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I have read up a lot on subs and combatting them and while it seems fine in SP, I am not sure if my current MP problems stem from me doing things the wrong way or if subs are simply OP as some seem to claim.
I am really, really not good with the naval game - but unfortunately in this game I am playing... the UK.
The situation is this:
It's January 1944, I am fighting human-led FRA and SU, while being allied to GER.
FRA and SU both build the same subs: 1940s subs with radar or snorkels, in groups of 3-6. A total of 50-60 of those subs do exist. Unfortunately they have now started building level 4 subs (1944).
Be it as it may, I have no problem sinking he occasional sub with air power.
I don't think I have been able to sink a single sub with DDs. Most of my DDs are pre-war level 1 DDs. Are they completely useless when it comes to escorting convoys?
This is my main DD which I developed to hunt down and sink those subs.
The only problem: Despite a lot of hunting there has been now sinking. Often, the DDs are in the same "battle" as the subs and convoys, but never manage to acutally attack the subs.
The subs exist in fleets of 3, 4 or 5, my DD hunting teams have 4 or 5 DDs in a task force. I tried 10 or 12 in one, it did not change a lot...
I could grudingly accept if me DD 1940s would sink subs and all the older ones were useless, but even my 1940 DDs are useless. Or I am using them wrong...
I have around 8 to 14 TFs of 4-5 DDs to escort around 8-10 sea zones in the Atlantic, but don't manage to sink a single sub with the DDs. It's crippling my resource transfers back to Britain and especially reinforcements to overseas troops.
The tool tips here are not very promising: mission effectiveness 2 %, convort escort efficiency 3 percent...
As for your DD design so could you improve it's sub detection by swapping the FCS for a radar (might have to move the sonar to that spot). But the main thing is that to sink subs so do you need to be the attacker. Escorting convoys only mitigates the sub problem, it doesn't solve it. You need to have Patrols with high sub detection that will either themselves engage and sink the subs or direct sub hunting strike forces to do the job.
I'd say that your primary problem with this design is that it costs too much. That is, of course, the entire problem with submarines as a whole, and there is no complete solution for it, but there's no need to make it worse than it already is by packing on equipment that doesn't help.
You have somewhat more depth charge attack than you actually need. Subs have at most 35 HP, and that's with sub 4s. Sub 3s have only 30. If you were playing against the AI, which only has Sub 2s at best (outside of mods like Expert AI), 25 would be enough. This is due to the way naval combat damage is dealt -- you target one ship and either deal the listed damage or miss. With guns, there's armor to consider as well, but torpedoes and depth charges disregard armor, not that subs even have armor to begin with.
I would definitely ditch the fire control, the AA, and the torpedoes. All of those slots are optional, and you would be better off without them, since you could launch quite a few more ships. For your escort DDs, I might even drop the depth charges entirely. It's generally unlikely they will get to use them, at least when your opponent is a human player maximizing their submarines' effectiveness. Escort efficiency is affected by ship and task force count, like other missions. If you can get 100% efficiency, your escorts will arrive instantly, forcing your opponent to either try and fire torpedoes inaccurately at the convoys due to the screening effect, or fire torpedoes inaccurately at your low hit profile destroyers.
Code:
CONVOY_DEFENSE_MAX_CONVOY_TO_SHIP_RATIO = 12.0, -- each ship in convoy defense mission can at most cover this many convoys without losing efficiency
CONVOY_DEFENSE_MAX_REGION_TO_TASKFORCE_RATIO = 5.0, -- each taskforce in convoy defense mission can at most cover this many regions without losing efficiency
You should also be able to sink more than an "occasional" sub via air power, at least by 1944. Plane ranges are higher, naval targeting/strike is higher, and more advanced radar is available. Air superiority grants some spotting, so get it wherever you can. This is one of the better uses of heavy fighters and/or tactical bombers, but in the Atlantic this may not be necessary depending on what bases you have available and where the trade is coming from. Get a naval intel advantage if you can. As the UK you can often be spymaster of the Allies, put them to use. Breaking enemy encryption codes also passively helps with spotting.
Use spotter ships. These are light cruiser hulls with floatplane launchers in every custom slot that can fit one, radar, sonar, and little else. One of these per patrol task force is sufficient. (Set them to Never Engage, though almost any other setting should be equivalent given it's just one ship.) Then, use them to spot for either bombers or even an "ASW strike force" of ships that have depth charges. Ideally, these are DDs, but depending on the zone you might have to use CLs for this instead.
Those are some very insightful tips, lots of things that were new to me, thanks guys!
A quick test revealed that while I don't think I have sunken a single sub by doing convoy escort since the war started, I sank one after changing all my TFs to patrol.
A few questions:
1) So two dept charge slots don't get you TWO shots, but only add to the damage done should you hit? I figured those were two "shots", basically doubling your chances of hitting.
2) Is it really a good idea, what some have suggested, to build those ASW DDs on DD1 or DD2 hulls, so they are cheaper and don't drain as much of my resources?
I have seen how cheap the SS are...
3) Spotter ships: I need one of those spotter CLs in EACH TF? Or for each fleet of 10 TFs? Are they part of a TF? Or just a separate one ship TF to spot?
4) Escort efficiency: It seems incredibly low for me. What would be normal/average for a UK that is fighting in India and getting resources from the US and SE Asia?
5) What value qualifies as "high sub detection" for my DD?
In case you are interested, it has really been a fun game so far, especially the anti sub part felt "right" for a long time:
UK + GER v SU + FR
- on land, there is sort of a WW1 deadlock in Belgium/Northern France and what used to be Poland.
- SU + FR invested in subs, I neglected that at first, figured I had so many DDs, it wasn't going to be a big deal
- I was wrong. So I started investing in ASW tech, started cranking out more modern DDs and build ASW patrol planes
- My planes started sinking those subs close to the UK coast, so FR and SU moved their attacks further into the Atlantic. I built patrol aircraft (the mod we use has those, very nice, bigger range, mediocre naval attack)
- The planes' range wasn't good enough, so I had to invest in newer patrol aircraft and convoy doctrines, both of which I had neglected
- The new patrol planes were able to reach most parts of the Atlantic from Irish and US bases, expect for a gap in the middle of this ocean, where they were now hunting my convoys.
- SU/FR started out with 246 subs, lots of them old types as well. They are down to 53 now, the lowest count being 49 (I keep tabs).
- This is what I meant by saying "it felt right", it was almost similar to what happend in WW2 for real.
Having all but closed down this gap in the Atlantic now, the subs have moved to the South Atlantic, out of range of my planes, but keep sinking convoys.
This is why I have now focused on sinking them with DDs and so far it hasn't been working out for me. But I can already see that I have made a few mistakes. Still, it seems a bit too hard to sink them now.
At least, that's the general understanding of naval warfare - might be wrong, but that requires running some tests (or looking up if someone actually ran them).
Is it really a good idea, what some have suggested, to build those ASW DDs on DD1 or DD2 hulls, so they are cheaper and don't drain as much of my resources?
I have seen how cheap the SS are...
These are the costs you looking at if you ditch everything you don't need (coastal designer, though)
Downside: you can't use these for anything else, but with enemies who can only spam subs (poorly at that) you're unlikely to ever have to.
In each TF: spotting is averaged out, so having too few won't make a difference. And you need that spotting both in (to be able to shoot) and out of combat (when on patrol looking for subs).
Can also try CVLs for places with poor air coverage, if you don't mind fuel costs, but Base Strike doesn't buff them as much as Fleet In Being does, so they might end up being a hindrance.
Escort efficiency: It seems incredibly low for me. What would be normal/average for a UK that is fighting in India and getting resources from the US and SE Asia?
If depends purely only on amount of convoys in the area: each escort ship can only protect so many, so having more escort ships in the area will improve efficiency. Doctrines improve that, too.
Those are some very insightful tips, lots of things that were new to me, thanks guys!
A quick test revealed that while I don't think I have sunken a single sub by doing convoy escort since the war started, I sank one after changing all my TFs to patrol.
A few questions:
1) So two dept charge slots don't get you TWO shots, but only add to the damage done should you hit? I figured those were two "shots", basically doubling your chances of hitting.
2) Is it really a good idea, what some have suggested, to build those ASW DDs on DD1 or DD2 hulls, so they are cheaper and don't drain as much of my resources?
I have seen how cheap the SS are...
3) Spotter ships: I need one of those spotter CLs in EACH TF? Or for each fleet of 10 TFs? Are they part of a TF? Or just a separate one ship TF to spot?
4) Escort efficiency: It seems incredibly low for me. What would be normal/average for a UK that is fighting in India and getting resources from the US and SE Asia?
5) What value qualifies as "high sub detection" for my DD?
In case you are interested, it has really been a fun game so far, especially the anti sub part felt "right" for a long time:
UK + GER v SU + FR
- on land, there is sort of a WW1 deadlock in Belgium/Northern France and what used to be Poland.
- SU + FR invested in subs, I neglected that at first, figured I had so many DDs, it wasn't going to be a big deal
- I was wrong. So I started investing in ASW tech, started cranking out more modern DDs and build ASW patrol planes
- My planes started sinking those subs close to the UK coast, so FR and SU moved their attacks further into the Atlantic. I built patrol aircraft (the mod we use has those, very nice, bigger range, mediocre naval attack)
- The planes' range wasn't good enough, so I had to invest in newer patrol aircraft and convoy doctrines, both of which I had neglected
- The new patrol planes were able to reach most parts of the Atlantic from Irish and US bases, expect for a gap in the middle of this ocean, where they were now hunting my convoys.
- SU/FR started out with 246 subs, lots of them old types as well. They are down to 53 now, the lowest count being 49 (I keep tabs).
- This is what I meant by saying "it felt right", it was almost similar to what happend in WW2 for real.
Having all but closed down this gap in the Atlantic now, the subs have moved to the South Atlantic, out of range of my planes, but keep sinking convoys.
This is why I have now focused on sinking them with DDs and so far it hasn't been working out for me. But I can already see that I have made a few mistakes. Still, it seems a bit too hard to sink them now.
Edited: I just noticed that @HugsAndSnuggles posted while I was writing my post, so forgive the duplications.
1. Two depth charges do not give you two attacks.
2. EDIT Ignore what I struck out. That advice is only good for SP. Below, @HugsAndSnuggles and @Znail alert us that in MP, some AWS with your escorts are necessary. Even so, killing subs is not the strong suit of escorts, as you have noticed yourself. This is mainly because when subs are the attackers, they have a huge advantage on remaining hidden. To turn the tables, it is best to attack the subs, before they attack the convoy with aircraft or sub hunter task forces. The subs start defensive battles as already spotted, making them vulnerable to attack. Convoy escorts, as you noticed, almost never kill subs. The reason for this is that when subs see the escorts they quickly retreat. This reaction means that convoy escorts do not need any weapons because they will not be used. They do not even need sonar. They just have to be there, in the cheapest form possible, and the subs run.
3. Spotting for a task force is the average of the spotting ability of all the ships in the task force. That means that one dedicated spotter ship, say a light cruiser with spotter planes, in a task force by itself, will have better spotting than a dozen destroyers in another task force who's average spotting is less.
4. At the end of the day, convoy efficiency comes down to how many escorts you have in a sea zone when compared to how many convoys are coming through. To address this issue click on each sea zone and restrict which sea zones your convoys will use. This way you can concentrate your convoys into into fewer sea zones and reduce the number of zones your escorts must defend. Also, build the cheapest DD hull that is allowed and put it into escort duty. They are not going to sink or spot anything. They are going to scare off subs.
5. Spotting submarines is extremely hard when the subs are attacking, because they only reveal themselves when firing and that reveal can be very low. They are OP, by a wide margin for this, especially in the hands of a human, who can put them on high risk attack. You must attack the submarines before they can attack a convoy so you are the attacker, not them. Parking carriers in sea zones, with no mission, and using their planes to sink subs can help. Taking islands and putting airfields on them can help much more. Building special DDs with depth charges, sonar and radar for sub hunting fleets put on patrol in sea zones that convoys are getting attacked can help. Just make sure those patrols are not set on do not engage. Their mission is to engage and sink subs. Since the human player is using sub fleets of 3 or so subs, you can make your submarine hunter task forces small, too, so you can have more of them. The sub players seem to understand the advantage of using small sub task forces. They can put multiple sub task forces in one sea zone and even when you engage one, the others can hit other convoys in the same sea zone with little resistance. I have seen posts that researching Naval Intel in your spy agency helps too, but I do not know the details.
Below are some details from the Wiki.
Convoy escort composition[edit]
When deciding upon the composition of convoy escort task forces, it may be helpful to consider the following points:
The AI uses the 'engage at medium risk' engagement rule for all of its convoy raiding task forces. Submarines with this engagement rule will tend to flee from a group of defending destroyers when the battle starts, regardless of how strong or weak the destroyers are.
To minimise convoy losses, it is important for a fleet performing convoy escort to achieve 100% escort efficiency. Escort efficiency is a function of quantity of ships rather than quality; the weakest possible destroyer will contribute exactly as much escort efficiency as a battleship would.
High screening efficiency is helpful for protecting convoys from torpedoes during battle. As with escort efficiency, screening efficiency is a function of quantity of ships rather than quality.
It is difficult for the defending side to detect submarines during a naval battle, even when the defending ships are equipped with sonar.
Depth charges are ineffective against undetected submarines.
Given the above points, it is viable to use extremely cheap destroyers (early hull, level 1 battery, level 1 engine; the weakest destroyer that may be designed) for convoy escort duty. Such destroyers lack sonar and depth charge equipment and are thereby not particularly well suited for anti-submarine warfare, but convoy raiding submarines will flee from them regardless. Such destroyers can be economically produced in high numbers, providing high escort efficiency and screening efficiency to minimise the damage done to convoys.
Under this scheme, the destruction of enemy submarines would be left to patrol and/or strike forces configured for anti-submarine warfare. Such forces could be deployed to regions in which convoys had recently been attacked by submarines. The attacking side is at a significant advantage when attacking submarines, as all defending submarines will be revealed for a period of time from the start of the battle (see the naval battle article for further details).
If more expensive destroyers with sonar and/or depth charges were used for convoy escort, such destroyers would inflict slightly greater losses upon attacking submarines on average than the cheap convoy escort destroyers described earlier. However, due to their higher cost, it would be more difficult to amass such destroyers in the numbers required to achieve high escort efficiency and (in particular) high screening efficiency for each battle, which could lead to greater convoy losses. The value of expensive sonar and depth charge equipment would also be reduced in this situation, due to the difficulty of detecting submarines while on the defending side of a battle.
This is a community maintained wiki. If you spot a mistake then you are welcome to fix it.
Tooltip of a convoy escort mission. A task force assigned to the convoy escort mission will protect convoys belonging to the player or their allies if they are attacked. This protection is extended to all of the fleet's assigned regions, although the number of regions that can be efficiently protected depends upon the number and size of task forces performing the mission within a given fleet. Along with other important information, this maximum number of regions is visible when the cursor is hovered over the convoy escort mission icon in the centre of any region where the mission is taking place.
When the strategic navy map mode is selected, existing convoy routes are shown on the map. This can be useful for determining which strategic regions require convoy escort coverage.
It is worth noting that troop transfers across water are performed using convoys, and can be protected through this mission like any other convoy. However, when troop transfers are being performed automatically as part of a naval invasion order, the naval invasion support mission may be a more appropriate choice.
Escort efficiency[edit] Escort efficiency is an important metric in relation to convoy escort missions. When escort efficiency is 100% among task forces within a given fleet, one of these task forces will instantly come to the defence of any convoys under attack within the fleet's assigned regions. If escort efficiency falls below 100%, some or all of the defending ships will arrive late to the battle when friendly convoys are attacked, increasing the likelihood of convoys being destroyed by the attackers.
To achieve 100% escort efficiency, there must be sufficient ships and task forces performing the convoy escort mission to cover the strategic regions which have been assigned to their fleet.
Edited: I just noticed that @HugsAndSnuggles posted while I was writing my post, so forgive the duplications.
1. Two depth charges do not give you two attacks.
2. Convoy escorts, as you noticed, almost never kill subs. The reason for this is that when subs see the escorts they quickly retreat. This reaction means that convoy escorts do not need any weapons because they will not be used. They do not even need sonar. They just have to be there, in the cheapest form possible, and the subs run.
3. Spotting for a task force is the average of the spotting ability of all the ships in the task force. That means that one dedicated spotter ship, say a light cruiser with spotter planes, in a task force by itself, will have better spotting than a dozen destroyers in another task force who's average spotting is less.
4. At the end of the day, convoy efficiency comes down to how many escorts you have in a sea zone when compared to how many convoys are coming through. To address this issue click on each sea zone and restrict which sea zones your convoys will use. This way you can concentrate your convoys into into fewer sea zones and reduce the number of zones your escorts must defend. Also, build the cheapest DD hull that is allowed and put it into escort duty. They are not going to sink or spot anything. They are going to scare off subs.
5. Spotting submarines is extremely hard when the subs are attacking, because they only reveal themselves when firing and that reveal can be very low. They are OP, by a wide margin for this, especially in the hands of a human, who can put them on high risk attack. You must attack the submarines before they can attack a convoy so you are the attacker, not them. Parking carriers in sea zones, with no mission, and using their planes to sink subs can help. Taking islands and putting airfields on them can help much more. Building special DDs with depth charges, sonar and radar for sub hunting fleets put on patrol in sea zones that convoys are getting attacked can help. Just make sure those patrols are not set on do not engage. Their mission is to engage and sink subs. Since the human player is using sub fleets of 3 or so subs, you can make your submarine hunter task forces small, too, so you can have more of them. The sub players seem to understand the advantage of using small sub task forces. They can put multiple sub task forces in one sea zone and even when you engage one, the others can hit other convoys in the same sea zone with little resistance. I have seen posts that researching Naval Intel in your spy agency helps too, but I do not know the details.
Below are some details from the Wiki.
Convoy escort composition[edit]
When deciding upon the composition of convoy escort task forces, it may be helpful to consider the following points:
The AI uses the 'engage at medium risk' engagement rule for all of its convoy raiding task forces. Submarines with this engagement rule will tend to flee from a group of defending destroyers when the battle starts, regardless of how strong or weak the destroyers are.
To minimise convoy losses, it is important for a fleet performing convoy escort to achieve 100% escort efficiency. Escort efficiency is a function of quantity of ships rather than quality; the weakest possible destroyer will contribute exactly as much escort efficiency as a battleship would.
High screening efficiency is helpful for protecting convoys from torpedoes during battle. As with escort efficiency, screening efficiency is a function of quantity of ships rather than quality.
It is difficult for the defending side to detect submarines during a naval battle, even when the defending ships are equipped with sonar.
Depth charges are ineffective against undetected submarines.
Given the above points, it is viable to use extremely cheap destroyers (early hull, level 1 battery, level 1 engine; the weakest destroyer that may be designed) for convoy escort duty. Such destroyers lack sonar and depth charge equipment and are thereby not particularly well suited for anti-submarine warfare, but convoy raiding submarines will flee from them regardless. Such destroyers can be economically produced in high numbers, providing high escort efficiency and screening efficiency to minimise the damage done to convoys.
Under this scheme, the destruction of enemy submarines would be left to patrol and/or strike forces configured for anti-submarine warfare. Such forces could be deployed to regions in which convoys had recently been attacked by submarines. The attacking side is at a significant advantage when attacking submarines, as all defending submarines will be revealed for a period of time from the start of the battle (see the naval battle article for further details).
If more expensive destroyers with sonar and/or depth charges were used for convoy escort, such destroyers would inflict slightly greater losses upon attacking submarines on average than the cheap convoy escort destroyers described earlier. However, due to their higher cost, it would be more difficult to amass such destroyers in the numbers required to achieve high escort efficiency and (in particular) high screening efficiency for each battle, which could lead to greater convoy losses. The value of expensive sonar and depth charge equipment would also be reduced in this situation, due to the difficulty of detecting submarines while on the defending side of a battle.
This is a community maintained wiki. If you spot a mistake then you are welcome to fix it.
Tooltip of a convoy escort mission. A task force assigned to the convoy escort mission will protect convoys belonging to the player or their allies if they are attacked. This protection is extended to all of the fleet's assigned regions, although the number of regions that can be efficiently protected depends upon the number and size of task forces performing the mission within a given fleet. Along with other important information, this maximum number of regions is visible when the cursor is hovered over the convoy escort mission icon in the centre of any region where the mission is taking place.
When the strategic navy map mode is selected, existing convoy routes are shown on the map. This can be useful for determining which strategic regions require convoy escort coverage.
It is worth noting that troop transfers across water are performed using convoys, and can be protected through this mission like any other convoy. However, when troop transfers are being performed automatically as part of a naval invasion order, the naval invasion support mission may be a more appropriate choice.
Escort efficiency[edit] Escort efficiency is an important metric in relation to convoy escort missions. When escort efficiency is 100% among task forces within a given fleet, one of these task forces will instantly come to the defence of any convoys under attack within the fleet's assigned regions. If escort efficiency falls below 100%, some or all of the defending ships will arrive late to the battle when friendly convoys are attacked, increasing the likelihood of convoys being destroyed by the attackers.
To achieve 100% escort efficiency, there must be sufficient ships and task forces performing the convoy escort mission to cover the strategic regions which have been assigned to their fleet.
This is all true, nice job putting all of it together in one place. The only thing I've never really figured out about MP ASW is if it's worth building cheap escorts at all if you see your opponent using the "attack at high risk" setting. The subs will still attack and sink escorted convoys and even some destroyers since they barely have any ASW and can't spot the subs. It might be more worth it in that situation to just spend all your NIC building high quality ASW destroyer/Spotter CL task forces backed up with TAC or CV NAV and put them on patrol, and just neglect building convoy escorts entirely because the IC is wasted if they don't do anything. Apparently having scout planes over the sea zones helps too, but I haven't verified this.
2. Convoy escorts, as you noticed, almost never kill subs. The reason for this is that when subs see the escorts they quickly retreat. This reaction means that convoy escorts do not need any weapons because they will not be used. They do not even need sonar. They just have to be there, in the cheapest form possible, and the subs run.
I wouldn't advise this for MP: a single wolfpack on high aggression and you lose way more than you "protected" that way. And even if kided-out DDs have like 0.2-0.3% chance of spotting kitted-out sub per hour, with decent engine they have even lower chance of being hit by torp.
For multiplayer so do you need one ASW for your escort DD's, but not more then that and you could even mix in some even cheaper DD's without as well. The point is that when your escorting DD's end up fighting Subs so will they most of the time do nothing as no Sub is visible, but when one are then all the DD's will try and kill it so you wont need that much to do that. But you need that ASW as else so will the opponent just set the Subs on never retreat and sink all your escorts with ease.
But the real sub killers are your Patrol or Strike Forces. As unlike when Escorting so will all Subs be revealed when you engage them on your terms. Now you want DD's with enough ASW to one shot enemy subs as they do not split fire, so enough to kill is good enough. Having some Torps on the DD's if there are room is not bad as the counter to your Sub hunters are enemy Surface ships or Planes.
You can do this hunting in two ways. Either you have your spotter CL with as good radar/sonar and as many floatplanes as you can fit as single Patrols set to not engage and then have small fleets designed to fight Subs as Strike Forces. Or you make sub hunter Patrol's of spotter CL's and ASW CL/DD's that engage subs directly instead of just spotting. Personally I prefeer the first option. Either way so should you have some real Strike Forces as part of the Task Force to protect your sub hunters from being ambushed by enemy surface fleets.
