By God I hate airplanes!!!
 

Its May 1943 and I know its gonna get harder but the activity from the air is phenomenal! I was only about 50km from St Nazaire when I got my first shock. Picking up loads of radar emissions everywhere from the surface ships so when the watch crew spotted aircraft I figured they were our own. To be safe I put the flak crew on the guns and next minute they started opening up. 2 British bombers came streaking in on the starboard beam. Gunners got them both but not before they had dropped their bombs and made a mess of my boat!

I repaired the damage and kept going towards my patrol grid off Iceland. Ran into a convoy west of Ireland and started mauling it. It was only going 6 knots. Loads of big ships and courtesy of my FaTs I sank a Whale Factory, a heavy transport and a large cargo all from my first attack. The escorts were pretty bad and even with manual targeting I had plenty of time to set up solutions. I went deep reloaded and then planned my flanking procedure.

I never got to flank them. I ran out wide surfaced and put on flank speed. 10 mins later radar detected coming in fast. Dive. Resurface, dash, dive and so on. I got caught late at one point and turns out they were Mosquitos, 4 of them. 500km off the Irish coast and they stuck about for hours!!:down:

Even with a 10 knot advantage in speed I couldn't catch the convoy cos I couldn't stay on the surface long enough to take advantage ot it.

Really makes you wonder how the U-Boat crews felt towards the Luftwaffe who weren't even a presence to keep Biscay safe when geographically it was so much closer to their occupied territory

Never assume aircraft are friendly, specially around the Biscay area... Dive first, question later...:D

Get used to it. From now on you will receive regular visits from the RAF and Fleet Air Arm and even night won't ease your passage. From 43 onwards Allied air superiority is going to make your life hell.:arrgh!:

Gute jagd!

I read somewhere around here that your flak gunners will shoot at german panes too. So that wouldn't have been a hint towards allied aircraft. ;)

We can be glad our radar detectors in this game are 100% reliable. In real life it wasn`t that easy as the allied radar changed wave lengths during the war. As it is now we get enough time to dive.

Even that is a false security. The ones that nearly got me in the end didn't have radar. They were Martlets I think, def single engine, so there must have been a carrier nearby. Didn't have time to dive, all I could do was swing over the rudder and hit flank. Two very near misses. That attack prompted me to cut my losses and head for home

In one patrol in my U-670, I got back to base with ~40% hull integrity due to 3 (!) successful air attacks on my boat. This was in 1944. I didn't get very far out of Biscay before turning back because my men did not spot any planes even with both periscopes up along with the snorkel. I aborted mission due to heavy damages. The area outside Biscay is hell in comparison to Biscay itself, for some reason. Quite odd, I only found one plane in Biscay, but I found about 20 just outside.

Good job on getting the 2 bombers at least. If you didnt shoot them down yourself did you specialize some of the crew in gunnery?

On one of my dead kaleun's patrols I shot down 3 swordfish and that was hard enough! and 2 of my men were KIA and the boat was seriously jacked up! Congrats on the 2 Sunderlands.

I haven't got there yet, but what to do about increased air activity and radar?

Snorkel?

Hunt in the Atlantic air gap?

Hunt in Southern waters?

Thanks.

Wouldnt trust the atlantic airgap after 4* :hmm:

Snorkel is ok but has a radar signiture so isnt 100% safe to use
Getting out of Biscay is a nightmare
As it should be

I retire down to the Indian ocean
No picnic but the aircover is reasonable and the scenery nice
Dont think much of our hosts mind :rotfl: