How effective are Air ASW patrols?

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

As on nearly every other occasion the most effective way to do sub hunting is combined arms warfare.
ASW/nav search to locate or hassle, ASW TF´s to finish them off.
When you get a coordinated system working you give every sub a pretty hard time if it enters the threat area.

I've tried that..., it doesn't work. My opponent put one of his subs in Calcutta Harbor (yeah, up the river). I had two squadrons flying ASW out of Calcutta, and another covering Calcutta from Diamond Harbor. In addition, an ASW TF with four British 8-rated DD's was "patrolling" between the two ports.
The sub sat there for a week unattacked, then sailed merrily away. Irritating beyond measure...[:@]

[Jzanes]

In my experience, the most effective ASW weapon is the minefield.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: newoldposter

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: newoldposter

How effective are ASW patrols and what can I do to maximize them? And when a sub is reported hit...how effective is the damage...what chance is there of me doing some damage?

NOT VERY... In WITP air ASW would generally discourage subs in the immediate vacinity of air bases to move away or be sunk. In AE they don't even seem to keep them from setting up shop in your ports. It's been badly over-nerfed.

That is a bit a-historical dont you think? ..considering how powerful ASW air patrols were in the atlantic as well as the pacific.

for the Japanese? [&:]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Not very effective. In my game with Cuttlefish, I have given honest feedback on whether bomb hits are real or FoW, as we both want to understand how it works. In every case, a reported bomb hit was FoW. I think Cuttlefish gave up on air ASW, because I haven't seen an attack in awhile. But there were no hits at all.

His surface ASW hasn't been great either, although they have caused damage, a some sinkings.

I can 100% confirm this, have seen dozens of air attacks on my subs so far, not one scored a bomb hit. Not one.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

In my experience, the most effective ASW weapon is the minefield.

absolutely [:D]

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Nomad, with the obvious brute power of heavies against Japanese CAP, don´t you feel they are wasted in this role?
ASW is no LR task anyway. Wonder whats your opinion in this.

Not really. I need to have ASW to keep the subs under control. Heavy bombers have the range and payload to have success against subs. Plus, I am finding it hard in the early going to find places that can support a lot of heavy bombers on offense. Later when the Navy starts getting there 4 engined patrol Liberators I can start looking at changing some of the USAAF heavy bombers back to airfield/port/city bombers. Until then, they scour the seas looking for enemy subs.

Remember that aircraft on ASW have their range cut in half. I use LB-30s and B-17D/Es set for a range of 12 to give me 6 hexes of intense ASW coverage. I then use medium bombers at long range to do Naval Search to about 14 hexes and ASW TFs to chase down subs.

Good points. I did not consider using outdated/specialized 4 engine types for the task. [:)]

Still I think one has to be careful not to forget that ASW comes in two different flavours:

The longer range part has the main task of detecting/disrupting possible sub threats, at least to a level that allows relative safe passage of surface vessels.

The short range part, as I understand, should be a kill/threat zone to submarines close to high value bases which are visited by important shipping on a regular basis.
I use several different layers of ASW there depending on the percieved threat from submarines, including SR point defence ASW with light bombers to cover the base hex and maybe
one or the other hex further out.

No ASW is a guarantee. But you can make life very hard for a submarine driver as long as you do not overextend the area you like to cover.

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Not very effective. In my game with Cuttlefish, I have given honest feedback on whether bomb hits are real or FoW, as we both want to understand how it works. In every case, a reported bomb hit was FoW. I think Cuttlefish gave up on air ASW, because I haven't seen an attack in awhile. But there were no hits at all.

My planes are still at it and still sometimes report hits. I just take it for granted that the hits are wishful thinking on the part of the pilots, though. Which makes me a sad panda. I trained my ASW groups until they were level 60 in experience before unleashing them and by now some of them are in the 70-75 range. Maybe when some of the pilots reach level 80 or so they will start scoring some hits.

That was the skill level where Japanese Sally and Helen pilots started stenciling multiple sub silhouettes on their planes in WITP. Of course Japanese aerial ASW abilities were vastly overpowered back then and it was not hard to get pilots up to that skill level (just bomb an isolated garrison for a few weeks and you could then bulls-eye subs almost at will, remember those days?). I like the fact that it is much harder for Japanese aircraft to sink subs now, but if it turns out to be impossible for them to sink subs that might get a little frustrating.

[P.Hausser]

I think Trained crews do faily ok..  use A/C's who have a MAD.

[dasboot1960]

my twisted view - select ASW mission but fly search task. (I'm talking beginning of game here) the AC are to scare subs under and find targets for ASW TF (whatever is available wherever we're talking about) set - by the turn- ASW to patrol around target, that being last reported sub location. If one sub gets away and you cry and whine - well I guess that's just you; I'm gonna hunt the bastage

[ChickenOfTheSea]

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Not very effective. In my game with Cuttlefish, I have given honest feedback on whether bomb hits are real or FoW, as we both want to understand how it works. In every case, a reported bomb hit was FoW. I think Cuttlefish gave up on air ASW, because I haven't seen an attack in awhile. But there were no hits at all.

My planes are still at it and still sometimes report hits. I just take it for granted that the hits are wishful thinking on the part of the pilots, though. Which makes me a sad panda. I trained my ASW groups until they were level 60 in experience before unleashing them and by now some of them are in the 70-75 range. Maybe when some of the pilots reach level 80 or so they will start scoring some hits.

That was the skill level where Japanese Sally and Helen pilots started stenciling multiple sub silhouettes on their planes in WITP. Of course Japanese aerial ASW abilities were vastly overpowered back then and it was not hard to get pilots up to that skill level (just bomb an isolated garrison for a few weeks and you could then bulls-eye subs almost at will, remember those days?). I like the fact that it is much harder for Japanese aircraft to sink subs now, but if it turns out to be impossible for them to sink subs that might get a little frustrating.

I can assure you from personal experience (as Japan) that it is not impossible to sink Japanese subs that are far from a repair base. I think some players took the WITP model as reality and are disappointed that it no longer applies. If it takes a lot of combined air-sea effort to hunt down and kill a sub, then that is the way things should be.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

my PBEM opponent just recently has asked me this question, sort of... he asked how my subs look like after being hit by bombs all the times (as he constantly gets messages of subs being hit). I told him that not a single bomb from an aircraft on ASW or nav search has so far hit one of my subs. Not one and we´re in 9/42 already.

I've always suspected that these air ASW "sub hit" (with a HULL NUMBER no less!!!) messages are a bit of a joke inserted by the original programmers for their own amusement. I figure the chance of there actually being a hit (fly-fly boys being notorious liars to boot) are not as good as me getting that pony for Christmas, and the chances of that went south from zero in 1965.

Seriously, air ASW's only function is to vector ASW skimmers over to actually sink something. Reaction Range=6 is your friend.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

I've always suspected that these air ASW "sub hit" (with a HULL NUMBER no less!!!) messages are a bit of a joke inserted by the original programmers for their own amusement. I figure the chance of there actually being a hit (fly-fly boys being notorious liars to boot) are not as good as me getting that pony for Christmas, and the chances of that went south from zero in 1965.

Seriously, air ASW's only function is to vector ASW skimmers over to actually sink something. Reaction Range=6 is your friend.

You may be right about the game..., but historically you are way off base. About half of the submarines sunk in WW II were by air attack. [8|]

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: castor troy

my PBEM opponent just recently has asked me this question, sort of... he asked how my subs look like after being hit by bombs all the times (as he constantly gets messages of subs being hit). I told him that not a single bomb from an aircraft on ASW or nav search has so far hit one of my subs. Not one and we´re in 9/42 already.

I've always suspected that these air ASW "sub hit" (with a HULL NUMBER no less!!!) messages are a bit of a joke inserted by the original programmers for their own amusement. I figure the chance of there actually being a hit (fly-fly boys being notorious liars to boot) are not as good as me getting that pony for Christmas, and the chances of that went south from zero in 1965.

Seriously, air ASW's only function is to vector ASW skimmers over to actually sink something. Reaction Range=6 is your friend.

That may be the case now. But back in the day (UV/WitP) ASW air was overly effective. It has since been nerfed.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

I've always suspected that these air ASW "sub hit" (with a HULL NUMBER no less!!!) messages are a bit of a joke inserted by the original programmers for their own amusement. I figure the chance of there actually being a hit (fly-fly boys being notorious liars to boot) are not as good as me getting that pony for Christmas, and the chances of that went south from zero in 1965.

Seriously, air ASW's only function is to vector ASW skimmers over to actually sink something. Reaction Range=6 is your friend.

You may be right about the game..., but historically you are way off base. About half of the submarines sunk in WW II were by air attack. [8|]

I know USN subs feared getting jumped by low-flying patrols at dawn and dusk more than they worried about ASW patrols.

In the game, I look at it this way. If it was important, they'd have given it an animation.[:)]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown


That may be the case now. But back in the day (UV/WitP) ASW air was overly effective. It has since been nerfed.

I remember air ASW being a volleyball in WITP depending on which patch you were on. They played with it endlessly. On one, maybe two patches from the last, the detection code was so sensitive I had 35 detections and attacks on one turn, all off the southern HI (the auto-sub routines used to stack USN subs in 3-4 tiers; you could have walked across them.)

I like things better now.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: ChickenOfTheSea

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Not very effective. In my game with Cuttlefish, I have given honest feedback on whether bomb hits are real or FoW, as we both want to understand how it works. In every case, a reported bomb hit was FoW. I think Cuttlefish gave up on air ASW, because I haven't seen an attack in awhile. But there were no hits at all.

My planes are still at it and still sometimes report hits. I just take it for granted that the hits are wishful thinking on the part of the pilots, though. Which makes me a sad panda. I trained my ASW groups until they were level 60 in experience before unleashing them and by now some of them are in the 70-75 range. Maybe when some of the pilots reach level 80 or so they will start scoring some hits.

That was the skill level where Japanese Sally and Helen pilots started stenciling multiple sub silhouettes on their planes in WITP. Of course Japanese aerial ASW abilities were vastly overpowered back then and it was not hard to get pilots up to that skill level (just bomb an isolated garrison for a few weeks and you could then bulls-eye subs almost at will, remember those days?). I like the fact that it is much harder for Japanese aircraft to sink subs now, but if it turns out to be impossible for them to sink subs that might get a little frustrating.

I can assure you from personal experience (as Japan) that it is not impossible to sink Japanese subs that are far from a repair base. I think some players took the WITP model as reality and are disappointed that it no longer applies. If it takes a lot of combined air-sea effort to hunt down and kill a sub, then that is the way things should be.

Thats exactly what I think.
The axis subs didn´t get decimated because they became much worse than at the beginning of the war but because they encountered a more and more sophisticated multi-layer agressive defense system.

[Nomad]

Remember that they did insert some code in to make airborne ASW more effective as the war progresses. I am assuming that my highly trained and experienced Heavy Bomber crews will eliminate any real sub menace as the game progresses.

[LoBaron]

Edit: wrong button. [:D]

[LoBaron]

Wow didn´t know this. Where did you get that from?
Isn´t the experience gain of the crews and the better planes/ASW capable naval units enough?

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
I can 100% confirm this, have seen dozens of air attacks on my subs so far, not one scored a bomb hit. Not one.

I would guess your opponent has failed to train up his search aircraft in naval attack then, since ASW skill probably only controls the ability to spot the subs. Actually executing an attack on one would be naval bombing or low level naval bombing I would think.

Jim