Allied ASW

[mdiehl]

So in summary - allied ASW should start awful but get good, quick, a combination of beter radar/asdic (sorry sonar for colonials), experience gained AND experience transfered.

Tongue in cheek, the hottest sub killers should be any old RN Flower or River class that might of seen Atlantic action.

1. I can't agree. In the Allied services ASW was not considered scut work, although service on the smaller ASW units (like your Flower class) was considered hard duty. By late 1941 much had been learned already in combating German uboats. The technology and training were there. The BoA example is not so relevant because the units in early 1942 weren't much available. A strategic consequence of Ernie King choosing to limit escort to critical convoys and troop ships.

2. H-K units were not "convoy rescue" by the late war. They were dedicated generic recon search and destroy units.

3. Shot for shot the most effective ASW units in the war were the USCGC 327s I mentioned in the OOB thread.

Hard to say how the WitP ASW Allied effects stand in re history. Too much "how are the IJN subs being used?" to factor in here, and the results that people have kicked around seem to represent extremes of effectiveness and ineffectiveness.

[strawbuk]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

1. I can't agree. In the Allied services ASW was not considered scut work, although service on the smaller ASW units (like your Flower class) was considered hard duty. By late 1941 much had been learned already in combating German uboats. The technology and training were there.

True, but I was think of 'pre war mentality' where asw was poorly regarded, and suggesting that mentality would still exist in Eastern Fleet/CenPac prior to Dec 7?

2. H-K units were not "convoy rescue" by the late war. They were dedicated generic recon search and destroy units.

Will argue that one but need to go trawl some books. What I've read suggests HKs were support except where tasked by Ultra - by support I mean reinforce. I suggest Jonny Walker did not sink all those boats by meandering across the ocean but going where he knew Uboats were.

3. Shot for shot the most effective ASW units in the war were the USCGC 327s I mentioned in the OOB thread..

True too - my Flower comment was tongue in cheek! I read how corvette crews envied how the 327s took the waves. On a half decent sea, green water could run the entire length of a Flower, and they pitched like rocking horses.

[mdiehl]

True, but I was think of 'pre war mentality' where asw was poorly regarded, and suggesting that mentality would still exist in Eastern Fleet/CenPac prior to Dec 7?

I think the supposition of a pre-war "lax" mentality is wrong from the get go. ASW was one of the things that RN, the USN, USCG, RAN and RCN took quite seriously. It was an area in which the Allies pre-war excelled and far outdid any of the Axis players. The lesser effectiveness of Allied early war ASW qua late-war has largely to do with technical improvements in equipment, decryption, RDF, and to a lesser extent, ASW advanced training (if you will). The advanced training was not one at the level of the equipment operator, but at the command and control level (how do you get two or three escorts to work together when killing a sub). THAT training started with the USN skippers receiving training from Royal Navy flag ranked guys with lots of experience in ASW.

Even so, USN PTO ASW can't be described as poor or lax. Most of the Japanese fleet class subs that crept into the protected zone around PH were detected and driven off, and ALL of the corkey midget subs were detected and destroyed.

Will argue that one but need to go trawl some books. What I've read suggests HKs were support except where tasked by Ultra - by support I mean reinforce. I suggest Jonny Walker did not sink all those boats by meandering across the ocean but going where he knew Uboats were.

Well, yeah, but they were on station and not escorting convoys. After 1943 much of the Uboat detection in the Atlantic was a matter of radio direction finding, triangulation, and running down contacts. IMO in the PTO decryption of IJN patrol assignments was more important than in the Atlantic -- probably because the Pac is huge.

I read how corvette crews envied how the 327s took the waves. On a half decent sea, green water could run the entire length of a Flower, and they pitched like rocking horses.

Have to admire the guys who could stick it out on a corvette. Cold. Wet most of the time. Seasick alot of the time. And still very dangerous!

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
I think the supposition of a pre-war "lax" mentality is wrong from the get go. ASW was one of the things that RN, the USN, USCG, RAN and RCN took quite seriously.

The US did not take ASW very seriously, or else they did and just didn't know what was effective against it. The US didn't even institute convoys for ships moving along the coast. The lights of Miami were not blacked out at night and many of the tankers coming around South Florida were torpedoed by German subs. Again, no convoys until they formed up to leave from the New York area to go to England.

[mdiehl]

The US did not take ASW very seriously, or else they did and just didn't know what was effective against it. The US didn't even institute convoys for ships moving along the coast. The lights of Miami were not blacked out at night and many of the tankers coming around South Florida were torpedoed by German subs. Again, no convoys until they formed up to leave from the New York area to go to England.

I am making a distinction between the level of training and expertise and command and control of the men in the ships and the weapon systems they used on the one hand and high level strategic and political choices on the other. The bright lights phenom of which you speak has less to to do with USN higher HQ than with fools in the US House of Representatives (balking at the economic damage and inconvenience) and nothing to do with the skills and training of USN ships crews.

Convoys were a different problem. At the time the Atlantic fleet did not have enough DDs and large escorts to cover both coastal waters and the cross-Atlantic convoy routes. The cross-Atlantic convoy routes got preference and the US attempted to rely on a flotilla of civilian volunteer auxiliaries and light USCG vessels to patrol "near shore" waters. It wasn't until mid-1942 that the US had enough escorts to effectively guard a coastal convoy. In the face of that the thought was that unescorted ships operating at irregular intervals was on the whole a less risky strategy than conovoying coastal ships with an inadequate number of escorts. Probably the decision was a 'Bad call, Ripley.'

Funny however is that the US WEST coast was blacked out from the get go, IIRC.

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Hard to say how the WitP ASW Allied effects stand in re history. Too much "how are the IJN subs being used?" to factor in here, and the results that people have kicked around seem to represent extremes of effectiveness and ineffectiveness.

Against the AI Hard. I use massive 25 ship ASW task forces and plenty of air patrols (ASW) in a small area between Formosa and the Philippines in non-deep water. It is a major non- historical campaign with the number of contacts, attacks, and damage/destroyed feeling about right.

My subs are deployed in deep water between Pearl Harbor and the West Coast (non-historical) and have considerable success sinking non-combat ships. My loses are not coming from any ASW taskforces sent by the computer against my submarines, but are from the escorts of small task forces (2-4 escorts).

As the Japanese, I make a major effort in the anti-submarine war and +90% of time they get away without a scratch even when the subs are tactically in very bad positions. It feels close to historical.

The Allied (computer) seems to simply run over the Japanese subs not in deep water, and even then it is a near thing; even when I place my subs in deep water, far from enemy air ASW patrols, and face no ASW taskforces… I lose about two subs per month (near historic levels).

Against the computer this all seems ‘fair’, but if these variables aren’t modified in Human vs Human… [:(]

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Now, in my games playing head to head a japanese sub is just dead meat...
i play here in 42A - Scen, i even improved the ability of japanese subs (better durability) but any time the sub is detected and dead.

so i decided to give the allies not the points....
they stay in the harbor - new subs are halted. they cost only ressources and are worth zero....

allied subs get hit and damaged heavily but escape - i even tried to put 30 allied subs in one shallow (in the japanese sea) hex, herded tons of asw-planes and naval-search planes (around 400 betties, ki21/49, kates, nells, jakes, and around 15 japanese asw-groups.... nearly everything that has an asw-number... the loss ratio is laughable...

if the allies loose one sub in such an extreme situation, it is really heavy (i play for testing with 3 days and normaly in such tests the allies loose 1 or 2 subs in 6 days...

i think if such situation would happen, the loss ratio should be higher...

for the smoke grenade from mr. allied blind boy (cause a fanboy is something different [:D])) mdiehl...
nope - allied asw sucked in the pacific area... the americans had zero knowledge and an arrogant attitude to the brits/canadians and they throwed everything they had against the german subs... so no, the asw of the allied forces should be way worser - even if the japanese subs are an easy target /(large, louad, not really manouverable, only shallow deeps to reach, etc..) the allies, esp. the americans had no knowledge...

if we would speak about summer 43, i would agree.... but in 42 the american asw-groups hit nearly nothing... if the german subs had been in the pacific in numbers in 42, the americans had lost a lot ships (like they did in spring 42 WITH the british support at the atlantic coast)....

so, the allied asw numbers should be decreased and the survive-rate of japanese subs should be increased... or the human japanese player should let em stay in the harbor...

oh, one time i tried a "bunch of japanese subs in one hex attacked by american destroyers" scenario.... the japanese lost 20 subs in 2 days (after that, the surviving 3 subs could escape damaged and sunk later)...

this is realistic, sure. but the results with allied subs not. Or i ask how the americans alone should loose around 60 subs in this war... they escape with damage 70s and make the trip home to pearl... from tokyo...

if these big and vulnerable subs could take these damages, how should a german sub ever be sunk in a mediteran game ? They could absorb a lot more damage as these large american boats... but as i remember the germans lost a lot subs... and the brits did not use 20 destroyers with 2000 dc´s for each....

so, maybe some finetuning should be done...

[mdiehl]

LOL! Adnan, you missed your window of opportunity in history. Goebbels, being dead, no longer has a need for a press corps.

[mdiehl]

Or i ask how the americans alone should loose around 60 subs in this war... they escape with damage 70s and make the trip home to pearl... from tokyo...

There's a legitimate question. I posted a detailed summary about this in the UV forums a long time ago so here's the executive summary. 52 US submarines lost during the entire war. Roughly 1/3 to enemy asw forces and a/c. About half to mines. The rest to training accidents, collisions with friendly forces, friendly fire, and circular run torps.

[strawbuk]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I think the supposition of a pre-war "lax" mentality is wrong from the get go. ASW was one of the things that RN, the USN, USCG, RAN and RCN took quite seriously.

The lesser effectiveness of Allied early war ASW qua late-war has largely to do with technical improvements in equipment, decryption, RDF, and to a lesser extent, ASW advanced training (if you will). The advanced training was not one at the level of the equipment operator, but at the command and control level. (

First declaration - I am a pro RN asw/anti-King fanboy.

Not flogging this (yet I am...) but think we are disagreeing to agree as it were. Agree with all this in term so of trajectory of 'training' and techology drivers, just argue where each player; USN (Atlantic), USN (PTO) and RN start from in 1941, or 'pre-war' either PTO or Atlantic. Once threat was revealed of course the value given to ASW skills increased - just low base and thinly spread to start with.

I refer to:
1 - lack of antisub vessels pre-war; was all do be done by DDs in Admiralty planning, with support from emergency build progs (ie corvettes from whale cather designs, how appropriate) and converions - trawlers et al. Then..

2 - how many wizzy DD sqns spent time on ASW practice as opposed to practicing that torpedo dash on the Grand Fleet Mk2? How many vs a real sub?

3 - officer training - apologies for lack of source (books packed away out of reach of two year old) but a pre- war officer pointed out that when he graduated naval college (1936ish?) , he was the only one in his class to choose ASW as his specialism, and that was viewed somewhere below submarines, AA gunnery and entertainment officer (I may exaggerate latter). He did time on DDs on China station who did ZERO asw exercises. Back at Home Fleet he did ONE decent exercise on ASW in 3 years vs a submarine and the sub put up a float so all could be sure asdic operator was pointing DD in right direction! Happy to be corrected with evidence that 1939 USN or 1941 USN PTO were more switched on.

Well, yeah, but they were on station and not escorting convoys.

Agree, not escorting but he went where uboats were.

After 1943 much of the Uboat detection in the Atlantic was a matter of radio direction finding, triangulation, and running down contacts.

Indeed, but again where are a. most u-boats? b. most u-boats sending out contact and sinking reports? En route sensible u-boat skippers were only sending out a signal every three(?) days as after that they were rported lost to families. A reminder I am arguing this in context of apparently over effective HK grps in WITP, 'finding' subs by mixture of voodoo (not Magic) and over-the-horizen Mk1 Eyeball capability, nowhere near either a juicy convoy or a CV/BB TF (where 'IJN sub doctrine on' they should be popping up).

IMO in the PTO decryption of IJN patrol assignments was more important than in the Atlantic -- probably because the Pac is huge.[/quote]

Absolutely - radio intercept/decryption key to Alied anti sub ops - but I'm still not sure how MAGIC et al really feds into WITP (still learning) and certainly not in to killer HK working well on 8 Dec.

Curses! You got me rummaging around in dark boxes to annoyance of my wife now!

[mdiehl]

By month, with cause of loss in parentheses.

December 1941: I-6 (SBDs from VS-6, USS Enterprise).
January 1942: I-60 (HMS Jupiter), I-73 (USS Gudgeon [SS-211]), I-124 (HMAS Deloraine).
February 1942: I-23 (missing, presumed lost, south of Oahu).
May 1942: I-28 (USS Tautog [SS-199]), I-64 (USS Triton [SS-201]).
August 1942: I-123 (USS Grable [DM-15]), RO-33 (HMAS Arunta).
October 1942: I-22 (missing, presumed lost, Guadalcanal), I-30 (struck mine).
November 1942: I-15 (USS Southard [DMS-10]), I-17 (probably to PBY-5 from VP-11).
December 1942: I-3 (torpedoed by US PT boats), I-4 (USS Seadragon [SS-194]).

So the Japanese lost almost as many submarines to enemy action (discount the mined sub I-30, and the I-22 and I-23 and you are left with 12 subs lost to direct action) in 1942 as the US lost to Japanese action in the entire war. Interestingly, one MIGHT quibble about Allied ASW success in killing Japanese subs, depending on how the subs are deployed and what they're up against. The US "secret weapon" in 1942 seems to be US submarines.

[strawbuk]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I am making a distinction between the level of training and expertise and command and control of the men in the ships and the weapon systems they used on the one hand and high level strategic and political choices on the other.

Hear, hear - let us stick to a. available technology b. opertaional experience, or transfered operational experience through training, to make best use of technology. This appears to be issue here in WITP uber HKs.

[Captain Cruft]

With the game as it is both sides are easily going to experience their total losses in the first year. At a guess these will be 95% caused by surface forces and 5% by aircraft. There is very little chance of subs hitting mines, none of them running aground and no scope for sub vs sub combat.

The problem is not that the Allied ASW is better than the Japanese, it is that sub detection chances and depth-charge hitting chances are WAY too high.

/RANT off ...

[strawbuk]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

The US "secret weapon" in 1942 seems to be US submarines.

Glad you raised that with supporting data as I thought US subs scored high on IJN subs. I believe of course it would all be surface actions - surfaced US boats torpedoing surfaced IJN ones as no one has acoustic or sonar guidance on the warheads yet.

Wonder 1. if this happening in anyone's game 2. how come it happened in RL? I know there were a lot of USN subs off japan but random encounter seems unlikely. Looks like MAGIC rather than voodoo - anyone know?

BTW as a sub fanboy I think thsi is important as, with a proper asw representation, a different doctrine for IJN subs (or rather there torpedos) could be more of a pain for allies. Not uber, just less weak.

[mdiehl]

Agree with most of that but can fill in some of your questions.

2 - how many wizzy DD sqns spent time on ASW practice as opposed to practicing that torpedo dash on the Grand Fleet Mk2? How many vs a real sub?

All US ASW equipped vessels practiced ASW regularly pre-war, as did the larger USCG vessels. I can't give you specific details of days etc but remind you that USS Squalus was lost in a training accident in the mid-1930s serving as a "enemy opposition submarine" in ASW exercises off the Atlantic coast. This was the first "deep water" underwater rescue by diving bell written about by, IIRC, Peter Maas in The Terrible Hours.

Happy to be corrected with evidence that 1939 USN or 1941 USN PTO were more switched on.

ASW was, IIRC, a class in USCGA my grandfather was trained in same class of 1932. Can't say about the Annapolis guys, but in the two combat shots fired pre-war by USN DDs against German subs operating in neutral waters, one German sub was messed up enough to be forced home.

Indeed, but again where are a. most u-boats? b. most u-boats sending out contact and sinking reports? En route sensible u-boat skippers were only sending out a signal every three(?) days as after that they were rported lost to families. A reminder I am arguing this in context of apparently over effective HK grps in WITP, 'finding' subs by mixture of voodoo (not Magic) and over-the-horizen Mk1 Eyeball capability, nowhere near either a juicy convoy or a CV/BB TF (where 'IJN sub doctrine on' they should be popping up).

Are they overly effective "HK" groups though? Some of the players report lousy success with HK groups. The over the horizon effect could be arguably an abstraction of simple RDF. No decryption required. Just pick up a signal, triangulate it to a place where no signal should be coming from (because there's no there there) and send a couple ships or a sub to investigate with alacrity and caution (forwarned and forearmed).

IMO in the PTO decryption of IJN patrol assignments was more important than in the Atlantic -- probably because the Pac is huge.

Possibly, but only a couple of the IJN sub losses in 1942 appear to (historically) have been instigated by decrypt/RDF. They mostly seem like meeting engagements. The US subs appear to have benefitted most from RDF/decrypt.

[mdiehl]

I believe of course it would all be surface actions - surfaced US boats torpedoing surfaced IJN ones as no one has acoustic or sonar guidance on the warheads yet.

Funny, they're not. They're all torpedo shots. Considering how crappy US torps are rumoured to have been... In one instance a US sub crippled the Japanese sub with a torp (low order explosion??). Both subs then fired a volley, the US two torps and the IJN sub four torps, from 6000 yards. The US sub dived under the Japanese torps. The IJN sub blew up.

[strawbuk]

Yeah but surface torpedo shots? I meant that not gunnery.

[mdiehl]

Aaah.. comprendo. Yes, surfaced (or periscope depth) torpedo shots. The only effective acoustic torpedoes deployed in WW2 were air-dropped from Allied ASW in 1944+. You had to get pretty close to the target to use one, because their effective search speed was, IIRC, something like 18 knots.

[Mike Scholl]

One "quick fix" for a lot of ASW problems in the game would be to remove the
ability of any ASW platform to attack subs when moving at "full speed". High
Speed and ASW activity are incompatible as the noise and vibration of the ship's
own power plant drown's out the effectiveness of Sonar/ASDIC and such. Nobody
built "dedicated ASW ships" capable of more than 24 kts, and most "topped out"
at 20. A "thundering herd" of DD's charging through a hex at 30 kts is about as
dangerous to a submerged sub as "Charlie the Tuna"---they wouldn't pick up "squat".
This was one of the lessons Ernie King had to learn on the US Eastern Seaboard
during the U-Boat's "Second Happy Time" in the early months of 1942. The game
(most unfortunately) makes it a legitimate tactic.

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Oh my god.... mdiehl, i really belive you have serious problems...all the time you see "evil axisfanboys" and people who want to change "your" game...

but anyway. I just told my testresults. If you could explain why you draw the line between Göbbelspropaganda (by the way, i think this is a really serius insult, just think about it) and my results ?
Look, everybody knows that you are a ultrafanboy (nothing against fanboys... the way people here declare to be a fanboy is okay for me, just people like you are no "fanboys" but "blindguys".

Your comments about the american capabilities of asw in 1942 have proved this opinion very well. But, again, just tell me why my results are propaganda...

i made a test with allied and japanese subs, both in shallow waters, a lot subs in one hex to test the game engine...

and my results sounds unrealistic for me. Why ? cause large subs (and i hope we agree that american AND japanese subs were large (esp. compared with german Typ VII-subs) are not really manouverable (size DOES matter), and cause of their shallow depth (arond 300 feet) they are not as good as deep diving subs to resitst near and direct hits (remember, as deeper you o, as lesser is the effect of the dc (but also as worser is a small damage to the sub)
have not that high durability against hits in shallow waters.
This is correct given by japanese subs, but for american subs i see a mighty 10" extra armor... If such a situation (30 allied subs in a shallow hex for 30 days, hunted by around 100 DD+1ßß PG/PC/ASW, everything that can drop a dc + around 1000 + planes, all looking for this hex (reduced range), then they should be killed, all of em, or most.

But this do not happen - i hope we agree that such situation will never occur in the game (or the ai sucks or the human player against you), but it shows an error in the game engine...

No, i did not say that american subs are overrated - i play 1942scen, so the subs kill nothing... i just wrote that the surviving capability of american subs are way to high

American subs in ww2 countered only little asw capacity and nearly no convois... , in the ame "we" do it different... convois and as much asw as possible... so the allied subs should have higher loss ratio cause they fight against enemies who could fire back and are better protected by air...
if the game counter this human strategy by uebersubs 8and my results seem to show this) this would be wrong. Cause if the japanese side get more losses and trouble AND allied uebersubs are fighting, the game balance will shift even worser to the allied side...

Also, if you are so strictly behind the idea of correctness, do you use your subs only for some time, redraw them and let em stay in harbor for around 2 months ? yes...fine...

So, please stop (or do not start) insultings...
i never would play a game developted by you and a lot people would also do so. If you feel offended by this, sorry, change your attitude about different opinions...
I allways wrote that i would do these changes AND play the allied side. Can you say the same for the japanese side ? yes ? fine...

as long as you do not want to accept different opinions, stay on your "Reprogram the game if a torpedo can struck the second row or if the japanese side do NOT loose all ships at midway"

If you want to discuss these points, fine... but stay away from the insultin line... thank you