Very aggressive strategy

A very aggressive strategy will favour a plan to go for the “knock-out-blow”:

• Investing only 10% of available resources in infrastructure, with priority on things that maximise immediate offensive capability: fleet training, ship building and repair facilities and naval intelligence.
• Using the remainder to build a small merchant fleet (about 16% of total ship tonnage), and a very big navy with ships designed for offensive operations deep into enemy territory, including port bombardments. As much tonnage as possible will go to Battleships and carriers, and this plus the need for all types to have very good speed and range -and therefore be of very large size for their type -will mean that there will be a low ratio of escorts to cruisers/escort carriers to battleships/fleet carriers (7.5: 2 : 1).
• Deploying naval forces deep into enemy controlled sealanes -to attack his convoys and naval forces and ports.
• If land-based air or carriers are enabled, building aircraft suited to attack as well as defence: 15% interceptors, 30% escort fighters, 45% bombers and the remainder (10%) for reconnaissance.
• If troops are enabled, planning on maintaining a ratio of 20% garrison troops to 80% amphibious troops. Also, in army assaults, the minimum acceptable odds are 2:1 and the optimum odds are 3:1

A very 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 a very aggressive strategy, 20% of the full establishment of fighters for each fleet carrier will be on CAP. On escort carriers, this proportion is increased by 50% (to 30%) because of their primary defensive role.

In addition, a very 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
• Close Blockade
• Aerial Bombardment
• Bombardment
• Sub Offensive Patrol
• Offensive Patrol
• Offensive Minelaying
• Sub Defensive Patrol
• Defensive Minelaying

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.