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Subs too hard to destroy?

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el alamein

el alamein

CORE for AoD Beta Tester
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Jun 20, 2006
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Hi CORE team, playing as the UK v0.315 and having a cracker of a campaign. Germany declined the Ribbentrop/Molotov pact, and conquered France but didn't invade Norway. Russia declared war on Germany in early 1941 but has been thrown back past the Volga river and is in dire straights. Meanwhile the usual suspects (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia) joined the axis, but also included Greece? and Portugal? after the Russian war declaration. Japan declared war on the US very early in 1941 and has conquered China. Now I'm fighting for my life in Burma against the combined Japanese/Siam/Mengkuko and whoever else lol. I have conquered all of Africa and taken all of the Vichy territory there as well. It's been a fascinating game so far, and my only query is about enemy subs. I seem to have great difficulty in destroying them, even when I run into them with an ASW fleet of six or more destroyers. My Naval planes never seem to do enough damage, although I realise they are scaled down air fleets. I also realise that later technology might help but it is now 1942 and only 3 German subs have been sunk by surface ships/carriers so far this game. Should I be grouping more DD or FF together, because I have lost a few surface ships to subs including a BC in the Pacific. My opinion is that perhaps SS need to be a bit easier to sink in battle - either by lowering their defence or increasing the attack ratings of Nav/DD/FF. Maybe I'm doing something wrong he he but it seems that more subs should have been sunk by now, even allowing for early ASW technology. Any thoughts?
 
Hi,

Glad you are enjoying CORE. I don't know what kind of ASW work you are doing so this is a bit hard to nail down. But I've seen AI/AI results better than yours so I suspec you're doing something that could be improved upon. I take it you've done the ASW research. The other thing I suggest is grouping fairly large numbers of DD in Hunter Killer groups and patroling the suspect regions. Do not add CV to the mix for these, asa they are weak ASW platforms and tend to control the range to a point beyond where the DD can fire. WE're still working this aspect so more feedback would be great.

mm
 
hi all,

i have to agree with the OP. in my current uk capmaign on n/n i have sunk 4 subs so far, although i have 66 subs in 11 fleets (plus spare) hunting them, plus 4 cas and 4 nav.

it is may 40 and i am current on the asw and destroyer techs.

even if my destroyers find some subs they get mauled pretty badly (sheer luck that none of them was sunk yet).

On the other hand i really enjoy the feeling of being overstretched and outgunned.

Couple of other ovservations: in my 3 games so far japan was able to annex natchina within 2 years max, also natspain made short work of the SCW (took them 12 months top). airforces seem pretty thin overall (nowhere near vanilla levels. ressource levels seem way more realistic

Otherwise great mod.

Snoopy

Snoopy
 
Thanks for the reply - my campaign is getting very interesting now - Germany has advanced deep into Siberia and Russia is on the ropes but not down yet. I have invaded Sardinia and Corsica but the Italian mainland is heavily defended with troops and most of my infantry and tanks are in Burma shoring up the Indian troops against the Japanese. Portugal has also been conquered by me but they wont surrender! Apparently they have a victory point territory near Hong Kong and the Japanese navy is swarming around there! he he. I have air parity with the Germans but with all of their conquered IC they are starting to match my fighter numbers and techs in the air. I have Naval planes scouting all of the Atlantic for U-boats, and I have just completed researching Portable Radar devices. I have been stacking between 5-10 DD/FF together, but they have always come off second best in a battle with a 10 stack SS force. I need to rebase the DDs back in England and install some shiny new ASW brigades onto them, but at the moment I dont have enough spare IC to equip them all. Another thing I have noticed - when Denmark is annexed by Germany Iceland and Greenland go to Germany - should that be the case? Anyway the US has taken Iceland back from them, but as yet they haven't made a huge presence on land in Europe yet. Maybe they're waiting for me to invade France or Italy first - which I'm not really ready to do yet. I have played quite a few mods and I must say this has been one of the best games I have played in a long time. The tension is killing me as I try to stave off the Japanese whilst trying to create some sort of offensive in Italy or occupied France to take some pressure off Russia. If I don't act soon they will go under, but I don't have the resources to mount a serious invasion of the mainland yet. Congratulations to all involved in the CORE mod!
I'll keep you updated on events.
Cheers
 
The best way to kill subs (or any other naval vessel) is to bomb the dickens out of them with round-the-clock port strikes from tac/nav bombers. With ~20 tac bomber groups (yes, 2000 planes) I can kill a sub roughly every other day (or 1-2 daily if the AI has dozens of them massed in the port). Bottle the enemy fleets in a port and then just pound them under the waves. If you cannot manage to bottle up the enemy at a port, use aircraft naval strikes to harry them while at sea at they'll quickly head for the nearest port ... which dooms them to an ignominious death from above.

It shouldn't come as a surprise if subs mangle DDs in CORE, as subs pack the offensive punch of heavy cruisers.
 
@ShadoWarrior - point taken mate, but at the moment I don't have that many NAV bomber groups available to create a superstack. IMO I find it a bit gamey to have that many planes in a group anyway. I have single NAV groups in Scotland, Dover, Plymouth, Gibraltar, Malta, Azores (taken from Portugal), West Indies, and a double stack located in Singapore. I am trying to keep a realistic approach with my air dispositions. At present they are Sunderland MkII bombers, and have a naval attack of 4. I know they wont do a great deal of damage as single stacks but I am hoping to get my ASW fleets up and running with the latest ASW techs to hunt them down. I'm going to start building up an invasion force to attack the Germans in France, to try and relieve the pressure on Russia, but my IC and forces are stretched to the limit - which I'm loving. I have retaken all of Africa back from Italy and Vichy France has been defeated, with Germany taking control of Southern France. My battle fleets are dominating the seas against the Germans, but there is a nasty Japanese carrier fleet roaming in the South China Seas. I have 2 new battleships and 3 carriers in the build queue, but I now need to concentrate on land forces to prepare to invade, probably in 1943. I am really enjoying the fact that my forces are stretched all over the world, and I have my hands full everywhere, which replicates the dilemnas that the UK really had in WW2. Anyway I'll keep updating the campaign as it unfolds. Wish me luck I'm going to need it otherwise there could be an Axis power running the whole world :(
 
Well I just had a Sub Killer fleet of 10 destroyers, some with ASW get absolutely smashed by a stack of 10 German subs. 5 of my DD were sunk for no loss of SS at all. Most of my sub kills have been from aircraft (not very often since they usually share the damage around in a stack, then the stack retreats) or battleship fleets with destroyer escorts. These are rare occurences though. On land, the Germans are marching into the Caucasian oil fields and deep into Siberia. I have contained Japan in Burma, but they are also at the NW border of India. If this keeps up the Axis powers will join hands! I am assembling a Tank and Mot force in Iraq to assist the Russians, and an invasion force in England to invade France and start a second front.
 
dec152000 said:
Hi,

This still seems a bit odd compared to the Ai games I've watched. You are playing on N/N right?

mm
Click to expand...

Yeah I am playing N/N, the destroyers were DD8 and DD9, and a few had ASW brigades attatched. There were 10 destroyers in the stack and they were decimated - I only ended up with 4 left and they were all severely damaged. My commander was a spotter with a skill of 3 IIRC. I don't mind it being hard to find subs but it seems that once found they never receive enough damage from my planes/destroyers before they slip away. Not sure how this can be fixed - maybe I need to stack more planes/destroyers together. It just seems that 10 destroyers vs 10 subs should result in at least one or two SS destroyed, considering I have researched all the ASW techs up to date including 1942 destroyer which gives a +20 bonus in convoy protection. Anyway I'll keep persisting - the U-boat menace is nowhere near as dire as the fact that Russia is about to go under! I'll keep you posted dec15200 thanks for the great mod guys!
 
Latest update - things have gone down the proverbial chute. Russia surrendered to Germany causing the Bitter Peace, leaving me to fight on with 209 IC compared to Germany with a whopping 610 IC (not including Japan, Italy and the Axis minors!!). They then advanced into Persia, threatening to split my armies in two. I don't have enough troops to stop the Nazi/Japanese tide and with Russia and China both gone its going to be extremely hard for the Allies to win this one. I'm going to abandon this game and try again.
I really enjoyed my first campaign with CORE and have learned more about the tech trees and the types of units to combine together in the air, land and sea. My feedback would be that it seems that USSR and China were both steamrolled in the game, perhaps too easily. This in turn put me in a hopeless situation to try and stem Germany, Italy and Japan combined. Not sure how other players are going in their UK campaigns, but I found it a real challenge trying decide where to concentrate my forces, which I really liked. The same goes for the tech trees. I tried to keep updated across the board, which meant I was falling behind Germany in Land Doctrines as well as Tank technology. All in all a very enjoyable game, even though it ended badly for the Allies. Anyway hopefully I'll get even!
Hats off to the CORE team!
 
el alamein said:
Not sure how other players are going in their UK campaigns
Click to expand...
Playing as the UK, I preserved Poland and defeated Nazi Germany in Jan. of 1940 (after a UK amphibious landing at Rostock, as well as sea transport of several UK corps to Denmark and Polish-occupied East Prussia). Italy was annexed in August of 1940. By February of 1941 the Japanese home islands were under UK control (the UK went to war with Japan in mid-November of 1940), and Japanese forces are confined to the western mountains in China, and scattered islands in the Pacific.

How was all this possible? Take military control of your allies, especially France.
 
China and the USSR are considered to be underpowered even by us, so expect further tweaks in that area in future releases. And within CORE we'd like to force players to focus their research, so researching across the board will have you fall behind intentionally. :)
 
@Hagar - I'll look forward to the next version with the new tweaks ;) With regards to the research I really enjoyed having to decide which techs to improve and which to leave for later. As the UK you need air, land and sea techs as well as all of the doctrines so it really makes you think about what your priorities are. To try and stay ahead in one field means you lag behind in another. It all depends on what you want to be strong in (my priority was air, then naval, then land forces, with electronics, radar and industrial techs high up as well). All of this made for a very enjoyable game.
@ShadoWarrior - I played a few other mods with control of my Allies and found it was too easy. Since the computer AI isn't perfect I like to simply control the UK units and any countries that send me expeditionary forces. I agree with you it would be much easier for me to take military control of France and the other Allies, but apart from a huge workload running all of those nations I prefer to give the enemy AI a chance by leaving my Allies alone. (There are times when I really, really want to take control of my Allies though, especially when they have heaps of troops nowhere near the fighting!) :D
 
Hi,

AS ENG I'd suggest taking Military Control of AST/CAN/SAF/NZL. I'd add in FRA once the VIC event goes through. I think that is pretty realistic and adds a bit more forces to the table for ENG.

mm
 
OK I'll try another UK campaign and take ShadoWarrior and dec152000 advice, taking military control of those nations. It would certainly help to concentrate naval and ground forces to assist me. I'll try and do an AAR - hopefully I can work out how to send images of the campaign through as well.
 
Agree that taking control does make things too easy. And besides, some of the baffling and unusual strategies sometimes employed by the AI are often reflective of some of the baffling and unusual strategies employed historically :) .

Also look foward to a tougher China and USSR.
Cheers,

M
 
Ha ha mangers you couldn't be more true... :D
 
Or - you take MC over thoose allies AND you make some baffling and unusual strategies. I find it very amusing to switch mindset and make some strange priorities as for example Australia and switch back to GB and be buffled by my own disloyalty. But you have to be a bit schitzofrenic to do that...
 
@Sgt Nic - whatever do you mean? Disloyal Australia? Like how we brought our AIF Divisions (except the 9th) back to Australia to fight the Japanese in New Guinea, even when Churchill and Roosevelt both pressured us to send them to Burma? he he yeah we can be a pain when we want to.... :D
 
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