How do subs work?

My last russian sub attacked a Jap. DD in the pacific with the help of a bomber.

This allowed the USA fleet to be unblocked and destroy the Jap. fleet.    :evil:

@General:

In every game of axis and allies AA I have played… Subs havebeen useless.  Nobody has ever bought any subs.  Destroyers are so esily obtained and massed with a fleet they provide cover from subs.  Germany was famed for its “wolfpack” but in AA germany doesnt even get to build a fleet unless the allies are losing hard.

Can anyone advocate the use of subs for any power in the game?

I can’t.

Sorry if I repeat someone but here goes:

Point of Submarines:

If you build a significant number of them before the enemy, and the enemy cannot keep up with destroyers, you can have a cheaper win.

Odds of Success:

Minimal at best.  Your opponent would have to be pretty dense to let you amass a huge fleet of submarines without having at least 50% that number in defensive destroyers/bonus hits on battleships to soak them.

Realistic Outcome:

Either no one has submarines, or everyone has submarines and no one has a surface fleet.  It just seems that’s where things pan out.  This is awesome since no one can really win the game without surface ships since both sides have an island capitol.

It is a lot more complicated than the first glance.  I have been testing out different fleets fighting against each other, and it really seems like once fleets get big, destroyers are a major liability. 
If the enemy has a good number of subs, along with some planes or high value ships, then the you would be better off without any destroyers. 
So when is it good to have a destroyer?  If the enemy has few or no high value ships and few or no planes, then you will want the destroyer to negate the subs first strike ability. (or if the engagement is very small, like 1-4 units total, you may want it to make sure you are just outright killed).
So in other words, avoid building destroyers until you see what your enemy is building for a couple turns.  And most likely you should never build them in the pacific.

thx Kang,

and with a detroyer present, the sub cannot submerge.  makes sense.  thank you so much.

@packrat76:

can the defending sub keep submerging before the attacker can attack if there is no destroyer in the attacking fleet?

what do you mean with “keep”?
Note that if a sub chooses to submerge, it cannot attack or defend either.

Oh, I’m not saying I proposed the perfect attack force.  Certainly if you ONLY care about the BBs and not the subs, an ALL airforce attack force would be best.  I just took the OP’s germany attack force and modulated it as he suggested - first removing the DDs (which as I expected gave him a slight improvement) and then replacing them with additional subs as he described.

when you say ‘5 bom, 1 CA, 4 sub, 0 DD against 4 BB and 4 sub is less then 7%.’ I’m not sure what you’re saying or where you get that from.  The sim I used said it would be about 9% to clear the zone completely and only about 4% possiblity that any of the BB’s survive.  Maybe I’m doing something wrong, or the Sim I’m using is buggy with its order of loss.  :?  Any hits from the fodder boats (CA, 4 Sub) would be taken first against the subs, but once those fodder boats are gone, or the subs are gone, it’s bombers against BBs. and most times it seems the Bombers should win out.

Now that I think about it, the one thing that may not be factored into the sim is that it would make sense for the defender to take any boat hit against the defending subs.  The sim probably automatically assigns the first 4 hits to damage the BBs even if they come from other boats, which would be sub-optimal, given the bombers can ONLY hit the BBs, so you want to direct any non-Bomber hits to the subs.  I guess it would take a pretty clever sim to really get good numbers on this.  :|

@AxisOfEvil:

@Romulus:

Krieghund already explained that it is a problem of wording, the word selected “attack” should have been “surprise strike” or “surprise firing”, if I am not making a mistake.

I am not english born but I am considering that “surprise attack” has been not used to indicate the “attack” but the roll of the dice trying to hit the enemy. I do not see the need for a specification for the sub being in defense being able to perform a surprise strike. It is a sub ability to stay hidden and strike by surprise. It do not depend by the role in the battle, the sub is  aiming to hit the enemy in both case, attack and defense, acting in the same way: lurking below the surface, hidden and dangerous.

given this logic, which I am not disputing, why then do subs defend at 1 and attack at 2?  :)

same reason why fighters attack at 3 and defend at 4  :wink:

Great , black_elk, I’ll start giving you + karma’s, soon you will be a legend