Size of the U-Boat

[Liam]

I was just watching a show on Submarine warfare. My Lord it was massive in the Atlantic this battle, I never knew all the figured. I always saw the U-boat as a distraction here is some WebFigures.. Pretty staggering that hundreds of thousands died at sea

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/atlantic.html

Initially unlike in SC1 the Allies had very little they could do about U-boats, I think it would be interesting to see this reflected in SC2 and it took a long time for Allied Convos and Countermeasures to really become effective. Likewise the Germans fumbled, in not having a sufficient U-Boat force early enough to use agains the Allies to cripple Britian In Particular.

I wonder had a strong U-boat force been used earlier what could have been done.

[thedon900]

Wel Liam i doubt anything could have been done because as soon as the air war was won by Britian (particularly the Battle of Britian) the Germans had no chance in winning battles at sea or trying to disrupt British concoys (Goerings fault). And British planes were xpecialy hunting down U-Boats so not been able to rise out of the water with those flying around was bad and more U-Boats would've been a masacre maybe....

[Blashy]

There is only ONE thing that prevented u boats from being effective at sea, Hitler saying no to more u boats. While his top boat commander stated they needed more if they were to bring UK to its knees.

Even without air superiority they could still have brough them down.

Churchill said it more than once the u boat threat was the greatest of all. Thanks to Hitler's stupidity, it never came to pass.

[SeaMonkey]

Well Blashy they were effective...ie. early, achieving a 14 to 1 ratio of sinkings to the end of 42. More would have definitely been better, but I'm not sure that without some combined sea operation(in conjunction with aircraft)that they would have had a chance to cripple the gigantic supply lift capability of the USA merchant marine fleet after 42.

I'm kind of hoping that this scenario will play out in SC2. Once the Axis have secured Norway and France and using LR research, they may be able to form a naval-air blockade of the British Isles.

Of course the Western Allies will counter with ASW and air superiority.

I would also like to see a provision for subs to attack each other as that was one of the main missions for Royal Navy submarines, sinking approximately 35 Uboats out of 169 warship sinkings in WW2.

[Liam]

Wow, that is impressive SeaMonkey. I don't think Allied Airpower was all that much of a subkiller really early on. Wasn't it later when LR and Sub Detection methods came about.

I see subs as in WW1 being a crippling force<WW2 capable but misused what would 200 U-boats right off of done to the UK Merchant Marine>, not so much a totally suffocated one, but one that did more damage than 30 or 40 MPPs if you covered the Atlantic and the Allies had Zero naval power to patrol. The UK and her allies must've devoted a lot of resources to the preventino of being crippled, here you devote 4 or 5 game turns in SC1. Also German U-boats are far too expensive to research and balance out vs Barbarossa

Sea Lion and Barbarossa should be alternative choices with AirPower, and Subs being the catalyst for Sea Lion and Land Forces the catalyst for Barby. One forced 1 by Summer of '41 to hit England or latest by Summer 42 to Russia<with a regrouped and strengthened Army>

[Blashy]

Well SeaMonkey, remember they only started with 50-60 uboats and only 6 of them were out at a time and they almost brought UK to submission.

Yet their subcommander kept saying he needed 300 subs to accomplish this task. Hitler never listened.

You cut off UK completly with subs only and the MPPs will be so low that Germany will have airpower because of the cash to resupply their aircraft faster than UK.

Liam is right, uboats in SC are WAY too expansive, they should be 150mpps or 175 at the MOST.

[Edwin P.]

One, I do agree that U Boats are too expensive.

At the same time I think that the cost could reflect a decision not to focus German industrial on U boat production. Likewise the cost for US Bombers is too high as the US devoted more resources to bomber production than other nations.

Although it will not be included in SC2 I would like to see the ability for each nation to purchase a single industrial policy that would affect the production costs for the least produced units (Carriers, Bombers, Subs, Rockets, and Surface Warships).

Example;

Industrial Policy Options (Cost 200MPP):

Strategic Bombing - Reduces cost of Bombers by 25%

Submarine Warfare - Reduces cost of Submarines by 25%

Rocketry - Reduces cost of Rockets by 25%

Carrier Warfare - Reduces cost of Carriers by 15%

Surface Warfare - Reduces cost of Battleships and Cruisers by 15%

Thus a nation that selected a Strategic Bombing Policy for a cost of 200MPP would see the cost of producing bombers drop by 25%.

Naturally a notion could only follow one industrial policy at a time and changing to a new one would cost 200MPP.

Thinking about it some more - an industrial policy would 1) reduce the cost of producing a specific type of unit and 2) reduce the build time for the selected unit by 1.

Then Germany could decide to focus its industrial might on submarine production and see production costs for this type of unit decline.

The US might focus its production policy on Carrier and see the cost of producing these units dramatically decline.

[SeaMonkey]

I understand Blashy, but let's keep this hypothetical scenario in context. Since Uboats never accounted for sinkings of more than 1% of the Atlantic shipping tonnage, even a 5 or 6 fold increase would only account for a likewise ratio of lost shipping.

Remember 95% were still getting through and I'm most positive that the Allies would have taken on drastic changes of ASW tactics had Uboats approached that success level. I won't mention the huge ship(Libertys) building program the US had at its disposal.

I agree with you they were effective, and coupled with surface raiders and aircraft they may have made a substantial contribution for a looming Sealion(as Liam suggests), but the timing is critical. This success will not last forever, perhaps a few months maximum.

Now I don't know where you got the info of only six deployed Uboats at one time. Are you refering to 1939, for in 1940 12 to 15 June, south of Ireland a wolfpack assembled, U47,25, 28,30,32,38,& 51, my math says 7 for the 3 day attack. I'm sure there were others in deployment, and I know I remember seeing wolfpack employments of up to 8 boats in 1942 engagements.

As far as the MPP cost for Uboats, I don't think its outlandish. As the Axis, the player can make his choices at the consequence of other theaters. Besides SC2 has an editor and it will provide a completely different strategic platform for exploring these "what ifs". Let's face it SC1 is passe'.

I would suggest that GGs WaW could provide some insight into this proposed theory as it has the mechanism to explore it.

[ September 25, 2005, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: SeaMonkey ]