It seems like a total waste to me…
Anyone ever used it?
thinking of implementing this in my next game (OOB rules) since the allies need to react to this, it just might be enough to scatter the allied fleets in their attempt to hunt them down and to allow cruisers (positioned in sea zone 5 :p) to come in and harrass the allied navy’s forcing them to spend on ships especially uk which means less BEF in france and less to throw at the ottomans. I know the allies can block you but I believe you need to contest the sea as Germany and keep the allies busy in the west untill tanks come ( the buggers are quite handy after all! ;p) and I also believe that the american can really get hurt by this since they only have 20 IPC’s and this again will force a US ship buy wich means less men ;D.
Yeah, but how the heck do you actually pull it off? There are usually Allied ships blocking subs from getting to the Atlantic through the English Channel, and going around Scotland takes two turns to get anywhere. Other than the the setup subs, it seems fairly futile to me to actually try and do USW. The OOB rules make this fairly painless for Allies anyway. You have to adopt the convoy rules from Global to even consider attempting USW, and even then I still wouldn’t. Naw, my German fleet stays as a defensive force from what I’ve seen so far in my games.
No. We have played quit a few games from OOB to now the 2-move tournament rules. In neither case do the Germans even bother to build a single sub. The reason is simple, the subs will die the minute they set sail from port and never have any effect. The few times we tried, the subs were attacked by the allies and destroyed in a single round.
It is simply of no value to get any return on buying subs. Much better to just by land units and keep the ground war going. Only way to make it viable is to make the subs more survivable.
Kim
More survivable AND more effective (in destroying enemy IPCs)!
We haven’t seen any USW either. I agree that something should be done here, or simply don’t include it in the game (there is no point to include something that has no effect). Fix it, or get rid of it IMO. Expanding the sea zones you can raid would be a good start.
The only time I could ever see this matter, is if you were playing World Domination, and America was all that was left of the allies, standing alone.
Then you would bankrupt them and win.
As written though… What a waste.
The only time I could ever see this matter, is if you were playing World Domination, and America was all that was left of the allies, standing alone.
Then you would bankrupt them and win.
As written though… What a waste.
If you’re playing world domination however, and only America was left, what would you be convoying exactly since there is no one left for America to trade with or ship to :-P
Therefore I see no scenario where USW is viable except as an afterthought. Within the confines of the current game, how do make USW worthwhile? Making the Allies lose more IPC’s doesn’t fix the fact that the subs can’t survive long enough to do anything. How do you make the subs more survivable then? Force the use of cruisers to be present to destroy subs? Make it so battleships can’t hit subs? Have a dice roll before combat that determines whether or not the sub is discovered and therefore able to be hit? These are all ideas I’ve seen elsewhere, and the last one intrigues me the most.
The idea I proposed (based as close as possible to the actual events of the sub war), was that during a combat round in which any subs declared they are submerging, they could only be removed as a casualty from hits by Cruisers and Battleships if the hit roll was a “1” otherwise the hit would have go on a non-submerging sub or any other ship, or be lost if it could not be assigned. Enemy subs still hit normal during this round of combat.
Effectively, if you are attacking only subs in a seas zone, your capital ships could only hit them if they roll a one for the single round of combat they get to attack them. This assures a fairly high survivability for subs at sea when attacked.
I have tried this in some mock trials, and it does make USW viable, as it is much harder to kill subs. Also gives the Allies a reason to buy their own subs (escorting transports with friendly subs became a common tactic to stop USW).
It was a simple idea too.
Kim
House rules…
I Phoned Larry Harris and he said USW as written for this game were IL’s idea.
