LGB

Hi all, while I do not have enough experience with the game to make a specific comment I would note two texts on the subject: "Hitler's U-Boat War" vol I-III by Clay Blair and "Black May" by Michael Gannon. Blair in volume II/III shows in plate 6 the results of Coastal Command's Bay offensive where from April 10th to Sept 21st 1943 where 30 U-Boats were sunk and another 21 are listed as damaged. However, it's worth pointing out this was during the time when U-boat command was ordering it's boats to transit on the surface and fight it out with enemy aircraft. Without these rather idiotic orders it's open to conjecture what losses would have been but in my view they would have been around a third. There are of course other excellent sources especially if one speaks German. One can find out how every single U-boat was sunk or damaged. However, this can miss the forest for the trees. The simplest way to look at the BOA is that ships not in convoy are extremely vulnerable and cause almost no sub losses. Ships in lightly defended convoys are a bit less vulnerable to subs but again almost no subs will be lost. It is only when the escort group is well trained enough and of proper size that sub losses will exceed any reasonable attrition level the subs can inflict on the merchants. The first "happy time" was entirely against non escorted merchants as was the 2nd "happy time" off the US East Coast in the first half of 1942. Once there are enough trained escorts with the proper weapons and doctrine the subs will be defeated attacking convoys. So as someone here mentioned once the allies have enough invested in asw the BOA seems to end. That's not entirely against history the question is when it occurs; furthermore, the allies could not run convoys in all the far flung corners of the globe and non wolf pack long range subs remained effective after the days of the wolf pack were over. As an aside the wolf pack never worked well for anyone. Radio transmissions give away your position and in the allied case bring down sub hunting aircraft and ships vectored in by direction finding. HF/DF was more important that radar in the BOA. In need not have been- German doctrine was extremely faulty on myriad levels.