Super U-boots?

[Sharkman]

I forgot to include 2 Naval suggestions:

6. 2 types of aircraft carriers, old or light carriers with only 1 air strike, and modern carriers with 2 air strikes.

7. My favorite, Naval leaders with similiar functions to the land based HQ's assigned to a flagship, I think this would add an element of fun to the game, imagine sending out a fleet under the command of Cunningham, Halsey or Yammamoto, this would definitely add to the atmosphere of the game. I think this last suggestion would also give the British what they are lacking because they may have been behind the Germans in technology but they had the better naval leadership. I know this is drifting away from "super subs" and I think I've allready shared these ideas somewhere else, but what the heck.

[Ludi1867]

Hi Sharkman,

Quite a list you have there! I see enough differences between the first five and the last two that I will deal with them separately.

I have to say I am ambivalent about your first five suggestions. On the positive side, I think you could probably argue in favour of these changes from a narrowly historical perspective. On the negative side, I consider that the game system already has a mechanism in place that more or less addresses the most important concerns associated with these five suggestions. What mechanism is that? Well, I would argue that ALL of the things you are discussing are fairly expensive in resource terms. That is, if a player wants to create more 'Bismarcks' etc he 'only' has to add resources. HOWEVER, and this is very important from a game perspective, resources spent on the naval war are not available for panzers or aircraft in Russia...and this can be very important in the game. Finally, the more 'historical' you make the game, the less opportunity there is for a player to adopt alternate historical paths. So I guess I am narrowly against adopting the first five items on your list, although I can see an argument in favour of them.

I am much more intrigued by your 6th suggestion, although I would alter the suggestion a bit. In my view one of the great omissions from the SC system are the light carriers that were used in the Battle of the Atlantic. Arguably the RN invented these (HMS AUDACITY was the first, a converted captured German merchantman) but the USN proved the most important adopters and innovators with this class. In game terms, I really think that a CVE Hunter Killer unit is needed. This would be different from conventional carriers, having NO Naval Warfare rating. I would propose that HUKs would have the following properties: ASW ; Advanced Aircraft; and LR Aircraft (Conventional carriers have these properties: Naval Warfare ; Advanced Aircraft; and LR Aircraft). Consequently HUKs would not be very effective in surface warfare, but would be much more effective in ASW. I am not sure strikes should be reduced to one or not, but if only one strike is allowed then HUKS should be given the ability to attack an adjacent U-boat in stormy weather (HUKs were a combination of CVEs and DDEs – and operated effectively in some pretty poor weather).

OK, a historical digression to explain why (ie, those only interested in SC as a game can skip this para). The USN had perhaps one of the most remarkable performances in the Battle of the Atlantic. When the US first entered the war the USN performed pretty badly. Everything from ships to doctrine to organization was, in a word, bad for the first six months or so. However, after another twelve months the USN was killing U-boats left and right. There were a LOT more ships, doctrine had improved significantly and the USN adoption of Tenth Fleet in May 1943 addressed the vast majority of the organizational problems the USN had had in ASW. An incredible turnaround, in short. A key part of the change was the arrival of MULTIPLE Hunter Killer groups in the summer of 1943. These groups were build around one escort carrier, with usually four Destroyer Escorts around it. The USN had built these warships VERY quickly, and made some pragmatic and aggressive design decisions that the more conservative RN could not bring itself to do (the USN accepted a significantly higher level of risk with the design of these 'Woolworth' carriers than the RN would, and modifying CVEs to RN standards meant that most RN CVEs were many months behind the USN). This remarkable unit is not to be found in SC, and that is a real shame. They proved a very important part of the 'solution' to the Battle of the Atlantic, and inflicted devastating losses on the U-boat fleet when it withdrew from the northern convoy routes after unacceptable losses in May 1943 to the supposedly 'safer' central Atlantic that the USN patrolled.

OK, now on to your last item. I think naval leaders could be a really interesting addition to SC. However, I do not see naval leadership as only an RN monopoly. The Kriegsmarine had at least one superb leader in Doenitz, who proved capable of inspiring his sailors to keep going to sea in the face of truly staggering losses. Doenitz may have had questionable political ideas – it is not an accident that he was chosen to succeed Hitler – but his ability as a leader was impressive.

However, the whole concept of a naval leader strikes me as challenging to implement in the SC game system. Nonetheless, it does sound highly intriguing. The thought of Cunningham leading the Med fleet against the lackluster Italian Admirals is simply fascinating.

[Sharkman]

Interesting idea with the escort carriers, I had thought about them too but couldn't come up with any ideas.

My point 6 was actualy directed at making a distiction between older small carriers (Zuiho, Bearn etc.) and and large modern carriers like the Enterprise, in all reality the Graf Zeppelin should be of the obsolete type but for game balance we can call it a modern carrier, I would tend to place all carriers with less than 50 planes into the pre-war class though.

I share your opinion on the alternate historical paths, but if the Axis wants annother Bismark, then they should build one, upgrading the Strassbourg to a Bismark class Battleship or the Bearn to an Enterprise clone moves this game too far into fantasyland. And I honestly think it would add to the atmosphere to make some diffrences between old and new ships.

I know that the names on the units are just for looks, the Royal Oak and King George V are just 2 British battleships, similar to the plastic battleships in Axis and Allies, instead of a battleship built in 1914 and another built in 1940.

[Ivanov]

So, does a submarine's supply level go down every time it is attacked? Or only on those occasions when it does not dive? If it is the latter, I strongly argue that a submarine's supply level should decrease after an attack even if it dives, at LEAST 50% of the time.

A very good point. I agree that the sub supply level should decrease everytime it dives. It just happenes too often that U-boots are able to evade few destroyer attacks in a row.