ORIGINAL: IgnacioSrtr
On the other hand, I find many comments in "real life" pointing other platforms (SSN/SSKs) other than aircraft as the main ASW threat. They also tend to present SSNs as capable and cost-effective assets for waging independent warfare in the enemies backyard. They would be neither capable nor cost-effective in that kind of warfare if they were so vulnerable to ASW aircraft. Sub operations would be forbidding without counter-air umbrella, under ice-cap situation or closed air bases. And yet Cold War navies invested so heavily in SSNs.
It is that difference in "threat rating" from real life comments to our experience playing CMANO that puzzles me.
The game has a tendency to exaggerate the performance of certain tactics. In Command authors put together scenarios to challenge other players. Hence they place a sub at point X and tell them they have to go to point Y. Between X and Y the scenario author puts some challenging obstacles and imposes a tight schedule in which to get the mission accomplished.
However the ocean is a big place, aircraft have limited availability, endurance & sonobuoys and one rarely knows what the enemy's operational intentions are. The US Navy could probably put up a near-impenetrable ASW cordon around New York harbor with the assets they command. But can they do so for Boston, Charleston, Mobile, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Honolulu? What about the SLOCs leading to those ports and the foreign ports they connect to?
I'm not an expert but the whole subs-as-best-ASW-tool works okay when you can station your subs off an opponent's sub base and then reliably trail their deployed subs without being detected in turn. That requires a large submarine force with a substantial acoustic and sensor advantage. Something the West had through the Cold War but has been eroding somewhat since then. The future of ASW looks to tip the balance toward a more multi-platform, networked approach to sub detection.