[Feature Request] Submarines are controllable vessels

[stadl0r]

Hello and first off thank you so much for this amazing game! I am new to the series through RTW3 after more than a decade of playing other naval simulation games this is quickly becoming my new favorite. 

One suggestion I have is perhaps adding submarines to the list of controllable ships in the battle mode with two stances, surfaced versus submerged. This would allow for submarines to be more involved in naval battle scenarios and then can be used for covert torpedo attacks on fleets versus just being an automated item. It would give RTW3 an edge over other naval simulations since nothing really models that form of battle well. This would also tie in nicely for the missile era naval campaigns with submarines playing an important role in the modern battlefield. 

[zulu354]

I guess submarine handling is still a holdover from the first games. During the early years of the game, the handling of them is just fine, as submarine captains often work and make decissions on their own. This changed during the course of ww2, as far as I am concerned, as the germans began to hunt in wolf packs and the role of submarine became more important overall.
I agree, that controll of submarines should change over the course of time. We'll see, where we will end.

Btw, try to play in admirals mode - that can be a real bummer and you can blame your captains for making stupid decissions.

[director]

If I understand what you are asking for, then I'd say that controlling subs on a tactical level was tried by four nations and it failed for three.

The issues were communication, relatively slow submarine speed and the ability of DDs to drive subs down and prevent an attack.

Germany did have subs communicate with land-based HQ so that they could make massed 'wolfpack' attacks on convoys. The downside was that direction finding could help point out where the communicating submarines were, and have the convoy re-routed and/or the subs targeted. This wolfpack tactic was successful early on and quite unsuccessful once air cover and sufficient escorts were available.

Britain tried building subs that were fast enough to keep up with fleet cruising speeds... they were man-killing failures.
Japan tried using subs as part of fleet operations... lone subs did sometimes pick off US ships (Wasp, Juneau) but the line of picket subs deployed for Midway failed to spot anything (US ships had gone past before the subs arrived on station).
Germany tried using U-boats as part of the Jutland campaign - but due to rough seas and British escorts they saw and achieved nothing.
The US did achieve spectacular results from a picket-line of subs at the start of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf operations, but the subs did that without orders from Spruance or Halsey, and were not able to report what they'd seen and done for hours afterward.
In no case did a fleet commander try to communicate with subs and give them orders directly.

Submarines are, I think, pretty well done on the RtW tactical map. You deploy subs into an area, and if they see something they attack it if they can, but the fleet commander has no control over sub movements and usually gets their sighting reports hours if not days later.


If you want a fleet commander to be able to command the subs in his area, you'll need to provide a historical example. I can think of a number of cases where subs were run by a command separate from a fleet, but no examples of a fleet commander directing subs in his area during a tactical situation. You just cannot reliably and quickly communicate from a sub to shore to another shore command to a fleet at sea and back again.