Most of the time I do not crash dive fast enough and kaboom im dead. I was under the impression that you could crash dive as soon as the plane is spotted and get away alive...thats the drill I thought...but everytime I crash dive, it takes my sub forever to get under and I'm toast. I could run submerged all day...though it would be annoying perhaps it would be more realistic, but does everyone else have the same mortality rate when attempting crash dive after sighting a plane? (i.e. do you always get blown up cause you cant get under?)

p.s. btw, anyone else notice the planes justing plummeting into the ocean for no reason at all and bursting into flames after dropping the ordinance?? kind of...well silly.

"Oh and finally... Lancasters? With stars on? The USA only wished they could have Lancs in 1941!"

WTH would we want those when we had the B-17 and the B-25,-24, and-26?:hmm:

Something that always helps is to change course when you crash dive. Always try to present the smallest profile you can. I usually stay up top and fight, but I'm always turning the sturn toward the enemy aircraft. Throws their aim off pretty good:up:

A huge problem with the japanese planes is that they are grossly overloaded with bombs. Not a little, at lest 3X, and in some cases 10X the bomb weight they could actually carry. Easier to shack you when a bomber drops 5 500kg bombs when in RL it could only carry 1 (the betty, which in RL can only carry 800kg of bombs).

tater

Fact is aircraft are grossly over-represented.

Having read Wahoo and Clear the Bridge by Dick O'Kane, it was amazing to me how few aircraft they encountered UNLESS they were near a known airbase.

Initial doctrine was to remain submerged during daylight. People such as Morton in Wahoo and O'Kane in Tang to a great extent made this more flexible, based on location, weather, need for stealth and/or need to be going somewhere quickly.

With SD radar working, the likelihood of being jumped by planes was small.

Incidentally, regarding radar doctrine, O'Kane makes several points about how they used it on Tang, including avoiding training it near known radar sites. He also didn't run SD at night at all, and often secured SJ during the day.

For all of this, I believe aircraft are grossly exaggerated in SH4.

One other thing: I assume those people being hit are NOT carrying SD? Otherwise, why wait until you SEE a plane? Get a contact, dive. You don't need to crash dive. SD detects planes out to around 20nm (well, that's advanced SD available in '41 anyway) so I don't understand why people are getting killed. As for planes ALWAYS spotting you, it's not the case: I have watched planes go by while on surface and they've not seen me. Their detection range seems to be around 4nm. If you see they will get within this distaqnce, dive. I find them annoying, but not deadly. I'm yet to use the AA guns....

p.s. Eagle, one reason to want a Lancaster was its bomb load - far superior to comparable US Bombers. For example, a single Lancaster carried almost 3 times the load of a B-17 when the two flew to Berlin from England.

I'm getting harassed by planes and I'm using SD in '41, it doesn't work at all, no warnings or anything.

No problems at all with a/c since the last couple of patches and some great mods. When entering an area with a known base, I draw a circle radius out from the base about 550 to 600 miles. When I enter that zone, I only run on the surface at night.

With 1.3 and TM 1.4 (and awesome combo, btw) I really can run comfortably on the surface during daylight because my radar gives me plenty of warning. I dive or crashdive to around 100 ft and run submerged until dusk (or at least a half hour).

A/c have really become a non-issue for me.

AC with 1.3 nd TM 1.4 are a nuisance - nothing more. I never have to crash dive - normally I just watch their approach and see if they are going to miss me or not - if they are angled off - I can stay surfaced. If they head toward me, just hit the p key, pull the plug and wait till they pass - then wait about 5 minutes for them to pass on the return leg, let em get outa sight and surface again. I often go to flank while submerged because the short run gets charged quick again when I surface. Have yet to ever shoot down a plane - although I have misjudged a couple approaching and had to dive as they attacked. On those - I have seen a couple of planes drop their ordinance and then die - one with no discernable reason - the other actually bottomed out his dive and smacked the water - bounced into the air and then stalled before diving into the sea. Too bad I didn't get credit for him....

This is almost how my file is modded too, see below:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum Aircraft Range=1200 ;[>0] in kilometers
Poor Airbase Modifier=0.2 ;[>0] Modifier for poor airbase (carrier) rating
Novice Airbase Modifier=0.3 ;[>0] Modifier for novice airbase (carrier) rating
Competent Airbase Modifier=0.45 ;[>0] Modifier for competent airbase (carrier) rating
Veteran Airbase Modifier=0.75 ;[>0] Modifier for veteran airbase (carrier) rating
Elite Airbase Modifier=1 ;[>0] Modifier for elite airbase (carrier) rating
Night Modifier=0.4 ;[>0] Modifier on strike probability at night
Default Air Strike Probability=10 ;[>0] Default probability to send an airstrike from a airbase (carrier)
Enemy Air Strike Probability Increase on Radio Messages Sent=30 ;[>0] Increase over the default probability on a radio message sent
Friendly Air Strike Probability Increase on Contact Report Sent=75 ;[>0] Increase over the default probability on a contact message sent
Enemy Air Strike Probability Increase on Player Detection=50 ;[>0] Increase over the default probability on player detection
Atenuation Factor=10 ;[>0] decrease from an increased probability to default one on each air session
Logic Steps Between Air Sessions=10 ;[>0] steps between air fighting sessions, 10*Logic Interval(90sec)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hanging around Rabaul in my June 1943 patrol called "Sink the Yamato" I only encountered enough aircraft to make it believeable. Most of the planes came in
after detection by an escort during or after an attack. I got search planes about
2-3 times a day and nothing at night....

JIM

Ok, hold on
 

First of all, that radar station they modelled in the conning tower; that's your surface radar. The air radar is not a station at all.

Secondly, the surface radar doesn't become available until mid/end 1942. Until that time, the station can be manned but everything regarding radar is inoperative.

Does the level of time compression you are travelling at effect the distance you would detect planes? If so, then lowering TC would certainly help as it did in SH3.

It becomes painfully obvious playing the game that the air traffic is dice-rolled and generated while the shipping traffic is actually tracked around the map.

All aircraft generated are flung on a path near enough to your sub that they will spot you unless you make yourself quite hidden. There's no "Hey there's a plane that doesn't spot me." unless the weather's bad? The game decides a plane is attacking you and then it happens.

The aircraft are simply armed to the teeth with 3x more bombs than they should have yet despite this almost always miss and their near misses do exactly 0 damage to you. A 250 lb bomb going off less than a sub length away should at least occationally injure your deck crew and crack a few pipes, yes?

The air attacks are of couse extremely easy to avoid since 99% of people have SD radar. I get a radar contact, exactly 3:30 later I'm being dove at by a zero laden with 100 bombs. After 5 minutes or so he turns around and flys near me heading back where he came from. Hmmm, how coincidental that he happened to choose just that time to turn back (assuming I avoided detection on the first pass, which is possible). I've come down to the point I can wait 2:30 and hit crash dive and watch the homing pigeon through my obs peri as he loses the scent. Twenty to thirty minutes after the radar contact I know I'm good to surface, recharge from 99% to 100% and continue on at cruise speed unharmed.

Air assets have never spotted me while at PD, which should happen occationally when they get really close. The pacific isn't a milk bowl after all.

Overall I would like the following changes to the air attacks:

Strafing attacks by the smaller aircraft.
Reduced ordinance to reality.
Reduced aircraft density to reality.
Blind spots in the SD radar.
Occational aircraft missing me with their eyes.
Increased sorties patrolling over locations I was spotted and expected to go.
Less sorties over backwater, out of the way, locations that threats would not likely be.
Attacks out of the sun.
Multiple aircraft attacks when your position is well known.
Some non-engagement aircraft that you think missed you but instead radio'd your position back home.
Actual plotted routes with airplanes not generated but tracked in their paths like the ships.

Some of those suggestions are already there, and others can be modded.

The air bases can easily be modded and added to. The size of the airgroups, types of planes, etc.

The range of the planes can be tweaked. I think all the ranges should be shortened heavily except the dedicated patrol aircraft (and the G4M).

That would be nice. My thought was to mod in a new bomb that was invisible and did no damage---once planes bomb, they will strafe.

The first is pretty straightforward, I have a better bomb load mod out someplace that drops ordnance loads to what they should be, need to search.

No idea if this can be fixed.

Maybe duc can fill us in on this, but I thought the strike % number was the chance they would attack, not the chance you'd see planes. Alternately, it might be that the % is the chances of seeing planes, and the attack has everything to do with the visual AI rules (making you easy to spot), plus perhaps the bomb load. I have a feeling it randomly picks from the available loads, and one of the loads is empty for all planes. You could make more empty loadouts, dropping the % of those that appear that will attack.

The former happens (repeat air attacks, and the latter is a function of the position and number of air bases—easy enough to change.

Doesn't happen, hard to do I bet.

Both happen.

Not in stock, but totally possible to do.

tater

My 5 cents of info...

In the Appendix of a patrol report it is mentioned what contacts the submarine had made. Engagements I think are very rare if at all. It was more like: Contact on SD, Clear the bridge, Dive, Dive...

Example: USS Cod
First patrol: [Oct 22 1943 - Dec 16 1943] 10 ships 14 aircraft
Second patrol: [Jan 11 1944 - Mar 13 1944] 16 ships 13 aircraft
Third patrol: [Apr 6 1944 - Jun 1 1944] 24 ships 19 air
Fourth patrol: [Jul 3 1944 - August 25 1944] 55 ships 54 aircraft
Fifth patrol: [Sep 18 1944 - Nov 20 1944] 54 ships 117 aircraft
Sixth patrol: [Mar 24 1945 - May 29 1945] 4 ships >170 aircraft
Seventh patrol: [June 26 1945 - August 13 1945]:33 ships Aircraft not mentioned as number but reported as 'few in number'

So plenty of airplanes depending on the area.

groetjes,