U-Boot vs Fleet bug?

[Paul_M]

The reason the stockpiles are so absurd is that in HOI1 people complained that there was a limit on the resources you could stockpile pre war so the old caps were removed.

Personally they should limit the stockpile to no more than 6 months of full operation, beyond that it makes no sense. I am not even sure exactly how realistic that is, as I know the UK had a strategic reserve but I am not sure how many other countries did. But keeping millions of tonne of materials on hand never happened.

So I am not sure how successful you would be in getting a cap put back in. Though it would make sense. It would also limit the gamey trading that goes on to produce the absurd stockpile in the first place.

 

[Solipsism]

Operation Pedestal was a heavily escorted convoy, not a surface fleet.



Cruising speed (surface, night only) for a u-boat is 10 knots. Cruising speed for a surface fleet is 15-20 knots. Hence my comment about it being impossible.

Comparing cruising speeds isn't entirely realistic, as u-boats could indeed travel up to 15-20 knots.

If the fleet had air cover, the u-boats was more or less unable to move. It was hard but not impossible to engage enemy fleets, and most successes against surface fleets happened by accident.

Yes, subs were considered a serious threat to surface assets. That's why surface fleets took measures that made them virtually invulnerable compared to convoys, such as constant variation in speed (averaging 20 knots) and direction, and sending ASW assets ahead to sweep (at 10 knots).

How effective those measures were is a matter worthy of some debate. Although convoys were slower, they too frequently changed course and were protected by numerous ASW assets in the late war. Although the fleets higher speed made attacks somewhat more difficult, encounters with surface fleets were still welcomed by the u-boat command as instead each torpedo hit led to the sinking of a higher and more valuable tonnage.

What we know is that the u-boats sank 3 carriers, 3 escort carriers, 2 battleships, 6 cruisers and 52 destroyers, plus a variety of other ships. They also damaged many warships.

Although the germans lost about 700 u-boats, consider that the vast majority of u-boats were indeed used against merchant shipping. Had surface fleets been more common in the atlantic, the number of sunk warships might have been much higher.

 

[unmerged(56407)]

:d

 

[unmerged(56550)]

What we know is that the u-boats sank 3 carriers, 3 escort carriers, 2 battleships, 6 cruisers and 52 destroyers, plus a variety of other ships. They also damaged many warships.

Although the germans lost about 700 u-boats, consider that the vast majority of u-boats were indeed used against merchant shipping. Had surface fleets been more common in the atlantic, the number of sunk warships might have been much higher.

Here are the numbers for the Atlantic from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_the_Atlantic )

Allied ships sunk by U-Boots:
3,500 merchant vessels
175 warships

German U-Boots sunk:
783 submarines

 

[unmerged(12779)]

OK, bottom line ! This game is NOT a simulation but just a game.
But the way its going, we may have monsters & magic soon.
Sorry, but I want historical realism if only in part. This game
seems to be going in the oppisite direction....


JIM

 

[vicentep]

My historical point of view!

I think we have a big miss understanding here.
Becouse in Tons of losses, the big failure was allied. For shure, is almost 1 to 10 Tons that where sunk.
The main reason for subs to get catched was the broked code.
I mean, the only way to get the Uboats in early WWII was lucky and breaking the german code later. When the radar came up, then the subs got useless to atack big formations, but they still very efective against the small fleets.
So for the ones who belive Sub fleets should be easly found by the big home fleets, is clear that is a really unhistorical fact before 42-43.
And other preposition for the loss of the atlantic batle, was the reduced produce of Ubots by the end of the war. I mean the ccaused big harm to allied fleets, but they were rarly reposed by end 41-42. Extremily diferent from allied ships.
And im speaking of the producing of 200 subs in 39, and by the end of 43, they where producing 10 or 12 only.


And about the possible encounter of an CV and a Sub, it was commom in the major fleets, but ONLY when those fleets were atacked by Subs, So they never could manage to find and destroy a whole Sub division in a big scale sea.

By the beging of the war CVs where used very frequently to scort. When the radar came, is was the perfect way to get those great boats to do something really important, so the radar give some more independenci to scorts.