Aggressive strategy

An aggressive strategy will favour a plan for a medium term win:

• Investing 20% of available resources in infrastructure, with priority on things that maximise offensive capability: fleet training, ship building and repair facilities and also defence of the advanced port as the front line of battle.
• Using the remainder to build a moderate-sized merchant fleet (about 20% of total ship tonnage), plus a big navy with ships designed for offensive operations in enemy territory, including occasional port bombardments. A good proportion of tonnage will go to Battleships and carriers, and this plus the need for all types to have good speed and range -and therefore be of large size for their type -will mean that there will be a relatively low ratio of escorts to cruisers/escort carriers to battleships/fleet carriers (9: 2.5 : 1).
• Deploying naval forces in fairly forward positions -as advanced cover for friendly convoys but also well located to intercept and attack enemy convoys and naval forces and sometimes bombard his ports.
• If land-based air or carriers are enabled, building aircraft suited to defence as well as attack: 30% escort fighters, 20% interceptors, 40% bombers, and the remainder (10%) for reconnaissance.
• If troops are enabled, planning on maintaining a ratio of 40% garrison troops to 60% amphibious troops. Also, in army assaults, the minimum acceptable odds are 3:1, and the optimum odds are 5:1.

An aggressive strategy also affects the proportion of fighters that are automatically held back for combat air patrol over your carriers and airfields. These aircraft are not available for offensive strikes. Under an aggressive strategy, 30% of the full establishment of fighters for each fleet carrier will be on CAP. On escort carriers, this proportion is increased by 50% (to 45%) because of their primary defensive role.

In addition, an aggressive strategy has a default set of approved missions that your 2-I-C uses when building your fleets.

The following missions come by default with the strategy. They are listed in priority order, from top to bottom:

• Combined Ops
• Troop Transport
• Convoy
• Sub Offensive Patrol
• Offensive Patrol
• Offensive Minelaying
• Aerial Bombardment
• Bombardment
• Defensive Minelaying
• Sub Defensive Patrol

Note that you can manually change the approved missions or change their priority, without changing your overall strategy. The strategy also has default values for certain other mission parameters, such as the minimum and optimum number of escorts for dfferent kinds of mission. See how to edit the strategy for missions for more information.