fighting against subs

I´ve had some similar experience. But after 1940 sub hunters will become better eventually. Until then it´s 60:40 against DD´s. Even DD-only flotillas run the risk of losing five ships in exchange for one sub, but sometimes they wipe out 3 subs without losing a single ship. Turned out that the best sub hunters are CV´s and NAV / CAS, esp. with NAV-brigade.

I has quite the same experience with subs, except that planes are utterly useless against them.

I've had similar experiences. The bitter lesson that I learnt, until one has decent anti-sub technology anyway, is just to screen your capital ships with as many destroyers as possible. The little guys always seem to bear the brunt of those battles, keeping your capitals safe(-ish).

For specific ASW missions, I find three squadrons of destroyers usually do best. You can cover a large area by dividing your ASW forces into smaller groups like that too. I found that including a CL in the mix just gets it sunk, usually. Still, all that's trial and error... you mileage may vary!

In my experience subs seem to target capitals first, though. And a single lucky shot sends a battlecruiser to the seabed. :sad:

Amallric said:

In my experience subs seem to target capitals first, though. And a single lucky shot sends a battlecruiser to the seabed. :sad:

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I think all the DDs prevent them getting close enough or something though. I'm not quite sure how the mechanics work...

Amallric said:

I has quite the same experience with subs, except that planes are utterly useless against them.

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In several games there have been Australian CAS/TAC (operating from UK) sinking quite a number of GER subs as early as 1940. It´s not easy to sink them, but after a while, when most of the subs are damaged, it´s easier to pick them off.

@Joerd9 Don´t know if in the game a single NAV is equally successfull at detecting an enemy fleet as a group of four. I use at least a pair of them.

Anti sub units are CVs, CVLs and DDs. All other naval units have no sub attack rating at all. AFAIK, CVLs should be best.

Tegetthoff, can you comment on early overpowered subs? Are they really so by your opinion? And if yes can this be tweaked/fixed?

joerd9 said:

That would be helpful indeed.
So far, the only method I could come up with is extreme caution and close observation of the weather. Patrol planes are not really helpful (low detection success, evidently), even if I send my best ASW ships (Black Swans and 2000t Sloops currently), I'm still losing the occasional flotilla during prolonged battles with submarines. I'm not too happy with this kind of engagement. Currently both parties exchange shots at each other. The way it should be is: Surprise attack by sub (hit or miss), prolonged retaliation by Hunter-Killer-Group (low hit rate). The sub either gets sunk or manages to escape (in both cases the battle is finished).
But I guess this is impossible to model with the current naval battle system.

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I've found this as well. If you have advanced enough DDs, they can stay out of range of the subs but still get their attacks in, otherwise you're looking at some losses.

I've found that CVs (and variants thereof) are the best though. In my current game, I have the three old CV1s that the UK gets as a part of the shipbuilding plan, with a handful of escorts, on ASW duties, and their performance is perfect so far. One of them also happened to sink the Bismark, but that's another story...

Subs

My experience is the opposite. My U-boats are swept from the sea and my surface raiders worse and Merchant Cruisers useless as build time too long.

I do however ROFLMAO when I get message. DEFEAT and lists all the Brit capitals & DD's sunk with often no U-Boat loss. Love those Anti-Pyrrhic defeats!

This "defeat" is most probably due to the subs retreating after their org has been used up - the party to retreat first gets the "defeat".

joerd9 said:

OK, it's 1942 now, it seems I've won the battle of the atlantic, and I think I can sum up some of my experiences in keeping UK's sealanes open:
1. Build patrol planes. They're cheap, have long range and actually quite decent sea detection. They are your eyes at sea. Have them patrol areas or single choke point seazones but stay out of enemy land-based air range. 16-24 squadrons give you enough coverage for the Atlantic. Include Newfoundland (and after Pearl Harbour: Iceland) in your base network. That way, the "air gap" is tolerably small.
2. Do NOT, under any circumstances, include capital ships in a naval task force you intend to do ASW with or they're dead - especially in bad weather.
3. ASW forces should consist of modern destroyers or ASW sloops/corvettes (Black Swan or 2000t Sloop class are really good at this) ONLY! Keep them "type pure". 3-6 ships per force stationed in a circle around the atlantic ocean (Bermuda, Canada, Iceland, Britain, Gibraltar). Have them either standing by as a reaction force in case of convoy raiding or keep them on ASW patrol in a region in proximity to their base.
So far, I haven't had any raiders south of Gibraltar.
4. Concerning sinking subs by aircraft: patrol planes won't do that. They're purely for spotting. For attacking you should build TACs with the naval attack attachment.
5. Keep building ASW ships. While they have decent capabilities, you will still loose some ships. Plus the build times are long, so keep that line running.

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I can concur with this; I've done it all apart from using patrol bombers for spotting (I use them for convoy raiding; they seem to be extremely useful for this, plus, due to their very long range, can be based in otherwise underused airfields rather than the congested ones on your coast). I have occasionally seen raiding south of Gibraltar as well.

I have to agree with the previous posts arguing that subs are wildly overpowered at the moment. For some reason my DDs almost never get a chance to shoot at them. I've watched battles very carefully, my positioning is better, everyone is in range, but my DDs just sit there getting blown to pieces. As did my CVE (HMS Argus) back when it still existed.

As others have noted, aircraft are mostly useless. An occasional lucky shot from 4xTac-40+NA-38 will on rare occasions do a small amount of damage, but most of the time even Patrol bombers won't even spot subs in the same sea zone that I'm getting a stream of lost convoy messages from.

What makes this all the more frustrating is that Allied subs remain as useless as they normally are in HOI2/AoD. Not sure what about the Screen Penetration Doctrine or the '40 sub model tech that makes such an enormous difference, but clearly there's something in there. Or is it just that Germany has a ton of skill 5+ Sea Wolf admirals, while RN/USN skill 5s are busy commanding carrier groups? Again, I wouldn't think a single skill point (Argus was commanded by a skill 4 admiral) would make much difference... And it's not just combat performance either, German subs sink convoy and/or escort points several times a day, USN/RN subs are lucky to sink anything at all in their entire patrol.

And yes, I've followed joerd9's advice in the previous posts to the letter. At this point I've lost so many DDs that to recreate ASW detachments would require escorting the battleship and carrier task forces entirely with CLs. Which the RN has the numbers to do, but considering that subs have an unpleasant tendency of exploding important capital ships even with DDs present I'm reluctant to do that. German sub losses have been minimal (3-4 IIRC). And subs cost about 2/3 the IC for 2/3 the time as a Black Swan corvette anyway... I guess this explains why in my US game the AI UK had no less than 20 parallel lines of DD-ASW running (along with half a dozen CVL lines) - or why AI UK was utterly useless at actually fighting the war in that game. I have to wonder if joerd9's date of 1942 as when things get better has more to do with Barbarossa AI switches than DDs actually becoming effective...

As usual the problem is the AI not game mechanics. As UK the CVEs with ASW or even regular destroyers will beat subs (but with losses ocasionally). Planes are used for spotting mostly - plane finds flotilla, flotilla is immediatedly attacked by ships. So no, planes are not useless. Add to that port strike with carriers to finish damaged subs, and it´s easy to wipe out most subs by 1941.

The problem begins when the player is Germany and then indeed it´s very easy to slaughter the RN with sub spam. Truth be said however no single HOI game ever did subs right, HOI 3 is even worse because there subs are useful only for convoy raiding. Al least here they do have the offensive power they should (submarines did big damage in all fronts, that´s a fact). If the AI did decent ASW fleets and had decent air cover to stop your Luftwaffe wrecking the RN, then subs would not be overpowered.

Beagá said:

As usual the problem is the AI not game mechanics. As UK the CVEs with ASW or even regular destroyers will beat subs (but with losses ocasionally). Planes are used for spotting mostly - plane finds flotilla, flotilla is immediatedly attacked by ships. So no, planes are not useless. Add to that port strike with carriers to finish damaged subs, and it´s easy to wipe out most subs by 1941.

The problem begins when the player is Germany and then indeed it´s very easy to slaughter the RN with sub spam. Truth be said however no single HOI game ever did subs right, HOI 3 is even worse because there subs are useful only for convoy raiding. Al least here they do have the offensive power they should (submarines did big damage in all fronts, that´s a fact). If the AI did decent ASW fleets and had decent air cover to stop your Luftwaffe wrecking the RN, then subs would not be overpowered.

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I don't play Germany - I am the RN. CVEs or DD-ASW absolutely do not beat subs - subs annihilate them, "with losses occasionally" as you say. Planes (sometimes) find subs, the ships immediately join the fight, the sub takes no damage (usually) and kills 1-3 DDs (always). So that doesn't actually make planes very useful, they just facilitate getting my DDs killed off. If they did noticeable damage to subs, or if DDs could fight back, sure, they'd be great.

Yes, subs did lots of damage. They also got sunk in massive numbers when aircraft and/or DDs actually found them. The first part is reflected well, the second part is not reflected at all.

jhhowell said:

I don't play Germany - I am the RN. CVEs or DD-ASW absolutely do not beat subs - subs annihilate them, "with losses occasionally" as you say. Planes (sometimes) find subs, the ships immediately join the fight, the sub takes no damage (usually) and kills 1-3 DDs (always). So that doesn't actually make planes very useful, they just facilitate getting my DDs killed off. If they did noticeable damage to subs, or if DDs could fight back, sure, they'd be great.

Yes, subs did lots of damage. They also got sunk in massive numbers when aircraft and/or DDs actually found them. The first part is reflected well, the second part is not reflected at all.

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The first CVEs have horrible stats against subs. Things improve over time if you continue to prioritize researching ASW and related techs. Until 1942/43 it´s usually going back and forth, sometimes a few subs will kill 6 DDs, sometimes you annihilate 3 subs with one encounter. In the early years your best sub hunters are groups of three or four CVs with a few DDs. Note that in CORE CLs don´t have any ASW capacity at all.

I usually send those CV lv. I as one group to the med, harassing the Italien navy. The more modern ones are stationed in the UK. When war breaks out there should be at least three lv. 5 CV with techs (1939) researched.