@SS:
US lost most of there fleet getting back Manilla a few turns ago and now with mostly US Pacific buys has helped FEC and China put some pressure on Japan in Saigon area. The US got the Tech Super Subs A6 D3 C7 and had 8 subs with fleet but decided to keep them on the surface for fodder in the big naval battle for Manilla. Would of been nice to see if them subs would of gotten in on some sneak attacks. Ill call them Labrador Packs. With the M6 AB figs are deadly from any Capital defense and going out aways to attack or defend.
With Naval planes only M4 and can only land on Carriers in game, now Japan cant just have a walk in the park. There still deadly with there planes if you position them right.
It seems introducing land-based M5-6 aircraft is also a way to keep IJN overwhelming airfleet M4-5 carrier-based aircraft restraint and balance.
Carrier-based are still allowed to land on AB right?
Subs are best on offence role, probably not the best tactics but, if you don’t have enough DDs, you can use Subs for fodder. But opponent will be happy that A6 be underused as D3.
Yet, US Subs were the most efficient weapon groups of all WWII:
Employing boats of the Gato, Balao, and Tench classes, American submariners scored the most complete victory of any force in any theater of war. Having advanced considerably in design, technology, and reliability during the 1930s, the submarine was ready to become a very flexible weapon in the war against Japan. Each of these Fleet boats displaced roughly 1,500 tons, and carried a complement of 7 officers and 70 men. Four diesel engines provided surface propulsion at speeds up to 20 knots and charged the batteries that powered the electric motors for submerged operations. […]
Despite a slow beginning because of the Pearl Harbor attack and the nagging problem of defective torpedoes, the Submarine Force destroyed 1,314 enemy ships in the Pacific, representing fifty-five percent of all enemy ships lost and a total of 5.3 million tons of shipping. Out of 16,000 U.S. submariners, the force lost 375 officers and 3,131 enlisted men in 52 submarines, and although this was a tragic loss, it was still the lowest casualty rate of any combatant submarine service on either side in the 1939-1945 conflict.
In the final months of the war, American submarines had difficulty finding targets, because the Japanese had virtually no ships left to sink. In response, U.S. boats employed newly-developed FM sonar sets to navigate through minefields in closely-guarded Japanese home waters to seek out the remaining targets. On 27 May 1945, a nine-submarine wolfpack led by CDR E.T. Hydeman on board USS Tinosa (SS-283) left Guam under orders from VADM Lockwood for the first major penetration of the Sea of Japan. After picking up the survivors of a downed B-29 en route, the pack traversed the Tsushima Strait on 5-6 June and once on station, set up their own shooting gallery. In 11 days, they destroyed 27 merchant ships with total tonnage exceeding 57,000. In the end, Japanese ships had no safe haven. There was nowhere to hide. The American submariner’s silent victory was complete.
http://www.public.navy.mil/subfor/underseawarfaremagazine/Issues/Archives/issue_06/silent_victory.html
Among the U.S. Navy’s deadliest and arguably its most effective weapons were its submarines. The unrestricted submarine warfare during the Second World War in the Pacific knew no bounds, no limits concerning the sinking of Japanese ships. Shrouded in secrecy, the “Silent Service” depended on stealth for its success and resourcefulness to counter Japanese countermeasures.
Postwar records compiled by the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee indicate Japan lost 686 warships of 500 gross tons (GRT) or larger, 2,346 merchantmen, and a total of 10.5 million GRT to submarines during 1,600 war patrols. Only 1.6 percent of the total U.S. naval manpower was responsible for America’s success on its Pacific high seas; more than half of the tonnage sunk was credited to U.S. submarines. The tremendous accomplishments of American submarines were achieved at the expense of 52 subs with 374 officers and 3,131 enlisted volunteers lost during combat against Japan; Japan lost 128 submarines during the Second World War in Pacific waters. American casualty counts represent 16 percent of the U.S. operational submarine officer corps and 13 percent of its enlisted force.
[…]
Despite the initial faults of America’s submarine force, there was optimism. For example, between 1941 and 1945, U.S. Navy codebreakers deciphered Japanese sailing dates, courses, speeds, and routes of naval convoys and formations, unbeknownst to the Japanese. This information was supplied to the U.S. submarine force, which would lie silently in wait for unsuspecting ships. By 1943, 22 Japanese warships and 296 merchant ships would be sent to the bottom, due to workable torpedoes and changed underwater tactics.
Increased submarine proficiency, founded on an all-volunteer service (submariners made fifty percent extra pay), new long-range fleet type models, and the successes of the U.S. Navy codebreakers, by August 1944, found the “Silent Service” inflicting prohibitive losses on the Emperor’s merchant marine, scoring key successes against Japanese warships that insured victory in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and a blockade of the home islands that was strangling the Japanese economy.
[…] The situation for Lockwood and America’s submariners was slowly improving by late 1942: U.S. subs in 1942 sank 180 Japanese ships for a total of 725,000 GRT; yet Hitler’s U-boats sank 1,160 Allied ships of more than 6 million GRT.
[…] The German strategy of “wolfpacking” was adopted. It called for coordinating submarine attack groups during 1943. More submarines, of larger size and firepower, were being built in American shipyards. New torpedo designs added the necessary punch for U.S. subs to eventually penetrate the once forbidden Sea of Japan. By year’s end, American sub improvements had netted a total of 1.5 million GRT sunk. Eighty-six American subs had also rescued 380 downed aviators from Pacific waters.
American submarines flexed their naval might following the recapture of Guam in July-August 1944. U.S. subs based on Guam and Saipan imposed a virtual blockade against Japan. Few ships entered or left Japanese waters without being attacked or sunk by submarines. Japan ran out of oil for her naval armada, gasoline for aircraft and tanks, steel and aluminum for industry, and food for her people. […]
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/npswapa/extContent/wapa/guides/offensive/sec6.htm
The U. S. submarine service started the war with 111 boats, added 203, and lost 52 (50 of them in the Pacific). Of the 16,000 submariners who sailed on war patrols, 3,506 did not return- a casualty rate of 22 percent, the highest of all arms in the American services during the war. Nevertheless, the U. S. submarine campaign in World War II was the only campaign of its type in the history of naval warfare that can be rated a complete success. The submarines played a decisive role in the war by incapacitating the Japanese Empire�s economy. Of the 7.8 million tons of Japanese merchant shipping lost between 1941 and 1945, nearly two-thirds (4.8 million tons) was sunk by U. S submarines, which were also responsible for one-third of the Japanese warship losses. The U. S. Submarine Operational History, however, conceded that scholars would do well to �ponder the fact that Japanese anti-submarine defenses were not the best. If our submarines had been confronted with Allied anti-submarine measures, the casualty list of the submarine force would have been much larger and the accomplishment of Allied submarines much less impressive�
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2016/01/01/usn-submarine-campaign-against-japanese-shipping-1941-1945/
During the war the U-boats sank about 2,779 ships for a total of 14.1 million tons GRT. This figure is roughly 70% of all allied shipping losses in all theatres of the war and to all hostile action. The most successful year was 1942 when over 6 million tons of shipping were sunk in the Atlantic.
https://uboat.net/special/faq.htm?question=4