My rant on naval nuking

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Nightwatch
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My rant on naval nuking

Postby Nightwatch » Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:25 am

As some of you may know, I’m not very fond of naval nuking.
I consider it ineffective if not used within reason and under very specific circumstances.
Yes, I use it myself sometimes, but I do it very carefully.

Unfortunately, its my impression that more and more players tend to seanuke excessively these days.
I had a break of several months until recently, so I think I have some perspective on it.
This thing is getting out of hand for more and more players.
Some even use this option to the point of being ridiculous and losing games because of it.
I don’t want to attack anyone, I’m talking generally here.
Also, this isn’t an in dept explanation or a strategy guide, its only my opinion about the subject.

Anyway, i would like to remind everyone, to think about the advantages and disadvantage before building your strategy on and around it.

There is no question, naval nuking is one of the most powerfull tools in your arsenal. If applied properly, you ll be able to slaughter the enemies naval forces without losing much of your own.
And it enables you to seriously disturb the enemies fleet movement, buying time and ground.
The later is more easily to achieve and also the circumstance in which to use it somewhat regularly.
Slaughtering the enemies force with an overwhelming naval nuke attack is much more difficult expect when your opponent has no room to maneuver.
I have seen players seriously trying to exterminate the fish in an entire ocean without hitting much or anything at all.
When you try something like that and id fails, your naval nuking attempt was a catastrophe equal to losing half of your subs.
If you want to use naval nuking more excessively than I do, you have to be aware of the difficulties in and disadvantages of applying it.

First, most seanuke attacks can be countered somewhat easily if you are expecting them.
That goes for both, the big strategic attack and the nuke against even single units.
In many games your opponent will try to get seanukes on top of you right at Defcon 1. If you engage in naval combat, your opponent has good intel on you and he has had time to deploy any number of bombers to do it.
Don’t let yourself get caught with your pants down. Consider breaking off the naval engagement or change course rather drastically right when Defcon 1 hits. The key to fight of a strategic seanuke attack is to get distance between you and your enemy.
If you allow him to nail your tight fleet formation in radar range of his carriers you deserve to get nuked. Spread out, deploy fighters to shot down the nuking bombers. Its essential, more on that later on.
What many proponents of naval nuking fail to realise is the fact that they can use bombers in conventional mode to do exactly the same thing.
If your in a position for the perfect strategic naval nuking attempt (nailed, tight fleet in radar range, good protection against fighters) you can deploy any numbers of bombers to waste nukes on that fleet. Or you deploy the same forces to kill them with conventional means.
Consider your firepower if you team up your carrier bombers with land based bomber assets.
Not fleet in the world can survive such an attack if you nailed them somewhere.
Keep in mind that your bombers are not firing while switching from conventional attacks to nuking mode.
And most importantly: Be aware of the fact that two or three nukes will have almost exactly the same effect on your enemies movement.
You don’t need some twenty nukes to stop an enemy from advancing. The single, timed and careful deployed nuke can be smash an coordinated attack run to pieces.
That’s because the majority of players are not willing to risk their fleet on an attack run against another navy while some seanukes are flying around.
If you have taken the initiative, instead of killing millions upon millions of innocent fish, attack with conventional forces.
There is no point in nuking an enemy that cannot defend itself against a conventional attack.
And that’s no only true for big strategic attack to end all wars but for the smaller nuking attempts as well.
Its totally beyond my understanding why players have nothing better to do then launch and endless number of seanukes on even single units. Most of the time not more than one to three nukes. Why on earth, why?
Its much more effective to attack conventional if your objective is to kill enemy ships in an open ocean. Organize a small force and attack over a long range if you have the room for it.
Don’t just launch nuke upon nuke on the enemies suspected position.
Yes you might kill the ocational battleship or carrier, but the big hits are very, very rare with that approach.
Anyway, that most important aspect of the hole nuking thing is resource management.
Consider this: If you launch a and fail with a strategic attack you have lost some twenty nukes and maybe up to almost all of your bombers. Your opponent has lost nothing or very little.
How does that look on the nuke count?
Losing twenty nukes and some fifteen bombers is bad. To make it worthwhile you need to kill at least four fully armed carriers and bombers as well.
To take the initiative, two or three nukes would have the same effect.
You are on a serious disadvantage if you mount such an attack twice and fail.
Same goes for smaller engagements later in the game. The enemies carriers will be carrying less nukes, they will be spread out to counter your single nukes.
If you fail to sink ships and continue to lose your bombers, your in trouble.
Deploying single bombers on suicide runs against the enemies is very ineffective and you’ll end up short on nukes to throw against the enemies cities.
Conserve your resources, save your bombers and use the nukes against enemies cities. This game is about attacking and killing the enemies population, not about wiping the enemies fleet of the map.
If your are in a position to deploy against cities, why wasting dozens of nukes in single strikes against the enemies fleet?
Use all your nukes as fast as possible to get points and then smash your opponent with an conventional attack later in the game.
If your seanuking doesn’t pay of on the nuke count and hits your bombers force, it is not worthwhile.
Please consider that for your own sake. Some nukes here and there are fine (especially mixed with an conventional strike), small suicide runs aren’t in most cases and if you are able to defeat the enemy by conventional means you should do that. Ff you go as far and deploy up to two dozen bombers to a nuking attack you’d better be damn sure to hit anything.
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Postby antojames » Wed Nov 24, 2010 7:02 am

The worst that could happen if you try and fail is that you get re-rated. I'm not 100% on this, but if you pass A school, you get to keep PO3 as well. I don't know if you have to stay a rated MM for that or not.

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Admiral Yoshi
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Postby Admiral Yoshi » Wed Nov 24, 2010 7:36 am

1. I've noticed that positions and the location of the bomber during its SRBM launching run can very influence the arc of the nuke.

2. Do we have a spammer!?
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Postby joe121 » Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:41 pm

antojames wrote:The worst that could happen if you try and fail is that you get re-rated. I'm not 100% on this, but if you pass A school, you get to keep PO3 as well. I don't know if you have to stay a rated MM for that or not.

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yes you are correct you have to pass A school to get re rated

thanks!!
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Postby The Mighty Santa » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:15 am

Admiral Yoshi wrote:1. I've noticed that positions and the location of the bomber during its SRBM launching run can very influence the arc of the nuke.

2. Do we have a spammer!?
\

Aha! Tell them I'm not you!!!!!:D
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Postby The Mighty Santa » Mon Jun 25, 2012 2:54 am

Oh lol I just found out this thread is a year old..... :lol:
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Postby The Mighty Santa » Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:39 pm

Oh lol I just found out this thread is a year old..... :lol:

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