Allied Air Force vs. Submarine

[Navigator777]

Hello everyone!
My screen is 1366/768 and when I was looking for how to make a full screen from a window, I tried all the extenders I found by trial and error. And I liked wac NYGM v 2017 - 1366/768 extender for my screen more in terms of contrast, visuals and overall picture. I didn't even realize that NYGM is also a megamod, the picture turned out cool and unusual and oh well)

. And in the end I got a build of the game
SH3 + GWX + wac NYGM v2017 1366/768

I just now quickly read about this megamod. And when it is compared with other megamods, it has the most evil escorts and the most evil aviation compared to others.
As the game progressed, a purely historical question arose about the penetrating power of machine gun fire of allied aviation. If in the basic SH3 the main damage to the submarine's hull strength is caused by bombs, then with the GWX mod, aircraft machine guns cause almost the same damage. One attack by an aircraft firing machine guns and up to a quarter of the hull strength is gone. Moreover, in the Academy of the mod, when there is an attack by many aircraft and it is impossible to dodge, the submarine can withstand a direct hit from an aerial bomb and lose the same quarter of its strength. If the Braunig 7.7 and 12.7 machine guns, which the Allied aircraft were armed with, had such high efficiency, then no bombs are needed. And the Catalina and Sunderland flying boats with their large number of machine guns are a terrible flying fortress even without bombs and capable of sinking a submarine with pure machine gun fire. Especially considering that with my installed mods, they and other aircraft are much more difficult to shoot down.
I looked for historical facts about this machine gun effectiveness against a submarine, but I did not find anything about submarines in fact.

In thematic chats on history, I was answered:
The strong hull could withstand fire from machine guns and small-caliber guns of ships and aircraft. In post-war tests of captured boats, it turned out that 20-mm and 23-mm shells and 37-mm fragmentation-incendiary shells only caused damage to the light hull. To penetrate the strong hull, 37-mm armor-piercing shells or 57-mm tank guns were required, which were installed on one of the modifications of the British multi-role fighter-bomber "Mosquito". The first "Mosquito", equipped with a 57-mm gun, took to the air on June 8, 1943 and received the index FB.XVIII "Tsetse". The African fly was chosen as the name of the new modification of the fighter-bomber because of the strong piercing proboscis protruding from the front of the head. Already in November 1943, the new "Mosquito" first tried its hand at U-123 of Oberleutnant zur See Horst von Schroeter, returning to base in the Bay of Biscay. The fired 57-mm shell made a decent hole in the submarine's strong hull measuring 18 x 6.5 cm and deprived it of the ability to dive. One of the submariners died, two more crew members were wounded. However, the submarine managed to escape death and reached the base.

Before that, when I played the basic SH3, machine gun fire only caused damage to the conning tower (up to the failure of the anti-aircraft guns) and the deck flooring. The strong hull is penetrated either by dropped bombs or fired rockets. In principle, it corresponds to historical reality. However, I have not encountered a "Tsetse" with a 57-mm gun in the game.
. And when I started playing with mods, even a reconnaissance plane with two 7.7 machine guns, one in the front and one in the back, suffers damage to the hull strength. And flying boats with their 5 or 8 machine guns and Hurricane fighters with four 20 mm cannons are some kind of scary monsters.

Other players playing with the GWX mod assembly answer that their hull strength is at a realistic level. That is, machine guns are not scary to them. Damage only from bombs and collisions with other objects. As it was in reality.

Apparently, this effect of machine gun fire, which is terrible for the strong hull of a submarine, is given by NYGM.
Maybe there is some way to return aircraft fire from cannons and machine guns to historical reality, when at least it will not destroy the strong hull of a submarine and be able to sink it even without bombs?
If you do not remove the NYGM mod itself, which, according to reviews, has the most evil escorts and aircraft. But this makes the game more interesting.

[Shadowblade]

yeah, I was also told that 57 mm AP ammo was needed to penetrate the pressure hull:


Historically 57mm armour piercing shot from the Tse-tse Mosquito was necessary. The pressure hull was at least 18.5mm of steel, so in practice (taking into account angle, range and water in the way) it was proof against all machine guns and even 20mm cannon. The conning tower was at least as well protected. See the career of U441 https://uboat.net/boats/u441.htm
The weak points were the crew manning the flak guns - a quad 20mm needs a whole bunch of loaders - and the saddle ballast tanks (which were relatively small and not essential for safe operation).
An RP-3 solid shot rocket could go into the water then straight through the pressure hull and even, allegedly, out the other side. The pressure bulkheads within the boat were not very strong, so any sizeable hole would prevent the boat from diving and could sink it outright.

[Hooston]

it's only a game in the end. If you get too pedantic about realism you will end up bitter, twisted and disappointed and get involved in silly arguments on this forum. After a while you have to get used to some "features" and choose a favourite set of mods. The original coders made some mistakes, then generations of modders have fixed some of these and added some new ones!
if NYGM is your thing I believe Fifi's Enhanced Hardcore version is where it is at if you have a decent graphics card. He is very active on this forum and listens and reacts to reasonable comments. Last time I looked he had included an optional 1366x768 GUI.
GWX Knights Cross still seems to have "laser guided" escorts, I prefer NYGM because in the older version I usually play the escorts do not have such good passive hydrophones (at least early war) and I have some freedom of manoeuvre at ranges over 3km or so.
Now I have a proper PC available I'm going to give Fifi a try and see what he's fixed and what he's broken :03:

[Navigator777]

it's only a game in the end. If you get too pedantic about realism you will end up bitter, twisted and disappointed and get involved in silly arguments on this forum. After a while you have to get used to some "features" and choose a favourite set of mods. The original coders made some mistakes, then generations of modders have fixed some of these and added some new ones!
if NYGM is your thing I believe Fifi's Enhanced Hardcore version is where it is at if you have a decent graphics card. He is very active on this forum and listens and reacts to reasonable comments. Last time I looked he had included an optional 1366x768 GUI.
GWX Knights Cross still seems to have "laser guided" escorts, I prefer NYGM because in the older version I usually play the escorts do not have such good passive hydrophones (at least early war) and I have some freedom of manoeuvre at ranges over 3km or so.
Now I have a proper PC available I'm going to give Fifi a try and see what he's fixed and what he's broken :03:
My video card is probably not the most advanced, if you need a very powerful one. Thanks for the advice, I'll check out the thread with the NYGM topic.
I tried adding the mods Improved Air Defense Capabilities V1. 1 and U Guns V5 and it became easier to fight off aircraft and the submarine's durable hull doesn't suffer as much

[Navigator777]

yeah, I was also told that 57 mm AP ammo was needed to penetrate the pressure hull:


I've never seen a Mosquito with a 57mm gun in the game before.

[Hooston]

Looks like the Tse-Tse is in the new GWX Knights Cross edition. Never seen one, but it is in the game data files.
There was a bug for a long time where aircraft at some crew competence levels would not drop bombs on the first pass. The Tse-tse would certainly end that get out of jail option!
In real life rockets were found to be more versatile than big cannons so Tse-tse's were quite rare (wikipedia says 18 were built). One did shoot the engine off a Ju88 once!

[Captain Drastic]

There is a mod in the gameplay downloads section of the Silent Hunter III site called "MyBulletsCannotSinkSub.zip (3.6 KB)". I don't' use it for some reason, maybe I tested it and found the CTD mentioned in the comments of the download section. It sounds interesting and comes with very informative documentation, which is worth having just for that. However, upon further research I found a "Shells_ZON" file in the "HSIE Hardcode Patch 4C" which I already use, and it seems to do the same thing as the "MyBulletsCannotSinkSub" mod without the possible CTD. I recommend using the HSIE Hardcode Patch 4C anyway, as a must-have feature.

[Navigator777]

There is a mod in the gameplay downloads section of the Silent Hunter III site called "MyBulletsCannotSinkSub.zip (3.6 KB)". I don't' use it for some reason, maybe I tested it and found the CTD mentioned in the comments of the download section. It sounds interesting and comes with very informative documentation, which is worth having just for that. However, upon further research I found a "Shells_ZON" file in the "HSIE Hardcode Patch 4C" which I already use, and it seems to do the same thing as the "MyBulletsCannotSinkSub" mod without the possible CTD. I recommend using the HSIE Hardcode Patch 4C anyway, as a must-have feature.

I installed the "MyBulletsKannot" mod, but as soon as the plane attacks and the first machine gun bullets hit the submarine's strong hull, the game immediately crashes. Perhaps some mods are not compatible with this mod. Therefore, I removed it from the game build for now. I installed mods that increase the power of anti-aircraft weapons and it turns out to fight off attacks and shoot down planes, due to which they no longer destroy the submarine's hull as much. I haven't tried the second option you suggested yet. If I find it and it suits me, I'll try it. Thanks for the recommendations!

[Navigator777]

Looks like the Tse-Tse is in the new GWX Knights Cross edition. Never seen one, but it is in the game data files.
There was a bug for a long time where aircraft at some crew competence levels would not drop bombs on the first pass. The Tse-tse would certainly end that get out of jail option!
In real life rockets were found to be more versatile than big cannons so Tse-tse's were quite rare (wikipedia says 18 were built). One did shoot the engine off a Ju88 once!

In my opinion, anti-aircraft fire from a submarine prevents aircraft from aiming accurately and they do not drop bombs and only fire from machine guns. If you start to dive, then nothing interferes with the aircraft and they begin an attack with bombs. Under anti-aircraft fire, if aircraft do carry out bombing, then the probability of a miss and inaccuracy of this will be higher. By the way, I asked chatGPT about 57 mm guns and he answered that U-976 was sunk from such guns in March 1944. I looked on the uboat. net website about this boat. It says there that the U-976 boat was sunk on March 25, 1944 in the Bay of Biscay southwest of Saint-Nazaire by fire from two British Mosquito aircraft. It is not specified whether they were armed with guns.

[JU_88]

Hello everyone!
My screen is 1366/768 and when I was looking for how to make a full screen from a window, I tried all the extenders I found by trial and error. And I liked wac NYGM v 2017 - 1366/768 extender for my screen more in terms of contrast, visuals and overall picture. I didn't even realize that NYGM is also a megamod, the picture turned out cool and unusual and oh well)

. And in the end I got a build of the game
SH3 + GWX + wac NYGM v2017 1366/768

I just now quickly read about this megamod. And when it is compared with other megamods, it has the most evil escorts and the most evil aviation compared to others.
As the game progressed, a purely historical question arose about the penetrating power of machine gun fire of allied aviation. If in the basic SH3 the main damage to the submarine's hull strength is caused by bombs, then with the GWX mod, aircraft machine guns cause almost the same damage. One attack by an aircraft firing machine guns and up to a quarter of the hull strength is gone. Moreover, in the Academy of the mod, when there is an attack by many aircraft and it is impossible to dodge, the submarine can withstand a direct hit from an aerial bomb and lose the same quarter of its strength. If the Braunig 7.7 and 12.7 machine guns, which the Allied aircraft were armed with, had such high efficiency, then no bombs are needed. And the Catalina and Sunderland flying boats with their large number of machine guns are a terrible flying fortress even without bombs and capable of sinking a submarine with pure machine gun fire. Especially considering that with my installed mods, they and other aircraft are much more difficult to shoot down.
I looked for historical facts about this machine gun effectiveness against a submarine, but I did not find anything about submarines in fact.

In thematic chats on history, I was answered:
The strong hull could withstand fire from machine guns and small-caliber guns of ships and aircraft. In post-war tests of captured boats, it turned out that 20-mm and 23-mm shells and 37-mm fragmentation-incendiary shells only caused damage to the light hull. To penetrate the strong hull, 37-mm armor-piercing shells or 57-mm tank guns were required, which were installed on one of the modifications of the British multi-role fighter-bomber "Mosquito". The first "Mosquito", equipped with a 57-mm gun, took to the air on June 8, 1943 and received the index FB.XVIII "Tsetse". The African fly was chosen as the name of the new modification of the fighter-bomber because of the strong piercing proboscis protruding from the front of the head. Already in November 1943, the new "Mosquito" first tried its hand at U-123 of Oberleutnant zur See Horst von Schroeter, returning to base in the Bay of Biscay. The fired 57-mm shell made a decent hole in the submarine's strong hull measuring 18 x 6.5 cm and deprived it of the ability to dive. One of the submariners died, two more crew members were wounded. However, the submarine managed to escape death and reached the base.

Before that, when I played the basic SH3, machine gun fire only caused damage to the conning tower (up to the failure of the anti-aircraft guns) and the deck flooring. The strong hull is penetrated either by dropped bombs or fired rockets. In principle, it corresponds to historical reality. However, I have not encountered a "Tsetse" with a 57-mm gun in the game.
. And when I started playing with mods, even a reconnaissance plane with two 7.7 machine guns, one in the front and one in the back, suffers damage to the hull strength. And flying boats with their 5 or 8 machine guns and Hurricane fighters with four 20 mm cannons are some kind of scary monsters.

Other players playing with the GWX mod assembly answer that their hull strength is at a realistic level. That is, machine guns are not scary to them. Damage only from bombs and collisions with other objects. As it was in reality.

Apparently, this effect of machine gun fire, which is terrible for the strong hull of a submarine, is given by NYGM.
Maybe there is some way to return aircraft fire from cannons and machine guns to historical reality, when at least it will not destroy the strong hull of a submarine and be able to sink it even without bombs?
If you do not remove the NYGM mod itself, which, according to reviews, has the most evil escorts and aircraft. But this makes the game more interesting.




In GWX Knights Cross I think this is sorted, myself and S7rikeback took the trouble to separate 20mm cannons and MGs on aircraft since there is a big difference, S7rikeback made a new 10mm shell which we used for all aircraft Machine guns of any calibre - since even a 0.50 cal round could not breach a Uboats hull, where as a 20mm cannon could.

All aircraft were updated to have their historic armaments, so in KC the only types which can cause damage to your Hull integrity are those armed with 20mm guns like the Mosquito, Beaufighter, Liberator Mk2 etc. But most of the bombers do not have 20mm. The sound effects of both gun types was also changed so you can hear the difference in them. We found a Hispano cannon sound for the 20mm, and a .50 cal Browing Sound for MGs, MG's can still of course, cause minor damage to your Turm and kill your crew on deck. I cant speak for how other mods handle it.

[JU_88]

I've never seen a Mosquito with a 57mm gun in the game before.


They appear over the Bay of Biscay later war -43 onwards, If you see one I reccomend you dont fight it, Its gun will shread your Hull integrity horribly, even if you win, expect flooding in multiple compartments and many dead crew. They are pure evil, lol.
Watch out for RAF ASW Liberators too, The MK3 has the rockets and the MK2 has 4x 20mm mounted in pod on its belly. Both hurt, alot.


Trailer for the RAF aircraft in KC if interested, (I think we covered all types listed on Uboat.net.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmyJmGdH2LU

[JU_88]

In my opinion, anti-aircraft fire from a submarine prevents aircraft from aiming accurately and they do not drop bombs and only fire from machine guns. If you start to dive, then nothing interferes with the aircraft and they begin an attack with bombs. Under anti-aircraft fire, if aircraft do carry out bombing, then the probability of a miss and inaccuracy of this will be higher. By the way, I asked chatGPT about 57 mm guns and he answered that U-976 was sunk from such guns in March 1944. I looked on the uboat. net website about this boat. It says there that the U-976 boat was sunk on March 25, 1944 in the Bay of Biscay southwest of Saint-Nazaire by fire from two British Mosquito aircraft. It is not specified whether they were armed with guns.


Aircraft AI is bare bone basic in SH3 and we cant even fix the stupidly steep attack angle of their attacking dive - E.g every plane with 'dive bomber' characteristics dives like Stuka, Even the sunderlands, where as in IRL that thing could barley even take off, let alone recover from a 45 degree dive at low alitude! :P Only othe roption is 'level bomber' mode, but then they bomb your boat in the same way they would carpet bomb a factory in Berlin - which is even more stupid.
There is certainly no way put off their aim by shooting at them, they just aint smart or sophisticated enough for any of that and they often dont even value their own self preservation that much, undeterred by AAA and merrily flying in to mountains. Also when SH3 planes run out of bombs (or dummy bombs) they often just enter a controlled but suicidal decending death sprial in to the sea. So yeah... we can only expect so much from them.


Biggest factor in Uboat Vs Aircraft combat in SH3 is your speed. if you are going at ahead flank, the plane will struggle to get its bombs on target, but likewise, your own AAA crew will struggle to land hits on it. Go slow or all stop, and you are both much, much eaiser targets for each other.
Also if an aircraft bombs you from your Aft, They are far more deadly and score multiple hits along the length of your boats hull, rather than just one - potentially ending you in a single pass. so if you see a plane coming in for a run on your 180, it would be very wise to make a turn.

[Captain Drastic]

You are right about the steep angles of aircraft AI, I have asked before if anyone had a fix. It looks dumb when they do a steep climb and dive just to turn.

[JU_88]

You are right about the steep angles of aircraft AI, I have asked before if anyone had a fix. It looks dumb when they do a steep climb and dive just to turn.


Yeah it sucks, sadly not possible to edit :(

[Hooston]

It says there that the U-976 boat was sunk on March 25, 1944 in the Bay of Biscay southwest of Saint-Nazaire by fire from two British Mosquito aircraft. It is not specified whether they were armed with guns. AI finds text on the internet matching your question, combines it with your question and spits it back at you. It has no real understanding or knowledge, no quality control, and makes stuff up to fill in gaps. Which is what makes it seem human I guess!!! Wikipedia says U-976 was bitten by a mkXVIII Tse-tse, and includes a proper reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito. ...I wonder how much of Wikipedia is being edited by AI! We really are living in a post-truth age.
I'm not sure about 20mm cannon. Although there was an "armour piercing incendiary" round I think this was more designed for thin aluminium aircraft armour and would struggle against 18.5mm high tensile steel. The British must have developed the Tse-tse for a reason! I'd be interested in any hard data. I read an account of a British Cromwell tank that was shot at by a German 20mm flak and all the rounds stuck in the armour instead of bouncing off. It turned out the crew had been given a mild steel training tank by mistake. They decided to keep it because it was a lot faster than the rest of the troop.

Your regular Mosquito FB mkVI, and the Beaufighter had four 20mm cannon which would certainly make a hell of a mess of everything outside the pressure hull. The U-Flak boat U-441 got a good working over from 3 Beaufighters which killed 10 men and wounded 13. However despite this the boat was able to dive away and made it back to port under the command of the boat's doctor https://uboat.net/boats/u441.htm.

[JU_88]

AI finds text on the internet matching your question, combines it with your question and spits it back at you. It has no real understanding or knowledge, no quality control, and makes stuff up to fill in gaps. Which is what makes it seem human I guess!!! Wikipedia says U-976 was bitten by a mkXVIII Tse-tse, and includes a proper reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito. ...I wonder how much of Wikipedia is being edited by AI! We really are living in a post-truth age.
I'm not sure about 20mm cannon. Although there was an "armour piercing incendiary" round I think this was more designed for thin aluminium aircraft armour and would struggle against 18.5mm high tensile steel. The British must have developed the Tse-tse for a reason! I'd be interested in any hard data. I read an account of a British Cromwell tank that was shot at by a German 20mm flak and all the rounds stuck in the armour instead of bouncing off. It turned out the crew had been given a mild steel training tank by mistake. They decided to keep it because it was a lot faster than the rest of the troop.

Your regular Mosquito FB mkVI, and the Beaufighter had four 20mm cannon which would certainly make a hell of a mess of everything outside the pressure hull. The U-Flak boat U-441 got a good working over from 3 Beaufighters which killed 10 men and wounded 13. However despite this the boat was able to dive away and made it back to port under the command of the boat's doctor https://uboat.net/boats/u441.htm.


AI just does the same as what you or I do with Google/Site searches and comparing different results - just faster and with out too much scrutiny or predjudice. But yeah, its still at the mercy of the source info being wrong, as are we, so not a huge difference really. In some cases it might even be advantageous as its less likley to dismiss 'a truth' based on its own stupid political bias/ emotionally driven narrative which many humans relegiously adhere to. At least that what the term 'post truth' means to me alot of the time: 'It must be true if it confirms what I already believed' and 'its cant be true if it makes me feel uncomfortable.' Maybe the term should swapped for 'Post adult'.

Anyway, Im ranting...
According to Uboat.net (if they are to be belived) the pressure hull was typically 18mm thick steel, so I guess we just need to know if a 20mm Hispano could penetrate 18mm of steel, if yes then there is your answer if you want to look. Personally Im already quite satistfied I have read enough to suggest it could (within a set of variables, attack angle, range, ammo type etc). Also in the case of something like the Beaufighter or Mosquito which had 4 cannons, keep in mind those guns were set to converge at a certain range, like 400-600 meters, so 4x 20mm concentrated at one spot is going hurt more than a single 20mm gun.

[Hooston]

Well i found a useful source and the answer is YES... but NO.... but YES.... but maybe.
See
http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96%3Ahispano-20mm-armour-piercing-ammunition&catid=44%3Agunsrockets&Itemid=60


The HE and ball ammo would not cut it. So NO
The armour piercing round (many flavours used!) would penetrate around 20mm of armour plate at 200yds at 0 degrees incidence. So YES
Most attacks would have to be at a shallow dive angle and I'd guess around 3-400 yds. For shallow incidence shots there's not a lot of difference between armour plate and high tensile steel and the penetration drops off (reference only goes up to 40 degree incidence). The thin deck plates would also get in the way a bit. So NO, but YES against conning towers and the thin unpressurised saddle tanks. Some boats had added armour on the conning towers (I guess for this reason).
Seems to me that you should incur a lot of damage to deck crew, guns, periscopes and deck plates, a bit of damage to the conning tower and a slight nibble at the hull integrity (never enough to sink the boat).
Looks like we are not too far off!

[JU_88]

Well i found a useful source and the answer is YES... but NO.... but YES.... but maybe.
See
http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96%3Ahispano-20mm-armour-piercing-ammunition&catid=44%3Agunsrockets&Itemid=60


The HE and ball ammo would not cut it. So NO
The armour piercing round (many flavours used!) would penetrate around 20mm of armour plate at 200yds at 0 degrees incidence. So YES
Most attacks would have to be at a shallow dive angle and I'd guess around 3-400 yds. For shallow incidence shots there's not a lot of difference between armour plate and high tensile steel and the penetration drops off (reference only goes up to 40 degree incidence). The thin deck plates would also get in the way a bit. So NO, but YES against conning towers and the thin unpressurised saddle tanks. Some boats had added armour on the conning towers (I guess for this reason).
Seems to me that you should incur a lot of damage to deck crew, guns, periscopes and deck plates, a bit of damage to the conning tower and a slight nibble at the hull integrity (never enough to sink the boat).
Looks like we are not too far off!


Ha, nice find, well I say let the planes a little charitable wiggle room on the power of their 20mm - to compensate for their overall stupidity, predictability, massivley easy detection, inability to shoot fixed guns at all at certain attack angles and pretty poor bomb accuracy. when you factor all that in, what's a little damage buff to their cannons? And TBH if I fight them rather than evade, well maybe I deserve the hull integrity of a collander

[Hooston]

And TBH if I fight them rather than evade, well maybe I deserve the hull integrity of a collander


Yeah, it's not really important given the limitations baked into the game's damage model. The important thing is to discourage players from unrealistically fighting it out on the surface against cannon armed fighters, whilst not having boats behaving realistically sunk by strafing (other than Tse-tse). I think that's where GWX KC is at.

[Captain Drastic]

I spend most of my patrol time out of sight of planes anyway, with no eternal view to remind me of their presence.

[Raf1394]

When my crew spots an aircraft. I always dive.
I go flank speed ahead and change direction to be sure.

Then i wait for the aircraft to drop the bombs, if it missed me, i go to periscope depth.Then i can observe it.
I see the aircraft usually doing some few attack runs and dropping bombs on the wrong location. If i see he suddenly goes away, after a while i surface.

I never try to fight and shoot a aircraft surfaced. Its suicide. Its not worth the risk, only if i have no other choice. When that happens, i go like half speed and right before he zero's on me. I go flank speed and go full rudder left or right, if you time it good, the bombs will miss.

[JU_88]

When my crew spots an aircraft. I always dive.
I go flank speed ahead and change direction to be sure.

Then i wait for the aircraft to drop the bombs, if it missed me, i go to periscope depth.Then i can observe it.
I see the aircraft usually doing some few attack runs and dropping bombs on the wrong location. If i see he suddenly goes away, after a while i surface.

I never try to fight and shoot a aircraft surfaced. Its suicide. Its not worth the risk, only if i have no other choice. When that happens, i go like half speed and right before he zero's on me. I go flank speed and go full rudder left or right, if you time it good, the bombs will miss.


Agreed, only time i might have a shoot out with one is if im out torpedos and on my home anyway, as Im unlikley to need to go deep again for that patrol, that and if the plane type isnt anything too nasty.

[Navigator777]

Ha, nice find, well I say let the planes a little charitable wiggle room on the power of their 20mm - to compensate for their overall stupidity, predictability, massivley easy detection, inability to shoot fixed guns at all at certain attack angles and pretty poor bomb accuracy. when you factor all that in, what's a little damage buff to their cannons? And TBH if I fight them rather than evade, well maybe I deserve the hull integrity of a collander


I asked chatGPT for statistics and numbers about losses and this is what I got:

The exact number of attacks where aircraft actually detected and attacked a submarine varies by source, but approximately 2,500-3,000 attacks were recorded during World War II.

Breakdown by year (approximate data):
1942 - about 500 attacks, as aircraft were not yet that effective.

1943 - the peak of combat, about 1,000-1,500 attacks, due to improved detection technology.

1944-1945 - about 700-1,000 attacks, as submarines began to avoid surface navigation due to the threat of aircraft.

Not every attack resulted in a sinking:

On average, only 10-15% of attacks ended in the sinking of the submarine.

Another 20-30% caused serious damage, forcing the submarine to abort the mission.

The remaining 50-70% of attacks either did not cause critical damage, or the attack was unsuccessful (the submarine managed to go under water).

Reasons for unsuccessful attacks:
Weather conditions - poor visibility and rough seas interfered with aiming.

Submarine maneuvers - sharp turns and emergency diving.

Aiming problems - depth charges often exploded either too early or too late.

Anti-aircraft fire - submarines could sometimes repel an attack, especially in 1943-1944, when they began to be armed with 20-37 mm anti-aircraft guns.

Thus, out of approximately 15,000 submarine-hunting sorties, approximately 2,500–3,000 ended in attacks, and approximately 300–350 submarines were sunk (success rate ~10–15%).

[Hooston]

This link (https://www.number59squadron.com/liberator.html) mentions the Coastal Command effort in support of D-Day:
"During these operations, aircraft of Coastal Command flew 2,197 ASW (Anti-submarine Warfare) sorties in the Channel and Western Approaches. 72 submarines were sighted, 40 were attacked. Coastal Command anti-shipping and strike squadrons flew 1,672 reconnaissance and 315 strike sorties."
So the total number of sorties during the war was waaaaay more than 15000 and the chance of seeing a uboat on one of these was small. You have to be really careful with ChatGPT. uboat.net (and even wikipedia) is very carefully researched and much more trustworthy. Look here (https://uboat.net/allies/aircraft/).
In trawling through this I found this image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_torpedo_boat_T24#/media/File:German_destroyers_T24_and_Z24_under_attack_by _Bristol_Beaufighters_off_Le_Verdon-sur-Mer,_Gironde,_France,_24_August_1944_(342-FH-3A18812-55169AC).jpg) of Beaufighters attacking destroyers with rockets. Look at all the splashes in the water literally miles from any target!

[Navigator777]

This link (https://www.number59squadron.com/liberator.html) mentions the Coastal Command effort in support of D-Day:
"During these operations, aircraft of Coastal Command flew 2,197 ASW (Anti-submarine Warfare) sorties in the Channel and Western Approaches. 72 submarines were sighted, 40 were attacked. Coastal Command anti-shipping and strike squadrons flew 1,672 reconnaissance and 315 strike sorties."
So the total number of sorties during the war was waaaaay more than 15000 and the chance of seeing a uboat on one of these was small. You have to be really careful with ChatGPT. uboat.net (and even wikipedia) is very carefully researched and much more trustworthy. Look here (https://uboat.net/allies/aircraft/).
In trawling through this I found this image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_torpedo_boat_T24#/media/File:German_destroyers_T24_and_Z24_under_attack_by _Bristol_Beaufighters_off_Le_Verdon-sur-Mer,_Gironde,_France,_24_August_1944_(342-FH-3A18812-55169AC).jpg) of Beaufighters attacking destroyers with rockets. Look at all the splashes in the water literally miles from any target!

I agree, statistics and figures need to be checked. That's why I wrote where I got these approximate figures from. It's probably very difficult to get exact figures from somewhere. But at least approximate ones.
And the same uboat mentions that according to some sources, submarine hunters, the Royal Air Force Coastal Command, lost 700 aircraft for various reasons.
It turns out that hunting for submarines was not an easy task. https://uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm

[Navigator777]

You can immediately feel the difference in the large expansion of the scenario compared to the basic SH3 game and the game assembly with supermods that I am currently playing.
I have made several careers in the game and am moving from one to another for the sake of interest.
One of the unusual careers for me is the career in the Mediterranean Sea, which has a lot of both aircraft actions on both sides and convoys.
For example, in December 1942, in the Tripoli area, when enemy aircraft were already frequently pestering in the sky, I met a convoy of blues at a speed of 6 knots. 5 large merchant ships, 1 small one, 3 escort destroyers and my seven submarines, and everyone had their own anti-aircraft weapons.
Enemy aircraft began to fly in and, despite the anti-aircraft fire, knock out the merchant ships one by one.
It was big news for me, the opportunity to meet friendly convoys in the new assembly. In the basic SH3, this never happened. I also noted that the general anti-aircraft fire of this entire convoy did not particularly prevent the flying boats from knocking out the merchants one after another.
At that time, the anti-aircraft guns of my seven could do nothing at all. Even when I installed a quadruple 20 mm anti-aircraft gun and a twin 37 mm - all in vain.
Moreover, the 37 mm turned out to be much worse than the quadruple 20 mm. Heavy, clumsy, slow and no effect even when hitting, unlike the basic SH3, in which the 37 mm anti-aircraft gun is very effective.
But now, when I play in June 1943, I met a practically military convoy going somewhere on its own business at 9 knots.
I also joined the convoy to watch the convoy's anti-aircraft guns work. The convoy consists of three light cruisers of the Duca d'Aosta and Garibaldi type in the center
anti-aircraft armament of which
4×2 - 100 mm
4×2 - 37 mm
4 ×2 -13, 2
And four small merchants with them in the center.

Two destroyers and small nosed boats along the perimeter
And each of them with its own anti-aircraft armament.

We didn't have to wait long and one after another the enemy planes started flying in. I was interested to see how long the plane would hold out against such a combined anti-aircraft fire of the convoy. This Sunderland held out for 3 whole minutes and even sank one small transport in the end.

I apologize for the poor quality of the image. I took it on my phone just to at least somehow illustrate what was written.

[Navigator777]

https://youtu.be/pXyVYdITR4Q?si=9_Vd0wrxXixhCnhx

[Navigator777]

https://youtu.be/rnR0Ystb2ho?si=_nLrSxPkiLYz9Z-g

[Shadowblade]

I shot down some biplanes (Fairey Swordfish), but usually my command is:

https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/1465311785680651034/3603D0CD74B56D384A8DBADC16A130290778ED95/

the renown for aircraft is not worth to risk the damage.

[Raf1394]

I shot down some biplanes (Fairey Swordfish), but usually my command is:

https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/1465311785680651034/3603D0CD74B56D384A8DBADC16A130290778ED95/

the renown for aircraft is not worth to risk the damage.

Totally agree :03:

[Navigator777]

I shot down some biplanes (Fairey Swordfish), but usually my command is:

https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/1465311785680651034/3603D0CD74B56D384A8DBADC16A130290778ED95/

the renown for aircraft is not worth to risk the damage.

For various reasons, circumstances may arise in such a way that the submarine does not have enough time to fully submerge and remain undetected after being detected by an aircraft.

In this case, it is necessary to make a decision where the damage from an aircraft attack will be higher.

If you use the maximum possible speed, maneuvering and anti-aircraft weapons and open anti-aircraft fire, then the targeting accuracy of the aircraft attack will decrease and the bombs will fall somewhere further from the submarine hull. In addition, if these are depth charges, they will explode at the depth specified by the pilot of the attacking aircraft. This is approximately 5-7 meters from the surface and reduces the force of damage from the explosion by the depth of the bomb.

If you begin to dive, the submarine loses its speed, maneuverability and becomes an easier target.
There is nothing to stop the attacking aircraft from calmly and more accurately aiming at the submerging submarine. Depth charges explode at a depth of 5-7 meters, are closer to the strong hull of the submerged submarine and cause great damage.

This is what happens in my game.
If it is not possible to dive in time and remain unnoticed by the searching aircraft, then they attack the submerged submarine and drop depth charges very accurately.

[Shadowblade]

@Navigator777 - yeah, I was talking about situations when you have option to avoid it.
Then I just crash dive and change the course just in case they detected me too.


If aircraft is too close to dive in time then it is really better to use flak, flank speed and evasive maneuvers.