Is it possible to beat British navy with planes and subs?

[Denkt]

If you look and Germany vs UK isolated I think the best way for Germany is to go with a late war. The later the war starts the worse the starting navies will be and as UK start with a much powerful navy then Germany, they are the loser as Germany can compete with building modern ships and then 1940 or even worse 1944 tech ship are built nobody will care much about the 1922 and 1936 ships anymore because they are maybe completely useless against modern ships.

 

[208]

In the Mediterranean theatre [...] I'm wondering will it be possible to beat a navy with air superiority

Probably, but as the war goes on, increases to aircraft ranges and production capacity will make maintaining air superiority over the Mediterranean more and more difficult if the Allies gain ground in Africa.

 

[Secret Master]

The 300 U-boat figure was to allow at any one time ~100 to be in base resupplying and refitting, ~100 moving to and from their patrol areas, and ~100 actually on station, searching and engaging.

Yes. I should have said 100 on patrol, not 300 on patrol. That was my mistake.

(Although I don't think 300 on patrol in 1943 would have won the war, either.)

Even after the war, Donitz was convinced that all he needed were more boats. It wasn't until decades after, when Britain was declassifying its WWII naval secrets, that he learned about the compromises to Enigma and how effective HF/DF had been.

Yes. His reaction to the revelation of the cracking of ENIGMA boiled down to "You'll have to rewrite the entire history of the war."

But his desire for more submarines was not merely a function of "more is better." In his memoirs, he points out just how important it would be to strike hard and early. He understood, much like some army leaders did, how time was working against Germany.

 

[MonkeyFuzz]

Yes. I should have said 100 on patrol, not 300 on patrol. That was my mistake.

(Although I don't think 300 on patrol in 1943 would have won the war, either.)



Yes. His reaction to the revelation of the cracking of ENIGMA boiled down to "You'll have to rewrite the entire history of the war."

But his desire for more submarines was not merely a function of "more is better." In his memoirs, he points out just how important it would be to strike hard and early. He understood, much like some army leaders did, how time was working against Germany.

Indeed and Donitz had spent much of the time before 1943 trying to turn their naval production around, allocate their skilled dock laborers away from capital ships and towards maintenance on their U-boats, and to convince the government that a more serious construction program was needed.

I think we're actually largely in agreement.

 

[Secret Master]

Indeed and Donitz had spent much of the time before 1943 trying to turn their naval production around, allocate their skilled dock laborers away from capital ships and towards maintenance on their U-boats, and to convince the government that a more serious construction program was needed.

I think we're actually largely in agreement.

Probably we are.

I tried to turn it into a debate on the scale of the Tank Threads, but I failed.

 

[Mannstien]

You are misjudging Donitz's request.

He wanted 300+ submarines at the start of hostilities so he could scour the sea lanes on day 1. The technological disparity aside, Donitz knew that the longer Britain had open sea lanes, the stronger she got. Even without the technological disparity, if the Germans had 300 submarines on patrol by 1943, then the golden window for screwing the British economically has somewhat passed. It takes time to destroy merchant shipping; if you take too long, the enemy can put enough escorts into the water to become insurmountable because they can afford to do so since you didn't wipe out their merchant marine in the first 18 months.

While submarines would not have won the war for Germany historically (she was more or less screwed the moment she invaded Poland), having 300 submarines in place in 1939 to start convoy raiding would have forced the British to devote far more resources to things like destroyers and frigates throughout 1936-1939 (there is no way Germany could build 300 submarines without the British knowing), weakening her position versus Italy and Japan. And while the British were working out the doctrines and technology for defeating WWII era submarines, the Germans would have 300 submarines out killing convoys, not a small trickle of them.

I think the early interdiction prior to Churchill's climb or during it could have swayed opinion somehow, Maybe the same but maybe it would have looked at Halifax as a neutral party to at least come to terms in the mean time had Germany not opened Barbarossa.

 

[Calladan]

It's like asking if you can defeat Prussian Infantry only with artillery and support weapons or annihilate a battalion with a few snipers. You will cause some serious damage but you will eventually lose for all those reasons that have already been mentioned.

 

[Jeremy971]

What you all forget is naval ships need to resupply in ports. So if you have air superiority, you can strike naval ships in the ports.

If UK doesn't have the air superiority over the manche channel, their ships will have to whisdraw to North to avoid to be wiped out. But in this case, UK open the way to a naval invasion. I think AI or even an human player won't move all his ships.

So yes you can destroy a lot of british ships with planes in striking them in the ports. And you can win a strategic battle with them.

With the new air system and naval invasion in HOI4, the battle of britain becomes the top priority for Germany !!!

If you win this battle, you'll defeat UK in 1941 !!!

And since they've changed the submarines tactics and the convoy system. The german submarines are a big asset to defeat UK in 1941.

I don't know if they've realized how much this game is unbalanced for UK. But I'm sure, the veterans of HOI3 will make operation seelow with fingers in the nose.

 

[MonkeyFuzz]

With fingers...in the... Dude, what?

 

[uther4117]

Chinese Missile system = Propaganda Missiles
Modern Military's don't care much for advancement in the Space arts and anything China's doing is roughly 20 years old

Oh dude you make me laugh.. Have a nice time in the fantasy world that you make the rules..

 

[Jeremy971]

With fingers...in the... Dude, what?

French people we love put our fingers in human orifices when something is too easy... So what ???

 

[CHRIS3169]

Weren't all pre-Nautilus subs technically classified as submersibles? A lot of people forget that prior to nuclear powered subs that could stay under water indefinitely, most ww2 subs stayed on the surface the majority of the time, could only stay under water for a couple hours(until the kreigsmarine introduced snorkels late in the war, and in seriously limited numbers), and usually only submerged during combat, or while in shipping lanes or areas with heavy activity. I'll have to fact check all of this, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate.

 

[CHRIS3169]

Weren't all pre-Nautilus subs technically classified as submersibles? A lot of people forget that prior to nuclear powered subs that could stay under water indefinitely, most ww2 subs stayed on the surface the majority of the time, could only stay under water for a couple hours(until the kreigsmarine introduced snorkels late in the war, and in seriously limited numbers), and usually only submerged during combat, or while in shipping lanes or areas with heavy activity. I'll have to fact check all of this, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate.

 

[MonkeyFuzz]

Pre-Nautilus subs are submarines, but they largely lacked "air-independent propulsion". As you mentioned, there were snorkel-equipped boats, though the first deployment of them was with Dutch submarines before the war. There were also some prototype Walter U-boats which could run submerged on hydrogen peroxide.

 

[CHRIS3169]

Figures the Dutch invented them...mainly to avoid "Dutch Oven Syndrome" when submerged for too long

 

[spartansociety]

It's a new era today,, China's carrier killer missiles(single missile that can take down a carrier) means you are on the very very bad odds.. Now some smart ass will say oh we have anti missile defense system but those systems by nature never promises 100% protection and when only thing you need is a single hit, now you are on very very bad odds.. China is strong that it doesn't have capital problems like US.. See the latest generation destroyers of US, first planned 200 then reduce to 50 then only 3 could be produced.. I'm not even talking about the f-35 disaster which currently even gets outperformed by an f-16..

Just wanted to say that when you say pontoon boats you underestimate with ignorance (no offense, not knowing is not shame,yet not learning is)

Except that if they really did make carriers obsolete like the BC's of WW2, the Chinese would not be busy developing their own carriers. Carriers are still the best way of projecting force over a large area....even if they are far from cost efficient.

 

[Antless]

Except that if they really did make carriers obsolete like the BC's of WW2, the Chinese would not be busy developing their own carriers. Carriers are still the best way of projecting force over a large area....even if they are far from cost efficient.

While I don't have a stake in the discussion, I think it is important to point out that not every weapon system has to be developed to fight the most organized or best equiped army imaginable. While carriers might or might not be obsolete in a war between high-tech powers, they definity are not obsolete in wars against anyone who isn't. If China wants to protect it's interests in say Africa, carriers would be useful way to do so, even though they might be countered by something exotic like high-tech missiles, railgun-artillery or satellite-weaponary.

 

[Xsio]

Chinese Missile system = Propaganda Missiles
Modern Military's don't care much for advancement in the Space arts and anything China's doing is roughly 20 years old.

SECONDLY. My question is at what point should a sub become a threat to a naval fleet? It's enough of a threat to sink a carrier...(Not showing as a example of reliability) At what point does a submarine become reliable enough to start sinking the many things. I know in my current game that's going smashing I'm going to have around a year ahead subs the entire time with my leadership. At what point will it be viable?

Well they have good northern friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Klub

 

[Augustus93]

http://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-ships.asp
Maybe in firepower but not in numbers. According to the GFP China and yes, North Korea, have "larger" navies. But it's China and North Korea so they are probably lying or just have a bunch of pontoon boats.

North Korea uses Photoshop to boost their military. Who can forget the picture that they put out showing a naval landing exercise where they just copy pasted the boats. It was hilarious to see.

 

[Pappnase]

Wow, didn't take long to turn this into a "my navy is bigger then your navy" boasting.

Now, the real issue here is, does the naval combat model something like a random factor or lucky hit? In WWII, subs actually sank capital ships like the Ark Royal or Royal Oak (what is it with brits and things being royal?). US subs sank a whole bunch of japanese cruisers. Now these things didn't happen every day, but once in a while a sub could get lucky. They would need to model some kind of low-percentage lucky shot possibility if subs and capitals are present in the same sea zone.