ORIGINAL: veji1
So basically before a certain date (43 ?) it might be better to escort everything but not attack subs specifically with asw TFs ???
That's the step I'm implementing right now, but it's too early to tell whether escorts will work.
Here's how my strategy against enemy subs has evolved over the game:
1. At first, I used many one-ship convoys (I did the same in WitP and found this very efficient as losses were relatively light).
2. I began taking heavy losses at big forward bases like Pago Pago, Noumea, Syndey, Colombo, and Melbourne, so I stopped sending ships there and began concentrating on bases more to the rear or that seemed kind of remote and unvisited by unfriendlies: Tahiti, Adelaide, Perth and Bombay. At the same time, I began to use ASW TFs heavily. At first this worked well - I was still taking moderate losses but was also inflicting moderate losses on Japanese subs. This was the situation from early 1942 to mid '42.
3. As Japanese subs began reaching even the most rear bases, they suddendly became much more lethal. Every sub was claiming two to five ships right around major bases. I stood down all merchant ships (that's a huge task and takes quite awhile) so that I could concentrate on ASW activity.
4. I had multiple ASW TFs operating out of big bases plus ASW air patrols. Some bases (Pearl, Seattle, SF, LA, Tahiti, Pago Pago, Noumea, Syndey, Colombo/Trincomalee, and Bombay in particular) had up to five or six ASW TFs. Sometime around mid-summer of '42, I noticed that I was taking heavy ASW losses. This started with DDs out of Pearl, then DDs out of SF, then all kinds of ships everywhere. At first I ascribed this to random chance and bad luck, but it didn't abate and got worse.
5. So recently I've disbanded all my ASW into port. My transports, meanwhile, have mostly made it to port now and I've begun running multi-ship convoys with escorts. Don't know if this will work yet. I doubt it will until this issue is addressed.
One observation: It was rather harmful for the developers to tweak ASW/Sub interraction without clearly notifying those of us that were in the midst of PBEM games. Because I had gone to alot of effort to reconfigure my tactics, they were somewhat working, and then everything changed without warning so that my tactics were not only rendered ineffective, but dangerous.
In fact, I think this change cost me BB Pennsylvania. I had waited until August '42 to send this ship from Pearl Harbor to the West Coast. She has 0 SYS damage and moderately heavy FLT damage (high 50s, I believe). She was escorted by four DDs. Fairly close to SF she encountered two Japanese subs that followed for several turns and sank her with three TTs. As she neared the WEst Coast I sent additional ASW forward to try to come to her aid. None of the ASW did a thing. Had I realized things had been tweaked to make subs uber, I woudn't have sent the BB out of Pearl.
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