WW I U-boat game ?

[Regulus]

Hi,

Anyone ever seen a WW I U-boat game. Seems there are several WW II ones, I have a few, but never saw anything on WW I.
Perhaps some of you know more ???

Best from Regulus

[Kirk]

Not that I know a whole lot about WWI subs, but weren't they a LOT less effective than the WWII types? The one WWII sub game I played was Aces of the Deep, and the early war subs in that game weren't very useful at all. They had a very short range and had a maximum of 6 torpedoes. It just seems to me a WWI sub game would have ships that are far less capable than that early WWII model so as a result the game wouldn't be much fun. It ssems to me WWII sub games would offer far more strategic and tactical possibilities.

Given the state of defense during WW-I it is suprising that as many U-Boats were sunk as there were. Probably a sizable percentage were due to the sub's stealth being compromised by mechanical failure.
But the devastation wreaked by Submarines in WW-I was terrific, especially considering their numbers. The only reason England wasn't strangled during the war was the Kaisers repeated decisions to pull his U-Boat punches. It was too late to placate the U.S., but the Kaiser never totally gave up hope until 1917. Had he stuck with unrestricted U-Boat warfare, there's no doubt in my mind that Britain would have folded under the pressure before the U.S. could have made any difference. As it was, it was close.

Joe

[Regulus]

Hi Kirk and Joe,

I'd say quite right Joe. As I stated in my book on the German Marinekorps Flandern, in 1917 there was a moment that the UK seriously considered pulling out of the war, due to the U-boat war.

Let's see, if I'm not mistaken about 2500 or some hundreds more ships were sunk in WW II by the German U-boats (I'm not a WW II U-boat specialist, I'm only working on the type XXI of that period).

In WW I, the U-Flottille Flandern I and II alone sank 2554 ships, not counting the warships ! They totalled about 1/3 of the BRT that went to the sharks by the German U-boats.

Lothar von Arnauld de la Perrière had over 400.000 BRT on his name. Nobody in WW II came even close to that figure !

Concerning anti-sub measures Q-ships played a very serious role, as did minefields, but also the very first steps were taken to destroy U-boats succesfully from the air or by depth charges.

You should really look once at a UBIII type U-boat and at the WW II type VII's and others. They are very simular !!!

The first really good U-boat that could have been extremely successful and hard to find or destroy would have been the German Type XXI, which was to late ready to be of use in the war. It would have been devastating.

Most of the subs of the USSR in the 50's and 60's were based on this model. They were just made longer.

Fact is that the WW I sub war was much more spectacular than the one in WW II. However because of the fact that these wars came fastly after one another, the one in WW I was as good as forgotten.

So if we do think about gaming, I seriously do think that a WW I version would be much harder to play than a WW II version !

Just think of it, with just a few torpedo's, ten for example, find you're way over the North Sea, avoiding mine fields, having to be on the surface most of the time, avoiding the enemy patrols looking for you in the Channel, the torpedoboats, the Q-ships, the nets, the airships and the torpedoplanes, the bombers, etc, it could become a really difficult job.

But of course that is a pure personal opinion !

Best from Regulus

Dear Regulus,
Gosh, Reg, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to return to your original question...

There are two U-boat games that I know of; both are board games, with paper counters, and extensive rules...

The first was by Avalon-Hill, called (oddly enough) Submarine; this game was, I believe, a redesign of an older game, U-Boat. The game dealt with WW2 exclusively (if memory serves)...

The second game was by SPI, entitled Upscope (how did they come up with these titles?), and it did have two, possibly three scernarios that were exclusively WW1. One I remember in particular dealt with an actual action early in the conflict, with three British destroyers trolling for a suspected U-boat in the vicinity. Yes, they actually dragged some sort of net to actually make contact with the U-boat's hull and then depth-charge it. Ah, the dear dead days...

And, BTW, weren't the Q-boats vastly overrated? I read somewhere that they were only responsible for sinking three of the subs. On the other hand, what clinched it for the Allies was the extensive mining in 1918 that ended once and for all the U-boat menace; please note that this is my opinion, and that I used the inexact term "clinched".

Here's even more fun with history: read David Kennedy's Freedom from Fear, about the US under FDR. I think that one could make a case that had Hitler, in 1941, months before Pearl Harbor, made war on the US, which would have been primarilly a war at sea (with a land battle over Iceland, which the US did occupy in that year), Nazi Germany would have triumphed. Whether or not they would have starved out the UK remains to be seen, but the US would have been effectively knocked out of the European conflict...

VBR,
Captain Lewis, Katzliche Marine

[VictorVonDoom]

Hi all.
Never heard about WW1 sub videogames...but it should be very funny!
Im not a real expert about sub-warfare, but i would like to lead in battle an old WW1 U-Boat...
I hope someone will create a good one sooner or later...
There are so much WW2 or modern sub-sims...but i don't like very much that modern stuffs...
I remember one of the best WW2 sub-sim was "Silent Service" ... it was very nice and well playable, not so difficult and funny.
A good WW1 U-Boat sim should be like it was.

Regards.

I have played SPIs "Upscope" quite a bit. I must admit, although it takes some tweaking, the WW-I combat comes off pretty good. You do run into some things, and Regulus, I'm sure you can confirm these were real problems suffered by the U-Boat men of the Kaiserliche Marine.
1. Torpedos were short ranged and were limited in their course settings. Torpedo aiming was much harder than in WW-II.
2. The attack you had to run for best chances was a surface attack, preferrably on a stopped ship. Launching a submerged attack was very difficult.
3. Depth control was a chancy proposition sometimes. Broaching was a problem.
4. If you COULD launch a submerged attack, and got away with it, you stood a decent chance of getting away provided you used your head. But from a surface attack you were hobbled by slow diving times and the problem of giving the destroyers a nice place to start their search.
5. U-Boats were not the deep divers of WW-II and this limited defensibility.
6. Hydrophones were not impossibly ineffective. If used properly, preferrably in conjunction with other destroyers, they could give the sub a run for its money. They just needed a good starting point. But if they had NO idea where the sub was, they could be evaded (again, you had to use your head).
Submarine and anti-submarine warfare was no walk in the park for either side. The subs were hobbled by the newness of the technology, but if they were working right and in the hands of a good commander they were deadly. But given just a spot of luck, escorts in the hands of a good commander were not a enemy to be scoffed at. WW-I submarine warfare makes for some exciting senarios.

Joe

[Billy_Bishop]

The Avalon Hill game was not a redesign of their older "U-Boat" game. *It was a completely new game all it's own. *

I found the AH game of "Submarine" (actually a BattleLine acquistion that also came to AH along with Air Force/Dauntless) and SPI's "UpScope" do have some similarities. *But AH's Submarine was strictly a WWII game where SPI's Upscope was a WWI, WWII, modern sub game.

VBR,

Al Lowe

[Regulus]

Hi Joe,

Yes I have to confirm what you're mentioning, not even talking about failing torpedo's !

Hi everybody,

So it looks as that there's nothing on the market that gives a possible virtual adventure on a WW I submarine. So sad ! :'(

But perhaps someone will come up with a good idea one of these days and make one himself 8)

Best from Regulus