How do you kill subs?

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Mike McCreery
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How do you kill subs?

Post by Mike McCreery »

I am having an exceptionally hard time attacking subs from the air in my current game.

What planes and settings do you use for ASW patrol that you find sucessful? I am having problems with subs 1 hex away from bases. Not sure what I am doing wrong. Any advice is appreciated.
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BBfanboy
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by BBfanboy »

ASW ranges are halved, so you need to set your patrol range at 2 hexes or more if you suspect they are also patrolling a little further out. I never set arcs for the patrol and my aircraft seem to find them just fine, but getting an attack in is rare, even with experienced aviators. I think the sub commander Naval stats affect the die roll for chance of an attack.

So first I set Nav Search at 4000 feet to try and spot which hexes the subs are in.
Then I set aircraft to ASW at 2000 feet to localize and try and attack the sub.
Then I send out ASW craft with patrol zones and react = to one phase of their movement at cruise speed i.e. DDs get react 5 but KVs get react 3.

Given all that, until NavSearch skill gets into the 40s and ASW into the 60s, sightings and attacks are rare. Overall Experience of the pilots also seems to be important.

Ships need experience in the high 50s or better in the phase in which combat is taking place. Ship captains need high Naval to localize and attack the sub and high Aggression to persist in hunting it.
ASW TFs need to be two ship minimum (single ships risk being torpedoed much more than multiple ships). I prefer three ships, so that if one uses up most of its DC ammo, it can go back to port to replenish while the other two continue the hunt.

EDIT: Once I have damaged a sub enough that it will likely RTB, I guess where the likely base is, estimate the hexes per day it will travel and send ASW ships down the path. About half the time I find the sub again at least once and about half again of those occasions I get significantly more hits. I figure this ups my kill rate about 25-30%.
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ny59giants
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by ny59giants »

Per a series of emails with MichaelM years ago about this issue, he reported that only ASW skills is involved in ASW attacks by aircraft. Some players had claimed that they also had trained up the airgroup's LowN skill as they had set planes at 1000 ft. You will need to have those dedicated airgroups have a second skill just to raise the groups overall experience levels to get hits. If possible, have those airgroups or at least their pilots find someplace to attack to gain that all important experience with minimal risk of being killed. For ASW to be effective, you will need to have another group doing NavS at night to increase DL levels when it comes to day time air attack time.
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GetAssista
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by GetAssista »

80 ASW + 20 rest, 1k height usually
I think for float plane ASW pilots flying CAP is best for increasing xp after they get 70 ASW from training. Unfortunately bombs on said FPs are not the biggest ones
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PaxMondo
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by PaxMondo »

I use AIR ASW missions to get the DL up and good ASW TF's to kill them.
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dr.hal
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by dr.hal »

One must keep in mind however, that to kill a sub is not the issue really, it is to neutralize the sub. Using ASW patrols in the area impacts the sub's ability to attack YOU. That unto itself is an important outcome. The game does reflect reality in that it is very difficult to "kill" a sub by aircraft, one has only to juxtapose the number of hours flown in the real war by ASW air assets and the number of confirmed kills made by said aircraft to see that there is a LOT of flying time needed to achieve success. So don't be discouraged, you are doing something, but it's just hard to prove a negative. If you are not being hit by subs except upon occasion, something is going right.
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by kaleun »

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AW1Steve
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by AW1Steve »

This game reflects reality in it's making ASW very, very difficult. ASW requires lots of patience. At the beginning of the war both sides had extremely poor ASW ratings on their vessels. USS DD's start out as "2" then grow to "6". Not great. Specialized ASW vessels start at "4" then grow to up to "11". HUGE difference. Skills of ship crews and leader grow from poor to pretty good and in some cases exceptional. Air search starts off as pretty useless and will grow to very effective. All you need is time, patience, and most of all , training.

In the early war you'll seldom get kills. Hardly ever. At that time you need to achieve "soft kills". 1) AVOID contact with subs by steering TF's and convoys around them. Use more irregular shipping routes, saturation air search and air ASW. And by sending ASW groups ahead of valuable convoys and TF's to flush out subs lying in wait. A really good way to develop ASW skills. 2) concentrate on damaging subs , rather than sinking them. Air ASW and ASW groups will attack a sub , drive it off and get a few hits on it forcing it to return to port. 3) In the case of the allies you need to "blind" the Glenns of the Japanese. CAP can do that. Even the worst possible fighter can knock down a Glenn. When you do this , you change the "scouting range" of a I-boat from 3 or 4 squares to less than one.

Harass , chase , sight and avoid the enemy subs. Every time a unit contacts one , it gains experience. In a year of constant contact it becomes more effective. In two years it can become somewhat lethal. By mid 1944 a ASW force pretty much neutralizes subs and becomes very lethal to them. But it takes time and you just have to work at it. [:)]
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by Chickenboy »

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

This game reflects reality in it's making ASW very, very difficult. ASW requires lots of patience. At the beginning of the war both sides had extremely poor ASW ratings on their vessels. USS DD's start out as "2" then grow to "6". Not great. Specialized ASW vessels start at "4" then grow to up to "11". HUGE difference. Skills of ship crews and leader grow from poor to pretty good and in some cases exceptional. Air search starts off as pretty useless and will grow to very effective. All you need is time, patience, and most of all , training.

In the early war you'll seldom get kills. Hardly ever. At that time you need to achieve "soft kills". 1) AVOID contact with subs by steering TF's and convoys around them. Use more irregular shipping routes, saturation air search and air ASW. And by sending ASW groups ahead of valuable convoys and TF's to flush out subs lying in wait. A really good way to develop ASW skills. 2) concentrate on damaging subs , rather than sinking them. Air ASW and ASW groups will attack a sub , drive it off and get a few hits on it forcing it to return to port. 3) In the case of the allies you need to "blind" the Glenns of the Japanese. CAP can do that. Even the worst possible fighter can knock down a Glenn. When you do this , you change the "scouting range" of a I-boat from 3 or 4 squares to less than one.

Harass , chase , sight and avoid the enemy subs. Every time a unit contacts one , it gains experience. In a year of constant contact it becomes more effective. In two years it can become somewhat lethal. By mid 1944 a ASW force pretty much neutralizes subs and becomes very lethal to them. But it takes time and you just have to work at it. [:)]

Good advice.

You can also put together H/K groups, akin to what the USN did in the Atlantic in the latter half of the Battle of the Atlantic. CVEs with reasonably trained air groups dedicated to spotting and attacking enemy subs combined with DE, PC, KV or other smaller combatants specializing in escort and ASW can be an effective combination. A 3-4 mid-war DE ASW TF will get your ASW rating north of 30. On spotted submarines that let their guard down, this can be (as IRL) a lethal combination.

Killing them is more difficult than spotting submarines, as stated above. Spotted submarines (with any sort of DL really) have poor efficacy and are rendered inert just by virtue of their spotting. Effective air search umbrellas really diminish the danger of enemy submarines.

Lastly, like IRL, some of the best ASW platforms are...other submarines. If you have a particularly annoying recurrent submarine 'problem' in an area that you may not have good aerial coverage or ASW TF coverage, consider parking one of your submarines there. Ideally, it should be one with functional torpedoes, high commander naval rating and good crew experience. Also, don't repeat the error of having *your* submarine get spotted under your opponent's aerial umbrella.
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by spence »

You can also put together H/K groups, akin to what the USN did in the Atlantic in the latter half of the Battle of the Atlantic.

The hunter-killer groups were initially started by the British in 1939 however they spent most of their time searching empty ocean and as the war intensified (and the Germans built more Uboats) they didn't have enough ships to continue. Turns out that searching empty ocean was the same problem the Uboats had.

The Brits found that:
a)the place to look for Uboats was in the vicinity of convoys
b) aircraft were very effective keeping Uboats submerged and thus unable to attack those convoys (because their speed submerged was so slow)

In the game you can not exactly assign a/c to escort convoys but you can assign them to patrol certain arcs through which a convoy will pass. That tends to increase the DL of the sub and prevent attacks by it.
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Chickenboy
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by Chickenboy »

Actually, what I was referring to was the successful implementation of the CVE / DE / DD H/K combinations by the USN in the Atlantic mid-late war. This was a very effective tactic as implemented. Using convoy escorts is a useful technique, but I'm specifically talking about H/K groups.

What the British did or did not do with their H/K or convoy group escorts and what their (somewhat indigenous and unique) lessons learned were were not necessarily the same lessons learned as the Americans.

For more information on this, see Clay Blair's Hitler's U-boat War, Vol. 2
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by AW1Steve »

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Actually, what I was referring to was the successful implementation of the CVE / DE / DD H/K combinations by the USN in the Atlantic mid-late war. This was a very effective tactic as implemented. Using convoy escorts is a useful technique, but I'm specifically talking about H/K groups.

What the British did or did not do with their H/K or convoy group escorts and what their (somewhat indigenous and unique) lessons learned were were not necessarily the same lessons learned as the Americans.

For more information on this, see Clay Blair's Hitler's U-boat War, Vol. 2

Excellent historical technique , but I feel a little less so in reality. As the British found out , and the USS Block Island as well, keeping a CV of any type in a ASW hunt is very dangerous. As Admiral Dan Gallery (who commanded the USS Guadalcanal TF that caught the U-505) once said , "A carrier in a ASW battle is like an old lady in the middle of a bar-room brawl, she's got no business being there). So what I do is have a ASW TF in front with a Air Combat TF with 1 or 2 CVE's following close behind. If any unit is going to "stumble" on a sub , let it be an ASW unit, not a valuable CVE. In essence I have the CVE's support the ASW unit.

This is not unlike what I do with a Convoy or capital ship unit (early in the war). Have the ASW unit "stumble" across subs. DD's and escorts are fast and very maneuverable , and rarely take a sub launched torpedo. Let them deal with the sub and let the valuable units avoid the subs datum. Again , just like real life. [:)] [:)]
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by spence »

Actually, what I was referring to was the successful implementation of the CVE / DE / DD H/K combinations by the USN in the Atlantic mid-late war. This was a very effective tactic as implemented. Using convoy escorts is a useful technique, but I'm specifically talking about H/K groups.

I believe you'll find that the H/K groups patrolled in the vicinity of convoys...the convoys drew the Uboats which the H/K groups tracked them down using HFDF when they started signalling their HQ and other Uboats that they'd found a convoy. Once generally located the H/K group used a/c to pin them down and and the planes and ships cooperated to kill them. Check out www.uboatarchive.net/. Lots of neat pictures.
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by Chickenboy »

I wasn't able to access any specific mission profiles from that site. I'm sure there's some interesting stuff there, but I don't feel like clicking all the buttons for a general site.

A quick search on CVE hunter/killer groups describes the following actions:

1. USS Card (CVE-11): Look at the kill list on this baby! Most impressive. I don't read these offensive war patrols as being near or around convoys other than perhaps random happenstance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Card_(CVE-11)

2. USS Guadalcanal (CVE 60) pioneered the use of night Avenger attacks. That novel approach, combined with DE and DD H/K colleagues led to several successful H/K groups. Again, no particular association with convoy escort mentioned.

From the US Navy website http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=3:

This clarifies that escort carriers' missions expanded in the mid-late war and that the H/K units were-by definition-offensive independent units that were not bound to convoy escort and happenstance prosecution of U-boats.

In the Atlantic, escort carriers originally stayed close to the convoys they were protecting. Over time, tactics evolved that enabled the Jeep carriers and their destroyer escorts to become independent "hunter-killer" groups. They could attack concentrations of U-boats at will and were no longer required to provide constant umbrella coverage for a convoy. This tactic was further refined by having the escort carrier groups concentrate their efforts in areas where U-boats met their supply submarines ("milch cows").

This operational phase was so successful that three Jeeps -- USS Core (CVE 13), USS Card (CVE 11) and USS Bogue (CVE 9) and their escorting destroyers sank a total of 16 U-boats and 8 milch cows in a period of 98 days. During this time, U-boats sank only one merchantman and shot down only three planes from the escort carriers. This loss of submarines, particularly the milch cows, was a severe blow to the German Navy. With diminished capability for refueling U-boats at sea, and with no friendly bases in the area, Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander of the German U-boat fleet, was forced to withdraw his remaining supply submarines

I'd mentioned Card before, but Bogue's and Core's contributions can be added on to those of Guadalcanal's too.
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by AW1Steve »

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

I wasn't able to access any specific mission profiles from that site. I'm sure there's some interesting stuff there, but I don't feel like clicking all the buttons for a general site.

A quick search on CVE hunter/killer groups describes the following actions:

1. USS Card (CVE-11): Look at the kill list on this baby! Most impressive. I don't read these offensive war patrols as being near or around convoys other than perhaps random happenstance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Card_(CVE-11)

2. USS Guadalcanal (CVE 60) pioneered the use of night Avenger attacks. That novel approach, combined with DE and DD H/K colleagues led to several successful H/K groups. Again, no particular association with convoy escort mentioned.

From the US Navy website http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=3:

This clarifies that escort carriers' missions expanded in the mid-late war and that the H/K units were-by definition-offensive independent units that were not bound to convoy escort and happenstance prosecution of U-boats.

In the Atlantic, escort carriers originally stayed close to the convoys they were protecting. Over time, tactics evolved that enabled the Jeep carriers and their destroyer escorts to become independent "hunter-killer" groups. They could attack concentrations of U-boats at will and were no longer required to provide constant umbrella coverage for a convoy. This tactic was further refined by having the escort carrier groups concentrate their efforts in areas where U-boats met their supply submarines ("milch cows").

This operational phase was so successful that three Jeeps -- USS Core (CVE 13), USS Card (CVE 11) and USS Bogue (CVE 9) and their escorting destroyers sank a total of 16 U-boats and 8 milch cows in a period of 98 days. During this time, U-boats sank only one merchantman and shot down only three planes from the escort carriers. This loss of submarines, particularly the milch cows, was a severe blow to the German Navy. With diminished capability for refueling U-boats at sea, and with no friendly bases in the area, Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander of the German U-boat fleet, was forced to withdraw his remaining supply submarines

I'd mentioned Card before, but Bogue's and Core's contributions can be added on to those of Guadalcanal's too.
Good info CB. While they probably weren't assigned to ride "shot gun" on the convoy , I can't imagine them not "using" them as bait. In my own experience , our favorite place to look for a sub was directly behind a CV. But any surface "skimmers" would do. A convoy would be too tasty for a diesel sub to pass up! [:D] [:D]
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by spence »

Killing the "milch cows" and their "friends" was the result of very specific ULTRA intelligence (basically not available in AE to anywhere near the extent it applied in both the Atlantic and Pacific). In early 1943 air-cover for the convoys began to be provided by very long range shore based a/c...the "concentrations of Uboats" were to be found in the vicinity of convoys.
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Chickenboy
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by Chickenboy »

ORIGINAL: spence

Killing the "milch cows" and their "friends" was the result of very specific ULTRA intelligence (basically not available in AE to anywhere near the extent it applied in both the Atlantic and Pacific). In early 1943 air-cover for the convoys began to be provided by very long range shore based a/c...the "concentrations of Uboats" were to be found in the vicinity of convoys.

I'm not so sure about the availability of ULTRA-like intelligence in the game, Spence. From turn one, the Allies have actionable intelligence about troop movements, troops aboard ships, ship routing and destination and also combatant status and location. In the game, I usually task individual or (rarely) two-ship groups to deal with these opportunities.

This information, combined with some of the third party resources or vigorous note taking should permit some semblance of actionable intel not too dissimilar to that used to butcher the Milch cows and their hangers-on. If one plots out such contact points and intel / SigInt intercepts over time, a picture will emerge that can be useful for larger offensive actions. A bunch of AS contacts and HIJMS contacts ships cloistered around remote island "X" may draw a potent counterstrike.

Yeah, it's not "ULTRA" per se and it's not nice and neat. WiTP:AE intel won't tell you an operational plan, ala Midway. But it can be quite actionable, albeit parsimonious.
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by Hotei »

Someone stated that a slower airspeed ac is a factor in favor of spotting subs, is this a confirmed fact?
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by spence »

While the Allies have an advantage insofar as SIGINT is concerned in AE it hardly approximates what existed in RL.
Although it does entail a lot of clicks you'll find that the official AARs submitted by the H/K CTFs specifically say that they were reacting to specific ULTRA which indicated all kinds of neat stuff like current position, course, speed and ETA at a certain rendezvous. If one reads through the TROMs of IJN warships and auxiliaries on combinedfleet.com you will see over and over that the ship in question died because it was ambushed by submarines provided with the same sort of information. Successes in ship kills certainly accelerated closer to the end of the war but that type of intel was provided to multiple subs when HIJMS Shokaku retired damaged from Coral Sea.

The success of USS England's H/K group was traceable to intercepted radio signals that assigned the IJN subs to a specific patrol line.
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RE: How do you kill subs?

Post by Revthought »

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ASW ranges are halved, so you need to set your patrol range at 2 hexes or more if you suspect they are also patrolling a little further out. I never set arcs for the patrol and my aircraft seem to find them just fine, but getting an attack in is rare, even with experienced aviators. I think the sub commander Naval stats affect the die roll for chance of an attack.

So first I set Nav Search at 4000 feet to try and spot which hexes the subs are in.
Then I set aircraft to ASW at 2000 feet to localize and try and attack the sub.
Then I send out ASW craft with patrol zones and react = to one phase of their movement at cruise speed i.e. DDs get react 5 but KVs get react 3.

Given all that, until NavSearch skill gets into the 40s and ASW into the 60s, sightings and attacks are rare. Overall Experience of the pilots also seems to be important.

Ships need experience in the high 50s or better in the phase in which combat is taking place. Ship captains need high Naval to localize and attack the sub and high Aggression to persist in hunting it.
ASW TFs need to be two ship minimum (single ships risk being torpedoed much more than multiple ships). I prefer three ships, so that if one uses up most of its DC ammo, it can go back to port to replenish while the other two continue the hunt.

EDIT: Once I have damaged a sub enough that it will likely RTB, I guess where the likely base is, estimate the hexes per day it will travel and send ASW ships down the path. About half the time I find the sub again at least once and about half again of those occasions I get significantly more hits. I figure this ups my kill rate about 25-30%.

You do a more thorough job of it than I do. I consider it a win to force the enemy sub back to base and call it a day, so my goal is: get the enemy sub out of my shipping lanes as quickly as possible, and be sure no other subs get into the shipping lane.

Otherwise, our approaches are similar, though in early war before my ship crews are good (and before I have good ASW on all of my destroyers) I make my ASW TFs larger. Incidentally, actually killing subs is hard in early 1942 unless you catch them in a port attack.

I will also, in a pinch, use the same LBA to simultaneously run nav search and ASW--20% nav search, 20% asw patrol, 60% rest; that said, using multiple air units is the way to go. I only use a single unit to do both parts of the job when I'm patrolling from small basis with only AVP support, so very rarely.

The altitudes I use vary based on whether I'm using multiple LBA units or one to do the job. If I'm using multiple I search at 5k feet and ASW patrol at 2k feet. If I'm using a single LBA unit I will run it at 3k feet.

ORIGINAL: Hotei

Someone stated that a slower airspeed ac is a factor in favor of spotting subs, is this a confirmed fact?

This could be, but the chief factor seems to be pilot skill. I do notice some airframes seem to be slightly better at getting "reported hits" than others, but its hardly noticeable if your pilots have an ASW > 75. At least that's how it seems to me.
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