Anti-Submarine Warfare

[drax05]

Greetings All,
I would like to seek your best tactics in attacking submarines with surface ships (Destroyers) and/or aircraft.

Please advise and thanks for any tips you can provide.

Cheers,
Felix

[Horst]

Purchase about six destroyers during campaigns and try moving them to expected attack directions. Sooner or later, the enemy subs have to surface. Then their fate is sealed.

[GabeKnight]

What Horst said. But you may not need six destroyers for one sub
Still, it's always a good idea to keep your capital ships escorted by a destroyer-type unit at all times.

You can't use airplanes effectively in OoB for submarine seek&destroy missions. No plane can detect them (surfaced or submerged) and no plane can attack them when submerged. After you find a surfaced sub with your naval untis, you can attack it with planes like any other naval enemy unit.

[Horst]

What I forgot to mention: while hunting for subs with DDs, keep 1-2 hexes free between DDs when forming a kind of net to catch the fish. Subs can normally only move 2 hexes while submerged, so they can't hardly slip by then.
In the US-Pacific Philipine Sea scenario, I always sent every single DD to the south to intercept the flotilla of subs there. Can't really have enough DDs for that. It was much harder to catch them all in the past without the forced surfacing.

[GabeKnight]

It was much harder to catch them all in the past without the forced surfacing.

Oh, yes, I remember those times. And since you can't use sonar pings to detect a submerged sub that hasn't moved....neverending story...