U-boat vs. aircraft

[Zosimus]

My Most Dangerous Moment with Aircraft

I had been creeping up on a convoy in poor weather when I got pinged. I immediately went to 179 meters depth, but with three escorts circling me one of them always seemed to get in a lucky ping. Finally, after almost 3 hours, I shook them off.

The convoy was long gone, but I surfaced in 9 km (moderate) visibility and began following the escorts as they headed (medium speed) back towards the convoy. After two hours I had kind of located the convoy. I knew that it was somewhere to the southeast of me because I saw an escort come from that direction doing its little search dance. Meanwhile the three escorts were SSW of me as I was threading the needle trying to get close enough to the convoy to see a cargo ship and determine the exact course so I could go out and around to take it on.

It was at that moment that a fighter aircraft showed up heading towards me from south by south east. Obviously, as you know, the real danger was not the aircraft. The problem was all four escorts immediately made a beeline for my position.

I did not crash dive. We manned the flak gun and we fired at the onrushing plane as it strafed us. It didn't hit us, and we didn't hit it. As soon as it passed we crash dived. After another hour in the depths of the ocean they gave up on us and I surfaced to find it raining heavily.

I gave up on the convoy and went in search of better weather.

[sharkbit]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I think it's also important to remember the difference between individual crews and situations, and progress as a whole. It took hundreds of hours of patrolling by air to make a single sighting. Although trained and experienced, the vast majority of Coastal Command air crews had, in fact, never encountered a U-boat during the war. Those who did were far from guaranteed success - only a small number of attacks netted a hit, and the attack took an immense risk. There were no Coastal Command aces - so rare were their encounters. In actual duels between the aircraft and U-boat, the odds were slightly in favour of the U-boat. Even during the infamous Black May of 1943, a single U-boat sinking took more than 1250 flight hours of patrols by air. The probability of an airplane even making contact with a U-boat during a single (often grueling and lengthy) patrol was no more than 2%.

All that sounds bad for airplanes hopeful for the U-boats on an individual scale, but when you start looking at the strategy, the picture changes drastically. Put enough airplanes in the air, and they will find the U-boats. Run enough risks, and there will be kills. sharkbit's point about Slessor's view is right - losing a plane-U-boat duel means losing 6-12 crew and a machine that can be replaced in a matter of a few weeks or even days (or in the extreme case - even hours, as illustrated by the record assembly of a complete Wellington at Broughton in 1943 in less than 24 hours). Losing a U-boat is losing 45-55 crew, a number of them substantially more specialized and much harder to replace, and a machine that takes at minimum months to build and costs dozens of times more than the best bomber. Worse for Germany, it also requires hundreds of tons of high-grade steel which is already in short supply. The loss of a U-boat is many more times costly to Germany than the cost of 1250 hours of flying and several downed allied planes put together. The U-boats had nothing to offer to counter the threat - and it took mere days for Coastal Command airmen to see through the new group tactics and flak defenses in battle, to which they adapted right away by shadowing, calling for help, and attacking in groups.

The air crews up against the U-boats were good - really good - and you can't judge them by individual encounters or scores, because it was not a duel. It was a system of patrols that was, in a sense, designed to "fail" - it was known and calculated in advance (with impressive exactness) that most patrolling airplanes would never encounter a U-boat, most attacks would miss, and airplanes were at least as likely to be shot down as they were to score a hit. And with all that in mind, it was a system where even by pure attrition, the U-boats were doomed. And when technological advantages were thrown into the mix, well, they were really really doomed.

And with all that said of course, it's also important to remember that the U-boats had already lost the Battle of the Atlantic BEFORE the effective air efforts actually kicked in. But the air power was one heck of a finishing move, and can rightly be considered the most dangerous. I think the only real reason for disdaining a realistic approach to it that I see emerging in this thread is its randomness. It's like artillery in trench warfare of WWI - deadlier, more technologically-sophisticated and more significant than any other type of combat, but it doesn't make for tall tales most of the time. More often than not, it's just a bolt from the blue that kills you indiscriminately and without warning, and you have no control over it or fault for it whatsoever. It's a bitter truth - but from a gameplay or storytelling perspective, most people find it either bland or infuriating. It breaks the dramatic, heroic, tragic narratives that people love playing out in their heads in games like SH3. A random death breaks that kind of story completely and makes players feel bitter. But I actually think that when you stop focusing on your own story and look at what it means in a bigger context, what it means for the war and for history, that story becomes fascinating again. And when you play DiD and introduce some house rules - like that dice roll sharkbit mentioned - you really start appreciating it!

Nice post CCIP.

And when technological advantages were thrown into the mix, well, they were really really doomed.

Which includes the scientific study of the tactics used by the aircraft and the gathering of data. I remember reading somewhere how all that study resulted in the depths that the aircraft set their depth charges to explode to be changed to make them more effective as well as other changes in tactics used, not only by aircraft, but by the convoys and escorts.

The Allies used a huge number of "Back Room Boys"-scientists, analysts, mathematicians, etc to help win the Battle of the Atlantic. They didn't get the glory and the medals but their efforts helped send a lot of U-boats to their grave.

[U-15]

@15#

http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-570/U-570INT.htm

V. CAPTURE OF "U 570"

"At approximately 0830 on the morning of 27th August, 1941, "U 570" submerged in position about 62° 15' N. and 18° 35' W. to obtain some respite from heavy seas which had already caused much seasickness among her inexperienced crew. At 1050 the captain decided to surface again and brought the U-Boat up from a depth of approximately 90 ft. What happened next can only be attributed to the lack of training of the Commander. Rahmlow entirely forgot to make any observation for hostile aircraft before exposing his ship. It so happened that a Hudson aircraft "S" belonging to 269 Squadron, and piloted by Squadron-Leader Thompson, was almost immediately overhead. "U 570" perceived her danger too late and, while she was attempting to crash dive, the aircraft dropped a stick of four 250 lb. depth charges, at an angle of 30° to the U-Boat's track. These exploded close to her, the nearest being about 10 yards away. One minute after the water disturbance had subsided "U 570" surfaced again, bow down, and 10 to 12 of her crew came on deck. The aircraft attacked with guns until a white flag was waved from the conning tower. It was established by interrogation of prisoners that, at the moment of the attack, confusion reigned within the U-Boat. The detonation of the depth charges, the smashing of instruments, the formation of gas, thought by the crew to be chlorine gas, and the entry of a certain amount of water apparently convinced Rahmlow that his boat was lost, for her ordered the crew to don life-jackets and mount the conning tower."

Zosimus, if you have an elite crew and an experienced commander, I accept you may have a fighting chance in a one on one with an aircraft; but only if you are forced to fight it out, because you can't submerge in time.

However, as we both know, Rahmlow was inexperienced, this being his 1st war patrol and out of a compliment of 43, only 4 had completed a war patrol.
As you can see from the quoted text, after the initial mistake of surfacing before checking for aircraft, the situation became compounded by panic and inexperience amongst crew and officers.
The article goes on to say that the seas made it impossible to man the guns, so a fight was out of the question even if the crew had the will to do so.

1st mistake: Surfacing in broad daylight; irrespective that there are upset tummies all over the boat.
This mistake compounded by not carrying out proper air surveillance.

2nd mistake: Resurfacing after being attacked.
The Engineering Officer was one of the 4 that had patrol experience.
Rahmlow should have dived as deep as possible and used his EO's knowledge to assess the situation.
Repair the damage and carry on, or surface and surrender.

As I haven't being in a situation that has required me to make instant life determining decisions, I am certainly not going to criticize somebody for making the wrong mistakes in a real life situation.

From a strategic point of view this is a U-boat that was lost from its main purpose, i.e. the sinking of enemy merchant vessels.
This purpose requires the U-boat to be undetected to maximise its chances of success.
Something, that brawling it out on the surface with aircraft is not going to enhance those chances.

Ok, call me unadventurous if you like, I can take it.

[Zosimus]

I'm sorry, but if that's the best example you can come up with of why you shouldn't fight with planes, I'm going to have to give it a big

"Don't fight with planes because you might be inexperienced and surrender the boat when you shouldn't."

[U-15]

Originally Posted by Zosimus

I'm sorry, but if that's the best example you can come up with of why you shouldn't fight with planes, I'm going to have to give it a big

"Don't fight with planes because you might be inexperienced and surrender the boat when you shouldn't."

That's a very incorrect assumption of my argument.
I maintain it is not worth risking the strategic importance of a U-boat just to engage enemy aircraft.

And as stated in my post, regardless of the experience of the crew, the sea conditions made it impossible to man the guns.


You can give me an even bigger thumbs down if you like.
It is of no consequence to me.

[CCIP]

Hindsight is 20/20!

Originally Posted by Zosimus

As we said before, don't crash dive. Fire back, wait till the attack passes, and then dive.

While a bad idea on the face of it, it's hard to tell exactly what the situation was - and one of the real difficulties was that estimating the distance of an airplane was very hard, especially for an inexperienced crew not used to dealing with the danger. There is very little information that the commander has to make a decision, which has to be made instantly - no "distance to nearest contact" button that returns a reliable result. So it's likely that the dive was ordered based on a very imperfect estimate and poor situational awareness.

Second mistake. Don't panic. The boat was barely scratched.

Again, definitely a mistake - but very hard to gauge when you have an incomplete picture and a problematic information source. There is no damage meter on real U-boats, and crews were all too well aware of what would happen if they hesitated for even a few seconds on a seriously-damaged boat (everyone would die).

"Barely scratched" in that instance likely meant a huge boom, a lot of broken glass, knocked out instruments and lights, cracked batteries with toxic chlorine leaking out. Again, especially for a crew who had not experienced this before, this would look like the apocalypse. By the time accurate damage reports could be made, a seriously-damaged boat would have already imploded. So again, it was a mistake, but a totally understandable one - as I said, there's no damage meter on a U-boat.

Don't surrender. What's the point?

Now that one I really have to strongly disagree with - and if you read transcripts of conversations with U-boat survivors (including wartime prisoners), you will see that U-boat crews were not fanatics. There was no cult of "death or glory" in the Ubootwaffe, and even the most hardened crews (let alone fresh recruits) had a healthy will to live. For very good reasons, few of them believed in anti-British propaganda, and correctly expected humane treatment from the enemy. With a few exceptions, most U-boat crew who surrendered in a hopeless situation were treated with respect both by their captors, by their fellow POWs, and by the command and people back home. Kretschmer kept contact with BdU from the POW camp (with the allies' knowledge and tacit approval) and became a sort of "union leader" figure for U-boat POW's. The POW treatment was common knowledge - and though it certainly did not dent morale and make U-boats more likely to surrender, it certainly did make waving the white flag a very viable option when things looked grim. Although Rahmlow himself was not forgiven - an "honour tribunal" presided by Kretschmer found him guilty of cowardice - most of U-570s crew escaped any blame. Most importantly, they lived. That's no mean feat in war! So I think if you ask them (and most U-boat POWs), they'll very much tell you that there was a point to them surrendering - although admittedly, the case of U-570's surrender was a terrifically bungled one.

[banryu79]

"Don't fight with planes because you might be inexperienced and surrender the boat when you shouldn't."

Don't fight with planes (UYHNOC*) because it means you are allowing the enemy to keep contact with you and you, instead, should strive to make them lose contact with you as fast as possible.

*UYHNOC= Unless You Have No Other Choice

[Zosimus]

What a bunch of reading- and logic-impaired morons.

My strategy, as I have often said, is when confronted with an enemy aircraft to turn and run. Whenever possible, one should man the flak guns. Yes, I'm aware that flak guns cannot be manned in severe weather. However, that's entirely irrelevant to the question at hand because the supposed "example" of why "it's bad to fight it out with airplanes" is BS. An inexperienced captain who doesn't check for aircraft, surfaces, finds out a bomber is above him, and crash dives is NOT AN EXAMPLE OF A CAPTAIN FIGHTING IT OUT ON THE SURFACE and anyone who thinks that it is is a complete imbecile.

The sad fact of life is that by the time you see that airplane, it's already too late to dive. The airplane will almost certainly be in one of two states. The airplane may be on an attack run, in which case you need all the bullets in the air you can muster because airplanes that are being fired at are much less accurate than airplanes that are bearing down on a submarine with its butt sticking up in the air waiting to get its anal insertion. The other alternative is that the airplane hasn't seen you and is heading in some other direction, in which case getting out of there as fast as possible is still a good idea.

Once the aircraft has passed, you should dive. In case you're too stupid to understand this piece of advice, what I am saying is take the first SAFE opportunity to get underwater and get away. That's the key phrase: the first safe opportunity. In case you don't know, a confrontation with an onrushing plane with bombs and guns is not an example of a safe opportunity to take a leisurely trip to periscope depth.

In conclusion, no one here is suggesting that staying on the surface and fighting it out with planes is a good idea. Our job is to find merchant ships and sink them and dancing with planes is not conducive to that goal. The renown bonus for shooting down planes is minuscule.

Nevertheless, as I said before, destroyers are much more dangerous not to mention annoying. Unless, of course, one of you can relate a story in which an airplane circled you for hours pinging you long after it was out of depth charges and you were starting to wonder whether you would ever get a breath of fresh air again.

So anyone who says "I maintain it is not worth risking the strategic importance of a U-boat just to engage enemy aircraft" is a complete idiot who needs a remedial reading comprehension class.

[vanjast]

Maybe you can tell us of the variety of seabed rocks you encounter. If you're playing 100% reality, I'd say all the UYHNOC thingy still applies

[Vince82]

What a bunch of reading- and logic-impaired morons.

Don't worry, they are just the ones having fun posting stuff...

I understand with what you're saying and I have to say that I agree.

The discussion whether aircraft are more dangerous than destroyers is not relevant to this thread. Because OP posted: uboat vs a/c.


uboat.net states 120 downed aircraft, but I think this is probably not the total number. It's just that they got details on 120 aircraft on their website. It's not the goal of a U-boat to down planes. They could sink more ships in only one month. Result was measured in tonnage.

[Jolierouge]

I have been playing SH3 without any mods on my old Computer and crossing Biskaya is hell.
First Chance to dive and down it was but....
the game started to slow down dramatically.

Then I found out that it had been the planes causing this.

Not one or two, it seemed to be all of them and they were tracking me even if submerged, I do not know how but they did.
I started a new career, trained as many of the Crew for Flak as possible and mounted the 20mm-quad on my turm.
The best combination was having one quad and two of the twin-37mm and then I wanted to know how many planes would come for me.

When this started there were around 20 from first contact to deeper Waters.

From the port of St. Nazaire this is a distance of 240km.

When the flotilla was sent to Norway there were 35.

I do not think that one should fight a plane with a Sub but if you are in shallow Waters and the planes can magically track you down submerged and the game almost stops so you know they are coming you have to fight.

First save opportunity to dive? None.

All I could do was zig-zagging like mad at flank and dodge the shot-down planes as they continued coming.

greetings

Jolie

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Jolierouge

Not one or two, it seemed to be all of them and they were tracking me even if submerged, I do not know how but they did.

This is one of the major bugs in the stock game. All of the major supermods deal with it.

When this started there were around 20 from first contact to deeper Waters.

When the flotilla was sent to Norway there were 35.

And almost ten years ago people were bragging about taking on that many planes and winning. One of the early comments about GWX was that you would usually only be attacked by one plane, and they were much tougher and would sink you as often as not. This is much more realistic, given the actual statistics involved.

[Jolierouge]

I should mention back then I had no Access to the web, so I did not know a Thing about mods and whatnot.

And with the game-slow-down fighting was a desperate measure.
Think I could brag about surviving?

greetings

Jolie

[Sailor Steve]

It wasn't meant as a slight to you. I was just pointing out how painfully unrealistic the stock game is.

Back in those days there were also players who bragged about, and even had a contest over their insanely high tonnage scores. When you can score ten times the tonnage of the best real-life ace, you know something's wrong.

[sublynx]

According to this the u-boat crews had tops two weeks of flak training :https://books.google.fi/books?id=kaZ...20flak&f=false

U-615's war diary (http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTB615-1.htm) for its first patrol mentions the training they did in the months before their first war patrol. There is a mention of one day of "artillery- training", in German "artl.-schiessen" (literally artillery-shooting). I suspect that the u-boat crews knew very little about flak shooting and had next to no training of shooting against a moving target. Has anybody read something about the training of the U-boat crews?