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Post by director on Feb 4, 2022 18:35:30 GMT -6
In one memorable game I was playing as the US, at war with Germany. Neither of us could really get at the other, so there were a lot of declined missions and not much action.
So I put most of the battlefleet in storage, started building two subs per turn (plus more for losses), went to unrestricted warfare and started building at least two AMCs per turn. Around the time I hit 20 AMCs in North European waters, Germany cracked and went into revolution.
So, yeah - if you have the money, you can steel-plate the oceans with AMCs and - somehow - wreck anyone.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 5, 2022 9:50:24 GMT -6
My trade war strategy has always been to use submarines for trade lane attacks, not cruisers or AMC's. Historically, they were never really that effective. AMC's were slow and easy targets for warships escorting the convoys and warships like the Graf Spee, Scharnhorst or even Bismarck were never effective. Just my historical take on all this. I immediately raise my research level on submarines and torpedoes to high. As Japan, I've been very successful. Raider - Introduction.pdf (625.11 KB)
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Post by zederfflinger on Feb 5, 2022 13:04:11 GMT -6
One could argue that Germany's merchant raiders were quite successful for the amount of resources put into them. Building warships primarily for raiding is not a great idea, but they can work well in a pinch.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 5, 2022 13:38:28 GMT -6
One could argue that Germany's merchant raiders were quite successful for the amount of resources put into them. Building warships primarily for raiding is not a great idea, but they can work well in a pinch. One could try, of course. The German surface raiders of WW2 sank a little short of 800,000 tons of shipping. When you consider the expense of building, manning and maintaining these ships, it was a really bad investment. On the other hand, U-boats after February 1943 sank 2779 ships for a total of 14.1 million tons or 70 percent of all allied shipping losses in all theatres. The most successful year was 1942. The cost of building the Bismarck, could have been used to build 10 U-boats. Had they built U-boats instead of surface raiders in 1935, they could have had 100 U-boats manned and in service by 1940. However, in the interest of honesty in providing arguments for both sides of this, here is a good article on the other side. _To Die Gallantly___The Role of the Surface....pdf (344.86 KB)
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Post by wlbjork on Feb 6, 2022 0:51:50 GMT -6
On the other hand, 224 U-boats caused no damage at all to the Allies, out of fewer than 600 built - that's the better part of 40% of the U-boat fleet doing nothing either.
By comparison, the Germans converted 11 ships to AMCs to use as Merchant Raiders. 9 of them had success before they were sunk, 1 failed to break out and was converted back to it's regular duties and 1 never deployed as a raider - but counting all of these results in only 18% of the ships doing nothing. Additionally surface raiders can and did capture enemy shipping which granted miniscule quantities of additional resources.
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Post by vonfriedman on Feb 6, 2022 3:33:26 GMT -6
Perhaps the question of this thread should be rephrased. If we talk about reality, and therefore of the Battle of the Atlantic, etc., it is evident that the AMCs were useless in the most important traffic lanes, mainly sailed by ships in escorted convoys. Consequently the effectiveness of the AMCs in RTW2 / DLC should be heavily penalized as soon as convoys are made possible by research or by purchase of this "technology". Add to this the derivation of the AMCs not at will but starting from what a pre-existent merchant fleet can offer, which is discussed in another thread.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 6, 2022 8:06:32 GMT -6
On the other hand, 224 U-boats caused no damage at all to the Allies, out of fewer than 600 built - that's the better part of 40% of the U-boat fleet doing nothing either. By comparison, the Germans converted 11 ships to AMCs to use as Merchant Raiders. 9 of them had success before they were sunk, 1 failed to break out and was converted back to it's regular duties and 1 never deployed as a raider - but counting all of these results in only 18% of the ships doing nothing. Additionally surface raiders can and did capture enemy shipping which granted miniscule quantities of additional resources. Here is a good web site for U-boats that I've always used. It should be helpful. uboat.net/Here is another - www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsAtlanticDev.htmwww.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsGermanWarships.htmI am not trying to convince anyone, just provide some good information to browse and use. Enjoy
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 6, 2022 8:07:01 GMT -6
Perhaps the question of this thread should be rephrased. If we talk about reality, and therefore of the Battle of the Atlantic, etc., it is evident that the AMCs were useless in the most important traffic lanes, mainly sailed by ships in escorted convoys. Consequently the effectiveness of the AMCs in RTW2 / DLC should be heavily penalized as soon as convoys are made possible by research or by purchase of this "technology". Add to this the derivation of the AMCs not at will but starting from what a pre-existent merchant fleet can offer, which is discussed in another thread. I would agree and go along with this idea. It makes sense.
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