RhinoDad
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Joined: 12/22/2020
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When I manually control subs I station groups of them in three or so ports a bit out of the action. Each port handles the area closest to it that I wish to patrol. Make sure proper support ships such as AS, AG, AKE are present. Ports may shift over will time due to enemy action/advance/withdrawal i.e. Midway, Pearl Harbour, Dutch Harbour(base in Aleutian Islands), Soerabaja, Batavia Darwin, Townsville, Suva, etc. You want them far enough back that they are not pounded by enemy air, but close enough to not use unnecessary fuel and time traveling to and from.
Patrol areas are based on where I believe will be paths for invasion/action and fuel/oil/supply/resource locations to Home Islands will pass. If can be avoided shallow areas where your subs will be more vulnerable. Bottlenecks are good areas to set up patrols. i.e. Both sides of Formosa, between Borneo and Celebes, Just south of Mindanao island. Also off home islands near Nagasaki, Osaka, Shizuoka, Yokahama, etc. You just have to surmise where ships are and where they will be headed; where Fuel/Oil/Supplies are where they need to be shipped. For islands, strategic locations, port/airfield size can be a good indicator of where to start looking. Also you can read the various reports to see active areas.
Try to make sure that surmised paths will pass through at least two patrol zones.
Keep sub patrol a hex or two from a base of any size to limit it being spotted, which lowers its efficiency.
Keep the patrol area quite small and use a second patrol if necessary. If the patrol area is good you should get plenty of bites in just a few hexes.
The sub will patrol what you tell it to do, sometimes chasing and attacking a convoy. Then return to port refuel, rearm and head back out. If you work it right then you can somewhat time patrols so that about the time one is finished another one is just arriving requiring less hands on monitoring. Though this is not optimal; depends on how optimal you are wishing to play.
During turn I note sightings and sub attacks and note where they are and/or which patrol to keep track of shifting supply routes. An active area often a better one. Also gives idea of when to send out relieve sub patrol. You will want to check the subs for remaining endurance/torps so you have new sub arriving on scene before present one needs to return to rearm.
I note patrol hexes, location, sub name, when left port, when arrived location, days on patrol before heading back, rough number of ship sightings and attacks. Keep it on paper, chalk board, etc. This gives me a quick idea of what patrols are yielding results, which are not. What aproximate rotation schedule is needed.
Check subs for damage periodically so they can be sent for repairs/yard when needed.
Keep plenty of reserves for patrol rotation. About 1/3 of mine are out on patrol, 1/3 in transit, 1/3 being rearmed or repair.
Focus on key areas
Edit:
As ITAKLinus states there are a number of posts, some quite old that cover this in detail. Sometime a Google search works better to root out posts than the forum search. Like him I also do not use AI Sub. After a few short tries and not satisfied I switched to manual and never looked back.
Here is another Allied Submarines
< Message edited by RhinoDad -- 2/9/2021 6:36:17 PM >
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Subs in Manila and a couple of other questions - 
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