Submarines are still garbage

[Aszhalinde]

Playing as Germany, standard war with UK/France starting end of '39. I built a submarine fleet pre-war of Type IIAs.

I sent fleets of 9 submarines each to 5 naval zones: African Coast, Iberian Coast, Bay of Biscay, North Atlantic Ridge, and Western Approaches. So far my 45 submarines have sank 0 convoys, 2 destroyers, 1 heavy cruiser, and 1 light cruiser (all french). I have lost about 10 of them, and it's been a week.

Anecdote: it seems like subs are still too busy being in combat to go convoy raiding.

Am I doing it wrong? Are fleets of 9 too large, and getting them detected too easy? Germany only has 6 naval commanders, so if I were to make the sub fleets smaller I'd be faced with a choice of either sending fleets out without commanders, or leaving half the submarine fleet in port. Or, building fewer of them. These all seem like poor choices.

 

[Meglok]

9 in a fleet might be too many, and what are your doctrines?

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

Podcast made clear months ago that there wouldn't be a major naval rework with this patch - I'm sorry if that's news to you.

AFAIK the best hack for subs (and it's no more than that) is to put them into as many groups as you have 20-strength wings of NAV2/NAV3 and then use them as bait to lure convoys to the bombers (which you can roleplay as the U-Boats radioing for Luftwaffe backup). In 1.4.2, that seemed to do serious damage to convoys. Obviously that means fighting on the Continental shelf, not the open Atlantic.

I really hope that 1.6 is built around a major naval rework that solves this problem and many others. But you can't please all of the people all of the time, and I'm really looking forward to playing with division namelists, army groups, and (once I have some money !) the heroes of the Republic of China!

 

[Secret Master]

Are fleets of 9 too large, and getting them detected too easy?

I wouldn't put more than 2 in a sea zone at one time.

 

[Meglok]

AFAIK the best hack for subs (and it's no more than that) is to put them into as many groups as you have 20-strength wings of NAV2/NAV3 and then use them as bait to lure convoys to the bombers (which you can roleplay as the U-Boats radioing for Luftwaffe backup). In 1.4.2, that seemed to do serious damage to convoys. Obviously that means fighting on the Continental shelf, not the open Atlantic.

This does work well off Iberia or Morocco. If you wait a few months and park your bombers and NAV over the Channel to whittle down the UK fleets and Air Force while you build up for Barbarossa, your subs and Luftwaffe can team up to pound UK convoys now.

The big issue is still sub detection and killing is too easy for even 1922 DDs. If Type IIa subs are alone and spotted they are dead unless you have them set at low damage return and manually intervene. Which most people don't have time to fiddle with. Probably won't be fixed totally until the Great Naval Revamp. Type IIs do better if varianted to boost stealth and you have spent research on sub doctrines. Type VIIs do better.

 

[Ironside121]

Never use more than 3 subs, you've gone triple that. More numbers=Higher chance of detection.

Subs still can be reasonably useful- at the very least to lure the Allied Fleet away to allow you to Sealion.

 

[chuckr]

In this case you’ll have like a million little wolf packs?? I lost 50 subs in the first 2 months of the war... pretty upset.

 

[Meglok]

In this case you’ll have like a million little wolf packs?? I lost 50 subs in the first 2 months of the war... pretty upset.

Once again, what are your doctrines? did you use xp to boost stealth? What tech level are your subs?

And if you make small fleets and pile them into a few sea zones, they will combine into a big fleet if any are spotted. It doesn't take a lot to do damage to convoy routes, just place a couple of small fleets in a few zones with either air or raider support and replace as needed. But if you are sending out 1936 tech with no stealth and no doctrines and haven't whittled down the 100 or so DDs the UK starts with, those aren't subs, they are Iron Coffins.

 

[Corner79]

I wouldn't put more than 2 in a sea zone at one time.

2 per zone with fire at will on or off?

 

[Aszhalinde]

Makes sense about the fleet size. Why the emphasis on the doctrines though? None of the Trade Interdiction naval doctrines improve sub stealth--subs only get org, raiding coordination, surface detection, defense, and attack from doctrines, from what I can tell. Nothing about them avoiding being seen, which seems to be the problem here.

To answer your question, I do have "Convoy Interdiction" completed in the TI tree.

 

[Aloha2]

Makes sense about the fleet size. Why the emphasis on the doctrines though? None of the Trade Interdiction naval doctrines improve sub stealth--subs only get org, raiding coordination, surface detection, defense, and attack from doctrines, from what I can tell. Nothing about them avoiding being seen, which seems to be the problem here.

To answer your question, I do have "Convoy Interdiction" completed in the TI tree.

While I might be mistaken, my understanding is this:

Completing TI allows subs to catch more convoys from a trade route, which will impact the efficiency more than if you didn't have TI techs. Like you point out, it does nothing to help subs survivability (edit: in terms of stealth).

Like you mention in OP, you killed 0 convoys but have killed a couple surface ships.. there are couple issues.. like convoys engaged in battle know they are about to be sunk, so convoy protecting ships will always come to the rescue (I haven't tested if the protecting ships still teleport yet as of WtT though)

As for stealth, it seems to be an unfavorable dice roll no matter what. - thinking from a game play + ui perspective, it would be frustrating to be drained of convoys without knowing why (stealthed subs being too effective), or possibly being able to see why you are losing convoys, but not being able to do anything about it if stealth was handled in too binary fashion (you either detect the subs or you don't).. I don't really mind how bad subs are in this current regard when you take the below opportunities into account..

To add on to the mentioned above with the naval bombers, subs in current state are better for forcing engagements either for a superior fleet (from Allied side) or for your navs / air superiority (from Axis side). Without being able to take advantage of either of those points, subs are borderline useless by themselves (note there may be edge cases of people using them as distractions, other baits, or convoy raiding a route out of range.. but in general, useless).. if you have naval superiority, subs help to enforce that. if you don't, they are more often little more than an annoyance / cheese to get naval superiority far out of normal range

 

[ChiliDip]

I researched TI all the way down, added a theorist for another 20% boost, put 6 groups of 6-8 Uboats across the Atlantic in 1939, with high skills leaders, and they were all dead with 3 months. Even with "do not engage" they engage surface fleets, won't ever dis-engage, stay in combat with surface fleets until they are all dead, and sink almost no transports.

They just die like flies. Any suggestions? I must be doing this wrong. I guess.

 

[Secret Master]

2 per zone with fire at will on or off?

Try it both ways.

Note that the goal isn't to take zero casualties. The goal is to sink more convoys (in terms of IC cost) than you lose in submarines. A secondary goal is to cause one particular route to have poor efficiency. If you want to cut the UK's aluminum, hit the convoys heading from Guyana hard. It should kill the efficiency.

I'd also like to point out that NAVs are really helpful to your subs. Don't ignore the Scourge of the Atlantic, the Condor. Many convoy routes the UK uses go past Lisbon and go through the Bay of Biscay. Put RADAR, some fighters (both for detection and to prevent RAF retaliation), and some NAVs in the Bay of Biscay. Drop 2 subs there, and raid until they are dead. Repeat. when they die. And if you occupy Portugal or coerce them into the Axis, do the same there.

I'd also build submarines in France once you occupy it. Trying to move submarines from Kiel to the Bay of Biscay is suicidal.

EDIT: Forgot one little tidbit.

The RN will probably sortie to deal with the submarines if they get bad enough. Having NAVs out might give you a chance to inflict real damage on the main fleet if it tries to hunt your subs. Losing 3 submarines a week isn't great, but if costs the RN battleships and carriers lost to bombing, it's a fair trade.

 

[GREG 42]

 

[Corner79]

Try it both ways.

Note that the goal isn't to take zero casualties. The goal is to sink more convoys (in terms of IC cost) than you lose in submarines. A secondary goal is to cause one particular route to have poor efficiency. If you want to cut the UK's aluminum, hit the convoys heading from Guyana hard. It should kill the efficiency.

I'd also like to point out that NAVs are really helpful to your subs. Don't ignore the Scourge of the Atlantic, the Condor. Many convoy routes the UK uses go past Lisbon and go through the Bay of Biscay. Put RADAR, some fighters (both for detection and to prevent RAF retaliation), and some NAVs in the Bay of Biscay. Drop 2 subs there, and raid until they are dead. Repeat. when they die. And if you occupy Portugal or coerce them into the Axis, do the same there.

I'd also build submarines in France once you occupy it. Trying to move submarines from Kiel to the Bay of Biscay is suicidal.

EDIT: Forgot one little tidbit.

The RN will probably sortie to deal with the submarines if they get bad enough. Having NAVs out might give you a chance to inflict real damage on the main fleet if it tries to hunt your subs. Losing 3 submarines a week isn't great, but if costs the RN battleships and carriers lost to bombing, it's a fair trade.

Thank you for this information, I will give a try like you say.

 

[Hopit]

Personally I just ignore subs and send my capital ships as raiders to the atlantic

 

[Anthropoid]

My first experience with the naval model hasn't been too positive, but then I think I did pretty much EVERYTHING wrong!

1. Got Newer subs? Nein! Nur ältere Modelle, U-IIA . . . hmmm, kinda forgot those were the "interwar" subs probably shouldn't have built those with like 10 factories for 3 years straight . . .

2. Got Doctrines? Nein! Wir sind harte Männer der Marine! . . . hmmm, so given I managed to trigger Fall Weiss pretty much EXACTLY when I wanted (late Aug 1939) and got Czech, Austria, etc. all inline with history, and did NOT pause my National focii much at all, I wonder when/where/how I might squeeze in 210 or 280 days worth of naval gazing?

3. Got small "fleets"? Nein! Nur ein einziger Admiral, der sie alle führt!

So yeah . . . putting 98 U-IIAs into one fleet with Donitz in command and then sending them to "interdict convoys" (or whatever it is called) in the three sea blob areas that that can spread over = NOT good tactic.

Well at least the U-boats are not OVERPOWERED!

Doing a restart with what I've learned and may try something a bit more naval focused. Not sure. Air superiority and getting control of "Greater Germanic Reich" seem more sensible/interesting.

So what you say you, oh crusty Pdox Grogs? What is the best balance between "historical vs. winning (min/maxing)" play style when it comes to Germany's navy form 1936 through the Fall of France?

 

[Matrix Aran]

I've sunk an entire pacific fleet with subs. I'd say they're very much not garbage.

 

[Agiknight]

The naval situation hasn't changed at all, as others have pointed out. There were no changes to anything navy related this patch, but hopefully that will change in the next patch. ( hopefully not another 8 months)

For now, subs are utterly useless. Requires way too much micro to get minimal gain, and if you don't micro them to groups of 1-2 they do nothing but die.

In addition, Battleships and Carriers are OP and screens are useless. Don't bother building anything smaller than a BB if you can afford to.

However, Naval Bombers are the true kings of the sea. All important strategic naval zones are easily accessed by land based fighters and bombers. If you have air superiority over a sea zone it prevents enemy carriers form being able to launch planes at all.

So the best strategy is to spam BBs and cover all of your sea zones with fighters and naval bombers.

 

[Anthropoid]

I've sunk an entire pacific fleet with subs. I'd say they're very much not garbage.

What is the trick then?