Surface raiders

[tyronec]

Just a few thoughts from my game with MM.

So far the Italian and German battle fleets have been out in the Atlantic sinking merchants for the past couple of months. The British are out chasing them with pretty much their whole fleet.
It seems the best way to attack is to have one stack with carriers doing air strikes and another with BBs doing surface attacks, that way you get more potential attacks in.
So far am not doing too well, have had one air strike sink a BB but otherwise every attempted attack has missed.
Axis have maybe sunk around 60 merchants and 1 escort (MM may have kept a better tally).

So in terms of production that is a fair exchange, 600 odd for each side. Though Italian BBs are not really worth 600 in game terms.

Don't know what the chance of finding an enemy surface fleet is, maybe around 20%... Would be interested in other peoples views.

The other question is about combined fleets attacking. If you have a mixed fleet adjacent to an enemy fleet and do an attack then you get an attempted carrier strike. Would it not be better if the carriers helped your detection and then, if located, it was fought as a full fleet action.

Not sure if I'm using the RN in the best way, any suggestions welcome.

[AlbertN]

Combined Fleet attacking is overkill in general from my perspective - and I hope that is never to be implemented.

Yes surface ships can wreck convoys and can play mice with cat - in order to raid convoys a fleet still needs 1 action point so they can do 1 move and 'deny' 1 attack from the pursuers (as they've to move too).

[ago1000]

+1 Cohen_slith
An Axis player perspective:
A healthy fleet in raider mode in open sea has a slim chance of being detected, as it should. The AI seems to do a better job (CV groups) when I try to move my fleets away from the Allies fleet as Cohen_slith mentioned. So your fleets in the area do cause havoc.

I've noticed Land base aircraft are the most effective/deadly against Naval fleets.

From an Axis perspective, the most vulnerable times are when my fleets are in port, leaving or returning. The Allied land base aircraft have a better chance of actually causing a little damage (1 in 3 I find). A damaged fleet (lame duck) in a combined fleet makes the whole group more readily detectable in open sea. This forces me at times to leave them in port. If you can, I would try to get your strategic bombers to try to hit his ships in ports if they can reach. I would assume if Italian fleets are in the Atlantic then either Egypt or Gibraltar was lost to the Axis this might make this strategy even more difficult.

[battlevonwar]

Just played with this concept myself and sent Axis Fleets into the open Atlantic and am +2 with ago1000, that it appears that fleets are more vulnerable in port/coming back to port in striking range of air power. Of course most Allied opponents haven't utilized this fact so far I've noticed. This is an expensive adventure on your oil as the Axis but a worthwhile trade? There is also the point if the Axis do not do Gibraltar a lot of prime raiding routes in the North Atlantic begin to have some Air Cover.

I find I eventually get some hits on raiders at some point as an Allied player or Axis one. Land based seems optimal though.

I wonder how much the Axis paid for taking down Spain? Also the continued strategy has to be robbing 25% of their oil per turn? Repairs... the techs should catch up in finding raiders and this should lessen with time as well as the introduction of the USA. How will Barbarossa be short-changed due to this adventure?

[tyronec]

The overall effect of the anti-convoy war seems reasonable.

However the balance between subs and surface doesn't seem right.

From this game it looks that there is no way that German subs on their own could be a serious threat to the UK. Even if the Axis player went all out for the sub war they won't get near the levels of merchants sinking against a competent human player to ever reduce convoy capacity. They just can't produce enough subs early on to be a threat; maybe they can mid war - have not played that far into the game.

On the other hand the Italian and German surface fleets have been out in the Atlantic sinking merchants at leisure.
If we look at it historically, Graf Spee got away with it for a while but only because she was sinking ships off convoy. Once tracked by a warship she was kaput.
Bismark didn't last too long.
S & G were a threat in the North sea but not out in the Atlantic, perhaps Axis had come to recognise that.

[AlvaroSousa]

Which version are you speaking of with the uboats? Offical or v5b?

I did base the 3 sub limit on what I read about the largest uboat attacks during WW2. At most 43 subs which is about right for a sub group in WarPlan with 50% being out at sea... = 75-90 subs = 43 at sea.

If raiders are too effective I can reduce it. I don't have any super accurate data on how well they did so I am guesstimating.

[battlevonwar]

Do Axis Fleets raiding with impunity mean Gibraltar and Spain haven fallen? The Axis have gone that direction? For without that I am guessing that after taking a few hits the German Navy itself wouldn't raid indefinitely before it was too damaged?

[tyronec]

Which version are you speaking of with the uboats? Offical or v5b?

We started on 4.1 and were using beta patches.
I don't think raiders do too much damage, just that they are very hard to find.

I can't see that subs are going to be of much value in an HvH game, but have not played since they came down to 120 so maybe someone can make good use of them.

[battlevonwar]

tyronec, I have noticed Escorts can do a pretty good job. Between CVs and Escorts Subs have to return to port or die.
I don't think them OP at this moment...

ORIGINAL: tyronec

Which version are you speaking of with the uboats? Offical or v5b?

We started on 4.1 and were using beta patches.
I don't think raiders do too much damage, just that they are very hard to find.

I can't see that subs are going to be of much value in an HvH game, but have not played since they came down to 120 so maybe someone can make good use of them.

[MagicMissile]

Here are the losses from my and Tyrones game.

The Axis have Gibraltar.I have built I think 4 German and 2 Italian Subs ( I even built a German shipyard, Am I the first? [:)]) and the Axis starts with 7 I think so like 13 in total but many are sunk now. I got the British merchants down to 130 ish but is now up to 153. It will hamper British buildup for sure but it is not the British buildup Axis is afraid of it is the Russian and American buildup. With 120 cost subs and Gibraltar you probably can hurt the British quite a lot but the reward is probably still not worth the price. The curse of strategic WW2 games hindsight and the knowledge how important the eastern front is I guess. Still it has been interesting to try and I will probably try it again sometime.

/MM

[tyronec]

Have been thinking some more about this.

As far as I know Axis never attacked a convoy in the Atlantic or med with surface vessels.
They did effectively threaten the North Sea convoys with the effect that they were shut down for a while.

How to represent this in the game ?
Well at present Axis can not shut down any convoys but the can make serious raids in the Atlantis, in particular if they clear Spain.

My suggestion is:
Surface ships in Raider mode do more damage to convoys.
However they are easier to find - this makes sense as a ship actually attacking a convoy is going to be easier to spot than one that evading contact.

This way Axis should be more effective close to their bases for a surprise raid but less so out in mid Atlantic for weeks on end.

As to the sub war, think we need to see a game or two under the recent patch where Axis invest in a few subs and to see if are good value. Looks like the serious effort is over in my game with MM, there was never a real threat to shut down convoys but what it has done is absorb a huge amount of UK production and now I have stacks of Merchants and escorts in the queue that are probably not going to be needed.