ASW depth charging successes in WitP (and UV) compared to historic results... (Full Version)

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Apollo11 -> ASW depth charging successes in WitP (and UV) compared to historic results... (10/10/2003 5:26:23 PM)

Hi all,

While reading book (I am still unable to play my UV PBEMs):

[B]
Martin Middlebrook

Convoy: The Greatest U-Boat Battle of the War

ISBN: 0-304-36578-5
[/B]

I found wealth of interesting information.


This book deals with famous eastbound convoys SC.122 and HX.220 and resulting
battle in the north Atlantic in the March of 1943.

In that battle the convoy HX.229 lost 13 ships of 95,502 gross weight and the
convoy SC.122 lost 9 ships of 53,094 gross weight (for total of 22 ships and
146,596 tons gross weigh together with 161,000 tons of cargo lost).

Germans lost one U-boat during the battle (U.384) and had several others
damaged (but not sunk).

To get such results Germans fired 90 torpedoes (from around 30-40 submarines
involved).

The Allies, on other side, expended 378 depth charges (229 by HX.229 surface
escorts, 69 by SC.122 surface escorts and 80 by British Coastal Command
aircraft).

Therefore there were dozens and dozens of depth charge attacks and only one
sinking of enemy submarine.


So... how can we translate this huge battle in north Atlantic to our UV and
WitP?


Well... one thing is pretty clear... there were many many many unsuccessful
depth charge attacks (although if they didn't sink/damage submarine they did
stop it from attacking and thus were success in one way).


In our current UV v2.30 (and I presume WitP ALPHA) the depth charge attacks
once they happen are usually 100% deadly and result in submarine sinking.

This is especially true for Allied ASW effort where Japanese submarines almost
always pay the highest price once the surface ships start depth charging.


IMHO, the number of successful hits resulting from depth charge attacks in UV
(and WitP) should be greatly reduced but number of overall attacks (that miss
or sometimes damage submarine) should increase several times.

Historically submarines were subjected to depth charge attacks lots of times
(from all sides - Allies attacking German and Japanese submarines and Japanese
attacking US submarines) but only fraction of those attacks were fatal.


I think that it would be beneficial that similar results start happening in UV
and WitP...


Any ideas/comments/suggestions gentleman?



Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
Please note that the north Atlantic convoy battle I mention above was one of
the largest battles ever fought there (certainly counting the overall number
of involved submarines) and that it was the last success of admiral Donitz
U-Boats. After March 1943 the "North Atlantic Air Gap" was closed and CVEs
started to come into convoy service together with many support escort TFs
which were able to help attacked convoys. In essence this battle was true
"swan's song" and peak of German U-Boat effort...



Sonny -> (10/10/2003 8:36:52 PM)

The complaint I have with submarine warfare in UV is that you get a report that you sunk the sub. Like a lot of the intelligence in UV it is too much. Only occasionally should that message appear. The defender (submarine) will know by looking if he was sunk but the attacker should not always know of the success or failure - or even if the sub was hit. I am not totally sure but I don't remember a false sub sunk message as far as my subs are concerned.

EDIT: Also the hits are too deadly. Two hits and you are a gonner. Yes that should be enough to sink a sub. But a near miss (or near hit depending which side of the battle you are on) should do some damage. I have never seen anything like this that i can recall. It is either no hits or one hit with approx 50% damage or two hits and a sinking.



spence -> (10/12/2003 9:41:13 AM)

The US lost 52 subs during WWII. Japan lost somewhat over double that.

The cause of roughly 10% (5) of US subs given was mines. From the records available to me only 1 Japanese sub was almost surely sunk by a mine.

Quite a few Japanese submarines were sunk by US submarines, often with ULTRA info being used to set up an ambush for an IJN sub in transit between bases. In reviewing the various records I did not find many corresponding sinkings for the IJN sub fleet.

[url]www.combinedfleet.com[/url] has a nice site with unit histories for many but not all Japanese subs. Having read extensively about the Battle of the Atlantic wherein the highest percentage of U-Boats were killed by aircraft I was struck by the frequency with which Japanese sub losses were attributed to attacks by surface ships and the relative infrequency with which the loss was attributed to an aircraft attack. Official Japanese records are not that good though with many sub losses listed officially as overdue or unreported since such and such a date. The losses have to some extent been correlated with attacks made by Allied units wherein oil/debris etc was reported subsequent to the attack.

Just for the record it appears that 35 Japanese and 19 American subs were sunk in the Pacific Theater during the time period covered by Uncommon Valor - again showing close to a 2-1 ratio between Allied ASW efforts and Japanese ASW efforts (I did not look to see the whereabouts of these losses though). That suggests a clear superiority for the Allies in that arena of naval warfare to me.



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