Submarines - WT Discussion

I see the main issue in how surface vessels are supposed to fight any given submarine

I don´t think that submarines fit current NF gameplay. If we ever get something which focuses more on “PvPvE” such as convoys ect. then I can see submarines fit otherwise not so much.

My main issues are that I can´t see submarine gameplay be properly balanced right now.
The torpedoes simply aren´t reliable weapon right now which is extremly RNG at long range and the damage output is patheticaly small because of that so long range attacks would be extremly unfun for the submarine players. Not to mention that even when the torps hit the damage from them isn´t that great compared to gunfire (excluding Long Lances and equivalents) if the target isn´t a DD.
If the submarine spawns aren´t close to the middle of the map geting into close range would be really hard since most subs are really slow even surfaced they aren´t fast. And if the spawn are placed near the centre there is the issue of many larger ships having no way of dealing with submarines or even spotting them. Which would be even worse then the shotguning issue from WoWS.
And if we limit submarines into mostly coastal area there is issues with limited deaph and that submarines have very limited armament even when compared to PT boats.


This is nice idea but I think that submarines are inherently different from bombers and even CVs both of these need to risk to achieve anything and in bombers case they don´t even directly influence enemy games. Which isn´t the case for subs because submarine patient enough will almoast certainly be able engage enemy ships with no way for said enemy to react in any way.

IMO the issue is with situation such as this: Sub is camping approach to capture point while it is submerged. Unsuspecting CL/CA/BB is trying to get to the cap, and submarine player waits for them to approach just close enough to launch torpedoes in such a way that the CL/CL/BB has no chance of avoiding them. How could have the surface ship player prevent this situation when his ship doesn´t have proper sonar?


If we as I said ever get some kind of proper convoy mode where DDs and submarines can play cat and mouse while trying to destroy/protect AI ships I will be all for subs.

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What, like CAPTOR mine roleplay ? You’ll need the patience of a mummified monk to pull that off - though it seems like this situation would be created by another one:

Moving a submarine 's starting location so far forward that it reaches it 's hunting location before surface ships can reach the objective does sound awful, it would be like doing the reverse w/ missile ships and moving them so far back that only they could reliably hit eachother. Detrimental to everything else, even if somewhat accurate to an irl engagement geometry.

Since that hasn’t happened, the solution for submarines seems similar: don’t spawn them where they can’t be engaged conventionally. If a sub can make it all the way to the enemy lane-to-objective starting from or near the destroyer spawn - a journey spent vulnerable, mostly on the surface if it is to be timely - then maybe it 'could make a close range torp dump, like that from a PT boat waiting around an island corner to do something similar.

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To be fair, they won’t be exactly like CAS, my bad. I meant more in the sense that a lot of ships won’t actually be able to counter submarines in any way, and the response from those in the community who like subs will be “just spawn in another ship bro” (another ship which can counter subs) in the same way that many CAS fans will respond to complaints about it with “just spawn SPAA bro”.

Sure, I can share it. In general, my issue would be if I’m in a ship that can’t counter submarines, and, well, I come across one that’s targeting me. What can I do in that instance? There’s also Shadow’s example and I’m aware that a similar result could be achieved by a PT boat hiding around a corner, but at least a PT boat is above surface all the time, so you can theoretically counter it with any other surface ship.

I don’t like to bring up WoWs a lot, but if submarines are as truly hated as they are there, especially since they’re free to use lots of unrealistic arcadey mechanics to try and make it work - and it still doesn’t work, I think you can understand why that doesn’t fill me with confidence for subs in this game.

I guess it goes for anything - if you play well, you should be able to do well. I’m not against that. However, what concerns me is that submarines in the hands of a good player will be able to do too well, to the detriment of everyone else who, well, isn’t in a submarine.

Sure, if someone wants to play that submarine style, I understand that. I’m just not so certain that they’d be implemented in War Thunder in a way that’s balanced and enjoyable for everyone.

For example, there’s a lot of players who’d like large, more modern strategic bombers. Things like the Avro Vulcan or the B-52 come to mind in particular. But these simply don’t belong. I totally understand why people want the opportunity to play these majestic aircraft, but sometimes, we have to say (or Gaijin has to say, technically) “sorry, but these won’t be good for the game”.

On the point about bombers, they used to impact games and were a good part of the dynamic but fighter players were unhappy that because they ignored bomber players for 20-30mins the match would end in victory. So warthunder nerfed bombers so that it is INCREDIBLY hard to get bomber wins now and it is almost absolutely impossible to get a win that way since map timers being reduced to 25mins is nowhere enough time to land and rearm, takeoff and bomb the bases again before aa or the timer ends the match.

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It’s simple make it so that submarines cannot capture points if thats the issue?

On the terms of giant bombers like the B-52 there needs to be some adjustments but the Avro Vulcan, B-47, Tu-16, Tu-95, Victor, Valiant and TSR.2 could be added tomorrow and not change the game for the negative just like how the Buccaneer doesn’t currently. Not even 4 buccs can change the game negatively which ignores the fact that you can have entire friendly teams of around 10-12 out of the 16 carrying bombs with their loadouts which equates to 4 vulcans or more and the game isn’t broken or any less enjoyable for people.

The issue I mentioned was just ilustration. The same problem is still present even when submarines spawn at the back. Since battles don´t end instantly after the clash there is basically no way how to prevent the situation I described.

a journey spent vulnerable, mostly on the surface if it is to be timely

Also I must dissagree with this notion while yes submarine on surface is very vulnurable but it can dive at any time and it is small target which could be easily mised so I believe you are overestimating the the skill needed to get into position.

It is core issue which I have with submarines how can player in CL/BB prevent being “shotguned” if they have no way of countering and even detecting submarine. At very least in case of PT boat the CL/BB can easily retaliate and destroy it not to mention the PT boats carry less torpedoes and mostly without reloads. The submarines have overall more torpedoes and can reload them safely.

it would be like doing the reverse w/ missile ships and moving them so far back that only they could reliably hit eachother.

I would say that comparison to missile ships is quite faulty because submarines have the engagement range bassically baked into their design because they can dive. And especially when we still have no ship with real proper antiship missiles. We still just have glorified ATGM and two SAMs which can be used against ships that are no antiship missiles. And even then I never feared the missile ship balance as long as we wont see VLS ships fighting WW2 ships. Most other missile ships have only handfull of ASMs and most of which (excluding russian ones) are “just” flying torpedoes which wont do too much damage.

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The capturing isn´t really relevant. It was just example.

And I would expect simmilar and even more severe issues with submarines. The bombers are much easier to balance and you can see that even they are really problematic to balance. Again I would say that I want to see submarines in the game but they need to be balanced properly which I see extremly and borderline impossible with current NF gameplay. Because last thing NF need is broken ship type completly breaking any last bits of balance NF have.
I simply can´t see them be viable without being broken.

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I feel that the responsibility of detecting and dealing with submarines could largely fall to the coastal ships. Right now coastal ships have the technology advantage in naval with no real way to leverage it other than anti-aircraft work. Things like JDS Isuzu and the SKR ships would do very well at detecting and dealing with submarines since it’s the reason they exist to begin with. Also I don’t know for sure but aren’t the SET-40 torpa on the SKRs sonar guided irl? Anyway ships with sonar could get some kind of spotting mechanic similar to ground to warn their teammates of any uppity subs in the area. With all this in mind I do see the issue of submarine engagability being limited to top coastals, destroyers and other subs. However planes in ground are really only engagable by AA and other planes so the game of rock paper scissors comes full circle it seems.

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If that 's the issue you’ve settled on, the answer seems to be the same as the other interactions between ship types currently: position actively to prepare for encounters, and reposition to your advantage wherever the likelihood of a prepared enemy setting up a situation seems high. It 's not as if a submarine can counter-position against you in that case, they’re purely the inverse of that PT boat and it 's ability to become a threat from behind any impenetrable obstacle at will - in exchange for total vulnerability anywhere w/o such terrain or while firing their actual attack.

I’m not especially thrilled to discuss WoW in a WT Discussion thread either, but my impression of that game was that it was mechanically unsuitable to being a multiplayer game, and/or an action game. The restrictions on a player 's ability to use their provided tools to understand their operational picture at a given time, especially, seems to have impaired it 's ability to provide combined-vehicle gameplay in a satisfying manner.
Some of their proposed or implemented representation of sub capabilities in a multiplayer context were even interesting or reasonable, it 's saddening to think that the rest of the game 's fundamental experience might’ve been a players introduction to them in a combined fleet game.

The same problem exists already across interactions between available vehicle types, when they enter the situation that plays to the other 's strengths. Like your easily-retaliated-against boat against a cruiser( or any other Bluewater fleet type, really ), which likely broke cover or attempted to cross open water.
That 's why mission design considers these, and places the cruiser far enough back that the boat has a chance to use it 's ability to position rapidly to greater effect - though it still cannot become a threat to the cruiser at every point of a map, or at every point during the match.
The comparison to missile ships is not made to those yet present ingame, but instead meant to illustrate graphically the use of the design where differing ship types - regardless of ability or class - are in situations where they can be engaged by other ship classes in their typical manner. I’m not really sure what you mean by " engagement range " here, since if a sub captain does attempt to increase their survivability at range by porpoising their ability to reach a location midway between the destroyer spawns goes from roughly equivalent to HMS Dreadnought 's to worser, and they still need to make final corrections to launch torpedoes - if anything is at that location by that time for those to have a greater chance of hitting home than if they had been launched by a surface vessel earlier and further behind. Neither ship is able to effectively engage the other in that situation.

Since your scenario is already present, in some cases optimal, for ships already present, it seems your actual issue is not w/ the capability of submarines but rather w/ some other feature of NF mission design, likely the objective control gameplay of [Domination] since that one has the least room to incentivize players not to strangle the spawns or lanes-from-spawn after the initial clash. Even open-circle [Conquest] has better defense against objective entrenchment - and that design has plenty of it 's own issues.
Submarines themselves, having the same restrictions applied to them as other ship types, don’t appear to have the ability to " break " naval balance. Just to provide another variation of gameplay w/in it.


@FutureFlash2034 I had forgotten to mention before, the Type 21 submarine in WTM doesn’t have access to the G7e torps there - indeed, the weapon only exists in the files of regular WT
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Though it 's the american submarines which are much worse off as regards their weapons accuracy there - USS Balao lack 's it 's 4in deck gun, and both it and USS Tang have a mixture of weapons they could not use and those fully not in the USN inventory
image

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The ROQF 4in Mk.XXIII: a lightweight replacement of the preceding Mk.XXII wet mount, entered service too late for WW2 but would continue in Royal Navy service into the 70 's.
image

( https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/lj0oy4/currently_unused_vehicles_loadouts_and_weaponry/ )

In update 2.26.0.25 it 's ingame weaponry text was updated to " 4 inch/33 QF Mk.XXIII naval cannon ", to include the calibre. A similar change was made to many other naval weapons then.

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Submarines had limited torpedo so would be only as dangerous as destroyers for its torpedos. They are slow so easily run down by any class of ship. Pt boats will have more purpose keeping the submarines suppressed while giving the anti sub classes of pt, frigates, destroyers and cruisers.

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Looking forward to submarines in the main game.

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All your arguments are based on the assumption that Gaijin will carefully think over submarines before implementing them, like we are doing here. The reality is that they most certainly won’t, and will probably make subs quite OP at least in the beginning, to draw in (paying) players, just like they did with helicopters.

Gaijin’s track record shows that they are simply not capable of “properly” implementing anything. I get that subs might be a good addition if they are added properly. But it’s the consequences of an improper implementation, which is much more likely, that really makes me oppose subs. We should wait at least until we have surface gunnery-based naval warfare in actual working/fun order(because it certainly isn’t currently), before trying to add a radically new type of ship like subs(or carriers or full-on AShMs).

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submarines could help bring down battleship repair costs

and if im not mistaken, some destroyers used to have devices to detect submarines during ww2

so it becomes sort of rock-paper-scissors, they would add a new tactical layer instead of “bigger ship wins” we have now

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That works in WoWs, not here.

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Well in the current naval map sizes and spawns, as soon as those ASW vessels come out into the open(which is where the subs will be), they’ll be blown to pieces by the enemy cruisers and battleships. Calmly performing ASW is going to be impossible in the current environment, and since subs need ASW to counter them, this naturally also precludes the introduction of subs.

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Its pt boats that win most top tier matches. The battleships dont push caps and leave even a single cap uncontested and that 1 cap wins the game