Listening to Dönitz - a submarine-oriented Germany AAR

[Baltasar]

Why did you dow BeNeLux that early? Since you want to concentrate on Poland first, I don't quite understand why you push more nations into the Allied camp unneccessarily.

 

[Laurwin]

@umg

I saw that you spoke of restricted submarine warfare there in the last update, what does this actually mean in game terms?

If I understood the convoy system in HoI3 correctly in times of peace, it has to be the trade agreements starter, who provides the convoys for the transportation of goods. But in times of war, when convoy losses start amounting and convoy dies, who provides replacement convoy ships, is it always the trade agreements starter, or can it be the other trade partner as well, even if the other person is neutral with the convoy raiding country?

What does the embargo button (in diplomacy tab?) do, what effects in gameplay if there are any?


Never had been very interested in convoy raiding in HoI games unless for specific war time needs, since you can't really make the UK surrender or significantly suffer from the convoys, other than force them to build more of them. I guess in real life though, British isles weren't even self sufficient in food production, so any major convoy raiding would have been disastrous. Main British industries would run out of resources, starvation would ensue, Empire would be divided... Tea supplies would run out, in short, brits would be doomed

Luckily for the Brits, the Germans only had something like under 50 U-boats on the entire Atlantic at the start of the war in real life so the blockade against Britain was very ineffectual, they would have needed a couple hundred more subs operating in the Atlantic with some ready at bases to replace damaged ones. So at its most vulnerable months at the start of the war, with the lack of destroyers and corvettes and aircraft, the merchant marine was only slightly dented by the Kriegsmarine's happy hour

This much I could gather at the moment from Adam Tooze's book 'Wages of Destruction'

But hopefully the U-boats will triumph this time, since you've got plenty of advanced ones sailing against the Perfidious Albion. Personally I find it more fun to just build a big battlefleet of modern BCs and BBs to maul the obsolete British dreadnoughts.

I think it's actually pretty funny, how much difference the actual tech difference between capital ships can matter in HoI3 sea fights. I remember in my latest Germany game going toe to toe with fairly large stacks of Royal Navy with my smaller fleets, of 1938 tech and 1940 tech BCs and BBs. My capitals held their own pretty well, especially BCs seem pretty good. I managed to sink 2 nelson class BBs and 2 carriers with one of my BCs and it didn't even get that much damaged. Granted I do remember the A.I. at one point putting a massive 35 ship overstack in one naval fight and I just kept picking off their ships with subs, BBs and BCs. But I did fight legitimate fights with my modern small surface fleets and they acquitted themselves well.

In real life of course Queen Elizabeth class was very much capable of mauling Bismarck class with conventional means, especially considering the fleet sizes. IIRC Bismarck was rendered incapable of changing course via the torpedo attack so it kept turning in a circle at it's final moments, and then the Force H battleships mauled Bismarck batteries and bridge making her quite incapable of fighting, even though the main belt armour wasn't greatly penetrated, and thus incapable of fighting back Bismarck was scuttled.



Also very good AAR, beautiful graphics, attention to detail is something that's really nice in an AAR!

 

[Cybvep]

You are a real gambler. Taking on Poland and the West (which now includes the USA) at the same time without signing M-R pact and with the focus on the navy is risky at best However, since you are playing on Normal, you may pull this off

 

[unmerged(83496)]

Going to be interesting to see how you attempt to neutralize the capital units of the RN in preparation for Sealion.

Great AAR; keep it up!

 

[dublish]

I'm really enjoying the sense of humor you bring to this AAR. Good luck with splintering your flottillas. Anything that gets the overall visibility of your units down is likely worth it, and will result in much better coverage than unified groups ever could.

 

[scholar]

It's an interesting read, with some very interesting turns. I look forward to seeing where this is going, Good Luck!

(From a fellow competitor)

 

[unmerged(158433)]

(B. RESTRICTION AND UNRESTRICTION, AND SURFACE WARFARE)

TheBromgrev, that's useful to know. I'll bear it in mind. And yes, I'm extremely concerned about US involvement.

Baltasar, I declared war on the Benelux nations to give the land army the historical option for attacking France. Needless to say, with France actually advancing on the France/Germany front, I'm very concerned about the war in the west.

Laurwin, I'll deal with the issue of unrestricted submarine warfare in depth in this post.

As for who provides the convoys, it sounds like you know much more than I do about the details. If any convoy ships I sink are not Allied per se, though, they come from pools on which the Allies are drawing. Historically, the United States bent its neutrality severely out of shape to provide naval assistance to Britain before formally joining the war, not merely shipping war supplies to the British Isles and providing merchant ships (notably tankers), but actually escorting UK-bound convoys to the mid-Atlantic (where responsibility was handed off to Canadian or British escorts). This was particularly problematic for U-boats because Hitler, not wishing to provoke the USA into the war, ordered that U-boats not fire on these escorts.

Your summary of Tooze is also what Dönitz believed. I haven't seen hits to national unity or anything else yet, but it's early days and maybe that stuff will start kicking in after several million more tons of shipping hit the bottom.

The tech difference is a mysterious one for me at this point. With my most productive U-taskforce made up of obsolete boats, clearly tech is not the be-all and end-all of commerce raiding. At the same time, there is absolutely no getting around the range requirements for certain deployments. (I am not sure HoI3 Type IXs are technically capable of Operation Drumbeat from Brest. Should I capture Brest I will find out.) I had hoped to wage a close war and avoid the need for too much engine research, but it's not to be. I don't rule out the possibility entirely, though, and maybe with better air support a "Coastlion" near-shore blockade would be feasible. I must confess I've left most of the aircraft with the land forces because I'm afraid they'll need the support against the French. (Also, my policy has been to build interceptors in strong preference to ground-based anti-air capabilities of any kind, which makes my AA locationally flexible but also locks many interceptors into reactive roles rather than clearing the skies over the Channel.)

Cybvep, it's not gambling, it's incompetence. I needed to influence the USA from the start to (at worst) delay its entry, and I didn't despite identifying its neutrality as a critical war goal. Similarly, I didn't mean for things to turn out this way but I think I can count on an attack from the Soviet Union in a few years and need to wrap the land war with the Allies up in time to deal with that. We'll have to see if Normal difficulty can save me.

TheRealKestrel, I plan to deal with the issue of task forces and capital ships in this post. The short version is that I don't expect my submarines to take on surface navies directly, instead hopefully weakening them by creating fuel shortages that hinder operation and materials shortages that hinder construction.

dublish, while you may be right about visibility, the unfortunate thing about moving my U-boats out to sea is that the more distance I put between my pickets and European ports, the more area I'll need to cover to get all the routes, and the thinner that coverage will be. With 60 to 90 boats in the Channel, I may well have been sinking everything that sailed in (except British taskforces, sadly). Ten submarines in Rockall or Porcupine or King's Trough or Finisterre may not be so effective, allowing some ships to slip through. In analyzing convoy sinkings I found, expectedly, that shipping is extremely concentrated around a select few European ports, which take in goods from all over the world. With better range I might be able to seal off foreign ports or (against the Americans, where direct blockade is probably too risky) set up a faraway picket tailored to catching ships leaving Boston and Halifax rather than striking while they're arriving at Portsmouth or Dover.

scholar, thanks for your support. Good luck to you as well.

Now then! Unrestricted submarine warfare in HoI3 is abstracted to the point of extreme simplicity: it's a technology.

On paper, there are no drawbacks.

Of course, it's not that the German navy didn't know about unrestricted submarine warfare or how to conduct it, given that it was a major if sporadic feature of naval operations in WWI. As I've said before, I believe that this technology represents the political and doctrinal effort of getting USW accepted and put into practice.

In order to understand unrestricted submarine warfare, it's necessary to understand restricted submarine warfare. Under standing naval conventions, a warship couldn't just sink a merchant on sight, even one flying an enemy flag. Instead, they were supposed to fire a warning shot, wait for the merchant to halt, board and inspect the cargo, and determine whether the ship was carrying war supplies. If it was, the warship had two options. They could send part of their own crew onto the merchant (called a prize crew) and have them take the ship to a friendly port as spoils of war, or they could fully evacuate the enemy crew, take them prisoner, and sink the ship.

The basic ideas behind these rules were informed by the realities of oceangoing warfare in the age of sail. They made no special provisions for submarines, which must rely on surprise to be effective and (particularly in WWII) did not have the necessary living space to carry prize crews or POW crews. Prize rules worked very well for merchant raiders, the conventional cousins of submarines (light warships disguised as enemy or neutral merchants), but a submarine firing a warning shot was usually faced with a fleeing merchant broadcasting SSS, the distress signal indicating submarine attack.

Sid Meier's Pirates!, a game where prize rules come more naturally.

As far as these issues were concerned, this was a frustrating time for U-boat skippers. The British made propaganda of German attacks on (for example) a mercy ship carrying refugee children, but that ship wasn't marked in any special way and behaved like any other freighter, leaving the U-boats no way to know it was protected by the code of the sea. Similarly, hospital ships sailed without red crosses, and neutrals sailed blacked out at night rather than lit up.

Radio communication and air cover changed the equation as much as submarines did. To the submariners, broadcasting SSS on the radio was the hostile use of a weapon, and made merchants fair game if they did it. A U-boat radioing the position of a sinking and asking ships in range to pick up the crew made itself a target for retaliatory air patrols and redirected warships. Even providing assistance to the crew of the stricken vessel was dangerous, eating up valuable escape time and not really having any counter-propaganda effect with the Allies.

There was also the matter of convoying. An effective convoy (which is not to say the war's early convoys were effective) should be largely impervious to lone submarine attack under these rules, since surface ships can reply to a warning shot with their vastly superior deck guns. Convoying was another proven technique from WWI and all sides had every reason to expect it.

Why wouldn't the navy be happy to make a change that made their operations more effective and was already a tested, proven procedure from the last war? There are three reasons.

The first is that unrestricted submarine warfare in WWI was the focus of a great deal of concern about the horrors of war. Anti-German propaganda in that war made a great deal of it, calling the Germans savages for sinking ships without warning and making the very phrase "unrestricted submarine warfare" an epithet. It was as reviled, in many ways, as gas weapons (a favorite topic for anti-war poets, they were avoided entirely in WWII, although there were a handful of frightening false alarms).

The second is that as unrestricted submarine warfare removes much of the safeguard against sinking friendly, neutral, or protected ships, it makes it easier for mistakes to happen. Submariners cleared to attack any ship in the water could easily misidentify a blacked-out ship or its flag at night and sink it though they shouldn't. There were several painful diplomatic and friendly fire incidents during the war. In addition, unrestricted submarine warfare was a direct violation of a high-profile clause in the interwar international naval treaties. Germany had already broken these treaties in many ways (historically, by rebuilding the navy; in my game, by building so many submarines), but the return to unrestricted submarine warfare would be ugly and unpopular and give the Allies a windfall of propaganda ammunition as well as casting further doubt on the value of any international agreements with Germany.

The third is that frankly, the naval officers were personally inclined to do what they saw as the honorable thing. It was typical for U-boat captains to order the provision of enemy lifeboats with such things as blankets, compasses, food and water, and directions to the nearest land. Dönitz, concerned that this was putting U-boats in danger, ordered them not to assist survivors anymore. Although the issue is far more complex than its abstraction in HoI3, this would have been a major turning point in the implementation of unrestricted submarine warfare as the game presents it. The first such order was issued in 1939, but the second in 1942 is probably a better indicator of when "the technology was researched." I am in 1939 now and will consider myself fortunate to be waging unrestricted submarine warfare in 1942 (if only because it will mean I have survived three years!).

Dönitz was tried at Nuremberg and the whole tangled mess of submarine warfare protocols examined in great detail. The Allies naturally wished to charge Dönitz with everything they could, but in the end they were only able to sentence him to ten years in prison (oddly enough, the same amount of time he was a U-boat commander). Sources differ on the relative weight of Dönitz's alleged crimes in the sentence, and two major complicating factors were that the Allies had their own comparable skeletons in the closet (particularly the quietly-conducted unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan), and that many witnesses for the defense came forward with information on German rescue operations and Allied countermeasures that made it more difficult, if not impossible, for the German navy to follow the rules of war.

Although it seems to me that his role in the treaty-breaking reconstruction of the German navy would have more than justified execution or life in prison, the whole business of unrestricted submarine warfare as a war crime is the result of a curious double standard, and that either this perception ought to be abandoned or many, many other things which aren't generally seen as specifically being atrocities ought to be recognized as such. Expectations are different on the sea, but imagine the fighter pilot accused of shooting down an enemy transport plane without rescuing the crew, or the infantry unit put on trial for attacking an enemy truck convoy without first searching it, or the artillery operators sentenced for sustaining indirect fire on an enemy position which included an unmarked hospital tent. At some point you must either consider war a circumstance which is by nature not fully restricted, or condemn war itself.

The other major topic I want to deal with in this post is submarine suitability to strikes on capital ships and surface fleets in general. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that HoI3 comes down on the side that they are ineffective. I don't think this is quite fair to the humble submarine, which seems to me to be perhaps the premier way to attack a capital ship.

Consider the torpedo. Torpedoes as submarines know them were developed for the forerunners of destroyers, torpedo boats. The idea was to give a small, expendable vessel the mine-like firepower to sink or seriously damage capital ships. Submarines and naval (torpedo) bombers appropriated the torpedo for their own use.

We can see the effectiveness of the torpedo for torpedo boats and destroyers in the Battle of Vella Gulf, when six American destroyers jumped four Japanese destroyers and won a decisive victory through use of surprise and torpedoes. Approaching under cover of darkness, their silhouettes hidden by land, they used radar to establish bearings and ranges and fired more than 30 torpedoes over the course of roughly a minute. Stealth was the key, with the Americans having the advantage because of their ability to detect and avoid detection, and their use of torpedoes, which do not give away position the way deck guns do.

The Battle of Vella Gulf was an exceptional incident. Most of the time, destroyers cannot expect to manage their own detectability this way. It was owing to a fortunate combination of conditions and terrain that they could launch their torpedoes without being seen. But for submarines, these factors are typical. They can submerge to completely conceal themselves from gunfire and radar and visual identification (although in clear water it may be possible to see a shallowly submerged submarine, especially from the air), they can establish bearings and tentative identifications with their hydrophones and take range measurements (at the risk of detection) with active sonar, they can (while surfaced) use radar for range and bearing measurements, and they can, as everyone knows, maintain direct visual contact with a tiny periscope barely poking out of the water. Submarines may or may not launch fewer torpedoes than a similar number of destroyers (if a group of 5 submarines has 3 forward tubes and fires full forward salvos, it's 15 torpedoes; 4 forward tubes and it's 20; 6 forward tubes and it's 30), but they are certainly far more likely to do so under favorable conditions, and far more capable of departing undetected. (The Thorn Dance attack discussed above could, if done perfectly, use Type VII boats to throw a pattern of no less than 120 torpedoes through a convoy or task force, with an additional 30 stern torpedoes available to fire during the escape phase, not counting reloads.)

Even surfaced, submarines have a distinct visibility advantage over surface ships, being generally smaller and lower in profile.

The typical torpedo of the period had a 600-pound warhead with an enhanced TNT explosive (Torpex for the Allies, Hexanite for the Germans). (These were not the biggest explosives in the ocean. The Japanese torpedoes were in some respects more advanced, with 1,000-pound warheads. The typical mine warhead was around 1,200 pounds.) Electric torpedoes without visible wakes (at the cost of slower speeds) were developed, as were (eventually) slow homing torpedoes and torpedoes that could be programmed to run in search patterns to maximize the chance of striking a ship in a convoy. Three systems existed to deliver torpedoes to targets: the surface warship, the submarine, and the torpedo bomber.

Let's consider 1939 Sea Attack values in HoI3. Naval bombers rate 6.75 and carrier air groups rate 4.25. Bear in mind that aircraft were more detectable in the attack than submarines due to their engine noise and, well, position in the air rather than under the water, and that they could be targeted with anti-aircraft guns. Destroyers rate 4.20, light cruisers 7.00, heavy cruisers 12.00, and it goes up from there. Only one class that even has a Sea Attack score rates lower than destroyers, and that's submarines, clocking in at a pathetic 1.80. Now let's assume that there are five submarines in a flotilla and 30 planes in a torpedo bomber squadron. Torpedo bombers carry one torpedo each, and the typical sub of this time period (the Type VII, we shall assume) has four forward torpedo tubes and one stern tube. So a 30-torpedo attack from aircraft, likely to be inferior in terms of conditions for launch and which may even be carrying a lighter variant of the torpedo, is considered to have 0.22 Sea Attack per torpedo (or for CAGs, 0.14), while 5 Type VIIs collectively launching 20 initial torpedoes and having the option of 5 more through the stern tubes, with greater stalking and aiming opportunities, exert only 0.09 to 0.07 Sea Attack per torpedo. Why are submarine torpedoes less than half as effective as naval bomber torpedoes? Are airplanes magical? (The presence of gun batteries on destroyers makes the destroyer rating more resistant to analysis.) Now granted, there is supposedly a special surprise attack chance, but even without surprise, we're talking about a very divergent treatment of comparable ordinance. (It could be argued that the difference means naval bombers are using thousand-pound bombs rather than torpedoes. I say thee nay!, for several reasons. Although it is true that the bombs have more explosive and could in some cases even be carried two at a time, they are more dangerous to launch than torpedoes, harder to strike with, and are less likely to strike the keel or the hull below the waterline.)

Fortunately the game does recognize the difficulties of targetting submarines with surface ships or aircraft, using a separate Sub Attack stat to represent ASW capability. In most cases, ASW detection and weapons systems were entirely separate from surface warfare capabilities, as a submerged submarine simply can't be attacked with guns or spotted by a deck watch. So Sub Attack represents systems such as depth charges (bombs rolled off the deck) and depth charge catapults (self-explanatory), and Sub Detection represents systems such as hydrophones and sonar. In the case of naval bombers, for ASW they would use radar to catch subs on the surface (standard operating procedure was to remain on the surface unless expecting contact with an enemy patrol or target), hydrophone sensors dangled into the ocean to detect submerged subs, and bombs rather than torpedoes. (Scientific review convinced the British to switch from large, single bombs bursting at 250 feet to more effective strings of small, shallow-exploding bombs.) The Sub Attack and Sub Detection values look reasonable to me in context, with the primary part of that context being submarine Visibility (3.00, with the next lowest being destroyers at 50.00). Submarines may languish (appropriately) at the bottom of the Speed and Range lists, but they have their advantages too. (Similarly, the submarine flotilla is equal to a battleship and not quite the equivalent of a battlecruiser or superheavy battleship at pure commerce raiding, but this makes sense because of the superior speed and relative imperviousness of such capital ships to merchants and escorts.)

This would be incomplete without a discussion of historical results. Submarines, and torpedoes in general, did sink capital ships. Over the course of the war the United States operated about 260 submarines against the Japanese, losing around 60. What follows is a partial list of major Japanese warships destroyed in whole or in part by torpedoes.

*Light Cruisers
- Isuzu, torpedoed by submarine
- Kashii, aerial torpedo assist
- Kuma, torpedoed by (British) submarine
- Nagara, torpedoed by submarine
- Naka, aerial torpedo assist
- Natori, torpedoed by submarine
- Noshiro, aerial torpedo assist
- Oi, torpedoed by submarine
- Okinoshima (minelayer-cruiser), torpedoed by submarine
- Tama, torpedoed by aircraft and submarine
- Tatsuta, torpedoed by submarine
- Tenryu, torpedoed by submarine
- Yahagi, aerial torpedo assist
- Yubari, torpedoed by submarine

*Heavy Cruisers
- Ashigara, torpedoed by submarine
- Atago, torpedoed by submarine
- Kako, torpedoed by submarine
- Kumano, repeated attacks including submarine and aerial torpedoes
- Maya, torpedoed by submarine
- Nachi, aerial torpedo assist
- Suzuya, aerial torpedo assist

*Carriers
- Chitose, aerial and destroyer torpedo assist
- Hiyo, aerial torpedo assist
- Ryujo, aerial torpedo assist
- Shinano, torepedoed by submarine
- Shinyo, torpedoed by submarine
- Shoho, aerial torpedo assist
- Shokaku, torpedoed by submarine
- Taiho, torpedoed by submarine
- Taiyo, torpedoed by submarine
- Unryu, torpedoed by submarine
- Unyo, torpedoed by submarine

*Battleships
- Fuso, destroyer torpedo assist
- Hiei, aerial torpedo assist
- Kongo, torpedoed by submarine
- Musashi, aerial torpedo assist
- Yamashiro, destroyer torpedo assist
- Yamato, aerial torpedo assist

American Avenger torpedo bomber, payload one torpedo.

So there is just one area where I feel submarines are not getting their due, but it is an absolutely critical one. Submarine torpedoes are underrated in HoI3. However, I am willing to accommodate the game as it is, declaring that in my game, things must have gone disastrously wrong in early mass operations (which I always recognized as a possibility; radio silence and tight coordination don't mesh well) and forced Dönitz to shift to more historical deployments with no interest in confronting enemy task forces. Ingame research continues on all aspects of submarine development, with range essential to operate further into the Atlantic, torpedoes essential for core effectiveness, unrestricted submarine warfare essential for same, and hull design essential for lower profiles and deeper diving depths. If there's one area I'd consider less of a priority now, it's anti-aircraft capability, as deterring aircraft is not preferable at this point to evading them.

Steam has autopatched HoI3 even though I told it not to update. Fingers crossed that it didn't break anything.

 

[Laurwin]

It may very well be that subs' naval attack is gimped in HoI3, but it would be a tricky matter to to balance properly. The strength of the submarine vs warship to my understanding derives largely from stealthiness, subs that sank the battleships Royal Oak and Barham operated alone, in the case of Royal Oak, there was complete surprise by an infiltration of Scapa Flow.

Then there was USS Indianapolis, which after delivering certain parts to the atomic bombs to Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese sub on the home voyage. And there was USS Archer-Fish who sank the Shinano, heaviest warship to be sunk by subs (Yamato class hull, converted to a carrier, the real Yamatos were sunk by combined attacks of dive bombers and torpedo bombers I believe).

With subs I believe the biggest difficulties lay in actually maneuvering for the kill shot, because even warships on transit to other naval bases were screened as best as they could be, specifically for the purpose of ASW cover. This, the subs would have to do undetected, since they couldn't outrun fast warships submerged, didn't want to risk being spotted by Eyeball Mk.I when on surface, and had to minimize the engine noise in order to not get located and blown up by depth charges (I guess, going by that movie Das Boot). Actual invasion fleets and combat groups were similarly well protected by ASW when patrolling and expecting naval action.

So, if single subs had the problem of reaching out to the enemy warships because of the problem of maneuvering, staying silent, and being in a favorable location at sea to begin with. Then in that case multiple subs or even fleets/wolfpacks would be in more favorable attack positions, but would they be any more undetectable or even effective attackers, especially if they're supposed to operate silently without radio contacting each other or the HQ at home?

Torpedo bombers, level bombers, and dive bombers relied more on brute force, surprise, and fast response times. Generally speaking in WW2 any visual scouting was done by aircraft, although destroyers with radar on picket duty were used, as well as land based radar. Subs were used as well, but Germany's strategic focus was convoy warfare so they didn't really do that.

Aircraft would relay the message back to HQ, and suddenly a massive air armada of whoopass would arrive from nearby airfields to deal retribution if anything was found. In the case of the destruction of Force Z, a relatively powerful SAG, though quite small in numbers of ships, didn't really stand up to the air strikes, though they did everything in their power from AA fire, to evasive maneuvers to avoid the torps. The brand new Prince of Wales was devastated by the first torpedo hit which severely cut her speed, where as the older battlecruiser, Repulse managed to evade several torps, but was sunk by the final batch of torps, because she hadn't been equipped with anti-torpedo blisters.

Interestingly enough, in the Force Z battle a Japanese sub had spotted the task force after Japanese recon planes, but it was the sub that actually reported the finding first. Also a sub had been shadowing the task force for hours and missed with its torpedoes once it got a chance to fire

US Navy's AA capabilities increased quite a bit towards the end of the war. They had good search radars and some kind of fire control computers on board, and most importantly proximity fuses for AA shells. Proximity fuses weren't used on land (until Bastogne) for Army artillery for the fear of the enemy capturing a dud projectile and copying it and using it against the Allies. So they figured that the enemy probably won't be able to find many stray dud AA shells in the vast Pacific ocean so they got to use them finally.

 

[Laurwin]

The unrestricted submarine warfare situation that Germany got itself into was indeed quite precarious in both world wars. A blockade for the better or worse is an act of war, or was regarded as such in international relations. When regarding the targeted nation only, it poses no significant problem since presumably hostilities with the said nation are expected already and thus a blockade is simply a strategy of forcing your will through other means. Often blockades were called something else, to avoid negative connotations, such as in the Cuban missile crisis a "quarantine" was imposed.

The problem most definitely arises from non-combatant countries, large swathes of ocean (or land) are simply declared a "don't go through here" -zone, by the blockader or else you risk being sunk. That's a pretty big thing as far as international relations, trade and travel are concerned. Freedom of the seas was being supported by Woodrow Wilson after WW1, but the thing didn't take off. Legally the matter was settled only by the time of the later UN conventions. In practice however the freedom of the seas rested (and rests even today, scary thought!) principally on the USN and also the RN. Although the RN currently doesn't have too many operational carriers ready for action due to govt cutbacks.

Technically a blockader probably doesn't have any more legal right to impose "no go" -zones than something like a harmless Brazilian convoy ship has while transporting food to the besieged British isles. Actually in WW1 the British blockade of Germany did take this form as well, North Sea was declared a British "military area", much similar to the German U-Boat blockade of British isles. Naval minefields, patrols, nasty stuff...However the technical method differed, apparently the British would be able to direct and escort the merchant shipping to British ports to be inspected for contraband.

Where as warning shots by submarines would only serve to reveal their positions to RN warships through radio traffic, the subs would be left in a dangerous situation milling about while any personnel would evacuate to lifeboats. Therefore the simple threat of violence by the Germans: "should any ships be found in this area, they are liable to destruction", was viewed in a more negative light by the American public, than the RN blockade of Germany (European areas controlled by Central Powers in general)

Basically in the internationally tense situation of a blockade, he has the most right who comes up with the most strength to police the blockade. As the situation developed in WW2, it seems that bilateral relations with USA and Britain sealed the deal for unrestricted warfare, in that the blockader lacked the naval capacity to overcome the enemy's naval capacity. (Liberty ships, convoy system, increased RN escorts, less German subs available...)

Freedom of the seas was apparently proposed in the fourteen points by US president Wilson, but the British were opposed to this. Can't really tell why the Brits would've opposed that. Britain was still on paper at least the most powerful maritime nation, so if they really wanted to oppose someone's entry on the high seas they could certainly actuate their sinking with heavy firepower, as was done in WW1 against Germany, blockade continued after the armistice until the Versailles Treaty was signed.

I guess the Brits tried as best as they could to avoid to avoid any future foreign or even American "encroachment" by controlling their national waters and bases, and using their own strong forces to impose British Empire's will across the naval "no-man's land", open ocean, the freedom of which was still being disputed. Legal (and moral) constraints towards curtailing the Royal Navy's dominant position would not have been viewed kindly, after WW1, certainly also a matter of prestige for the Brits back then.

So, moar updates!

 

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05. FINISTERRE JUNE

TheBromgrev was right. The coast of Spain is a spectacular hunting ground for convoy raiders. Assmann's new U-group is the terror of Cape Peñas.

But first, the details of the reorganization. All active U-boats were recalled to Wilhelmshaven following the von Nordeck disaster. A number of Type IXs were redirected to Lübeck and later Kiel. The plan: to divide the megawolfpacks into two-flotilla U-groups, each named for a contemporary German intellectual, and then deploy the U-groups in a "Brunhilde Belt" from Spain to Iceland, preventing sea traffic between the European Allies and the rest of the world (although for now, unfortunately, I do not have boats detailed to cut off French ports in the Mediterranean, which would probably be done in a limited, leaving-North-Africa-open way by lurking in a cautious semicircle in the Atlantic outside the Strait of Gibraltar).

On the 5th, 6th, and 7th of June, the new U-groups began deploying.

The Brunhilde Belt, Iceland to Spain. Around Amsterdam is the Dutch Blockade, which also strays into the Mouth of the Thames with its defiant complement of Type IIA and IIB boats. East of that, the Baltic Escort between Stettin and the Prussian coast is also visible. Bottom: new U-groups holding up marvellously, with no appreciable losses.

* UG Franz Stuck, Assmann, Type VII, Southern Porcupine Plain, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Franz Stuck? Amost certainly, given his esteemed reputation and lack of controversy. His archaic style and comfortably distant presence in the recent but not too recent past work in his favor as well. Paintings of sexy ladies for everybody!

* UG George Grosz, Fricke, Type VII, Cape Finisterre, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after George Grosz? No. Grosz was a Communist, a member of the Dada art movement, and a passionate pro-American who fled to America in 1938 and didn't return to Germany until after the war. The German Navy in its various incarnations flirted with dissidence, but the submariners were on the loyal side (late in WWI, a submarine was ordered to threaten mutineers on a battleship with its torpedoes). If things got to the point where the U-boat arm named things after Grosz, there's no chance those crews would fire on European shipping for the German war effort. They would take their boats and defect, to America if they could reach it and to France or the Netherlands or the UK if they couldn't.

* UG Lion Feuchtwanger, von Nordeck, Type VII, Northern Rockall Bank, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Lion Feuchtwanger? A thousand, million times no. Feuchtwanger was one of the first and most emphatic critics of the Nazi Party and he waged something of a personal war on it, writing and speaking against the Nazis even as they declared him Public Enemy Number One and ransacked his house. He was among the first to have their citizenship revoked by the Nazis, his books were burned, he was briefly imprisoned but escaped to America, and Goebbels reworked his most famous novel into a propaganda film that completely violated the spirit of the original, possibly just to piss him off. Apart from that, he was pro-Stalin, and had what I can only describe as a wildly undignified surname. Nonetheless, von Nordeck will be twanging the feuch west of Ireland, hopefully redeeming himself for the worst submarine catastrophe in history.

* UG Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Wolf, Type VII, Central Iceland Basin, Wilhemlshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Ludwig Mies van der Rohe? Probably not. His architectural style was officially considered un-German and he left for America before the war.

* UG Bertolt Brecht, Claasen, Type IX, Southwestern Iceland Plateau, Lübeck
Would they really name a U-group after Bertolt Brecht? Not a chance. As a leading Marxist, Brecht wrote fiercely irreverent plays that were blasphemy to the Nazis. He fled during the war, continuing to write explicitly anti-Nazi works. The US government didn't like him either. Even in postwar Germany, he remained controversial.

* UG Robert Wagner, Dönitz, Type IIB, Coast of Holland, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Richard Wagner? Absolutely. Wagner's operas were the flagship of the Nazi idea of Germanic art, touchstones for the national vision. Would they get his name wrong by accident? It would be amusing if they did. Would they name a U-group after one of the various Robert Wagners? At least one of them warrants an unfunny "yes," but others still entertain.

* UG Hans Pfitzner, von Stosch, Type IIA/IIB, Coast of Holland, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Hans Pfitzner? Yes, though they might regret it a bit later. Pfitzner's traditional musical styles and personal dedication to pan-Germanism won official approval, but the Nazis soured on him when he refused to make artistic compromises for ideological reasons.

* UG Annette Kolb, Kraise, Wilhemlshaven, Type VII, Northeastern Porcupine Plain, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Annette Kolb? She was a pacifist, which has got to be a snag. They banned her books. By the time of the war she was a French citizen and she later fled to America. I'm going to guess no.

* UG Anna Seghers, von Heimburg, Type VII, Cape Finisterre, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Anna Seghers? I can safely say no. She was a registered Communist married to another Communist. She fled to France and later to Mexico, where she wrote an anti-Nazi novel during the war.

* UG Stefan Zweig, Sobe, Type IX, Southwestern Iceland Basin, Kiel
Would they really name a U-group after Stefan Zweig? I very much doubt it. Zweig was an internationally successful Austrian writer of novels and biographies, but he fled to Britain, and then to America, and then to Brazil, where he committed suicide with his wife in the middle of the war, seeing all hope for Europe as lost.

* UG Franz Kafka, Böhm, Type IX, Eastern Biscay Plain, Kiel
Would they really name a U-group after Franz Kafka? Despite his being safely dead, it isn't likely. Aside from Kafka's association with left-wing politics, his novels revolved around concepts like helplessness and alienation that weren't compatible with Nazi goals for art and entertainment.

* UG Ludwig Renn, Carls, Type IX, Northern Bay of Biscay, Kiel
Would they really name a U-group after Ludwig Renn? Impossible. Renn served in the German Army during WWI, but became a Communist and fought against the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. During WWII he fled to England, America, and Mexico, where he promoted Esperanto.

* UG Thomas Mann, Marschall, Type IX, Eastern Maury Seachannel, Kiel
Would they really name a U-group after Thomas Mann? I don't see how they could. Although he was pro-Kaiser during WWI, and the Nazis never burned his books, he was anti-Nazi and repeatedly spoke in public on the subject. His citizenship was revoked and he fled to America, where he lived out the war as a tremendously famous internationalist of letters (having won the Nobel Prize in 1929 for his first novel) and recorded several anti-Nazi radio speeches for German audiences. Some of his many children followed him into literature.

* UG Theodor Storm, Saalwächter, Type IX, Southern Iceland Basin, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name U-group after Theodor Storm? Most likely they would. He had an excitingly Teutonic name, wrote in German, idolized the forbidding North German coast, and perhaps most of all, died safely before modern controversies erupted. A thoroughly safe choice. It doesn't hurt that all the U-boats are sailing out of North German ports at the moment; their crews can stand to murmur a few verses or passages from Storm's works from time to time and get misty-eyed about empty shores and fog over the waves.

* UG Erich Maria Remarque, Warzecha, Type IX, Eastern Gibbs Fracture Zone, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Erich Maria Remarque? Entirely out of the question. Remarque was most famous for having written an anti-war novel after serving in WWI. The Nazis banned and burned his books and accused him of secretly being French. He left Germany before the Nazis came to power, living in Switzerland, France, and the United States.

* UG Hermann Hesse, Bachmann, Type IX, Northern Porcupine Plain, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Hermann Hesse? It probably wouldn't happen, but the possibility isn't so remote as some of the others. Though Hesse wrote an anti-patriotic essay during WWI, lived in Switzerland during the war, and had his books banned by the Nazis... on second thought, they'd have to be pretty far down the list. But as you can see, there isn't exactly an endless supply of memorable loyalist intellectuals to choose from.

* UG Christian Morgenstern, Lindau, Type VII, Cape Oregal, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Christian Morgenstern? Possibly, if the authorities were in a whimsical mood. Morgenstern died safely before Nazi politics could alienate him, but while living, he wrote playfully absurdist works similar to those of Lewis Carroll or Dr. Seuss. There is a certain panache to his appropriation for military purposes, like painting Porky Pig on the side of an airplane.
- This U-group was delayed by a need for repairs and reorganization, departing June 14th.

* UG Max Schmeling, Fanger, Type VII/IX, Central Rockall Bank, Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Max Schmeling? I cheated to get him in the running, as he was a boxer rather than an intellectual. His star waned in Germany after he lost a fight to Joe Louis, but by WWII he was serving in the armed forces, and who knows, somebody in the naval bureaucracy with a nostalgia for the interwar fight circuit might have snuck his name into the infrastructure.
- This U-group was delayed by a need for repairs and reorganization, departing June 18th.

* UG Walter Gropius, Type VII, Lübeck
Would they really name a U-group after Walter Gropius? Sadly, it cannot be. Although he fled Germany for Britain and the USA during the Nazi period, his work wasn't explicitly anti-Nazi. However, the Nazis disliked it anyway, destroying one of his monuments even though it commemorated an interwar army uprising against the unpopular Treaty of Versailles.
- As of the end of June, this U-group remains in reserve, awaiting repairs and reorganization.

* UG Engelbert Humperdinck, Type IX, Lübeck
Would they really name a U-group after Engelbert Humperdinck? I'm talking about the composer, of course, not the pop star who stole his name after the war. And in the composer's case, the answer is yes. Another German intellectual safely in his grave before the 1930s, Humperdinck can be navally immortalized for his contributions to German music, including a successful opera based on the story of Hansel and Gretel. I'm not even going to say anything about his wacky name.
- As of the end of June, this U-group remains in reserve, awaiting repairs and reorganization.

* UG Kurt Schwitters, Type IX, Lübeck
Would they really name a U-group after Kurt Schwitters? The evidence suggests not. Schwitters was a Dadaist whose art was included in the infamous "degenerate art" exhibition, a serious career problem for German artists living under the Nazis. He fled to Norway, then to Britain. Also, his name is too silly-sounding.
- As of the end of June, this U-group remains in reserve, awaiting repairs and reorganization.

* UG Kurt Weill, Type IX (one flotilla only), Wilhelmshaven
Would they really name a U-group after Kurt Weill? Nope. Weill was a Socialist who participated openly in leftist politics and wrote music for Bertolt Brecht. When Nazis attacked performances of his plays, he fled to France, Britain, and eventually the United States, where he went native and wrote, among other things, an anti-Nazi song. Very snappy name, though.
- As of the end of June, this U-group remains in reserve, awaiting the addition of another flotilla (expected in November when the latest set of boats rolls off production lines).

* Raeder's Deutschland Task Force has been authorized to move out of Rostock to escort the Stettin/KOnigsberg convoy which augments supply chains to Prussia and the Polish front following the surprise loss of that convoy (presumably Britain or somebody has managed to operate a submarine or small task force in the Baltic). Replacing the ships and heavily escorting the convoy are no problem, as our merchant boats are all gathering barnacles in port due to the no-overseas-convoys policy, but I am still concerned about risks to the convoy, to supplies in Poland, and now to the DTF, which I suspect is neither effective in a Decisive Battles-style decisive battle nor replaceable. Incidentally, I saw a small unity hit when I lost that convoy, so perhaps my convoy warfare is having an effect overseas as well.

* Fuchs, hero of the Channel, is not that impressive on paper (skill 3, rank 1, no traits), and is currently enjoying an extended leave, perhaps to write a patriotic memoir for immediate propaganda use. I suspect a command for him will materialize later this year when the new boats hit the water.

And to what end? Well, here are the kill figures by nation:
New Zealand: two merchants and one escort.
Australia: eight merchants and three escorts.
France: 13 merchants and one escort.
Belgium: 17 merchants and no escorts.
Britain: 63 merchants and 15 escorts.
Netherlands: 103 merchants and seven escorts.
Total: 206 merchants and 27 escorts for an estimated 10 million tons of merchant shipping.
Remember, this is for a single month. On top of that, we're short a substantial number of boats after last month's losses and damages, with 25 on the bottom and another 35 still being repaired. None of the boats were operating in the first week and roughly 20 were delayed until the second. Right now several U-groups are in non-optimal positions, especially around Iceland (and will be reconfigured to hit the convoys where they travel now that I've had a chance to see the system in action). Things on the water are looking up.

I wish I could say things on the land were looking up. We are gradually pushing Poland back (right), in a much tenser contest than the historical war provided, with no appreciable breakthroughs or encirclements. France has marginally gained ground (center top), and even Belgium and the Netherlands have not fallen yet (left). Neither has Luxembourg. WO II is clearly my most critical area, although I don't expect the Italians to be able to keep their WO III gains in Africa (see below) when opposition materializes. Italian forces remain unhelpful against France (center bottom). (Hungary, however, is doing some decent work in Poland, although not decent enough for me to authorize their war debt request.)

Laurwin, the screening problem is why I would give orders to U-boat captains to thin out screens whenever they could. The level of U-force concentration I'm employing is unprecedented and could, I feel, diminish screens enough to force task forces to retire or lose capital ships if reproduced accurately in HoI3. However, the commerce war is going pretty well in and of itself and I'm willing to let U-boat deployment remain conventional commerce-raiding stuff for now.

I assume the British didn't want general freedom-of-the-seas terms in treaties because they assumed that their naval strength would give them freedom of the seas by force, meaning they'd gain nothing for themselves by such a treaty.

I haven't researched unrestricted submarine warfare yet, and I haven't seen any non-belligerent sink reports either. I'm not sure the issue is modeled in HoI3, but it would be neat to finally get the tech and then start seeing Brazilian (the quintessential neutral-shipping nation) convoy losses.

WO IV on target. Scandinavia continues to bend toward the Axis and hopefully Sweden, Norway, and Finland will be willing to join in the medium term (I'd guess a year at the very soonest). Denmark, however, makes a beautiful neutral. Denying Iceland to the Allies is a wonderful situation which severely curtails Allied mid-Atlantic ASW. To the right: I don't think Göring knows what he's doing. Think of the stacking modifiers!

Japan has been drawn into the war as of June 5th. Hopefully this will limit American involvement. So far I haven't seen their interference in Europe. Caught with their pants down, still gearing up? Who knows, since my spy network has been wiped out and I'm still struggling to rebuild it. The main naval engagement of the war to date, apart from the von Nordeck disaster, is a Japanese victory over the Chinese navy.

 

[unmerged(141369)]

That was the best post ever to be written on this forum. I salute you! Naming submarine flotillas of the Third Reich after Anna Seghers and Bertolt Brecht is so utterly and incredibly inconceivable that you had me disorientated for a few minutes.

By the way, I used to name my capital ships in HoI 2 after German intellectuals. While it does not compare to the Blackadder-degree absurdity of the Schwitters flotilla, it's still a great feeling to see the aircraft carrier David Hilbert in action...

 

[ForzaA]

In addition to the merchant convoys, U-boats sank some kind of Dutch flotilla, but the Ships Sunk list has at various times listed it as a flotilla of transports and a flotilla of destroyers. It also has no name. This is mysterious and quite possibly a bug. The historical thing to do, given dubious overclaims by skippers and deliberate inflation of U-boat results by propagandists, is to declare that German vessels have sunk a Dutch aircraft carrier with the loss of its full complement of elves and dinosaurs.

Excellent!

 

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06. WARSAW JULY

We seem to have the edge in air superiority.

It's not all good news, but good news is a lot of it. First the alarming stuff. British forces have been sighted on the western front, the British navy is conducting thus-far-fruitless ASW patrols in various waters including Finisterre and the French have been spotted doing the same in the Bay of Biscay. After a month of no attacks on the Stettin convoy (and its diminished importance with land routes open to formerly isolated Prussia), Raeder has been ordered to stand down his convoy escort as of July 11th and return to base at Rostock, the trouble being that this too feels like a bad decision. Having an inferior surface task force sucks; every move is the wrong one. Soviet naval units, neutral for now, have been spotted off the Iberian coast and it's deeply mysterious. Most ominously, a large American task force under Admiral King, including what appear to be three battleships and a carrier, was sighted southwest of Ireland. Also in the mix are a possible 15 American destroyers and 10 American submarines, making for a force that could be able to conduct effective ASW and can definitely laugh off Raeder.

The Western front continues to be completely weird. Now the biggest advances are Belgian, and the British hold the center of the Maginot line. On the other hand, we've pushed back in Baden, and fighting in the north is consistently on Dutch land. I hope they're feeling the sting of all their convoy losses! The most surreal aspect of the dangerously even Western Front is the events, which are firing in wildly ahistorical conditions. "Disastrous Battle of Arnhem" identifies its historical date as September 44, but triggered in July 39. Events would also have me believe that we strat-bombed Düsseldorf while it was behind Belgian lines. I sure hope that was a misreporting. (Although come to think of it, the Allies made some pretty astonishing decisions about bombing occupied France, so who knows.)

Now on to the good news.

On July 12th, Poland fell! The Polish line, in general retreat but holding, finally started to rupture around the 10th, with fast armored units exploiting gaps in the north. Poland was partitioned, and wisely under the circumstances formed a government in exile. I forgot I signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Nonetheless, for now Rommel has shifted the bulk of the army decisively west, and I think we may prevail against France after all. Occupation governments are strictly collaboration for now, but when I can free up military units to handle unrest I plan to reconfigure for resource exploitation to make up for my lack of overseas trade. Fighting on the Polish line advanced my progress to Veteran Army considerably, and on the 27th I finally triggered Veteran Army, probably well ahead of any other power.

What could go wrong?

Italian progress in Africa remains mixed. They penetrated the Nile delta around July 16th but were pushed back by British/Iraqi forces and are in no danger of threatening Alexandria or Cairo soon. Tunis is firmly in Italian hands but they're only halfway to Algiers and will have to face a significant French defensive force. Rommel has deployed a small German force to help the Italians against the French and they are holding fast for now. Did I mention this game's peculiar Western Front?

The Japanese have made landings in Indonesia and the Philippines; they've also secured Guam. The Americans are going to have to respond in the Pacific or get rolled over. Every American naval asset that isn't in Atlantic waters is a thorn out of my side.

Unity in France has fallen to 68.6. Hard to say whether convoy-killing was a factor. UK unity remains decent at 89.3, arguing against convoy warfare as a major asset in unity depletion. How can I say that so confidently? Here are the month's kill figures:

New Zealand: no kills. Perhaps they have run out of convoys, or decided to conserve them (for the fight with Japan?).
Australia: six merchants and two escorts.
Belgium: 14 merchants and no escorts.
France: 15 merchants and four escorts.
Netherlands: 99 merchants and no escorts. Too bad we didn't manage the century this month, but...
Britain: 133 merchants and 24 escorts. Hot damn. Hot DAMN.
TOTAL: 267 merchants and 30 escorts, for an estimated 13.3 million tons of merchant shipping.

The new Brunhilde Belt.

It is great news to see us digging into British shipping like this, and even better news that it has not, so far, cost us any significant U-boat losses since the von Nordeck disaster. This month also brought the largest single attack bag in terms of merchant tonnage that I have seen so far: three Dutch merchant flotillas (an estimated 20 ships for 150,000 tons) were sent to the bottom off of Asturias in a single notification message. This might be the HoI3 equivalent of the holy grail of U-boat operations... the wholesale destruction of an entire convoy.

On June 2nd, UG deployments were shuffled slightly, with UG Franz Kafka, UG Anna Seghers, and UG Franz Stuck returning to their home ports to regain lost organization. They redeployed 10 days later. I'm not sure exactly what to think of these game mechanics in terms of real-world submarine operation. Obviously this can't represent the need to cycle boats to replenish fuel and torpedoes and provisions (and rest crews), as many U-groups have been out for two months without significant loss of organization. At the same time, it can't relate to the need for repairs and maintenance, which would be a function of strength rather than org (I think). My assumption has been that boat cycling is happening on a continuous basis beneath the game's level of explicit detail.

Also on the 2nd, UG Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was redeployed from north of Iceland to the central line, shortening the Brunhilde Belt to disinclude the (to date unblooded) Arctic patrols. In the future, weary U-groups may be rotated into the Arctic to recover organization and check for the presence of active northern convoy routes.

UG Anna Seghers was initially (on the 12th) redeployed west of Orkney in an attempt to discover whether convoys were active in the North Sea. Sighting no convoys after nearly a week, but reporting apparent British ASW activity, UG Anna Seghers was ordered to proceed to Finisterre on the 18th.

UG Franz Kafka's new assignment was northeast of the Azores, the furthest deployment at the time (12th July). On the 22nd, UG Engelbert Humperdinck was finally pronounced fit to sail and joined its southerly initiative, deploying to the Portuguese coast under the command of the legendary Fuchs, who returned to duty after an absence of around 50 days.

On the 30th, UG Bertolt Brecht was recalled to Lübeck for reorganization. It is expected to return to patrol duty in the first or second week of August.

Fragile but welcome progress toward WO II, and the inescapable magnitude of the task ahead.

 

[TheBromgrev]

Nice progress by Italy, they normally lose outright in my games.

When you take France and are able to base your subs in Brittany and Bordeaux, you should consider hunting near the Azores. Almost every convoy from the Western Hemisphere passes through the Northern Azores. The Coast of Cadiz and the area near the Canary Islands are also great hunting grounds. The Coast of Cadiz, however, is heavily patrolled and experiences a lot of naval traffic as the RN shifts fleets in and out of the Med to deal with Italy. A lucky carrier or surface patrol is all it would take to sink your subs there.

 

[Baltasar]

Italy's progress in Africa could easily be attributed to the massive losses in merchant shipping to this day. Either the Italians are themselves running low on merchants or they are trying to supply more units than their fragile lines can handle. Either way, I doubt the UK or French units are that sizable yet to push the Italians back by force.

Added up the numbers of the first three months of war.
Netherlands: 258 merchants, 23 escorts.
United Kingdom: 222 merchants, 39 escorts.
France: 34 merchants, 5 escorts.
Belgium: 32 merchant.
Australia: 17 merchants, 5 escorts.
Poland: 8 merchants.
New Zealand: 2 merchants, 1 escort

Total: 573 merchants, 73 escorts.

Impressive would be an understatement. I wonder if the Dutch actually do have any merchants left and the British too should run low on them fairly soon. Wonder where the French merchants are...

 

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07. UTRECHT AUGUST

Rommel is trying to break through in the north.

The 6th Corps is shattered by heavy fighting and reconstituted in Berlin. Allied front-line units are having obvious difficulties sustaining organization and strength in the long term. Aachen is liberated from the Belgians, the Italians take Algiers, and a German lead element repeatedly attacks Amsterdam itself before being dislodged and driven out of Utrecht by an Allied counterattack. Persia unexpectedly joins the Axis, hopefully opening a second front on Iraq that will see their assistance to the British in Egypt reduced.

Interceptors punching the clock, also the British.

German scientists develop a new kind of U-boat air-warning radar with a sweep display, and engineers perfect improved torpedoes. Air units implement superior new procedures for interceptor training and operations, as well as improving ground crews and strategic bomber deployment. Further torpedo research is being pursued ahead of schedule, with completion estimated in September of next year.

A badly torn up British task force spotted in the Bay of Biscay (left) and later (with apparent reinforcements) off the coast of Holland (right). Ignore the submarines, those are mine. I'm not sure whether it's naval bombers or submarines or both that damaged these ships, but damaged they certainly are.

Two notional complete convoy destruction events (3 merchant flotillas in a single attack) occur in August: the Dutch lose a convoy southwest of Ireland on the 6th and the British have a Dover fleet obliterated while passing through Finisterre on the 15th. Full summary of convoy kills is as follows:

Australia: nine merchants and four escorts.
Belgium: 12 merchants.
France: 27 merchants and three escorts.
Netherlands: 64 merchants.
Britain: 188 merchants and 14 escorts.
TOTAL: 300 merchants and 21 escorts, an estimated 2,100 real merchant ships and 15 million merchant tons. Consulting Balthasar's helpful running total, I wonder how quickly the Allies can rebuild the 43.6 million merchant tons they've lost to date, to say nothing of whatever 94 escort flotillas works out to in real ships. No matter the replacement cost/time, though, there's also the fact that merchant shipping can't reliably reach its destinations and make its deliveries.

UG Kurt Schwitters redeployed to the French coast on the 1st. On the 7th, UG Stefan Zweig and UG Annette Kolb were withdrawn for significant repairs, and UGs Erich Maria Remarque, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Renn, and Engelbert Humperdinck (having seen two weeks of heavy action off Lisbon) were withdrawn for minor repairs and reorganization. On the 11th, UG Engelbert Humperdinck was sent back to Portugal and the Stettin convoy, having outlived its usefulness, was discontinued, leaving us with absolutely no merchant shipping in the water. On the 14th, UG Annette Kolb deployed east of Iceland and nearly-recovered UG Ludwig Renn was prioritized for reinforcement. On the 18th, UG Thomas Mann was withdrawn for reorganization. On the 19th, UG Erich Maria Remarque was prioritized for reinforcement. On the 21st, UG Anna Seghers was withdrawn for reorganization, having operated in the busy Finisterre area for just over a month. On the 24th, UG Ludwig Renn and UG Bertolt Brecht were sent back into action, the former's Type IXs ranging further west than ever before. On the 25th, UG Erich Maria Remarque followed them west. On the 27th, UG Thomas Mann was ordered to the Basque coast, an aggressive point-blank interdiction of French shipping as I estimate French ASW to be limited and French supply critical to the state of the Western Front. On the 31st, UG Anna Seghers sails again, this time to patrol west of Ireland. At the end of the month, UG Stefan Zweig has spent three weeks in port and is still not ready for a new assignment; I estimate it will take at least another two weeks to prepare it for departure.

The Italians are running their own chump change submarine operations in the Mediterranean. I would estimate their monthly bag at under 30 merchant flotillas.

The Brunhilde Belt at the end of August. Note expansion to the south and west. As TheBromgrev suggests, an Azores/Canaries line is planned (well clear of Cadiz and the dangers of Gibraltar), but that will have to wait on new ports or new engines (although historically it could be done with refueling and/or bigger fuel tanks).

But... where are the Americans?

 

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08. MAASTRICHT SEPTEMBER

Meet the new Great War. Looks like the Americans have arrived too, although not in large numbers.

These static front lines! In retrospect it makes complete sense that neglecting land development in favor of submarines would lead to familiar old WWI land war, and I'm starting to regret not seeding my infantry with a scattering of artillery brigades. This isn't a war of maneuver, and speed hardly ever counts. It's a war of slugging and pounding and battering and enduring. My edge isn't on the battlefield, it's in whatever supplies and materials the Allies want to transport but can't.

Almost historical. Maybe in 53 years they'll sign a treaty here creating the reichseuro. But I doubt it.

Maastricht is a special one, though. The slow pulse of the war is with us, and we are succeeding in our relentless way on attack and defense. Taking Maastricht puts us in control of the river Meuse, which formerly was the scrap of hope that left the Dutch hanging on. I think now they are doomed, certainly before the end of the year unless the tide turns again. The Dutch soldiers have collapsed and it's the British who churn the front now. They too will tire and fall.

Japan has conquered the Philippines as of September 4th. Are you watching, America? Are you doing anything at all, America? Persia has answered the call to arms as of September 8th, advancing on India and Iraq. I don't expect great things from Persia but I do expect a diversion at least. Italian forces are outside Alexandria again as of September 10th, and this time the Iraqis are going to have to make a choice about whether they want to defend Cairo or Baghdad.

The Allies have National Unity and Dissent problems. My spies estimate that the Big Three (USA, UK, France) share a 1.20 Dissent rating. French unity is around 60, UK/USA unity is around 80, and mine remains 91.3. I think that means Germany is winning.

Historically, we'd be invading Poland now. Hah!

(Amidst all this triumphalism, I should point out that if the Belgians had occupied a German city in 1939, as they did in this game, and if the French had controlled the Ruhr and the Saarland in 1939, as they likewise did in this game, the attitude of the German public toward the Nazi experiment might have been considerably more negative than it was at that time historically.)

Why yes, we dare the English Channel anew.

This month in U-boats, UG Engelbert Humperdinck was withdrawn yet again from Portugal on the 3rd. I believe Portugal may be within Gibraltar ASW range. On the 16th, UG Kurt Schwitters was withdrawn for routine reorganization. On the 20th, UG Stefan Zweig was finally deployed after its seemingly interminable repairs (around seven weeks), but its objective was Portugal, so perhaps it will be back in drydock soon. On the 25th, UG Engelbert Humperdinck, after three weeks stood down, was deployed directly to the English Channel under the command of Fuchs.

Sinkings for September:
Belgium: two merchants.
Australia: four merchants and two escorts.
France: 24 merchants and one escort.
Netherlands: 72 merchants and one escort.
Britain: 163 merchants and two escorts.
TOTAL: 265 merchants and six escorts for an estimated 13.2 million tons of merchant shipping.

Rommel likes submarines now. 77 flotillas? Right: the state of the art in submarine research.

Submarine hulls, trade interdiction, and sub crew training have all been researched and continue to be researched. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare research has begun, but it'll be next summer before it's finished. Brace for a rough 1940, Americans.

 

[Baltasar]

United Kingdom: 573 merchants, 55 escorts.
Netherlands: 394 merchants, 24 escorts.
France: 106 merchants, 9 escorts.
Belgium: 46 merchant.
Australia: 30 merchants, 10 escorts.
Poland: 8 merchants.
New Zealand: 2 merchants, 1 escort

Total: 1,159 merchants, 99 escorts.

Fascinating read so far. Really wondering how the Allies, can possibly keep up their war effort in continental France or any other place for that matter. The USA apparently prefer to station their forces in the the Old World instead of protecting their Pacific posessions. Any information on IJN/USN clashes so far? Any idea where the Allied combat fleets are hiding? Since the USA has troops in Europe, shouldn't that mean that they also ship stuff there? Where's their losses?

 

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09. LUXEMBOURG OCTOBER

Top: Japan takes Pacific colonies. Bottom: Southern adventures of Persia and Italy (note Greek aggression in Europe).

I was wrong about Maastricht. It was retaken on the 7th and the Dutch continue to hold fast, or rather, a mostly British international force continues to hold fast on their behalf. Battles continue to be slogs fought over the same territory, but we are creeping forward. On the 9th, the last occupied German territory was retaken, leaving the ball in their court. On the 19th, Greece went over to the Allies, Finland mobilized (neutral and Axis-leaning, I can only assume they're looking to the east), and Italian light armor captured Oren, the last African Mediterranean port in French hands. On the 26th, Luxembourg fell and formed an exile government; the province has since changed hands repeatedly. On the 29th, naval basing research completed and was replaced with a refining project, as I am concerned about the fuel being eaten up by the land war. Also on the 29th, VIII. Armeekorps shattered in Ede, site of some of the heaviest fighting (alongside Utrecht, Eindhoven, Luxembourg, Maastricht, Amsterdam, Aachen, the Saar...). Persia is invading Iraq and India; Iraqi forces in Iraq are outnumbered an apparent two to one, and no opposition has been sighted in India so far. It looks like Iraq has pulled out of Egypt, and Italians are surrounding the Nile delta.

All those panzers...

U-boat news time. On the 15th, UG Kurt Schwitters was assigned directly to Glasgow, another risky Home Waters patrol. Historically this was a heavy traffic zone for the British leg of Halifax convoys linking the UK to North America. On the 31st, the new wave of Type IX U-boats hit the water, with one allocated to UG Kurt Weill to bring it up to strength, one held in Wilhelmshaven to replace the Type IIA flotilla off Holland when ready (Type IIBs will continue to operate for now), and ten sent to Rostock to form five new U-groups in the near future, intended to thicken U-boat presence in Finisterre, Biscay, and west of the English Channel.

The delay in getting new boats ready is historical. Naval deployments were routinely prefaced by the "workup," a shakedown cruise intended to familiarize the crews with the ships and iron out any technical problems with the ship or its equipment. Unfortunately, the game does not model another important aspect of real-world fleets, which is that retired boats became training vessels. The Germans phased out Type II boats as the war went on, but rather than scrap them they used them in their submarine schools. This would be easy enough to fudge into HoI3 by causing ships to increase appropriate doctrine knowledges when disbanded. (Also, militias should get hand-me-down gear from the infantry, and so on, but that's another issue.)

The really remarkable thing this month is that no U-groups have needed to be withdrawn. Organization and strength remain high across the board, even off Portugal, off Glasgow, and in the English Channel. ASW operations seem to be at an all-time low, in part because of an apparent Allied escort shortage. The shipping news:

France: 30 merchants and no escorts.
Netherlands: 63 merchants and no escorts.
Britain: 204 merchants and one escort.
TOTAL: 297 merchants and one escort, an estimated 14.8 million merchant tons.

Baltasar, Here's the sink list, which suggests some obvious conclusions:

Is the USA treating this like the Spanish Civil War, just sending a couple of token volunteer divisions?

As for international involvement, it's peculiar overall. There are certainly foreign units deployed (Canadians seen recently on the Italian border with France), but what does it mean that the American flag is appearing on Belgian counters and American units are listed with the Belgian flag? As for supply, if I had to guess, I'd say that either France's supply net is supporting everybody, or convoys are hopping across the Channel too fast to be intercepted. Or Wallace and Gromit are firing care packages into Flanders from a giant rail gun in Shropshire.

The front plows on. Note general gains on the Western Front, including Italian/Hungarian advance on France and the retaking of the putative Siegfried Line.

 

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I'm so glad this AAR exists. I've always wanted to try a mass u-boat, full-assed commerce raiding strategy. It's great to see it in practice, and so well written to boot.*

As I don't play too much Hearts of Iron, I am a bit unfamiliar with the mechanics. Just how destructive is the "blockade" to British industry? How feasible is a catch-22 scenario wherein they need industry to build convoys, but need convoys to supply industry? What do you estimate as their "maximum replacement rate," and how does that compare to the rate at which you're sinking?

Anyway, I have to thank you for making this AAR, because I've always been curious about this hypothetical scenario. Thanks so much, I can't wait to read more!

* Consider this a formal written apology for that pun.