Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Your personal experience depends heavily on how far into the game you played.

Allied Naval ASW assets have very low ASW ratings (these upgrade over the course of the war) and very low crew experience.

It will be months before daily patrolling starts bringing concrete results.

Couple your naval ASW patrols with air naval search and vector your surface TFs to spotted sub locations.

Patrol in patterns around spotted sub locations with a reaction range (it does work for ASW TFs).

IN addition start training for and actively patrolling with air ASW platforms.

Again, it will be months before you see concrete results. ASW skill has to get to 60-65 before you will start getting regular reports of attacks and hits.

You have to keep in perspective how unprepared and untrained the Allied forces were when the war started.

The game models this exceedingly well.

quote:

I have been doing this largely; however, I haven't gone past February 1942, so this explains why I have had so little success. I do have a follow up question, if I set up ASW forces to patrol and set their reaction to something greater than zero, will they actually react to submarine contacts?

quote:

ORIGINAL: DanSez


The success off ASW efforts depends on training your land based air units.
The number of planes, range and altitude settings are critical.
Having one unit of 12 planes going 6 hexes at 5k with low skilled pilots will probably get you some ghost sightings at best.

Land Based ASW Bomber Squadron:
NOTE: Range is half the hexes set for ASW
Normal setting
ASW 40%
TRAINING 30%
REST 30%
High Threat setting
ASW 60%
Traning 20%
Rest 20%

Better to have 3 units of 12 planes going 4 hexes (Range would be set at 8) at various altitudes (4k, 2k, 1k).

Point is:
The more you have the better and numbers of planes will help you against the low skills odds.
Don't forget in a high threat area, to add a Night Naval Search squadron at low altitude (2k).

Finally, did you do your due diligence?
Did you watch the combat reports before the turn you moved your carriers from port?
Did you check your combat and intel reports for any sightings (ghost or solid)
-or-
Did you just look at the map and didn't see any enemy units and assumed none were there?
Hey, I have been there and getting sucker punched by some sneaking sub really sucks. Lessons are to be learned.

For a high valued target like a carrier group, running out of a port that I suspect have heavy subs packs lurking about, I would take extreme precautions like this:

Create a 3 ship ASW TF and have it lead the Carrier TF out of the zone.
Set the Carrier TF to follow the ASW TF by 1 hex and set Reaction to 2. Remain On Station. Set Home Port to something near your destination.
And if you have enough assets around create a 3rd ASW TF and have it Follow the carrier TF, Same hex
Be sure to set all your carrier bombers to some level of ASW search.

And I would plot a path that would take your fleet away from any sightings with the way-point function until I got 8-10 hexes from port, then either release the ASW escorts or absorb some of them in the carrier TF and go toward your final destination.

quote:

ORIGINAL: John B.

One thing to remember is that the British ships tend to be quite good with ASW even early in the war. They are not near Pearl, alas, but they do get a bonus as I recall while early on IJN ships are just awful, perhaps even worse than the American ones. Things really start to improve for the Americans after the first round of destroyer upgrades in early 42. Make sure you take full advantage of those. Oh, and if you can, save some Dutch destoyers. In 1943 they can upgrade to ASW strengths of 11. No range but good for base patrols.

quote:

Be careful reading the ASW numbers. An ASW rating of 11 means you have ammo for 11 attacks. It does not tell you how effective those attacks might be. The real effectiveness gauge is the number of devices that can drop ASW weapons. Ships that can lay a big pattern are most likely to get a hit on an squirming sub.

For an example, look at one of the AMs at PH on Dec. 7th - ASW rating 9, one depth charge rack! Then look in the reinforcement queue for a DE in 1943...

quote:

ORIGINAL: jamesjohns

quote:

Be careful reading the ASW numbers. An ASW rating of 11 means you have ammo for 11 attacks. It does not tell you how effective those attacks might be. The real effectiveness gauge is the number of devices that can drop ASW weapons. Ships that can lay a big pattern are most likely to get a hit on an squirming sub.

For an example, look at one of the AMs at PH on Dec. 7th - ASW rating 9, one depth charge rack! Then look in the reinforcement queue for a DE in 1943...

Thanks BBfanboy, this is interesting. If I understand your comment correctly ASW platforms that have a diversity of ASW weapons systems are more effective. Never really thought about it that way, tended to only just look at the number

quote:

ORIGINAL: Revthought

This is great information, thanks! What I had been doing, because air crews at the start of the war are rather novice, is setting the training quite higher. So I will adjust that.

What is the best altitude for ASW missions? I've been defaulting this to somewhere between 1 and 2 thousand feet depending on the airframe.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Be careful reading the ASW numbers. An ASW rating of 11 means you have ammo for 11 attacks. It does not tell you how effective those attacks might be. The real effectiveness gauge is the number of devices that can drop ASW weapons. Ships that can lay a big pattern are most likely to get a hit on an squirming sub.

For an example, look at one of the AMs at PH on Dec. 7th - ASW rating 9, one depth charge rack! Then look in the reinforcement queue for a DE in 1943...

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Not necessarily diverse, but more launchers in total. For example when units start to get hedgehog or squid launchers, they are generally used on their own to attack ahead of the ship (but with multiple mortar bombs) so the depth charges do not come into play during these attacks. Hedgehog usually has a smaller ammo capacity so it might be able to make only 4 attacks whereas the depth charges can go 6 or more rounds.

Don't be fooled by the limited animation of the ASW attacks - it will show hedgehog going off like a depth charge but it is a contact weapon, not a depth triggered weapon, so it will only get a hit when one of the circle of bombs hits. There should be no "Near miss rattles sub" - that is just random fluff in the animation.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jamesjohns

quote:

Be careful reading the ASW numbers. An ASW rating of 11 means you have ammo for 11 attacks. It does not tell you how effective those attacks might be. The real effectiveness gauge is the number of devices that can drop ASW weapons. Ships that can lay a big pattern are most likely to get a hit on an squirming sub.

For an example, look at one of the AMs at PH on Dec. 7th - ASW rating 9, one depth charge rack! Then look in the reinforcement queue for a DE in 1943...

Thanks BBfanboy, this is interesting. If I understand your comment correctly ASW platforms that have a diversity of ASW weapons systems are more effective. Never really thought about it that way, tended to only just look at the number

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Not necessarily diverse, but more launchers in total. For example when units start to get hedgehog or squid launchers, they are generally used on their own to attack ahead of the ship (but with multiple mortar bombs) so the depth charges do not come into play during these attacks. Hedgehog usually has a smaller ammo capacity so it might be able to make only 4 attacks whereas the depth charges can go 6 or more rounds.

Don't be fooled by the limited animation of the ASW attacks - it will show hedgehog going off like a depth charge but it is a contact weapon, not a depth triggered weapon, so it will only get a hit when one of the circle of bombs hits. There should be no "Near miss rattles sub" - that is just random fluff in the animation.

It is true that was the way Hedgehogs behaved in RL, but I have never seen a dev discuss that contact-ASW weapons have their own algorithm for contact only, or that there is any forward-firing code. Do you have a link?

Looking at the editor, it appears the mortar-type ASW weapons all have very small effects versus DCs, and much greater ranges. The "Static" box is also checked for the mortars; I don't know what that does. I don't see any way to make a mortar weapon act as a contact fused weapon in the ASW realm of devices.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Be careful reading the ASW numbers. An ASW rating of 11 means you have ammo for 11 attacks. It does not tell you how effective those attacks might be. The real effectiveness gauge is the number of devices that can drop ASW weapons. Ships that can lay a big pattern are most likely to get a hit on an squirming sub.

For an example, look at one of the AMs at PH on Dec. 7th - ASW rating 9, one depth charge rack! Then look in the reinforcement queue for a DE in 1943...

I looked at my AMs at PH in a Scen 2 AI game, December 12th. all of them are ASW 1. What is the name of this ASW 9 vessel?

I have never seen any analysis that correlates ASW level to magazine size. Do you have a link? ASW upgrades don't expand the hull.

A 1944 PF and a DE are both ASW 11, yet a PF has Ammo of 20 and the DE Ammo of 4. Each have 11 launchers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred


The "Static" box is there to effectively limit the device only to vessels.

Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: bushpsu

For the air assets, would there be an advantage training as a ¨split¨squadron? By this I mean dividing an existing squadron and have Ĩin nav search, while ¨B¨tains in ASW. After training is complete recombine the squadron. Will those pilots trained for a specific mission be more likely to conduct it from the squadron shell, or are the pilots assigned to the mission going to be selected randomly? I am thinking about having either NavSearch or ASW set to 50%