Originally Posted by CCIP
Aircraft were incredibly ineffective during the early war, so this is accurate. In fact, in the entire first two and a half years of war, only 4 U-boats were sunk by aircraft alone (plus another 4 jointly by aircraft + warships) - none in 1939, 1 in 1940, 2 in 1941 and 1 in the first two months of 1942. To put that in context - there were roughly 1000 war patrols made by U-boats in that time period. It was only by the second half of 1942 that aircraft became effective, and by the end of that year the tally stood at 37 U-boats sunk by aircraft alone. Then came 1943, when 30 boats were sunk by aircraft in the single month of July (!)
Airplanes were not an effective weapon at the start of the war for a variety of reasons - tactics, technology, and the all-important numbers factor simply hadn't caught up yet. It took time to build these things up. The same could be said of surface escorts. Although the British developed technology, experience and know-how by the end of 1941, they first needed to produce enough units (of airplanes, ships, weapons), and secondly they needed an opportunity. For the first half of 1942, the U-boats effectively disappeared from the Western Approaches and the convoy lanes to go hunting in the Wild West (i.e. the coasts of North America and Caribbean) where they faced an unprepared, inexperienced and disorganized enemy. When the U-boats returned to hunt convoys again in the 2nd half of 1942, the British suddenly effectiveness went up. They did not yet have enough airplanes or ships to go after U-boats offensively, but if the U-boats came to them to attack convoys, they had the resources and experience to hit them - including with aircraft. When finally they had enough resources to go for U-boats offensively - as they did in the Bay of Biscay from 1943 - the results were disastrous for U-boats.
Early in the war, the numbers of effective ASW aircraft were very limited. Although in SH3 you might often find yourself attacked by Hurricanes and the like early in the war, this was not common - that was Coastal Command's job, not Fighter Command's, and especially once mid-1940 came around the RAF desperately needed every fighter they could get to defend in the Battle of Britain, and every bomber to hit back at the German home front. Even in 1943, Bomber Command fought tooth and nail not to give up their precious airframes to Coastal. In short, there was a chronic shortage of ASW airplanes. Even the immensely successful "Derange" patrols in Biscay during March-May 1943 were run with a fraction of the aircraft that were actually requested by Coastal's operational plans. Contrary to popular belief, there were never swarms of airplanes out looking for U-boats, and their numbers were always desperately short - and even in 1942 and early 1943, it was still perfectly plausible and even likely that a U-boat would see no aircraft at all during an entire patrol. Coastal Command simply never had enough aircraft - it was not until American squadrons arrived and were fully trained, equipped and ready that the air coverage was actually complete. And even then it was no shooting gallery - even with effective centimetric radar, good weapons, and competent crew on board, the average result for Coastal Command was that it took about 1200 flight hours of patrolling by aircraft over Biscay to sink a single u-boat. The majority of Coastal air crews on ASW duty in fact never even saw a boat during the entire war. Those who did rarely had more than one successful attack. More attacks ended in the loss of aircraft than of the u-boat, and many more planes yet fell tto German air cover and accidents. Tough job and all the more impressive what they were able to accomplish!
Long story short: lack of aircraft and their total inability to hit you early in the war is completely realistic. You have to be either very unlucky or very foolish to be sunk by an airplane before late 1942.
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