If SUBs were actually viable, France would be automatic for IC placement.
With SUBs not doing any economic damage, and basically automatically killed by any attack force with a DD then maybe it’s a little less of a sure thing
If Germany is cashing out at 45-50IPCs though early on, and facing a KGF (which they most likely will be), then yeah, France is good for producing your 15-16INF/TURN while you wait for Japan to take out Moscow… yawn :roll:
I disagree. The reason of subs not being viable for Germany is not that they cannot do economic damage. It’s because allied fleet can simply toast them by pure numbers. It’s a trouble with having a so small Atlantic ocean, ther is no place where subs can hide from fleets.
Convoy raiding subs can be protected by other surface vessels. Being able to do convoy raids would still make these ‘protected’ subs useful: They would be soaking UK for cash.
This would make naval investment by Germany more viable as their return on their investment is higher than throwing subs out there to be killed.
Now you only can build a german sub in baltic or in English Channel/Marsella if they buy a Vichy IC. Both places can be toasted still by pure numbers. Too much german fleet means super-soviets.
A Italiansub merrily stacked with a Italian fleet near Italy should not be able of killing any UK convoys (unless Malta, but Malta is not on AA50). A sub auto-killing allied IPCs, even if the sub is far of any convoy rutes (as in german NA from AAR), is pretty unrealist. The only realist rule would be convoy routes, but there is few chance of germans reaching there, not talk about holding them