[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by FeatsOfStrength

I only engage aircraft if they are Swordfish, anything other than a swordfish I crash dive and hope the bombs don't hit me.

One time on a Type IIA patrol in 1939 I decided to go through the gap between Scapa Flow and the Shetlands, I was attacked by 12 swordfish and managed to shoot down everyone of them before running out of ammo, didn't take a single hit from them. Makes me wonder how the Bismark had such a tough go of it.

The only times I get messed up by planes are when the lookouts fail to spot them (usually in time compression)

My case entirely. The Swordfish, en masse, against the Bismark was the better platform. Its sistership, Tirpitz, spent most of its career hiding in Norwegian fjord awaiting its doom from an even better platform: a Lancaster bomber with a tallboy bomb! I always managed to shoot down Sunderlands and Swordfishes in SHII, but could do nothing against any of the other bombers. In SH V the situation is untenable; I've only ever shot down one aircraft with considerable damage to myself in the process effectively ending the mission. What is important to remember is that in real life, WWII damage to a Uboat was often as good as an outright kill, often necessitating an immediate return to port bunkers and the overcrowded repair facilities. Thus, against airpower, Doenitz's concept of a tonnage war to win a global strategic conflict was fatally flawed from the getgo. It hadn't worked in WWI and it didn't again in WWII. Twixt the Canadian, Royal Navy, and 'Merican anti-Uboat navies, the Atlantic ain't called "an English speakin' lake" fer nuthin'! An Allied enigma inside a Nazi conundrum if ever!"