Matrix Games Forums

Hello,
I'am trying to sink the subs and they always avoid the naval combat (also having Surprise Points choosing surface combat)

I'am surely wrong doing it.

Help please & thanks.

As long as you have naval bombers that can fly to the 0 box, and the 'cruiser cycle' in the 0, 1, and 4 boxes, (and maybe long-range naval bombers to fly to the 4 box in critical sea areas), you're defending your convoys right.

Not much you can do with sub-hunting, although once they're implemented I believe the convoys in flames units provide some options.

Many thanks. I will use the CoiF's option in the next games.

Convoy in Flames isn't coded yet. My advice would be to keep playing a bit more. Or try one of the scenarios that start later in the war, such as Waking Giant perhaps, where each side has plenty of units ready to fight in the North Atlantic and South China Sea right away, so you can experience Submarine tactics immediately.

If the surface side has aircraft, the SUBs need 4 surprise points to change the combat to SUB or Surface. Over time with escorts both with the Convoy Points in the 0 box and in higher boxes, you will see all sorts of combats - Air, Surface, and "Sub" - in Sub Combat, the Convoy Point side gets ASW points for surface ships in the 0 box, and for aircraft. These do sink Submarines during convoy battles. Sometimes aircraft find the SUBs with lots of surprise points and cause plenty of casualties amongst the Submarines.

But it is always the player in charge of the SUB units that can decide whether to participate in a combat or not. The other side can only deploy their escorts and wait to see what happens.

Try to have cruisers as convoy escorts in the '0' box and cruisers patrolling in the '4' box at all times. Naval air in those boxes helps even more unless in storm or blizzard. When the units in the 4 box finds the submarines then there is a chance that the submarines will take real damage. Depending on the surprise points and how many units there is.

Having a escort of 4+ cruisers in each of the '0' box and the '4' box will sooner or later damage and destroy subs if the subs are active in that sea area.

Having units in the '1' box that remains at sea during the end of turn and move down to the '0' box is also important if the enemy moves his submarines during the first impulse of the turn.

Just as you need a lot of SUB's to get real good results against well protected convoys, you also need a lot of cruisers to kill SUB's.

Personally, as the CW, my goal wouldn't be to kill the German SUB's. It would be to protect the convoys and if I kill a SUB now or than, it's a plus. Now, in late game, with all the extra stuff the US puts into the Atlantic (especially a couple of small CV's to sail with the convoys), the SUB's will be killed much sooner than in early war.

I have experienced in my own flesh these days the strategy of my opponent regarding my subs.

It's all ok to do the 0, 1, 4, cycle as well as its very good to have a naval aur unit or a crappy CV in the 0 box, to force surprise expenditure.

What is new for me is that he included some Battleships (based in Portsmouth, Azores, and Canada), he moved them at his first impulse every turn, just a couple of BB each, the UK has more than enough, and he liberated some cruisers anyway, if there was a surface combat because they found the subs, the results were pretty different.