Axis: Winning the Battle of the Atlantic

[Harvey Birdman]

The best way to win the Battle of the Atlantic is with airpower using subs as primarily as recon units. CV's don't protect ships in their range from air attacks, So you can focus on kiling all the allied dd's so you subs are free to attack until allied CV ASW tech makes that too risky or you can just attack the convoys with your air power.

There are 3 convoys in the game.

1) One convoy starts at the northwest top corner of the map and travels to Iceland. It's British until Russia is in the war, then it supplies the Soviet Union.
It zigzags a bit on it way. You can't land a corps in Iceland then fly a stat bomber from Norway to attack it. So the only way it can be attacked is with subs. If playing against a human opponent who might deploy air units in Labrador or Scotland to kill your subs then your only chance to attack it is the last turn before it gets to Iceland by using a wolfpack surrounded by 3 or 4 recon subs to know whether allied cv's or dd's are in range to counterattack your subs.

2) A second convoy is British that starts off below Washington and travels in a straight line to Glasgow.
It can be attacked with a strat bomber with the level one strat operations upgrade that is placed in or beside Brest. You just need a sub as recon on a straight line out from Brest to spot for the strat bomber to see it.

3) Another British convoy starts at the southwest bottom corner and travels to Glasgow? in a zigzag path close to Llsbon, La Corun and Brest.
It can be attacked repeatly by 2 tac bombers with the level one strat operations upgrade railed from Lisbon to La Corun to Brest then back to Lisbon again for the next convoy. Again you need a sub to act as recon. Your strat bomber in Brest can attack this too when it's in the Brest kill zone.

A good tactic is to have wolfpack of 3 or 4 subs in the center surrounded on 6 "sea spotting hexsides" by 6 recon subs to know when it's safe to attack. Another good tactic is to take advantge of subs ambush potential. It's quite satisfying to surround the British CV in Syria or the BB in Malta in port with subs and then place a transport within seaspotting range of it.

I haven't tried this ambush tactic, but I think placing a sub ibeside a convoy in the blocking the direction of travel of an unescorted convoy, then surround the sub on the other 5 sides by subs would work great against the ai or human opponent. During the convoy phase the convoy runs into the sub and is ambushed for huge loses. Then any counterattacking allied ships in range get ambushed for huge losses too.

In general to win the Battle of the Atlantic you have to take advantage of a subs strength's ie it's stealthiness: for recon for air attacks on allied shipping or of warning of allied invasions so you know you have to ship units from the eastern front back to the west or for wolfpack attacks when it's safe from allied counterattack and for ambush tactics. The worst thing to do with a lone sub is to see an unescorted convoy, attack it, then get counterattacked by allied ahips you didn't see.

At minimum, your axis Battle of the Atlantic effort should consist of the strat bomber in Brest built after the fall of France and the 2 subs you start with. The 2 tac bombers railed from Lisbon to La Corun to Brest(assuming you take Spain and Portugal) before Barbarossa are going to decimate allied dd's. Making the Atlantic safe for your subs. Build the 2 Tac Bombers for the Battle of the Atlantic asap after you get strat ops 1 tech.

Gotta remember a human playing the allies should use some land based allied air power as well as teched up CV's to kill your subs. I wonder if strat ops 1 tech is so crucial to winning the Battle of the Atlantic and the war that your axis german starting research should be level 4 air balanced and level 3 general focused on economy?

One caveat. This is a game without the oil option on so I don't know if the air power for the Battle of the Atlantic is worth the oil.