Does SS stand for Stupid Subs?

[BigJoe417]

My sub force is taking torpeedo runs at Destroyers when big fat Battle ships are right there to shoot at. The destroyers, Battleships and I think even a japaneese fishing boat then drop depth charges and sink my subs. Kind of unrealistic aint it?

Another thing is how come the pby's never use their torpeedos to attack the subs they spot. As a matter of fact I've never seen any plane sink or even damage a sub when in reality planes were one of a submarines greatest threats in WWII.

Does anyone know if there is an explanation of the damage reports? What does severe damage mean vs. critical damage for example?

Some of these Japanese ships are downright invincible. I dropped 9, yes 9 1000 lb'rs on a CA and it didn't sink!

Well back to the battle.

Thanks for any help you can offer,
Joe

[Bill_L.]

"My sub force is taking torpeedo runs at Destroyers when big fat Battle ships are right there to shoot at. The destroyers, Battleships and I think even a japaneese fishing boat then drop depth charges and sink my subs. Kind of unrealistic aint it?"

Battleships, Cruisers and Light Cruisers may be listed as counterattacking a Submarine but they do not carry anti-sub weaponry.

"Another thing is how come the pby's never use their torpeedos to attack the subs they spot. As a matter of fact I've never seen any plane sink or even damage a sub when in reality planes were one of a submarines greatest threats in WWII."

As your units gain experience they will spot, attack and damage enemy subs with greater frequency.

[Piiska]

Remember the fog of war.

Subs don't always get a firing solution to the best possible target of the spotted TF. Sometimes they have to settle for the little fish.
Sometimes they fire their torpedos on the best target of a convoy but miss it and hit something else. Sometimes destroyers get mistaken as a battleship and so on and so on. Sometimes submarines report a hit on a destroyer, while they actually hit a cruiser.

I'm not sure which all of these conditions UV considers, but rest assured that after playing UV for long enough you do hit all sorts of thing with all sorts of weapons.

Sometimes you are in glee over sinking a small barge with a deck gun, sometimes you curse the captain wasting three torpedos on the similar sort of target. Sometimes your subcaptain surfaces to shoot a destroyer with a deck gun and gets killed for his mistake. All sort of weird things can happen in UV, but so far most of the things have been within a realistic scope.

What comes to airplanes attacking subs: Not everytime somebody reports a bomb hit there is one. Equally, sometimes hits go unreported and a sub you thought escaped sank few turns later.

I think most of the time when an airplane reports a sub sighting an attack attempt is made. However, attempts are not reported only the hits are in which case you get message "Reported HIT".

Hitting a cruiser with 9 general purpose (GP) bombs should not in most cases result in sinking of a heavy cruiser. You need to flood a ship and that doesn't happen if only the superstructure is hit with GP bombs, no matter how big the bombs are.

You can find plenty of discussion about the effect of such weapons on ships by doing a search of the UV and War in The Pacific (WITP) forums. Try searching posts made by Nikademus. He has a wealth of information about the effect of general purpose bombs on ships.

Besides, always remember that reporting is not accurate. Out of the nine reported bomb hits there could have actually been anything between 0-15 hits.

[HMSWarspite]

Originally posted by BigJoe417
My sub force is taking torpeedo runs at Destroyers when big fat Battle ships are right there to shoot at. The destroyers, Battleships and I think even a japaneese fishing boat then drop depth charges and sink my subs. Kind of unrealistic aint it?

Just because you see your sub attack a DD, doesn't mean that's what it was trying to attack. In a TF, the small ships screen the larger ones. If the SS cannot penetrate this screen, it may end up torpedoing the DD. You will get big ships attacked, patience...

Another thing is how come the pby's never use their torpeedos to attack the subs they spot. As a matter of fact I've never seen any plane sink or even damage a sub when in reality planes were one of a submarines greatest threats in WWII.

As someone else said, they do attack if they are good enough. The main advantage of aircraft spotting subs is that it makes sub attacks less likly, and forces the sub to evade, use fuel etc.

Does anyone know if there is an explanation of the damage reports? What does severe damage mean vs. critical damage for example?

No, treat it as a combat report - "I hit it good, I'm sure I did", " Well so did I, I saw the explosion"

Some of these Japanese ships are downright invincible. I dropped 9, yes 9 1000 lb'rs on a CA and it didn't sink!

Did you have FoW on? Because if so, you didn't see 9 bombs hit, you got 9 crews that CLAIMED they hit. Most of them probably didn't (due to stress, fear, enthusiasm, multiple reporting of the same hit, and plain being wrong, you get over reporting - very historical)

Well back to the battle.

Thanks for any help you can offer,
Joe

Good luck - keep on at it, the game rewards practice and learning all to get the best out of it.

[entemedor]

quote:
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Another thing is how come the pby's never use their torpedos to attack the subs they spot. As a matter of fact I've never seen any plane sink or even damage a sub when in reality planes were one of a submarines greatest threats in WWII.
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I think the FIDO anti-submarine torpedo was used only in the Atlantic. Your ASW planes should start using their depth-charges when they are experienced enough, surely you have received some 'plane spots submarine' messages, every time that happens the plane is surely checking its experience or other factors, a moment will come when the attacks will arrive.

Also check the altitude at which your ASW missions are carried.

Good luck and patience!

[thantis]

Destroyers were originally called "Torpedo-boat Destroyers" and were designed to screen the larger warships from torpedo boats (and eventually submarines). A submarine will take the best shot it can get - they will attempt to go after the big guys, but if a destroyer gets in the way or attempts to make a run on it, a destroyer is better than nothing.

Of course, Japanese submarines seem to have no problem getting at my BB's & CV's, no matter how many escorts I have.

[BigJoe417]

Thanks for the input guys!

"Did you have FoW on? Because if so, you didn't see 9 bombs hit, you got 9 crews that CLAIMED they hit. Most of them probably didn't (due to stress, fear, enthusiasm, multiple reporting of the same hit, and plain being wrong, you get over reporting - very historical)"

If this is so then whats the use of the animations of ship explosions and detailed reports of "Critical Damage", "Sever Flooding", "Explosions below Deck" , etc....

My Subs are getting clobbered my too easily. Maybe they are too inexperienced and I should only have them go after small ships to build experience before going after big Capital ships.

What kind of ship is a AG? What does it do?


thanks

[mdiehl]

I think the FIDO anti-submarine torpedo was used only in the Atlantic. Your ASW planes should start using their depth-charges when they are experienced enough, surely you have received some 'plane spots submarine' messages, every time that happens the plane is surely checking its experience or other factors, a moment will come when the attacks will arrive.

FIDO was used in both theaters, and widely deployed. All US CV/CVL/CVE that carried TBFs carried FIDOs for ASW late in the war. Land based patrol a/c carried them as well.

Allied LBA should be very effective at suppressing Japanese subs from the start of the game, if not actually sinking them. As the game progresses, more should be sunk outright. Japanese LBA, on the other hand, should be quite weak at the job and get worse as the war progresses, owing to US-sub radar.

Indeed, too much faith has probably been placed in "experience gain" as a factor in defending against IJN subs. US ships and a/c were extremely well trained in this regard, and ships with no prior combat engagements in WW2 account for most of the IJN sub kills.

Interested parties should see the TROMs for Japanese subs posted at the following link. You'll see numerous mention in late war of US Avengers dropping FIDOs on Japanese subs. Like this one:

16 July 1945:
550 miles E of Yokosuka. At 0747, the radarman in Lt (j.g.) W. McLane's Grumman TBM "Avenger" from VC-13 of Task Group 30.7's USS ANZIO (CVE-57) picks up a Japanese submarine running on the surface. McLane opens fire with his .50 cal. machine guns and 5-inch rockets. The submarine dives, but leaves a trail of oil on the surface. McLane drops depth charges, then sonobuoys and a Mark 24 "Fido" acoustic homing torpedo.

http://64.124.221.191/sensuikan.htm

[entemedor]

mdiehl,
thanks a lot for the Sensuikan link, it's the best I have seen in some time. In my previous comment about FIDO being used just in the Atlantic I failed to include the sentence 'during the period covered by UV', I believed they were not deployed in the Pacific till the end of 1943, but I can be wrong.
While checking that Sensuikan link I am revising some of the data I have on IJN submarine losses, I see for example that I-19, which some sources have as possibly sunk by USN aircraft on 18 Oct 1943, is credited by Sensuikan to USS RADFORD on 25 Nov 1943. The same old sources identified the sub sunk by RADFORD as I-40, we should wait for the I-40's TROM to be added to the page to see her details.
A pity also that the TROMs for the RO medium submarines are not yet available, because RO-100 is also a possible early victim of FIDO in the Pacific, but I don't known even the Squadron to which it was credited.
It's a pity that such detailed information on the I.J. Navy's movements and operations was not available when most of the official or 'classic' accounts of the Pacific War were published, perhaps they would have been quite different. John D. Alden's book on US submarine successes has shown that most of the attributions made by JANAC concerning torpedoed Japanese ships are at least doubtful. It's clear now that the same happens with losses of Japanese submarines. I-19 would have never been presumed lost in 18 October had it been known that a month later she was still in radio contact with her base.

Well, I don't know if that has very much to do with UV, but when I start writing...

Cheers,

Entemedor

[mdiehl]

AG == Armed auxiliary. Depending on the vessel, this could be anything from an armed trawler to a '327 Secretary class US Coast Guard cutter (a formidable, destroyer like cutter with 2-4 5" guns, aft DC, K-guns, hedgehogs, FIDO (in 1945), and a 9000 mile cruising range... no bs).

Entemedor: my pleasure. I love combinedfleet.com. The technical and TROM data there have been extremely useful to me for cutting through all kinds of historical fog.

[BigJoe417]

Do you guys know if there are any other ships that can lay mines besides the Argonaut Sub?

thanks,
Joe

[Grumbling Grogn]

All US subs can lay mines. I have not played the Japanese so I can not comment on them.

The Argo is just a heck of a lot bigger than the old S class and thus can carry more mines and is much better at it. But, I have been using TFs of 3 old S class subs for mining and it works fine. Not sure it is the best use of the subs but it works...

[BigJoe417]

Thanks, seems like when I send a sub to Nouema and task it for mines it doesnt show them in the ships read out?

[denisonh]

One peculiar thing about US sub minelaying is that you have to create new minelaying TFs for non-Argonaut subs.

They won't simply reload, but you have to create a new sub-minelaying TF. It notify you as you add the subs to the TF that it is loading the mines.

[Grumbling Grogn]

I have just noticed a bug where my Argo would not automatically reload mines. I had to click the "Fuel from base" button. It was fine after that but don't assume just because you put into port and your sub is in a mine warfare TF it will resupply...

[denisonh]

The first turn a TF goes into port, you have to hit the fuel from port button.

If you leave the TF in port without giving it orders, it will automatically refuel and rearm that turn.

[mbatch729]

Unless something changed, you have to disband the minelaying task force, then re-create it to get it to load mines. Hitting the refuel button would not load mines. It does reload torps though. That was at least a v2.00 and below. Not sure if that was changed in later releases. At work and don't have the readme files.

[denisonh]

Argonaut's the exeception to that rule. It will reload mines when you hit the fuel from port button.

And you don't HAVE to disband. When you create the new sub minelaying TF, you just pick the subs from the previous TF into the new TF:) .

[mogami]

Hi, I'm finding my minelayers (surface) are reloading mines when they refuel without disbanding.

[BigJoe417]

Hi Mogami,


Do you mean by (surface) mine layers that some ships other than subs can lay mines? If so which ones? Thanks,
Joe