How effective are Air ASW patrols?

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: 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?

From the newest readme file:

21. Gameplay Change: ASW bombing experience effects altered to increase effects of ASW aircraft over time.

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: 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

I don't think that is true Jim, but I am not 100% sure at this time. It is something to think about. Both of my two games are still pretty early in the game and I do have a few HB and MB air units that are training on a number of things and both Low Naval Attack and Naval Bombing are on the list along with ASW and Naval Search. But I think that only ASW is used for finding and attacking subs. BTW, according to the manual Naval Search is aslo able to find and attack subs with a lower possibility.

[Marcus_Antonius]

I may not know much, but in my first game I have absolutely blanketed the approaches from Port Aurthur to the southern HI's with ASW air our of Kwantung, Korea, and the HIs, and I have had very few losses in that area. When allied subs get "lighted up" I usually send a DD division to the locale to check them out.
 
This seems to work just fine. I commonly experience my highest losses in bottlenecks with no local ASW air patrols.
 
Just because you are not killing a lot of subs, I would not give up on the ASW air. Above someone commented that you can do the same with naval searches over a wider area. I have not tried that, but I doubt it would be as effective.

[SqzMyLemon]

My 2 cents. In a PBEM game as Japan, I have set most of my Lily and Sally units to ASW patrol. The settings are 60-80% ASW 10-20% Training and 10% rest and the altitude is 2000ft. It's getting to be May of 1942, and I'm starting to see results. My Allied opponent acknowledges his submarines are being spotted, suppressed, damaged and a few have possibly been sunk according to tracker by 100lb and 250lb bombs. My aircrew experience levels are between 45-70 and my ASW skill rating is increasing nicely, most units range between low 50's to mid 60's right now. This is over months of dedicated ASW missions. So in my experience Japanese air assets do improve over time and will be a factor in suppressing/damaging Allied subs. I'm trying out Nell's and Betty's as well, since they seem to be responding too. If you don't like them getting torched in naval strikes, try them on ASW.

I notice that SC crews are also improving nicely when used actively hunting out spotted submarines. So I think over time as experience increases and if dedicated missions exclusively to ASW are performed daily, you'll see positive results.

[findmeifyoucan]

Interesting but why wouldn't you just go 100% training ASW right from the start then when you got your values up to let's say 40-50% then go ASW patrol?

[Dora09]

I had some success using Betties for ASW. There were lots of false claims of hits but once they got above 50 ASW they did pretty well. They will hit with 250 kg (551 lb) and those can do serious damage to a sub.

[Marcus_Antonius]

Nothing like learning on the job? [:)]

I favor a percentage training and a larger percentage flying the missions early war, even with green pilots. Hitting anything is secondary to keeping them submerged.

Presumably the early war submariners are also learning the craft as they go?

[SqzMyLemon]

ORIGINAL: findmeifyoucan

Interesting but why wouldn't you just go 100% training ASW right from the start then when you got your values up to let's say 40-50% then go ASW patrol?

If you have read anything in my AAR about how effective my opponents Allied submarines have been from day one, you wouldn't need to ask me this. [:D] And like a_gonatas, I prefer some of my training to involve actually performing the mission. Dedicating 100% of air assets to training is great, but what puropose would that serve me? In the meantime I'd be losing transport after transport to torpedo attack. Some players will train 100% to a certain level and then commit assets, I'm of the training in moderation school. Most if not all of my air units have some ongoing training % set while they actually perform the missions daily. It all depends on the situation in each individual game. In my particular PBEM the Allied subs have been deadly and we are only in March/42, so it's imperative in my situation to develop potent ASW quickly and this is what has been working for me. As I say many times, there are many different ways to reach the same goal, the flexibilty of tactics is one of the best aspects of this game.

[Disco Duck]

This is a good site that documents the various factors of ASW warfare.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep ... SW-12.html