ASW Tech

[SMK-at-work]

Has anyone played agaisnt the TE long enough to feel the effects of ASW??

I lost 5 u-boats in 1 turn in mid-1916 which I presume was due to ASW tech - I'd been losing 1 every 2-3 turns up until then & had 10 on patrol then bam - half of them sunk!

[Szilard]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Has anyone played agaisnt the TE long enough to feel the effects of ASW??

I lost 5 u-boats in 1 turn in mid-1916 which I presume was due to ASW tech - I'd been losing 1 every 2-3 turns up until then & had 10 on patrol then bam - half of them sunk!

Yup, I've played a couple of games as CP & subs are toast by around about then.

[SMK-at-work]

I think it's a bit too high - perhaps ASW tech should also lower the chances of U-boats intercepting rather than jsut being how DD's kill them?
 
A summary of U-boat builds and losses is at http://www.gwpda.org/naval/sml00001.htm
 
.........built.....sunk...other losses.....difference
1915 ...52........19.......8.................+25
1916...108........22.......7................+79
1917....87........63.......15...............+9
1918....70........69........9................-8
 
So Germany was able to keep up with losses even from 1917 onwards, but in the game it's a bit of a massacre and as the CP I think I'll be ditching subs when this happens - yuo can't afford to be spending 3-6 resources/turn in order to replace 1-2 subs per turn IMO
 

[FrankHunter]

I think losing 78 subs a year for 1917 and 1918 is also a "massacre". 

In game terms the Germans are building 5, 11, 9 and 7 subs a year from 1915 to 1918 (which is a very big naval expenditure) and losing 3, 3, 8 and 8. 

That feels about right to me. 

[SMK-at-work]

Yes it is a lot of expenditure for the Germans to keep those levels....but they did it in real life and you can't do it in the game IMO - not because it costs too much, but because they get blown away so quickly once hte TE gets ASW tech and you get no return for them. 

In hte game you can lose in a turn or 2 what they lost in a year.....so hte U-boat fleet doesn't get massacred over a year - it gets massacred in 2-4 months!! 

They had over 200 u-boats building at the armistice.

I wonder if there could be some sort of diminishing returns for both u-boats and DD's?  If they sink a Tr or a U-boat then the chances of sinking the next one are halved or something like that?  Or perhaps they only get 1 attack per turn each?  I'm not sure exactly how it works but they bothj seem to partake un multiple battles.

Not because it's historical, but because it might bring the losses down to a level where Germany can sustain a U-boat campaign without getting too much of a free ride vs transports?