ASW TFs -- floating targets?

[UncleBuck]

Just as in teh Atlantic, once Allied subs started to use Hedhog type weapons for ASW the enemy subs were finished. They were not wonder weapons but they were contact onlyu. htey also had a much greater range than the depth charge and one hit woudl seriously damge a sub. More than that, it woudl tell the hunters where they sub was , the mortar woudl nto explode except for contact, and using simple time/water qualtity you had a very good idea of depth.

Early in the war, I don't have much trouble driving IJN subs away I report hits, and lots of them, but no subs show up as sunk. THey may be damaged, but i thin kit is more FOW than anything else. Late war, when I attach ASW TF's to Convoys it is deadly to subs.

UB

[Nikademus]

Hedgehogs weren't so great because as mentioned...they were contact only which required a direct hit to do anything vs. depth charges which only needed a near miss. As part of an overall arsenal of course....it was one more piece of the puzzle.

The greatest difference and most effective weapon? The aircraft.

Most effective ASW platform.....the B-24.

[UncleBuck]

Not in the Pacific. Much to much area teh B-24's couldn't cover. The Hedge Hog gave you very accurate data on where teh Sub was. Also It increased the area ONE ASW ship could attack by 150%. The Range was fairly good and teh dispersion was also good. Once you found them with a Hedghog attack rolling Depth charges was teh Coup de grace.

UB

[Nikademus]

Correct. That was one of the biggest differences between the Pacific and Atantic......the airpower factor. The Allies were able to cover more and more of their routes in the Atlantic with airpower save for the mid-ocean Iceland gap and that was closed latewar by the CVE. The vast stretches of the Pacific made land based ASW all but impossible but was largely moot anyway since the Japanese never seriously attempted a commerce war against the long USN supply lines.

Wasn't saying the "hedgehog" wasn't effective...just that it's overrated. Simple common sense....a contact only weapon is harder to get a hit with vs a proximity weapon....same scenerio as with the VT fuse. If you ask me, a much better system to tout would be the forward/side throwing DC rack. Regardless....the scourage of the Uboat was the aircraft. Aircraft made it all but impossible for Uboats to approach on surface or charge batteries or escape (save for slow underwater). They were also the primary component that made the HK group workable as a concept.

[Feinder]

Did they even have FORWARD firing DCs...?

Capt - Fire the forward DC launcher!
Petty Officer - But sir!
Capt - I said do it!
Petty Officer - FIRE!
(* kapow *)
(* glug... glug... glug...*)
Petty Officer - Sir...?
Capt - Yes Petty Officer?
Petty Officer - Shouldn't we alter course?
Capt - Why?
(* DD moves over where DC landed *)
(* KABOOM! *)
(* Keel of DD splits in two, DD sinks with all hands, except for the PO who is thrown clear *)
Petty Officer - That's why sir!

-F-

[Nikademus]

LOL....your right....make that side throwing. (always the fun part about posting from work )

[Speedysteve]

LOL Feinder[:D]

[strawbuk]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

The Allies were able to cover more and more of their routes in the Atlantic with airpower save for the mid-ocean Iceland gap and that was closed latewar by the CVE.

Pedantic old me but ...Nope - landbased air (Veeeeeeeeeeerry LR Libertors) could eventualy close whole gap, by clever basing. And CVEs less effective due to inabilty to fly aircraft off for the autumn/winter/spring months of year in N Atlantic when Uboats most acrtive. CVEs saw most ASW action further south.

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
Wasn't saying the "hedgehog" wasn't effective...just that it's overrated. Simple common sense....a contact only weapon is harder to get a hit with vs a proximity weapon....same scenerio as with the VT fuse. If you ask me, a much better system to tout would be the forward/side throwing DC rack.

Agree in that it was hard to get a 'hit' due to contact fuse, (though 'near miss' on a depth charge is over rated - you would still need to be pretty close with several DC for a kill and it is a big three dimensional ocean even with a good asdic plot) but any sub hit by a direct contact of 35lbs of Torpex is unlikely to come back up again.

[mdiehl]

Early war, Allied ASW wasn't very good...about on par with the IJN. British ASW probably WORSE than the IJN...IRC the Brits had their ASW AC "shot down" in their first 3 attacks on U-boats.

In most sub vs Allied escort encounters if the subs stuck around to shoot anything at the escorts it was the subs' lunch that got eaten. Examples abound. It had little to do with experience. *All* Allied escort crews were adequately trained to give them an advantage against an aggressive submarine, and far far better trained and equipped for ASW than their Japanese escort counterparts. One of the keener examples was in May 1942. A German Type IX fired a torpedo spread at a container ship escorted by a USCG 165' patrol yacht. The container ship spotted the torps and evaded. The sub fired another shot at the 165' as it closed to attack. The sub missed. The yacht collected toothpaste tubes that bobbed to the surface after *one* DC run. While this is not typical (1 attack 1 kill), the balance in escort vs sub warfare always favored the escort *surviving* such an encounter *unscathed*. In 1942 the usual result was that the sub submerged and escaped as long as the skipper was not foolish enough to stick around. When the subs stayed to fight with escorts, they lost virtually every time.

The RN/RCN were in 1941 somewhat better than the USN. Both navies were far superior to the IJN at ASW, and escorts of both navies were likely to sink a submarine foolish enough to engage an escort.

Their bombs bounced off, exploded in the air, and "shot down" the attacking AC.
In at least on of the attacks, the U-boat was kind enough to "rescue" the aircrew. Lack of experience, lack of training, crappy equipment.

Leaving aside the strange notion of making a trend out of one incident, (and that one involving an a/c), the RN surface escorts were more than a match for an aggressive German sub, when the sub was found. The usual problem for the Uk had very little to do with losses of escorts, but rather with merchant ships.

The USN had 3 things going for them; (1) The U-boats taught them ASW the hard way, and in a very unforgiving school.

Bunk. Escorts knew how to sink subs, even in 1939 even in the USN. The "unforgiving school" of which you speak has nothing to do with escort losses and more to do with C2 losses. Even then, speaking for example of the "happy time" the problem was not so much one of training or equipment but rather one of a simple numerical insufficiency of escorts. In most cases, when an escort was attacked by a submarine, the submarine missed. If the submarine then stayed for a follow up shot, odds favored the escort to sink the submarine. That is why the sub's best tactic was always to not engage escorts at all (shooting a torp at one was usually a wasted shot) and to flee from escorts when detected.

(2) The I-boats were no where near as tough a customer as a U-boat. (3) Willingness to learn, evolve doctrine, and a strong industrial base providing new and innovative equipment and weapons.

True enough for the rest.

[mdiehl]

VLR liberators could cover the mid-ocean gap via Iceland bases. Some of the same weather problems as the CVEs faced. Another big hole in the mid-ocean gap was solved when the US negotiated with Portugal to use the Azores as a VLR liberator ASW base and transfer base for moving a/c to N.Africa.

[Nikademus]

Ya nitpicker you [;)]. Yes eventually repositioning allowed land based aircraft to close the gap but it was tenuous at first due to the range and CVE's helped fill the gaps.

[mdiehl]

Hedgehogs weren't so great because as mentioned...they were contact only which required a direct hit to do anything vs. depth charges which only needed a near miss. As part of an overall arsenal of course....it was one more piece of the puzzle

Hedgehogs were very good because they could cover the arc ahead of the ship and submarine and in effect make an attack before the sub knew it was being attacked. The usual tactic for a submerged submarine undergoing attack was to listen for the position of the attacking escort as it revved up and overran the sub. When the escorts screws were heard to be passing over the sub, the boat would then usually turn very hard to evade the attack. Adding k guns to escorts helped a little, but a DC almost had to hit a submarine at shallow depth (less than 100') in order to do significant damage, and at that depth it usually required several hits close abroad to bring a submarine to surface or to sink it out right. With hedghogs, the submarine often did not know that it was being attacked, and was travelling straight ahead in anticipation of a DC run.

The advantage to Hedghogs were numerous. They could cover a large area with one bomblet per 15 feet of arc. Not much room for a sub to get through (although of course the coverage was not perfect owing to stochastic variation in projectile flight). Also, a hedghog did not f*ck up the Sonar the way a DC did. An unsuccessful DC run would burble the water and create sound echoes that gave the attacked submarine about 15 minutes of time to run like hell when SONAR would be useless near the point of the DC attack. An unsuccessful hedgehog attack, however, let the attacking escorts continue to use SONAR to set up another attack.

Finally of course 1 hedgehog hit was usually enough to bring a sub to surface. Two hits usually killed the submarine outright.

It was an excellent ASW weapon. A key component in a multi-component profile that virtually eliminated the submarine threat after May 1943.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

It was an excellent ASW weapon. .

Didn't say otherwise. What i said was that it was no "wonder weapon". [:)]

[mdiehl]

Didn't say otherwise. What i said was that it was no "wonder weapon".

Right you are maybe. Some escort commanders viewed it as a wonder weapon. It is certain that kill rates climbed dramatically as ships were fitted with it. Perhaps you're thinking of "mousetrap" -- the earlier ahead-thrown weapon. It had the same merit in re attack profile but had much poorer area coverage.

[Nikademus]

Clay Blair didn't think all that much of it, but i agree as part of an overall improved ASW package it made life pretty miserable for Uboat commanders. Less options, less avenues etc etc. The #1 killer though remained aircraft. Even before they started actually "killing" uboats (late war) they made life difficult just by forcing Uboats to submerge hindering their movement/escape/ability to charge weapons. Starting in 43 they began to be better at killing as well as spotting, utilizing low level DC attacks not to mention a cute little nugget called FIDO.

[Twotribes]

Yet Ron on this thread said the complaint that asw was to good was because of games in 1944, when IT should be good.

[Nikademus]

1944ish i dont have as much of a problem with though tests showed it was pretty lethal, probably a little too lethal but not by all that much.

1942 is a different story of course.

[Twotribes]

1942, I am in, and it isnt leathal at all, I have lost more DD and MSW and an AVD on ASW then Submarines sank. I seldom detect subs and when I do I seldom hit them. And every attack starts with the sub FIRST firing at one of my platforms, usually hitting and sinking it.

[Nikademus]

interesting. what test parameters are you using?

[strawbuk]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

1942, I am in, and it isnt leathal at all, I have lost more DD and MSW and an AVD on ASW then Submarines sank. I seldom detect subs and when I do I seldom hit them. And every attack starts with the sub FIRST firing at one of my platforms, usually hitting and sinking it.

Which in 1942, whether the ASW ship is in a 'HK' or an e3scort to a convoy or warship TF, is how it should. Glad the game is working well for you. [:D]

Reflects sequence that a moves into or finds itself in a good position to start and attack run(usulay , out of decent asdic range. Sub tries an attack, in doing so either a sinking ship or a torp track alerts defence, or fact the sub moved into asdic range (I WILL keep calling it asdic...) allowed chance for escorts to find it and attack back. The allied reponse should get better and better over three years and in SOME cases in late war ASWs will get drop on sub.