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Hi, For the record The BB TF also had an ASW TF of 6 DD assigned to follow. The contact occured in a hex where enemy submarines had been contacted prior and 2 other 6 ship ASW TF had been dispatched.
In the Celebes sea that turn were 8x6ship ASW TF sent to hexes where prior contacts occured and 2x6ship ASW TF following surface combat TF.
In range of the attack are 3x27ac groups set to 60percent ASW 2k feet less then normal range. Several 9xac groups and then all the float planes on all the ships currently at sea (that turn there were 6 BB 12 CA 8 CL 3 CS 4AV
The Celebes Sea is not exactly the best place to be in an Allied submarine at the moment.
I find the results of the last few days of the most intensive ASW operation I've ever yet conducted somewhat blasie.

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, For the record The BB TF also had an ASW TF of 6 DD assigned to follow. The contact occured in a hex where enemy submarines had been contacted prior and 2 other 6 ship ASW TF had been dispatched.
In the Celebes sea that turn were 8x6ship ASW TF sent to hexes where prior contacts occured and 2x6ship ASW TF following surface combat TF.
In range of the attack are 3x27ac groups set to 60percent ASW 2k feet less then normal range. Several 9xac groups and then all the float planes on all the ships currently at sea (that turn there were 6 BB 12 CA 8 CL 3 CS 4AV
The Celebes Sea is not exactly the best place to be in an Allied submarine at the moment.
I find the results of the last few days of the most intensive ASW operation I've ever yet conducted somewhat blasie.

But if the ASW TF is following a fast combat TF, it should be no better at ASW than the fast combat TF.[:)] I'mm being an ass now....[:D]

Ron, if you are going to complain everytime you get "Mogami"d, this is going to be a rather full forum. [:'(]

You just experienced what is known as "black sky" ASW. It is something that today's subs still fear even with the best stealth technology the USN can buy. The only defence to this is to not be there.

Anyone willing to devote the resources to sink subs will sink subs. It is that simple. It doesn't matter which side happens to be doing it apart from the fact the Allies have more resources (countered by Japan generally having more air search).

" back to the ASW stuff...

can someone explain the pros and cons of putting a PBY squadron on ASW patrol, but having 50% naval search? this seems to be an acceptable compromise to having two squadrons at a base, one on ASW and one on Naval Search...

perhaps it would be better to divide the squadron? have each section perform different mission?

thanks..."

When you choose ASW ops for an air unit, you no longer have the choise of any percentage of naval search. The percentage slider now controls what proportion of your air unit that will be performing ASW ops. The good news is that they will continue to report naval sightings (only at half range), but will be prosecuting attacks on subs that are sighted. At this point of my latest game (Jan 29, '42) I have confirmed as sunk five IJN subs, three by ASW air units and two by naval units.

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Ron, if you are going to complain everytime you get "Mogami"d, this is going to be a rather full forum. [:'(]

You just experienced what is known as "black sky" ASW. It is something that today's subs still fear even with the best stealth technology the USN can buy. The only defence to this is to not be there.

Anyone willing to devote the resources to sink subs will sink subs. It is that simple. It doesn't matter which side happens to be doing it apart from the fact the Allies have more resources (countered by Japan generally having more air search).

These things I'm posting are not exclusive to Mogami,they are universal, but he does make the best of a strange set of circumstances which the game's design creates. Thank Gawd he does not use the Japan ist turn move bonus windfall!![:D]

Definitely getting hot there south of PI, but subs are all the Allies have to possibly get a lucky shot at a CV or something, same with Japan later. If these 30kt ASW groups and the combat TFs they escort can conduct ASW ops at this speed, well, the use of subs as historically used is reined in. Hard to visualize all these ASW ships booting around and pinging (if they even had active sonar),slamming the subs despite subs not having a shot and revealing themselves , and remaining on station with the big boys through every hex, rinse and repeating as they go. To many places at once situation.[8|] There should be a little more performance restriction here.

You have to be pretty lucky to get a submerged sub into the right position to pop off a torpedo at a target charging along at 30 knots. In restricted waters, you generally know the path the ships will take, but in open ocean the odds go way down. Your subs are just not fast enough to intercept a fast moving surface group. Should one roll over your head by luck, it is the luck factor at work (or you can consider it code breaking).

This is another of those abstractions that you need to live with. If everything was vector based instead of hexes, people could plot their courses and the number of sub intercepts and sightings would go down by a couple order of magnitudes.

You have to be pretty lucky to get a submerged sub into the right position to pop off a torpedo at a target charging along at 30 knots. In restricted waters, you generally know the path the ships will take, but in open ocean the odds go way down. Your subs are just not fast enough to intercept a fast moving surface group. Should one roll over your head by luck, it is the luck factor at work (or you can consider it code breaking).

Just nitpicking here, but there were a lot more Ultra guided midocean intercepts in real life than are possible in the game...

As a player, all I have is a crystal ball and Ouija board to get my subs in the right place to attack combat TF's.

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

But if the ASW TF is following a fast combat TF, it should be no better at ASW than the fast combat TF.[:)]

Think 'sprint & drift'. More likely at the time, 'sprint & slow down'.

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, For the record The BB TF also had an ASW TF of 6 DD assigned to follow. The contact occured in a hex where enemy submarines had been contacted prior and 2 other 6 ship ASW TF had been dispatched.
In the Celebes sea that turn were 8x6ship ASW TF sent to hexes where prior contacts occured and 2x6ship ASW TF following surface combat TF.
In range of the attack are 3x27ac groups set to 60percent ASW 2k feet less then normal range. Several 9xac groups and then all the float planes on all the ships currently at sea (that turn there were 6 BB 12 CA 8 CL 3 CS 4AV
The Celebes Sea is not exactly the best place to be in an Allied submarine at the moment.
I find the results of the last few days of the most intensive ASW operation I've ever yet conducted somewhat blasie.

Actually the above is exactly why there are screams about ASW being way too effec-
tive in the game. Not only did the Japanese NEVER mount such dedicated ASW TF's in
1942, but no-one operated such groups of groups at that time. Obviously if players
insist on and are permitted to use ahistoric tactics, they are going to achieve ahistoric
results. This is a much more important factor in the game than any particular "value"
a vessel might have. Better Allied individual ship capabilities just make the situation
that much worse for the Japanese side.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

Obviously if players insist on and are permitted to use ahistoric tactics, they are going to achieve ahistoric results.

Exactly! Leave the capabilities historic. Let the players choose to play historic or ahistoric as they choose. PBEM players can partner for the game style they wish.

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

You have to be pretty lucky to get a submerged sub into the right position to pop off a torpedo at a target charging along at 30 knots. In restricted waters, you generally know the path the ships will take, but in open ocean the odds go way down. Your subs are just not fast enough to intercept a fast moving surface group. Should one roll over your head by luck, it is the luck factor at work (or you can consider it code breaking).

This is another of those abstractions that you need to live with. If everything was vector based instead of hexes, people could plot their courses and the number of sub intercepts and sightings would go down by a couple order of magnitudes.

So how lucky would you have to be to detect a sub on the other side of the coin?[8|]

So how lucky would you have to be to detect a sub on the other side of the coin?

Not if the sub was rushing to try and make the intercept [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

So how lucky would you have to be to detect a sub on the other side of the coin?

Not if the sub was rushing to try and make the intercept [:'(]

C'mon...[8D] I think there is more of a chance for a sub to see an onrushing TF (so what if it can attack) than the same TF detecting a sub, surfaced or not!

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, For the record The BB TF also had an ASW TF of 6 DD assigned to follow. The contact occured in a hex where enemy submarines had been contacted prior and 2 other 6 ship ASW TF had been dispatched.
In the Celebes sea that turn were 8x6ship ASW TF sent to hexes where prior contacts occured and 2x6ship ASW TF following surface combat TF.
In range of the attack are 3x27ac groups set to 60percent ASW 2k feet less then normal range. Several 9xac groups and then all the float planes on all the ships currently at sea (that turn there were 6 BB 12 CA 8 CL 3 CS 4AV
The Celebes Sea is not exactly the best place to be in an Allied submarine at the moment.
I find the results of the last few days of the most intensive ASW operation I've ever yet conducted somewhat blasie.

Actually the above is exactly why there are screams about ASW being way too effec-
tive in the game. Not only did the Japanese NEVER mount such dedicated ASW TF's in
1942, but no-one operated such groups of groups at that time. Obviously if players
insist on and are permitted to use ahistoric tactics, they are going to achieve ahistoric
results. This is a much more important factor in the game than any particular "value"
a vessel might have. Better Allied individual ship capabilities just make the situation
that much worse for the Japanese side.

Deep ocean sub hunter-killer groups were not deployed at the start of the war AFAIK, I agree. But what US ship fired the first shot against the Japanese at Pearl and what was it doing at the time? ASW patrols were done right from the very start.

ORIGINAL: dtravel

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, For the record The BB TF also had an ASW TF of 6 DD assigned to follow. The contact occured in a hex where enemy submarines had been contacted prior and 2 other 6 ship ASW TF had been dispatched.
In the Celebes sea that turn were 8x6ship ASW TF sent to hexes where prior contacts occured and 2x6ship ASW TF following surface combat TF.
In range of the attack are 3x27ac groups set to 60percent ASW 2k feet less then normal range. Several 9xac groups and then all the float planes on all the ships currently at sea (that turn there were 6 BB 12 CA 8 CL 3 CS 4AV
The Celebes Sea is not exactly the best place to be in an Allied submarine at the moment.
I find the results of the last few days of the most intensive ASW operation I've ever yet conducted somewhat blasie.

Actually the above is exactly why there are screams about ASW being way too effec-
tive in the game. Not only did the Japanese NEVER mount such dedicated ASW TF's in
1942, but no-one operated such groups of groups at that time. Obviously if players
insist on and are permitted to use ahistoric tactics, they are going to achieve ahistoric
results. This is a much more important factor in the game than any particular "value"
a vessel might have. Better Allied individual ship capabilities just make the situation
that much worse for the Japanese side.

Deep ocean sub hunter-killer groups were not deployed at the start of the war AFAIK, I agree. But what US ship fired the first shot against the Japanese at Pearl and what was it doing at the time? ASW patrols were done right from the very start.

The USS Ward was not doing a sustained run from point A to Point B at 30 knots in the open sea.

Hi, First the BB TF was not going 30 kts. (There are 3 speed settings. I don't use "full" very often.
Second the submarines had been detected on prior turns. Several prior turns because 2 ASW TF were already in the hex.

Japanese ASW ops on 31 Dec 1941

What does the above have to do with the TFs travelling at full or mission speed? (Don't forget, your TFs were racing at full speed on the in and out run from the enemy base and the ASW was following.

Being spotted is a game feature and design effect and these are the things we are questioning with regard to ASW ability to overachieve. Therefore it really has no place in our little niggle.

ORIGINAL: dtravel

Deep ocean sub hunter-killer groups were not deployed at the start of the war AFAIK, I agree. But what US ship fired the first shot against the Japanese at Pearl and what was it doing at the time? ASW patrols were done right from the very start.

Here you get into the area of "the Japanese cooperating with Allied ASW" by trying to
operate in very shallow water right outside a base. Even a midget sub was just asking
to be sunk moving into restricted waters with a standing ASW patrol.

There IS, however, a tremendous difference between a standing patrol in coastal
waters and the abilities given to ASW TF's in the game. SPEED and TIME are totally
ignored by the game in reality. ASW TF's dash around the ocean at full speed in the
game, detecting subs and delivering attacks instantaneously. This is pure BS. At
high speed, the only indication of a sub's presense in a hex would be a spread of
torpedoes in the water. Listening gear is totally worthless for the TF amid its own
operating noise (which also gives warning to the sub of it's approach).

Hunter-killer ASW TF's in the Atlantic used high speed movement to REACT to a
report of submarines in an area. They would rush to the area, then begin long
hours of slow patrolling to find and pin down the sub for a series of patient attacks
which could last for hours (even a day). In the game this whole process is ignored,
and that also makes for ahistoric results. I wouldn't have any objection to Mogami's
example of an ASW TF following his surface group and "reacting" to a subs attack
on the main TF by STOPPING in that hex and persecuting an attack on the sub for
the rest of the turn. But the game allows it to follow and make attacks hex after hex
at 30 knots totally ignoring the speed and time factors. In reality, these would be a
total waste of time, and of no danger to the sub at all.

Players CAN and DO operate with the benefit of hindsight, enabling late war tactics
of the Allies to be used by both sides. If realistic abilities are maintained for the ships
involved, the results are going to be better than historic because the tactics are. But
by giving ships the ability to do thes at full speed in the open ocean with no investment
of time, the results are skewed totally out of proportion. There is still much room for
improvement. Maybe a minus 75% modifier to ASW capabilities if the TF is set at full speed, and the loss of 4 hours (an average) of movement for every sub attack the TF
makes. These are simply some top-of-the-head suggestion---but something needs to
be done to the system to bring reality back into play.

Unfortunately it has been stated officially that ASW will not be changed as the developers and programmers are happy with it. "It is working as designed."[:(]

In support of game blantantly mis-representing ASW tactics at start of war for both sides ... will start hitting the books on this one tonight so that I can provide full refrences for all statements.

First two general statements. Japanese ASW is almost a contradiction in terms especially prior to late 1943 ... not only should groups larger than 1 not be allowed to perform ASW mission but re-area convoy's should be be allowed to be escourted at all ... and rear-area convoy's larger than 4 ships should be rare. These truisms change a little bit in late 43.

Second statement USN ASW was poor in 1942 ... German subs had a field day and USN sank total of 6 U-Boats I believe. The "Operation Plaster" Tactic ( essentially what the England group used in her famous week ) was not invented by Walker until 1943 ... even the 2 ship "creeping attack" was not a USN tactic until much later than Dec 41... single vessel ASW groups yes. No more until much later.

Now if the esteamed moderator types have references they can point us too which say otherwise we'd be happy to review them ! In the mean time I'll track down references for the above ( and more !). Time for the ASW Battle ! ( I guess the CV Strike battle is over - so we need another ! ).

And BTW in a recent start - S16 I ( as IJN ) lost 6 subs off Pearl in first 2 days to the thundering herds ... not 6 in one year !