Anti-Sub Tech Delayed (YG's 8d - G40)

@Baron:

You are not a daredevil SS…
:-D

You don’t want to see a lot of Nautilus Subs roaming during first two game rounds?

Yes,  I am a daredevil. But every body I know seems to want to favor the UK all the time.  :-D

I think I got this right. Make the sub A2 D2.

It loses - 12.5 % on attack but gains back + 12.5 % on defense.

Maybe this was mentioned in YG other thread D8. Then you wouldn’t have to change sub rules. For C6 sub what is loses on attack it gets to make up for the other things subs can do.
Are you open for D6 die rolls for subs and keep the d6 values ? You are still rolling for AA, SBR and convoys.

@Young:

Anti-Submarine Technology Delayed What I would like to suggest when using the 8 sided dice system, is a house rule that would delay the submarine ability cancelation powers of all destroyers until the beginning of the third game round.

I like the idea and will suggest it to our game round (eventhough we are using D6)!

@GeneralHandGrenade:

I’ve been reading this thread and not sure how to respond because of this question that keeps coming up in my head.
Why? What have you got against killing subs? Why are you trying to save them?

Why not save the tanks, or the fighters, or the whales?

Why do you want to save all of the subs until the 3rd round?

I’m not saying there’s no reason to do that, I’m just saying that I don’t know what that reason is.

Bumped.
Still a good question…

The problem that I have with it is that a sub is virtually indestructible for the first 2 rounds. Unless the owner of the sub chooses it as a casualty there is no way to kill it. How about doing what you propose for the first round of combat only? After the first round the other boats know that it’s in the water and can at least defend themselves. In other words, the sub gets one free shot each time it attacks another boat for the first 2 rounds. That would be consistent with your assertion that there was no way to see them coming without making them indestructible.

There is a lot of information in this article;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic

There seems to be some technological advances that helped the battle against submarines, but from what I can gather here a great deal of the problem for the allies early in the war was a lack of destroyers. They still had sonar but it wasn’t developed enough to deal with wolf packs. It was more geared to having 2 destroyers vs 1 submarine. The addition of the number of escorts and the increase in size of the convoys were a big reason why the effectiveness of the subs decreased over time. The article gives a much more detailed answer to your question.

Many u-boats were tracking merchant ships and convoy while on surface.
The underwater speed was too slow: around 8 knots. Convoy would travel up to 15 knots.
Also, many were sunk by Liberator and other longe range patrol bombers either by cannons or depth charges dropped while the sub was still visible  from above surface.

Underwater movement was difficult for Subs, they rather travel on sea then dive only when danger was seen.

@Young:

I would like to know how subs were destroyed in 1940?… I’m not being sarcastic, can anyone tell me how to destroy a submarine before ASDIC technology?.

“Destroying” submerged submarines in both World Wars was in most cases done in the same basic way: through underwater explosive charges, also known as depth charges.  What changed during the course of WWII wasn’t the basic method for destroying a submerged submarine; what changed were the techniques and technologies for finding them (either submerged or on the surface) and the tactics for hunting them.  These evolved constantly.  Early in the war, these produced a poor sub-kill rate; over time, the kill rate got better.  To give just a couple of examples:

• The British experimented with hunter-killer groups whose function was to roam the ocean looking for subs.  These failed lamentably.  The British later realized that a better tactic was to keep escorts close to the convoys, because it was a win-win situation: if a sub found a convoy, the escorts would be in the right place to attack it; if a sub didn’t find a convoy, then the convoy would reach port safely.  On a related point, the British were too focussed early in the war on killing subs; they later realized that their priority should be top ensure “the safe and timely arrival” of convoys to their destination.

• ASDIC, a.k.a. sonar, actually comes in two flavours: active sonar and passive sonar.  Active sonar involves sending a high-frequency sound “ping” into the water, then listening for a return echo to determine the depth and direction of a submerged sub.  The critical point is that it only works against submerged subs.  Passive sonar involves listening on a hydrophone for the noise of a sub’s engines.  This works both with submerged subs and with surfaced subs, but it has limitations.  Early in the war, U-boat captains figured out that the best way to attack a convoy was on the surface at night, rather than submerged in the daytime (which is what the British had expected the Germans to do).  On the surface at night, a U-boat was almost immune from detection early in the war: active sonar was useless against it because it wasn’t submerged; passive sonar had trouble distinguishing a U-boat’s engines from those of the ships in the convoy; a U-boat was hard to see (even with night glasses) because it was small and low in the water; and early long-wave radar was too crude to pick up a U-boat amid surface clutter.  A crucial advance in the latter regard was the later introduction of short-wave (centimetric) radar, which did have the ability to clearly detect a surfaced U-boat.

Patrolling the seas, The Allies new where their convoys were, so Destroyer Escorts and CAP by Sea Planes were the method of detection early in the War. There was a GAP that could not be patrolled by air and the Germans exploited this. This was one of the major reasons escort carriers were developed. More German subs were destroyed by air rather than by destroyers. Once sonar became available the wolfpacks became obsolete.

I have a house rule that has the wolf pack NO for Germany and a plus 1 on the sneak attack. This is one time roll and hit or miss the German sub may withdraw. remove the casualty immediately and no counter is allowed. Only CAP can negate this. Sea Zone 107 and 117 are killing grounds and German Subs roll 2 dice. I since have changed it to YG rule, use the best result of the roll method. To counter, the Allies can use TAC Bombers to kill Submarines. You must place them on CAP duties. That means this TAC Bomber may not scramble or intercept or attack and defend. It has only 1 job, ASW to kill submarines. In my game this unit is actually a Sea Plane but for AA conversion it must be a TAC Bomber

@Leatherneckinlv:

Once sonar became available the wolfpacks became obsolete.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, it wasn’t quite that straightforward.  Sonar/ASDIC existed before WWII broke out; the technology dates back to the 1920s.  The wolfpacks were defeated by a combination of improved technologies (in the plural), improved tactics (in the plural), the availability of more (and better) escort ships, by progress on the intelligence / signal analysis front, and by the factors you mentioned in your post (such as escort carriers and long-range aircraft such as the Liberator).

CWO Marc I am not talking the Tech, but rather the availability of Sonar for ASW on ships designed for ASW and not the U boat threat but rather U boats attacking in unison.
Another factor with historically accurate concepts has to be playability without getting overly complicated.

IE German assault guns over tanks was lack of resources….and the availability of chassis from outdated tanks like the PZ ll and PZ 38t to create a need in Self propelled Artillery and Anti-Tank vehicles. I assure you that the Tanks were preferred over assault guns. This concept has morphed in house rules to what these assault guns were actually intended to do. A Panzer Division commander would rather be supplied Panthers over JagdPanthers