Combat/Main

Combat Stages

For most combat engagements, the battle will begin in day combat and follow the following set of stages. Several stages will not occur unless certain conditions are met. For Event maps, a Combined Fleet mechanic has been implemented which follows a modified combat order.

Aerial Combat nodes contain two Aerial Combat phases but no other phases.

Air Raid nodes contain a single, incomplete Aerial Combat phase which friendly side planes will only participate in Stage 1 of the Aerial Combat phase.

Night Battle nodes would start battle with Night Combat phase. Very occasionally a few of those node can then enter Day Combat phase if certain criteria are met.

Stage	Notes
Formation Selection	With 4 or more ships in a fleet, a fleet formation must be selected before combat. The selected formation affects ship damage and hit rate.
Detection	Requires planes or high detection stat (usually from RADAR). Success increases accuracy and evasion. Failure prevents participation of allied planes in the aerial combat phase.
Jet Assault	Participants: CVBs Requires any type of Jet plane equipped on CVBs. Jets equipped on carriers will launch an attack on the enemy fleet. Only Jets are allowed to participate in this phase, but Jet Bombers are still susceptible to fire.
Aerial Combat	Participants: CVLs, CVs, CVBs, BBVs, CAVs, AVs, SSVs Requires any type of combat plane (fighters, torpedo bombers or dive bombers for CVLs and CVs, or seaplane bombers for BBVs, CAVs, AVs, and SSVs) equipped as equipment on either side. If a side achieves Air Superiority or Supremacy in this stage, that side can use Artillery Spotting.
Opening Stages	Expedition Supporting Fire Supporting Fire from Sortie Support Expeditions. This has an aspect of randomness and may not trigger. Opening Anti-Submarine Attack Participants: Isuzu Kai Ni or any ship with displayed ASW value of 100 or greater. All participants will attack submarine(s) before the opening torpedo salvo. Firing order is determined by range; ships with higher range have higher priority. The order for ships of the same range is random. Opening Torpedo Salvo Participants: [[::Category:Submarines|SS]] over level 10, ships equipped with Type A Ko-hyoteki (CLTs, AVs, [[::Category:Submarines|SS]], Abukuma Kai Ni) and enemies equipped with Abyssal Cuttlefish Torpedo. All participants fire their torpedoes simultaneously. Engagement Form The orientation of the allied and enemy fleets is displayed. This affects both fleets equally.
Day Combat	Shelling, 1st Round (Range Order) Participants: All ships except SS. Firing order alternates between allied and enemy sides starting with allied. For each side, ships with higher range have priority. The firing order is composed of only ships that are able to take part and is set at the start of each shelling phase. Any ships sunk or incapacitated before their turn results in a lost turn for the side it is on. Shelling, 2nd Round (Lineup Order) Participants: All ships except SS. Firing order alternates between sides, prioritizing ships at the top of the list. Only occurs when either side has a BB, BBV, or the enemy has one of the special ship classes (鬼 Oni/Ogress, 姫 Hime/Princess) which acts like a BB/BBV: Destroyer Princess (駆逐棲姫) does not, while Battleship Princess (戦艦棲姫) does. The distinction between Bosses that do and those that do not trigger this phase is not always clear from their names. Closing Torpedo Salvo Participants: DDs, CLs, CLTs, CAs, CAVs, SS, AVs, Bismarck drei, Battleship Re-Class Like the opening torpedo salvo, all participants attack simultaneously.
Night Battle	Participants: All ships except CVLs and CVs (with the exception of Graf Zeppelin). Enemy Standard Carrier Wo-Class and Light Carrier Nu-Class of flagship level or higher can attack at night. Must not be critically damaged to participate. The first slot allied ship attacks, then the first slot enemy ship attacks, and so on. Similar to shelling phase, if a ship is sunk or critically damaged, the game will skip its turn.

Formation Selection

With 4 or more ships in player's fleet, a fleet formation must be selected before combat. With less than 4 ships, player's fleet defaults to Line Ahead formation.

The selected formation affects ship damage and hit rate.

Formation Modifier

Formation	Icon	Damage Modifier				Hit Rate				Torp Eva	FS Prot
		Day	ASW	Night	AA	Day	ASW	Torp	Night
Line Ahead 単縦陣?		100%	60%	100%	100%	Med	Low	High	High	Low	Low
Double Line 複縦陣?		80%	80%	100%	120%	High	Med	Med	Med	Med	Med
Diamond 輪形陣?		70%	120%	100%	160%	Med	Med	Very Low	Low	Low	High
Echelon 梯形陣?		60%	100%	100%	100%	High	?	Low	Low	Med	Med
Line Abreast 単横陣?		60%	130%	100%	100%	High	High	Very Low	Med	High	Med

• The surface damage modifier applies to both shelling and torpedo attacks, but does not affect Aerial Combat or Anti-Submarine attacks.
• Evasion modifier only applies to the daytime shelling phase, and not to air or torpedo attacks and night battles.
• Flagship protection is the situation where a non-flagship ship protects the flagship from being damaged by receiving the attack instead.
• Line Ahead has the highest offensive power for surface combat. It is usually the best choice for encounters after the 3rd battle node to preserve firepower because of the remaining ammo penalty. (Notable exceptions are where anti-sub ability is needed.)
• Double Line is generally a good formation for heavy BB/CV fleets. There is a significant accuracy increase that benefits the typically lower accuracy carriers, while BB often still have enough firepower.
• Diamond has the best anti-air modifier and flagship protection, and is almost as good as Line Abreast for anti-sub purposes. A good alternative to Line Abreast when facing mixed surface-sub fleets.
  • Diamond formation is only available when the players' fleet has at least 5 ships.
• Line Abreast is the best formation for anti-sub purposes. It has also been shown to increase evasion rates against an enemy fleet which is in Double Line.

Detection

Success	Failed
Effects
Up[citation needed]	Failure prevents participation of allied planes in the Aerial Combat Phase.
Fleet LOS affects Detection rate.

Scout plane can be lost in this stage if there is a lack of LOS, disabling Artillery Spotting. If there are no more recon planes in that slot of the ship who sent the scout, the plane's rank will be reset.

Aerial Combat

Main article: Aerial Combat

Fighting for Air Superiority

Aerial combat is a phase where both friendly fleet and opponents send their planes out at the same time trying to determine the air control status, while shoot down each others' planes. The fleets then start their anti-air defense against bombers and the remaining bombers would then launch attacks on enemy ships.

Anti-Air Cut-In

An Anti-Air Cut-In

During this phase, AACI has a chance to trigger for ships who are using the required setup to trigger them. An AACI is a special attack that shoots down a static amount of enemy planes in each slot, which helps reducing the efficiency of the enemy opening airstrike. Keep in mind that Anti-Air Cut-In itself does not help you in any way to get Air Superiority easier and that only one AACI can trigger at a time per run.

See Aerial Combat page for details.

Day Combat

Main article: Day Combat

During day combat, your fleet and the enemy will exchange fire with each other and attempt to sink each other. The Day Combat consists of the following phases:

• Opening Phases
  • Jet Assault
  • Opening Airstrike
  • Support Expedition
  • Opening Anti-Submarine Warfare
  • Opening Torpedo Salvo
• Day Shelling Phase
  • 1st Shelling Phase
  • 2nd Shelling Phase
  • Closing Torpedo

For more information regarding each phase, check out Day Combat.

Artillery Spotting

Cut-in Type Observed Fire using 1Main 1Sec & Type 91 AP shell

When Air Superiority or higher is achieved during the Aerial phase, ships that are equipped with a Seaplane will be eligible to use Artillery Spotting during the day shelling phase. Artillery Spotting is either a strong but accurate single attack (Cut In) or a powerful double attack (Double Attack) that deals a lot of average damage.

For more information as to what the requirements are, check out Artillery Spotting requirements

Anti-Submarine Warfare

Any enemy submarines will force Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Torpedo Cruisers, Training Cruisiers and Hayasui to target them. It also applies to Aviation Heavy Cruisers, Aviation Battleships, Seaplane Tender, Light Carrier and Akitsu Maru equipped with seaplane bombers, Ka-type Observation Autogyro or Type 3 Command Liaison Aircraft (ASW). Cut-In and Double Attacks are ignored as guns are useless against submarines.

In normal Night Battles, ASW damage is reduced to scratch damage only, which renders submarines impossible to kill. In battles starting at night and Combined Fleet, Formation Modifiers apply, allowing you to defeat them as usual.

Night Combat

Main article: Night Battle

Entering Night Battle

An example of a cut-in

Searchlight, Starshell and Night Recon

In the scenario that they enemy has not been defeated yet during Day Combat, admirals have the choice to pursue them in a Night battle (夜戦) to finish them off. During night battle, the following effects are applied:

• The ammo usage on that node is increased by 150% if night battle is entered from day. As most nodes on normal and event maps alike uses 20% ammo, this will be increased to 30% for example.
  • This also means that entering night battle in event submarine nodes doesn't cost anything extra, as those nodes uses 0% ammo.
• Night battle damage depends on both the Firepower and Torpedo stats for attack power. Consequently, DDs, CLs, CLTs and CAs have drastically increased strength at night.
• Any vessel at night must not be heavily damaged (大破) before attacking in order to participate in night battle.
• Night battle damage cap is raised to 300.
• Any attack against submarines in regular Night Battles are automatically nullified, so they cannot take more than scratch damage. In battles starting at night and Combined Fleet sorties, submarines do not get the special effect, so they will take damage as normal.
• Formation damage modifiers and Engagement Form damage modifiers do not apply in Night Battle (i.e. they are always 100%).

Night Battle Special Attacks

• Certain combinations of weapon equipments will cause Cut-In or Double Attacks at night, greatly increasing accuracy and/or firepower.
• If night combat nodes are anticipated, it can be very helpful to utilize specialized night battle equipment such as Star Shells, Searchlight and Type 98 Recon Seaplane (Night Scout) as they provide bonuses during night and also increases your Cut-In chances.

For more information regarding night battle and the setups, check out Night Battle

Victory Conditions

For victory conditions for Air Raid Battles (空襲戦), see Events/Mechanics.

For alternative formulation of victory conditions, see Partials/Victory Conditions.

Perfect S (完全勝利, Total Victory)

• All enemy ships sunk and no damage taken.

S (勝利, Victory)

• All enemy ships sunk and no allied ships sunk.

A (勝利, Victory)

• Required number of enemy ships sunk (see below) and no allied ships sunk.

B (戦術的勝利, Tactical Victory)

• Sinking the enemy flagship guarantees at least a B as long as no allied ships are sunk.
• Enemy flagship sunk, friendly ship sunk and number of friendly ships sunk < number of enemy ships sunk.
• Damage gauge at least 2.5 times higher enemy damage gauge.
• This rate is the minimum requirement to clear maps without boss gauge.

C (戦術的敗北, Tactical Defeat)

• Didn't clear any of the conditions for A or B, but enemy took over a certain amount of damage.
• Damage gauge higher than enemy gauge, but not reaching 2.5 times as much.
• Friendly ship sunk, damage gauge higher than enemy, but not 2.5 times as much.
• Friendly ship sunk, enemy flagship sunk and number of friendly ships sunk lower than number of enemy ships sunk. It is possible to clear maps with boss gauges (eg. 4-4, 5-3, event maps) with a C if the enemy flagship is sunk.

D (敗北, Defeat)

• Enemy took less than a certain amount of damage.
  • Both sides taking 0 damage is also D.
  • If your fleet consist only 1 ship and it is reaching Heavy Damage without meeting any winning requirements, it will instantly judged as D as well.
• Damage gauge lower than enemy gauge.
• Friendly ship sunk, not all enemy ships sunk, and gauge lower than enemy gauge.

E (敗北, Defeat)

• Over a certain number of friendly ships sunk. (see below)
• Friendly ship sunk while not meeting any victory conditions.
• No damage done to enemy, while taking over a certain amount (Never happens in a fleet of 1).

Notes

• The Minimum Sunk Requirement:
  • 4 ships out of a fleet of 6
  • 3 ships out of a fleet of 5
  • 2 ships out of a fleet of 4
  • 2 ships out of a fleet of 3
  • 1 ship out of a fleet of 2
• Victory status affects the chance of getting drops and rare drops on the specified node.
  • B rank or above is necessary to obtain drops.
  • A rank or above is typically necessary for obtaining rare drops.
  • S rank has a higher chance of obtaining rare drops than A rank, and is required for some very rare drops.
    • Getting Perfect S does not give you an increased drop rate, compared to a regular S rank.