Building cheap, dedicated minelayers works great. Just ensure you set them to Defend, not Sea Control or In Being. They might still get intercepted while in transit to different ports in a "Meeting" mission, so it's worth giving them at least a modest surface armament

Once I get Mk 5 three inch guns, I’ve found that long-barrel 3.5” is a great caliber to use on DDs. They still have enough pen to deal with any DD (and some CLs), and the rate of fire (and therefore shots on target) more than makes up for the decreased damage per hit. Plus the smaller guns turn faster, so they’re easier to use while maneuvering at high speed.

Hi Brother Munro. You should mention when convey raiding not to destroy all the escorting warships before you find and destroy the transports. The game will end the battle if the escorts are destroyed first, and the convoy is generally a bigger prize for the player.

Destroyers want to go fast, so forced boilers are quite viable on them. Unbalanced rudders allow them to make hairpin turns; the rudder shift speed penalty is basically a non-issue at this size, and the turning radius gets almost as small as the ship.

Good videos. Something you didn't mention though, which I think is quite important for understanding why destroyers are useful: you can build them MUCH faster than other types of ship. Not just because the build speed is lower, but because their tonnage is much lower, and your build capacity is per tonnage, not per ship or per cost. You mentioned that your destroyer design is 5x cheaper than your heavy cruiser, but it will also be something like 10x lower tonnage, as well as having a lower build duration. So you might be able to build as many as 20 with the same time/construction capacity as it would take to build a single heavy cruiser. And given that they can be built so much more quickly than anything else, they become invaluable as a screening ship because they're completely disposable and easily replaceable. It'll often be quicker and easier to replace a whole sunk destroyer than to repair a battleship that gets damaged by a torpedo (repairing a 50,000t battleship for 6 months might take up the same construction capacity as building 20 brand new destroyers!) And sometimes in the campaign you'll find you end up more limited by construction capacity than by funding - I've often ended up literally with more money than I can spend - so destroyers become even more useful in that context

1/10. everybody knows the ideal destroyer has five quintuple 24" oxygen launchers with no reloads, no armor, and a minimum calibre 1.1" gun on the front

Super helpful and really upgraded my design skills. My BB design is ok, but had to go with 14's so it takes a while to do solid damage, my BC's are super good thanks to the tips in that How To video also. I have 2 sets of 2 designs seperated by 2 years of tech 1920-1922. All 4 based around your approaches and they work very well so Massive thank you BrotherMunro!

I've seen torpedos on transports. Confused me for sure. i did not know where the torpedos were coming from. i kept looking for destroyers among them, but no.

One thing about the Leader hull - ships built with it are much, *much* tougher. I just transferred a design from the standard hull to the Leader, and it went from +15% gun damage received to -16%. It's very hard to get them to 40kts without compromising the point of using the hull ( and costing a lot ) which has been a bit of a critical speed target for me with everything running away, though. I gave up building minelayers/sweepers very early, no matter what I did they got thrown into missions & I was fed up with it. Do minelaying with subs once you have them, otherwise ... do you really need mines? I never put them on combat destroyers. 4.7"/superheavy my favourite gun atm, but I've had quite low displacement limits for a while. My gun is enough to punch other destroyer hulls with HE at 5000-7500m or so and if you're lucky, further, which is a wrecker & saves some critical weight over a 5". I have built 5.9" cruiser replacements too, very nasty things.

I personally prefer to build my destroyers as fletcheresques with 5 or 6 single 5" guns. Because of their increased RoF, you end up with comparable damage output, but the main advantage is the destroyer turrets tend to get knocked out really easily under focused fire, so having more redundancy is useful. Plus the constant stream of shells is fun.

petition for more destroyer towers here

starting playing this game a few day ago found this video be chance quite good i really like making fast destroyer that just casually go full on kamikaze mode into battleship even if the torpedo fail the last one wont XD

This game is a gem they need to make a DLC I started playing around 9pm next thing I know my wife walks by and said you haven't went to been yet I was like what time is it 430am lol oops

I've built two types of destroyers, the fleet escort and the garrison. The fleet escort provides anti-mine and ASW protection to battle fleets and is larger and more expensive but more capable. The garrison destroyer is either a former fleet destroyer that is refit to the role or a cheap, minimum displacement hull with the cheapest towers and modest armament.

Their role as mine-sweepers is so important in my campaigns. Watching huge enemy fleets taking massive damage from each other's mines is such a strong reminder to always have 1 or 2 with every task force. Meanwhile, their role as torpedo boats, unless using seriously kamikaze tactics and being willing to sacrifice several boats per run, is just pointless against the AI. So, for my current campaign I basically have just 2 main types of destroyer - one is a cheap and fast minesweeper and mine-layer relying on its 40 knot speed to get it out of fights the AI put it into that it never should have. The other is my main gunboat DD, inspired by the French and Russian style ones - The beast is just around 3,000 tons, has a top speed of 43 knots, and has 5 x triple 130mm guns, three facing forward in double super-firing (so all 3 forward facing turrets can fire straight ahead, as well as to either side). 2 more triple 130mm turrets in the back (superfiring over the torps)... The thing chews through transports faster than almost any escorts can react, and is off again if the escorts are too tough. Obviously, since it's a Japanese campaign, I named the class the Insanikaze class... 🤣 There's actually a matching light cruiser with a very similar design but with 5x triple 180mm guns and a 42 knot top speed. Both the DD and the CL are insanely good fun, have absolutely crazy fire rates, and absolutely need the extra shells because either one will happily run rings around an entire task force group alone, slaughter 12 transports, and the 3-5 escorts too, all alone. The advantage of having ships that can lone-wolf an entire group, of course, is that then I don't have to micro-manage the other ships who will, the second I take my eyes off one to work another, manage to charge into the middle of a group of ships with secondaries, or eat every torpedo in 40 nautical miles, etc....

My go to for 1930s/40s DDs is 8x4.5in guns with 8/10 torpedo tubes since I tend not to use torpedoes on my cruisers but don’t want to build a giant torpedo boat.

Thx for this series. Especially the part of balancing ships helped me a lot. In my current campaign as Germany by around 1910 France and Spain did not exist any more and two years later Austria became German too. A proper Anschluss this time... :D I am still struggling a bit reading the stats really. Balancing accuracy is really not easy. But i am super happy still as the current navy is have i by far the best i have ever build and with the economy right now i can happily build anything. Its 1918 and i have 60 billion naval funds and 40 billion yearly income. With that i can keep my whole navy easily active during peacetime even. lol One thing about the videos i do not agree really is how to handle crew space. Since the task force cap is crew, larger quarters let you fit in less ships. And its a significant difference. Both for the ease of management having more tonnage in one task force, and of course you can have more ships in a battle at one time. I rather have 2 slightly crew handicapped battleships in a fight than one with the extra leg room. I have more big ships than small ships in my task forces and the smaller ones only help keeping the distance and running down torpedo strikes or destroy strays. My battle line simply keeps its distance out of enemy torpedo range and anything that comes closer will be obliterated anyways. So crew losses are not an issue at all. Of course this can play out differently in another campaign, all i say it is worth going for the least crew amount possible if there are no pressing reasons not to do so.

I've found the Destroyer Leader hull is good if you want an 'anti destroyer Destroyer' as you can make it fast enough to engage other destroyers, and can pack in a decent number of high-calibre guns to quickly take down enemy light vessels.

What are your thoughts on a lot of single torpedo launchers? Their reload time is so rapid with later tech & especially with smaller torpedoes that often with increased torps you can keep up but nearly continuous stream of torpedoes with only a handful of destroyers

Heavy Main Deck armor can be good to keep Pitch in check, if you keep fore and aft armor light.

Yeah the French campaign was the CL used as a DDL I remember that campaign for the Quebec.

I keep seeing other videos about keeping smoke interference to 0 (or in the negative) to help increase gun accuracy. This little DD you've made has 7.2. Do you pay any attention to this, or do you consider it at all when you're in the middle of your build? Thanks.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you touch on the alternate torpedo types (Electric, Oxygen, etc.)?

Great series. Really helping! I have a problem though. I just cant get my 1930s destroyers below about 35% on pitch and roll even with ~5% or less offset. I'm moving towers and funnels around, widening hulls, lowering draught. Absolutely at a loss. Any ideas?

Mines, depth charges and minesweeping equipment is quite heavy on destroyers, shame you cant put them on in custom battles to simulate a real campaign design

I build my minelayers on CL hulls (pre modern era), as that makes them way cheaper. Less than 1 mil. DDs are way too expensive.

Why no high damage AP shells against enemy DDs that pen at every angle and no high damage HE shells against CLs and Transports?

How important is ship balance? I’ve heard you bring it up in each building video so far

What is the purpose of mines? And how do I use them?

Followed this guide almost exactly and my destroyer costs 88 million in my China campaign with Pitch and Roll both being greater than 50%. Is this a tech issue that will improve when my research improves? It’s 1926 in the campaign and my tech is “very advanced”

I saw brother munthro didn't remerber to put better reload on the destroyers guns.

2 smaller funnels ?

What about a campaign using only Destroyers?

I did a game as china where starting in 1910 i focused torps and got 24 inch, oxygen and mk 4 quad (quintople were out of reach lol) and.. oxygen is crap the ai still spots soo early. but i changed it to Fast torps and nearly 70 knot speed. 3-5 x quad launchers per dd, a dozen dds firing them into the middle of the enemy. it was glorius and i won every battle. but it was boring. but it shows a valid strat cept.... i got blockaded and my gdp went from nearly 200 billion in 1928 to 50 Lol

Is there any advantage to upgading the turrets to auto loading II and hyrdo-electric II?

Man the prices for these ships are vastly different these days

Ngl, I think mine laying should just be majorly relegated to mine laying subs, that way you dont get the problem of the game pulling your mine laying destroyers into fights

My thinking with mines is CL and subs lay mines Destroyers kill subs and blowup mines.

Just picked up the game and copy this build and its gonna cost over 50mil and has way way higher roll, idk why.

𝓅𝓇o𝓂o𝓈𝓂

Those are light cruisers not destroyers.

Don't show ark royal this video

Não seriam os telêmetros stereos melhores que os de coincidência? Eu sei que a marinha dos EUA testou os dois modelos e não viu diferença significativa. Os italianos usavam os dois modelos em conjunto e os alemães atestam que a famosa precisão da sua artilharia naval era derivada dos telêmetros stereos.