To start off this guide, let me clarify some terms that hopefully most people already know.

Most of these terms should be easy to understand, save for CA. This term comes ships built before the Washington Naval Treaty, where there were many different cruiser concepts. There was Armored, Battle, Protected, and Unprotected Cruisers. After the naval treaty, a cruiser concept called "Treaty Cruisers" were basically Heavy Cruisers, and they adopted the designation CA, which was the strongest cruiser type aside from Battlecruisers, which by that point had fallen out of favor after the disaster at Jutland. The design wasn't at fault, but the navies of the world decided it wasn't worth the time building more, and the Washington Naval Treaty killed any future designs for them. Unprotected Cruisers also fell out of favor (because you know, sailors like some protection against shells), and the Protected Cruiser design evolved into the Light Cruiser design. (The Light Cruiser is an abbreviation for Light Armored Cruiser)

Also, a side note: these terms don't always abbreviate, ex: BB just means Battleship, the second B has no meaning, same for DD and stuff.

Destroyer Tactics


The destroyer, despite being the smallest and the lightest armed and armored ship, is quite honestly the most important ship of the fleet. A fleet with no destroyers is a sunk fleet.

Therefore it is quite understandable that the tasks of a destroyer is hard to overemphasize. Bad destroyer captains will lose you the battle.

To list the jobs of destroyers from start of the battle to the end:
- To scout where the enemy forces are heading without taking too much damage
- To prevent enemy forces from locating friendly forces
- To guide the main batteries of BBs and CAs
- To provide frontal AA cover
- To prevent enemy submarine forces from infiltrating friendly lines

- and anytime it is possible/required going on the offensive to sow chaos/sink enemy forces.

So let's talk in detail (With pictures!) one by one.

1.Scouting the enemy forces in the beginning of the match

FIRST RULE OF DESTROYER TACTICS IS TO NOT SAIL STRAIGHT.
The moment you are engaged in combat or spotted, you should never sail straight. Ever wondered how you got hit by a BB's main battery guns? It's because you sailed straight. You can reduce the chance of taking damage significantly if you maneuver properly. It is also recommended that you always sail at maximum speed.

The one tactic that would require killing speed is only recommended in desperate situations.

Due to DD's fast speed, unless you are at extremely close range, enemy forces have to shoot way ahead of your actual ship in order to hit. In desperate situations you can change the gears to a full reverse right when the shells fire, coming to a screeching halt. This will make all enemy shells currently in air to miss. However, this is not recommended as a consistent tactic, for a few moments after the maneuver, you'll be extremely vulnerable to enemy fire, due to your lack of speed.

Moving on, the general way to scout in a DD is to sail at 100% throttle, sail to west/east/center zone, scout enemy scouts and overly eager CLs who think they're in DDs, and fall back. This maneuver is fine, but you should try to take the least amount of damage doing so. The best maneuver to do while scouting is to slither. This maneuver makes accurate leading next to impossible, and even if somehow they do manage to accurately lead, allow an opportunity for the shells to fly over your super structure.


This maneuver can be used against any ship types, and should be used almost always. Speed and maneuverability is the destroyer's armor.

2.Preventing enemy forces from locating your friendly forces

This generally happens from the initial scouting until one side loses all its destroyers. There's really nothing too complicated about this. the best way to accomplish this is to fire your guns and spread out your torpedoes, distrupting enemy force's formation and even possibly hitting a few oblivious ships. While firing, however, do not sail straight. Your main battery fire should be as accurate as possible, but this should not be accomplished at the loss of your ship or health. Always try to minimize your loss, even if that means doing less damage. Your prescence on the seas is more valuable than necessarily doing alot of damage. As long as the enemy scouts are forced to retreat, your mission has been accomplished. If you come across heavy opposition, retreat yourself.

3.Guiding main battery fire of BBs and CAs

To be a truely good DD captain one must learn to scout. Scouting requires you to be the vaguard of the fleet, and be agressive all the while not overextending. BBs and CAs have limited range, and if you overextend you will be left spotted with no fire support. You want to keep in mind the range of the ships you are sailing with.You also want to not shoot your guns or launch torpedoes if you are not spotted, since your guns would do very little damage, and your torpedoes would make the enemy force maneuver, which would make leading for your friendly ships harder.


Even when you are spotted, try not to use torps if possible. Keep a parallel slithering maneuver and annoy the enemy force, directing the fire to yourself. This will allow your friendly forces to have an easier time killing them. If you are facing heavy enemy fire, use a Smoke round inbetween you and the enemy ships and fall back, to repeat the same scouting maneuver after you are unspotted.

4.AA Cover & Depth Charging

While located in the vanguard, you should try your best to prevent enemy aircraft to pass you without a good volley of AA fire. Never depend on the smaller caliber AA, and use the manual AA yourself. Note that you should immediately fall into the slithering maneuver while you perform the anti AA maneuver, since you'd most certainly be spotted. You should aggresively shoot down enemy aircraft, and generally make enemy carriers very annoyed.

Subs are slow, and slower underwater. Generally speaking, by the time they can approach friendly battleships, the match is well underway. You do not want to fight enemy subs with DCs when there are still significant enemy surfrace combatants.



DC’ing SS that have surface support is an easy way to get killed, since the surface support can basically fire on their own SS, and hit you, whose movements become very predictable. You want to engage subs which have become isolated or when enemy surface combatants are either dead or busy.

Most optimal approach on a SS is to approach from the side and to turn into the rear, since there are less torpedo tubes in the rear, and SSs are much slower than you. Sailing up from behind them gives you the longest area to DC them, compared to shooting them from the side. However, if you can't, or are too worried about getting hit by the SS's torps, you can just sail up from the side.

5.Going on the offensive

In times of desperation or when the enemy team lacks scouts, you can go in for a close in torpedo attack. By close in, I mean anywhere from 1km~650m. Torpedo safe range is around 600m,



When you perform this maneuver, it is critical that you maneuver hard, but still keep a decent speed towards the enemy. I strongly advise that you smoke your advance as much as possible, to minimize your chances of being spotted. When you reach 1~1.5km, Turn towards the direction of the enemy ship's sailing path, putting yourself parallel to the enemy. You do not want to be chasing the target, if the enemy ship is running away from you, and presenting a perpendicular target to you, pull back, for you will almost never hit him. Another point of note is that you should try to conserve your torpedo usage. Save a few torps just as a safety mesure, incase your other torps miss.

Ending notes

If you can fully implement all this, congratulations! You have become a true elephant lady!

To complement your tactics, I'd recommend the following items/crews:
- Smokes and if possible, a premium smoke as well. (take out the fire extinguisher)
- Any crew that increase stealth, speed, torpedo reload, maneuverability, or increase scouting range.
- The Rangefinder and the Steering gear upgrade, and/or Torpedo reload/accuracy buff for main battery/accelerator buff.

CVs are one of the more dynamic classes of ship in the game (despite the ship itself not moving very much), and has arguably the greatest number of roles due to its “armament” (for the lack of a better word)
Your armament is divided into: AA, Cannons (on most ships) and most importantly the flight deck.
AA and Cannons do exactly what it says on the tin. AA is to shoot down aircraft that get too close, Cannons provide some (rather underwhelming most times) defensive firepower to deal with low health destroyers that get too cocky.
That just leaves the flight deck, the meat of Carrier gameplay.
You get 4 Types of aircraft: Scouts, Dive Bombers, Torpedo bombers, and Fighters, each with their own uses and roles
Scouts: Perhaps your saving grace if your Destroyers are incompetent (which let’s face it, is more common that most of us would like to admit, or believe). They can fly far, see even farther, but will be shot down faster than you can say “voyeur”. A good Carrier captain can position them to get a good enough view of the enemy to send your friendly Battleships in a feeding frenzy, and get the poor scout plane home safe.
Dive Bombers: In my humble opinion, the hardest aircraft to utilize properly. At first glance, it seems simple. You tell them where to drop their bombs, and anything there when they arrive goes boom. There’s a catch however, as the spread on bombs gets narrower the more time passes after the initial click. Meaning you have to click far in advance of your target, and hope that by the time your Dive Bomber squadron gets there, the spread is minimal and all their bombs score direct hits. It’s worth noting that dive bombers are the only weapon in the game besides depth charges and torpedoes that can do damage to a periscope depth submarine
Torpedo bombers: The main CV damage dealers in most games you’ll see. Air dropped torpedoes aren’t as dangerous tier-for-tier as their destroyer launched counterparts, but their versatility and range makes them just as useful. It’s usually easier to sneak a torpedo squadron behind enemy lines than a destroyer, and can at least offer a nuisance factor to enemy ships. Just like Ship-launched torps, remember to account for arming range of your torpedoes. The best tactic to guarantee hits is to use 2 squadrons and create crossfire of torpedoes to ensnare Battleships and especially large cruisers. This however has the downside of exposing more squadrons at a time to AA fire
Fighters: Remember everything I said in the above 3 paragraphs? Well this is how you make sure the enemy CV can NOT do that. Fighters are simple, you point at an enemy plane or squadron, and they will hunt them down until somebody dies or you cancel the order (or until they lure you into enemy AA fire, and you end up looking slightly stupid). Fighters can also be useful if you employ them in a defensive patrolling role, if you tell them to stick close to a battleship that you suspect the enemy CV may intend to target
One last blanket statement about all Carrier-borne planes: Watch your fuel, and watch your health. Don’t get greedy with your distance or with how much time you spend above enemy AA. Each plane lost is lost till the end of the game. Suicide running that Battleship is rarely ever worth losing your teeth until the end of the game.
Another note is movement. Remain aware of not just the overall map, but also the immediate surroundings of your vessel. It’s often much easier than it should be for destroyers to sneak up on Carriers and empty their Torps into them.

Cruisers are generally the least popular class of ship in SO, and I'd say that they are the hardest class to play properly. many CL players charge ahead with DDs and get killed very early into the game, and many CAs try to duel with BBs, also dying really quickly.



The sad part is that cruisers fit in that awkard area where it's good against some and terrible against others, not to mention they vary heavily based on nations.

Light Cruiser Tactics



The primary job of a Light Cruiser is to destroy all equal or smaller warships. This would include: enemy CLs, DDs, SS, and occasionally CAs. CLs should try to avoid as much damage as possible, maneuvering similar to DDs. (Read: Slither) However, they are much less capable in the scout role, and should avoid open waters. They are best in regions either outside of BB gun range or in areas with lots of islands, where BBs don't dare sail through, and where many smaller warships fight in tight corridors. The large volume of light guns will destroy any lightly armored ship, and DCs and torpedoes can deal with SS. CLs can also attack CAs since their armor, while decent, is not impervious to CL guns, although in a straight out duel, the CL will lose due to their weaker firepower.


Heavy Cruiser Tactics



Heavy Cruisers are an interesting design to say the least. They are quite possibly the most unique class, and all nations have followed a different idea.
The IJN's CAs are large, almost battleship sized ships with 203mm duel turrets, armed with torpedoes. As with all IJN warships, they are top heavy as all hell. The IJN historically put great emphasis on these ships, with scout float planes, to provide recon for their attack carrier forces.
The USN CAs tend to ignore torpedoes, and focus on triple turrets. They put emphasis on anti air and secondary fire power, and also carry scouts.
The SMS/KMS CAs are an odd bunch, many of them carry two triple turrets and aren't particularily good at any especially, save for range and penetration. You won't get a German CA until tier 7 anyways, and they're all fine dandy ships. Historically, KMS CAs sailed around with their battleships and provided fire support in the eastern front.

The tactics for a CA is very similar to their actual historical role:
-Sail alongside BBs, providing the extra firepower while being defended from enemy BBs by friendlies
-Provide scout planes and AA cover for BBs
-Destroy smaller warships that BBs have a hard time dealing with, such as DDs.
- Sail out to regions BBs are too big and sluggish for, acting as a more manueverable BB in tight corridors.

In all cruisers, the rule is simple:

"Engage weaker units, run from stronger units." Utlize your speed in substitute for armor.

The battleship is without a doubt, the most popular class in SO. They are the symbol of a nation's ambitions and prestige, and as such have the biggest guns and thickest armor. The role of a BB, therefore, is quite simple: KILL EVERYTHINGGGGGGG (Except submarines underwater.)

More in detail:
- To plan a route of advance, sail behind scouts and support them with main battery fire
- To fend off smaller warships with main and secondary batteries
- To destroy enemy capital ships to allow friendly smaller warships to sail free
- To avoid enemy torpedo planes and subs

The Battleship is widely used but rarely utlized to it's maximum potential. First off, a BB should always be moving. It can be 25% or 100%, but moving makes targetting more difficult. A stationary target is a dead target.
Secondly, when engaging enemies, you do not want to give opponents a flat angle. Make sure that you can fire your full potential and try to prevent the enemy from getting full volleys in return. This can be done by killing speed, turning, using smokes, w/e. Be creative. Try to get in an odd angle to prevent plunging fire and to utlize your armor to the maximum potential (45ish degree.)



When aiming, slow down. Slowing down decreases the aiming time. When engaged by enemy submarines, always retreat. You will be spotted, and there is nothing you can do against a SS. The best maneuver you can do is to put your rear towards the sub and retreat full speed. BBs are faster than SS's underwater, and when they surface, you can counter them with guns.

It's generally not thought that a BB is good against a SS in single combat, but suprisingly, BBs, provided that they are competent and dodge the torps, are very good against submarines. As I've said before, run. always keep your self at a hard angle (read: not perpendicular to the enemy sub), and when they surface, load HE on all guns, and sink them. If they don't surface, they'll either drown or just be too slow to follow you.

When engaged by enemy DDs, apply the same tactics as with SS's, except that this time, utlize your guns to destroy them. DDs have to stop maneuvering when they get close, to launch their torps. That is when you can volley your main battery, or if they are inside the main gun min range, secondaries. Keep them on volley for maximum damage, but if they are manuevering, the guns should be on solo fire for spray capability.

Always try to remove guns rather than do the most damage. It's not about Kill Stealing, it's more of a desire to get shot and/or spotted less. :P

One last fact: just because you have armor, doesn't mean you can stay still. always move, and if you are spotted, use a smoke/run!

In Steel Ocean, there are three shell types: AP, HE, and Premium AP. First off, Premium AP is not really all that much better, and it costs gold (real money), so I recommend everyone to NOT use it. It's simply uneconomical and unnecessary.

So, let's talk AP/HE. I'm betting most people just sling AP at everything, and that's fine. However, if you want to use the full potential of your shells, bring some HE, because I learnt that they are quite useful at times.

AP obviously has the penetration advantage, and HE obviously has the damage advantage. However, after some testing in a training room, HE has some interesting capabilities. Now, obviously, lightly armored ships like DDs, who have around 30mm of armor everywhere, are the best targets for HE. I wouldn't recommend a DD to carry much HE, since their HE rounds have around 20~30mm of penetration, not even enough to reliably penetrate itself. It's also highly unlikely that the HE rounds will do any spalling damage to enemy ship modules. For CAs and CLs, however, HE rounds become much more useful. CAs and CLs get around 50~70mm of HE penetration, which is a good amount of pen to absolutely wreck a DD's fun time. Not only does it more damage, it completely wrecks the modules of the ship if it pens. BB HE is the most capable, since they get around 100~120mm of penetration. That's good enough to pen some cruisers, although it's not guaranteed, so unless you know the enemy cruiser armor layout well, I'd just fire AP. Ships like Cleveland get 150mm armor on barbettes, and they troll bounce, so why take the risk with HE.

So yeah, just a friendly PSA, bring some HE, they might prove useful against DDs, SSs, and some cruisers.

Also an interesting side note, me and my clanmate tested this, but when you fire HE into an enemy's funnel (the long cylindrical thingy that fumes comes out of), you destroy their engines. Just something interesting to note.

Now that you've read this needlessly long and punny guide of tactics most people knew already, go off into your glorious nipponese anime infused shipping war of w/e. Spread the glorious Poi Nanodesu Khorosho Elephant Lady Panpaka Pan Yasen Fufufu Kowaika DEEEEEESUUUUU!