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My great sub crew was caught sound asleep during beautiful June night and CA Northampton had made swiss cheese of it with some 8'' shells. Were they drunk or what? I would like to have an option "Sake supply" on/off, but I am afraid it would be micromanagement.

Caught with 8" shells?:eek: Sounds like your crew were doing some night fishing and got caught with their pants down. Those IJN boats are real dogs when it comes to crash diving.

Things havn't really improved since my first post about 'Surface suicide attacks by subs'.....

Just lost a nip sub to 8" shells myself - and another one to an armed tanker

Somehow enemy merchants and warships spot subs on the surface at night without radar. If not - they certainly do so when the sods aboard the sub opens up with their deck gun :p

Since a single deck gun is such a lousy way of sinking larger vessels, it should only be used to finnish disabled vessels or in situations when there are no more torpedoes left.

Usually the deck gun is used in combination with torpedoes when the latter would have been sufficient.

I really hope that they improve the surface sub attack routines for WitP and then puts it into UV!

Originally posted by PzB
Things havn't really improved since my first post about 'Surface suicide attacks by subs'.....

Just lost a nip sub to 8" shells myself - and another one to an armed tanker

Could be worse.................I've lost a sub to a BARGE!:eek:

I was wondering if it was part of the game design. I'm playing a game against AI and up until December 42 the subs behaved normally (S-boats deadly, newer subs firing duds half the time). About mid December all of my newers subs (four of them) began making surface attacks, either without firing torpedos or in conjunction with a torpedo run. Its not a good tactic because all of the subs have suffered floatation damage as a result of return fire from the transports and are en route to port. Its as if the captains finally got fed up with being depth charged after firing dud torpedos.

Could be worse.................I've lost a sub to a BARGE!

Subs can easily be lost to barges for the following reasons:

They have to attack the barge on the surface because the low draft of the barge prohibits torpedo attacks.

Barges were sometimes heavily armed and armored (for a barge) by the Japanese.




I think that an option should be given for submarines to attack ships no smaller than a certain size (like DDs).

Also remember that night periscope attacks could only be conducted if the conditions are right. Given the periscope optics and light gathering capbilities, the moon had to be good, the skies clear, and the seas relatively calm.

Most night engagements (at least by US Subs) were conducted on the surface.

Hi, The night surface attack was the standard mode of attack for all nations. (The USN began with sonar attack but switched to NSA )
As a result I believe at least one example of a submarine attacking a target that sank the submarine instead can be found for every navy that used submarines in WW2.

I've found at least 3 USN submarines where the survivors report they thought the target was a merchant that in fact was a warship.

USS Wahoo might have been sunk by shore batteries. (There are other reports of ASW aircraft)

On 11 October 1943, the commander of a Japanese shore battery over looking Soya Strait reported sighting and firing on a surfaced submarine. A number of hits were claimed before the submarine dived and an aircraft from Ominato was sent to the spot. At 0920, the plane detected an oil patch and the shadow of a conning tower and bombs were dropped on this shape. The aircraft radioed for assistance and circled until other planes arrived. A submarine was positively identified and more bombs were dropped until surface ships, including SUBMARINE CHASERs 15 and 43 arrived. These, and other ships, dropped depth charges. SUBMARINE CHASER 15 reported part of a ship’s propeller thrown to the surface by an underwater explosion. More aircraft and AUXILIARY MINESWEEPER 18 arrived, but nothing more of the submarine was seen.

This won't happen in UV or WITP

This is all true, but the fact remains that to many subs in UV are sunk or disabled by merchant ships on the surface.

Attacking on the surface at night don't mean the same thing as opening up with the deck gun at night. A torpedo launch followed by a silent escape is how it usually was done.

First when allied ships got equipped with radar did the going get really tough for subs attacking on the surface.

I agree with the fact that sub could be spotted while looking for the good position for louchning torpedoes. What surprises me is that it was destroyed by 8" shells. Do you know any such case from WWII? I don't have great knowledge of naval history, but It seems to me that big guns has less acuracy, so it was extreme luck to hit small surface target moving at night.
Maybe the tendency to surface attack of japanese subs is to blame?
I have also one question not related with the thread topic. Do you know how to compose the TF to maximize the effectivness of long lace torpedoe attacks? In all my games i noticed that IJN destroyers seldom use the torpedoes even when fighting with much larger ships. I saw many DD being shelled not even trying to use their main weapon (using ineffective guns instead). Even surprise initial long lace torpedoe attack is very ineffective - US ships can do much more damage during their surprise gun attack.

I hadn't noticed before, but shellfire sinking subs certainly doesn't appear to be uncommon in UV. In my current game the IJN have lost 7 subs, 6 to DCs and one to a 6" shell. On the US side 4 subs have been lost, 2 by DC and 2 by 3" shells from the merchantmen they attacked.

Hi, I've seen a few times where a US sub had suffered damage in earlier attack. Sub is moving towards friendly base but is in hex when Japanese merchants also present. Sub makes surface attack on Japanese but being out of fuel and damaged sub gets sunk instead. However I don't think these subs have a choice. They are caught on surface and fight. (since surrender is not an option) I don't know if this is always the case (in fact I'm certain I've lost USN subs that had no damage before surface encounter with Japanese)
Since I've stopped using Auto ops I've not had the problem as often. (However I don't use subs the way the AI does. I tend to screen enemy bases rather then sit on them and I do a lot of mine warfare (just to harrass it does'nt really damage that many Japanese. (They learn which hexes need watching)

Hi Mogami, I think you may have given me the answer as to why my subs attack on the surface so often. I regularly operate my subs (on both sides) with high systems damage (between 20 and 30 is common). because they suffer little for it. Their speed is only slightly reduced, once on station they stay relatively still in order to avoid detection, and they remain highly effective offensive weapons. However, if they are operating on the surface I can see where they would become pretty nice targets. I just wonder why they aren't attacked by air strikes more often.

In a another thread, I'd wondered out loud about a flurry of surface attacks by USN fleet subs. At the time I thought maybe it had to do with these subs getting fed up with the ineffectiveness of their MK 14 torpedos. Your idea regarding systems damage makes more sense. The fleet subs probably all hit the critcal systems damage (I think it must be about 20) at the same time. The only remaining question is why were these subs attacking on the surface with deck guns only, when they still had torpedoes (they still had some left). Any ideas? They were attacking unescorted marus.

With the new sub rules...the worst you lose is one sub at least.
You would be foolish to stack them.

I dont know about you guys but MY IJN subs essencially
snipe at lone ships of all flavors.

At times they hit. But not very often.