|
Kurt Over
United States
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
-
Our opening scene...
From a dark screen a fade-in to an low altitude ocean shot. Blue sky with light clouds, blue-green ocean waves in a steady and slow rolling swell. Very calm and serene.
We pan left slowly to see more ocean. A bit further left and there is some dissipating smoke in the middle distance. The pan speed quickens slightly and we catch up to a column (or two) of ships steaming from right to left. A little time to study detail reveals that most are merchants, but there is what looks like a destroyer off to one side.
And then from the foreground rises a periscope. Headed towards the unaware mariners in their ships bearing the Rising Sun flag.
queue ominous music
Wolfpack!
----------
Nice for Hollywood drama, but my dice luck is not going to be that good! 
When: Third week of October, 1943
Where: South China Sea 1 OpArea
Who: Three USN subs
Cod (Gato class)
Capelin (Balao class)
Crevalle (Balao class)
The three ships left Freemantle the first week of October and transited to patrol the South China Sea 2 area. The second week of October the pack patrolled into the South China Sea 1 area as a barrier wolfpack.
They encountered a large convoy, attacked, but only managed one kill as Capelin torpedoed and sank a 9,000 ton heavy cruiser.
Now they stalk the South China Sea once more...
This week the group is operating as a group pack. No bonus on the encounter roll, but if they encounter something all three subs automatically get the opportunity to attack.
Aside: When operating as a barrier pack there is a +20% chance to the search roll, but only one sub is guaranteed to attack the convoy. The rest have a 60% chance of being able to participate.
Encounter Roll: (ROLL 4) Sparse Density
Contact Roll: (ROLL 7) Large Convoy
Not a lot of targets. 3 chits in Column A, and 2 chits in Column B of the Tactical Display.
Col A
A-1: Rising Sun
A-2: Rising Sun
A-3: Rising SUn
Col B
B-1: Merchant
B-2: Rising Sun
Now to deploy the three submarines. A maximum of two submarines can be placed in a single column. Given the better odds of escorts in Col A let's put the higher defense (5) Capelin and Crevalle in Col A while the defense (4) Cod deploys to Col B. All have the same attack value (7). Each sub now acts one at a time.
First Sub: Cod (Column B)
Cod gets to reveal four chits - and since Cod is equipped with radar there is the option to un-flip one chit.
Tactical Display (after Cod's selections and TDC draws)
Col A
A-1: 2t DD 7-2 (TDC +2)
A-2: 9t AF 3-0 (TDC +2)
A-3: 1t DD 6- 1/2 (TDC +0)
Col B
B-1: 10t M 3-0 (TDC -2)
B-2: Rising Sun (a 6-1 DD that was re-flipped)
Aside: Something to note right now that is different from normal attacks by a solo submarine. The revealed escort level used to modify attack values and counterattacks is different for each sub - and dependent on the columns the escort is in. See below.
Cod has a prime shot at the big maru, and the revealed escort values in Column A do not count since there are other submarines in that column.
Cod attacks the 10t maru with all 7 attack points...
Attack: (7) + Torpedo Value (+1) - TDC (-2) = 10
Defense: 3 + revealed escort (0) = 3
10 - 3 = 7. Roll 0-7 to hit.
(ROLL 5) Hit!
Roll Damage: (ROLL 0) + +1 torpedo value = 1. No Effect (ARRRGH!)
Counterattack on Cod:
WP3 (2) + OpArea (1) + revealed escort (0) = 3
Defense: 4
3 - 4 = -1 (No Counterattack)
Cod got a shot off, appeared to score a hit, but for no effect. It also revealed a number of escorts that did not go after Cod, but will be affecting the other two submarines.
Second Sub: Capelin (Column A)
Capelin reveals the last unflipped chit, and then draws TDC chits.
Tactical Display (after Capelin's TDC draws)
Col A
A-1: 2t DD 7-2 (TDC +0)
A-2: 9t AF 3-0 (TDC +1)
A-3: 1t DD 6- 1/2 (TDC +0)
Col B
B-1: 10t M 3-0 (TDC +2)
B-2: 2t DD 6-1
Only shot is a lousy one. All 7 attack points at the 9t AF in Column A.
Attack: (7) + Torpedo Value (+1) - TDC (+1) = 7
Defense: 3 + revealed escort (2.5) = 5.5
7 - 5.5 = 1.5, round down to 1. Roll 0-1 to hit.
(ROLL 9) Miss
Counterattack on Capelin:
WP3 (2) + OpArea (1) + revealed escort (2.5) = 5.5
Defense: 5
5.5 - 5 = 0.5 round up to 1
(ROLL 7) No Effect
The escorts keep Capelin sufficiently at bay to prevent a good shot, and even rattle it with a few close depth charges after it misses a fleet stores ship.
Third Sub: Crevalle (Column A)
Crevalle draws TDC chits only since everything is revealed.
Tactical Display (after Crevalle's TDC draws)
Col A
A-1: 2t DD 7-2 (TDC +0)
A-2: 9t AF 3-0 (TDC +2)
A-3: 1t DD 6- 1/2 (TDC +1)
Col B
B-1: 10t M 3-0 (TDC -3)
B-2: 2t DD 6-1
All 7 attack points at the 10t M in Column B.
Attack: (7) + Torpedo Value (+1) - TDC (-3) - 1 (shot at ship in adjacent column) = 10
Defense: 3 + revealed escort (2.5) = 5.5
10 - 5.5 = 4.5, round down to 4. Roll 0-4 to hit.
(ROLL 7) Miss
Counterattack on Crevalle:
WP3 (2) + OpArea (1) + revealed escort (2.5) = 5.5
Defense: 5
5.5 - 5 = 0.5 round up to 1
(ROLL 4) No Effect
The escorts make Crevalle be a bit careful, and she misses the maru.
Two large merchant ships with heavy escort have kept the wolfpack from scoring a kill. (BANZAI!)
Or have they?
Reattack Round
To be eligible for a re-attack round a submarine in a wolfpack needs to roll equal to, or less than, their TDC rating. A 0-4 in the case of all three subs.
Cod (ROLL 1) - eligible
Capelin (ROLL 6) - ineligible
Crevalle (ROLL 7) - ineligible
Cod gets to come in and take another try. Given the number of escorts in Col A the selected option is to deploy Cod to Column C. Can only shoot at ships in Column B, but also only has to deal with one escort.
Tactical Display (after Cod's TDC draws)
Col B
B-1: 10t M 3-0 (TDC +0) (-1 for reattack)
B-2: 2t DD 6-1 (TDC +0) (-1 for reattack)
All 7 attack points at the 10t M in Column B.
This maru captain is not having a good day. Third time a sub has taken an all-out shot at his ship. Will his luck hold out?
Attack: (7) + Torpedo Value (+1) - TDC (-1) - 1 (shot at ship in adjacent column = 8
Defense: 3 + revealed escort (1) = 4
8 - 4 = 4. Roll 0-4 to hit.
(ROLL 1) Hit!
Roll Damage: (ROLL 4) + +1 torpedo value = 5. That's a SUNK on the 10-17 ton row.
A column of water and flame erupts on the starboard side of the maru as the Cod's torpedoes strike home. The striken ship rapidly settles by the stern as the engine room floods with water. The escorting DD races to the attack.
Counterattack on Cod:
WP3 (2) + OpArea (1) + revealed escort (1) = 4
Defense: 4
4 - 4 = 0
(ROLL 0) + 1 (reattack round) = 1 No Effect
The destroyer vainly drops a few depth charges as Cod slips away on silent running.
Endurance Checks for all three submarines. All are Endurance Rating A and require 0-7 or less to stay out another week.
Cod (ROLL 6)
Capelin (ROLL 8)
Crevalle (ROLL 3)
Cod and Crevalle pass their checks. However, Capelin needs to return to base. Since this drops the wolfpack to less than three submarines it is forced to break up.
But another will soon form...
queue ominous music once again
Some initial thoughts on the use of wolfpacks
A. Operationally
1. Wolfpacks have to form at a permanent base (Freemantle, Pearl Harbor, Brisbane, Dutch Harbor currently.) Therefore you have to have at least three subs ready for sea in order to form a pack. Depending on how your subs are cycling through bases this may or may not be easy to do on demand.
2. Wolfpacks tie up three (or more) subs into a single search roll. If acting as a barrier pack the subs get a good bonus (+2) to the check, but if it fails then instead of a single sub having no opportunity to attack an entire group of subs fails. That is taking on some risk since a greater percentage of the patrolling subs are tied up into a few search rolls.
3. Wolfpacks count for fewer subs in terms of Congregation Risk. Three or four subs count as two, five or six count as three. That does allow more subs into an area. And I expect in War Period 4 when good target areas and search values drop this might be valuable given the numbers of submarines that will want to go into a few limited areas.
4. Wolfpacks subtract one from their Transit Event checks. Given that wolfpacks are only available in War Period 3 and War Period 4 this means that a wolfpack can patrol move between most opareas without any chance of triggering a Transit Event.
B. Tactically
1. Since the subs can "split" up the revealed escort value (except aircraft) it will generally help individual subs get better attacks and generally prevent a single sub from getting jumped by three or four escorts and take a very heavy attack.
2. Multiple subs are going to trigger a lot of chit reveals (unless it is a very small convoy or all the subs are piled into one end of the Tactical Display.) So the odds of a given attack turning up escorts and the annoying (and deadly) diligent escorts is going to increase.
3. Wolfpack subs do not get an automatic reattack opportunity. Most subs in a wolfpack will have a 50% chance of getting a reattack round if desired.
Summary
A wolfpack is a bit of a "putting all your eggs in one basket" approach.
A couple of good search and contract rolls might give your group of subs a large number of potential targets to shoot at with the ASW risk distributed lightly over multiple boats as they have a field day. The opposite result is finding nothing with three to six boats due to a single poor roll, or finding only a few potential targets for multiple boats to squabble over. And a revealed aircraft affects the attack and counterattack on all boats.
Given my current number of subs and available opareas I do not have a great need to deploy wolfpacks. However, I am still deploying them in order to get the experience needed to operate more, and larger, wolfpacks in the future. In addition I am still working out what I think are the best way to use a wolfpack tactically against a convoy in terms of column deployment and order of attack.
Aside: The rules limit you to one three-submarine wolfpack at a time. Each wolfpack patrol that sinks at least one ship gives you one Wolfpack Experience point. Once you have nine such points you can operate multiple four-submarine wolfpacks. After fifteen points wolfpacks can be as large as six submarines and you can operate up to five wolfpacks at once.
- Kurt
-
Randy Dreger
Australia
Sebastopol
Victoria
I love Melissa, but don't tell her. It's a secret if she can find this. Shhhhh....
-
Excellent patrol AAR! I can't wait to get some Wolfpacks of my own. Imagine what damage a 6-sub BALAO wolfpack could do?
I dream of such a pack taking down a whole "sparse" task force 1-2-2-2. That would be something to write home about!
Happy hunting!
(edit) PS - I'm actually thinking of playing through the Charles Momsen Patrol (32.19), just to try them out.
-
Kurt Over
United States
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
-
I had a 3 Gato-class pack meet a 3-2 convoy last night...
First sub uncovered a Combat Event '9' (Attack - Attack) as well...
So I ended up getting four attacks on a 2-2 formation that was all merchant ships. And I rolled awfully, only sinking two 5t marus.
One of the subs made the reattack role and picked off the remaining 5t maru, leaving a lone 2t maru to run away.
Gave me an inkling of how badly a larger group could rip up a convoy.
I also realized a potentially useful tactic that I need to see if it is viable:
a. If there is a sub in that column revealed escorts in that column do not count as part of the revealed escort value for attacks and counterattacks by subs in other columns.
b. If 'a' is true then a sub (in Col A) attacking an *escort* in Col B where there is also a sub in Col B only has to overcome the inherent defense of the escort, not the escort's defense value *plus* it's ASW value. The latter which generally pushes the escort's defense to at least 7, and as high as 11 for our buddy the diligent one.
c. Therefore, said sub in Col A *might* want to consider drawing a TDC chit for an escort in Col B if there is a good TDC draw possibly pulling a Harder and taking the shot. Especially if it is acting before one or two subs in Col B that *will* be affected by the escort for their attacks.
Assuming a Gato/Balao class with +1 torpedoes there would be a 40% chance of hitting a Defense 7 escort if you pull a -3 TDC chit. And even if you don't kill it you are guaranteed a 'Damaged' result which will reduce the escort's ASW value to zero. So you sacrifice a potential merchantman attack (which might have been lousy anyways) in exchange for reducing/eliminating ASW effect on some of the other subs in the pack.
Besides, who wouldn't enjoy the gift of sending a few torpedoes to that recently appeared diligent escort?
- Kurt
-
Randy Dreger
Australia
Sebastopol
Victoria
I love Melissa, but don't tell her. It's a secret if she can find this. Shhhhh....
-
Excellent. I'm excited to try the wolfpacks for myself, if I still have any subs around by Sept 43!
The cross-column destroyer could increase your survivability chance. Perhaps with a large Wolfpack, if the first couple subs neutralise the destroyers the rest can focus on getting some tonnage and there is no fear of counter-attack. Let me know how yo do.
I Just wish the destroyers were worth more tonnage to make it feel "worth it" going after them. I sunk a destroyer tonight with a GATO on a direct attack. It was re-attack and I had to move to column C to avoid a nasty 2ASW destroyer in A. My only target now was a wimpy 6-1/2 1tDD in colmun B. I figured I was about as likely to damage it as it was likely to damage me (10%). So I gave it a shot and sunk it before it could counter-attack. Felt Good. Real Good 
-
Kurt Over
United States
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
-
Hmm... sounds like your loss rates are going up. Don't feel bad, wait until you see my numbers for that. (There is a reason I've started using the sauron
 to represent the diligent escort in my reports.)
Yea, you enjoy the DD kills for the "hah! take that you $&^$%&" factor, not the tonnage. Same with the occasional kill of an I-boat.
Still working with how to effectively apply a wolfpack. Had one break up suddenly when there were no ready Gatos at Freemantle or Pearl. So I put together a "Poodle Pack" of P-class boats out of Dutch Harbor. 
Did a barrier patrol in the Aleutians, found a convoy with two of the subs, and things went south from there. Escorts all over and no kills. Luckily no lost boats either.
Batting about 50/50 so far with the wolfpacks. [updated]
Pack #1: Two patrol weeks - 2 kills (Gato and 2 Balao)
Pack #2: One patrol week - no kills and one sub managed to torpedo itself. (Quick mix group of a Gato, T, and an S2 boat)
Pack #3: One patrol week - 1 kill (3 Gatos)
Pack #4: The aforementioned "Poodle Pack" - One patrol week - no kills
Pack #5: Three patrol weeks - 1 kill (3 Gatos)
Pack #6: One patrol week - no kills (2 Gato, 1 Balao)
...one of the subs had a RTB-causing mechanical breakdown right off
Pack #7: Deploying from Pearl Harbor (Feb 1944) (3 Gatos)
So far I've been going 2 and 1 (or 1 and 2) into Col A and Col B. Need to get a full pack into a larger formation (three or four columns) in order to really look at the options for spreading or concentrating the boats.
Pack #6 went into an Ultra area and got a larger convoy (6-5-4-3). One sub broke down right away, leaving a column open. Then both aircraft turned up (Col A and Col B) and I spent more time dodging bombs than launching torpedoes. Damaged a small maru and that was it.
- Kurt
-
|
|
|
