Is there a trick for using the FLAK guns?

[fastfed]

In my IX boat, I have 2 C/38's mounted for light flak and 1 3.7 M42 heavy flak..

I have 4 guys with Flak qualifications, and 1 officer on the tower with a Flak qualification... Basically the skill level is maxed out as well as the guns themselves..

For kicks I sometimes like to see my guys shoot down a plane, so instead of crash diving, I let them play.. Well, its no fun.. They will go through an entire supply of ammo and not shoot down the "1" liberator or any plane for that matter.

It seems most of them shoot a little above the target.. I tried telling the officer to only shoot incoming targets as well as any target..

They almost NEVER hit the darn plane.. I say almost because out of the 10 times I tried this, twice, we were lucky..

Now I understand its not easy, but with all this gun power I would think it would be a little easier than what I call impossible..

Should I come to a stop? I never tried that, usually just flank speed or full speed.

Any other tricks? Or do the flak gunners just suck, regardless of their skills?

Anything I can edit?

[Legionary74]

Well, you should aim in front of the planes, range depending on their speed and your movement, and then fire

[Gerald]

By default, the rate of fire, or RPM, that is, firing rate lower in stocksh3 and GWX than in the realistic relationship, I have not usually problems with the Aircraft, but of course there are exceptions

[Jimbuna]

In my IX boat, I have 2 C/38's mounted for light flak and 1 3.7 M42 heavy flak..

I have 4 guys with Flak qualifications, and 1 officer on the tower with a Flak qualification... Basically the skill level is maxed out as well as the guns themselves..

For kicks I sometimes like to see my guys shoot down a plane, so instead of crash diving, I let them play.. Well, its no fun.. They will go through an entire supply of ammo and not shoot down the "1" liberator or any plane for that matter.

It seems most of them shoot a little above the target.. I tried telling the officer to only shoot incoming targets as well as any target..

They almost NEVER hit the darn plane.. I say almost because out of the 10 times I tried this, twice, we were lucky..

Now I understand its not easy, but with all this gun power I would think it would be a little easier than what I call impossible..

Should I come to a stop? I never tried that, usually just flank speed or full speed.

Any other tricks? Or do the flak gunners just suck, regardless of their skills?

Anything I can edit?

Are you playing GWX3.0?

If yes then please be advised that the damage files on the aircraft have been 'youghened up' a little to better reflect the fact that in a U-boat v Aircraft duel the U-boat lost in the majority of occasions.

It was far too easy (in the opinions of The Grey Wolves) and unrealistic in the stock game to shoot the aircraft down.

[Tessa]

In my IX boat, I have 2 C/38's mounted for light flak and 1 3.7 M42 heavy flak..

I have 4 guys with Flak qualifications, and 1 officer on the tower with a Flak qualification... Basically the skill level is maxed out as well as the guns themselves..

For kicks I sometimes like to see my guys shoot down a plane, so instead of crash diving, I let them play.. Well, its no fun.. They will go through an entire supply of ammo and not shoot down the "1" liberator or any plane for that matter.

It seems most of them shoot a little above the target.. I tried telling the officer to only shoot incoming targets as well as any target..

They almost NEVER hit the darn plane.. I say almost because out of the 10 times I tried this, twice, we were lucky..

Now I understand its not easy, but with all this gun power I would think it would be a little easier than what I call impossible..

Should I come to a stop? I never tried that, usually just flank speed or full speed.

Any other tricks? Or do the flak gunners just suck, regardless of their skills?

Anything I can edit?

The larger/faster guns that the type IX's can mount are pigs with ammo, I always seemed to run out of ammo on those really fast while only shooting down a couple of planes. Last patrol with the standard issue flak on a VIIB my crewman (basic sailor) managed to shoot down 20 swordfish (as unrealistic as it sounds, I was appauled at his accuracy and ability to handle 2 or 3 planes simultaneously) until he ran out of ammo. Somehow even a RK doesn't seem enough for such an epic and suicidal situations I put him into.

[fastfed]

Yes its GWX and I understand it should be hard.. But I feel in real life, you give me a flak gun like the one used and have a 4 engine plane come at me, at 200mph, less than 500 feet, I would be able to shoot the darn thing myself ( and I never fired a flak gun, lol )

From the reading I read, I thought it was hard, because the planes would POP out of no where, at night, basically they wouldn't see them until it was to late.

I like the idea in this game, that sometimes it seems if I have a tired or less qualified crewman on the sonar and radio controls, the "radar detected" signal gets to be close, real close.. To the point that I don't have time to Crash dive and in that case, man the guns and take my chances.. Its just annoying as Tessa says he shot down 20 planes and my A.I. guys cannot shoot one?

[Jimbuna]

I like the idea in this game, that sometimes it seems if I have a tired or less qualified crewman on the sonar and radio controls, the "radar detected" signal gets to be close, real close.. To the point that I don't have time to Crash dive and in that case, man the guns and take my chances.. Its just annoying as Tessa says he shot down 20 planes and my A.I. guys cannot shoot one?

Well...in RL I doubt any flak gunner shot down 20 planes but I'll wager the majority shot down none http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[Sailor Steve]

Yes its GWX and I understand it should be hard.. But I feel in real life, you give me a flak gun like the one used and have a 4 engine plane come at me, at 200mph, less than 500 feet, I would be able to shoot the darn thing myself ( and I never fired a flak gun, lol )
You really think so? In real life aircraft were a submarine's worst nightmare. More than twice as many u-boats were sunk by aircraft as aircraft were shot down by u-boats. Another factor is that one hole in the pressure hull and your u-boat is now a fairly slow surface gunboat, with nowhere to hide.
http://uboat.net/allies/aircraft/index.html

Trust me, doing it in a game is nothing like doing it in real life.

[Draka]

Hitting a moving target while that target is shooting back is definitely not on the "easy" list .... one of the hardest things to teach new recruits in BASIC. I also tell my gunners to prioritize bombers on an attack run - slower, larger targets at minimum deflection angles - but it is still not an easy task from the deck on a rolling craft. In anything but a dead calm, you have to take into account not only HIS motion but your own.

[K-61]

My crew shot down a Catalina in my last patrol. I have two twin 37's and one quad 20. They finally managed to shoot it down on the third pass.

[Gerald]

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_20mm-65_c30.htm

http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBNotesArmament.htm

[timmy41]

Yes its GWX and I understand it should be hard.. But I feel in real life, you give me a flak gun like the one used and have a 4 engine plane come at me, at 200mph, less than 500 feet, I would be able to shoot the darn thing myself ( and I never fired a flak gun, lol )

I'm calling bull**** on this.
you're shooting from a rocking and moving and unstable platform at a target that is shooting at you with at a minimum of 4 large caliber guns at any time, that are effective at a range of 1000m (ie, able to hit someone or cause some damage with that many spraying at you), and WILL most likely cause damage to the boat at 500m. meanwhile, on the flak gun (lets say flakveirling m38), which on the ground (a stable, immobile, platform) has a range of only 2200m. with the pitching of a uboot, and the fact that just firing the gun will make it roll even more, this effectively cuts the ideal engagement range in half.
the b24, during its attack run is probably doing about 90-100m/s. so one now has 10 seconds to aim directly at it, adjust for this and that, lead, and try to land a dozen shots in a single concentrated spot somewhere on the plane (or get a lucky hit on the pilot, which has redundancy of the copilot who can still fly) since just spraying 20mm shots all over the plane will do absolutely nothing. all while using 2 wheels to aim on each axis and firing with footpedals, and compensating for the uboots own movement.
but tim! the ROF! think about how many rounds are being thrown at that b24!
well, the initial firing, yes, but each gun on the flak only has 20 (40 sometimes) rounds, and they need to be reloaded after only a few seconds of firing, and the optimal crew for just the task of reloading alone will not fit on the bridge with the gunners and spotter. ROF is hugely hampered by this no differently than the deck gun would have been in real life.
Oh ya, youre getting shot at too, and when the plane passes, there are more guns on the back of it shooting you before you can even think about turning the gun around.

[Tessa]

Well...in RL I doubt any flak gunner shot down 20 planes but I'll wager the majority shot down none http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

I believe IRL only 1 plane was ever shot down by a u-boat, not sure if that was from a normal one or one of the experimental flak boats they tried out for awhile.

My AI gunner must've been born to kill, even in stock I've never seen a gunner with such good aim (also has 2 catalinas to his name as well). First time I've put a RK around a sailor's neck :arrgh!:

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/9386/swordfishlog.jpg

[Tessa]

You really think so? In real life aircraft were a submarine's worst nightmare. More than twice as many u-boats were sunk by aircraft as aircraft were shot down by u-boats. Another factor is that one hole in the pressure hull and your u-boat is now a fairly slow surface gunboat, with nowhere to hide.
http://uboat.net/allies/aircraft/index.html

Trust me, doing it in a game is nothing like doing it in real life.

A u-boat only had armor on the bridge (little more than 1/2") and no dedicated hull armor to protect the pressure hull. Planes could take a pretty severe beating (even large bombers) and still make it back to the airfield and land.

I think you mean that twice as many u-boats were sunk by aircraft than by surface ships?

[desirableroasted]

I believe IRL only 1 plane was ever shot down by a u-boat

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

Rare, but it happened over 100 times.

[Tessa]

My bad, now would like to know where I read that they had only shot down 1 plane (thought I might have gotten it mixed up with the u-flaks but they shot down at least 2 though), all this time had always thought that AA fire was a 100% futile effort, not just insanely dangerous (as if that wasn't enough).

[danzig70]

There is the Fight Back order of 1943. 26 boats lost vs 28 aircraft shot down. http://uboat.net/history/fight_back_order.htm

[Sailor Steve]

I think you mean that twice as many u-boats were sunk by aircraft than by surface ships?
No, I meant exactly what I wrote. U-boat.net says that U-boats shot down 118 aircraft, and airplanes sank 249 u-boats. That's better than 2-to-1, or twice as many u-boats lost to aircraft as aircraft lost to u-boats.

[Tessa]

No, I meant exactly what I wrote. U-boat.net says that U-boats shot down 118 aircraft, and airplanes sank 249 u-boats. That's better than 2-to-1, or twice as many u-boats lost to aircraft as aircraft lost to u-boats.


After desirableroasted pointed my error out I see that your ratio was right on the nose, sorry about mis-correcting you there. :oops: Still bothers me that I got such a huge piece of history wrong, no idea where I heard or read it but what always stuck was that the u-boats only shot 1 plane down. First time even playing stock SH3 I realized what bad news they were, and never really tried to go after em. Recently now with a whole different attitude towards playing (am tired and exhausted of playing 'historically' anymore, its a game, just have fun and enjoy it) so take a lot of risks I never would've in the past (hence putting my guy at the flak gun again and again while taking down an obscene number of swordfish. After he shot down 5 I was floored, when he kept on going and was taking down 3 in the air before they could even drop their bombs I knew this guy was on a roll (my AA skills are horrible, leave that ALL up to the AI) and didn't want to stop him till we needed the medic :O:). He survived all the way till the ammo went dry. Personally placed the RK around his neck and entered his name into the honor roll (too bad won't get the actual award till 1944) and a special double promotion :smug:

[Sailor Steve]

Yeah. I remember one guy back when SH3 was new reporting being attacked by a swarm of Sunderlands. He said he shot down something like 52 before they finally got him.

For me historically is the only way to play, game or no. I have as much fun cruising out of the cool new harbors as I do actually sinking things.

[Jimbuna]

After desirableroasted pointed my error out I see that your ratio was right on the nose, sorry about mis-correcting you there. :oops: Still bothers me that I got such a huge piece of history wrong, no idea where I heard or read it but what always stuck was that the u-boats only shot 1 plane down. First time even playing stock SH3 I realized what bad news they were, and never really tried to go after em. Recently now with a whole different attitude towards playing (am tired and exhausted of playing 'historically' anymore, its a game, just have fun and enjoy it) so take a lot of risks I never would've in the past (hence putting my guy at the flak gun again and again while taking down an obscene number of swordfish. After he shot down 5 I was floored, when he kept on going and was taking down 3 in the air before they could even drop their bombs I knew this guy was on a roll (my AA skills are horrible, leave that ALL up to the AI) and didn't want to stop him till we needed the medic :O:). He survived all the way till the ammo went dry. Personally placed the RK around his neck and entered his name into the honor roll (too bad won't get the actual award till 1944) and a special double promotion :smug:

BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[ediko]

Just a question from me. What if the weather is perfectly calm, no waves etc and the uboat is going deck's awash. Wouldn't it make it more stable as a shooting platform than if it would be fully surfaced? In real life I mean, I doubt it's possible in SH3.

[Jimbuna]

It MAY make it a little bit more stable but not enough to make a huge difference.

What it definitely would do though is slow the boat down and make it easier to hit.

[ediko]

It MAY make it a little bit more stable but not enough to make a huge difference.

What it definitely would do though is slow the boat down and make it easier to hit.

Oh well. ALAAARM then! :rotfl2:

[Jimbuna]

Oh well. ALAAARM then! :rotfl2:

Always the best policy :DL

[K-61]

Yeah. I remember one guy back when SH3 was new reporting being attacked by a swarm of Sunderlands. He said he shot down something like 52 before they finally got him.

For me historically is the only way to play, game or no. I have as much fun cruising out of the cool new harbors as I do actually sinking things.

Amen, brother! :salute:

Something that really irked me about the stock game was the ridiculous aerial routines. For the first nearly four years of the war, Coastal Command suffered from a paucity of ASW capable aircraft, as Arthur "Bomber" Harris hoarded every large plane for his blindly zealous prosecution of the bombing campaign against Germany, hoping to prove that strategic bombing could win the war cheaply. Although he was a Brit, he was akin to Goering in his single mindedness that "Everything which flies belongs to me [Goering]." Similarly, Harris refused to release a relatively small number of four engined bombers, or even twin engined bombers which would have proved instrumental in protecting shipping from the U-boats. It wasn't even because the ASW weapons were not that efficient; even the presence of a plane would force a U-boat to dive and render it incapable of offensive action. Harris simply refused to allocate a suitable number of such planes for Coastal Command. If anyone should have been cashiered, it should have been him, not Stuffy Dowding of Fighter Command.

To see whole squadrons of Hurricanes [d'uh, a fighter plane] or Sunderlands attack a single contact was so FUBAR. The relative scarcity of such patrol planes meant they had to be spread out in order to maximize the size of ocean they could colletively patrol. There was no way they could bring such a large number of planes together so quickly as we see them in the game. GWX has done a good job of restoring the depiction of aerial patrols to more reasonable levels.

Historical is the only way to play for me. If I want an arcade game I'll get an Xbox.

[Sailor Steve]

If I want an arcade game I'll get an Xbox.
But...but...on my last patrol I sank twelve million trillion gazillion tons! Aren't you happy for me? Don't you want to join my new "Gazillion tons plus a thousand billion planes shot down" club?

[edit] I thought it was funny that when I played Sid Meiers Pirates! I turned the entire Spanish Main into the English Main.

On level Three.

On level Four I couldn't survive a week without my crew mutinying and marooning me on the proverbial desert island.

[K-61]

Ha! I had that game but never played. In fact, I still have it. It came as part of a collection, "Best of Microprose" including Clash of Steel. In spite of the graphics of the time, those were the days! The gaming industry was able to introduce fresh ideas. Nowadays there is so much dreck on the market and serious simmers like us are crying out for a serious, realistic sim.

[Gerald]

http://imgur.com/YaA12.jpg

[Sailor Steve]

Ha! I had that game but never played. In fact, I still have it. It came as part of a collection, "Best of Microprose" including Clash of Steel. In spite of the graphics of the time, those were the days! The gaming industry was able to introduce fresh ideas. Nowadays there is so much dreck on the market and serious simmers like us are crying out for a serious, realistic sim.
I had the old version, at the same time I had is Silent Service. But in this case i meant the new version. I don't play many games that aren't sims, but I liked the original so much I had to have the new one as well.

[reignofdeath]

According to what you guys have said, I feel pretty lucky seeing as I haven't had any planes run on me yet.

But if anyone is into statistics, you know all this is doing is statistically making the percentage that I'll be sunk by one before I retire higher, in which case, I'm not looking foward too. :oops:

[JokerOfFate]

I only ever have seamen on flak and deck but sometimes you just get naturals at it.

[Gerald]

I would replace my seamen to PO, in flak gun and DG

[desirableroasted]

I would replace my seamen to PO, in flak gun and DG

If only to speed up the reload times.

[Gerald]

Yes, perhaps there is a merit in it, but their qualification as gunner increases in my experience

[Jimbuna]

If only to speed up the reload times.

If your using Commander you can set youe own loading times, regardless of what rank the crew are.

[flag4]

in my opinion, the best way to find out is to read the literature - the real life experience, the history books.

there are always exceptions though, as in the case of U615 and her Commander at the time, Ralph Kapitsky.

(..have just finished reading Silent Hunters by Theodore P Savas. it is a truely awsome battle to the death between U615 and the american airforce. i have never read anything like it, the sheer bravery of all concerned - boat and plane crews. i was literally biting my nails - it is hard to believe that that kind of battle went on. the men on both sides slogged it out, blood and guts, gave all they had - truely awsome, really!!..)

[Tessa]

I would replace my seamen to PO, in flak gun and DG

That particular sailor got a double promotion to PO. Already on our way up to Narvik we ran into 3 swordfish and he dispatched them with ease. I can tell some of the other crew are getting interested and have been taking the flak training course in hopes of getting their own shiny RK.