Passing of the Torch

[CybrSlydr]

Putting out to sea for the first time with my IX-C and ended up passing my old mount.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a269/CybrSlydr/passing.jpg

[Ducimus]

Grats.

Word of the wise. Aircraft are your primary threat since you dive slower.

If the aircraft is detected at long range, go ahead and crash dive.

If the aircraft is detected close by, or mid range, and you even THINK you might not get under in time. Go to flank speed, and then pull a hard rudder left or right before he makes his pass. Once he passes you, straigten your rudder and crash dive.

[CybrSlydr]

So you don't suggest duking it out with the AA guns?

Would I be better served getting the X/1 conning tower and scrapping the guns for better underwater performance?

[Ducimus]

So you don't suggest duking it out with the AA guns?

Would I be better served getting the X/1 conning tower and scrapping the guns for better underwater performance?

Stock game, aircraft are relativly weak, although a few of them will crash into you if you shoot them down. Primarly due to the angle of their attack, and they go out of control. But generally you want to avoid duking it out with aircraft, but if your caught at close range, diving, and having the ass end of your boat sticking out of the water, with no real ablity to manuver except down, is a bad situation. Kinda like this:

http://www.ducimus.net/sh3/u178_p3_03.jpg

which resulted in this:
http://www.ducimus.net/sh3/u178_p3_04.jpg

had i judged my distances better, and stayed on the surface, at flank speed with hard rudder, and dived after his first pass, odds are i would have survived.


and no, towers design do not effect underwater speed at all.

[CybrSlydr]

OUCH! That hurts. :(

Pity different towers don't affect your speed underwater.

I noticed in the Academy training, I could hit the aircraft with the flak gun, but they didn't take any damage.... This is in GW 1.1 + Campaign

[Kpt. Lehmann]

OUCH! That hurts. :(

Pity different towers don't affect your speed underwater.

I noticed in the Academy training, I could hit the aircraft with the flak gun, but they didn't take any damage.... This is in GW 1.1 + Campaign

Hi CybrSlydr,

With respect you are mistaken sir.

The aircraft in GW do take damage from your flak guns. Its just that they are much tougher than stock SH3... therefore making AC in GW much more dangerous.

In stock SH3 you could swat them all out of the sky with little effort.

Ducimus is right. A crash dive should be your reaction to enemy aircraft generally speaking.

[Keelbuster]

OUCH! That hurts. :(

Pity different towers don't affect your speed underwater.

I noticed in the Academy training, I could hit the aircraft with the flak gun, but they didn't take any damage.... This is in GW 1.1 + Campaign

Hi CybrSlydr,

With respect you are mistaken sir.

The aircraft in GW do take damage from your flak guns. Its just that they are much tougher than stock SH3... therefore making AC in GW much more dangerous.

In stock SH3 you could swat them all out of the sky with little effort.

Ducimus is right. A crash dive should be your reaction to enemy aircraft generally speaking.

Sometimes aircraft can be _extremely_ tough. I burned off all the ammo for the front and back turrets on an XXI, firing at a bomber (liberator i think) and wasn't able to even make it smoke.

Kb

[CybrSlydr]

Hi CybrSlydr,

With respect you are mistaken sir.

The aircraft in GW do take damage from your flak guns. Its just that they are much tougher than stock SH3... therefore making AC in GW much more dangerous.

In stock SH3 you could swat them all out of the sky with little effort.

Ducimus is right. A crash dive should be your reaction to enemy aircraft generally speaking.

Sometimes aircraft can be _extremely_ tough. I burned off all the ammo for the front and back turrets on an XXI, firing at a bomber (liberator i think) and wasn't able to even make it smoke.

Kb

Ok - that's absurd! :damn: :down:

[Seminole]

OOOOOH...I thought when I read your title you had discovered the juicy Operation Torch convoy headed for North Africa....my mistake.... :(

[Ducimus]

Ok - that's absurd! :damn: :down:

Well you have to understand the basis on where some of these modifications come from.


Stock, vanilla SH3, you can shoot down as many aircraft as you have ammo for. Im not kidding, one time i shot down 35 aircraft on my way back to lorient. That is absurd.

Why? Because the reality is, there were very few aircraft shot down by uboats. The kill to death ratio uboats have on aircraft would probably be something on the order of (im pulling a number out of thin air) maybe like 100 or 200 boats lost to every 1 aircraft shot down. So to get a more historical play, the usual response is to beef up aircraft and/or lower the players AA gun range and accuracy. Personnaly i really enjoy the settings the improved airpower mod has. It makes aircraft dangerous enough to were i really dont want to tangle with them if i can avoid it, but when i am forced to, i will shoot one of those buzzards down before i dive. (that is.. assuming i have a heavy flak gun :roll: )

[CybrSlydr]

I understand the reasoning behind it, but holy crap... I'd much rather the accuracy be off than having flying tanks!

Win some, ya lose some. :up:

[Yahoshua]

cyberslyder, is it just me or is it that you have the headless u-boot crew depicted in your first pic?

[CybrSlydr]

cyberslyder, is it just me or is it that you have the headless u-boot crew depicted in your first pic?

LMFAO!

I didn't even notice - that's not why I took the screen.

Good eye!! :up: :rock:

[VonHelsching]

OUCH! That hurts. :(

Pity different towers don't affect your speed underwater.



They can affect your speed (making it worse), but you need a mod:

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=52124

If you need some more speed and agility, you must spare your deck gun (with SH3Cdr). No pain, no gain. :up: (again, with another mod):

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=51707

[Eichenlaub]

Why? Because the reality is, there were very few aircraft shot down by uboats. The kill to death ratio uboats have on aircraft would probably be something on the order of (im pulling a number out of thin air) maybe like 100 or 200 boats lost to every 1 aircraft shot down. So to get a more historical play, the usual response is to beef up aircraft and/or lower the players AA gun range and accuracy. Personnaly i really enjoy the settings the improved airpower mod has. It makes aircraft dangerous enough to were i really dont want to tangle with them if i can avoid it, but when i am forced to, i will shoot one of those buzzards down before i dive. (that is.. assuming i have a heavy flak gun )

Despite being new here, I have to respectfully disagree with Ducimus. I checked out the information concerning U-boot successes against aircraft on www.uboat.net, an incredibly reliable website. This link is what you'll need: http://www.uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm.
It's a rundown of encounters between U-boote and Allied air units. The most interesting feature of that page is the total numbers.

I'll summarise here:
97 different U-boote succesfully downed one or more planes, for a total of 125 Allied aircraft shot down. 31 U-boote were lost in the same attack or shortly afterwards (by other forces directed to the U-boot through the plane's crew). The total losses of U-boote to airpower amounted to 220 U-boote. Note that uboat.net gives RAF Coastal Command successes, not all Allied successes. According to Vincent Tarrant's "The U-Boat offensive 1914-1945", total U-boot losses to Allied air units amounted to 382. The ratio of planes lost per U-boot destroyed by airpower is 0,32 or you could say that 3,05 U-boote were destroyed by air units for every airplane destroyed by Unterseeboote. Hardly the 100 or 200 U-boote lost per Allied aircraft as you claim. I realise you were just hazarding a guess (I saw your disclaimer), but as you can see, it was nowhere near as bad as you thought it was in terms of numbers. Furthermore, up until somewhere in 1941 only 2 U-boote were lost to airplanes, so not being afraid of air units until late 1941 is quite reasonable.

Of the 97 succesful U-boote, most claimed a single success, but quite a few (185, 228, 262, 270, 311, 333, 343, 415, 441, 453, 459, 534, 566, 618, 676, 771) achieved two. U-763 either has 2 or 3, U-333 has 3 or 4 and the real champion is -hardly surprising since it was a U-Flakboot- U-256 with 4.
The light nature of the AA weapons of the U-boote ensured that many planes became wrecks some time after the attack and the Kapitän might not have known of his success. Some of the aircraft that fell in combat with Unterseeboote were lost due to their own fault, ie because of their own bombs' explosions or diving down too steeply and failing to pull up. Still, they can be claimed to have been downed under duress of gunfire! :rock:

Kind regards,

Eichenlaub

[andy_311]

Why? Because the reality is, there were very few aircraft shot down by uboats. The kill to death ratio uboats have on aircraft would probably be something on the order of (im pulling a number out of thin air) maybe like 100 or 200 boats lost to every 1 aircraft shot down. So to get a more historical play, the usual response is to beef up aircraft and/or lower the players AA gun range and accuracy. Personnaly i really enjoy the settings the improved airpower mod has. It makes aircraft dangerous enough to were i really dont want to tangle with them if i can avoid it, but when i am forced to, i will shoot one of those buzzards down before i dive. (that is.. assuming i have a heavy flak gun )

Despite being new here, I have to respectfully disagree with Ducimus. I checked out the information concerning U-boot successes against aircraft on www.uboat.net, an incredibly reliable website. This link is what you'll need: http://www.uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm.
It's a rundown of encounters between U-boote and Allied air units. The most interesting feature of that page is the total numbers.

I'll summarise here:
97 different U-boote succesfully downed one or more planes, for a total of 125 Allied aircraft shot down. 31 U-boote were lost in the same attack or shortly afterwards (by other forces directed to the U-boot through the plane's crew). The total losses of U-boote to airpower amounted to 220 U-boote. Note that uboat.net gives RAF Coastal Command successes, not all Allied successes. According to Vincent Tarrant's "The U-Boat offensive 1914-1945", total U-boot losses to Allied air units amounted to 382. The ratio of planes lost per U-boot destroyed by airpower is 0,32 or you could say that 3,05 U-boote were destroyed by air units for every airplane destroyed by Unterseeboote. Hardly the 100 or 200 U-boote lost per Allied aircraft as you claim. I realise you were just hazarding a guess (I saw your disclaimer), but as you can see, it was nowhere near as bad as you thought it was in terms of numbers. Furthermore, up until somewhere in 1941 only 2 U-boote were lost to airplanes, so not being afraid of air units until late 1941 is quite reasonable.

Of the 97 succesful U-boote, most claimed a single success, but quite a few (185, 228, 262, 270, 311, 333, 343, 415, 441, 453, 459, 534, 566, 618, 676, 771) achieved two. U-763 either has 2 or 3, U-333 has 3 or 4 and the real champion is -hardly surprising since it was a U-Flakboot- U-256 with 4.
The light nature of the AA weapons of the U-boote ensured that many planes became wrecks some time after the attack and the Kapitän might not have known of his success. Some of the aircraft that fell in combat with Unterseeboote were lost due to their own fault, ie because of their own bombs' explosions or diving down too steeply and failing to pull up. Still, they can be claimed to have been downed under duress of gunfire! :rock:

Kind regards,

Eichenlaub



Don't get me wrong I do go head to head with aircraft might not shoot a lot of them down (last career I think I shot down about 12 that's between 39-end of war)I don't go head to head with planes come 43 onwards it'd bad enough taking on a convoy without univited guests like the R.A.F or the USAAF and god knows were them p-38s come from I searched the net a no carrier operated them but in later in the war they turn up like a swarm of flies.
Whatever happed to the hellfires?

[Ducimus]

My baisc point was that uboats were not very successfull against aircraft. A better figure to illustrate my point would probably have beene the number of aircraft attacks executed against uboats vs the number of uboat victories against those attacks. Im quite sure that figure would be a marked difference.

[squigian]

Found this; I think it supports your point, Ducimus:

Statistics related to the Kriegsmarine Unterseebootwaffe.

According to Professor Jürgen Rowher, who has made exhaustive studies of the subject, 1 156 U-boats were constructed during the Second World War (this takes no account of 14 captured foreign submarines). Of these only 863 were in operational use. The remainder were either undergoing final fitting, in training or some form of transit to an active U-boat flotilla.

From the total number of U-boats the following statistics have been drawn regarding their fates.
663 lost in combat - 266 by enemy aircraft; 243 by enemy naval units; 46 by combined air and sea attacks; 28 for unknown reasons; 24 by enemy submarines; 18 by mines; 12 scuttled as a direct result of combat damage; 10 scuttled due to the impossibility of regaining a friendly port; 9 sunk by collision; 6 captured for some length of time; 1 sunk by Italian Torpedoboat by mistake.

142 lost (not through combat) - 53 destroyed by bombing in Germany; 34 decommissioned in port before the war's end; 19 scuttled in France or Norway; 16 lost to training accidents; 9 to "friendly" mines; 7 in friendly waters through accidents; 2 handed over to the Japanese; 2 interned in Spain.

Total percentage of U-boats lost: 65% of all boats lost while 77% of operational boats were lost in combat.

365 remaining on date of surrender 8th May 1945 - 201 scuttled in or near friendly port; 114 anchored in friendly port; 30 still at sea, made way to Allied port; 10 at sea returned to Germany; 4 scuttled at sea; 4 in Japanese ports; 2 sailed to Argentina and were interned.

Further to these figures are the interesting observations made by Jak-Mallmann Showell in his book "U-boats under the Swastika" (again based on Rohwer's statistics) that:

* 25 boats attacked and at least damaged 20 or more ships
* 36 boats attacked and at least damaged between 11 and 19 ships
* 70 boats attacked and at least damaged between 6 and 10 ships
* 190 boats attacked and at least damaged between 1 and 5 ships.

Given these figures, 73% of U-boats constructed during the Second World War (including all 1,170 U-boats - whether frontline or training machines) achieved no success against the enemy.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Great post squigian! :up: :up: :up:

[CybrSlydr]

Thank you for the figures. :)

Is this option something I can edit myself without a hex editor?...

[CybrSlydr]

Bump.

Is this editable by a novice?

[Sailor Steve]

As far as u-boats against planes goes, let's forget figures pro and con for a minute and think like a real submarine commander: You don't have to die, but you only get to play one career per year. If you shoot down 175 airplanes during your career, good for you. BUT, if one of them kills you, you don't get to play again for a very long while.

Now, how eager are you to duke it out with aircraft, and how much are you willing to argue this point.



As far as I'm concerned, the deadlier planes are the better. It may or may not be realistic according to numbers, but it would force you to play realistically, which means staying surfaced and fighting as little as possible.

[CybrSlydr]

As far as u-boats against planes goes, let's forget figures pro and con for a minute and think like a real submarine commander: You don't have to die, but you only get to play one career per year. If you shoot down 175 airplanes during your career, good for you. BUT, if one of them kills you, you don't get to play again for a very long while.

Now, how eager are you to duke it out with aircraft, and how much are you willing to argue this point.



As far as I'm concerned, the deadlier planes are the better. It may or may not be realistic according to numbers, but it would force you to play realistically, which means staying surfaced and fighting as little as possible.

...

So, is it editable by a novice?

[CybrSlydr]

I see.

Thank you.

[VonHelsching]

...

So, is it editable by a novice?

I wouldn't say editable at the very start, but definitly moddable, if you want to make the game more difficult (Airpower mod). Do you have any mods installed?

To edit the planes properties files you would need SH3 mini tweaker. You can find this in t timetraveler's site (search old posts).

[CybrSlydr]

Thanks VonHelsching. :up: :rock: