Afraid of Airplanes?

[Fr8monkey]

Has anyone ever been attacked by an airplane at all in this game? Here I am, sailing at 8 knots and a pair of airplanes fly right over TWICE me and cant see me?!?

I don't even bother worrying about them any more on my patrols.

[SabreHawk]

Well I used to be quite afraid of'em in SH3, but so far they haven't even so much as flipped me the bird. First few times I dove as has been my policy in the past. But Im getting a bit brave now in SH5 so far.

Note I said "so far" cause it does also seem to me that this may be by design at this early stage of the campaign. And that the pilots just aren't alert or expecting to find a sub out there, or they may well just not have seen me. It is concieveable.
But on that British coastal waters mission, I was approching a very large convoy and was nearly in position and on the surface in very rough sea and in broad daylight about 10:00 am, and over the course of an hour or so two pairs of aircraft flew right overhead and right over the convoy and just kept on going.
But it has also occured to me that they may be unarmed recon patrols not able to attack. So I may be in for a surprise in the next patrol once the Brits are onto us being out there.

[Surfrider]

Nope,all fighters flying above and near passes me bye.Something is wrong with AI.Maybe some modder would fix some script, that airthreat is like SH3 and 4.

[Ali Fish]

i took a trip down to the med from keil instead of doing british coastal waters mission. I stayed surfaced the whole time, not one attack from any ships. when i got past gibralter and properly in the med, the planes did start to attack me. im not using any mods.

my belief is that in the first few missions the game is simply very forgiving on all levels

[CutMe]

i have encountered many of them but it seems they are hurricane... and they didnt touch me at all so far. :hmmm:

[Frederf]

Airplanes without bombs do not attack but can report your position. Airplanes with bombs can attack. Hurricanes often/always do not carry bombs in SH5 so they do not engage in attack behavior.

[Sgtmonkeynads]

The Luftwaffe does their job well. I spot a convoy, radio it in, and boom their there raiseing hell in no time. They have saved me a couple of times from a task force too.

[captainprid]

The Luftwaffe does their job well. I spot a convoy, radio it in, and boom their there raiseing hell in no time. They have saved me a couple of times from a task force too.


Really? Is that just in the north??

[Sgtmonkeynads]

Only place I've been so far. I'm based in Lorient, so I guess you must be in their range for them to help. Lots of action in the channel, it's getting to hot to travel through it now!

[mcarlsonus]

The, "non-attacking, simply annoying" aircraft are a legacy of SH4's U-Boat add-on. In that one, pairs of Brewster Buffalos showed up continually, but never did anything other than slow down the action. Simply irritating! The only time I've been attacked by aircraft at all in SH5 was in one of the, "Historical Missions." In the campaigns, up to, "Happy Times" anyway, one sees 'em constantly but, even if they fly directly over, one may as well ignore 'em and reset the TC. Agreed - wish the modders would figure out a way to remove aircraft on, "not dangerous, simply obnoxious" setting!

[GoldenRivet]

I am nearing 1942... i have seen literally hundreds of airplanes since September of 39... i mean i have probably had 500 airplane encounters if not more. In almost every encounter they fly within about 1KM of the boat... I would estimate that one in every three of the encounters results in the airplane(s) passing almost directly over the boat.

Not once.. Not one single time in the entire game have they ever attacked me or given me a second thought. Nor have they ever wavered from straight and level flight, dived on my boat, circled my position... NOTHING!

some folks here say they report your position.

hog wash :shifty:

in the early campaign i tested this off the east coast of England... encountered a flight of hurricanes and i stopped. sat dead in the water for over 72 hours.

during that time i encountered 2 more flights of airplanes... one distant flight of 2, and one close flight of 2. Both flights were well within visual range of my surfaced boat.

during the entire 3 days of just sitting still i never saw a surface warship respond to any of these supposed "reports".

these airplanes have no attack routines whatsoever... they do nothing... they serve no apparent purpose in SH5 other than pointless scenery.

[doomlordis]

Planes do attack, I have been straffed and bombed.
It only started in the med though.
One thing I did notice is that they don't seem to do any damage, I had 2 bombs go off right next to the con and no damage.
The upshot of this is that if you switch to high tc during a planes approach you may be attacked and not notice, the giveaway is the planes change of direction.

[WolfgangKurtz]

i can tell you through bitter experience that they also bomb and strafe in the North Atlantic
I am on patrol near iceland on the Western Approaches campaign in Late 1941. there i was minding my own business looking for a Frigate or corvette to hassle when my Lookout crys airplane bearing 290 closing
After reading most of these post i thought nhaaa why bother when suddenly ping ping ping of cannon shell all round and nuts its droping Bloody bombs too.
Time to dive i think
So do not be fooled they do attack
Wolf

[Fr8monkey]

Thanks for the updates. I guess the Limeys are just too lazy during the "Phony war". :D

[silversurfer]

If you wait around long enough a task force of 3 to 4 destroyers turn up. It appears that the aircraft when it flys over is just a spotter. If the same aircraft makes a second pass a short time after its firsts its calling the destroyers..:hmmm:

[SabreHawk]

If you wait around long enough a task force of 3 to 4 destroyers turn up. It appears that the aircraft when it flys over is just a spotter. If the same aircraft makes a second pass a short time after its firsts its calling the destroyers..:hmmm:

Yep and one never can know how far or close they may be at the time of reporting. Could be they are a day or two away and it's considered a waste of fuel to come as you'd be long gone.
Could be we/some have just been lucky so far. This is how it is in war.

[Hanomag]

Sounds good to me.. unlike SH3 GWX.. where aircraft spot your periscope in rough seas in the pitch dark at night.. and then drop bombs right down the hatch.. :damn:

[torrent]

This is just conjecture no doubt...

But from what I have seen in the early campaign... getting buzzed (and sighted) by one plane (or enemy ship) sets up a double fly over in a few hours, and every few hours after that until you have successfully "lost" them (i.e. significantly changed course). Again... could be coincidence, but on patrols where I was not spotted en route, then hunting was good. And I get spotted, and subsequently buzzed by the double planes, I can't find a ship or sound of one for hours, even days.

If I am close to a enemy port, around 10km or so... then It will not be long before a DD is b lining it right to me.

[wamphyri]

Here give this a try.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=164452

I should have a new version out soon with more little improvments. Plus if you really want to kick it up a notch use it with this mod. It makes the AI for the destroyers better plus has an added benefit of planes and destroyers working together. So if a plane spots you and a destroyers near then it may just come steaming over.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=165886

[karamazovnew]

If you wait around long enough a task force of 3 to 4 destroyers turn up. It appears that the aircraft when it flys over is just a spotter. If the same aircraft makes a second pass a short time after its firsts its calling the destroyers..:hmmm:

Nope... they don't. Until someone can prove that they DO, let me prove to you that they DON'T.

I had to sink 2 more escorts and, after 2 weeks raiding near Scapa Flow, I decided to risk it. I parked myself in deep water and waited. Soon I managed to get escort contacts on my hydros. But they were too fast to catch. We circled around eachother at 20 km or so. At this point I ran into a few merchants. I gunned them from a distance to allow them to call in for the warships. Nothing happened. Then aircraft started to buzz me. 2, 3, 4, 5, in total about 20 air patrols came right over me. I even fired at them with my aa gun. All the time I had those escorts sound lines on my nav map. 2 days later I got bored and made for scapa and sank a BB and 8 of it's escorts. They were 20 miles away, heading away from me, going at 5 knots.... so much for aircraft reporting position.

But the best example is my sinking of 2 aircraft cariers. Planes were all around me yet the task forces which were already in visual range didn't seem to care. :D

[the_belgian]

In the beginning of the war U-boats had little to fear from allied aircraft. Only 2 U-boats were lost to aircraft during 1939-1941 but in 1942 alone 31 boats were lost to them. A sign of things to come.
The aircraft eventually drove the U-boats submerged and forced them to stay there for extended periods of time thus greatly reducing their operational efficiency.
This strategic victory was not without loss as can be seen in the table here below; more than 120 aircraft and hundreds of men were lost in the fierce battles between the U-boats and their pursuing aircraft. In a number of cases there were no survivors from either the aircraft or the U-boat. You should read more about the famous Fight Back order (http://www.subsim.com/history/fight_back_order.htm) as it attempts to explain perhaps the most critical phase of the entire battle, the summer of 1943.

source http://www.uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm

[Frederf]

Airplanes without bombs do not attack but can report your position. Airplanes with bombs can attack. Hurricanes often/always do not carry bombs in SH5 so they do not engage in attack behavior.

Just to repeat. It's very much a coding thing, if a plane has bombs it can go through the attack motions. Without bombs it can't. The Hurricanes at the start of the campaign are thus "unarmed" so you get that weird behavior.

It seems that strafing is a possible attack routine but for some reason a plane with guns but without bombs won't strafe. It was similar in SH3/SH4. I think if someone added "dummy" bombs* to the Hurricane then it would be allowed to strafe.

*Dummy bombs are coding entities that are invisible, have no visual effect, and do no damage when released. It's simply to trick the plane AI into being able to attack with guns.