Submarine Warfare

Interesting that the ideas used in running the submarine campaign that I did with Martin using the Minden game back in 2004 seems to have appeared as a fully developed solitaire game:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22359/steel-wolves-the-german-submarine-campaign-against



Maybe some ideas here for Kriegsspielers.

Interesting. It looks to be much more detailed than the game we played. My perception is that the focus is on shorter campaigns rather than the whole U-boat war. With counters for every U-boat produced upto 1943, I would guess the latter would involve a lot of admin.

Bill Leeson and I started work several years ago on a U-boat k/spiel. The teams would have been Doenitz & staff, and the allied equivalents (either as one joint team or as two - US and British).

Unlike this game, we were going to limit operations to thee mid & N Atlantic. I still fancy doing something like that at some point, and you're right that this game would provide a lot of ideas & data.

Martin

I’m new here and have been browsing around the forum when I came across this Submarine warfare entry. I know it’s a very old couple of post’s, that seem to have gone nowhere. However Submarines were my profession for many years so I have some knowledge of them in the circumstances of World War II

I spent 22 years in the U.S. Navy, all of it in Submarines and most of it at sea during the cold war. My first boat was a WWII vintage fleet type diesel electric Submarine. Somewhat modified by the time I got aboard in 1967 but still basically the same as those that fought in the war.
My boat was initially stationed in Pearl Harbor, but while I was aboard we changed our homeport to Charleston South Carolina. So I had the opportunity to spend some time in the North Atlantic, on a WWII vintage submarine in winter no less.

I spent most of the rest of my career in the Pacific where I saw a lot of bad weather, up to and including Typhoons. (Which happily we could travel under ). I’ve seen the ocean in all shades of blue, and green, even gray. However the North Atlantic is the only place I’ve ever seen it black. What a miserable place to fight a war.

My father was also a career sailor in Submarines. He was a veteran of World War II and did 11 war patrols from 1942 on. He told me many stories of what it was like, what they encountered, how they and the Japanese fought each other. What being depth charged was like. Plus I was depth charged myself once.

The point of this trip down memory lane is that should anyone wish to revive the submarine campaign idea. I may perhaps be able to provide some technical knowledge to the project, plus some idea of what happens to a crew on a long and difficult patrol.

Regards Jess

Hi Jess

Subsequent to the above, Steve and David did run a North Atlantic campaign game for us at Little Gaddesden 4 or 5 years ago.

All of the players were on one side, and played as Doenitz and his staff in their concrete command bunker. We have a stage area in the hall which can be totally curtained-off, so it was quite atmospheric. It was a high level game. The focus was on forming wolf-packs, and plotting their patrol lines. Combat was resolved by the umpires without any player input. I think that was realistic, as the U-boats had to maintain strict comms discipline, so local commanders were not able to coordinate attacks.

We played over a few weeks in late 42 or early 43.

It was good fun, but I think everyone felt it needed further development. I would be very interested in doing something like it again.

Thanks for the offer.

Martin (J)

Me too.

The hidden movement inherent in sub ops should make this kind of warfare well suited to the Kriegsspiel treatment.

Check out the Subsim Project

Looks interesting, but it's just commanding one sub I think. Megalomaniac that I am, I really want to be directing wolf-packs. All from the security of my very concrete bunker of course.

I do think the WW2 North Atlantic convoy battles are an ideal subject for a PC game. Perhaps it's just a niche audience though?

Martin (J)