And I suspect that will be a huge, and I do mean huge improvement to convoy raiding as well as defending against it. In HoI2 it's like your submarines get discovered and completely rekt randomly.
U-boat questions.
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I do note that sometimes subs snuck into harbours and caused quite a bit of confusion and damage, the attack on Sydney Harbour by the Japanese being one.
Did the Germans ever try a night attack on British harbours where they could just fire all their torpedoes and then try to get away?
Did the Germans ever try a night attack on British harbours where they could just fire all their torpedoes and then try to get away?
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After this they installed more torpedo nets. Which can catch the torpedos and also entangle u-boats if they get into them
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Yes, U-47 made it back to Germany where its captain (Herr Prien) and crew were lauded as heroes.
The only other naval branch that suffer as much casualty as the U-boat command is the British Merchant Navy.
I wonder why it is easy to think of the massed loss of life and be like well war is bad, but when you focus on particular parts of it, then it becomes harder to accept. This obviously excludes the really bad forbidden stuff cause that is incomprehensible.
At least for me reading about the loss of individual units/ships/planes/etc just makes it more managable to understand people doing everything for their country and paying the ultimate price.
At least for me reading about the loss of individual units/ships/planes/etc just makes it more managable to understand people doing everything for their country and paying the ultimate price.
I know of two examples of Dutch subs 'sinking' US CVNs in exercises. One was Northern Star in the 80's, where Zwaardvis bagged a carrier, and the other was JTFEX/TMDI99 where Walrus went on a rampage and sank the following ships:
CVN-71 (Rooseveldt)
SSN-764 (Boise)
DDG-70
DDG-71
FFG-332
FFG-29
F-216
CG-55
LCG-20
Now, there were some restrictions on the exercise, but yes, a modern diesel / AIP sub is a nasty customer for carrier groups. The best defense for a carrier group is to be 'at sea' and hauling *ss, with sufficient course changes. Sailing a carrier group anywhere near an enemy who has modern AIP sub is asking for a bad day.
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Jeez, how things have changed. All I know is that we're gonna need some serious naval strategy changes if we ever go to war.
If I remember right, the Walrus episode was predicated on the idea of a surprise attack (so the US fleet was operating according to 'peacetime' procedures). But it made really clear that a 'surprise attack' a la Pearl Harbor was still possible.
Basically Walrus snuck in, fired 'all the torpedos' and drifted away silently....
Now, if a CVN battle group was running sorties on say, Iran (a pure hypothetical) the FFGs and DDGs would be running anti-sub ops with maximum focus.
Basically Walrus snuck in, fired 'all the torpedos' and drifted away silently....
Now, if a CVN battle group was running sorties on say, Iran (a pure hypothetical) the FFGs and DDGs would be running anti-sub ops with maximum focus.
Imagine a bunch of cats. What they're good at is killing mice, not dogs. In especially rare circumstances they can get a hit at a dog, but that’s not what they’re design for.
Warships were faster than subs and most of all had the equipment so A) spot them and B) kill them. Merchant ships had basically neither. A sub would hit a merchant ship and try to get away before escort vessels could find him.
Keep in mind that firing a torpedo is no easy task. If the ship you’re firing at is aware of you (therefore speeding and changing direction frequently), it becomes ever harder.
Air cover only makes things worse.
There were lots of torpedo problems, yes.
In my opinion, no.
Obviously it would have been more difficult for the RN and the US Navy to fight a more advanced vessel. But I don’t think it would have been any better against military targets (maybe it would have been better at not being spotted).
In my opinion, the only thing that can sink the RN is massive airpower.
The most important thing to remember is that (this is valid for “normal” uboats, not sure about the most advanced ones) is that only one third of the total force could be used (of the other two thirds, one would be busy travelling to and from the combat areas and the other third would be refitting).
In any case, as HOI shows us, the core problem of everything is resources. More resources to the uboot arm means less resources to the airforce. Also, building up uboats is not something one can easly keep hidden and it’s likely that in case Germany had spent more resources on submarines, the UK would have spent more on anti-sub vessels.
And what is more effective? More uboats? More V2’s? More conventional planes?
In any case, any of these needs to be deployed in huge number and early on in the war to make a difference.
There’s only one technology that can be very small in number and late in the war, and that’s the nuke.
PS: If you would like to know more about the topic, I suggest this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-U-Boat-War-Hunters-1939-1942/dp/0679640320
It’s a bit crazy at times, it basically lists and narrates all German uboat missions, but it’s a great book.
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This thread is about u-boats but more needs to be said about the Pacific War.
Both the Japanese and the Americans built large, loud subs that were intended to attack warships.
Japanese subs especially were very advanced.
The problem was that the US realized that the subs were not great against the Japanese Navy, but the Japanese had left their merchant marine pretty much unprotected. So it sent the subs after Japan's shipping. Even though they weren't designed for commerce raiding, they were still good at it and sunk a million tons of shipping in 42, 2 million in 43, 4 million in 44 and 1.5 million in 45 because there was nothing left to sink.
Japan, despite having only a few successes against the US fleet, never switched their subs over to commerce raiding, even though the Pacific offered ample opportunities. The Japanese Navy was fixated on fighting the US Navy directly and destroying it in a decisive battle, thus it used its subs to attack naval vessels.
Both the Japanese and the Americans built large, loud subs that were intended to attack warships.
Japanese subs especially were very advanced.
The problem was that the US realized that the subs were not great against the Japanese Navy, but the Japanese had left their merchant marine pretty much unprotected. So it sent the subs after Japan's shipping. Even though they weren't designed for commerce raiding, they were still good at it and sunk a million tons of shipping in 42, 2 million in 43, 4 million in 44 and 1.5 million in 45 because there was nothing left to sink.
Japan, despite having only a few successes against the US fleet, never switched their subs over to commerce raiding, even though the Pacific offered ample opportunities. The Japanese Navy was fixated on fighting the US Navy directly and destroying it in a decisive battle, thus it used its subs to attack naval vessels.
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Agree with everyone noting the issues taking on warships with subs that know they're fighting subs. In terms of the commerce raiding, there have been some good posts by someone (apologies, I forget who), that pointed out that there are diminishing marginal returns to flooding the atlantic with u-boats, as a higher u-boat density means a higher rate of contact with escorts and more losses. Early war, when escorts were limited, it might be a good tactic, that's the time to do the damage, but once the corvettes and DEs are out in force (or, in HoI4, DDs), things will be tougher. That said, u-boats should still be a serious threat - both the US and UK spent a lot of effort on dedicated anti-sub craft, and built a large number of CVEs specifically for the task, and I hope this effort is needed to counter a serious u-boat threat in HoI4. Unless something funny happens, it should be counter-able, but (as the good Secret Master says far more eloquently) getting the US and UK to spend that many resources countering U-boats can still be a strategic win, as those resources aren't going on things that will be attacking Germany/Japan/Italy directly instead.
Once the US was up to speed, it produced lots of everything. The US built more DDs, more BBs, more CVs, more CAs, more DEs, more merchant shipping, more landing ships than anyone else, and usually by some margin. The only two classes of ships of any size I've seen it was out-built on were SS (Germany) and CLs (UK).
I've just gone through the Japanese subs and you're not wrong - they also had a sub (late war, of course) capable of nearly 20 knots submerged, like the XXI, and built some very large subs as well. As an aside, I'm yet to crunch the numbers (ie, I've just read a lot of "Ship X was sunk by US submarines), but the USN did sink a lot of IJN ships. If HoI gets delayed long enough, I'll at least have a list of the ones covered in Conways
. Not to take away from their success against the Japanese merchant marine though.
Once the US was up to speed, it produced lots of everything. The US built more DDs, more BBs, more CVs, more CAs, more DEs, more merchant shipping, more landing ships than anyone else, and usually by some margin. The only two classes of ships of any size I've seen it was out-built on were SS (Germany) and CLs (UK).
I've just gone through the Japanese subs and you're not wrong - they also had a sub (late war, of course) capable of nearly 20 knots submerged, like the XXI, and built some very large subs as well. As an aside, I'm yet to crunch the numbers (ie, I've just read a lot of "Ship X was sunk by US submarines), but the USN did sink a lot of IJN ships. If HoI gets delayed long enough, I'll at least have a list of the ones covered in Conways
. Not to take away from their success against the Japanese merchant marine though.- 1