Coastal /ASW duty

[willy]

Hello, everyone! Really enjoy this game. I originally came to NWS via the Fighting Steel Project and TAS (which lamentably died for me a few computers ago). Played SAI for a few years and then stumbled upon RTW ... very addictive game. Just a quick question, Having more vessels than the minimum on ASW duty presumably increases the amount of enemy subs killed, but is there any other effects? Does ship type come in to play at all? Any thoughts on this aspect?
Cheers!
Stephen

[bcoopactual]

Welcome to the forum. Here is a quote from Fredrik regarding your question.

"The type of ship will also influence how effective they are against submarines, with MS and DD being best. Obsolete ships will perform be less effective. Q-ships (AMC) can be effective against subs if you have invented q-ships."

I don't have a direct quote available but I believe crew quality has an effect as well.
CP/ASW doesn't affect any other facet of the game that I'm aware of like raider or anti-raider activity. Or at least, I don't remember the developers stating any other effects.

Also, here is the wording from the manual.

"When war breaks out each nation will be
required to keep a number of ships on
Coastal/ASW patrol. The number of ships
required will be proportional to the fleet size
and modified by the strength of the enemy
submarine force. Ships on Coastal/ASW patrol
are counted in one global pool, and their exact
location is not important for fulfilling the
requirement.

The most cost effective ships for coastal/ASW
patrols are destroyers, minesweepers and small
armed merchant cruisers, but cruisers can do in
a pinch. Older destroyers no longer fit for fleet
duty are an ideal candidate.
If you do not satisfy the Coastal/ASW patrol
requirement, there will be a larger chance of
enemy submarines sinking merchant ships and
your prestige may suffer. Stronger patrols than
required will hamper the operations of enemy
submarines and increase the chance of sinking
them. Also, the crew quality of patrolling ships
will have an effect, so putting your worst crews
on ASW patrol might not be profitable.

Ships on coastal/ASW patrol may be present in
defensive costal battles in the area where they
are deployed.
AMCs can be used as ASW patrols and if you
have invented Q-ships, they can surprise and
sink enemy submarines."

It's important to note the distinction between older and obsolete.  Older refers to the date the ship was commissioned.  After some discussions on the forums I believe a lot of the more experienced players hold on to their older legacy 400-500 ton destroyers instead of scrapping them like they do for legacy cruisers and pre-dreadnoughts.  That way they are available for use in the CP/ASW pool.  

But you still need to perform minor refits periodically on those ships to prevent from getting the (o) symbol listed for the ship.  The (o) means the ship needs a refit to replace damaged and worn out equipment and that is what Fredrik is referring to when he talks about obsolete ships in the first quote.  

[willy]

Thanks!

[oaktree]

Though also note that refitting that ancient destroyer will also reset their crew quality. Which might also only make much of a difference when it's a ship with an elite quality crew.

[krankey]

Jumping into the think-tank here while the water is hot so to speak. Q-Ships, Minelayers and Old DD's sent to ASW/Coastal Patrol.

Q-Ships, in my current game I have just researched them and tbh don't know how to interact in game. I've got a few theories but stabs in the dark.

Theory 1, AMC's automatically become Q-Ships.
Theory 2, New build AMC's or AMC's refit after the research become Q-Ships.
Or none of the above please enlighten me (They don't appear in a ship design section)


Old destroyers to ASW/Coastal Patrol.

Is it worth refitting them with mines ? a 500tonne DD can carry I think just 6.

Also I believe if a new war occurs and your old DD's were in mothballs or reserve, there crew quality will be low ? or does it return quickly to former levels with the game tracking each ships potential ?

Is it worth fitting out old CL's as decent minelayers ? (Do they even make decent minelayers ?)

Thanks in advance

[garrisonchisholm]

Re-activate your mothballed MS and DD when conflict approaches, or your losses in the first 6 months or so of war will be very high.

I have never built a single AMC or Q-Ship and accomplish my preposterous winning just fine, so I am not sure how much one needs to worry about them.

[aeson]

Q-Ships, in my current game I have just researched them and tbh don't know how to interact in game. I've got a few theories but stabs in the dark.

Theory 1, AMC's automatically become Q-Ships.
Theory 2, New build AMC's or AMC's refit after the research become Q-Ships.
Or none of the above please enlighten me (They don't appear in a ship design section)

My assumption is that any AMC on ASW/CP duty counts as a Q-ship if the Q-ship tech has been researched - more advanced means were used historically, but all you really need to make a Q-ship out of an armed merchantman is a couple well-placed tarps to hide the guns.

I will add that I don't really feel that AMCs are worth fitting out for ASW/CP duty regardless of whether or not the Q-ships tech has been developed. Even a ludicrously minimal AMC (e.g. 1800t 2x2" 12kn) is considerably more expensive than a small MS, won't enter service that much faster, and doesn't stick around after the war ends, and on top of that my experience using submarines suggests to me that Q-ships aren't all that much better at killing subs than minesweepers are. If I'm going to build an AMC, I'd much rather build it for raiding, where it has significant advantages in cost and construction time over other options, than for any other role.

Old destroyers to ASW/Coastal Patrol.

Is it worth refitting them with mines ? a 500tonne DD can carry I think just 6.
...
Is it worth fitting out old CL's as decent minelayers ? (Do they even make decent minelayers ?)

Some things to bear in mind when considering fitting a ship with mines:
- The best place for a minelayer to be deployed is the sea zone with the most enemy ships in it.
- The game doesn't distinguish between a fleet auxiliary and a modern warship if both ships are in the same stance (e.g. AF) and have the same hull class (e.g. CL).
- Mine warfare is a low-visibility activity; you'll see occasional reports of ships being damaged or sunk by mines and may rarely see ships strike mines during engagements, but that tends to be about it.
- Mine warfare is also an activity over which the player has almost no control - we can control what sea zone our surface minelayers are in, but we cannot, for example, intentionally create the Otranto Barrage to help bottle the Austro-Hungarian surface fleet up in the Adriatic and hamper their submarine operations.
- Damaging or sinking ships with mines on the strategic level does not to my knowledge directly affect victory points.
- Mines cost 1 ton apiece and you can have up to 2 per 200 tons of design displacement (rounding up).

As such, I would suggest that you should not sacrifice too much capability in other areas for mines, that your minelayer conversions should be inexpensive, and that the ships that you equip as minelayers should still be relevant for other duties - preferably in areas where the enemy is likely to have lots of ships. As to the question of whether or not old cruisers make for decent minelayers, all I can say is that it depends. At least in my opinion, mines are not, by themselves, enough to make a ship worth keeping in the fleet - mines and mine warfare vessels are not particularly useful if they're employed in places where the enemy is unlikely to be, and the game doesn't distinguish between ships of a given hull class in the same stance, so a CM converted from a CL still needs to be useful as a CL, preferably in a primary theater of operations - laying mines off the American West Coast will probably do very little in a war with Germany, for example.

My policy is that if the ships have tonnage to spare and I intend to keep the ships in service, then there is little reason not to fit them with mines, but I will not go out of my way to fit mines onto old ships, nor will I keep old ships around if the only use I have for them is as minelayers. Likewise, I'll not sacrifice much for mines on new ships - I may fill out spare tonnage with mines and maybe drop a bit of ammunition or make similarly minor design changes to fit a few mines onto the design, but if the choice is between (more) mines and something with a greater, or at least more visible, impact on the game, I'll take that something over the mines.

[director]

In my last US game I got into a long and stalemated war with France. I built a series of AMCs and assigned them to ASW work (along with a purpose-built 700-ton destroyer escort). The Q-ships exceeded my expectations, sinking one or two enemy subs per month for an investment of eight 2000-ton AMCs.

[dorn]

In my last game I was in war with UK and Italy. I force Italy surrender and continue war with UK.

As game was reaching end year I decided to test something. UK had in average 8 submarines. I increase coastal patrol vessels to more than 150 (destroyers and minesweepers).

The effect was nil as I get some merchants sunk almost every turn even with so large anti-submarine fleet.

Quite interesting ....

We can see how it will work in RTW2 with aircraft potential. If player put a lot of effort to anti-submarine warfare it should practically render submarine effect to almost nill in 40s.

[AiryW]

150 isn't really that many compared to the historical numbers. Just because there are only 8 enemy submarines out there doesn't mean that you wouldn't still have many unprotected tramp freighters that could be targets. OTOH the game doesn't really allow for historical numbers of escorts of submarines so maybe 150 is supposed to mean you are mostly keeping your ships in convoys.