I'd dive. I typically cruise at at least periscope depth and use a lot of TC to travel quickly.

Submarines are designed to be stealthy and aren't terribly suited for fighting aircraft on the surface. I'm sure there are many exceptions.

As has been said before, DIVE!

Historically, the planes won. A Lot. Really a lot.

The guns were first installed due to ingnorance, and later, when the 3 extra guns were added, due to wishful thinking.

I've read various, inc. Herverb Werner's Iron Coffins. Planes win 99% of the time. They could be taken down, but rare and risky. Just dive deep and forget about it. A sub is NOT an AA platform. It's a stealthy torpedo platform.

Originally I was just trying to make a joke; but you're right-I had forgotten all about the Sheffield incident. Of course the Americans had that problem too, at Midway.

By the way, what if you are using the schorkel? Will you get jumped by AC's without warning or do you have to travel with the Observation periscope raised?

If not, using the schorkel seems way more dangerous than traveling on the surface where you at least have a change of spotting them..

I discovered during the turorial test for AA that if I man the flak gun, I can't hit anything. ANYTHING! But, if I leave the shooting to my experienced, top shelf, highly trained ( :yep: ) pumped up flak crew, I can clear the sky. Of course, I've never been able to get credit for even taking the test (not sure what that's about), but it's fun to watch them.

So, next time I'm attacked from the air (and I'm still operating at the beginning of the war), I'm going to let my crew of expert fools bring down the crazy attackers. They don't know who they're messing with... :rock:

Everybody knows that a captain who can't man the flak himself (and not simply delegate the duty to someone actually qualified), is a good-for-nothing landlubber :roll:

I've had the same experience, actually. Of course, when it comes to the deck-gun I'm a marksman, whereas my supposedly trained crew couldn't hit a C3 if we rammed it.

You're exactly right Kissaki. On the deck gun, I'm the king. And it's fun. But the flak gun? I'm just inviting death - to me. A landlubber first class. So, I'll continue to delegate those 'chores' that I'm a flop at. And push my way in to those that are in my MOS.

Same thing goes with torpedo targeting. I let the WO take care of that complex stuff, and leave the final button pushing to me. Wuss? Absolutely. I'm in this for the fun (and the death and destruction). :up:

I've engaged aircraft two or three times early on when I first started playing to get it out of my system. Now when my WO spots some aircraft I dive. They dont pay me to shoot down aircraft. They pay me to attack helpless merchant vessels who if I'm doing it right never knew what hit them. :)