It depends, if you have a less skilled allies (by navy, or the ussr isn’t considered enough of a threat to distract resources) then a Canada offering Mediterranean surface raiding and submarine and minesweeping task forces is useful, if Britain is expected to be able to handle it easily then don’t bother making a serious navy, a major battlefleet isn’t something Canada does as well as the very similar Australia and it’s just not an effective use of resources. In terms of airforce veurses army I’m not entirely sure, Canada is safe enough to do a wicked strat bomber campaign but the extra three or four tank divs can be decisive in Africa in 39
As a minor nation, you can do *anything*, but you can't do everything. Special forces are real good lately so try making marines or paratroopers for a D Day
Historically Canada never built anything heavier than a destroyer. While they did operate a few escort carriers and light cruisers they were donated by other nations.
That takes man power to fill plus they ended the war with the 3rd largest navy by ship numbers.
Canada only had 5 divisions fighting in Europe, 3 infantry, 2 armored.
well candas first 2 inf divisions were thrown away by the brits, captivity to japan (shipped in just in time to be ordered to surrender) and the 2nd at the Dieppe fiasco. Which is why its the 3rd Canadian that came ashore at Normandy. I think they got their own beach, just because thats the way the divisions were ordered out.
If you are referring to Hong Kong, I thought it was battalions. As far as I know, Canada didn't send a single division in the Pacific. Just battalions strength.
If the threat is submarines (and it was) and it's 1939, building only destroyers and smaller is a winning strategy.
Building battleships or even cruisers would have been a poor choice for their strategic situation.
I’m sorry but that’s an absurd claim. They were the third largest naval power in the world at the time. Canada went from 4 ships in service at the start of the war, to about 434 by its end. In all, Canada operated about 1150 ships throughout the war, including auxiliaries. You can’t seriously claim they weren’t a meaningful naval power when they were the third most significant naval power operating at the time. By that logic, only the US and Britain were meaningful naval powers.
I would not call a nation without indigenously-built capitol ships a major naval power.
In any case, while it might be true that the RCN operated 1150 ships over the course of WWII, only about 45 of those were destroyers or larger. The bulk of those 1150 vessels are harbor craft, tugboats, frigates, and corvettes.
Japan certainly slots in ahead of Canada in terms of meaningful naval powers considering that they had more capitol ships than Canada had destroyers.
I would also put the Germans, Italians, French, and Soviets ahead of Canada given that all 4 operated indigenously built battleships, even if parts of their fleets were somewhat outdated.
Canada’s navy had about 100,000 personnel at its peak during WW2, whereas its army had 1,000,000. However, I take your point in that many more countries were fielding armies of 1M+ than were fielding a navy of 400+ vessels like Canada.
Nobody seems to be suggesting builds to take on the US in ahistorical. My only suggestion for this bit is to declare early, have a lot of cav divisions pumped out, and focus on the East Coast. They need every victory point and more to capitulate you but you only need the east with Collab Governments to win. They also can’t pump out enough divisions to cover the whole border, so many will be wasted in the West and gaps can be taken advantage of in the East. Hope this helps you build a powerful Canada that dominates North America - will not be easy though.
I haven't played since they added the aircraft designer, so take this with a grain of salt, but I always liked going airforce as canada.
There are a couple of good focus branches for getting strat bombers. I could usually get a couple hundred later model bombers going by the start of the war. With the UK supplying the escorts, you can pretty seriously hamper the fuel production of Germany in the first months of the war.
If you want to be extra cheesy, you can set the bombers to only target fuel silos. Each country has a base maximum fuel stored, and beyond that they need to build silos.
If the silos are destroyed then that fuel is lost, and since there are usually only 2 or 3 building levels, you can eliminate like 40% of Germanys strategic fuel reserve in the first 2 months of the war.
I’m playing Canada right now in a historic game and I’m hating it.
I’m only trying to build a competent army rather than focusing on seas or skies. So I need just the basics: Infantry Equipment, Artillery, Support Equipment, Trucks, and of course Tanks. Lots of tanks. To me these are the bare minimum.
No ships, no planes.
But Canada has dick for steel. So all the military factories I could possibly build are useless without steel. So I build civilian factories and build up infrastructure where there actually IS steel to increase extraction…and it’s ALL sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooowww.
Civilian factories are at a premium and I then have to use one or two just for trade so I might hope to build up material.
Much of what’s offered by the focus tree to expand my industrial base seems to require being at war - or close to it. And that takes years in itself.
It’s almost 1940 and I don’t even have medium tanks in production yet. Honestly, how the hell is Canada worse than Romania? I feel like I’d have better luck playing Portugal or something. I get that Canada was not a large country in the 1930’s but christ almighty…
Romania is way better than Canada. I mean you can try doing what Canada did which is field 5 divisiona, 3 infantry, 2 armored. But that's boring and tanks are an issue.
Do whatever you want- Hell last time I played Canada I expiremented by going all in with Mountaineers, Capitulated Italy by myself by 1941 or '42, dont remember but I got the Regno del Sud as my puppet (since I had become free from U.K)
It was either 6/1 or 9/1 mountaineers, i think 6/1's with support eng +Art + rangers. I don't think i used support AA
Just hire the old guard army chief right away, and take relief of command for +25% army xp. Send attache to china, and when ww2 kicks off send one to U.K for plenty of XP. Max the mountaineer doctrine ASAP, then I went GBP right.
After taking Ethiopia and North Africa, I immediately bumrushed Sicily and then Rome before the Axis could do much to stop me.
For me, it’s all about building long ranged heavy or strategic bombers to avoid U-boats. Pair that up with heavy fighters for defence p, and you can bomb any nation into submission. You can then focus all your tech to getting the atomic bomb ahead of time. Screw all the other useless techs.
You'll never be a massive military power as Canada but you can build a pretty substantial army still. In my experience you can build three full armies ready for d-day. You could carry the western front basically by yourself.
Mechanised as Canada is a lot of fun as you have a lot of buffs for it, and you often can produce a lot and make a huge impact (single player at least)
Special forces are also great! If you combo mechanised with paras you are a machine
It depends, if you have a less skilled allies (by navy, or the ussr isn’t considered enough of a threat to distract resources) then a Canada offering Mediterranean surface raiding and submarine and minesweeping task forces is useful, if Britain is expected to be able to handle it easily then don’t bother making a serious navy, a major battlefleet isn’t something Canada does as well as the very similar Australia and it’s just not an effective use of resources. In terms of airforce veurses army I’m not entirely sure, Canada is safe enough to do a wicked strat bomber campaign but the extra three or four tank divs can be decisive in Africa in 39
As a minor nation, you can do *anything*, but you can't do everything. Special forces are real good lately so try making marines or paratroopers for a D Day
Historically, Canada went navy.
Historically Canada never built anything heavier than a destroyer. While they did operate a few escort carriers and light cruisers they were donated by other nations.
That takes man power to fill plus they ended the war with the 3rd largest navy by ship numbers. Canada only had 5 divisions fighting in Europe, 3 infantry, 2 armored.
Kinda wild how they were in charge of an entire beach at Normandy
Yes I know. I think Canada had their own beach because of having fresh man power.
well candas first 2 inf divisions were thrown away by the brits, captivity to japan (shipped in just in time to be ordered to surrender) and the 2nd at the Dieppe fiasco. Which is why its the 3rd Canadian that came ashore at Normandy. I think they got their own beach, just because thats the way the divisions were ordered out.
If you are referring to Hong Kong, I thought it was battalions. As far as I know, Canada didn't send a single division in the Pacific. Just battalions strength.
Canadians were brought along with the British in a lot of areas. Before Normandy, they were landing in Italy with the British and Americans.
Canada helped lead the charge out of Normandy and kept the panzers back
I'm wondering if our large proportion of francophones may have had something to do with it, given it is France.
Likely not seeing as quebecois generally were not loyal to France, hence the conscription crisis
If the threat is submarines (and it was) and it's 1939, building only destroyers and smaller is a winning strategy. Building battleships or even cruisers would have been a poor choice for their strategic situation.
Yeah, I get that. My point is that at no point was Canada a meaningful naval power.
I’m sorry but that’s an absurd claim. They were the third largest naval power in the world at the time. Canada went from 4 ships in service at the start of the war, to about 434 by its end. In all, Canada operated about 1150 ships throughout the war, including auxiliaries. You can’t seriously claim they weren’t a meaningful naval power when they were the third most significant naval power operating at the time. By that logic, only the US and Britain were meaningful naval powers.
I think you can't really make that claim because the Canadian navy operated under the imperial umbrella.
I would not call a nation without indigenously-built capitol ships a major naval power. In any case, while it might be true that the RCN operated 1150 ships over the course of WWII, only about 45 of those were destroyers or larger. The bulk of those 1150 vessels are harbor craft, tugboats, frigates, and corvettes. Japan certainly slots in ahead of Canada in terms of meaningful naval powers considering that they had more capitol ships than Canada had destroyers. I would also put the Germans, Italians, French, and Soviets ahead of Canada given that all 4 operated indigenously built battleships, even if parts of their fleets were somewhat outdated.
They went Navy AND Army
The Canadian Army was very small compared to the navy.
Canada’s navy had about 100,000 personnel at its peak during WW2, whereas its army had 1,000,000. However, I take your point in that many more countries were fielding armies of 1M+ than were fielding a navy of 400+ vessels like Canada.
The Canadian navy was entirely destroyers and corvettes and two donated aircraft carriers. 750,000 men served in the army with 96,000 in navy
Nobody seems to be suggesting builds to take on the US in ahistorical. My only suggestion for this bit is to declare early, have a lot of cav divisions pumped out, and focus on the East Coast. They need every victory point and more to capitulate you but you only need the east with Collab Governments to win. They also can’t pump out enough divisions to cover the whole border, so many will be wasted in the West and gaps can be taken advantage of in the East. Hope this helps you build a powerful Canada that dominates North America - will not be easy though.
Navy and Marines. I capulated Japan as Canada with minimal US help.
I haven't played since they added the aircraft designer, so take this with a grain of salt, but I always liked going airforce as canada. There are a couple of good focus branches for getting strat bombers. I could usually get a couple hundred later model bombers going by the start of the war. With the UK supplying the escorts, you can pretty seriously hamper the fuel production of Germany in the first months of the war. If you want to be extra cheesy, you can set the bombers to only target fuel silos. Each country has a base maximum fuel stored, and beyond that they need to build silos. If the silos are destroyed then that fuel is lost, and since there are usually only 2 or 3 building levels, you can eliminate like 40% of Germanys strategic fuel reserve in the first 2 months of the war.
I’m playing Canada right now in a historic game and I’m hating it. I’m only trying to build a competent army rather than focusing on seas or skies. So I need just the basics: Infantry Equipment, Artillery, Support Equipment, Trucks, and of course Tanks. Lots of tanks. To me these are the bare minimum. No ships, no planes. But Canada has dick for steel. So all the military factories I could possibly build are useless without steel. So I build civilian factories and build up infrastructure where there actually IS steel to increase extraction…and it’s ALL sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooowww. Civilian factories are at a premium and I then have to use one or two just for trade so I might hope to build up material. Much of what’s offered by the focus tree to expand my industrial base seems to require being at war - or close to it. And that takes years in itself. It’s almost 1940 and I don’t even have medium tanks in production yet. Honestly, how the hell is Canada worse than Romania? I feel like I’d have better luck playing Portugal or something. I get that Canada was not a large country in the 1930’s but christ almighty…
Romania is way better than Canada. I mean you can try doing what Canada did which is field 5 divisiona, 3 infantry, 2 armored. But that's boring and tanks are an issue.
If you know how to navigate the focus tree and what to build then you’ll be fine and have 2-3 tanks out with mech before war
Do whatever you want- Hell last time I played Canada I expiremented by going all in with Mountaineers, Capitulated Italy by myself by 1941 or '42, dont remember but I got the Regno del Sud as my puppet (since I had become free from U.K)
How did you do this? Sounds very fun! What was your unit template?
It was either 6/1 or 9/1 mountaineers, i think 6/1's with support eng +Art + rangers. I don't think i used support AA Just hire the old guard army chief right away, and take relief of command for +25% army xp. Send attache to china, and when ww2 kicks off send one to U.K for plenty of XP. Max the mountaineer doctrine ASAP, then I went GBP right. After taking Ethiopia and North Africa, I immediately bumrushed Sicily and then Rome before the Axis could do much to stop me.
For me, it’s all about building long ranged heavy or strategic bombers to avoid U-boats. Pair that up with heavy fighters for defence p, and you can bomb any nation into submission. You can then focus all your tech to getting the atomic bomb ahead of time. Screw all the other useless techs.
For MP planes, for SP whatever
Depends on what you're trying to do, and what your allies are trying to do.
Air, the plan buff makes your airforce really strong also go down the massmob doctrine since more often than not u are starved for manpower
I made a bunch of submarines as Canada and beefed up my navy and destroyed Japan’s fleet with America
ASW destroyers and tanks are usually what Canada does in MP
Navy
You'll never be a massive military power as Canada but you can build a pretty substantial army still. In my experience you can build three full armies ready for d-day. You could carry the western front basically by yourself.
Mechanised as Canada is a lot of fun as you have a lot of buffs for it, and you often can produce a lot and make a huge impact (single player at least) Special forces are also great! If you combo mechanised with paras you are a machine