anti air

[hacobee]

hi, is there something wrong with that i am doing? i am on the surface, enemy planes coming at me. so i put my entire group on battlestation and they do not fire against the incoming planes! i selected all possible options, fire at will, fire at nearest target etc... but still they dont even fire. its kinda silly when i watch my sub just get bombed and the crew in the AA are not doing anything.

[Scurvy]

I haven't had that problem. Maybe your assigned sailors don't have a very good gunnery skill or the aircraft are too high for them to fire upon.

But now, I always dive to just under periscope depth (usually 70 ft) and turn off the motor to conserve batteries (and ultimately, diesel fuel), until the sun goes down. I don't think it's worth it to shoot down enemy planes, as some of the more experienced people here have advised me. It's just not worth the risk, for the little bit of renown.

[seafarer]

In the crew management screen, do you actually have crew members in the flak gun spots? Simpy ordering battlestations will not man the guns if you have not dragged crewmen into those slots beforehand.

[hacobee]

yes there are men in the flak guns. i see them standing in their positions but they are not doing anything.

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

If aircraft are in the 12 O' Clock position to your boat the AA gunner cannot train the gun at it if the AA gun is behind the conning tower. If the altitude of aircraft is beyond the AA gunner then he won't fire. Other than that it may be a bug and could be addressed by a mod or something. There is also a button to enable to fire at incoming planes in that case if the planes are flying away they won't fire.

[punkmaster98]

im having that same problem

[SteamWake]

What the hell are you doing on the surface wtih aircraft bearing down on you ???!!! :huh:

[Webster]

if they have been at battle stations for a while they will fall asleep (if this is the case you will see a "Zz" by there icon in crew management screen) i have seen fatigued crew shell one ship and when done go to sleep instead of targetting the next vessel lol.

it could also be related to the mods you use, listing them will better help us help you.

it also takes a few seconds for the order to "register" and be carried out, also be sure you confirm your buttons are lit up because sometimes a doubleclick turns it on and back off at the same time.

[punkmaster98]

im using the latest version of RFB and it im still having gunner problems

[Arclight]

Could be because of the "visual sensors" bug. I have had occasions where a ship would not show up on the map, meaning that the AI (your crew) is not aware of its presence. The only way I know of getting around it is designating the target ship (ponit your binocs at it and press spacebar) and quickly switching to TBT and lock the ship. Every time the lock goes away (every 2 seconds or so), relock it. If you don't keep relocking, the AI loses track of the ship and disengages.

I imagine the same applies to aircraft, but in that case it's gonna be very difficult (if not impossible) to keep them locked.

But again; what are you doing surfaced with aircraft about?! Especially in RFB. I'd only use the AA guns when engaged by aircraft and you can't submerge. If you can dive, dive.

[the_noob]

It could be that they're out of ammunition. I had the same problem in one of my early patrols and decided to man the AA myself when the crew wouldn't engage. Lo and behold, the ammo counter read 0.

That was vanilla SH4 though, I don't know if maybe your mods inform you when you've spent all your ammo.

[SteamWake]

It could be that they're out of ammunition. I had the same problem in one of my early patrols and decided to man the AA myself when the crew wouldn't engage. Lo and behold, the ammo counter read 0.

That was vanilla SH4 though, I don't know if maybe your mods inform you when you've spent all your ammo.

Ran accross this the other night, with RFB & RSRD instaled. We were finishing off a stubborn small modern when they started pepering us with small arms fire .. AA guns.

The deck gun was already manned and firing so I figured Id return the favor with the AA gun. Jumped to that position and '"0 ammo" :doh: I clicked the icon and the gun loaded.

Might be worth checking out. If I remember right Ive seen the same thing with the deck gun too.

[Hoss1193]

I just submerge and dont' engage aircraft unless I have to (although recently I *did* duke it out with airplanes in the Strait of Malacca after taking a lot of damage trying to get into Singapore and running out in shallow water with nothing deeper than PD available...and I wasn't sure that the sub would come back up).

Earlier on, however, I did experiment with fighting airplanes more often, just to get a feel for what would happen....after a patrol cut short very early and having to limp home without even *seeing* my first merchant, I stopped doing that. So...as others have said, I recommend not engaging - just dive and wait til dark.

That said, if you *are* going to engage, here's my thoughts on what the problem might be, and some other ideas as well.

1. Ensure you're not out of ammo. Those guns *will* go through ammo fairly quickly. If you've engaged several aircraft already during patrol, this might be the problem - no bullets. The only way I know to check gun ammo (deck or AA) is to actually man the station yourself and see what the ammo count is (personally, I think this info should be included on the subsystems page, along with a LOT of other stuff!).

2. Target aircraft might be outside gun firing arc. If plane coming from behind, forward-mounted gun can't fire, and vice versa. Maneuver the sub to uncover the target from the gun.

These are two things that have happened to me before, and wouldn't be attributable to bugs. The third possibility is enabling "fire at will" or other engagement button, but you said you've already done that.

For those occasional times when I do engage aircraft for whatever reason, here's some things that I do (not 100% sure of their effectiveness).

- Flank Speed. On the theory that a faster-moving target is harder to hit than a slower-moving target.

- Course during approach. During aircraft approach, I maintain a steady course as he lines up and commits to his bombing run. I try to establish a course which will put the plane in the firing arcs of both fore & aft AA guns. Generally, this means putting the target directly on the beam (pros & cons to this...I've decided that the pros outweigh the cons).

- Course at bomb release. About the time I think the a/c is about to release bombs, I throw the rudder over hard in the direction of the aircraft. The idea is to change the position of the sub just enough that the bombs miss a little bit long. Also, this means that on the outbound run of the aircraft, by the time I've turned enough to mask the forward AA gun, my longer-range 40mm is still firing as the a/c gets further away. Which brings up another thing worth mentioning...

- When you get far enough along career-wise to get Balao-class (two AA guns) and the 40mm upgrade, I've settled on mixing the two types. I put a 40mm aft for range and destructive power (ROF sucks...but if just one of those rounds hit, the plane is cooked), but I like the rate & volume of the Twin 20mm, just couldn't go to only 40mm's.

That approach has worked for me *most* of the time...but still hugely inferior to simply going sinker!

Btw...these guns do have a pretty short range...if the aircraft isn't actually attacking you because it didn't see you, it's going to be way too far away for you to engage (plus, why would you want to?). I know this last comment is obvious...but it's another possibility that wasn't mentioned previously.