Heavy Escort - Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts USA 1920 Campaign - Ep 42

The fleet is withdrawing to port after months of gruelling fighting, when a distress call reaches USS New York, the oldest of our active battleships. A troop convoy is under attack by British raiders near Guantanamo Bay, so New York's captain orders her to turn about and assist.
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[@mathewkelly9968]

Ah the AI torpedo spam kind of ruins the game imo , id rather the AI be able to hit a barn door at 10 paces instead of seeing wave after wave of torpedoes and the way that crippled cruiser just dodged those torps is another problem , they are useless for the player unless you drop them point blank or into a massed fleet where you could hardly miss

[@StoriesandStrategieswithTerry]

The British have some insane cruisers, with 4 or 5 launchers on each side, the amount of torpedoes they can put out is terrifying. It basically means they can't be approached at all by anything larger than a scout cruiser.
The way I deal with it usually (and I've had a couple of battles that were a bit boring, so I cut them out) is basic naval screening tactics. I normally have a line of heavy hitters (BBs or CAs) that stay out of effective torpedo range - at this stage, I would say 10km - and a second, mobile force of scout divisions, usually scout cruisers or destroyers, that keep the enemy ships spotted, and absorb most of the torpedoes. I usually build them for mobility, so significant power-to-displacement-ratio and unbalanced rudders, plus the most advanced hydro / sonar for early spotting (since they also double up as ASW ships).
A couple of 16'' shells, or even 8'' AP, usually makes short work of the enemy cruiser screen. Two or three divisions are manageable, especially that I don't usually have to micro the battle line too much.
My biggest complaint, aside from the AI's inability, as you say, to hit the broadside of a barn from the inside, is their abysmal division control. They enter the battle in some form of sane formation, but as soon as the screens spot anything, they immediately smoke up, completely negating their purpose of spotting targets (since they can't see out of the smoke, either, they allow my own scouts to get within their range mostly unopposed.
Then, they panic - everything moves everywhere, they run into each other, and can't make up their minds what to target. At that point, usually my battle line has started scoring hits, simply by the ship-in-a-barrel principle.
As the battle develops, I use the fast cruiser divisions to draw fire, while maintaining the battle line at effective range. That minimises damage to my own ships - the AI constantly switches course and target, which means they don't get their ranging shots in, and throw off their aim with manoeuvres. Add on the damage penalties to aim, they have no chance of hitting anything unless I engaged at point-blank, or if they get lucky with torps.
Lastly, yes, they dodge torpedoes aggressively. What I usually do is exploit that, i.e. I run a pincer attack with two ships, one dropping torpedoes to get the AI ship to evade, and the other drops in the path it's going to be forced into (effectively, a crossdrop). Unescorted capital ships don't stand a chance against my light forces.
In summary (apologies for the long rant, it's been work to try and hide the behaviour's shortcomings, I can tell you that much), the AI (as per version 1.4 that I'm playing) has two major problems:
- they can't organise their divisions, and play them appropriately to their role, instead everything is milling about seemingly at random in larger formations
- they can't stay on course and focus targets for the life of them, leading to abysmal accuracy
No idea if any of this is being addressed in later versions, but that's what would be needed for me to make it actually challenging.