Aircraft evasion

[razark]

Originally Posted by Longknife

As soon as an aircraft is spotted I immediately go to GQ, throw the rudder hard over & crash dive.

The best solution is not to be spotted. Stay under during the day, come up to play at night.
However, if you do get caught on the surface:

Turning slows you down, so you stay closer to the spot where he sighted you, even if you get underwater. I don't know if that would also affect the time it takes to dive, but it might. (It's worth experimenting to find out for sure.*)


Crash dive, and keep the rudder straight, or only a few degrees of turn. Once you're under, then you can worry about turning further out of the way. (This is what I usually do in TMO, if someone manages to make it to visual range. I don't use RSRD, so I don't know if that changes the accuracy of their drops.)

Or

Flank speed, stay on the surface, and turn towards the plane. Man the AA guns. Hopefully, he won't be able to make an accurate drop on you, and once he's made his attack, crash dive and get out of the way.


*Edit:
In TMO without RSRD
Porpoise Class, Navigation Training mission.
Running Standard speed on surface, crash dive, no turn time to get underwater: 55 seconds.
Running Standard speed on surface, crash dive, hard turn time to get underwater: 56 seconds.
It doesn't appear to make a difference.

[fireftr18]

With TMO, the planes can see you as deep as 150 feet. When you dive, you need to get deeper. I run TMO and RSRDC and don't seem to have any trouble evading enemy aircraft. The instant the aircraft is spotted, I crash dive. Then I go to GC. I keep going flank for a few minutes. I don't turn until I reach depth.

[Sniper297]

One of the main reasons I don't use supermods is because the enemy already has superpowers along with help from the psychic friends network, and most supermods I tried just make it worse.

Original programmers used the "fact" that American fleet boats, being larger and heavier than a U boat, took over a minute to submerge. Finding a "fact" in the internet era all too often consists of doing "research" with google, finding some self appointed "expert" with a flawed opinion expressed as fact, and taking that for gospel with no further investigation.

True, the fleet boats originally took over a minute to crash dive, but with practice most crews got that down to 30-35 seconds in real life.

So I hacked mine with Silent 3ditor, the NSS_Sargo.sim for example;

11 UnitSubmarine
Ballast
ManBT_flood_speed = 68000
DiveBT_flood_speed = 58000

Did a little trial and error coming up with those numbers, but I can get the periscope shears under in a bit less than 30 seconds, under 100 feet in less than a minute. To me that seems more realistic, most of the WWII fleet sub non fiction I've read they patrolled on the surface in the daytime as much as possible. Das Boot after 1943 was completely different, in most cases they DID spend the entire day submerged, in fact with allied airborne radar development the U-boats had a hard time even getting out into the Atlantic from the sub pens. I've read accounts of that in 1944 where they tried to cross the Bay of Biscay, got damaged by an air attack, and had to put back in for repairs 3 or 4 times before they finally made it all the way out into the Atlantic.

The Pacific is a much bigger ocean, Japanese radar was never that good, their airborne ASW was never that good and with fuel and airplane shortages got worse instead of better as the war went on. The "realism" of the constant harassment by aircraft in SH4 is on the wrong side and in the wrong theater.

[merc4ulfate]

Why are you turning your only decreasing your dive time and speed?

Crash dive and keep your rudder at 0 until your at 100 feet then turn.

Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157
1_TriggerMaru_Overhaul_2-5
1_TMO_25_small_patch
RSRDC_TMO_V502
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
Improved Ship Physics 2.6_TMO_RSRDC
TMO_Visuals_for_RSRDC
FJB_Navigation_Maps
FJB Color Navigation Map
Gyoraitei
Hull_Numbers
rocks small
plants small
Ship pack 1
Remove grain effect
Webster's Eliminate Floating Plankton for v1.4 and v1.5
More_DDs_for_AITorpedoLauncher
More_IJNDDs_AITorpedolauncher
Aircraft_reflections
11 New Ships + Yamato AA Fix by Miner1436
#5 Depthcharge Sound
#3 Submarines Splash Sound
#2 Other Clouds

[CDM]

The Pacific is a much bigger ocean, Japanese radar was never that good, their airborne ASW was never that good and with fuel and airplane shortages got worse instead of better as the war went on. The "realism" of the constant harassment by aircraft in SH4 is on the wrong side and in the wrong theater.[/QUOTE]

Is there anyway to reprogram the game to correct this?

[Pigboatcook]

Originally Posted by CDM

The Pacific is a much bigger ocean, Japanese radar was never that good, their airborne ASW was never that good and with fuel and airplane shortages got worse instead of better as the war went on. The "realism" of the constant harassment by aircraft in SH4 is on the wrong side and in the wrong theater.

Japanese aircraft production was 75,000+. Losses at the end of the war were approximately 43,000. Sure, it doesn't scratch the benchmark of the U.S.'s 300k but 75,000 is still one heck of a lot of wings.

Here are the numbers by year:
39 4.4k
40 7.8k
41 5.0k
42 9.0k
43 16.0k
44 28.0k
45 8.0k

[Crannogman]

Originally Posted by Pigboatcook

Japanese aircraft production was 75,000+. Losses at the end of the war were approximately 43,000. Sure, it doesn't scratch the benchmark of the U.S.'s 300k but 75,000 is still one heck of a lot of wings.

Here are the numbers by year:
39 4.4k
40 7.8k
41 5.0k
42 9.0k
43 16.0k
44 28.0k
45 8.0k

Too bad their fuel and aircrew production couldn't keep pace. Or, rather, too good...

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by CDM

The Pacific is a much bigger ocean, Japanese radar was never that good, their airborne ASW was never that good and with fuel and airplane shortages got worse instead of better as the war went on. The "realism" of the constant harassment by aircraft in SH4 is on the wrong side and in the wrong theater.

I heartily agree. Though aircraft allotted by the Japanese to the role of ASW and maritime protection multiplied until 1945, the supply never met the need. As the war continued into its final year, air cover became truly scarce, sometimes disturbingly so. One Japanese officer bitterly commented that "when we were near a base where we could request air cover, the only planes that showed up were American." The shortage of planes often precluded the possibility of antisubmarine sweeps in areas of beyond the immediate convoy routes. As a result it became common practice to send unarmed training flights over open water in the hopes that their presence might discourage any submarines that happened to be in the area.

In addition, with aircraft (as with surface vessels) availability more than suitability was the more influential benchmark for assignment to anti-submarine work. The Japanese had nothing comparable to the B-24 which could carry 24 depth charges on patrols reaching over 1,000 miles from shore. True, the Japanese navy did have the excellent Kawanishi flying boats and some float planes quite appropriate for maritime protection duty, but their production run numbers were few and many lacked the proper equipment.

The radar installed on these planes, when they were lucky enough to be so equipped was often not reliable. Ten miles was the maximum distance at which airborne Japanese radar could pick up a surfaced US sub. During daylight hours most pilots preferred their own eyesight, as it had greater range.

I've always been at something of a loss for mods that try to make Japanese aerial ASW the equivalent of Coastal Command in the Atlantic. (and the ridiculous number of Japanese aircraft aloft in the stock version of the game was out of whack, too.) I do suppose it is the make the game more tense and exciting, but it can't help but be at odds with history.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by CDM

Is there anyway to reprogram the game to correct this?

Yes, use mods.



I recommend these:

RFB_2.0 .................................(Real Fleet Boat)
RFB_2.0_Patch_23April2010
RSRDC_RFB_V575 ..........(Run Silent Run Deep Campaign)
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
Improved Ship Physics 2.15 .......................(with Patch)


This provides many improvements with only five mods. RFB (Real Fleet Boat) aims to achieve the most realistic gameplay and changes many elements. RSRDC (Run Silent Run Deep Campaign) changes shipping traffic and missions to historical volume/pattern. Stock has excessive traffic and isn't well configured.

ISP makes the diving, turning, acceleration, battery performance, and sea-keeping of your boat more realistic.

Note that you must have v1.5 of Silent Hunter 4 to run these mods (as most others).

Also, when you install and enable these mods (using JSGME), you should start a new career, and avoid experimenting with a lot of mods within this career. Playing 3 card Monty with mods will likely make for problems.

[YonMaruIchi]

Eh, I'm not sure I agree with the less than gratifying bit. Having total dominance over enemy homewaters like you own the place, whether or not it is realistic due to certain Japanese limitations in certain years of the war, is rather unsatisfying, actually. How challenging is it to find a slow moving convoy moving away from you in the early hours of the morning, only to be able to use the entire day getting ahead of it without worries from god forbid any planes trying to protect their home convoys and attack it that same night? Or receiving multiple reports of task forces moving perpendicular to your position and being able to rendezvous with them just as the sun sets below the horizon perfectly on your own terms? I suppose if you can play this game for long without it being challenging then that kind of gameplay is for you. Not being able to drive around freely all day long unless you accept the risks is a major part of gameplay however IMO.

If planes didn't exist by WWII I'm not even sure we'd be playing Silent Hunter 4, we'd probably all be playing Convoy Hunter 4 or something and driving small torpedo boats and destroyers as they were faster and carried more firepower than subs and wouldn't be in danger of anything. I'm pretty sure if you turned off all planes in the game you could go through the whole career and join all the tonnage clubs without ever diving once. You don't even need to dive when attacking convoys if you have the ability to always attack at night. Might as well install a no-planes mod with a surface mod, why drive a sub anymore when you have more torpedoes and guns and are way faster on a destroyer.

[Sniper297]

I understand your feelings on this, but the best way to experience constant air attacks is to be a U-boat skipper in 1944. Not a question of challenge versus no challenge, it's a question of realistic challenge. The Pacific is a vast ocean compared to the Atlantic and North Sea, and the Japanese never had anywhere near the numbers of long range patrol bombers and hunter killer ASW groups that the Americans and British eventually had.

Being forced under by an airplane within 200 miles of the enemy coast or within 200 miles of an approaching enemy carrier task force once in a while is realistic, getting an air attack every hour day or night 10 miles west of Midway is not realistic. The original stock game went WAY overboard with air attacks, they really needed to be toned down from the wingtip to wingtip coverage of the entire ocean.