View Full Version : %*#$%@ Sunderlands
Trolling south just West of Ireland on my way home to Brest, trying not to be seasick with the interesting weather, when I happened across a decent sized convoy. Only 2 fish left, so lined up the juicy T3 in the center, one under the keel, one into the smoke stack. Boom. Boom! Woot!
Damn thing wouldn't sink - water lapping over her deck and her engines disabled. So after dodging the escorts decided to sit quietly nearby and wait for the weather to clear so I could finish her with the deck gun.
4 days! 4 damned days sitting at 30m waiting for the weather Gods, coming up at night to breathe.
Finally the winds drop to 6ms, still a lit fog, but finally! Surface the boat! Man the gun!
Aircraft spotted!
Crap!
Man the AA. 2 Sunderlands coming in directly from the bow. Can't bring the guns to bear! Before I could turn, dive or run-away they each dropped a stick directly on the bow. Blew the damn 88 right off! :damn:
To make matters worse they killed my two highly trained Sr Warrant Officer gunners who had been with me since the start of the war. (They could shoot the fleas off the Captains beard from 3000 meters!) Naturally the untrained seaman loader (eminantly expendable) survived with just stained pants.
I had to leave the T3 wallowing there and limp home. Inventing new swear words all the way.
:rotfl:I think we have all been in that situation, very frustrating, you'd think the heavy seas would finish it off, but no!:-? All it would have taken to sink the ship is a well placed fire cracker!:rotfl:
Ducimus
05-30-06, 10:47 PM
Ive been desperate enough to use the 3.5 AA guns on a couple occasions. It works too :p
Ive been desperate enough to use the 3.5 AA guns on a couple occasions. It works too :p
The 3.5's are still a few months away unfortunately. When they do arrive I'm gonna hunt down those 2 particular pilots and open a can of whoop-ass on them. (Actually I won't, I'll run screaming like a girl each time I hear "Aircraft Spotted")
I love taking out trawlers/tugs with the 2cm guns though. Big fun :arrgh!:
bookworm_020
05-30-06, 11:48 PM
Give me the 37mm twin VII/4 flack set up and I'll take care of thoese Sunderlands for you. I'll even clean and gut them for you free of charge:arrgh!::arrgh!::arrgh!:
Torplexed
05-31-06, 12:20 AM
Those Sunderlands keep you on your toes for the day when the fly forever B-24s start showing up. :lol:
andy_311
05-31-06, 05:46 AM
On the subject of Sunderlands has anyone actually seen one land or take off ? they are amphibious so they are capable of landing on water.
On the subject of Sunderlands has anyone actually seen one land or take off ? they are amphibious so they are capable of landing on water.
In the game no. :hmm:
Cybermagi
05-31-06, 08:40 AM
On Patrol last night, near Gibraltar, we were doing a little recon
close to the narrows when, out of nowhere a PT boat pops in and starts filling my lovely IXC with machine gun fire.
I tuned our Quad loose on those tommies and put a few magizines into them.
The center of the PT bursts into flames, but they are still firing heavy into our
conning tower.
Just when I think "hey this PT is going to the bottom in a few minutes"
Two dammed Sunderlunds come diving down on us!
One hits foreward and other hits aft!
We're taking on water fast.
I turn all our AA guns on the Planes and call the deck gun
crew topside.
after a very intense battle, splashed to sunderlunds and send the PT to the
bottom.
Though we lost my best AA gunner and hull was so shot up and dented (10% Integ)
I had to return to base.
Sunderlunds are a pain, but easy enough to shoot down, B-24 on the other hand
are born of the devil!
B-24 on the other hand are born of the devil!
Met my first one last night :huh:
It tried that cute climbing turn lob tactic, lobbing a string of bombs from quite the distance. Must have been Davy Crockett flying the damn thing!
Could they actually do that lob thing? I'dve thunk it'd be too big & cumbersome to do something fancy like that.
lonehawknz
05-31-06, 04:36 PM
That's exactly what they did. Don't forget they had Norden bombsights and so could effectively do an early version of CCIP (predicted point of impact).
VLR Liberators finally closed the air-cover gap that the U-Boats enjoyed in the Atlantic in 1944. Horrible flamin things... grrrr....
The U-Flak configuration kicks their arse usually though, but only because (unrealistically) your skilled, specially qualified gunners, have laser sights for eyes...
:D
Engel der Vernichtung
05-31-06, 04:36 PM
Yes; the technique is referred to as "toss-bombing". Prior to advanced avionics, though, it was really hard to actually hit anything (depending on what degree of accuracy was needed, of course). PLaying the PC game "Tornado", I made rather extensive use of the technique; what you'd do, is approach your target from the opposite side of a big hill, pull up so you're going up the hill, and the avionics tells you when to release the bomb, so its ballistic arc will get it over the hill and to the target, you drop the bomb, which continues up, over, and down onto the target; you veer off, and so never expose yourself to the target, and (hopefully) its defenses.
First time I'd heard of it being done with WWII era technology, but I have defnitely heard of it being done.
Now that I *look*for it, there's a google video of someone doing it in a flight sim, using... a Hurricane? How apropo!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4094184714093519333&q=bombing
Cerberus
05-31-06, 05:34 PM
April '42 whilst crossing the Bay of Biscay - I was attacked by NINE Sunderlands!
What the &*()'s going on?
U-boats hunt in packs, but not Sunderlands.
If you have that many aircraft in operation at one time you spread them out & assign each a patrol area - you don't have the whole bl@@dy lot swarm together like flies round a dead dog's tail.
It quite spoilt my afternoon nap.
grouchy993
05-31-06, 09:37 PM
The 3.5's are still a few months away unfortunately. When they do arrive I'm gonna hunt down those 2 particular pilots and open a can of whoop-ass on them. (Actually I won't, I'll run screaming like a girl each time I hear "Aircraft Spotted")
I love taking out trawlers/tugs with the 2cm guns though. Big fun :arrgh!:
I have sat and pumped star shells into crippled ships when I am out of anything more damaging than the crews laundry. Boy is it annoying to have them refuse to sink.
Whose guarding the entrance? Sounds like somebody snitched on you, & the nearest airstrip specifically sent out a squadron to take you out.
You get the same action when you make a radio report. The island will triangulate your broadcast, & send a bunch of combat guys to check the area out.
Soon in later 42, High Frequency Directional Finder ('Huff Duff') will soon be sending single destroyers your way.
Down Boy! Dont eat the nice ferry people.
Nice new forum software.
kiwi_2005
05-31-06, 11:14 PM
Hey sacs good to see another kiwi :arrgh!: I was thinking this guys mad as a headless chicken, then i saw New Zealand so i was right :lol:
Welcome to subsim:rock:
Nippelspanner
06-01-06, 12:13 AM
Aircraft spotted!
Man the AA.
Deadly mistake ;)
Ill never try to fight airplanes...
Deadly mistake ;)
Ill never try to fight airplanes...
Errr. Yes. Greed though! The chance to put a couple of 88's into the nearly dead T3 was fatally attractive.
:roll:
Hey sacs good to see another kiwi :arrgh!: I was thinking this guys mad as a headless chicken, then i saw New Zealand so i was right :lol:
Welcome to subsim:rock:
:D
At least we won the Super 14! Mind you, the conditions reminded me of the typical Altantic weather....
(For those of you for whom rugby is not a religion (super 14 = NZ + Aussy + Sth Africa), we had the final in such a fog that you couldn't see across the width of the stadium)
lonehawknz
06-01-06, 04:10 AM
hey, guess what? here's another one fellas... :cool:
stuck in the "mother country" I may well be but born in Glenfield, North Shore.
:up:
That's exactly what they did. Don't forget they had Norden bombsights and so could effectively do an early version of CCIP (predicted point of impact).
VLR Liberators finally closed the air-cover gap that the U-Boats enjoyed in the Atlantic in 1944. Horrible flamin things... grrrr....
The U-Flak configuration kicks their arse usually though, but only because (unrealistically) your skilled, specially qualified gunners, have laser sights for eyes...
:D
Really? I am sure the Nordens were only good for hitting stationary targets...ie factories and the like. Pretty sure they did it by eye. They did indeed clsoe the gap though. :yep:
lonehawknz
06-01-06, 06:02 AM
Fair enough! :know:
A U-boat on the surface probably seems stationary to a Liberator travelling at 250 knots! But I expect you're right!!!
:up:
Saintaw
06-01-06, 06:23 AM
They had a hard time hitting factories sized targets with the norden, and level bombing was quickly abandoned due to the minimal hits on targets such as CV groups... i doubt very much a B24 would toss out & hit a target as small as a Uboot. So...I'll put a BS flag on that one.
Khayman
06-01-06, 07:30 AM
They had a hard time hitting factories sized targets with the norden, and level bombing was quickly abandoned due to the minimal hits on targets such as CV groups... i doubt very much a B24 would toss out & hit a target as small as a Uboot. So...I'll put a BS flag on that one.
They attacked from low level, about 50 feet above the water. They also sank or assisted in the sinking of 72 U-Boats;
http://www.usaaf.net/ww2/uboats/uboatspg2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-24
Definitely an aircraft to avoid!
Sailor Steve
06-01-06, 10:33 AM
Also the Norden Bombsight was designed specifically for high-altitude use; no Liberator on anti-sub duty ever carried one.
The common British practice once they aquired the B-24 was to seal off the forward bomb bay doors and install a fixed forward firing gun pack with 4 20mm guns-very deadly.
Also the Norden Bombsight was designed specifically for high-altitude use; no Liberator on anti-sub duty ever carried one.
The common British practice once they aquired the B-24 was to seal off the forward bomb bay doors and install a fixed forward firing gun pack with 4 20mm guns-very deadly.
4 X 20 mms. Ouch!
just horrible the Sunderland's took your gun off. Cruel bastages. :down:
Sailor Steve
06-01-06, 11:40 AM
April '42 whilst crossing the Bay of Biscay - I was attacked by NINE Sunderlands!
What the &*()'s going on?
U-boats hunt in packs, but not Sunderlands.
If you have that many aircraft in operation at one time you spread them out & assign each a patrol area - you don't have the whole bl@@dy lot swarm together like flies round a dead dog's tail.
It quite spoilt my afternoon nap.
In real life they attacked in groups of 1. The Airpower mod goes some way to fix this (fewer but tougher bombers), but I don't think anyone has actually come up with a fix that makes it real. One Sunderland should be more than enough to do the job, and diving should be your only option.
squigian
06-01-06, 11:55 AM
^ If they make a mod like that, they should also remove AA guns from the game completely and add more deckgun options.
CybrSlydr
06-01-06, 12:42 PM
Ok - so, why didn't Uboat crews use the AA guns and shoot down more enemy aircraft? Fer cryin out loud - later in the war, you can have freakin 4 20mm canons and 2 37mm canons - MORE than enough to easily dispatch one freakin airplane.
Just because they didn't shoot them down didn't mean they couldn't or it was such an insane problem!
Please, educate me! :know:
Sailor Steve
06-01-06, 12:49 PM
Real life isn't a videogame. It's very hard to hit a moving target. The Allies developed airborne radar, and could be on a surfaced u-boat before they could man the flak guns. The U-Flak boats proved to be a lesson in futility; all they did was tempt the crews to stay surfaced and die.
On our destroyer we conducted excercises against live aircraft. You have no idea how difficult it is.
http://www.uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm
http://www.uboat.net/fates/losses/cause.htm
U-Bones
06-01-06, 01:09 PM
Ok - so, why didn't Uboat crews use the AA guns and shoot down more enemy aircraft? Fer cryin out loud - later in the war, you can have freakin 4 20mm canons and 2 37mm canons - MORE than enough to easily dispatch one freakin airplane.
Just because they didn't shoot them down didn't mean they couldn't or it was such an insane problem!
Please, educate me! :know:
Imagine a skeet shooting contest where your opponents get to shoot at a stationary target. Then imagine that you are the stationary target.
CybrSlydr
06-01-06, 01:45 PM
Imagine a skeet shooting contest where your opponents get to shoot at a stationary target. Then imagine that you are the stationary target.
Excuse me if I'm wrong... but to attack me, they have to be coming towards me. Aside from not having to shoot more above the plane, it's effectively a stationary target.
Summary
125 aircraft shot down by 97 individual U-boats for the loss of 31 U-boats either sunk during the attack or due to being located by other forces shortly afterwards and sunk. One source says that RAF Coastal Command (http://www.uboat.net/allies/aircraft/raf_coastal.htm) (U-boat hunters) lost 700 aircraft (badly damaged, shot down and paid off - not all to U-boats of course) and sank 220 U-boats during the war. I've been unable to verify the RAF losses but the U-boat figure is about right it seems. These figures show the immense effort put out by the British to hunt down the U-boats and almost all the aircraft successes took place in 1942 and later.
Aircraft250Includes all ship-based aircraft (http://www.uboat.net/allies/aircraft/index.html)
So... almost exactly a 2:1 ratio of lost to shot down with 22% (this is rounded up from 21.6%) of all Uboat sinkings coming from aircraft.
Uboats lost - 1154
Uboats lost from aircraft - 250
250/1154=21.6%
It would be nice to have figures of how many aircraft were, total, sent out on hunter missions so we can see what percentage of aircraft were shot down by Uboats.
I still think a Uboat would win if one-on-one against an aircraft. No reason they should be nearly indestructable.
U-Bones
06-01-06, 02:16 PM
Excuse me if I'm wrong... but to attack me, they have to be coming towards me. Aside from not having to shoot more above the plane, it's effectively a stationary target...
Stationary in a 2D sense, yes. In the real world, they are hard to hit, while you are a sitting duck.
...I still think a Uboat would win if one-on-one against an aircraft. No reason they should be nearly indestructable.
Your logic would not be welcome in a foxhole (at least while I was in it).
CybrSlydr
06-01-06, 02:31 PM
:rotfl:
We'll agree to disagree. :yep::up:
:rotfl:
We'll agree to disagree. :yep::up:
It's not a question of disagreement but historical facts! How could small rocking u-boats knock down a plane when on some occasions battleships could not do to well? Bismarck shot down not one attacker...Yamato shot down very few of 200-300 US planes attacking her. Plus I bet some fo the Coastal Command planes shot down in 42-43 might have been caught by chance by the Luftwaffe or ran into bad weather etc.
Engel der Vernichtung
06-01-06, 04:04 PM
Well, to be honest, Bismarck is a bad example. The mechanical computers the AA guns had, that automatically compensated for lead, simply overestimated the Swordfish speed, making them constantly shoot in front of them (oddly enough, the dsigners didn't account for biplanes and their lower airspeeds). Not sure what the Japanese' problem was.
It is, however well documented that U-boats made very poor gunnery platforms; they were small, rocked quite a bit, and their accuracy suffered for it.
To use the skeet example... imagine going skeet shooting. Now, add me (I weigh ~200 lbs) holding your shoulders, and moving you back and forth. Gets quite a bit tougher.
CybrSlydr
06-01-06, 04:33 PM
To use the skeet example... imagine going skeet shooting. Now, add me (I weigh ~200 lbs) holding your shoulders, and moving you back and forth. Gets quite a bit tougher.
I weigh 240lbs. :up:
Sailor Steve
06-02-06, 10:52 AM
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/CoastalCommand.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/Lib2.jpg
Sorry the top image is so big. I resized it several times, and it just wouldn't take.
Engel der Vernichtung
06-02-06, 11:30 AM
I weigh 240lbs. :up:
Yes, but rocking you back and forth is still going to make that shot (which would have been not so hard) quite a bit tougher.
Well, just got my brand spanking new VIIC/41 with /4 conning tower and 3 * M42 twins. (I want to have their babies! They ROCK)
Having fun with the new ordnance, puffs of flak smoke obscuring the sun. Whole squadrons of Sundies trying to breathe the Atlantic...
If only they wouldn't try to use me as an emergency landing strip...
< 12 hours out of Brest, return to port. All bow torps destroyed, I can't dive deeper than my bath tub, and need to requisition more body bags.
You'd think your highly trained gunners wouldn't finish off the plane when it's on its terminal dive directly at you :damn:
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