Are Submarines Worthless?

[blue emu]

Update : Late July, 1941.

Under massive bombardment by TACs and Rockets, the British ICs continue to evaporate like spit on a hot stove... they are down to two Tech Teams now:

News from abroad: on July 28th, 1941, the Nationalist Chinese government surrendered to the Empire of Japan. The Japanese ruling cabinet has decided to install a loyal puppet regime. Co-incidentally, German forces from the "Army of India", now pushing into Burma, were close enough to hear the final shots of the campaign... only one province away.

This increase in Japanese power will go some distance towards distracting the USA, and may keep them occupied in the Pacific while Germany forges a New Order in Europe.

Our first four Bismarcks will be launched in less than three weeks...

 

[Lifewalker]

I've just tried put a combined surface raider + sub strategy.

On 1st sept 39, Bismark,Tirpitz, 3 CLS and 1 CVL combined with 6 subs and sneaked out via denmark straits to the portugese coast , and have been consistently sinking 15 convoys per day ever since...

They have averaged 450 sinkings per month , its december now and the UK is already minus 1300 convoys.

A major change since DD (or maybe since the latest DD patch , not sure) is that convoy routes are now simply specified by the sea-areas they pass, rather then the individual sea-zones, in the convoy info production window. EG: convoy xx passes through , English channel, Irish sea, Cape Finistere, Portugese coast, etc

I think this means its now much harder for ships to sneak past since the presense of raiders anywhere in the sea-area will now target the convoy , rather then it requiring the raiders to be in the specific zones.

Combining the subs with the surface ships seems to be viable now that Battleships + a CVL dont insta-lose vs CVS anymore , I've only had a few run-ins so far , mostly just ASW forces that Bismark made bits of so it seems a lot easier to micro manage without needing to withdraw as often.

EDIT: Feb 1940, just lost all the surface ships bar Bismark in a fight vs a UK CV+BB fleet , kind of got cocky and didnt retreat in time when I saw the range was staying close despite they having 3 CVs, but they also had a lot of BBs I guess I need to wait now till france falls and I can get air support out there before Bismark goes back raiding.

 

[blue emu]

Update : August 30th, 1941.

With all Naval assets positioned... two concentric rings of U-Boats, grouped in 12-flotilla packs; with Troop Transports and SAGs in the center... the landing operations in England commenced at dawn on August 30th, accompanied by a six-Division Paradrop.

By sundown, the Fallshirmjaegers had broken the three defending Divisions, and secured a toe-hold in England. Naval Transports were immediately ordered to land the reserve troops in the captured port.

No sign yet of the Royal Navy, but it is still Day 1 of the operation... they may already be at sea. Air reconnaisance has spotted British Armored Divisions moving from the London area to counter-attack the bridgehead.

 

[Soulitaire]

here we go!

this thread has become daily reading for me... thanks!

 

[unmerged(60960)]

anyone interested in testing the viability of subs in a multiplayer scenario is welcome to PM me on the subject, I'm willing to try this from either a German or British aspect........ Emu, on the subject of countering what is your solution? i was thinking groups of 4-7 destroyers in each seazone as opposed to the sub idea of 3 or six flotilla's perhaps as the war grinds on for england they can increase the amount of destroyers, and spread out the CV's and CVL's

 

[General Failure]

From an UK perspective:

The last LAN I played saw Sub activity. '38 Scenario. Not concentrating on subs, but germany, Italy and Japan all used the Subs they had at the beginning of the scenario on convoy raiding missions against myself as soon as the war began, germany has built some new subIVs. It´s end of november '40 now and I lost about 172 convoys, 9 escorts, about 15% of my starting capacity. Seems not too impressing, although their real sub campaigns started in april '40. Since then, I´ve lost about 20 convoys a month. But they´ve not been focusing on navy, especially submarines (what I don´t understand as I always thought, they were great for sinking convoys).

What I learned in this session was:
1. As England, you´re having a hard time fighting Japan, Italy and Germany, while noone´s helping you (Hell, I´m glad my resistance on the ground is not collapsing).
2. A player focusing on subs can be a real pain. As you won´t know in the beginning of the game what germany will do, you DO have to focus on ASW production/research, even if the germans decide not to take the "Atlantic War" way.
3. Use NavalBombers to find his subs! Sometimes I´ve been searching for their subs several days without finding them. NavalBombers spotted them immediately and destroyers could hunt them.
Edit:
4. Subs are difficult to destroy when your navy is spread all over the world´s oceans and you can´t group you new built lvl 3&4 destroyers in larger groups, as you´d run out of screening vessels. On the other side, you´ve got to be able to at least defend your possessions against surface fleets (Let´s not talk about going to the offensive...)
/Edit

Unfortunately I right now don´t have the time for testing as I´ve got to keep on learning for exams at university.
If you´ve done some testing, could you please post it on the forum or PM me?

 

[blue emu]

anyone interested in testing the viability of subs in a multiplayer scenario is welcome to PM me on the subject, I'm willing to try this from either a German or British aspect

My router doesn't seem to support MP play, at this game or any other... it's probably older than you are...

... Emu, on the subject of countering what is your solution? i was thinking groups of 4-7 destroyers in each seazone as opposed to the sub idea of 3 or six flotilla's perhaps as the war grinds on for england they can increase the amount of destroyers, and spread out the CV's and CVL's

The ideal ASW antidote would likely be a CVL plus five DD-IVs making a six-ship ASW force, under a Spotter Leader and with NAV support for spotting.

Note, however, that this represents a much larger IC investment... out of a much smaller IC total... than the Germans themselves have committed. Just building these vessels gives the Germans a sort of "minimal victory", since the Subs will have cost the British more to counter than they cost the Germans to build.

Naturally, Britain would not need to match the German submarine forces 1-to-1 in builds, since these ASW forces could actually kill U-Boats, while the U-Boats would have to be quite lucky to even hurt them in return.

U-Boat packs in areas covered by German NAVs (and Fighters) are a much bigger headache... I suppose you could use your own Subs to harrass them...

 

[unmerged(59896)]

I've found that you lose a lot less ORG rebasing if you methodically stage from base to base, never flying farther than your normal range. My planes came all the way from the Volga to the Channel Coast, and even the Stukas still have some ORG left. The TACs still have most of their ORG left.

Good stuff, Blue Emu. I taking this to the "did you know..." thread.

 

[Brasidas]

anyone interested in testing the viability of subs in a multiplayer scenario is welcome to PM me on the subject, I'm willing to try this from either a German or British aspect........

I'm still waiting for a response to my PM.

 

[blue emu]

Update : September 11th, 1941.

The results are now in for the Sealion campaign.

The Royal Navy attempted to crash my U-Boat barricade by sending a 25-unit fleet down the West coast of England, towards my Transports which were unloading at Plymouth, in the South-West corner of England.

My defenses were arranged in two concentric rings of U-Boats, with 12 flotillas per stack... with the Transports and Shore-Bombardment vessels inside the inner ring, and my 30-unit Hochzee Flotte deployed to the East of them, also inside the inner U-Boat cordon.

Contact was made with the enemy in the Irish Sea, as they tried to pass the North-Western perimiter of the outer U-Boat cordon. The British force consisted of one old CV, a few BBs, several CAs, and enough screening vessels (CL and DD) to protect them... about 11 Caps and 14 screens.

As an experiment, I did not send any Naval reinforcements to the battle. I just left the 12 U-Boat flotillas to fight it out on their own... but ordered the Luftwaffe to give them full Aerial support from NAVs, TACs and Cas... a total of 16 Squadrons, half of them NAVs.

My own losses in the battle were 10 of the 12 U-Boats involved, and they succeeded in sinking only two enemy ships... one CL and one DD. On the other hand... they kept the British force locked in battle for a whole week, while my transports finished ferrying the Army forces into the bridgehead, and while my Luftwaffe rained death on the British Naval force... sinking all of the Capital Ships (1 CV, 4 BBs, 6 CAs) and eight of the screens. Only four enemy ships (all screens) survived the battle... and they withdraw, despite "winning" the battle.

Situation at the start of the Battle of the Irish Sea:

A bit later:

Near the end of the battle:

We lost the battle... they lost their fleet to Air attack.

Situation at the end of the battle:

Situation at present:

Some of the losses (they occupy more than one page):

... so it seems that U-Boats can indeed be used to protect an amphibious invasion... if you already have Air Superiority, and can use the U-Boats to pin the enemy fleet while you hammer it again and again from the Air.

Note that without the U-Boats, the enemy fleet would have reached the invasion beaches in less than a day, rather than still being tied up by my U-Boats a week later.

My Bismarcks remained in close reserve throughout the battle... and never fired a shot.

 

[noobermenschen]

My Bismarcks remained in close reserve throughout the battle... and never fired a shot.

Very wise, simply repairing one of your BBs would cost as much as a few of those flotillas.

The Germans tried using U-boats to screen the Norway invasion without much success, though faulty torpedo detonators cost them several kills (and a couple of U-boats). The USN tried to use subs as scouts/screens at Midway, again without any earth shaking results, even counting the sub that caused the Mogami and Mukima to collide. The Japanese had a few successes in "torpedo alley" south of the Solomons, sinking the CV Wasp and damaging a BB (North Carolina?) but the IJN really goofed thinking that merchant shipping was not worthy of their torpedoes. Going after warships cost them a lot of boats as well as some tremendous opportunities as their subs were pretty good, their torpedoes very good, and their skippers skilled and aggressive.

Where you are ahead of your time is the large scale cooperation of subs and land based air. Friendly fire could be kept to a minimum as targeting would be simple - Attack anything that doesn't submerge until you MAKE IT submerge.

The only historical example I can think of would be US subs and bombers going after Japanese convoys off the China coast late in the war. The Japs were using mined anchorages by night to keep the subs at bay and sailing during the day under air cover, but the Air Corps started catching them there and were literally bombing fish in a barrel...

 

[Pablius]

The other day I experienced one of this endless battles between u-boats and the RN...My subs were raiding near Gibraltar...I had changed my doctrines to those of the US Navy to build a strong german CV fleet...

I don´t remember the in game date, but I hadn´t fully reseached the doctrines yet, so that kind of engagment is possible even if you don´t focus on sealine intediction

Eventually I choosed to withdrawl since my subs weren´t doing anything usefull and I had no fleet or planes to assist them...most of them survived but didn´t sink anything....

 

[Gormadoc]

My own losses in the battle were 10 of the 12 U-Boats involved, and they succeeded in sinking only two enemy ships... one CL and one DD. On the other hand... they kept the British force locked in battle for a whole week,

This shows us two things.

1:Subs are not in them self directly very usefull against Fleets, which is a good thing.

2:The AI has no tactical thinking, it cant decide what is an important battle and what battle it should retreat from. Sadly their isn't anything we can do about that, with the current way of programming the AI.

Gormadoc

 

[Kanitatlan]

I have experienced quite a few combined naval and air operations and noticed that there is a definite bias in ship losses. It seems to me that air achieve a significantly higher percentage of kills than their percentage of damage inflicted. The implication is that air are better at finishing of damage ships than naval units. I suspect that this is something to do with aircraft being better at targeting ships of their choice (badly damaged ones) than the navy is. Assuming this occurred in your u-boat battle, which I think is highly likely, then the u-boats deserve significantly more credit in terms of accumulated damage. They may have only finished off 2 ships but they may well have done several ships more worth of damage.

This suggests that the game algorithms are actually quite realistic as it would be quite reasonable for ships crippled by torpedo attack to be finished off by air strikes. The only area where it really does seem a bit odd is where land based air power is better at selecting targets than carrier based. This makes no real life sense but does in game since carriers are simply treated as ships with very long range guns.

 

[War Emblem]

The AI has no tactical thinking, it cant decide what is an important battle and what battle it should retreat from.

This has produced some very strange results in my current Germany GC. Twice I have engaged the major elements of the British fleet with Subs. Once was in the English Channel, no big surprise there, though as an experiment (they were obsolete subs) I left them to fight with the fleet to see how long 3 Subs could tie them down. It turned out long enough to get an invasion fleet across if I had one assembled. The next time, I was engaged by the British while well into the Atlantic - three sea zones west of Plymouth. If the Brits are going to chase my subs like that, its going to make Sea Lion awfully tough to put off. It seems the AI is incapable of making sub hunter groups and instead uses capitol fleets.

 

[Jack Fisher]

Hi.
I´m a lurker that have been enjoying this thread a lot. The quietness have made me come out from the shadows and post and I hope blue emu continues or currently are writing a god AAR!

Or am I missing something?

 

[meirlon]

while very fun to play, the game dynamics makes it a lot easier just to zerg the uk. Perhaps in MP this will work better (perhaps not?). The UK just has way to many resources to begin with, at the start of the war they have 100k+ stockpiled and after the invasion of the soviets with constant sub warfare they still have 50k+. It would take nearly the whole game to get there stockpiles down to 0 =p. A direct invasion of the UK would have the same effect basically of the sub warfare, making the UK unable to defend africa from italy and india from japan. Perhaps in future games paradox will take this into consideration and make it a bit more feasable (blah spelling) to do something like this.

The effects of the sub warefare are as followed (as i can tell) - UK cant feed itself. They have trade aggreements with just about anyone they can for supplies, and thats just about all the trade they have. All trade goes down to 20-50%, usually 20 ish. They begin trading with the SU, after the invasion of the SU and scandinavia they are forced to trade with the US who has something like 15% trade.

Various outposts (hong kong, malta, gibralter) run out of supplies and die.

As soon as japan pushes pass the puppet the british have in india, all there indian forces run out of supples and begin to die.

Italy has an easier time in africa, as the brits are unable to reinforce it.

British industry is focused on DD's, radar/fighters (if you set up an intercepter ring in the isles). 70% or so of there industry is in supplies. About 30-35 IC is in production.

When the USA joins the war, if you keep up with the sub warefare you basically negate there ability to send troops overseas. After a few months of sinking there convoys they will try to send troops to outposts but they will die off over time, fortress europe is very very safe.

- By the time I got BP with the soviets, japan had already pushed threw india and were into persia. Italy was down near south africa. Obviously this changes a bit with games (I allied with italy/japan before ww2 even broke out and the USA joined the war as pearl harbor happened when i invaded poland in 39...).

 

[P3D]

In the MP games where I saw Germany building enough of a fleet to convoy raid/invade UK, the following happened:
- Germany could not build enough of a fleet to invade UK or to build an effective land blockade
- UK can easily defend Great Britain if not Ireland.
- Paratroopers counterattacked easily, and out of range if not based in Dublin
- even if most of the UK/CW army is trapped/destroyed in France/Africa, UK can easily defend its beaches with 4-6 ARM divs, which will arrive at the invaded province in no time using Support Defence, reducing infra by bombing won't slow them down enough
- And the most important is that Germany won't have enough mobile units and air force to defend the West Europe and to invade USSR with any hope of success.

UK can reduce the effectiveness of any convoy raiding by stopping all resource convoy coming in (and I saw claims that convoy raiding against supply convoys won't work at all). Building 30 the DD-IVs to clean the Atlantic from the wolfpacks won't cost much either (about as much as 3 ARM).

 

[unmerged(32688)]

SUB BUDDY REPORT!

As Nationalist Spain I tried blue emus generally strategy. 1936 campaign. (Played as Tannu Tuva until Civil War).
Immediately researched SS4 (while fighting civil war!)
Won civil war in a month or two.
Allied as quickly as possible (still a while cus no money) with Germany (After a ton of influencing ) for other blueprints and to be able to start Convoy raiding immediately at start of war.

Built: 72 SS4 subs, various INF and a couple planes. (12 more subs in build queue if needed)

Sent out 60, 3 in a pack, 2 packs of 3 per patrol area. Stationed in similar areas as blue emu, double line between South America and Africa, single line in front of Panama Canal.
Kept 12 in reserve.

Results:
Aug 39 (1 day) 14 convoy 0 escort
Sept 39 95 convoy 22 escort
Oct 39 92 convoy 36 escort
Nov 39 125 convoy 25 escort
Dec 39 89 convoy 25 escort
Jan 40 90 convoy 20 escort
Feb 40 68 convoy 24 escort
Mar 40 39 convoy 15 escort
Apr 40 60 convoy 15 escort
May 40 39 convoy 15 escort
Jun 40 32 convoy 11 escort
Jul 40 35 convoy 13 escort
Aug 40 47 convoy 13 escort

First Year 9/39-8/40: 825 convoy, 234 escort
Total sub losses first year: negligible...3-6?

Second Year 9/40-8/41: 333 convoy, ?? escort
Third Year 9/41-8/42: 281 convoy, ?? escort

UK ran out of Rare Materials around August 1942, their IC fallen to around mid 100s.
UK various Egypt forces and Indian were out of supply fairly quickly, but I still had to help Italy finish them off. Japanese were able to take out India with ease. Lots of 9999 supply depots around.

Unfortunately it is now 1943 and since Germany is too stupid to be able to take out Russia theyre just kind of stalemated, Germany taking Moscow and Leningrad quickly but sitting at Stalingrad for about 2 years now. I moved through the middle east to take Baku and trying to help them break the stalemate.

UK pretty much neutered with no convoys, all their resource generating overseas province taken by Italy, Me and Japan, and no way to get rares. So their IC is about 150 something.

Due to being so small hard for me as Nationalist Spain to sealion, but still a fun game.
Pretty successful I think. Germany AI just too stupid.

 

[noobermenschen]

Hi.
I´m a lurker that have been enjoying this thread a lot. The quietness have made me come out from the shadows and post and I hope blue emu continues or currently are writing a god AAR!

Or am I missing something?

Welcome to the forum! I think most of us are in agreement with you - We would love to see where blue emu next sends his U-Boat aces! Maybe some rich pickings off the US East Coast?