[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Huno41

I'm a noob and almost into 1941 but at what date should I start being careful with aircraft?

THe trick here is not to see it as a Uboat problem but as a development of modern warfare overall. Your U-boat Kaleun's periscope view is causing tunnel-vision issues of the immensity of the problem. In battle, a platform is a platform is a platform... and a B-24 Liberator with 10 centimeter radar and four depth charges set shallow or even an outdated Swordfish torpedo plane(crippled Bismark) is a better platform. Throw in escort carrier killer groups and its game over for an essentially submersible PT-boat posing as a submarine REQUIRED READING:https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Por...es/ridolfi.pdf

Meanwhile in the Atlantic, German Luftwaffe crews sank 179 Allied ships during a three month period in early 1941.4 Italian air attacks sank 63 Royal Navy ships in the Mediterranean. Landbased airpower also accounted for 132 of the 140 U-boats destroyed by air attack in the last year of the war—over 94%.5

Even the four U-Flak boats designed to combat air attack failed miserably; only served a semester June- November, and were reconverted back to normal VII boats by December of '43. Best advice: always be at decks awash always for quick crash dives and do not even mess with aircraft of any sort on the surface...Good hunting!