Slitherine

Does anyone else have any concerns about the play balance here or is it just me?

I'm playing the Allies currently and I'd be okay with the subs having their "happy times" sinking all my convoys. I'm fine with watching huge convoys get massacred by wolf packs. As Churchill that's my job and it gets a tick from me for historical accuracy.

But it's when they turn on the destroyers it seems to break down. My small, nimble destroyers seem to have torpedo magents on them. The way GS 2.00 seems to work (from reading the rules and a bit of experimentation) is that you can't attack a sub unless you start in an adjacent hex to it. Is that right? Which means that even when Destroyers go out in packs, one on a corner will get picked off and the others can't come to its assistance. What stops the Germans simply ganking any DD that leaves port?

It's far easier to kill 60PP's worth of destoyers than 60PP's worth of convoy. And if that's so great a tactic why on earth didn't the nazis just do it in the war? (and ignore the convoys). It seems that if I make any attempt to protect my convoys I'll lose more points in DDs than I woud have lost in convoys.

Please help,
Skipio

you make a valid point,. the only thing i can say is make strategic bombers and hit the subs on your turn..

What level of tech is in force, do not the DDs get more potent as the tech level increases. When ASW tech levels improve the subs should suffer significant loss if they take on the DDs directly, if that is not happening then the DDs need to be made more resilient. Un-escorted convoys would always be very vulnerable.

Rasputitsa wrote:What level of tech is in force, do not the DDs get more potent as the tech level increases. When ASW tech levels improve the subs should suffer significant loss if they take on the DDs directly, if that is not happening then the DDs need to be made more resilient. Un-escorted convoys would always be very vulnerable.

It's early game - the start of 1940. The DDs are at ASW level 1 and the subs are at level 0 (as far as I can tell from looking at the stats)

Seems to me, with Germany's income, they could rise tech (and hence survivability) faster than I could raise ASW

Skipio

Strange as I do like 4:3 on sub and if it takes two of such attacks it will take a few turns for it to recover to full strength...

I did a gang attack on US destroyers but they were low tech in ASW and my subs were lvl 4-6.

You have to invest in ASW. It helps all naval units except transports.

it also helps improve air units against subs.

I'm glad you started this thread. It looks to me like there needs to be some tweaking done if we want to keep the game historically accurate. As far as I know, u-boat captains carefully avoided destroyers on most occasions. I'm not aware of any historical instances where wolfpacks deliberately ignored convoys in order to sink entire flotillas of destroyers. And yet this has become standard practice in CEAW, to the point where the UK often leaves convoys unescorted because the DD's are more valuable than the convoys. Seriously, can you imagine the Admiralty keeping its DD's in ports because they were afraid of the u-boats?

An afterthought: What I wrote above applies only to destroyer flotillas. It's an historical fact that the Admiralty *was*, starting as early as WWI, very concerned indeed about the vulnerability of its capital ships to uboat attacks.

Well, starting from midgame 1 destroyer attack + 2 strategic bomber attacks will destroy a sub with almost 100% chance, and there are not so many places on map, where you can't cover your DDs with bombers.
You should also form proper naval formations, where units cover each other and not exposed more then from 2-3 directions.
Finally, you can leave alone convoys, but you DO WANT to cover transports with expensive units, even if you lose couple of DDs for this duty.
Also with new GS 2.1 rules convoys will be destroyed really fast, when unescorted.

Plaid wrote:Well, starting from midgame 1 destroyer attack + 2 strategic bomber attacks will destroy a sub with almost 100% chance, and there are not so many places on map, where you can't cover your DDs with bombers.
You should also form proper naval formations, where units cover each other and not exposed more then from 2-3 directions.
Finally, you can leave alone convoys, but you DO WANT to cover transports with expensive units, even if you lose couple of DDs for this duty.
Also with new GS 2.1 rules convoys will be destroyed really fast, when unescorted.

This really puts the Allied player in a bind, doesn't it? 1) You don't dare send your DD's out to escort convoys because they can easily be ganged up on and destroyed but 2) you don't dare *not* escort your convoys.

It takes time for ASW tech to develop, even with maximum focus, and sub tech is always faster. You say that one should use "proper naval formations," but surely DD's in the real WWII didn't have to huddle together for fear of being ambushed? Yes, I know that DD's were, in fact, sunk from time to time by uboats, but surely it's completely ahistorical to see entire flotillas deliberately singled out in this fashion.

Destroyers were designed with sub-killing in mind. I have to believe that in most cases the sub is going to lose that fight.

Certainly in the early years it was difficult to find and destroy U-boats, but they did not go hunting DDs, it is much more difficult to hit DDs doing 20-30kts than it is to hit convoys doing not much more than 10kts (speed of the slowest ships in heavy seas). I can see how ASW was weak early in the war, but DDs should be more resilient from attack, if only because they are more difficult targets and the U-boat does not want to reveal itself to something that can hit back, however ineffectual the DDs may be, the U-boats cannot risk damage.

This is what Morris (a very good player) said in an AAR: "We attack the DD by three subs , result is 5:7 . The DD is really tough !"

He used 3 German subs to attack a British DD. It happened in 1940 before the DD's have got any new techs to surface ships and ASW. Personally I avoid going after the escorts unless they're alone. The retaliation is often severe.

What you need to do is to form a "blob" of ships with DD's, subs and BB's at the perimeter and a CV and convoy/transport in the center. This way only 1 sub can attack a unit without being retaliated upon from other ships. The CV will have range to strike at the sub as well.

Later in the game you will have strategic bombers placed in key locations (Iceland, Greenland, Canada, North Ireland etc.). So the subs have challenges.

The subs actually inflict more damage to convoy with increasing sub tech. So you won't see damage in the range of 8-14, but it can even get above 20 from a single attack. This means the Allies need to protect their transports or they can quickly be sunk. It's safer to use 3 subs against a convoy worth 60 PP's and sink it with no losses instead of sinking a DD and maybe lose 6-7 steps in the attacks.

The cost of subs is lowered to 50 (same for DD's). The research difficulty for subs is increased from 15 to 20 so you might see Axis players now building 2 naval labs to get the subs to high tech. The Allies also have to invest in naval techs to keep up. So doing what Morris did (ignore naval tech completely) will have consequences now.

I'm sure that with the latest changes you will see more subs in the Atlantic and thus a bigger need for the Allies to build CV's and DD's to harm the subs when they strike. You need strategic bombers too and once the battle of the Atlantic is won you can send the bombers to bombard German industry.

Hehe I remember in silent hunter 3 (oldschool sub sim) DD was very easy target in case it didn't detect your sub and follow straight course and extremely hard to sink if it is aware of your presence and started to maneuver with maximum speed.

Just an offtopic.

P.S. Don't forget the most important challenge of naval warfare in CEAW - allies can invest much much more then axis into this sort of weapon, so you should have numerical advantage and little problems to replace casualties.

My experience is that it's only "cost-effective" to go after wounded DDs or BBs. Going after full strength DDs or BBs; especially early in the game, is also losing proposition (again in my experience). Though, I play and tend to play allied players who move usually their ships in groups of three of more.

Thanks for everyone's input. It's late 1941 and I'm still struggling against the subs (yes I am investing heavily in ASW, and I'm pretty sure the subs are no higher tech level than the destroyers).

If I escort a convoy, it's feeding frenzy time with (usually) five subs attacking the corner of my formation. The turn before last I sent out a donut of six destroyers and he still sunk one - sure he took damage, but no subs were sunk.

I still think it's badly wrong that the game encourages a player to attack the destoyers and not the convoys. The way I see it, if there's a convoy with a single escort you should need to have a very good reson to attack the one that's bristling with guns and depth charges. Anyway, I have a couple of suggestions - I've no idea how paractical they are. And I've no idea how things pan out later in the war.

1) halve the cost of destroyers but also halve their SURFACE attack strength, leaving their ASW the same (hence making them a much less economically viable target) or,

2) give subs a minus on their attack strength against destroyers (leave it the same against everything else)

Just my two cents,
Skipio

Another thing with submarines and DD's.
Usually German player is making wolfpack of 3 or 4 subs.
When my DD is on move and meets a sub (by suprise) is taking damage, but submarine can hit him AGAIN in his movement phase, so is like double attack for German submarine. So other submarines are finishing my DD in one turn...
I think should be as well changed repairs of submarines at sea. For example if submarine has strengh at level 4-5 should return to port not just stay at sea and repair and repair again....

It's been a long time since I played the game, but the posts on this forum seem to be discussing tactics or methods to work around the basic problem rather that suggesting that the basic problem be fixed.

The basic problem posed by the original poster is that in WW2 subs didn't often sink DD's and FF's, nor hunt DD's and FF's. Yet in the game this happens regularly as subs pose a big threat to DD's. I haven't read a lot of WW2 naval history lately but have read a lot over the years, and I think it's pretty clear that subs didn't hunt DD's and FF's nor pose a major threat to them - rather it was the reverse.

Maybe instead of suggesting tactics to work around this basic flaw in game mechanics, the basic flaw should be addressed and subs should be less effective or ineffective when attacking DD's?

jjdenver wrote:It's been a long time since I played the game, but the posts on this forum seem to be discussing tactics or methods to work around the basic problem rather that suggesting that the basic problem be fixed.

The basic problem posed by the original poster is that in WW2 subs didn't often sink DD's and FF's, nor hunt DD's and FF's. Yet in the game this happens regularly as subs pose a big threat to DD's. I haven't read a lot of WW2 naval history lately but have read a lot over the years, and I think it's pretty clear that subs didn't hunt DD's and FF's nor pose a major threat to them - rather it was the reverse.

Maybe instead of suggesting tactics to work around this basic flaw in game mechanics, the basic flaw should be addressed and subs should be less effective or ineffective when attacking DD's?

This has been/ will be addressed very well, I believe in the upcoming GSv2.10 patch. I'm currently in a couple of games as the allies were DD's control the area there in and u-boats run away. The problem is that the subs run to places where there not. The Battle of the Atlantic have an historical feel to me. I really like the change and believes it add historical realism.

I have the same concern as Skipio actually.

I played a game recently where a group of 4 destroyers returning to port (after delivering troops to Africa) were ambushed by 9-10 uboats in early 1941. It was the first sub attack of the war. 1 destroyer ran into a sub. I moved a 5th destroyer out to help the others protect it. Formation had been disrupted. Next turn 3 destroyers were sunk. 2 flee for port. One makes it. 4 went down.

I had been researching ASW from the get go.

After losing so many destroyers so quickly, I kept everything left in port and only operated in the English channel under total air superiority until mid 43. By then I had large fleets with multiple carriers under watch of over half a dozen strategic bombers to escort troops across the Atlantic. He still lay in wait and ambushed my ships (they take the worst of it) but he focused on convoys from that point. I never sank a single sub. I did a lot of damage with bomber over time. Wasn't looking forward to 12 kamikaze sub strike fleets during D-Day.

A great German trick is to create a mine field of subs ahead of a convoy escort group. As DDs hit the subs at different distances, their formation is disrupted. They'll no longer be able to shield the convoy or carrier and all can be easily picked off.

A sub pack of 6 can entirely surround a convoy (preferably in areas outside air cover) and hold it in place for months at a time (magnets?), whittling it away to nothingness.

As Axis, I max sub tech and prioritize ship hunting (CCs, BBs, and DDs) ahead of convoys, at least into 42-43. By 44 DDs are getting seriously tough and can score more against the sub than they take.

I agree also with Skipio's point about convoys: With 4 subs, you might hit a convoy for 40 points of damage. Better to sink a DD for 60 and impose a 6 turn wait for a replacement on the Allies.

Quick question: When subs attack DDs, do DDs defend with ship strength, or ASW? Do they get an ASW bonus at all?

Side note: The sub strategy goes well with a holding actions in the east. Don't bother invading Russia. Taking both capitals too dicey. Build up at the border, avoid the Russian winter, wait to invade until 42 (suck up lots more oil), while sinking everything in the atlantic with 12 sub fleets to delay Allied arrival in France. Seems pretty effective, and oil and manpower are not issues.

cheers,
Diesel

escuse me, my english is not good, in a game I have, all of my DD fleet as was sunk by german subs and tah is something ilogical, even in 1940. submarines should be the penalty for attacking destroyers