Matrix Games Forums

I'm gonna put this up as a tip, because I seem to get alot more milage out of my subs than others that post:

1. Depth is your friend. Avoid Coastal and Shallow water hexes. You'll see the survival rate of your subs and their crews skyrocket if you keep 300' feet of water underneath their keel. You can see which hexes are Coastal and Shallow hexes by pressing "F2".
2. Don't park them in an enemy base. "But it's fun! There are guarenteed targets!" True on both accounts, but... This goes back to rule #1. Enemy bases are almost, if not always Coastal hexes. Sure you get the shot at the target entering or leaving port. But then you've got his 4 p1ssed off escorts dropping loud exploding oil-drums on top of you, while you try to hide in 20' feet water. It tends to be unhealthy. Besides the fact that you're likely going to get killed before you fire salvo #3, chances are you AREN'T gonna kill your target with just one hit. That means that while you're praying that hunter-killer group looking for you is totally inept, that wounded freighter is crawling into port where she's safe and sound and will be able to plug the hole you just punched into her.
3. Look at the map. There are plenty of nice deep hexes to station your subs so that they have plenty of room to dive. "But what are the odds that a target is actually going to land in my spot?!" Pretty slim if you just randomly pick a deep hex. But take a closer look. TFs will avoid shallow and coastal hexes until the last minute (I guess they're worried about mines). There are definately "choke points", that are the last deep hex(es) that a TF must enter before they cross the Coastal and Shallow hexes to get to port. Station your subs in these "choke points" and you'll find yourself with more targets than you'd think.

Want to blockate Rabaul? There are 2 deep hexes south of there, and 1 to the northwest, that ALL shipping must pass thru before entering Rabaul.

Want to blockade Cairns? There's only 1 hex that ALL shipping must pass thru.

Want to give fits to resupply in the Solomons? There's a nice line of deep hexes right down the middle.

Want to kill that crippled Heavy Cruiser that managed to hide in a sqall and evade your dive bombers? Put some subs at choke points on his way home. He'll eventually show up at one of them.

Keeping your subs in deep hexes gives them the upper hand, and GREATLY reduces the threat of enemy ASW. Sure they're gonna kill some of your subs, but you should see the casualty rates of your subs go down dramatically.

Use them hunt cripples. Playing Scen17 or 19 (like most people do), gets you ZERO points for a wounded ship. Put your torps into something useful, like that wounded 55pt Heavy Cruiser. Make sure she shows up on your "ships killed" list, instead just scarring a freighter and sendering her back to the mainland.

-F-

Very logical and solid advice, Feinder. But I think one of the reasons peope(myself included) tend to place subs in enemy ports is that there is a belief that subs will only attack ships that end their turn in the same hex as the sub. If this is actually true, then doing it your way makes the probablity of attacks much less than sitting at a port, where you know all ships will eventually end their turns in.

Now, if the subs would actually attack ships that are just passing through their hex, then I would most heartily agree that your method is by far the wisest.

Does anyone know for sure whether subs will attack ships passing through their hex? Or will subs only attack ships that end their turn in the same hex?

You are correct Bax, that (to my knowledge) that subs only attack targets that END their turn in the sub's hex. But again, there aren't THAT many hexes that they can travel thru, especially a cripple moving at only 8 - 12 knots. With a 30 mile hex, you've got about a 30% chance that you'll get a shot at her.

Anyone can certainly do whatever they want to with their subs. But if the proof is on the on bottom line, over the course of last month's action (vs. PBEM opponent), I now have 11 out of 15 subs returning to port with ZERO torps. The other 4 are down to one or two torps each trying to hold station until the other 11 come back with more ammunition.

-F-

Very sound adivce. If you get a chance, I'd love to see EXACT hex numbers where you wouyld suggest we station subs for good hits, as both the Japanese and the Allies.

Actually, I'm starting to prefer to be a sneaky bastard and use my subs to drop mines all over the place behind my enemies' lines.

Be glad to post the hexes. I'm goofing off at the office now, but I'll look them up when I get home. Undoubtably, my brother (my PBEM opponent) will read this and a couple more ASW groups will start popping up, but no matter. He's already got a pretty good idea what I'm doing, and it just makes it more amusing that he actually has a good idea where to hunt my subs, and can't do much about it.

I'm actually playing USN, but in all fairness, I'll put my own observed "high traffic" hexes up for both sides.

-F-

I usually have good luck having the USN subs operate in groups of 2 or 3 cause they work better that way. Can IJN subs do just as well by themselves?

I've put ugly red splotches where I've seen success with subs. They're deep hexes that are near major ports or traffic lanes. Frankly, I don't usually play IJN, so the ones in Allied areas are best guesses, but I'm figuring what's good for the goose is good for gander. Thanks to Rowlf, I used his stratigic map from Spooky's site.

You're not necessarily going to get results in a week, but besides being abe to hold his breath for a long time, a sub captain has patience. Keep your subs on station for a week. Look to see what lanes your opponent is using. But there's there's always traffic between

Rabaul - Lae - Shortland - Kaiving

Port Morosby - Cairns

Noumea - Luganville

Buna and Gili-Gili depending on who owns them.

Along "The Slot" depending on who needs supply or troops.

Oh. And I forgot to put spotches in the 2 - 3 hexes just south of Truk, he's got to send his cripples there eventually.

Good luck to you.
-F-


*** Awe crap, still not taking my attachmets. I'll actually have to look up the hex numbers. Time for dinner, but I'll get to this tonight or tomorrow.

-F-

The other thing to keep in mind is that many convoys will have the same travel speed. That means that if you see transports ending a turn in a specific hex in the slot, odds are good that the next time a covoy comes through, they'll end up in the same hex again.

Same goes for Bombardment TFs. If you can spot their jump off point or the last hex they are in after they retire, its a good bet that they'll end up there again next time.

Despite what other posters seem to think, its not actually all that hard in many cases to figure out where a TF is likely to end its turn -- especially when hunting a cripple.

Do subs attack ships in the same hex at the end of a *phase* or at the end of a *turn*? I thought it was the former, in which case you get two chances per turn to find your target. (As I understand it, there are two Naval Movement phases per turn, one night and one day; at least that's what Rule 3 seems to say.)

Also, some have said that once your sub arrives on station, if you put it on AI control, it will follow a nearby enemy TF. Is that true?

I have to agree with Bax I like to use my sup to leave mine fields at enemy ports.

Some of my favorite sub spots...

Brisbane
23,77
24,76
24,76

Rockhampton
19,70
19,71
20,71
21,70
21,71

Townsville
10,61
10,60
11,60

Cairns
7,55
8,55

Port Moresby
9,41
10,42

Gili-Gili
19,41
19,42
18,43

Buna
12,37
13,36
13,37

Lae
10,34
11,34

Finghafen
12,32
12,33

Rabaul
21,30
22,30
20,31
19,27
18,27

Kavieng
15,24
15,25
16,25
17,23
18,23

With a 30 mile hex, you've got about a 30% chance that you'll get a shot at her.

From Feinder's post, and probably the reason the US didn't ascribe to the "wolfpack" theory... consider the percentages of contact (let alone a successful strike) with two subs in the same thirty mile range as opposed to one each in contiguous thirty mile hexes... if the first sighted the target as he was *leaving* the area, it would eliminate the need to try and chase it down if another sub was "down the line" waiting for it......

if the attack can only take place when the target ends in the hex, spreading the assets to cover more hexes seems a logical conclusion

just a thought

Condor you may be correct. I like triangular organizations so I've been putting my subs into wolfpacks of 3 each. However, I've been disappointed with the results of this strategy. It just dosen't seem very effective. I must say that I haven't give this idea extensive testing. This is a preliminary finding.

And to further widen my smile...

A major battle "accidently" took place south and east of Gili-Gili in my PBEM game with Knavey this weekend. He had been running bombardment TFs vs. PM for the last week, and it was really getting annoying. I needed to send a resupply TF to PM, and thot I'd also take the opportunity to land additional AAA and Eng units on Gili-Gili. I attached a CV TF to my Gili-Gili convoy, to both provide CAP and to maybe get a couple of strikes in at any IJN surface groups looking to harass PM.

Ended up that he had sailed 2 CVs and a CVL around the east side of Gili-Gili's atoll; they were in the open ocean SE of Gili-Gili looking to pound shipping on it's way to PM. He also had Shokaku following his surface groups around Gili-Gili on their way to PM. He thot my CVs had ported at Cairns, and didn't know they were actually escorting the convoys. My PBYs had been running supplies to my new garrison at Gili-Gili. I had transferred my B-17s to Naval Search, but with the T-Storms of the past week, I didn't know he was there at all.

After we both said, "Holy sh1t, there's alot more krap here than I thot!", the battle was joined.

SS-42 was waiting in the deep hex east of Gili-Gili, and put a torp into Shok on the first day of the battle, and she promtly retreated without ever participating in the festivities. We then traded airstrikes, with me getting the upper-hand. My 3 CVs vs. Zuikaku, Soryu, and Shoho (again, lots of help for me, with him not having Shok around).

Knavey scored nominal damage (1 bomb each) on Lex and Portland, both are still quite servicable. Meanwhile, Zuikaku is the Coral Sea's newest artificial reef. Also scored 7 bombs hits on Soryu and 3 on little Shoho.

As his two remaining carriers started limping back to Rabaul, SS-40 found them, and sent Soryu some additional lovin' by way of 2 more torps. She might have made it back to Rabaul with the 7 bomb hits, but with the 2 additional torps, she's probably going down.

If I hadn't knocked Shok out the battle right off, the air-to-air could likely have been alot more even (as in, I'd likely have lost a carrier). While I was content to "bank" Zuikaku's sinking and return to port, my subs managed the coup-de-gras against Soryu also, and my victory went from 1 to 2 CVs.

Subs are a wonderful thing.
-F-

Hi all,

As far as I know subs do not have to be in same ending HEX with their target
to attack (this is implicitly said in UV manual v2.00 page 9).

Submarines can happily attack passing TFs just fine (i.e. enemy TFs passing
through HEX where your sub is).


Leo "Apollo11"

Originally posted by Apollo11
Hi all,

As far as I know subs do not have to be in same ending HEX with their target
to attack (this is implicitly said in UV manual v2.00 page 9).

Submarines can happily attack passing TFs just fine (i.e. enemy TFs passing
through HEX where your sub is).


Leo "Apollo11"

I think you are wrong. I believe sub attacks only happen at the end of the night movement phase and at the end of the day movement phase. You can test this for yourself by putting subs is the slot and sending ships back and forth. They will NEVER get hit unless they end a phase in a sub hex.

Yamamoto

Yeah,

I'm fairly positive Yamamoto is correct here. Knavey and I just had a pretty big battle, and I've got subs in rings around Rabaul 3 or 4 hexes deep (to take shots at his cripples).

If it was true that you got a shot as a ship passed by (not just ending it's move in your hex), I'd be getting 3 - 4 shots at each ship as they passed by.

-S-

Per the manual he is correct; however experience with actual play does not seem to imply so.

Hi all,

Originally posted by Yamamoto
I think you are wrong. I believe sub attacks only happen at the end of the night movement phase and at the end of the day movement phase. You can test this for yourself by putting subs is the slot and sending ships back and forth. They will NEVER get hit unless they end a phase in a sub hex.

Yamamoto

Can we ask Matrix/2By3 in main forum about this?

That way we would get clarification (and manual would be fixed
if wrong)...


Leo "Apollo11"