so that I am ready to launch my invasion into southern China so that I can get more resources and reclaim the old Nationalist lands.

Will post the next major installment of this when I get time next week, as I have been leaving this to play whilst revising, and have to go and sit exams for the next few days.

[GIJoe597]

I might be missing some realism but I do not use air tankers at all. Has never slowed me down in my conquests. Is it really worth the hassle?