Post by bcoopactual on Jun 9, 2017 5:46:53 GMT -6
I'm probably not the first to mention this but my recent experience in my current game showed me one strategy that seems to work against larger submarine fleets I thought I'd share.
Background -
(100% Research Rate, No Varied Technology)
1913-1917 At war with France while allied with England.
After blockading and decimating the French Capital ship fleet over a series of major battles in the first couple years of the war, the French AI did the expected submarine construction program and ended up with roughly 90 submarines commissioned or under construction at wars end.
The Russia AI and Japanese AI followed suit with major submarine construction programs of their own. Russia ended up with about 116 submarines of all types and Japan 81.
For comparison, at the time I had roughly 24 submarines in commission or under construction.
Fast forward to January 1923 and Russia has declared war against me. As you can see below, unlike the other classes I haven't been deleting my older destroyers. The three most recent classes of destroyers, 48 ships in all, are my front line ships that I leave in Active Fleet mode. Most of the rest that aren't travelling as well as most of my minesweepers, I've put in CP/ASW mode. So I have roughly three times the required patrol requirement of 31 ships.
Also my ASW tech level is 11, I have everything researched or purchased except for the last tech K-guns.
So starting in February, my merchant losses were still pretty bad. I lost 11 one month and 13 another. However, I was killing 8-11 submarines every month as well. As the Russian submarine numbers dwindled so did my losses and theirs. In the five months or so of combat I had the following events occur because of enemy submarine activity:
I had one old destroyer in CP/ASW mode strike a mine and sink off of the US East Coast.
I had one minesweeper torpedoed and sunk.
I had one battleship torpedoed and sent to the yards for two months.
I lost one minesweeper to a spirited gun duel.
At the end of June, in 5 months of combat I had sunk 38 submarines and lost 41 merchant ships. (5 additional merchants were lost to surface raiders)
In the meantime I had sunk 41 merchants (plus 4 more to surface raiders) for the loss of 10 submarines and had already gotten one event about possible hardships and shortages in Russia when in July, the Russians asked for peace and my President agreed to it against my recommendation. At least I got 6 points out of it.
I realize this is just one data point so it doesn't mean this strategy for anti-submarine defense is guaranteed or even likely to work and it wasn't a unique idea I pulled out of thin air, I'm pretty sure it's been discussed in the forums previously. ALso, it's a strategy that might not work for every nation. Smaller nations for example might not be able to afford to keep all of their old destroyers around even though they don't cost too much in Reserve. It also takes some long term planning because you have to not scrap your old DD's.
However, I wanted to share my results for others who are looking for ways to combat large submarine fleets in-game. I'd be curious for anyone else who tries a similar strategy to post their results in this thread to let me know how it worked. Please include information like what your ratio of actual to required patrol ships was and how many merchants you lost and how many subs you sank. Some of that you have to keep your own tabs on because the game doesn't store that data.
In real life, submariners rule the seas and you have no shot but fortunately for the rest of you this is a game.
Background -
(100% Research Rate, No Varied Technology)
1913-1917 At war with France while allied with England.
After blockading and decimating the French Capital ship fleet over a series of major battles in the first couple years of the war, the French AI did the expected submarine construction program and ended up with roughly 90 submarines commissioned or under construction at wars end.
The Russia AI and Japanese AI followed suit with major submarine construction programs of their own. Russia ended up with about 116 submarines of all types and Japan 81.
For comparison, at the time I had roughly 24 submarines in commission or under construction.
Fast forward to January 1923 and Russia has declared war against me. As you can see below, unlike the other classes I haven't been deleting my older destroyers. The three most recent classes of destroyers, 48 ships in all, are my front line ships that I leave in Active Fleet mode. Most of the rest that aren't travelling as well as most of my minesweepers, I've put in CP/ASW mode. So I have roughly three times the required patrol requirement of 31 ships.
Also my ASW tech level is 11, I have everything researched or purchased except for the last tech K-guns.
So starting in February, my merchant losses were still pretty bad. I lost 11 one month and 13 another. However, I was killing 8-11 submarines every month as well. As the Russian submarine numbers dwindled so did my losses and theirs. In the five months or so of combat I had the following events occur because of enemy submarine activity:
I had one old destroyer in CP/ASW mode strike a mine and sink off of the US East Coast.
I had one minesweeper torpedoed and sunk.
I had one battleship torpedoed and sent to the yards for two months.
I lost one minesweeper to a spirited gun duel.
At the end of June, in 5 months of combat I had sunk 38 submarines and lost 41 merchant ships. (5 additional merchants were lost to surface raiders)
In the meantime I had sunk 41 merchants (plus 4 more to surface raiders) for the loss of 10 submarines and had already gotten one event about possible hardships and shortages in Russia when in July, the Russians asked for peace and my President agreed to it against my recommendation. At least I got 6 points out of it.
I realize this is just one data point so it doesn't mean this strategy for anti-submarine defense is guaranteed or even likely to work and it wasn't a unique idea I pulled out of thin air, I'm pretty sure it's been discussed in the forums previously. ALso, it's a strategy that might not work for every nation. Smaller nations for example might not be able to afford to keep all of their old destroyers around even though they don't cost too much in Reserve. It also takes some long term planning because you have to not scrap your old DD's.
However, I wanted to share my results for others who are looking for ways to combat large submarine fleets in-game. I'd be curious for anyone else who tries a similar strategy to post their results in this thread to let me know how it worked. Please include information like what your ratio of actual to required patrol ships was and how many merchants you lost and how many subs you sank. Some of that you have to keep your own tabs on because the game doesn't store that data.
In real life, submariners rule the seas and you have no shot but fortunately for the rest of you this is a game.
_(edited)_Screenshot_(739).png?width=180&height=180&fit=bounds)