Small Test of Anti Raider Warfare in 9U17

[ago1000]

ORIGINAL: MagicMissile

Yes I am pretty sure you get an attack now even after spending 2 op. And as I understand it the attack comes immediately at the start of the allied turn so there is no time to place escorts. Possibly that should be changed someway.

I also noted in my game with ComadrejaKorp that if you close a convoy line and remove all the escorts from the closed line then when you want to open it again you cant deploy any escorts as the route is not active. So in the Axis turn if the axis player doesnt sleep he will get free attacks on the reopened line.

Ok. I'm not going crazy them. lol. Good to know.

ORIGINAL: malkarma
120 is the cost for a brand new submarine with 5 streght points. So each sub point= 24PP
Since repair is 25% of initial cost, a sub strenght point(24 PP) will be 24*.25= 6PP

Thanks malkarma. Too much math this weekend. I need a nap.[>:]

[ComadrejaKorp]

ORIGINAL: malkarma

ORIGINAL: ago1000

@ComadrjaKorp
(6.6 = 6) I think it truncates the result. Most calculation I found drop the decimal at the end.
I'm not sure that I understand how you are calculating the 6 PP or what you mean? Sorry. Did you mean:
25% of 120(original cost) = 30 PP
upgrades are 10% of original cost so each upgrade is 12 PP

120 is the cost for a brand new submarine with 5 streght points. So each sub point= 24PP
Since repair is 25% of initial cost, a sub strenght point(24 PP) will be 24*.25= 6PP

Thanks Malkarma!
I explain myself better, I commented on the cost of replacing the losses in the SS, to which Kennon assigned a value of 34pp (the sum of the purchase of SS force unit plus the repair of this force point), in my opinion only It should charge the cost of the repair (we start with 2 SS ´´free´´, and the SS can also be used for other tasks, beachhead supplies, intercepting naval troop transports, so it is not a useless expense)

It is only a comment, it does not modify the results of your test.

For you Aug1000 who like details, I have confirmed it:

Example: reinforce 1 force point with tech 39
120/5 = 24pp original cost per force point SS tech 39
Reinforce one point 24 * 0.25 = 6 pp

Example: reinforce 1 force point with tech 40
132/5 = 26.4 pp
Reinforce one point 26.4 * 0.25 = 6.6 pp (but round down and they are 6pp)

The reinforcement costs the same for tech 39 and tech 40.

[ago1000]

Thanks everyone. My calculation above is then incorrect.
71 x 6 PP = 426 PP for sub losses in my test, not 2130 PP.
I was way off.

[kennonlightfoot]

My reading of the repair cost is that it is 25% of the original cost of the Unit per point. I am going to try to find some way to confirm this but it isn't easy since the game does tell you where PP go during repair, just the totals.

[kennonlightfoot]

I was able to test it and it is 7 PP to repair one point of a 1941 Sub Unit.

That means as long as the German avoids losing a whole unit Sub warfare is really cheap in terms of maintaining versus damage caused.
Also, means the German player should never leave an understrength Sub in Convoy lanes.

So the formula is:

25% x [Cost to produce new sub] / 5

For 1941 Sub that cost 144 to build: 144 / 5 = 28.8 and 28.8 x 0.25 = 7.2 which rounds to 7 PP/ Factor

[kennonlightfoot]

Results for 2nd half of 1940 (7/5/40 - 12/20/40)

At the start of this six months both sides were at their next level of Advancement. UK has 1940 Escorts against Germany's 1941 Subs.
And, the kill rates jumped. The UK lost 55 Merchants and 7 Escorts. The Germans lost 36 U-Boats (factors not Units). That represent a direct cost of 550 + 280 = 830 PP to the UK compared to the Germans using only 252 PP to keep this going.

But we also see the problem caused by the UK not being able to build a lot of Merchants and Escorts during 1939 come into play. The UK Merchant fleet dropped to 191 before builds in first part of 1940 finally reversed the trend holding it to 192 by end of year. Likewise Escort total dropped to 13 before lend lease saved them and brought it back to 19. With the completion of the King George, the UK now has enough shipyards to keep up production. For the remainder of the test (1941 period) the UK will lay down a new Merchant and two Escorts per month until they run out of shipyards. The question though is this rate something a player could maintain and still keep up with other needs. Especially sending PP to Russia in 1941.

An interesting thing happened when US Lend Lease kicked in. I wasn't expecting it so I didn't figure out exactly what happened but in August/September the UK shipyards available (new stayed at 65) jumped up to 100. I don't remember anything happening at that time other than Lend Lease but it might have been capacity released by the CV they get. A similar jump occurs when the King George finally deploys (shipyards go to 102).

But the Germans also saw a change allowing them to further expand sub production. In August the Bismarck is finally finished and the Germans can now build 3 subs to replace its spot. On average I think the Germans will now be bringing in 4 sub units per six months. They started this six month period with only 6 U-Boat units and finished it with 12. So far the Germans have never suffered a unit kill although Nov they had a close call with a 4 factor hit on one unit.

[ago1000]

The BoA was brutal and MMs and escorts were down to the bare min. They was a need in the Pacific and the Atlantic. The big shift began around mid to late 42+ where the curve upward began to flatten out. The question I have is will this happen around 43 in the game? If so, the system work well simulating the events. If not, I think the changing of the defensive values of subs might accomplish this. Remembering, I'm assuming that both Allies and Axis are maxing research and Axis will always be 1 tech ahead. The changing of the defensive values in 43, 44, 45 will impact how many subs get sunk in those years. At the moment, their is a steady increase in those values. Since the calculations are under the hood, I don't know if this was done to balance drastic results.

Here is some info on cost in US dollars:
The allies total investment was $26.4 billion to counter the the German submarines as compared to the German investment of $2.76 billion to build them. The allies spent at least 9.6 times the German investment.
(It would be nice to find the break down, escorts vs MMs amount produced vs cost.: https://uboat.net/forums/read.php?3,464 ... ild%20them.)

The large disparity in cost in game seems to reflect that cost above. Food for thought.

@kennonlightfoot
I checked the events file and I can't find any script that explains your jump in shipyards. When I get a chance, I will go into the editor and add a ship in the build queue and see if after the ship gets built it adds those shipyards to your existing total. That's the only thing I can think of at the moment.

Appendum: Did a test and found that when ships are in the queue in the beginning of the scenario they only impacted the stockpile shipyard numbers. They don't increase the number of shipyards when they enter the game.

[ago1000]

Is this what your are seeing. If so, it's a bug and should be reported. 3 escorts in the queue so the value is 80 - 3 = 77.
The release of the CV is 25 so 65+25 = 90. Can't get the 80??????

[kennonlightfoot]

Unfortunately, I didn't expect the stockpile to jump like it did so wasn't paying attention. The UK shipyards always stay at 65 unless you build more. The stockpile normally stays close to zero if they are building at capacity. When something is finished then shipyards are freed up and you see the number jump up, usually something quite lower than 65 since there are other things in the queue. But in the second case I say it was a battleship that completed and at most an escort at the same time and the inventory jumped to 102 which should be impossible. If for no other reason than a BB doesn't cost 37 shipyards to produce. I don't remember ever seeing the shipyard stockpile go higher than the number of shipyards before (they don't accumulate like production, oil and Manpower). I always thought of them in the use it or lose it catagory.

Hopefully, others can watch this when their next large ship (CV or BB) is about to come in and write down the numbers from the turn before and after to see how they change. The first time it happened I don't believe there was a large ship in the queue. It occurred about the same time as the US provided the UK with 5 Lend Lease Escorts. I thought at that time it was some kind of shipyard capacity addition from an event related to US Lend Lease.

[OxfordGuy3]

ORIGINAL: ComadrejaKorp

Remember to upgrade SS, one starts with Tech 39.

You can't manually upgrade it, but would turning on "Prioritize for reinforcements" and leaving it in port speed the upgrade up?

[ago1000]

I think I found it. Its from the deployment of a the RNN patrol group. It wasn't in the queue before and then when you place it on the map, it gives the UK an additional 10 shipyards in stockpile. So it looks like the give Unit is adding to the stockpile numbers when they shouldn't.

[ago1000]

ORIGINAL: OxfordGuy3

ORIGINAL: ComadrejaKorp

Remember to upgrade SS, one starts with Tech 39.

You can't manually upgrade it, but would turning on "Prioritize for reinforcements" and leaving it in port speed the upgrade up?

port 5+ and yes Naval units are upgraded first

[ComadrejaKorp]

Yes, that is, you prioritize reinforcements to this sub, the order to assign reinforcements is naval first, it is updated the same turn.

note: sorry for repeating, when I loaded my answer is when I saw that this thread had 2 pages.

[ago1000]

Can someone please confirm this.
When Netherland's surrenders, a patrol group appears in the build queue for UK.(I think this prevents Axis from destroying it) When you deploy it, it puts the shipyard stockpile number out of wack.
It happens too when you conquer Norway with a DD group.


I've reported it as a bug that kennonlightfoot found.

This means as the Axis, destroying the fleet on the first turn is a waste because it comes back with the added bonus of adding shipyard stockpile.

[malkarma]

I think that conquered coutries ships appear in the UK build qeue with the damage that they received. So if, for example, you land 3 hits on that DD it will be deployed at 2/5 strength.

[ago1000]

Thanks Malkarma. Damage or destroying them is reflected in the next turn.

By my calculations the following totals would be added if a country totally surrenders.
Netherlands DD - 15 shipyards
Norway DD - 15 shipyards
French 2 CA, 3 DD, 4BB, 1 SS for 181 shipyards.
Assuming none are damaged or destroyed.

My thoughts with regard to the original discussion with the numbers being skewed between escort losses vs sub losses I would tend to agree considering the primary target of the subs were the MMs.
This thought is not new and has been mentioned by others in the past:
1) Escorts primary role being defensive in nature, protect the convoys (In late 42 escort advancements of radar and the hedgehog greatly improved their defensive capabilities. Radar alone helped with night raids)
2) Sub primary role being offensive, sink as many MMs as possible. A sinking of an escort was bonus.

Simple solutions might be to reduce the 10% chance of sinking an escort especially early war or up the escort defensive value and then really increase in 43+. Reduce the price of escorts considered building a corvette was 1/4 the price of building a uboat. Reduce the price of MMs after 42 considering they were being massed produced with the exact design.

Personally, I'd like to see the escorts attack the subs first and then the subs attack the MMs.. But then again, personally, I'd like to win the lottery. [8|]

However, the biggest single factor was US could build more MMs than could be sunk. That's why Germany lost the BoA. Maybe, add more US shipyards in 42 or event additional escorts and MMs in 43+. Not sure. Any thoughts???

Strategy wise, I think I will try holding back the escorts in 39 to maybe late 40, up the tech as much as possible and try to build as many as I can. The goal is always to place 10+ to maximize sub losses when they are in use.

[MagicMissile]

Good ideas. The US probably should have more shipyards. I think building times maybe should be looked at. And the fact if true that escorts dont help lowering the mm losses feels very odd to me. In that case I dont think I will deploy any escorts either until one have built a lot.

/MM

[kennonlightfoot]

Finished another six month section of the test covering 1/3/1941 - 6/20/1941.

I switched to the UK trying to build replacement merchants and escorts as soon as they are killed. Germans are building subs at their shipyard capacity which is about 4 per six month period.

The UK production is going to be a problem for the test since due to what looks like a bug in the shipyard handling they have far more build capacity than they should. I am able to keep 11 to 12 merchants in production which requires over 100 shipyard points when they should have only 65.

This period the Germans got in a large number of their reinforcement subs so they start the year with 12 units and it increases during the six months to 17 (April on they were able to have 16 subs units). This allowed them to average 10 units at sea just about every turn. Also, their Subs advanced to 1942 level at the first of the year. The UK Escorts didn't advance to 41 level until 2/28.

Results:
UK lost 110 Merchants and 8 Escorts which will be a production cost of around 1400.
Gr lost 53 sub factors but they only cost 424 production to replace.

The key results of this were the UK still hasn't killed a U-Boat fleet. They have only gotten hits that are quickly repaired.
The UK saw their Merchant levels drop from 202 to 142 which is barely enough to move their supplies (takes 134).

The next six month test will see if they can't maintain enough shipping to supply the Russians. Although this won't be a good test of this since the shipyard thing is allowing much higher merchant production and I don't think the Allied player has enough normal production to product a merchant and an escort every turn like the current kill rates are requiring. The Germans will soon have 20 subs to draw on. The UK never got their Escort level up to where they could have realistically kept 10 escorts in every convoy lane. They will get some merchants and escorts from the Russians and next year the Americans but these escorts are usually not the same Advancement level as the UK's.

[ago1000]

Bringing UK to the brink with 9 - 12 subs, doesn't surprise me. That the bug is the only reason you are staying a afloat, then the subs are too effective. Maybe a limit of only 2 subs per group should be allowed or one in addition to the above. More shipyards for sure for the US if a group of 3 remains. As Allied players I think the anxiety from those kind of losses will result in the last of the hair on my head falling out.[X(]

It's interesting to note that in Africa during operation Torch, the German forces were in the same boat ([;)]OK pun intended[X(]) as the UK in the Atlantic. All supplies to the African Corp needed to be transported and the Allies hammered the transports. They simply didn't have enough. Yet, the Axis don't feel the production point losses because the ports lose supply only when they are interdicted. Maybe, there should be production point loss of sorts too when a port is interdicted to represent the shipping that went down.

[MagicMissile]

Is it in every convoy attack a 10% chance to sink a escort or is it 10% per sub unit? Does anyone know? Because in my games with ComadrejaKorp there are in general 4 convoy attacks per turn and I lose like 1,5 escorts per turn way more than 10% if it is per attack.
/MM