British AA fire is too accurate!
 

I sent a contact report for a convoy of British merchant ships in the English channel. A few waves of JU-188's came and bombed them, but the British merchant ships shot every one of them down in minutes.

This is way inaccurate, so i was wondering is there is a way to fix the British AA accuracy to be more realistic?

Thanks,

Keith.

I noticed that also.

Our planes will attack them ,
their planes won't attack us.
Their AA is spot on everytime,
ours might as well be shooting in the opposite direction.

Ahhh.....balance.....?

It will take alot of work.:nope:

It's the WHOLE friggin' enemy artillery that's FAR too accurate! I've never seen them shoot down a friendly aircraft (because I've never even SEEN a friendly aircraft!), but, to a surfaced U-Boat, those merchies are dead-eye marksmen! They're more dangerous than the escorts!

Well,

I guess that would be in line with the historical reticence of U-boat commanders to conduct surface attacks against armed merchant ships.

Pablo

I think many of the issues in the game are tied up with the campaign.

I was playing the Pedestal single mission over the weekend (med, summer 42). Allied planes were attacking my sub every time they spotted me. I was even detected and attacked while submerged at periscope depth (I presume they spotted my scope?).

The Pedestal mission also features a friendly italian task force. I just happened to be close by when it was attacked by allied carrier aircraft, quite a few were shot down by AA fire.

When my sub was spotted and attacked at periscope depth, a task force I had been stalking and that was heading straight for me suddenly changed course and started moving away from my position.

In the PQ-17 mission I had played before, the escorts (veteran AI, aggressive doctrine) often detected my sub, even when I was running slow and deep.

so the single missions seem to work pretty well. Logically, there is no reason why the campaign should not work as well. Hopefully the campaign issues will be fixed in a patch.

Hello,

@Pablo regarding shooting merchants:

" ... I guess that would be in line with the historical reticence of U-boat commanders to conduct surface attacks against armed merchant ships. ..."

While it is correct that the U-boats usually did not attack armed merchants, there are only two U-boats reported to be ever hit at all, by the fire of merchant's guns.

During the early war when the prize regulation was still conducted by Germany, all ships were stopped and searched, their papers controlled etc., and this was continued well into 1940. Neutral ships were allowed to continue, if they were not loaded with ammunition or arms, and on the course to England. Enemy merchants mostly sailing under wrong flags were stopped, their crew allowed to leave the ship, and then the merchant being sunk, mostly by deck gun fire, while a torpedo would only be used if there was imminent danger, by planes or closing enemy warships.

However the arming of merchants made the following of the prize regulation impossible, the prize regulation did not allow or foresee merchants to be armed, so this meant a violation against the treaties almost all nations had signed. Another anti prize regulation measure was the sailing in protected convoys, what had certainly been done centuries before, and made a surfaced attack in daylight impossible.

What followed was the "unrestricted" U-boat war, which b.t.w. had been conducted by England from day one after its "Total Germany" declaration of war - which obvioulsy meant a "total war".

So hostile fire seldomly did any damage due to poor training, but also U-boats would not take the risk anymore, to attack armed merchants surfaced later in the war. Training of merchant's gun crews seems to have been mediocre at best, but in one case a merchant did indeed sink a boat - i think it was somewhere in the channel (?)

Greetings,
Catfish

I kept back at a safe distance watching as the German aircraft headed towards the British ships. It was a battle i was looking forward to watching after weeks of doing the same old thing and not seeing any battles at all.

Watching every single German bomber get shot down really was an immersion killer. Something like ten JU-188's shot down in a few minutes by merchant ships...it just wouldnt happen.

Is there nothing that can be modded/changed in a cfg file somewhere to reduce the British AA accuracy?
What about this section in the simCFG file:
[AI AA guns]
Max error angle=5 ;[deg]
Max fire range=1500 ;[m]
Max fire wait=7 ;[s]


Keith.

"Catfish" is right! In reality, some US Merchant Marine vessels carried US Navy gun crews, but, overall, the record of hits on U-Boats was negligible. Anti-aircraft capabilities? Non-existent outside of use of hand-held weapons or .50 caliber Browning MG's mounted as accessories to a main 3 or 4-incher.

"Bilge Rat" has a point. I've grown bored with the Campaign and generally play online with others. All of us have wondered why the AI is so much better when NOT playing Campaign - especially when playing maps that were uploaded by talented folks who DON'T happen to work for Ubi! Further, I've played the, "canned" mission referred to and was astounded by the difference in game play! It's actually CHALLENGING - the escorts and aircraft DO present a threat!

We've all heard a number of times that Campaign AI improves over time as hostiles become more experienced. Although HISTORICALLY this was true, I don't see an improvement - and I pretty much lost interest in December '41! SO, two years into the War and ... developmentally disabled escorts still rule and merchant gunners are FAR more dangerous!

The water in the med is very clear so it is possible for an aircraft to spot a sub at PD, even down to around 100ft I have read somewhere.

I dearly want better AI and enemy aircraft in the campaign. I'm getting tired of planes just flying by (even directly over me) and not doing a thing (I've also never encountered ships that they are supposed to radio my position to). I snuck into a harbor, popped 2 ships with torps (after completely reloading all forward tubes once) and not once did I get engaged by the dozen or so surface ships I could see through the scope...it didn't even seem like they changed their patrol patterns to look for the sub that had to be there.

I don't mean to hijack, but does anyone know of a mod out yet that drastically fixes the AI both surface and air?

-Captain Wolfe

LOL

Exactly what I was thinking. Who needs escorts when the merchants can shoot so well.

I don't remember SH3 too well. Tried SH4, but it was so troublesome, I finally gave up. THEN, I got and installed the U-Boat add-on, but that proved JUST as frustrating (such things as the Type XXI's ("XVIII?") depth control issues which had it bounding between 5m and 27m whenever one surfaced drove me BONKERS! Further, the SH4 U-Boat add-on introduced the now famous, "planes that never attack" mod in the form of two Brewster Buffalos in echelon formation that appeared everywhere...all the time)

ANYWAY...what were we talking about?

Yes set max error angle to 6 or 7, guns can be changed there also.
And i agree theyre both to accurate.

cheers
Noline

Yeah, I know. :haha: Why not we able to take out the guy manning the cannon or anti aircraft guns? WHY CAN'T HE JUST DIE? :damn: :damn: I fired umpteen cannon shells at the bow cannon and the guy manning it should have been killed. You should be able to kill the guy manning the guns if you hit them. He does not die and you don't see men on the ships running to man the machine guns if you shoot the crewman shooting the gun. You should make the ship defenseless if you shoot at the AA guns or deck cannons on the merchant ship. You'd make it defenseless against you. You'd be able to take out the crewman manning the gun, thus making it easier to sink that ship. You see what I mean?