Which CRT to Use? Or, 1D10 vs 2D10?

[rkr1958]

Winston Churchill was quoted as saying (something to the effect) that the German threat that kept him up at night was the u-boat threat and that was greatest threat to the survival of Britain.

I wanted to start this threat to picked folks brains on how best to fight the Battle of the Atlantic as either the allies or the axis. As the axis I never seem to be able to make a real impact with my subs. As the allies, especially the CW, I've developed a strategy that I use to protect my convoys. This strategy was developed through solo play and against an ineffective (or inexperienced) axis player (i.e., myself). I'm looking for advice on how to play the Battle of the Atlantic better. First off, let me give you an example of the strategy I use as the CW player to protect my convoys.

The screen cap below illustrates the general strategy that I'm currently using to protect my convoys against Euro-axis submarines. In sea areas threaten by submarines I will have with the convoys in the 0 box a number of cruisers greater than or equal to the number of axis subs that are in or could move that sea area. I then have that number minus one in the 1 box. And finally, I have a cruiser in the 4 box. When the turn ends, the cruisers in the 1 box move down to the 0 box. The cruiser in the 4 box moves to the 3 box. Then, I take a naval and move the cruiser in the 3 box to the 0 box. Move a number of cruisers equal to or greater than the sub threat to the 1 box and 1 cruiser to the 4 box.

As the Euro-axis players how would you go about defeating it? As the allied players, how do you protect your convoys? As the axis player what strategies do you use to make an impact.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

It's very, very difficult to get convoy losses in WiF comparable to what the British suffered historically. If you work with the WiF scaling that 6 convoy points is a million tons of shipping, then historically the Allies lost about 80 CP in the Atlantic. I've never seen a WiF game get close to that, and if they did, the Allies would never, ever win.

That being said, onto the game itself. Your strategy, as posted, is effectively unbeatable, as long as the unspoken conditions are met. As far as I can tell, you're playing with CLiF but without CoIF (Which isn't implemented yet AFAIK). It's almost impossible to get an effective axis threat going with that setup, as the extra light cruisers don't help the Axis nearly as much as the 38 extra cruisers the CW start for free with. Without the extra reach that the CoiF provides the Germans, you can flood all the necessary seazones with as many cruisers as you need, and let them go to the bottom without any appreciable worry of running out.


Try playing without light cruisers, see how things go. Now, I find that the Axis have a tough time breaking the convoy lines, but at the very least you're going to force the Allies to spend a lot of effort either building more ships, or more likely, building cheap navs to cover your zero boxes because you can't afford to flood your vulnerable areas with 2 cruisers for each sub per sea zone.

[warspite1]

Re the Churchill quote, for another perspective on the U-boat war try Clay Blair's Hitler's U-Boat War (both volumes). Blair suggests the Axis were not close - were never anywhere near - to winning the Battle of the Atlantic.

Anyway, back to the game. I think the main thing I have learned is that as the Axis you HAVE to have the threat. Build Subs and be ready to pounce. You can really hurt the Allied player. If the Allied player is good he will give you few chances, but in so doing, he may have to forego better opportunities elsewhere. He cannot do everything.

I see the Kriegsmarine and the U-Boats as fleets in being. So long as you have them, you CAN hurt the enemy and he CANNOT ever afford to take his eye off the ball.

[Centuur]

What most people are forgetting is the fact that Germany had an enormous number of U-boats build during the war. If Germany want's to recreate this in WiF, you need to empty the force pool to simulate this, because they build over 1.000 of them.... If you do so, there is the possibility of killing a lot of convoy points. But I've never seen a player who favours the U-boat war for building out a very large Luftwaffe or the MECH and ARM in abundance for use in the USSR...

[Jagdtiger14]

I think the first thing is to begin the game with a strategy that will allow you to do this. Its going to be hard if you plan on a '41 Barbarossa since then you need to prioritize land movement as much as possible. Only some times will you be able to choose a combined, and only in terrible weather (mostly Winter) will you do a naval.

I think you would have to take Gibraltar, align Spain (or invade), take Portugal (Lisbon is an awesome port). Perhaps do a '42 Barbarossa, in which case the battle for the Atlantic is probably over anyway when the US comes into the war.

I think Ur Vile has it correct concerning CLiF and CoiF. I think in CoiF Germany gets about a dozen merchant raiders (read the story about the Atlantis). These can be very effective. And of course do what Centaur says and empty your force pool of U-boats.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

It's very, very difficult to get convoy losses in WiF comparable to what the British suffered historically. If you work with the WiF scaling that 6 convoy points is a million tons of shipping, then historically the Allies lost about 80 CP in the Atlantic. I've never seen a WiF game get close to that, and if they did, the Allies would never, ever win.

That being said, onto the game itself. Your strategy, as posted, is effectively unbeatable, as long as the unspoken conditions are met. As far as I can tell, you're playing with CLiF but without CoIF (Which isn't implemented yet AFAIK). It's almost impossible to get an effective axis threat going with that setup, as the extra light cruisers don't help the Axis nearly as much as the 38 extra cruisers the CW start for free with. Without the extra reach that the CoiF provides the Germans, you can flood all the necessary seazones with as many cruisers as you need, and let them go to the bottom without any appreciable worry of running out.


Try playing without light cruisers, see how things go. Now, I find that the Axis have a tough time breaking the convoy lines, but at the very least you're going to force the Allies to spend a lot of effort either building more ships, or more likely, building cheap navs to cover your zero boxes because you can't afford to flood your vulnerable areas with 2 cruisers for each sub per sea zone.

Yes CLiF is hugely Allied favorable. Ought to be banned without COiF and in fact both ought to be banned for the trouble they're worth! [:)]

[composer99]

rkr1958:

If you're playing without light cruisers, the Allied strategy described in the OP would quickly require too many ships, at least as long as the Axis made the effort to build submarines.

What I usually do as the Allies, and what I'm led to believe is fairly standard, is something similar but not identical to what you've done.

In areas threatened by submarines, sail:
- 1-2 cruisers to the 0 box
- 1-2 cruisers to the 1 box
- 1-2 cruisers to the 4 box
- have NAV on standby to react to the 0 box
- in the North Atlantic, sail a CVL to the 0 box and one to the 1 box, if you have planes for them
- in key sea areas (i.e. anywhere with 10+ convoys), I like to put in an old, slow BB in the 0 box to keep subs from calling surface combats and picking off the escorts too easily, as well as other slow cruisers that can't cycle between the high and low boxes (Danish cruisers, the monitors, etc.).

At the end of the turn, the ships in the 0 box go back to their designated port, the ships in the 1 box go the 0 box, and the ships in the 4 box go to the 3 box (and then when you get a chance you move them to the 1 box); the CVLs do the same thing (without the 3 box part).

This allows you to have a constant cycle of defences set up. You can run out of cruisers with this scheme, too, if the Axis build enough submarines, but I suppose the USSR is happy if that happens, and you don't have as much need for army/air force in such a case.

[composer99]

For the Axis, if you are going to launch a BoA, you have to build submarines. Usually the best bet is to hit weak points in the Allied defences, and sink enough convoys that they have to build them or re-route them from heavily-defended "trunk routes".

IMO you want to launch mass attacks on main routes late in the turn with the hope of getting lucky, sinking convoys, and cutting production.

[composer99]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

It's very, very difficult to get convoy losses in WiF comparable to what the British suffered historically. If you work with the WiF scaling that 6 convoy points is a million tons of shipping, then historically the Allies lost about 80 CP in the Atlantic. I've never seen a WiF game get close to that, and if they did, the Allies would never, ever win.

I wish that last part was true. At WiFCon 2005 my Axis partner and I sunk something like 100 convoy points. We still lost.

[Jagdtiger14]

I agree with what composer wrote in #7 and #8. That is the standard, and everyone of our face to face players does this even though we never play with light cruisers, so it can be a challenge. We do this as well with the Japs and US.

Ok, so it wasn't you we played in 2005...I've been wondering about that...we played against a Canadian group, then the next year vs Rader and co.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: composer99

For the Axis, if you are going to launch a BoA, you have to build submarines. Usually the best bet is to hit weak points in the Allied defences, and sink enough convoys that they have to build them or re-route them from heavily-defended "trunk routes".

IMO you want to launch mass attacks on main routes late in the turn with the hope of getting lucky, sinking convoys, and cutting production.

And if you do find the Allies in the North Atlantic with a lot of surprise be aware that you can call a sub combat and use 3 surprise points to pick one of those escorting CVLs for a sink. Do that a couple times and the CW will have to put a good CV out to escort, which in itself is a victory and gives an opportunity for the same thing to happen with even a juicier target.

[AlbertN]

In most cases I find myself short of BPs to invest in submarines early in the game, and when I can afford them - later in '42 maybe depending on how it goes, well by now the Allied CPs have plenty of self defence + cruisers and all.

Also there is the issue of the Naval Actions which the Germans can barely squeeze in.

Last but not least you need to luck of the roll of surprise, to find and fight at your terms as well.

In general it seems a much poor design which can only grant big rewards with investment (ensured) by your side and much luck to the rolls.
You'd sacrifice movement on the land where you could need it, or an amount of rebases - for nothing accomplished as well.


The biggest benefit you could have is that IF you luck out, cripple UK shipping and a single turn production, their production maximals (how many units per type) will drastically drop. It happened once out of 3-4 games for now.

For now my "Battle for Atlantic" tactic has been rather simplicistic. Barbarossa '42, and invade Spain. Once you've Gibraltar and Lisbon - place Regia Marina and Kriegsmarine there, and fight with your surface fleet (which you have already) to delay British build ups.

Also my gaming partner tend to evacuate Bay of Biscay and Cape St. Vincent and use a further away route to avoid Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronatica interdiction. (You won't like the HE112, the 6 A-A German ftr in the 2 box, with a NAV, and ontop of a +2 out of 19 Convoys, finding you at a roll of 5); or to get Axis ships at a high box.

But the submarines in most cases tend to ... ugh ... let's say for now their biggest benefit is the threat forcing the UK to scatter escorts all around, and burn the oil they do not lack.

[rkr1958]

I'd like to get a reaction to this. I just restarted a game and this time I elected NOT to play with cruisers in flames. While it's early (Jan/Feb 1940) and German u-boats haven't directly sunk any CW convoys, the game feels that German u-boats and Italian subs have more of a chance of making an impact then when I played with Cruisers in Flames. I do miss the exact ships but the game (so far) seems to play faster and more "realistically" at sea. I know it's too early to make that second claim but it somehow feels that way.

My limited experience seems to tell me that playing with cruisers in flames is unbalancing at sea significantly in the allies favor.

I also went back to the 1D10 CRT and I'm liking that better the 2D10 from the axis perspective too.

[paulderynck]

Good thing you have Blitz Bonus on if playing 1D10 and Divisions. It's WWI otherwise.

[rkr1958]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

Good thing you have Blitz Bonus on if playing 1D10 and Divisions. It's WWI otherwise.

Paul, I guess it's my inexperience but I'm finding that the 1D10 CRT (w/Blitz Bonus and Divisions too) make things easier for Germany in 1939 and 1940.

[paulderynck]

There isn't too much difference between 1D10 with Blitz Bonus and 2D10. The degree of good or bad luck is accentuated in 2D10, but that's about it.

[Jagdtiger14]

Well, here I have to disagree with you Paul. There is a huge difference between the 1d10 (which should be gotten rid of in WiF) even with blitz bonus and the 2d10. Anyone with knowledge of statistics will understand the bell curve and prediction of results and averages. I would like to see a statistical analysis of each result on the 2d10...Mayhemizer...if you are reading, could you do this please? On a 1d10 it is an even 10% for each result.

[paulderynck]

That's right, not all the results are split evenly into 10% probabilities. They vary from the bad end starting at 1% up to 10% and back to 1% at the good end. Get good enough odds either way and chances are you'll win the attack, but the degree of good or bad luck is accentuated in 2D10.

However, if you want to get into the stats for any actual attacks, you could use the VB calculator program I wrote.

Here's an example of the same odds attack with 2D10 versus 1d10. For all the stats aficionados in the audience, a +2 in 2D10 is equivalent to a +1 in 1D10. You can see how different? the tables are. Happy to show this comparison for other odds/blitz/assault/objectives/number of units involved - that you'd like to see.

[Jagdtiger14]

Ok, that sounds fairly straight forward (percentages). I guess I need your definition of "degree"...but luck is actually less accentuated in the 2d10 due to the bell curve. Its kinda like playing craps in a casino...notice the 2 and 12 results give you a greater chance of winning money, while the house keeps the 7 (most likely result on any roll of the die). With the 2d10 you can make a better decision or prediction on any attack...with the 1d10 you are just as likely to roll a 1 as you are a 4 or 5 or 10. 1d6 would never work in craps...the house would never have an advantage. The 11 is the advantage on the 2d10.

If you only have 1 or 2 attacks to make on a particular front, you might pile on what you can whether its the 1d10 or 2d10. But if you have a very broad front (Barbarossa) and want to make many attacks (or later in a turn and you have less to work with if its only 1 or two attacks)...at what point do you consider each attack acceptable? The bell curve helps you make that decision.

[paulderynck]

When you have a well-planned attack fail on a 1% chance in 2D10 versus it doing so on a 10% chance in 1D10, then you know what I mean by degree.

In the 2D10 attack you would have had much higher odds and still rolled badly. That's an extremely unlucky result.

But overall, choose any odds along with the other variables like blitz versus assault and how may defending units there are; and the likelihood of success is very close to the same with either table. If you attack across a broad front in Barbarossa you can only get as many 5 to ones up 2 with 1D10 as you can get +14s with 2D10. Make too many attacks and they'll all be 3 to 1s with 1D10 and +6s with 2D10 and very quickly your offensive will be out of steam due to so many attacking units getting disorganized - with either table.