were we trapped?(No.1 subs)

[schury]

i am not a historian. so i know little about the background of WWII, though i like to play games concerning that. these days i was wondering why Germany uses submarine to fight the allies? and in the game, what's more important to us, why should we German players build more subs while facing real good foes? they are smart enough to block english channel, the Med and Gibraltar as long as they can, you can hardly get some real damage by hiting transports, you may geyt damaged by them, by ships, by aircrafts, and what they lose is just 1pp or 2, as a manpower-rich side, it's a piece of cake. to you, i think it's at most even, you didn't gain any advantage. (if you successfully get Cario before end of 1941, maybe you have chances cause the indian ocean is less defended usually, but i think a veteran would never let you do it earlier)
the WA are good on sea. so we should not compete with them on that point, we should put emphasis on our strangth, land forces! it's their goal to wipe us, not ours. so they should follow us. without the pp and poppower invested in subs, we can build more infantries and fights to protect the coasts!
moreover, considering the increasing WR caused my sub sinking transport, isn't it a wise plan to give sub up, at least before the U.S. goes to war?
am i missing something?[&:] do remember you are facing good players, your subs never get omitted by them and they are always being "taken care of"

[schury]

ORIGINAL: schury

i am not a historian. so i know little about the background of WWII, though i like to play games concerning that. these days i was wondering why Germany uses submarine to fight the allies? and in the game, what's more important to us, why should we German players build more subs while facing real good foes? they are smart enough to block english channel, the Med and Gibraltar as long as they can, you can hardly get some real damage by hiting transports, you may geyt damaged by them, by ships, by aircrafts, and what they lose is just 1pp or 2, as a manpower-rich side, it's a piece of cake. to you, i think it's at most even, you didn't gain any advantage. (if you successfully get Cario before end of 1941, maybe you have chances cause the indian ocean is less defended usually, but i think a veteran would never let you do it earlier)
the WA are good on sea. so we should not compete with them on that point, we should put emphasis on our strangth, land forces! it's their goal to wipe us, not ours. so they should follow us. without the pp and poppower invested in subs, we can build more infantries and fights to protect the coasts!
moreover, considering the increasing WR caused my sub sinking transport, isn't it a wise plan to give sub up, at least before the U.S. goes to war?
am i missing something?[&:] do remember you are facing good players, your subs never get omitted by them and they are always being "taken care of"

[WanderingHead]

I do think subs appear a bad tradeoff, unless you intend to go all the way and really hurt Britain, if you can go so far as to cut her off from the world.

If you destroy a transport, you destroy 2PP. But the USA WR goes up on average 1/2, which is 1/3 of a turn (until 1942). And 1/3 of a turn for the x2 USA factory multiplier means 6PP.

So, in the long run you have cost the WA -2PP for the transport, but +6PP for the earlier USA production. A net gain for the WA!

It seems that it is only worthwhile if the population drain against Britain allows you to take the initiative somewhere before the USA (with bottomless population as it might as well be) joins.

This is a conclusion that I only recently reached...

[schury]

appear a bad tradeoff, unless you intend to go all the way and really hurt Britain, if you can go so far as to cut her off from the world.

If you destroy a transport, you destroy 2PP. But the USA WR goes up on average 1/2, which is 1/3 of a turn (until 1942). And 1/3 of a turn for the x2 USA factory multiplier means 6PP.

it seems most of the time england would freeze the damaged transports. they can give Africa or Oceania up in emergency. and in the early time, quite unsure to damage transports, sometimes even get damaged yourself. moreover, you can fight only one turn if you got attack the same turn you are out for hunting and use up your torpedos.
taking england is impossible if you build less than 5 tranports in Germany while facing a good player i think. but the point is whether it worth it to take england while leaving those transports left after the sealion useless......

[Uncle_Joe]

I think its absolutely necessary to keep the WAllies 'honest'. If they dont have to research ASW up as much (usually on 3 different platforms) then that is a lot more tech going elsewhere. Also a key cost for the WAllies conducting ASW is supply. It takes 1 supply per plane and quite a bit of supply to be running Light Fleets around the Atlantic.
 
Keep an eye out for 'sweet spots' in the ASW vs Sub EV race. Germany tends to get about 2 turns per game where their subs are better than even a maximum research effort on ASW can provide. And those turns can cause a world of hurt all at once. If you manage to sever the resource lines for even a single turn, you can really make a mess of the WAllied econ.
 
The direct benefits for using Subs might not appear all that great, but having played the WAllies a fair number of times, I much happier if my German opponent doesnt bother with Uboats all that much. It really seems to take the pressure off and lets me develop what I WANT rather than what I NEED. Uboats keep the WAllies off balance IME and that keeps them from getting adventurist in places like Norway or the Med.

[schury]

partly agree. the benefit is indirect that's why you maynot calculate the gain and loss simplely byPPs. but i do suspect that to a good WA player, using subs, especially in the early time will cause messes, to the person himself, not to WA. what subs can do it unchangable, not that strategic, but it really takes WA players time to calculating the way it works and how to counter attack. i tend to call it paradox duplicity(don't know exactly how to describe in english such situation when it's very exciting and worthwhile to do but ends in vain or bad outcome because it's unlucky, star-crossed)

[Petiloup]

Never did quite figure how to do a strong UBoat war while being ready for Barbarossa at the same time but saw Lebatron does it perfectly to the point the the Allied couldn't prepare any kind of D-Day before end of 1942 and Russia was hardly pressed in the meantime.

U-Boats were deadly in that game and they were tipping the whole war to the Axis side.

So it can work but you need again to have a clear strategic plan since day 1 with the German and stick to it (unless some opportunities presents itself) which is where playing against human opponents makes this game so interesting because you never know if your plan will work or not at the end.

[Avatar47]

Uncle Joe said it all. The direct economic tradeoff is not that great for the Axis in the subwar, but the indirect costs, where the WAllies have to invest large amounts into ASW, does pay off for the Axis. If the Allies are allowed to spend that same tech elsewhere, it can and will hurt. When playing the Allies, the best thing I can hope my opponent doesn't do is a subwar. Oh, and not a half-ass subwar, but a real one, with more than a few PP and manpower points invested.

[schury]

hehe, good point. but do you ever ponder such cases that the axis keeps reserching sub techs but no sub built, in such cases, you have to keep up reserch but may end in vain, though you know this, but you still dare not to ignore the possibility of a sub boom. was that more brilliant than just send the wolves out? ships are almost harmless to Gernamy once i don't have any subs. you can't return ships to PPs, but i can save sbu-PPs for other use[;)]
seems like i am kind of making a universal optimzed move for Germany subconsciously[:D]

[dobeln]

I did pretty well (AV) in a game recently where I went for sealion and failed (plus the SU DOW:ed me - I didn't even get an initial attack! ) - largely because I complemented the sealion attempt with a strong sub offensive (and taking the med, of course). The WA was in disarray because of the sub effort, and hence Japan was able to completely dominate the pacific - taking Pearl, then India, then Australia = AV for me (Germany was holding on -barely - against the SU). So, subs can be very effective, but they require an all-out commitment that is often difficult to achieve if you also want to attain other goals (apart from sealion, which is a nicely complementary goal)  

[Petiloup]

ORIGINAL: dobeln

The WA was in disarray because of the sub effort, Germany was holding on -barely - against the SU

As you pointed it out, the big drawback of a strong UBoat offensive is that Russia has an easier day to fight successfully Germany. If for any reasons you don't get AV in time then GE can crumble quite fast because of this.

Now doing a medium UBoat offensive and a medium land offensive against Russia is a risk to fail on both side then most of the player will choose a strong land offensive against Russia hoping to crippled it before the Allies can mount a decent D-Day.