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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

(3) Top: eS, NAV, voidslayer, Zanzetkuken
(4) Middle: eS, voidslayer, Zanzetkuken, Kot
(1) Bottom: Kot
(2) Annihilate New Vlanlados: NAV, Kot
(3) Use subs to hunt shipping regardless of naval advantage: NAV, Parsely, Zanzetkuken
(1) Sell Uranium to Soviets for a 1 turn Ore bonus: Zanzetkuken

If we could sell Uranium that'd be nice but I doubt it.

It's a shot in the dark.  Besides, we aren't using it right now and we can't stock more.

[RAM]

(3) Top: eS, NAV, voidslayer, Zanzetkuken
(4) Middle: eS, voidslayer, Zanzetkuken, Kot
(1) Bottom: Kot
(2) Annihilate New Vlanlados: NAV, Kot
(3) Use subs to hunt shipping regardless of naval advantage: NAV, Parsely, Zanzetkuken
(2) Sell Uranium to Soviets for a 1 turn Ore bonus: Zanzetkuken, RAM
->(1) At 2 uranium for 1 ore if need be: RAM
---->(0)to too one is two much!:

[Devastator]

Big battery bank are a different beast than smaller ones, and to be honest, you don't really need them in missiles and other shit, since it pretty much doesn't stop, alternators or other means of power generation powered by the thing itself are fine.

Rocket powered alternators?

[Kot]

Yes.

[RAM]

Oh my! That seems to be just what we need for our railguns!

[Devastator]

Oh, that's just a turbine.  I suppose that would work.  Still.. more years of research.

Personally, I thought you guys were using something like a ram air turbine.  It would have at least been from the right decade.  ;-p

[Parsely]

Yeah no to hunting, with the speed and dive time of the current sub that would be a waste of resources, they could easily hunt them down.

How do you envision the enemy hunting down our subs when they don't have sonar or ASWs? If the sub picks up an aircraft on radar during an attack they dive, change course, and the plane loiters around where the sub dove or picks a random area to search until it has to return to base, chances are the sub gets away. They don't have aircraft capable of loitering for 8 hours until our batteries run out, not to mention they'd have no idea where to even look since the sub is underwater.

Same situation in a fleet or convoy attack situation, which is happening at night on the surface if there are no radar vessels or submerged if it's daytime or there are radar-equipped warships. A ship explodes, the escorts freak out and do... Nothing, there's nothing they can do except look for an attacker on the surface, but they won't see one.

This was the whole point of getting a sub.

[Kot]

Personally, I thought you guys were using something like a ram air turbine.  It would have at least been from the right decade.  ;-p

"Right decade" stopped long ago, when Cannalans made a missile.

[Devastator]

It wouldn't be absolute.  It's possible, likely even that the subs won't be picked up by the ordinary radars, but they'll get the occasional spot that way.  Same with air-to-surface radar, a sub won't be picked up nearly as easily, particularly in bad weather, but they'll get some spots.  The sub will have to surface, at least partially, to line up attacks, allowing for the eyeball to spot a few submarines, and some torpedos to be dodged.

Basic depth charges are also very easy to make, you can modify an airplane general purpose bomb into one easily, and then just kick it over the side.  It'll be almost completely ineffective, but technically that's a depth charge.

In general, I'd expect them to pick up a few kills with air-to-surface missiles, when the luck factors line up, but the fact they have radar on the missiles themselves makes it much easier for the sub to differentiate between there being enemy radars in the area, and when someone's actually shooting at them, and get underwater safely.  Particularly because of the long range of missiles in general in this theater.. if the target isn't there by the time the missile arrives, it won't get hit.

Air ASW will be heavily hampered by the all-missile loadouts, as a conventional bomb or even torpedo can act as a depth charge much easier than an air to sea missile, (even if this weren't the case, an ad-hoc one would be only slightly more useful than one on a ship), and the great speed and low loiter time for jet aircraft will make it basically impossible for planes to hunt after submerged subs.. even 15 or 20 minutes underwater would mean the plane would have to start over from square one.  The restricted aspects caused by the high speed and missile combat would also help things, as I'd expect the plane to not get a proper aspect and have to take another pass for a second shot, by which time the sub would have plenty of time to submerge.

So yeah, I'd expect them to get a few kills, from the occasional missile hit and a few from gunfire, but they would indeed be more or less incapable of sinking a submerged sub, and wouldn't really be able to take out too many even in transit on the surface.  If they stripped the guns from their smaller ships, which they might do or have done, I'd expect things to be really brutal.. a submarine that sneaks into point-blank range in a formation could sink a gun-less missile destroyer with torpedos, without taking a scratch.  I'd also have them hunt for merchants, with ASMs the big threat I doubt the merchants are armed with deck guns, rendering them only so much meat for the subs, and possibly reducing their resource flow for a turn.  No better way to keep a push going than to raise the expense rate of some enemy designs.

[Madman198237]

A sub basically can't be found by radar if it's submerged even to periscope depth---radar wavelengths do not penetrate water very well. They also basically CANNOT be killed by any missiles presently in use----they're too low-lying, present a VERY small radar target, and can also submerge if any hostile ships show up in radar range.

[Kot]

It wouldn't be absolute.  It's possible, likely even that the subs won't be picked up by the ordinary radars, but they'll get the occasional spot that way.

On what? Periscope? A small ass straw? Even if they had radar detecting small objects like this it'd be just sunk in all the false positives.

Same with air-to-surface radar, a sub won't be picked up nearly as easily, particularly in bad weather, but they'll get some spots.  The sub will have to surface, at least partially, to line up attacks, allowing for the eyeball to spot a few submarines, and some torpedos to be dodged.

Well yes, submarine is surfaced, now it dives and now it's up to luck for you to find where it's going specifically.

Basic depth charges are also very easy to make, you can modify an airplane general purpose bomb into one easily, and then just kick it over the side.  It'll be almost completely ineffective, but technically that's a depth charge.

Sure, you still need to know where the submarine is, and even then there are ways of getting around that.

In general, I'd expect them to pick up a few kills with air-to-surface missiles, when the luck factors line up, but the fact they have radar on the missiles themselves makes it much easier for the sub to differentiate between there being enemy radars in the area, and when someone's actually shooting at them, and get underwater safely.  Particularly because of the long range of missiles in general in this theater.. if the target isn't there by the time the missile arrives, it won't get hit.

Actually the one thing I could see them hitting is with ARM, but then the same problem as with ARM in general arises - just turn off the radar and move away lol.

Air ASW will be heavily hampered by the all-missile loadouts, as a conventional bomb or even torpedo can act as a depth charge much easier than an air to sea missile, (even if this weren't the case, an ad-hoc one would be only slightly more useful than one on a ship), and the great speed and low loiter time for jet aircraft will make it basically impossible for planes to hunt after submerged subs.. even 15 or 20 minutes underwater would mean the plane would have to start over from square one.  The restricted aspects caused by the high speed and missile combat would also help things, as I'd expect the plane to not get a proper aspect and have to take another pass for a second shot, by which time the sub would have plenty of time to submerge.

They have floatplanes and helicopter, both things relatively useful at hunting submarines with proper equipment.

So yeah, I'd expect them to get a few kills, from the occasional missile hit and a few from gunfire, but they would indeed be more or less incapable of sinking a submerged sub, and wouldn't really be able to take out too many even in transit on the surface.  If they stripped the guns from their smaller ships, which they might do or have done, I'd expect things to be really brutal.. a submarine that sneaks into point-blank range in a formation could sink a gun-less missile destroyer with torpedos, without taking a scratch.  I'd also have them hunt for merchants, with ASMs the big threat I doubt the merchants are armed with deck guns, rendering them only so much meat for the subs, and possibly reducing their resource flow for a turn.  No better way to keep a push going than to raise the expense rate of some enemy designs.

I don't rule out few kills but they'd be more like extremly unlucky situations for us rather than the norm, and the submarine is... cheap, isin't it?
The interesting part is that the submarine design can be made much better in multiple ways - make homing torpedoes, make cruise missile submarines, etc - each of them bringing something new to the table and not being really hard countered by even supposed hard counters (they make sonar - we now have long range torpedo that just homes on their shit so we don't have to even get anywhere close, same with missiles), and so on.

[Parsely]

Modifying bombs into depth charges, are you saying as a revision or do you mean our enemy could actually improvise those weapons during the battle report? Either way that doesn't sound like a recipe for success, the only reason ship-launched depth charges are useful is because they can be deployed en masse to target an area, also how is an aircraft going to know where to drop their bombs if the sub is submerged? If they catch the sub as its diving they don't need a special bomb to irreparably damage it under a few feet of water.

The most likely way that subs get lost next turn is to combat air patrols that blast them before they can crash dive. Inferior Cannalan pilots will struggle to do even that, but while the threat of carrier-launched jets is not totally insignificant radar will save the subs in most cases.

I see what you're saying Devastator, that the sub isn't immune to attack, but fluke losses (hopefully) aren't relevant since the sub is cheap.

[ConscriptFive]

The most likely way that subs get lost next turn is to combat air patrols that blast them before they can crash dive.

Except we have a snorkel setup, so there's not really a good reason for a sub to cruise surfaced in hostile waters during daylight hours.  Being able to spot and then successfully strafe a periscope+snorkel+RADAR in open waters is a helluva thing to pull off.  Our only sub losses should be from sub commanders getting sloppy or aggressively chasing warships.

[evictedSaint]

The sub also has passive radar.  Anyone blasting radar at the water will be seen twice the distance away before the sub is.

The Boot will operate with more-or-less impunity next turn. After that, we will need to upgrade it or it will be in trouble.

[Parsely]

Except we have a snorkel setup, so there's not really a good reason for a sub to cruise surfaced in hostile waters during daylight hours.  Being able to spot and then successfully strafe a periscope+snorkel+RADAR in open waters is a helluva thing to pull off.  Our only sub losses should be from sub commanders getting sloppy or aggressively chasing warships.

Yes there is, sailing submerged is very slow. But of course, radar will warn of aircraft before they're in visual range, so being spotted by CAP while surfaced isn't much of a risk but it's possible if you surface at just the wrong time. You're right that we really shouldn't lose a statistically significant number of subs though.