• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

unmerged(54763)

Field Marshal
Mar 12, 2006
2.758
0
It is so tasty playing GER and producing dosens of subs.And then ordering them to anchor in Norwegian fiords and ocupied France harbours.And then sending them on their risky missions in Atlantic,commanded by 4-6 level Sea Wolf captains.

It is so tasty,apart from one small thing that bothers mee in Doomsday:

They are worthles!

I tried everything.Large stacks,small stacks.Short missions,long missions.
Night atack,all-day atacks.

I sacrified my hall one game researching subs and their doctrines.Then I introduced level 6(!) subs on Atlantic in 1943 together with all techs related.
Commanders Sea Wolfs level 6/7.

But nothing.I even once produced 6 Nuclear submarines in 1944.But nothing.
They are just sitting ducks.I lost all 6 of them(Donitz level 7) in one day during one cruise in the central Atlantic,by some supernatural Allied Naval Bomber atack(by the way thousands of miles form any Allied airfield).I am not sure if Superman could destroy 6 Nuclear submarines so quickly.

Fix subs.Make them less visible to enemy at least.make them woth of building.

By doing so,oposing side will have beter motive to build fleets to opose them,so naval warfare will be more interesting,and game focus will be more shifted on naval warfare.
I know it is maybee interesting when playing Britain,to make genocide of advanced German subs only with fiew destroyers in 1941.But is is far from historical truth.
I know,game management is such,that playing GER and winning over Russia is key to win,but there lacks one whole theater of WW2 there.A Battle for the Atlantic doesnt exisit in DD.
Fix subs.
 
Last edited:
Well this only about the 15156456187th topic about the DD subs, but anyway...

You shouldn't use them against enemy warships because then they'll suck (just like in real life).
You should put them on convoy raiding. So they sink enemy merchant shipping, forcing them to put more IC into building convoys. In the (really) long run you can even put your enemy in resource or supplytrouble.
It's very easy to fight the Battle of the Atlantic. (It was fought between subs and merchantshipping, not between subs and warships. Subs were doing everything to avoid those escorts that were hunting them.)
Just put your subs on convoy raiding and avoid those ASW-groups.
The game is even that historic that due to doctrines that subs will be less and less effective as the game continues because of the rising ASW-effectives of the Allies.
 
I'm inclined to agree. Everyone knows the Churchill quote that the u-boat threat scared him more than anything else in the war. That doesn't exist in DD (it sort of did before the expansion). I tried to replicate the US sub offensive against Japan as well and with the same results; roughly 45 sub groups were eliminated within a matter of months. It simply isn't worth building subs, thus ruining two of the most important offensives of the war.
 
The best solution I've seen for fixing this is to change the organization level of submarines. When using Egslim's mod {Tech tree and naval combat} for example, the org level of subs is 3. I began sending subs on convoy raiding missions in 1940 after the fall of france (rebased to France). Yes I did lose some to allied fleet actions, but by 1943 there were very few allied transports available for convoys. All attacks in India, Persia, and North Africa against US and UK land units had the "out of supply" penalty for the defender. I checked the number of transports by loading US and UK and it was grim -- most convoys were red (even Pacific ones for U.S.).

The low organization meant the submarines did not linger to combat allied surface groups -- they retreated regained org at sea and continued the convoy raiding mission. The other support I provided was a tac bomber group (4 divisions) flying naval strike missions in the Bay of Biscay (?? sea area next to Bordeau) to avoid the sub stacks from being ambushed when leaving port or bombed by allied carriers in port.
 
I have had best results with stacks of 6 or 12 and night missions.

It is important to move to a new zone after each time that you hit a convoy. This avoids the ASW forces swarming all over you. Naturally, you also want to flee any time you are engaged by pretty much anything.
 
Dalwin said:
I have had best results with stacks of 6 or 12 and night missions. It is important to move to a new zone after each time that you hit a convoy. This avoids the ASW forces swarming all over you. Naturally, you also want to flee any time you are engaged by pretty much anything.

Agreed. I have had good luck with subs using them this way. You can put a real hurt on the UK if you manage your Atlantic campaign effectively, in concert with air superiority in the Bay of Biscay, and using Naval Bombers as convoy raiders from France. This pushes the convoy lines into a narrower section of the Atlantic.

But you really shouldn't count on results in the short term. It takes 2-3 years to really grind down the UK merchant marine. The chief effect you will see is that the UK will build far fewer ground and air units as it tries to keep up with merchant losses. Everything's relative in HOI2, you know.
 
Ah, the reduced org looks interesting...
Still, the minimum defence strength in Britain is so low it will often be both cheaper and easier to just conquer the place right away instead of building a fleet.
 
I think DD changed sub attack and defense to ensure that super stacks of subs would no longer be able to sink entire surface fleets(HOI 2). However, the convoy attack remained unchanged which means subs are a waste relative to the damage they do to the enemy (in MP and IC) unless the player goes head first into sub production and the appropriate doctrines. If the sub detection level for surface ships were lowered and the ability to escape from naval battles redone then subs would be a much better investment.
 
Does the number of subs you group together effect their visibility? I assumed it did in my last game as Germany, and sent a total of twenty subs out, without grouping any of them (the 1938 tech version) and lost maybe five or so in a whole year's time while sinking a ton of convoys (June '40 - June '41).

Maybe I just had a really lucky game, I don't know, but I always build a sub fleet as Germany and do pretty well with it.
 
sideshow_bob said:
Well this only about the 15156456187th topic about the DD subs, but anyway...

You shouldn't use them against enemy warships because then they'll suck (just like in real life).
You should put them on convoy raiding. So they sink enemy merchant shipping, forcing them to put more IC into building convoys. In the (really) long run you can even put your enemy in resource or supplytrouble.
It's very easy to fight the Battle of the Atlantic. (It was fought between subs and merchantshipping, not between subs and warships. Subs were doing everything to avoid those escorts that were hunting them.)
Just put your subs on convoy raiding and avoid those ASW-groups.
The game is even that historic that due to doctrines that subs will be less and less effective as the game continues because of the rising ASW-effectives of the Allies.


I am afraid you are missing something.

First I am using subs anly for conwoy raiding.Their losses are anacceptable.

And second,and most important.Developers of this game are forgoten that by the end of 1944,Geraman enginiers overcome all obsticles in their path to regain submarine supremacy over ASW,exactly by electrobote(In game level 5 subs).They didnt have time to send them on the sea,but mayoriti of historians are agreed that those tipes(and even improved model prepared for production)did have real chance to counter Allied ASW capabilities of that time.But there were no more excpirienced sailors,harbours and fuel to oprate them.

So historicali,Electrobote overcomed obsticles,but game allowes you to built even 2 levels more. But whatever you builds,desteny of your subs is the same,certain death,and quick one.
 
Dalwin said:
I have had best results with stacks of 6 or 12 and night missions.

It is important to move to a new zone after each time that you hit a convoy. This avoids the ASW forces swarming all over you. Naturally, you also want to flee any time you are engaged by pretty much anything.


Yes this is valid tactics.But If you have many sub stacks on sea isnt this to haevy to managed them manualy?
 
I don't know about the effectiveness of subs on convoy raiding, but a surface fleet of SHBB's and friends does a much better job IMO of taking out convoys. 20 per hit. I was seeing resources being forced to stay in egypt, the AI only able to send supplies because of the lack of convoys. Meanwhile Sub fleets only really still did one or two per hit....
 
The problem with subs' strategic effectiveness is probably less with submarine combat resolution than it is with the game's economic system. The lack of limits and disincentives to stockpiling makes it unlikely that the British will run out of important resources, and their need to import food isn't reflected in the game. Submarines in DD can't duplicate or better the pressure that U-boats historically put on Britain, but they're not completely worthless in that they can choke off supply to British army operations overseas.

While I think it was right in principle to "nerf" the effectiveness of subs versus surface fleets, I don't think the current model is quite right either. There were a number of significant surface ship losses to subs during the war. Maybe the occasions when damaged surface ships were finished off by subs could be replicated in the game, but I don't believe that incidents like the sinking of the British carriers Courageous, Ark Royal, and Eagle, or battleship Barham, could be. That seems like a significant omission to me.

Given that subs didn't actually fight as fleets in the sense surface ships did (wolfpacks were formed from patrol groups at sea when a vulnerable target was sighted, and would disperse if they found themselves credibly opposed), I think that in some future version of the game they should be severed from the current fleet combat system entirely. The current commerce raiding system seems reasonable, but some alternative "chance of an ambush" system should apply when surface warships enter their patrol zone. A successful shot against a enemy capital ship should be very unlikely, but fairly devastating if it actually hits. ASW "hunter-killer" operations by surface warships, technology and doctrine permitting, shouldn't "freeze" a U-boat task force as such, but should make it lethal for U-boats to operate in a given zone.
 
sideshow_bob said:
You shouldn't use them against enemy warships because then they'll suck (just like in real life).

Im sorry but germany sank about a million Tons in the first 365 days of war (including warships and non combatants) with something that costs about half in efforts and time of almost ANY warship...THAT is HARDLY something sucky
 
elpeladopocione said:
Im sorry but germany sank about a million Tons in the first 365 days of war (including warships and non combatants) with something that costs about half in efforts and time of almost ANY warship...THAT is HARDLY something sucky

I think he meant they sucked against warships, but they definitely did do a lot of damage IRL, so this should somehow be more accurately reflected in the game.
 
One major problem is that subs will stay and try to fight just like any other ship. As suggested above, reducing their org to make them flee quicker (and possibly reduce the sub detection capability of various ships) could help against that.
 
A very interesting thread that has led me to two questions. First, what is the Egslim's mod someone mentioned, what effect does it have on the game and where can I download it? Next, seeing that most here seem to view submarines as pretty pathetic in DD is reasonable to suggest that modding sub unit stats (as opposed to some other aspect of the game) will make submarines worth while or are the flaws so serious that merely bumping up the unit stats will not change things much?
 
Bullfrog said:
I think he meant they sucked against warships, but they definitely did do a lot of damage IRL, so this should somehow be more accurately reflected in the game.
Yep,that's what I meant.

About the Type XXI: Yes,you are right. Maybe there should be an increase in stats but wouldn't it be hard to implement this?
You would either give the lvl 5 subs a boost but then all nations would benefit from this. Or you could give a boost from a '44 naval doctrine but then your older subs would also get this bonus.
But most importantly if you give them a bonus it shouldn't be too good, remember we want Untersee Boote not Uber Boote.

PS: a little managing tip:when I use U-boats I give the flotilla the name of the area where they'll raid, that way you can be sure that you won't forget to raid an area.
 
I'll have to agree that my initial experiences with subs has been negative.

I almost always play as minors, and occasionally you'd end up with a level 1 or 2 sea wolf commanding 3-6 level 1-3 subs. they do absolutely nothing. I can't recall EVER intercepting a convoy, even though I know for absolute certain where the supplies are being delivered to.

A great example of this was Tobruk in Italy. I could see the supply depot there, used by Italy, and SEE that it got replenished quite regular. So as Austrailia I parked 4 level 2 subs right on the med, right by the port, on convoy raiding, with a sea wolf captain.

Nothing. Absolutely zero affect. I didn't even get the "we spotted a highly protected convoy" message.

I mean, I'd rathar they attack and get sunk or shot down then to simply not SEE the convoys! I got zero response.

If you have to have the top techs and the top subs to do ANYTHING, than that is pretty silly.
 
Maybe an automatic "flee as soon as possible when engaged"-function could be included in the "convoy-raiding" mission? As Liebgot said, there must be a problem with managing if you have 150 U-boats diving around the Atlantic...

Personally I think it should go without saying that a sub-commander must avoid enemy warships, exept if they for some reason have a specific mission to attack the enemys fleets.