Winning Wars at Sea

 Summary

The title of this monograph is misleading: one does not win wars at sea. One merely wins engagements. Rarely, if ever, does a fleet action lead directly to the ending of a war. In fact, fleets have only three offensive missions:

1. Irregular activities (piracy and raiding)
2. The transportation of land units
3. Blockading enemy ports.

From these, one can deduce the three defensive missions of fleets:

1. Protection against piracy and raiding
2. Interference with the transportation of land units
3. Breaking blockades.

Nonetheless, the proper use of sea power is essential to anyone who wishes to be considered to be a world power.

Characteristics of fleets

The following characteristics of fleets should always be kept firmly in mind:

1. Tremendous range; often an order of magnitude greater than that of infantry, due to the higher speed of ships, and the large size of most Sea Zones.
2. Supremacy of the Offense. Where land combat in Lords favors the defense, sea combat favors offense. This is due to the fact that anything that can be defended by ships (land, cities, etc.) can also be defended by land units - and generally more effectively. Fifteen wall points around a port city will do far more damage to an enemy than fifteen warship units.
3. Vulnerability in Port. Land units are generally in a good position when stationed in a walled port city. Fleets, on the other hand, are vulnerable to ambush on leaving port, and attack via fireships, land units, and treachery while in port. On the other hand, a fleet at sea must be found before it can be sunk, and finding a fleet can be tremendously difficult. Thus, ports are a safe haven only to a weak fleet whose position is known to the enemy, or to a fleet landing troops, which would otherwise be exposed.

Raiding, slaving, and piracy

Raiding, slaving, and piracy are the most effective use of small fleets in Lords. A quick reading of the command descriptions indicates that these actions are considered to be opportunistic: the default action is to withdraw as soon as serious opposition is encountered. Thus, orders to scour a coast can be given with a good confidence of the fleet's return, since the mere presence of opposition will cause a target to be passed by. This contrasts sharply with army movement orders, which are interpreted more mechanically, causing unwanted battles.
Raiding, slavery, and piracy transfer resources from your opponent to yourself. As such, in contrasts favorably with traditional warfare, which is not profitable in the short term. It also tends to confuse your opponent and cause resources to be diverted to anti-piracy measures, which tend to be ineffective for the reasons given above. My experience is that forces as small as 5w can cause an immense amount of disruption to the enemy. Thus, raiding should be a feature of any war that involves enemies reachable by sea.
Slave-taking is more dangerous than the other acts, since it causes you to incorporate slaves, who are by definition disaffected, into your society.

Transporting troops

It is customary to ship troops across the ocean in fleets consisting entirely of warships. This increases firepower on the water, but limits cargo space. This practice is ridiculous. With an all-warship fleet, with each unit capable of carrying one land unit, half the NFP committed to a venture is useless once the landings are made. With an all-transport fleet, overhead is reduced to one-third. For example, take a nation that has 100 NFP to spend on all units in an invasion. With an all-warship fleet, this would be 50w, 50i. With an all-transport fleet, this would be 33t, 66i, delivering over 30% more ground troops to the combat zone.
Note that the tradition of using warships exclusively is done without regard to the level of threat. Thus, the Occitanians invaded England with a single overloaded, all-warship fleet, which was greatly delayed by the harassment of the much smaller English fleet. Had the Occitanians sunk or chased away the tiny British fleet first, the crossing of the English Channel would have been perfectly safe for unarmed transports.
Troops can be transported incredible distances by ship -- so far that it often boggles the minds of your opponents. This fact should be kept in mind.
The expense of troop-carrying capacity generally forces invaders to leave most of their artillery, siege units, and cavalry behind. Those who face invasion by sea should take full advantage of this fact by presenting invaders with tall walls, big guns, and large cavalry forces. This has proven far more important during two massive invasions of England than sea power has.
Furthermore, sea-borne invasions are more strapped for resources of all kinds than land-based invasions. Thus, taking cities by assault or passive siege tends to fail because the attackers didn't bring enough men, while taking them by active siege fails because they didn't bring enough guns and siege engineers. Similarly, the ships themselves are subject to destruction on the beach unless provided with a leader (and guards, if the ships are transports), diluting the offensive in yet another way.
Enemies who invade by sea have to transport mercenaries until they take one of your cities, at which point they can hire mercenaries locally, including cavalry and other hard-to-transport units. Thus, it is very dangerous to relinquish cities. Port cities should be heavily fortified and have a leader within easy reach. Where this is not possible, the city should be moved inland. (To prevent invasion from becoming too easy, mercenary ship units should be destroyed whenever possible, as their rate of regeneration is slow.)
Fleets are at their most vulnerable when landing troops. Therefore, you should land your own troops in the safety of a fortified harbor when possible.

Blockades

An unbroken blockade of an enemy will eliminate his international trade, his ability to hire mercenaries, and will shut down his banking system. While generally impossible except against tiny island kingdoms (for example, England has far too many port cities, in far too many sea zones, to be blockaded effectively), the possibility of blockading an entire country should always be examined.
Blockading individual cities in support of a siege is an easy way to take a heavily defended city. If the sea has already been swept clear of enemy warships, this can be accomplished with just a few warship units.

General fleet actions

You should avoid general fleet actions unless you have overwhelming superiority. Fleet actions can generally be run away from; in fact, if you do not want to fight, the enemy will have difficulty finding your fleet in the first place. Since fleets by themselves conquer no territory, you can often decline a fleet engagement and lose nothing.
Large warship battles should take place close to home, when possible, so that your fleet can escape to the shelter of a fortified harbor if the battle goes against you, and so your enemy has no such shelter if the battle goes against him.
Your fleet should have a squadron of elite warships, so your leader will escape the wreckage of your fleet if you lose badly.