Blockades and Submarines

[admdavis]

Hi everyone!

I'm relatively new here (I actually stumbled across RtW2 by accident while searching for user-made Carriers at War scenarios), so I've never played RtW. (If RtW2 wasn't so close to coming out, probably would have bought RtW two weeks ago). 

My question is, and maybe folks who've played RtW have insight, but how does the game do at handling blockades and commercial warfare? Specifically, I'm thinking about all those articles and studies that claim that Germany would have been better off building more u-boats than investing in capital ships like Bismarck and Tirpitz. Does the game allow you to simulate those possibilities? I know there was a lot of talk about the fact that subs are mostly abstracted, as far as design goes, but from a "navy minister" perspective, that seems like a strategic choice you should be able to make, particularly for countries like Germany, or Russia, or even A-H if you start at game in 1900. 

[bcoopactual]

Welcome to the forum.

In RTW1, blockades and submarine merchant warfare are two distinct systems.  Both can drive up unrest and cause your government to collapse but they don't really interact with each other other than their end result.  Blockades are entirely based on surface fleet strength (with a modifier that takes into account geographical advantage/disadvantage) in your or your enemy's home waters, e.g. the North American East Coast for the USA or Northern Europe for France, UK, Germany or Russia. 
 
There was a tendency in RTW1 for AI nations to switch to submarine construction at the expense of their surface fleet if you destroyed too much of it during a conflict. The logic eventually reached a point where it said I can't ever build a surface fleet to match the player nation again so I'll just build submarines instead with results sometimes exceeding 100 submarines. Essentially the non-historical choice for Germany pre-WW2 that you described.

Submarines can drive your unrest up pretty fast if you let them get out of control. From the mid-game on I preferred to have 3 or 4 times as many old DD and MS vessels to use as ASW/CP as was required* because at that number you tamp down on the submarine threat fairly quickly.

Of course building and maintaining enough small combatants to reach that ratio when the AI has 100+ submarines takes a lot of money away from BB/BC construction which is the most fun part of the game for many (including myself). Some players got fed enough about sub spam that the game became unplayable for them unless submarines were turned off. I never felt that way about the problem but I understood where they were coming from.

As a player, if you wanted you can indeed try the strategy yourself. I never have but I'm certain it would be deadly effective at causing major unrest because the AI is usually slow to build MS**. However, since submarines are abstracted for the most part it would also be pretty boring in my opinion.



*The game sets a minimum number of ships based on enemy submarine strength that you have to set as ASW/Coastal Patrol. If you go less than this number you start to lose prestige points and unrest goes up even quicker. Essentially you as the admiral are accused of not taking the submarine threat seriously enough and everybody is mad at you because they have to ration food now.

**MS is short for minesweeper but RTW1 also uses it for a generic term for any naval vessel that doesn't meet the criteria to be considered a destroyer or cruiser so it technically includes sub chasers, frigates, sloops and patrol gunboats. MS in RTW1 could do double duty as minesweepers and ASW craft. In RTW2 the is no longer necessarily the case as ASW and minesweeping gear are now equipment that must be added to the design similar to guns and armor.

[admdavis]

May 4, 2019 19:07:49 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

As a player, if you wanted you can indeed try the strategy yourself. I never have but I'm certain it would be deadly effective at causing major unrest because the AI is usually slow to build MS**. However, since submarines are abstracted for the most part it would also be pretty boring in my opinion.    

Good to know. It will be interesting to see what effect aircraft have on ASW work, as well.

I'm quite looking forward to this one coming out. It's going to come out just in time for the end of the school year, and once I get my finals graded.

[noshurviverse]

May 4, 2019 17:43:49 GMT -6 admdavis said:

Specifically, I'm thinking about all those articles and studies that claim that Germany would have been better off building more u-boats than investing in capital ships like Bismarck and Tirpitz.

One thing that I've read in contrast to this point is that the existence of those German battleships forced Great Britain to keep significant resources of their own in position in order to counter the threat posed by them. Sure, if Germany had not built the capital ships they could have build many more submarines, but the UK could have focused their efforts entirely upon Anti-submarine assets.

[Antediluvian Monster]

I'd say the British would have completed the five KGVs anyway, if not Germany then with Italy and Japan in mind. Tirpitz being fleet in being needing two modern fast battleships on station as counter did draw those resources away from the Mediterranean, of course.

In any case, in prewar years German sub buildup was handicapped due to terms of the AGNA, which pegged German submarine force into parity with Britain.

[Roumba]

I think the most significant drain on British resources in countering the German surface fleet was in aircraft. Every carrier, scout and bomber stationed to guard the North Sea/Iceland Passage against a breakout of surface raiders meant there were less operating in the Atlantic hunting U-boats. Between the fall of France and the conclusion of the Battle of Britain, the threat of coastal raids and all-out invasion took priority for even larger numbers of useful ASW-capable units.

Perhaps in RtW2 there will be a minimum of land/naval air groups that have to be assigned to ASW patrol? Or maybe as you mix in useful air units with ships, the overall ASW effect is greater than the sum of their parts? I have not read into the ASW/CP situation in RtW2, though.

[aeson]

May 5, 2019 8:51:25 GMT -6 Roumba said:

I think the most significant drain on British resources in countering the German surface fleet was in aircraft. Every carrier, scout and bomber stationed to guard the North Sea/Iceland Passage against a breakout of surface raiders meant there were less operating in the Atlantic hunting U-boats. Between the fall of France and the conclusion of the Battle of Britain, the threat of coastal raids and all-out invasion took priority for even larger numbers of useful ASW-capable units.

Pretty sure that Britain withdrew its fleet carriers from sub hunting in the early part of the war not so much because the carriers were needed to help contain the German surface fleet as because the unsuccessful attack on Ark Royal on 14 September and the sinking of Courageous on 17 September while the carriers were so employed led the Admiralty to regard the use of the carriers on such missions as unacceptably risky given the shortage of available escorts and the value of the carriers. Submarine-hunting carrier groups returned later in the war, but the carriers involved were mostly escort carriers rather than the more valuable and less numerous fleet and light fleet carriers.

[admdavis]

May 5, 2019 2:17:51 GMT -6 Antediluvian Monster said:

I'd say the British would have completed the five KGVs anyway, if not Germany then with Italy and Japan in mind. Tirpitz being fleet in being needing two modern fast battleships on station as counter did draw those resources away from the Mediterranean, of course.

In any case, in prewar years German sub buildup was handicapped due to terms of the AGNA, which pegged German submarine force into parity with Britain.

I think you have a point about the Med and Asia. I think it's possible that the biggest impact of Germany choosing not to build major capital units might have been the presence of a significant British Pacific Fleet in 1941. Interesting to think what impact three or four KGVs in Singapore with the Ark Royal or similar carrier might have had on Japanese planning.

[oldpop2000]

In the mid-1930’s, the German’s began to discuss the fleet building program. The U-boat group wanted more submarines and small surface fleet for guarding the coast. The other alternative was a mixed fleet, consisting of different types of surface ships and a much smaller U-boat fleet. The last plan was the one chosen; The Z-plan.

The plan called for 800 ships, 13 battleships and battlecruisers, 4 aircraft carriers, 15 Panzerschiffe, 23 cruisers and 22 large destroyers or Spahkreuzer. The plan called for these ships to be built between 1939 and 1946.
Frankly, the plan never got started partially due to the lack of industrial resources to build such a fleet. On September 3, 1939, the German’s invaded Poland and the Z-plan was scrapped, ships were scrapped and more U-boats were built.

nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/nazi-germanys-terrifying-plan-z-build-the-ultimate-19379

[Antediluvian Monster]

There was not very much time to get the Plan Z started. Hitler abrogated AGNA—and activated the programme—only in early 1939 as response to British guarantee on Poland and Second World War started some half a year later. In hindsight, at this point the correct decision would have been the expansion of the submarine arm instead, to better kick start it for wartime construction.

[dorn]

May 5, 2019 19:06:58 GMT -6 admdavis said:

May 5, 2019 2:17:51 GMT -6 Antediluvian Monster said:

I'd say the British would have completed the five KGVs anyway, if not Germany then with Italy and Japan in mind. Tirpitz being fleet in being needing two modern fast battleships on station as counter did draw those resources away from the Mediterranean, of course.

In any case, in prewar years German sub buildup was handicapped due to terms of the AGNA, which pegged German submarine force into parity with Britain.

I think you have a point about the Med and Asia. I think it's possible that the biggest impact of Germany choosing not to build major capital units might have been the presence of a significant British Pacific Fleet in 1941. Interesting to think what impact three or four KGVs in Singapore with the Ark Royal or similar carrier might have had on Japanese planning.

There was plan to include carrier in force Z - HMS Indomitable. However she run aground in November in West Indies. The impact on force Z is well known lossing both capital ship. However it is question that even if HMS Indomitable did not run aground she would be in Singapore in time.

The number of battleships was not so significant as some carrier to protect fleet against air attacks. Still need to think  that it was lucky hit similar to Bismarck that sink HMS Prince of Wales. Modern battleship is not completely easy to sink by air power and you need quite an effort. On the other side the ship has no chance against air power without cover and is more matter of time and resources to sink it.

[oldpop2000]

In 1922, in an office in the Netherlands and Spain, the German’s submarines designers and engineers began to develop U-boats. They used the guise of designing for foreign navies such as the Turkish Navy; That design became the prototype for the Type 1A and a prototype for the Finnish Navy became the Type IIA. The Finnish Navy also received another prototype, which became the Type VII. The smaller boats were used by Doenitz to train his future submarine crews. It wasn’t until March of 1935, that the German’s began building U-boats in German. The key here is that the German’s never figured that the war would start in 1939. The sense was that it would not begin until 1944. This would give them enough time to continue development on the longer-range boats and build them in sufficient numbers to be effective.

The German industrial capacity was not capable of really building 300 U-boats that had the capability of the longer ranges and torpedo capacity. The Type VIIC and Type IX’s were the only boat really capable of attacking the British sea lanes with any real effectiveness.

In the summer of 1935, the German Navy had twelve Type II U-boats, two type Is, ten Type VIIs. Doenitz did not want anymore Type IIs because of there lack of radius of action, speed and armament. The Type I because of difficulty in handling the boat. This left the Type VII which was actually a development of the Type BIII of WW1. Here is the list of deliveries of U-boats from 1935 to 1939.
1935 14 U-boats
1936 21
1937 1
1938 9
1939 18

The main U-boat construction facility was the Krupp GermaniaWerke in Kiel.

One of the main issues against building a large fleet such as proposed by the Z-plan was geography. The best of the British vital trade lanes was to the west of the British Isles, on the high seas of the Atlantic. The German fleet would have to breakout to have any real effect. The German’s live, as Doenitz put it, in a blind alley. They had Britain blocking the North Sea, and the English Channel which in war was impassible, the German’s knew that. The lack of available dockyards and ports really hampered any possible action by the German Navy. This was not corrected until the fall of France and even then, the ships had to pass though the 250-mile opening north via the Shetlands, Norway passage. This geographical problem was not as bad for the U-boat. They could submerge and pass through the gap and head into the North Atlantic. Eventually, they could use one of the captured French ports. However, when you are planning for a conflict, you cannot assume you will capture those ports.

Economically, the German’s had limited industrial capacity and limited ferrous and non-ferrous raw materials. The sole producer of the vital U-boat batteries is an example. This factory, the AFA Battery Works, was located near the city of Hagen on the SE edge of the Ruhr Valley. This would make it very vulnerable to bombing.

The driving force behind the Nazis conquest of Europe was the lack of natural resources. She never had the industrial capacity or natural resource to build 300 U-boats that Doenitz thought were necessary.