Having difficulties with Flak crews
 

Usually, I crash dive when aircraft are spotted. On the rare occasions I decide to fight it out, I handle the guns myself. Since using RuB 1.45, Aircraft are to be respected :dead:

I just was curious and allowed the crew to engage, I used the Watch officer toolbar, assigned gunners to target medium range..flak gunners did nothing :huh:

Tried to target only bombers....still nothing. :damn: Tried Fire at will....nothing :damn: :damn:

Any advice on how to get crew to fire??

Don't know if this is typical, but I always find that I have to fire at least one shot manually before the flak crew will even take aim?

Hmm :hmm: I just tried that. Let loose at a Avenger, I never seem to do any damage, they always kill me :dead:

Still, no response from gunners. I assign two bootsman, not flak qualified though :damn:

FWIW, I had the same problem yesterday. A qualified and experienced gunner, too ... he just stood there pointing the gun at the stern of the boat, despite all attempts to change flak orders to motivate him to *do* something.

Luckily, it was only a couple of Hurricanes, and I managed to crash-dive and avoid damage.

Re: Having difficulties with Flak crews
 

You probbly did but did you also give them orders to open fire?

Nevermind, you said you gave orders to fire at will. I notice a problem in low light conditions sometimes, but usually they'll open fire as long as the conning tower doesn't block the shot.

I let my gun crew use up almost all their ammo on planes each patrol. :yep:

Yet even using flak rated gunners and a flak rated WO I have never seen them shoot down a plane. On the other hand I have never been fatally hurt by an air attack. :nope:

I never had a problem having the crews targeting and firing....in fact I have to keep a close watch so they don't blast away at long range at any plane. http://www.southeastflyfishingforum....es/whistle.gif

I guess that's because with RuB all ranges for flak, long, middle and short are set to 300m. Not much time to aim and engage there...

I don't know atm where I've seen this but I think it was crewAI.cfg or something

Ooooh now that mod i really didnt like. Got so much realism its impossible for a normal person to play.

flak
 

I always make sure i change setting to shoot incoming aircraft thru watch officer as default seems to be after they have bombed you then they start to shoot :damn: bit late then when half the deck crew are dead lol

There is delay time built in before you start firing. I believe with RuB 1.45 and its realistic rangees for the AA guns, that it allows planes to sometimes fly in and out of range before the gunners open up.

I think the default value is 5 seconds, but I'm not at home so I can't tell.

flak
 

the other method I use is to push my scroll wheel forward to get binoculars up then click screen and find aircraft

When they are in range a green triangle with a flak gun appears beneath them - I press spacebar and crew open up

Works best on multiple aircraft so you choose which one to shoot at - no point chasing one moving away when you have one diving in

Re: flak
 

AAAHHH! :know: So thats what you do.... :up: I thought that only worked for the deck gun. :oops:

Thanks! :up:

The sleeping flak gunner bug is well known. Cycle back and forth between bridge and flak stations and they'll wake up. F-F4-T-F4-G-F4 (modify as necessary if you don't have 3 flak guns). This has always worked for me; sometimes they don't wake up even you man the gun yourself for a bit, or try to designate targets with the binoculars.

As far as tactics, I tell the gunners to engage only incoming aircraft if there's more than one. The ones moving away aren't immediate threats so I leave them alone. If the planes are ones I can hit myself (ie, not a Hurricane) I'll take one gun myself so I can turn and finish off any damaged planes between attacks. This whittles their numbers down quick.

This is the RuB 1.45 SH3/data/cfg/sim for AI AA Gunners.

[AI AA guns]
Max error angle=8 ;[deg]
Max fire range=1000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=7 ;[s]

Edit Max fire wait to 1

Aircraft totally own me, it's the one area of the game I really need to work at. Nice tips here on how to get the flak gunners active, gonna try it next time I see planes.