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Post by southkraut on Jun 14, 2019 2:20:06 GMT -6
In RTW1, submarines and ASW were balanced against each other by subs slowly approaching 100% reliability while ASW became more effective.
In RTW2, that balance seems to still be in place - until about 1925. Then ASW technology continues to develop, ASW planes begin to show up everywhere in ever-increasing numbers, while submarines gain no further advantages.
Towards the 40s and 50s, submarines seem to get sunk at such abominably high rates that there's hardly any justification for building them at all.
This has been my observation across three full games.
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Post by BigNose on Jun 14, 2019 2:51:25 GMT -6
Can confirm, lost 5-6 subs at an almost consistent rate at war with Japan past 1946. Even though basically their entire fleet was destroyed and they were down to 11 KE and 2 DDs (nothing else!), the airbases alone mostly sunk everything. Started the war with 24 medium subs operational, ended with none after 13 month (not even enough time to build a new one).
EDIT: The save was started in v1.00, and I patched the game 3 times up to v1.03 with the same savefile, playing on the new version until the next patch came out (just incase that matters).
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Post by rob06waves2018 on Jun 14, 2019 3:05:32 GMT -6
In the Second World War, the German navy recruited ~41,000 men. Of these, 28,000 were killed and 5000 taken prisoner by 1945. And unlike in WW1, they didn't manage to get close to starving the British into submission. Part of the reason we all rate submarines is because we all grew up in the age of the super-weapon that is the nuclear sub. These weren't available in the RTW timeline (the 1950 timeline anyway). Submarines hit their pre-nuclear peak in the inter-war years and then declined rapidly in value. It's no surprise that RTW mimics this past 1925. I don't build them myself past 1914 for this reason.
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Post by JagdFlanker on Jun 14, 2019 3:35:34 GMT -6
since subs are so expensive and take so long to build they are pretty much a waste of money to build since they die in droves once airpower takes hold, and it's much too much cash to throw away to maintain effective levels of subs
regardless of whether it's historical or not, i think sub mortality should be cut in half to make subs at least somewhat viable because they should be a better option than AMCs late game - but oddly it seems they are not
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Post by rodentnavy on Jun 14, 2019 4:32:38 GMT -6
Funnily enough I have had better luck with my subs in RTW2, that said patches are coming so thick and fast I have not played many non GB games as that is my go to for learning the ropes. The thing is that Britain so often has a blockade going I normally have my subs set to fleet support which might be why they die less.
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Warspite
Full Member
Sky of blue/And sea of green
Posts: 230
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Post by Warspite on Jun 14, 2019 4:48:00 GMT -6
Yes, I agree with the OP. As the US I fought a war against USSR and Japan in the early 1950s and was losing 4-5 submarines every turn. I quickly went from having 50+ to less than 10. In the end I just stopped building them.
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Post by southkraut on Jun 14, 2019 5:15:14 GMT -6
OK, so it seems that I'm not doing anything wrong and that's just how submarines fared realistically. Good to know!
I do get some use out of subs, namely by using USW to starve the USA out of a war when playing as a European power without the fleet to fight it head-on. But apart from subs seemed very much nice-to-have occasionally, rather than a susbtantial part of any strategy.
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Post by archelaos on Jun 14, 2019 5:16:43 GMT -6
since subs are so expensive and take so long to build they are pretty much a waste of money to build since they die in droves once airpower takes hold, and it's much too much cash to throw away to maintain effective levels of subs regardless of whether it's historical or not, i think sub mortality should be cut in half to make subs at least somewhat viable because they should be a better option than AMCs late game - but oddly it seems they are not True, but most of those losses occurred in the latter part of the war, when facing combined power of UK, US and Canadian escort forces.
Germans lost 9 boats in 1939, for 2/month ratio, same in 1940 - 24 boats in 12 months. In 1941 they lost 35 boats, but there were months with no losses at all, then 10 lost in December. Early 1942 was similar to year before, then losses skyrocketed in the second part of the year, with up to 16 per month. And then it became mindboggling - in May and July of 1943 42 and 38 subs were sunk respectively! In total, 241 were sunk this year, for average of 20/month. 1944 was similar.
US sub service also suffered major losses (52 subs lost, of those 41 to enemy action) for a ratio about 1.2/month, against enemy with rather poor ASW capabilities.
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Post by alkiap on Jun 14, 2019 5:19:30 GMT -6
Subs definitely have a low life expectancy after several key ASW technologies are developed. I think Elektro-boat development should give a much larger boost to sub effectiveness, since historically that was a revolution that essentially dictated conventional sub development for decades after.
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Post by polyarmus on Jun 14, 2019 5:39:59 GMT -6
since subs are so expensive and take so long to build they are pretty much a waste of money to build since they die in droves once airpower takes hold, and it's much too much cash to throw away to maintain effective levels of subs regardless of whether it's historical or not, i think sub mortality should be cut in half to make subs at least somewhat viable because they should be a better option than AMCs late game - but oddly it seems they are not True, but most of those losses occurred in the latter part of the war, when facing combined power of UK, US and Canadian escort forces.
Germans lost 9 boats in 1939, for 2/month ratio, same in 1940 - 24 boats in 12 months. In 1941 they lost 35 boats, but there were months with no losses at all, then 10 lost in December. Early 1942 was similar to year before, then losses skyrocketed in the second part of the year, with up to 16 per month. And then it became mindboggling - in May and July of 1943 42 and 38 subs were sunk respectively! In total, 241 were sunk this year, for average of 20/month. 1944 was similar.
US sub service also suffered major losses (52 subs lost, of those 41 to enemy action) for a ratio about 1.2/month, against enemy with rather poor ASW capabilities.
These historical ratios are not really transferable to RtW2 as the ingame production numbers are way below what was actually possible and achieved during the WWII. The issue is, that in RtW2 we are building submarines one at a time, however historically they have been produced on semi assembly line achieving very significant volume efficiencies and shorter lead times. |
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Post by christian on Jun 14, 2019 6:37:35 GMT -6
In the Second World War, the German navy recruited ~41,000 men. Of these, 28,000 were killed and 5000 taken prisoner by 1945. And unlike in WW1, they didn't manage to get close to starving the British into submission. Part of the reason we all rate submarines is because we all grew up in the age of the super-weapon that is the nuclear sub. These weren't available in the RTW timeline (the 1950 timeline anyway). Submarines hit their pre-nuclear peak in the inter-war years and then declined rapidly in value. It's no surprise that RTW mimics this past 1925. I don't build them myself past 1914 for this reason. the problem is we dont have subs like the type xxi either in game which have advanced sonar is alot more stealthy and can operate for up to 2 days underwater and is faster underwater than over it also has anti air guns aka submarines in game get outclassed by asw by ALOT |
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Post by alsadius on Jun 14, 2019 7:21:49 GMT -6
True, but most of those losses occurred in the latter part of the war, when facing combined power of UK, US and Canadian escort forces.
Germans lost 9 boats in 1939, for 2/month ratio, same in 1940 - 24 boats in 12 months. In 1941 they lost 35 boats, but there were months with no losses at all, then 10 lost in December. Early 1942 was similar to year before, then losses skyrocketed in the second part of the year, with up to 16 per month. And then it became mindboggling - in May and July of 1943 42 and 38 subs were sunk respectively! In total, 241 were sunk this year, for average of 20/month. 1944 was similar.
US sub service also suffered major losses (52 subs lost, of those 41 to enemy action) for a ratio about 1.2/month, against enemy with rather poor ASW capabilities.
These historical ratios are not really transferable to RtW2 as the ingame production numbers are way below what was actually possible and achieved during the WWII. The issue is, that in RtW2 we are building submarines one at a time, however historically they have been produced on semi assembly line achieving very significant volume efficiencies and shorter lead times. On VL fleets, I routinely throw a dozen subs into production at a time, and don't much care about the budget impact. They cost less than DDs do. It's still not to the same level as history (the Germans seemingly built 1,156 U-boats during WW2), but remember that the German navy of that era barely built surface combatants. A 68 month war, and SS costing 3.6M each, would imply a sub construction budget of 61.2M/month. If you're building SSC (and most of them were working in the Northern Europe zone in game terms, so this works), that's 27.2M/month instead. That is not a crazy budget for the 1940s. It's a bit beyond what you could probably do after paying for planes and maintenance for the ones that aren't dead yet, but on fleet size 11 or something it'd probably be quite doable by a SS-focused player. We don't do it, because that's not the game we want to play, but I'd wager it would work. |
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Post by aeson on Jun 14, 2019 10:31:23 GMT -6
the problem is we dont have subs like the type xxi either in game which have advanced sonar is alot more stealthy and can operate for up to 2 days underwater and is faster underwater than over Germany effectively didn't have submarines like the Type XXI in WWII, either - only two ever made war patrols (one each, both interrupted by the German surrender, if I recall correctly) and neither sank anything. The Type XXIII was more successful, but as only six ever went on war patrols near the end of the war they too are insignificant to the point of virtual irrelevance in a discussion of historical WWII submarine effectiveness.
Virtually every WWII-era submarine had anti-aircraft guns. History also shows that using WWII-era submarines to fight WWII-era aircraft was a sucker's game.
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Post by brygun on Jun 14, 2019 10:56:29 GMT -6
since subs are so expensive and take so long to build they are pretty much a waste of money to build since they die in droves once airpower takes hold, and it's much too much cash to throw away to maintain effective levels of subs regardless of whether it's historical or not, i think sub mortality should be cut in half to make subs at least somewhat viable because they should be a better option than AMCs late game - but oddly it seems they are not Concur in principle. Vary my view to using avaition ships AV as raiders AVR as they cost ~twice an AMC but I can use them in 3 or more wars. |
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Post by brygun on Jun 14, 2019 11:05:02 GMT -6
On seeing the discussion on WW2 submarine survivability in this thread:
= most stats are referring to the German u-boats which was a nation on losing side thus had limited funds for development of technology
= stats on USA fleet boats would show a much higher survival rate and usefulness in the late WW2 of the real world
= Survival and usefulness of Cold War subs not noticed as presented. Though without a war little stats available on actual battle performance. (except perhaps for those secret in the crate next the Ark of Covenant)
= As a simulation game RTW2 allows choosing branches to develop. While I usually focus late game into air power their ought to be ways to try out simulating a sub power.
= Query: When did wire guided torpedoes come into use in the real world? Is that close enough that if someone focused on them they could come into play for a sub focused RTW2 nation?
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