Support ships?? and How to attack subs??

[tula1959]

Support ships? Other than one reference in handbook that they can assist in repair of ships at sea there is no other info? Do they have any other function? They are present in many scenarios, usually fixed in place and I really don't know what to do with them?

How to attack subs? Just played Rising Sun Midway - had a sub located between four of my destroyers - used one to sonar ping and reveal exact location BUT the other three were not allowed to attack it in any way afterwards?? Tried to move them in to the sub hex, next to the hex, etc., but no attack option came up??? What am I doing wrong??

[bru888]

Support ships? Other than one reference in handbook that they can assist in repair of ships at sea there is no other info? Do they have any other function? They are present in many scenarios, usually fixed in place and I really don't know what to do with them?

How to attack subs? Just played Rising Sun Midway - had a sub located between four of my destroyers - used one to sonar ping and reveal exact location BUT the other three were not allowed to attack it in any way afterwards?? Tried to move them in to the sub hex, next to the hex, etc., but no attack option came up??? What am I doing wrong??

Support ships can place or remove mines. They provide a bit of supply but not nearly as much as supply ships. Support ships also can fight a bit against gunboats and other small craft. They can fire on all ships, of course, but they actually are effective against the smaller vessels.

Each destroyer must ping and locate the sub before firing upon it. Just because one destroyer "sees" the sub underwater does not mean that the others do. That stands to reason and makes hunting a sub more realistic. Of course, if the sub is surfaced, spotted, and within range, all neighboring destroyers may fire upon it.

[PoorOldSpike]

Yeah like Bru said, Support ships can multitask, here's a test I ran for fun that demonstrates in the top pic how they can-
1-lay and remove sea minefields with the yellow-circled icons (it takes 3 turns delay to lay another minefield)
2- bombard enemy ships and ground units within 3 hex range.
3- provide enough supply pts to maintain 1 infantry unit. (But they can't carry units)

Second pic- Support ships don't have sonar but they can accidentally spot submerged subs if they bump into a periscope while moving (arrowed), they stop moving and there's a faint klaxon sound to indicate a periscope has been spotted, so keep your ears open. They can't attack subs but at least they'll have blown the subs cover for warships to close in.
(More tests showed that Support ships won't provide automatic AA fire support for adjacent naval or ground units that are under air attack, but they will fire their AA guns in self defence at aircraft that are attacking themselves.)

Bottom pic- the ability of Support ships to lay sea mines makes them very dangerous, in this test I laid a string of mines with the Supply ship (circled) along the coast and elsewhere to cause the enemy casualties if he tries to invade there, and of course you can lay them in front of an advancing fleet in the open sea IF you have time. (Of course, if you own 2 or 3 or more Support ships you could saturate large areas with sea mines much quicker and make the fishes say "Drat, there goes the neighbourhood!"
Support ships carry a huge amount of sea mines, for example I laid 20 in this test (it took 60 turns to do it because of the 3-turn delay between each laying) but in a real game we'd concentrate just on laying them at strategic key points while we have time before the enemy arrives, such as at the entrances to inlets and fiords, or off potential invasion beaches etc.



PS, and like Bru said, Support ships can also repair themselves and other ships at sea (below), select the Support ship and click the repair icon (circled), then click the ship that needs to be repaired like this 7-strength cruiser to bring it back to strength-

[Taare]

the subs can only stay submerged for 3 rounds at most, during this time they will surface and you can detect them by moving into the hex next to them, then all ships within range can attack them, don't fret to much my friend, they have a long cooldown on their torpedoes so they will prolly not do to much to you in the long run. Destroyers are also "difficult target" for torps. Torpedoes work better against larger ships, so if you have him cornered with your destroyers just wait till he surfaces and blast it away
Having a support ship or 2 is nice since they can repair for free, not elite repair though, so i usually use them to fix up auxillary units or to remove mines.

[tula1959]

Thanks for the info guys! Very helpful but also a bit confused!? Since most often support ships when present in a scenario are fixed in place and I have no control over them all of the things mentioned can not be done! But the info is good to know for those times I actually do have control over them!

As to subs - since to ping with sonar uses all of a units ability to move/attack for that turn, and the sub moves to a non-adjacent hex next turn, I don't see how can attack them? That is what happened in the example I gave - the destroyer that pinged and located was done for the turn by pinging!!??

None of this info on either subject is really explained in the handbook - tho I am using an early release (2.99) due to computer limitations and maybe in later versions these things are more fully explained??!!

[PoorOldSpike]

..since to ping with sonar uses all of a units ability to move/attack for that turn, and the sub moves to a non-adjacent hex next turn, I don't see how can attack them?

I only got OOB earlier this year so I'm pretty much a newcomer and am testing everything out like crazy in editor tests. I've still got more work to do with subs, but for now this test might interest you as shows that subs AUTO-PING every turn, you don't have to do it manually if you don't want.
In this example my German destroyer auto-pinged (indicated by the green "ripple" rings) and detected that US sub at top right 2 hexes away, and when I tried to end the turn I got that useful message come up asking if I'd like to clobber it first..
(PS- apart from all that, it seems that the biggest weakness of subs is that they have to surface every 3 turns to recharge their batteries for 1 turn, which means they can be spotted by the eyeballs of any ships crew.

[Taare]

To be able to anything with any ship it has to be under your control, not merely an ally, we call this auxillary troops.

Submarines are... well not my personal favourite in the game and i do believe things could have been done differently.
Ways to detect them
while submerged: you can use sonar(if there is a ship in your sonar range you get a shot at it.
you can also drive a ship into the hex that the sub occupies, this will make your ship stop and attack it.
while surfaced: move a ship into the neighbouring hex, and all ships will see it, they have a special ability so that you can only spot them while you are right next to them

Concerning support ships, to be able to repair, the ships have to be next to each other, and can not have moved/attacked during the previous turn.
To plant mine, you have to pay a small sum then you will plant a minefield at your hex then choose with hex to move to.
To disarm mine you have to move next to it one turn, then the next you can use the disarm mine skill.

On another note, supply ships also exist, do not confuse these with each other, the supply ship does what its name implies offer supplies, but only to land based units and only when adjacent to a landline that you control.
They are very vulnerable and are prime targets for planes and enemy ships.

Hope this clarifies things a little for you

[tula1959]

I set up a mini scenario with the editor to try sub hunt - a few subs and a few destroyers.
Set up destroyers and subs in adjacent hexes - on turn one I pinged the sonar and it DID NOT reveal/see the subs!!????
Why not???? Moving in to the sub's hex did reveal them to the first ship that tried and could attack - but the other ships were NOT allowed to then try to move in to the same sub hex same turn (now revealed) after the first ship and could not attack!!????? Why not????
Still confused!!! LOL

[gunnyjs]

Also regarding supply any ship that can get to the coast can give supply so if your supply ships are weakened for some reason you can even use pt boats if left at the shore or moved and end at shore to give supply along with Destroyers - press the spacebar to see the numbers of how many units they can give and the numbers of your troops showing how much they are garfing up in supply which may mean that for a few turns you may just keep that infantry or supply hogging tank puttering around in the landing craft because if you embark on the coast it may throw your supply out of wack - then if you finally take a town it takes I think 3 turns before it gives supply then ports are important to take vs towns usually.

[Horst]

Repairing with the support ship is not free, by the way. It's actually a rip-off with the support ships, as the repaired ship looses twice as much experience than with its own repair ability. Better wait until the scenario end before repairing your ships! I find support ships usually not useful at all, but it all depends on the scenario if you need to deal with mines or not.

Concering the anti-sub attacks: stumbling into submerged submarines is only beneficial for the first detector that tried to move into the same hex. Other ships with ASW attacks need to move within 2 hexes at first before attacking on the next turn. Every ship must normally do its own sonar sweep before attacking a submarine within 2 hexes range.