Air Attack, Crash Dive

[jazman]

I'm on my first campaign, stock SHIII, it's early 1940. Aircraft spotted, when I crash-dive, they seem to have plenty of time to plant one on me. Lucky for me, their aim is terrible, but I'm sure they'll get better. Any tips on surviving air attacks? Should I stay on the surface and evade? Fight it out with Flak (calm seas only)? Any tips on timing my dives?

[S Rafty]

If your close to coast, try making sure Bridge Efficency is at 100% so aircraft are spotted quickly. As soon as you have one spotted crash dive. They will normally put one on you becuase its not hard to judge where you are. So hard to Port or Starboard as soon as you start diving, wait afew secs, and then opposite direction.

I personnal flak it out. But gunners are poor early war form lack of exp.

[Schöneboom]

Hi jazman,

There is also a shortcut you might like to try: for your L.I. the command icon set includes crash-dive + sharp turns (see curved-arrow icon). You can choose a right or left hook, 90 or 180 degrees. In all cases the boat levels off at 25 m, which will suffice for most bomber attacks.

Viel Gluck!

[Hanomag]

Im using GWX and Im here to tell ya that the pilots in the stock version of SH3 are yin yangs compared to GWX.
Maybe Im off my rocker BUT I was in CA 29 pretty much off the coast of LI NY(where I actually reside) cruising on the surface in broad daylight (Im ballsy like that) ..Aircraft spotted!!! Pfft nothing fer my Zupermen.. Im thinking ....and WAMMO ...I got lit up .. Oh Mein Got... Holy Jeebus I was on the bottom huggin Davey Jones faster than you can see Got en himmel.
How much tweaking did you give these guys sheesh. I remember playing the stock SH 3 and bringing down liberators and scoffing at the americaner shwinehund ..nothing survived my AA onslaught. It was unrealistic but fun. Now everytime my look outs even think they see a plane, Im the 1st one down the hatch an halfway to the forward torpedo room!!! Much more realistic <gasp> :huh:
Not too mention I can run submerged for a few hours, surface an the bastards are on me immediatley. Anyways Thanks for nothing!!! I just love limping my half suken uboat full of redded out compartments and DOA crewmen across the atlantic. (sarcasm) LOL
Oh well just another improvement I have seen that the uber dev team of GWX has graciously bestowed on an already good game. :up:
If thats still the stock Aircraft AI...then im goin back to Battleship the board game! :damn:

PS sorry for the bad German I watch alot of old war movies and read too much Sgt Rock as a kid.

[Brag]

Dive, dive, dive!!!

Do I need to make myself clear?

[Hadrys]

I you fell somethings wrong or they start mumbling something down the conn tower, first you hit full ahead flank and remember to stop charging batteries. Those 2 seconds will give you a great advantage before your watch off tells how far and where is it. Than you decide if just show him your ass with the flak crew or dive with good speed which pushes you down faster. In 1944 when I hear AC spotted I have full pants already... it's far too late and only perform one of those two. Don't turn it takes your precious speed!

If you have warning device you can dive with ahead standard to 25m and go for 1-2 minutes. It's enough, they want have your current position. If a plane is spotted crash to the bottom, DC will be precise and even at 30m can make a lot of bad... the biggest concern is your ass sticking to the surface...

In general I've learned my lessons, on AC I simply dive... rarely fight back.

[ichso]

Maybe your time compression was set too high. I could have been that the crew spotted the planes soon enough but SH3's game enginge has little inaccuracies when falling from high TC back to TC 1x.
That's why you shouldn't go higher than 512x in dangerous areas.

Because of this you should at first ask you watch officer for the range to the nearest enemy or sighting when a plane was spotted. If it is already close (perhaps under 2km)
you should probably fight back at it's first run.

But the general rule would be to dive, as everybody else already said. Only those things with the time compression changing back to 1x too late are to be considered too.

[Shelton]

some tips that I think may help

Never go faster than 256x time compression Make sure your watch crew effectiveness is 100% by checking the bar - should be max green Never take on the aircaft - sometimes they come in packs and then you got a real fight on your hands - remember u-boats are to sink ships not shoot down aircraft
Once you get spotted, stay submerged until dusk if possible.



Hope that helps
Good Luck

[Penelope_Grey]

Also it depends what sort of aircraft it is coming at you. One thing I did was to look in the Museum under British, and then aircraft, just to see what sort of planes, I could expect to come at me. In particular, how many guns, and most importantly of all, how fast they are coming at you. In many cases they come at you so fast, crash diving is not an option or you risk getting bombed, which is infinitely worse than being shot at.

For instance, a lone swordfish, is pretty much toast. A Sunderland, is a crash dive, no questions asked, something faster like a hurricane, you may have to stay up blast him a bit with the flak crew then when he passes over you then hit the crash dive.

One other thing you have to consider, is that it depends what U-boat you are driving. The Type VIIC's be they standard or 41 or 42 versions... crash dive at speed. The VIIB crash dives pretty quick, but does lag on the surface a little bit. The Type IX's need about 40 seconds, and when you have an aircraft charging down on you, that's just not viable.

As I say, check the aircraft out from the safety of the museum, what weapons and how fast they are going. Then you have to decided, dive the moment its spotted or bide till he has made his pass and keep him at bay with the flak.

[ichso]

But some planes are very hard to distinguish at long distances. And as it comes closer til you finally examined what kind of plane this is your chance for a quick and necessary crash dive can already have passed by.

I would say it's more historically accurate that you order a crash dive no matter what kind of plane is spotted, either.

That this depends also on the kind of sub you're sailing is true though. If you got a slow diving IX you probably be better off shooting at the plane and crash diving when it passes over you.

[mbabbs]

Yes, the advice above is all good, particularly never above x256 and always dive.

Additionally however you may like to try sailing decks awash as your diving time is dramatically decreased.

[Klaus_Doldinger]

Aircraft al long range: crash dive. I don´t question myself which class of aircraft is coming. A Type VIIC can go as deep as 70m in a bit more than a minute. A well trained crew in the bridge normally spot aircrafts at enough range to escape without problems. This works very well well in 1940-1942, in GWX 1.03.:up:

[Penelope_Grey]

But some planes are very hard to distinguish at long distances.


Use the F5 screen and click the planes icon, it should be identified in that.

[Penelope_Grey]

Additionally however you may like to try sailing decks awash as your diving time is dramatically decreased.

It uses a heck of a lot of fuel though doing that, decks awash is useful for convoy attacks but not for aircraft.

[Hadrys]

It uses a heck of a lot of fuel though doing that, decks awash is useful for convoy attacks but not for aircraft.

The biggest problem is the time between switching diesel to electric... I was Schnorcheling once at 11,5m hit crash and nothing happens... it still goes on diesel, after std 10 seconds electric and than it dives... it should go like a damn rock!!!

[ichso]

It uses a heck of a lot of fuel though doing that, decks awash is useful for convoy attacks but not for aircraft.
The biggest problem is the time between switching diesel to electric... I was Schnorcheling once at 11,5m hit crash and nothing happens... it still goes on diesel, after std 10 seconds electric and than it dives... it should go like a damn rock!!!

I think snorkeling isn't that useful for crash dives. You only can go very slow using the snorkel and won't be able to pick up much speed for a crash dive.
The time to switch to electric engines doesn't really matter. But your speed cannot be increased using the snorkel and you don't become very fast using your electric engines either.

And the fuel problem reduces the decks awash tactic to be used for lower speeds and only in dangerous areas.

[Hadrys]

But your speed cannot be increased using the snorkel and you don't become very fast using your electric engines either.

You can go 6kts snorkeling so the same as on electrics but look how long the boat is suspended just under the surface and the propellers don't kick for such a long time!! I wonder how it was in RL? In Das Boot they start switching while yet on the surface...

[ichso]

Right that's one factor. I just thought the bigger factor would be the slow speed when using the snorkel. If you are fully surfaced and you are racing around with 15+ knots the time the electric engines need to kick in doesn't really matter, as your speed bonus from the surface pushes you the first 25m deeper.

That is what's missing when snorkeling and then this switching time hurts you, right.
It doesn't hurt you that much if you already are going really fast.

[S Rafty]

I you fell somethings wrong or they start mumbling something down the conn tower, first you hit full ahead flank and remember to stop charging batteries. Those 2 seconds will give you a great advantage before your watch off tells how far and where is it. Than you decide if just show him your ass with the flak crew or dive with good speed which pushes you down faster. In 1944 when I hear AC spotted I have full pants already... it's far too late and only perform one of those two. Don't turn it takes your precious speed!

If you have warning device you can dive with ahead standard to 25m and go for 1-2 minutes. It's enough, they want have your current position. If a plane is spotted crash to the bottom, DC will be precise and even at 30m can make a lot of bad... the biggest concern is your ass sticking to the surface...

In general I've learned my lessons, on AC I simply dive... rarely fight back.


But that only works if your on the bridge 24-7 really going full realism.

[Ubåtskapten]

ALAAAAAAAAARRRMM!!!!

Since I use the Longer Repair Times mod which increases aircraft patrols and makes their bombs much deadlier I have more change of survival with a crash dive (if spotted in time) than trying to fight it out on the surface, as it also was in real life. The only times I don't crash dive are when loading external torpedos or if I spot them to late, and they are in a range of only a few thousand meters (depending on which boat I have, running decks awash or not, etc.). If that's the case I usually try to dive before their next attack run.

[Dimitrius07]

Crash Dive

when reach 25 meters - hard to port or stanboard
when reach 50 meters - all stop

Well at least that that what i do, in case the its to late for crach drive i go ahead flank and go right in the enemy aircraft derection. If i`am lucky and they miss the first attack wave a crash dive, if not - Abandon ship :dead:

[jazman]

Thanks for the tips. I definitely need to slow down the time compression in danger zones, and keep the bridge watch in tip-top shape (which I've been doing mostly).

[Shelton]

yes when i said never exceed 256x TC, I meant in the day time in the early war era - at night (when its pitch black) I usually go 1024x

[U-TigerShark]

CRASH DIVE YOU LAZY ****** OR ILL KILL YOU MY SELF, FASTER !!!!!!!!

but seriously if your snorkling 10 sec's is about the time it takes to surface and crash dive with the speed bonus

by the way what is awash the decks ???

[mbabbs]

Decks awash is when you set the depth to between 7-8 meters. The only part of the boat that will then appear above the water is the bridge and is a very useful tactic.

As already mentioned though, it does take up a lot of fuel so it's only really something you can adopt once you get to your patrol zone.

However when the air war really gets going you'll need to adopt this tactic to stay alive, particularly in the larger boats that take longer to dive. To preserve fuel you just need to stay under water longer which isn't exactly bad as you can hear further than you can see anyway and no plane is going to spot you under water.

[MarshalLaw]

In early war, if a AC is spotted I go Flank and turn either port or starboard if its 2 planes or less. Use the flak gun on them as they do their 1st pass then crash dive. More than 2 planes Crash dive and hope you get down fast enough.

If its later in the war 1941 on I run at 256 or less TC and as soon as a AC is spotted or picked up with Early warning detector crash dive at once. By that date pilots are usually dead on target.

As others have posted there is a HUGE differance between pilot effectiveness in GWX vs Stock. If playing GWX you may want to starting ducking for cover as early as 1940:o

[S Rafty]

Theres a massive difference. I hardly (if ever) took damage on stock via Aircraft. Even that day christ knows how many sunderlands spoured from the Cornish coast.

GWX: a beaufighter came out of nowhere near N Irland when I had my periscope up. Next thing I saw was the pop up window. If I hadnt had that on, it would of been allot more damaging. Suffice to say this was early 1940. Not looking forward to seeing the Mossys.:ping:

[HMCS]

this is what I do:

Whithin range of enemy air cover, in daylight:
TC x256; full efficiency of bridge crew.

When spotted: if in close or med. range: Flank speed ahead, hard L or R turn; wait till the flyboys drop their ordnance, then crash dive. If you have time, man the flak guns with the shortcut on crew management (F7).

It saved my can against TWO Catalinas last patrol. The were flying in echelon, caught me in BE. Moderate damage to the boat, I was on my way home in any case. Considering it was July of 1942, I was more than surprised.

I guess 1943 came early this year!:o