DD's vs U-boats Balance?

rkr1958 · Post by **rkr1958** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:38 pm

I really like the fact that the RN no longer goes and hides in port from fear of German u-boats and is now aggressively escorting convoys in 1940 and 1941. However; I have a concern that we may have make DD's too strong against u-boats. However; I don't think we have nearly enough data to make any judgement relative to this. So I'm starting this thread so folks can post their experiences and comments on this balance.

peterjfrigate · Post by **peterjfrigate** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:41 pm

I'm getting 2:5 vs DDs in 1939 and so it seems too dangerous to even go after BBs when they are inside the "donut" formation.

Morris · Post by **Morris** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 3:00 pm

The Allies DD has got a upper hand from 1939-1941 which was the happy hours of Germany sub . It seems balance .

joerock22 · Post by **joerock22** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 4:45 pm

I'm sensing this as well. But I agree that it's too early to make a good judgment, and I'd like to play out my games and see how they go.

joerock22 · Post by **joerock22** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 4:49 pm

Morris wrote:The Allies DD has got a upper hand from 1939-1941 which was the happy hours of Germany sub . It seems balance .

Agreed. Maybe it wasn't so bad to allow the sub blob after all. The Allies have a very simple remedy for it; keep your ships in port until your ASW tech improves enough, and build lots of DDs and Strats. Perhaps some minor tweaks to ASW tech would have been enough.

I think all ships, even DDs, should fear the subs until around 1942 or so. If we can make the game so that is true on average, then that would be ideal.

pk867 · Post by **pk867** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 4:58 pm

I believe the balance is good. As an Allied player I am building them as fast as I can because my tech will not be good enough until late
43' especially for the aircraft units. It is the middle of 42 and my BB's, CV's, SAC are at 3 while the DD's depending on getting back to port to upgrade are
at 5 & 6. You need to send more DD's to the Med because the Italians can have 5 to 6 subs mid 41' .

So to get naval control in the Med you are going to need a CV, at least 4 to 5 BB's and 5 DD's which are a lot.

rkr1958 · Post by **rkr1958** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:13 pm

Here's some thoughts that I included in my email to Joe. I'm posting them here as fodder for this discussion.

With respect to the Battle of the Atlantic there are some things that I like about the change. The allied player now invents heavily in DDs in order to gain control of the Atlantic and Med. This is historical. Also, u-boats tend to hunt in areas not patrolled by the RN. One thought I had was that the extra survivability that DD's have against subs decreases as the DD takes damage. What we don't want to see is 2 DD's effectively escorting a convoy. Personally, I'd like to see 4 being optimum. What do you think about the DD's get the +2 extra survivability against subs if at full strength (10-steps), +1 for 8-9 steps and 0 for 7 or less. This way a wolf-pack still could take out DDs for a lightly escorted convoy (2 or 3); but the first subs that attack will still suffer losses.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:27 pm

I also think is good the way that it is now. Subs should go mainly for convoys since these vessels were their main objective in the real war.

Again, wikipedia provide us an interesting article this time about the Battle of Atlantic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... %931945%29. In this article you can read that a total of 3675 allied vessels were sunk by uboats in WW2. But only 175 of those vessels were warships. This means that only a 5% of the allied ships sunk by uboats were warships and the rest (95%) were merchant ships.

IMO, the fact that, before, in CEAW GS the german subs were able to successfully attack (and sink) directly the allied escorts was rather unrealistic. As well as it was also unrealistic that for the allied DD´s to escort the convoys was a risky mission for themselves.

So the german player has to adapt his strategy to this: subs will attack to unescorted convoys and/or capital ships but they won´t directly attack escorts any more.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:35 pm

rkr1958 wrote: What we don't want to see is 2 DD's effectively escorting a convoy.

Why not this (2 DD´s) can be considered effective enough in order to protect a convoy? 2 DD´s units represents 100 destroyers. This a pretty nice number of escorts, IMO.

pk867 · Post by **pk867** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:47 pm

Discussion about the variable survivability. I think having +2 no matter the size is about right.

It is the weapons system that has the capability not about the strength of the unit. Besides the strength of the ASW is adjusted by the strength factor when

making the attack. The lesser strength DD's will only hang around if the subs are reduced. If they try to stand up against full strength subs they will be in jeopardy.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:52 pm

And all of this keeping in mind that DD´s frequently are also busy in another tasks as escorting naval transports carrying troops and/or air units. So the allied player has to buy enough DD´s units to properly escort both convoys and transport of troops.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 11:23 pm

Remember that the main purpose was to discourage the subs going after escorts instead of convoys. Subs are more lethal vs convoys than before GS v2.01.35, but less lethal vs destroyers. Firepower is the same vs battleships and carriers.

Morris · Post by **Morris** » Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:21 am

Stauffenberg wrote:Remember that the main purpose was to discourage the subs going after escorts instead of convoys. Subs are more lethal vs convoys than before GS v2.01.35, but less lethal vs destroyers. Firepower is the same vs battleships and carriers.

I think the latest changes has accomplished your mission . Subs are only happy when they meet a convoy without escort . So historic !
But for the Axis player ,sub becomes an expensive toy !

joerock22 · Post by **joerock22** » Sun Dec 25, 2011 4:46 pm

I still think it's too easy for the Allies to escort convoys. Part of the reason is that the DDs don't even have to worry about being ambushed very much. The subs are guaranteed to lose a handful of steps even finishing off a damaged DD.

What about a change where DDs do not get the survivability bonus on the turn after they've been ambushed? This would force the Allies to send DDs in larger numbers (instead of just 2 per convoy which is very bad for game balance), and be more careful about moving them. You can think of it like the surprise moral penalty for countries immediately after being DOW'd.

Morris · Post by **Morris** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 6:14 am

joerock22 wrote:I still think it's too easy for the Allies to escort convoys. Part of the reason is that the DDs don't even have to worry about being ambushed very much. The subs are guaranteed to lose a handful of steps even finishing off a damaged DD.

What about a change where DDs do not get the survivability bonus on the turn after they've been ambushed? This would force the Allies to send DDs in larger numbers (instead of just 2 per convoy which is very bad for game balance), and be more careful about moving them. You can think of it like the surprise moral penalty for countries immediately after being DOW'd.

Yes, I agree this . Actually ,at present the DD not only not afraid of being amushed ,but even happy to run to the ambush from 1939 to mid 1940 .It will be a good exchange rate which allies can afford . But for the Axis player it becomes a tragedy .

anyway ,if we don't have time ,we can adjust it after release .

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:36 pm

IMO the question here is that people, before including the change, was used to go after allied DD´s with their wolfpacks since it was really profitable to attack destroyer units and to sink them. But this is not what happened in the real war: german subs used to evade when finding a significant allied escorting force. Furthermore, I have checked in a hotseat game that wolfpacks (3 or more subs units) still have the chance to sink a destroyer unit although the subs get more steps lost as it should be. What it was unrealistic was to force the RN to be frightened in UK ports in early game because of the "all-powerful" german subs.

On the other hand, convoys in CEAW GS use to lose an excessive number of steps compared with the losses suffered in real WW2. This is so because of a carefully planned german convoy campaign plus the RN in the ports doing nothing mean that in early game every single convoy that is to reach UK is sunk or it is depleted because of the subs attacks. Allied losses in merchant vessels in early war were high but they weren´t comparatively so high as they use to be in CEAW-GS.

What we can look into and it makes some sense is to exclude the DD´s +2 survivability bonus if ambushed by subs. So +2 survivability bonus would work when the DD´s are making escorting duties but it would not work when the DD´s are making "hunting subs duties".

rkr1958 · Post by **rkr1958** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:40 pm

Maybe a more simpler solution is to increase the cost of DD's. What we don't want to see is the UK building a massive number of DD's early on and completely controlling the Atlantic before US entry. However; we don't want the RN, and DD's in particular, running and hiding in fear of German u-boats. So I wonder if we've got the cost of DD's right?

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:56 pm

Adding the +2 survivability only when escorting might be a good idea. That way early DD sweeps aren't too lucrative.

Kragdob · Post by **Kragdob** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 6:26 pm

Can UK build lots of DDs early? Well, if Axis Player sees UK building lots of DDs in 1940 he can try to do Sealion as it means UK didn't invest in defending the Homeland. So if UK build lots of DDs from start it means that Axis allows it.

On the other hand - Axis will not be able to control the Atlantic with starting 3 subs but they can invest in that by building sufficient number to find the wholes where DDs are not present and hunt there.

Right now both sides needs to make and investment but UK seems to be able to do it later so German can get their happy hours but only when they invest into it.

In my opinion current setup works fine except that starting ASW should not be increased (only survivability). Increasing ASW allows single DDs to hurt a sub significantly if you keep it as it was subs will have it harder to sink DD but DD will not be able to sink a sub that easily as well which seems optimal for me.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 6:30 pm

rkr1958 wrote:Maybe a more simpler solution is to increase the cost of DD's. What we don't want to see is the UK building a massive number of DD's early on and completely controlling the Atlantic before US entry. However; we don't want the RN, and DD's in particular, running and hiding in fear of German u-boats. So I wonder if we've got the cost of DD's right?

This makes sense too. I have read in an article (http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/hi ... aigns.html), that the cost for an escorting destroyer (DDE) was $ 5.5 million a ship whilst the cost of a german Type VII submarine (the most numerous) was $ 2.25 million. Keeping in mind this and that the destroyers are finally valuable from a ASW point of view, we could significantly increase the cost of DD´s from 50 to 65 PP´s.