ASW Patrols

[Q-Ball]

I have a sub problem, and wondering the best way to organize ASW Patrols. Some questions:

1. ESCORTS: What is considered a good escort/convoy strategy? How many escorts? For the IJN, what ships make good escorts? Do DD's without any Depth Charges do anything as escorts? (Maybe keep subs submerged). What about MSW's, if you are escort poor anyone use those? (as they do carry DC's).

2. SURFACE ASW GROUPS: Does anyone organize ASW Hunter Groups, like a few DD"s or SC's? How are they most effectively employed? In UV, as SC group mostly got picked off by IJN Subs.

3. AIR ASW: My biggest question. Is this even effective? What is the best altitude setting? For each nation, what are the best aircraft to use? Catalinas and Mavis's are too valuable for Naval Search; what about Pete's, is that a good use for these otherwise useless planes?

[SunDevil_MatrixForum]

1. This has been mentioned in some other threads, so if you want specifics you can use the search feature. People have said a 1:4 ratio. So for every 4 transports have 1 escort. Now you can not do this with every transport TF so this will depend on where your TF is going.

2. Yes I do this, I put like 4 DD's and 3 or 4 DMS into a Surface TF and if I discover any subs I send one of these to that hex.

3. Yes it spots them pretty well. I set my PBY Cantalinas to 100% ASW Patrol and then set their altitude to 1000 and they usually can spot them. They can also attack them, but you will not get a combat screen, just a quick roll and a message if you hit them.

Hope this helps.

[Caltone]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

what about Pete's, is that a good use for these otherwise useless planes?

That's about the best use I can find for them.

[chili614]

A trick I learned from playing UV is to not just let your SC units sit in port until a sub is spotted nearby. Put them into a task force (ASW in War in the Pacific, I used Surface in UV) and just keep them going out and back in on "shakedown" cruises. This will (very, very, slowly) increase their experience which seems to be one of the biggest factors on whether an ASW unit drops depth charges or gets a torpedo in it's side. Hope that helps down the line. So far I have found the Allied MSW's very vunerable to subs. I have lost five or six to Japanese subs off the northeast coast of Australia. They have scored a few hits, but not many.

I am assigning DD's to transport TF's even if I consider the chance of encountering a sub very unlikely (i.e. SF to PH runs) just so they also get some experience.

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
I have a sub problem, and wondering the best way to organize ASW Patrols. Some questions:

1. ESCORTS: What is considered a good escort/convoy strategy? How many escorts? For the IJN, what ships make good escorts? Do DD's without any Depth Charges do anything as escorts? (Maybe keep subs submerged). What about MSW's, if you are escort poor anyone use those? (as they do carry DC's).

First, I have no idea how the calculations are made for sub/anti-sub encounters are made. The ASW rating on a ship seems to equal the number of depth charges that can be fired in a single attack, but I am not sure if this number at all relates to detection ability. Does a destroyer have a better chance of detecting a sub Vs. a PC? I have no idea.

Examples:

APD = ASW of 10
PC = ASW of 3
PG = ASW of 2
MSW = ASW of 1

Note: Values vary somewhat.

In the DEI, I use no less than 3-4 escorts (PG with an ASW rating of two) per AK/TK in a task force, while I double the amount of escorts if using MSW as there ASW rating is only one. I don’t know if the number of ASW ships or the overall rating of ASW for the fleet is what is important, but I have found heavily guarded task forces often detect a sub before it fires… at least that is the way it seems. I don’t know, but it seems sub operation can be suppressed in this way.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
2. SURFACE ASW GROUPS: Does anyone organize ASW Hunter Groups, like a few DD"s or SC's? How are they most effectively employed? In UV, as SC group mostly got picked off by IJN Subs.

At the start of the war I deploy a number of ASW Hunter-Killers. My favorite is the task force consisting of 10 APDs each with an ASW rating of 10 (the group is rated at 100). They patrol between the Philippines and Formosa and attack submarines spotted close by. When contact is made, rarely does the sub attack (these fast/small ships have never been hit), but the chances of my ships actually finding the sub once contact is made seems to be about one times out of three; and even when they do drop depth charges they seem to miss at least half the time. However, each ship has ten depth charge mounts so when I get lucky… the submarine can take four or more hits in a single attack. They generally don’t survive.

I also create Hunter Killers out of the 4-5 PC that are rated ASW 6, plus some of the PC rate ASW 3. I can create a fleet with and ASW of 75 that while not as effective as my main group has achieved some success.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
3. AIR ASW: My biggest question. Is this even effective? What is the best altitude setting? For each nation, what are the best aircraft to use? Catalinas and Mavis's are too valuable for Naval Search; what about Pete's, is that a good use for these otherwise useless planes?

My ASW seems to spot submarines and at times strafes them, but I have no idea if they ever damage them.

Pete’s seem worthless to me.

[Q-Ball]

Thanks Guys great advice! You mentioned the IJA APD's; in UV I used them for fast transport runs, but in WITP I think they are better used as convoy escorts and ASW in the rear areas. They make great escorts, in that they have strong ASW capability, and some cargo room to boot!

Seems like the best ships to use for Fast Transport later on are old DD's like the Momi's, Wakatake's, Minekazes, etc.......ones that the only plus they really have is speed.

[rogueusmc]

Someone mentioned shakedown cruises....put the low experience ships (like MSWs and PGs) with high experience ships (like DDs) on the cruises and they will gain experience faster.

Low experience ships that ordinarily won't drop on subs will if they are with higher experience ships that are dropping on subs.

[SunDevil_MatrixForum]

http://www.matrixgames.com/default.asp? ... 6%23666800

[rogueusmc]

Thanks!!!...that was some positive reinforcement there SunDevil...[8D]

[Nomad]

In UV I put one or two DDs with a number of SCs or PCs and sent them out turn after turn. I looked for one DD with a good commander so he would be in charge since I believe that the TF commanders rating is important. After a while the SCs and PC that survived any sub attacks would get to an experience of at least 55/55 and then they would be very effective, expecially the USN SCs with their Mousetraps. I would tend to send them, with follow orders, to follow a transport TF. Often, even if they did not attack a sub, they would spot it before it could attack.

[Q-Ball]

Good advice! In a previous thread someone mentioned using all IJN DD's with endurance of <4000 for escort....that brings up an interesting question. Early on, most of the old IJN DD's, including Momi, Wakatake, Minekaze, etc. have NO ASW weapons. Is there any use to including those as convoy escorts? I suppose they might keep a sub underwater and not using the deck gun, but other than that I can't see a use to using them as escorts. Until upgrades, I send them on surface missions.

Thoughts?