Fun with Midgets

[Q-Ball]

...sorry, that might be insulting, i'll call them "Little Subs".

Anyway, has anyone ever accomlished anything worthwhile with a "Little Sub"? I've gotten the occasional Dec 7 hit at Pearl, but that's it. Mostly it's a waste of time.

Anyone ever try to use them for Base Defense? Does that work at all?

I'm OK if they are actually kind of a waste of time, since IRL they pretty much were as well

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

...sorry, that might be insulting, i'll call them "Little Subs".

Anyway, has anyone ever accomlished anything worthwhile with a "Little Sub"? I've gotten the occasional Dec 7 hit at Pearl, but that's it. Mostly it's a waste of time.

Anyone ever try to use them for Base Defense? Does that work at all?

I'm OK if they are actually kind of a waste of time, since IRL they pretty much were as well

I'll sometimes use 'em as base defense. In the Marianas scenario, they can be mildly useful. Mostly, they're a coffin and loss of VP though.

[cohimbra]

These are the amazing results I obtained with midget sub:

[Mistmatz]

My opponent had a midget placed at CI for quite some time and the damn thing wouldn't die even though it ran out of fuel quickly.

I believe it took more than two months to finally get rid of it which was a pain because I wanted to stage my Canton Isl. invasion from there but didn't want him to have the intel.

[Ossian]

I had seriously bad luck with them in a recent Guadalcanal scenario. I think every single carrier I had got sunk on their first mission out, which kind of made use of the midgets themselves fairly academic. I think I had two which launched ok and made it back to the carriers. Neither achieved much.

[LargeSlowTarget]

I got a few succesful attacks, about 1 hit in a dozen or so attacks. Once a midget not only put a torp into a cruiser at Sydney, it also lived to tell the tale and returned to the mother sub and to base [8D].

[Erkki]

The only time after the initial Pearl attacks that I've used them, I had 5 attack Pearl again when the USN CVs were there. 1 got in and sunk a DD. All 5 lost.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

...sorry, that might be insulting, i'll call them "Little Subs".

Anyway, has anyone ever accomlished anything worthwhile with a "Little Sub"? I've gotten the occasional Dec 7 hit at Pearl, but that's it. Mostly it's a waste of time.

Their biggest success in my game was sinking an APD in San Francisco harbor. But mostly they do nothing, besides sinking. Never achieved any results in defending bases with them, but I keep trying. Sometimes they actually take shots at major warships, so logically one day one of them is bound to get lucky. Ideally, I think, they should be stockpiled so that if, on the off chance, Allies decide to launch an amphibious assault against a major base that is still supplied, they can try to mess with the transports in the landing force.

[Barb]

I managed to hit US carrier in Auckland once. But it took all midget subs that arrive before Sept.1942. In certain circumstances it can have a bigger impact - but I wouldn't count on them.

[Commander Stormwolf]

Have trouble getting into the port past december 7


i say a good use of midget subs is to carry them arround
and detach them in areas where you expect heavy ASW opposition

they will soak up 50% of all Air and Sea ASW attacks
(and once in a blue moon they can hit some ships in open sea as well)

Some say the subs were useless,
but historically they did cripple a RN BB in madagascar, and possibly hit a BB at pearl too

I say they were just so cheap to produce, I would have equipped every B1 class submarine with them (remove the deck guns) and use them to distract enemy destroyers and ASW planes

while the B1 6xType 95 do the nasty business of hitting allied CV [8D]

better to have midget subs than PT boats IMO

[Captain Cruft]

In my Downfall game midget subs managed put 3 torps into the Essex class CV Antietam while at sea. It may even have sunk, but my opponent is not telling [;)]

However, to put this in perspective, I have approximately 23 quadrillion of these "ships" afloat, and apart from the above they have achieved pretty much diddly squat except to get sunk by USN DDs in large numbers.

I think that hypothetically, if you could somehow remove the Allied ASW capability from the map then they would be quite a useful weapon.

Note: I refer only to midgets operating alone, the ones that are launched by "mothership" subs do indeed seem rather inept.

[jmalter]

i've never played the IJ side. can you assign leaders or TF commanders to the midgie subs?

they have a certain propaganda value, in that any Allied player who sees the in-game msg 'sub detected in harbor!' is gonna have a momentary moment. but given the ineffectiveness of the midgie as a weapons-platform, it don't seem worthwhile that the IJ player would try to mount a campaign w/ them in hopes of actually achieving a result. there's only 6 or so I-boats that can act as carriers? it don't seem worthwhile to mount them all up for a single co-ordinated strike against one port. but mebbe 6 boats, launching into 6 different ports at the same time, would add to the fun-factor?

[Puhis]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

i've never played the IJ side. can you assign leaders or TF commanders to the midgie subs?

Yes you can change leaders, but that's waste of PPs.

I've had some success with midgets. I've sunk one minesweeper [&o], and damaged two light cruisers and two battleships (but not in same game). And that have cost me at least 50 midgets.

[Historiker]

And how many of their carriers did you all loose to minefields?
I'd love to use them more often, but I doubt its worth loosing their carrier to a minefield regarding their small chance of success.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

And how many of their carriers did you all loose to minefields?
I'd love to use them more often, but I doubt its worth loosing their carrier to a minefield regarding their small chance of success.

How would you lose their carriers to minefields? Many of these (particularly in the early war) minisubs have ranges ~500nm. This should allow you to 'launch' them from a safe stand-off distance.

[Commander Stormwolf]

those with long range are really useful to keep around and soak up ASW attacks

detach in a tough area that you want to attack with subs, but you are concerned about
allied ASW presence

[rockmedic109]

I suppose you could use the midgets as minesweepers before sending the bigger boats into an allied port.

[Puhis]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

And how many of their carriers did you all loose to minefields?
I'd love to use them more often, but I doubt its worth loosing their carrier to a minefield regarding their small chance of success.

I did not loose any to minefields, but ASW killed couple midget carriers.

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Historiker

And how many of their carriers did you all loose to minefields?
I'd love to use them more often, but I doubt its worth loosing their carrier to a minefield regarding their small chance of success.

How would you lose their carriers to minefields? Many of these (particularly in the early war) minisubs have ranges ~500nm. This should allow you to 'launch' them from a safe stand-off distance.

500nm?
Mine have 80, not more. Also, I never got them steak into harbor when I launched them off port and let them sail into the harbor hex. They are able to attack shipping docked, but not shipping disbanded. But that might exactly be what I like.

[spence]

IIRC the original Type A midgets only a non-rechargeable battery for propulsion.
Assuming some correspondence with "ordinary" submarines of the time one can figure a max endurance of around 24 hours at a cruise speed of 4 kts (which is probably too fast) giving a max range of 96 nm. I believe the later midgets could recharge their batteries but their (diesel?) fuel supply was pretty limited. They might have managed 500 nm if it was all downhill[;)].