Having difficulties with Flak crews

[mike_espo]

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

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

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

Any advice on how to get crew to fire??

[deadactionman]

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?

[mike_espo]

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

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

[Floater]

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.

[Threadfin]

Originally Posted by mike_espo

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

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.

[Seminole]

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

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.

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.

[VipertheSniper]

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

[Scorpius]

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

[bigboywooly]

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 bit late then when half the deck crew are dead lol

[Heibges]

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.

[bigboywooly]

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

[mike_espo]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

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

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

Thanks!

[rls669]

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.

[Heibges]

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

[Zyco]

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.