Air ASW questions (Full Version)

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slane_slith -> Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 2:47:30 PM)


I’m playing as the allies, it’s September 42 and I’m playing against the computer.

The computer has taken to sending subs up along the coast between Rangoon and Calcutta and they are shooting my cargo TF’s to pieces. I have the Hermes sitting in Colombo doing nothing so I thought I’d send her to the area to fly ASW missions. The manual says that air escort missions are for ASW but when I formed the task force the only option I had was air combat. I have 2 squadrons of Swordfish and a squadron of Martlet II’s on board. she is escorted by 4 destroyers.

All this leads me to 2 questions:
Will an air combat TF fly ASW missions? I have both Swordfish squadrons set for 80%ASW
Is there any way to get the fighters to fly ASW?

Thanks




witpqs -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 3:01:01 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: slane


I’m playing as the allies, it’s September 42 and I’m playing against the computer.

The computer has taken to sending subs up along the coast between Rangoon and Calcutta and they are shooting my cargo TF’s to pieces. I have the Hermes sitting in Colombo doing nothing so I thought I’d send her to the area to fly ASW missions. The manual says that air escort missions are for ASW but when I formed the task force the only option I had was air combat. I have 2 squadrons of Swordfish and a squadron of Martlet II’s on board. she is escorted by 4 destroyers.

All this leads me to 2 questions:
Will an air combat TF fly ASW missions? Yes. I have both Swordfish squadrons set for 80%ASW Sounds too high, they will fatigue fast. Try 50%.
Is there any way to get the fighters to fly ASW?No.

Thanks






Jorge_Stanbury -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 3:19:13 PM)

Check the ASW skill of your pilots

if ASW skill low... there are good chances the hunter will become the prey



crsutton -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 3:55:09 PM)

No matter what the TF mission, if you set your squadrons on ASW then they will fly and conduct ASW missions. As said above make sure that the pilots have decent ASW skills before putting a valuable carrier in harms way. Early in the war, British DDs are the best at killing subs. Air ASW will only occasionally get a hit on a sub but they will raise the detection level so that if you have a DD ASW TF in the vicinity, your surface ASW force will have a greater chance of attacking the sub.

So here is what you should do if you want to kill some subs. Use the Hermes if needed but land based air works just as well. If you use the Hermes, give her good escorts and set one squadron to ASW at 0 or two hex range. This way if a sub shows up in your hex, you have a good chance of multiple air attacks. Set the other squadron to normal range. Then have your DD sub killing TF nearby patrolling around your carrier and set it's reaction range to about three. Make sure you have a good, high aggression commander in the DD TF. Your planes should find the subs and the ASW TF will react and hopefully sink a few.

Do not rely on air ASW alone. Use your air to detect the subs and your ships to kill them. If you have it to spare a squadron on night search will help surface forces detect and kill subs during the night phase. The key to killing subs is the highest detection level possible.



spence -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 4:48:09 PM)

Sounds to me like you have too many planes on Hermes to fly any mission at all. IIRC Hermes has a max a/c of 25. I can't think of any combo of 3 squadrons that would be equal or less than 25+10%.



dr.hal -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 6:26:22 PM)

HMS Hermes max a/c is 20 (in the game!). It comes with one squadron of 12 Swordfish. It can handle up to three squadrons and 22 planes before having trouble if I recall correctly.

Slane, some good advise here so it should help you out. One finer point, in terms of exhausting your aircrew, remember that a big factor is the number of pilots you have to the number of planes in the squadron. I always try to have at least 10 but closer to 20% more pilots than planes (if the game engine allows it for that squadron) so that I can fly closer to 100% in terms of aircraft assigned to the patrol without killing the pilots. The aircraft will wear out faster, but that's infinitely better than loosing a ship or two to those Japanese torpedoes. Hal



slane_slith -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 8:03:29 PM)

Thanks everyone.

I never thought about adding a following ASW TF, I'll give it a try. As far as the number of A/C on Hermes I apologize, I wasn't thinking I have two detachments of Swordfish (6 planes each) and a detachment of Martlets (9 planes) not squadrons.



Kull -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 8:40:52 PM)

A few things to keep in mind:

1) Trained ASW pilots are a must. Skills in the 20s & 30s won't get it done. Spotting, maybe - killing? Never.

2) The good news is, you can train your pilots up pretty quick. Put them on 100% training with zero Range. In related news, you should have been giving them ASW training since game start, but assuming you didn't and are playing catchup, it's worth cherrypicking through your pilots and grouping those with the best ASW skills in your frontline units and training up the rest. At a minimum you'll need one training unit for each two on active duty. When individual ASW skills reach 50 in the training unit, start cycling those pilots into the frontline units while sending those with lower skills down to the training units). Definitely micromanagement, but it works.

3) ASW air range is 50% of normal range. Short legged air units will only see a square or two past the coastline. Worse, you'll need a lot more air units to cover the same area a longer range plane could cover. One Blenheim is probably better than 5 Wapiti.

4) Unless the air unit is on an island (or a boat), it's worth specifying the search arc so they aren't looking for subs on land.



Mistmatz -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 8:59:05 PM)

Unrelated to the original question, but maybe a viable alternative, why don't you just hug the coastline with your convoys and fly ASW missions from Chittagong an Akyab?



dwg -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 9:43:47 PM)

I feel compelled to add that using carriers (not CVEs) for ASW was historically how we lost HMS Courageous - the risk to a capital unit, even as small, old and slow a one as Hermes, probably doesn't measure up to the benefit.



slane_slith -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/21/2013 11:14:25 PM)

To Kull: I got lazy. At the start of the game I was training ASW pilots and rotating them. The computer started tearing me up around Australia and I started sending most of my squadrons down there. Then I quit watching pilot training. Within the last 30 game days they suddenly started sending LOTS of subs to the Indian Ocean and now I have very few squadrons in the area and even less with trained pilots.

To Mistmatz: I was running ASW TF’s between Rangoon and Calcutta. The computer has been running SCTF’s into the area so I have only wanted to use ML’s, AM etc. and use my DD’s to cover my SCTF’s. I placed aggressive commanders in charge but they weren’t hitting anything which is part of why I started using Hermes.

Thanks again



crsutton -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/22/2013 1:36:59 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: slane

Thanks everyone.

I never thought about adding a following ASW TF, I'll give it a try. As far as the number of A/C on Hermes I apologize, I wasn't thinking I have two detachments of Swordfish (6 planes each) and a detachment of Martlets (9 planes) not squadrons.



No, do not set it to follow the carrier TF but to patrol around the carrier TF or just patrol in the same hex. But not "follow"



Capt Hornblower -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/22/2013 4:44:26 AM)

Something that needs to be mentioned that hasn't been so far: Aircraft on regular naval search will also suppress subs. The effect may not be as strong as using air units on ASW patrol, but if you use more units, you can increase the effect.



jmalter -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/22/2013 6:27:54 AM)

even high-skill/high-exp ASW pilots rarely get hits on subs. if one is reported, you must apply your FOW discount.
but air ASW acts to suppress the enemy sub's ability to conduct its own search, and raises your DL on it, so you can vector your ASW TF to that area.



crsutton -> RE: Air ASW questions (1/23/2013 6:42:57 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jmalter

even high-skill/high-exp ASW pilots rarely get hits on subs. if one is reported, you must apply your FOW discount.
but air ASW acts to suppress the enemy sub's ability to conduct its own search, and raises your DL on it, so you can vector your ASW TF to that area.


In my campaign with Viberpol, I would say that before 1944 50% of all his sub kills vs my Allied subs came as a result of air attacks. After the super E came into play that dropped to 10% but that is not because his bombers were any less effective. So yes training up lots of pilots in ASW skills does pay off.

Not so much for the Allies. After 1/43 the Allied player has so many good surface ASW assets that I found it was a waste of time to train pilots up in ASW any more. I used search or just average ASW skills to find the subs and then let the surface ships sink them-which they did very nicely.



heibernt -> RE: Air ASW questions (2/13/2013 8:25:16 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Do not rely on air ASW alone. Use your air to detect the subs and your ships to kill them. If you have it to spare a squadron on night search will help surface forces detect and kill subs during the night phase. The key to killing subs is the highest detection level possible.


It seems i cant set squadrons on night asw mission. Do you use normal naval search to get DL on subs at night?



koniu -> RE: Air ASW questions (2/13/2013 12:42:37 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: heibernt


quote:

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Do not rely on air ASW alone. Use your air to detect the subs and your ships to kill them. If you have it to spare a squadron on night search will help surface forces detect and kill subs during the night phase. The key to killing subs is the highest detection level possible.


It seems i cant set squadrons on night asw mission. Do you use normal naval search to get DL on subs at night?


Yes. Search at both nigh and day phase to rise DL on sub and ASW at day phase to attack them.



heibernt -> RE: Air ASW questions (2/13/2013 1:07:37 PM)

We'll that explains some extremly efficient IJN subs...

So then youll need three asw/search squadrons in sub infested waters, one day NSearch with 6-7 range 1000 ft, one night NSearch 6-7 range 1000ft, and one day ASW 100 (or 1000 ft)? I guess the NSearch sqadrons use Nsearch skills for detecting subs? What about the ASW sqadrons, do they use NSearch to detect, and asw to attack?




catwhoorg -> RE: Air ASW questions (2/13/2013 2:14:30 PM)

I must say the use of Naval search at night for ASW purposes never occured to me.

Good hint, certainly for the congested West coast ports, may as well put those restricted squadrons to a useful use as well as the pilot training.



Alfred -> RE: Air ASW questions (2/13/2013 5:46:03 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: heibernt

We'll that explains some extremly efficient IJN subs...

So then youll need three asw/search squadrons in sub infested waters, one day NSearch with 6-7 range 1000 ft, one night NSearch 6-7 range 1000ft, and one day ASW 100 (or 1000 ft)? I guess the NSearch sqadrons use Nsearch skills for detecting subs? What about the ASW sqadrons, do they use NSearch to detect, and asw to attack?




There is no consensus re best altitude. Do a search and you will find this routinely comes up with the full gamut of altitudes presented.

As to the aircraft missions well at least here there is certainty.

On naval search those planes are not really attacking a sub. They are attacking a task force which they happen to have spotted. Whereas on a dedicated ASW mission they are out specifically looking for a sub.

It is a subtle, but very important difference between the two missions. Subs on a patrol mission will usually only be in a single vessel task force. Any single vessel task force, whether it be above or below the waves is difficult to spot. This problem is not experienced to the same extent when the mission is dedicated to finding a sub.

The naval seach mission utilises the search skill. The ASW mission utilises the ASW skill.

Alfred



JSG -> RE: Air ASW questions (2/13/2013 10:34:48 PM)

I ignore the entire Bay of Bengal.

My SOP is to send very large convoys with carrier and an air combat group as cover (including CAs) from Colombo to Rangoon instead. Some long range fighters from Burma welcome the large convoys with LR CAP and day goodbye the same way.
Losses incur mostly if I mess something up or if the port was bombarded at night.
The "Port something" on the Andaman Islands has to be secured for any maritime supply route to Rangoon and daylight air superiority over Rangoon with hordes of Hurricanes is a necessity, of course.

I can 100% ignore India.



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