[CCIP]

I think it's also important to remember the difference between individual crews and situations, and progress as a whole. It took hundreds of hours of patrolling by air to make a single sighting. Although trained and experienced, the vast majority of Coastal Command air crews had, in fact, never encountered a U-boat during the war. Those who did were far from guaranteed success - only a small number of attacks netted a hit, and the attack took an immense risk. There were no Coastal Command aces - so rare were their encounters. In actual duels between the aircraft and U-boat, the odds were slightly in favour of the U-boat. Even during the infamous Black May of 1943, a single U-boat sinking took more than 1250 flight hours of patrols by air. The probability of an airplane even making contact with a U-boat during a single (often grueling and lengthy) patrol was no more than 2%.

All that sounds bad for airplanes hopeful for the U-boats on an individual scale, but when you start looking at the strategy, the picture changes drastically. Put enough airplanes in the air, and they will find the U-boats. Run enough risks, and there will be kills. sharkbit's point about Slessor's view is right - losing a plane-U-boat duel means losing 6-12 crew and a machine that can be replaced in a matter of a few weeks or even days (or in the extreme case - even hours, as illustrated by the record assembly of a complete Wellington at Broughton in 1943 in less than 24 hours). Losing a U-boat is losing 45-55 crew, a number of them substantially more specialized and much harder to replace, and a machine that takes at minimum months to build and costs dozens of times more than the best bomber. Worse for Germany, it also requires hundreds of tons of high-grade steel which is already in short supply. The loss of a U-boat is many more times costly to Germany than the cost of 1250 hours of flying and several downed allied planes put together. The U-boats had nothing to offer to counter the threat - and it took mere days for Coastal Command airmen to see through the new group tactics and flak defenses in battle, to which they adapted right away by shadowing, calling for help, and attacking in groups.

The air crews up against the U-boats were good - really good - and you can't judge them by individual encounters or scores, because it was not a duel. It was a system of patrols that was, in a sense, designed to "fail" - it was known and calculated in advance (with impressive exactness) that most patrolling airplanes would never encounter a U-boat, most attacks would miss, and airplanes were at least as likely to be shot down as they were to score a hit. And with all that in mind, it was a system where even by pure attrition, the U-boats were doomed. And when technological advantages were thrown into the mix, well, they were really really doomed!

And with all that said of course, it's also important to remember that the U-boats had already lost the Battle of the Atlantic BEFORE the effective air efforts actually kicked in. But the air power was one heck of a finishing move, and can rightly be considered the most dangerous. I think the only real reason for disdaining a realistic approach to it that I see emerging in this thread is its randomness. It's like artillery in trench warfare of WWI - deadlier, more technologically-sophisticated and more significant than any other type of combat, but it doesn't make for tall tales most of the time. More often than not, it's just a bolt from the blue that kills you indiscriminately and without warning, and you have no control over it or fault for it whatsoever. It's a bitter truth - but from a gameplay or storytelling perspective, most people find it either bland or infuriating. It breaks the dramatic, heroic, tragic narratives that people love playing out in their heads in games like SH3. A random death breaks that kind of story completely and makes players feel bitter. But I actually think that when you stop focusing on your own story and look at what it means in a bigger context, what it means for the war and for history, that story becomes fascinating again. And when you play DiD and introduce some house rules - like that dice roll sharkbit mentioned - you really start appreciating it!