Sub Warfare

[pad152]

I'm playing the campaign as allies now in Mid March 1942, I've sunk 130 Japanese ships and damaged another 100 or so.

I think allied subs are far to deadly this early in the war and ASW is completly out of wack, where every ship in a TF will attack a single sub, sinking it most of the time!

US subs in the early part of the war suffered from bad tactics, bad comanders, and bad torpedoes.

[UncleBuck]

I will gladly trade some of my US subs for some of yours, in the spirit of game balance. My Us boats seem to have trouble landing hits. I am betting most of it is due to the torpedoes. I have only hit probably 4 ships with US boats and I am in Jan of 42 almost Feb (26th of Jan I think ). THe Dutch boats and UK boats have done much better with thier better torpedoes. Even so I beleive they have hit about 10 ships.

UB

[kaleun]

Well my (US)subs hit things, but the torpedoes fail to explode, or if they do, they rarely actually sink much. My evil imperial oponent, may his Kami rot wherever Kamis rot, sends off a 30 ship ASW TF that proceeds to depth charge my valiant sub, which ends up having to be scuttled. So I think the sub play is probably balanced (If you are allied)[:D]

[Warspite**]

Be fair, after all that I only managed to hit you with 2 depth charges. [:D][:D][:D]

[Titanwarrior89]

Same here! I am in may 42 and my(allied) subs are not really sinking that much. I think it's set about right for the historical out come.[;)]

ORIGINAL: UncleBuck

I will gladly trade some of my US subs for some of yours, in the spirit of game balance. My Us boats seem to have trouble landing hits. I am betting most of it is due to the torpedoes. I have only hit probably 4 ships with US boats and I am in Jan of 42 almost Feb (26th of Jan I think ). THe Dutch boats and UK boats have done much better with thier better torpedoes. Even so I beleive they have hit about 10 ships.

UB

[Top Cat]

I agree I'm late into Feb. 1942 as the Allies and the number of Japanese ships sunk is 120+, 90% due to submarines. At this rate Japanes merchant fleet is going to dissolve very quickly.

I'd also like to recruit the commander of one Japanese sub (the I-9 I beleive).
Sent a taskforce of 6 MSW on ASW duty to catch him and he's taken out 4 of the ships in less than a week. Thankfully I think he's run out of torpedoes.

I was under the delusion that subs were supposed to run and hide from ships equipped with sonar and depth charges.....

Cheers
Top Cat

[Platoonist]

I was curious...has anyone ever seen a sub sink (or attack) another sub either in Witp or UV? The first Japanese warship sunk in the war was an I-Boat sunk by the Gudgeon....one of several instances when a sub was ambushed on the surface by another of it's kind. I believe an I-Boat sank the Gato Class sub Corvina the only known instance of a US sub being sunk by a sub. Haven't seen it yet myself.

[Rendova]

Wasn't a Midget sub sunk by the USS. Ward before the air strikes on PH? Maybe a Midget sub doesn't count as a "warship".

[von Murrin]

Yup. Just recently discovered, too.

[timtom]

Just a question: Is that bizarre feature from UV still in whereby subs that are attacked lose a load of fuel point?

[shoevarek]

I must say i have not much against sub simulation in the game. It seems to me that this part of the game improved a lot when compared with UV. I passed only 2 months of game time however and only as Japanese with Allied AI.

At the beginning my ASW groups seemed to be useless but over a time (I guess after shakedown cruises) they became quite effective. It is beginning of Feb 42 and more then 10 Allied hunters are sunk. My ASW TF make a lot of unsuccessful attacks but from time to time they damage or kill subs. AI concentrates subs in few places that is why i managed to sink quite a few of them. Moreover my ships made a lot of attacks on previously damaged subs consequently sinking them.
My subs also have some successes although if caught by Allied DD they have almost no chance to escape (same like UV once spotted they can be treated dead) - just few times they were attacked and managed to escape. Maybe there should be more unsuccessful attacs or attacks resulting in damaged sub.
As for the shipping losses - yes it is true AI Allied sub are ineffective (as for now), although they made some attacks and damaged few ships. On the other hand my subs didn't score so many hits either, though when they attack they usually damage ships heavily or sink them. I could have been more aggressive but it would probably end up with many jap subs beeing sunk by escorts (i lost till now 5 or 6). So I concentrate on fleeing unescorted ships and halted production of all other subs - what is the point of producing fresh meet for strengthened allied convoys?

[pad152]

Platoonist - There is no sub to sub combat in UV or Witp![X(]
Unlike the movies sub to sub combat was very rare.

At the rate my subs are sinking Japanese ships, who need aircraft carriers! [8|]

[The Gnome]

ORIGINAL: pad152

Platoonist - There is no sub to sub combat in UV or Witp![X(]
Unlike the movies sub to sub combat was very rare.

At the rate my subs are sinking Japanese ships, who need aircraft carriers! [8|]

I haven't noticed my US subs doing too much but I have a couple of Dutch subs that are wrecking balls. I watched one surface attack where they went absolutely bananas on a tanker with their 88 deck gun - not to mention the 4 torps they put into it.

[Tophat]

Its now jan 9th in the grand campaign and i'm the US in it.My subs are acting fine,alot of US duds/fail to explode and misses.Dutch and brits are doing better but no major slaughter of ships by subs.I have had MANY,repeat Many subs depth charged acouple sunk but the majority damaged.Some of the damage is virtually hull paint scrapings,while other is ofcourse more serious.

[Xargun]

AFter six weeks of game time I must say the subs feel about right.. The first two weeks were a kill fest for the allied ASW and they mounted up a hefty kill sheet. But since then my losses have been a lot less with more misses and simple damage occuring. PLus, with Wake in my hands, its easier to get a damaged and leaking sub to port to get fixed...

I still do not enjoy watching my subs fire 6 or 8 torps at a single target and only have 1 hit, or all miss.. The thing that really makes me mad is when my subs fire 8 torps and they are all duds... Sometimes I wonder if the IJN bought so US torpedoes on the black market and didnt tell anyone.. WHat are the odds of all 8 torps being duds ? No very high is my guess...

I have lost 19 subs at my last count, with probably 85% of them right around PH - I figure a good 50% of my losses were in the first 2 weeks...

Most of my losses (and of the 12 allied subs I've killed) were sent (and left) in dangerous waters for too long and were pounced on by ASW TFs... One major problem is that the bulk of Japan's ASW is short range ships, whereas the allies have more ASW DDs with longer range... This allows the allies to pounce faster and from farther away than the japanese and will aid in his ability to kill IJN subs..

Xargun

[Rainerle]

ORIGINAL: pad152

Platoonist - There is no sub to sub combat in UV or Witp![X(]
Unlike the movies sub to sub combat was very rare.

Actually I would bet that there were more sub vs. sub encounters than BB vs, BB encounters. Would you be so calm if BB vs. BB was not in the game ?

[Platoonist]

There were sixteen instances of Japanese subs sunk by American subs and two of Japanese subs sunk by British subs during World War II . It certainly wasn't modern submarine warfare as practiced for through the Cold War deep in the depths. The encounters usually involved one sub running on the surface and the other being submerged in the right place at the right time. Comparatively rare...but it did happen.

[barbarrossa]

I actually had a DD try to torpedo a I-boat last night leeward of the Great Barrier Reef.

That's what it looked like.

[UncleBuck]

Top Cat,

I do nto thin kin '42 that you have sonar. Not on MSW anyway. But yeah he is a serious bad boy if 4 of 6 in an ASW TF are dead from him !

UB

[UncleBuck]

I had an ASW TF torpedoe a JP sub in the tutorial. It listed the torp as cause of death in the sunk ships list, and the Combat report said it as well. I am guessing that they caught them on the surface and BOOM! The sub did sink quickly with no depth chargeing.

UB