Unrestricted naval warfare vs morale boost

[Ivanov]

Bill - what is exactly the NM benefit Germany gets each turn after launching unrestricted naval warfare? I'm asking because to put it in place, you have to position U-booats close to the British mainland, so there is a huge risk of the submarines being sunk. The loss of each one of them equals about -200NM points lost by Germany. So if the unrestricted naval warfare gives for example 50NM boost per turn, it's probably not worth the effort.

Thanks

[Bill101]

Hi Ivanov

A change has been made to this for the upcoming 1.04 patch whereby the UK will suffer 75 NM points per trigger, and Germany will gain 75, though of course this may be subject to alteration prior to release.

Before that change I think that both the penalty to the UK and benefit to Germany were significantly lower, so you may well be right (though the chance to shut down the UK's ports is still something to factor into your decision).

Bill

[Ivanov]

Hi Bill,

That's great. Maybe you could even conisder a higher NM boost for Germany ( 100 perhaps ), so it would be worth risking the destruction of subs.

[Glabro]

Ivanov, the sub attack has an inherent value in shaking up the blockade effort, especially if you combine it with surface operations to sink destroyers and targets of opportunity. Both will lose ships, it's true, and Germany will lose more, it all depends on your overall naval strategy both in the Atlantic and the Med. As a rule, if Italy joins the Entente, then I'd leave the surface fleet home for sure.

But in my latest game with Don I went for a pretty succesful all-out unrestricted naval plan, and despite losing most all of my ships sent (only send the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, though in this case I lost many of the second line ships in a harassing operation blunder and bad timing, I'm still sitting at 93% NM in spring 1916. The UK lost a massive amount of MPPs as a result of the operations, Russia too of course was denied shipping.

[Ivanov]

Ivanov, the sub attack has an inherent value in shaking up the blockade effort, especially if you combine it with surface operations to sink destroyers and targets of opportunity. Both will lose ships, it's true, and Germany will lose more, it all depends on your overall naval strategy both in the Atlantic and the Med. As a rule, if Italy joins the Entente, then I'd leave the surface fleet home for sure.

But in my latest game with Don I went for a pretty succesful all-out unrestricted naval plan, and despite losing most all of my ships sent (only send the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, though in this case I lost many of the second line ships in a harassing operation blunder and bad timing, I'm still sitting at 93% NM in spring 1916. The UK lost a massive amount of MPPs as a result of the operations, Russia too of course was denied shipping.

There are different strategies but I never move any surface ships of the German navy outside Baltic. I simply see the Kaiserliche Marine as a hostage of Entente. I also prefere to focus exclusively on Russia and France. It's impossible to ignore the Brits but in the naval clash the Germans are usually on the losing end. From at least my point of view, the naval confrontation with Royal Navy ends up in unnecessary diversion of the resurces. I prefere to concentrate on the ground warfare and eliminate the continental enemies. I mean the unrestricted warfare can serve as a distraction for the British and harass them but there is never a hope to make them surrender, just as a result of the naval operations.

[Glabro]

But basically the only thing you're losing is potentially NM, you don't need to invest any MPPs in the naval warfare. Hitting the UK means an easier time for the Ottomans and in the French front. Now if we started earlier and played the build-up phase it'd be different, but the assets are there already for you to be used one way or the other. But yes, retaining them so the danger of them operating exists. Of course the Entente can just do a "close blockade" of Germany as well - I think blockade symbols should be added close to (like 2 tiles from the coast) that'd be the most effective, as well.

[Ivanov]

Well, to loss of NM due to the ship sinking could potentially very damaging for the Germans. I also prefer not having to spend cash on costly repairs of the ships. As if to the Ottomans, they usually handle the Brits very well without any assistance nor help. I mean as I said, Britan cannot be ignored but I'd rather order my fleet to sit tight in the ports. I don't know if you are playing with the same Don, but when I played with him as the Entente, he was trying to harass me with his fleet, but he lost every single ship and Germany surrendered in 1916.

[lettowvorbeck]

Interesting discussion. Do any of you guys go immediately at the German North Sea ports and just hammer them right at the beginning, when uboats are few? For some reason, I didn't even think of this in my one pbem game, while at the same time my German opponent was busy smashing the entire Russian navy in their ports in 1914.

[Ivanov]

Interesting discussion. Do any of you guys go immediately at the German North Sea ports and just hammer them right at the beginning, when uboats are few? For some reason, I didn't even think of this in my one pbem game, while at the same time my German opponent was busy smashing the entire Russian navy in their ports in 1914.

This could be a difficult task to engage German navy directly in North Sea ports. In general it's very hard to destroy the ships in their bases. Such an attack would also give Germans an opportunity for a suprise counter attack. Royal Navy has globaly a significant numerical advantage but attacking Kaiserliche Marine on it's territorial waters it would lose this trumph. That's also exactly why Entente historicaly didn't go for the direct blockade - the risk was simply too big.

In my game with Kommandant as CP, he tried to destroy my two battleships based in Emden and Wilhelmshaven. He very cleverly was blocking the Kiel Canal, so I couldn't make any serious rescue attempt, yet he didn't manage to destroy my battleships. The battle/blockade lasted for good few turns. I lost one sub but he lost one upgraded dreadnought and few ships badly damaged. I managed to upgrade and reinforce the blocked battleships, so there was no way he could do any damage to them. Attacking ports may be successful in case of Austro-Hungarian navy in the Adriatic, because the ships are usually not full strenght and A-H don't have sufficient MMP's to reinforce the damaged vesseles. But with against the Germans it's a completely different story.

[Glabro]

Well, to loss of NM due to the ship sinking could potentially very damaging for the Germans. I also prefer not having to spend cash on costly repairs of the ships. As if to the Ottomans, they usually handle the Brits very well without any assistance nor help. I mean as I said, Britan cannot be ignored but I'd rather order my fleet to sit tight in the ports. I don't know if you are playing with the same Don, but when I played with him as the Entente, he was trying to harass me with his fleet, but he lost every single ship and Germany surrendered in 1916.

Well, that might be, but I've had no problems with NM myself as the Germans. Like I said I lost almost all ships but am sitting at 93% morale. Of course, that probably just got boosted a bit from the fall of Russia, was something like 89% after the naval combat was all said and done. I thought the war would be decided long before the NM would become an issue.

But I was very wasteful with my fleets as well, and there's something to be said about preserving the swedish convoy which usually ends up being neutered by the Russians otherwise. The Russians were too strong in the Baltic, but that also meant they had no Dreadnought presence in the Black Sea which means the Ottoman mine is safe. That was my purpose in sending the second line ships to the Baltic, but my timing must have been off and I misremembered that the dreadnoughts were already deployed, I just tried to make him deploy them there and leave with my ships.

Repairing the ships is not really needed in my mind, well except for subs if you want to continue with those. You can also run a 0-mpp cost single run perfectly fine as well.

BUT and this is the biggest but, if this leads to the US becoming involved faster and with more resources, then it's not worth it really. I am under the assumption that they deploy automatically regardless of mobilization in 1917, but they get more war production from your UNW.