%*#$%@ Sunderlands

[U-Bones]

Originally Posted by CybrSlydr

Ok - so, why didn't Uboat crews use the AA guns and shoot down more enemy aircraft? Fer cryin out loud - later in the war, you can have freakin 4 20mm canons and 2 37mm canons - MORE than enough to easily dispatch one freakin airplane.

Just because they didn't shoot them down didn't mean they couldn't or it was such an insane problem!

Please, educate me!

Imagine a skeet shooting contest where your opponents get to shoot at a stationary target. Then imagine that you are the stationary target.

[CybrSlydr]

Originally Posted by U-Bones

Imagine a skeet shooting contest where your opponents get to shoot at a stationary target. Then imagine that you are the stationary target.

Excuse me if I'm wrong... but to attack me, they have to be coming towards me. Aside from not having to shoot more above the plane, it's effectively a stationary target.

Originally Posted by Uboat.net

Summary

125 aircraft shot down by 97 individual U-boats for the loss of 31 U-boats either sunk during the attack or due to being located by other forces shortly afterwards and sunk. One source says that RAF Coastal Command (U-boat hunters) lost 700 aircraft (badly damaged, shot down and paid off - not all to U-boats of course) and sank 220 U-boats during the war. I've been unable to verify the RAF losses but the U-boat figure is about right it seems. These figures show the immense effort put out by the British to hunt down the U-boats and almost all the aircraft successes took place in 1942 and later.

Originally Posted by Uboat.net

Aircraft250Includes all ship-based aircraft

So... almost exactly a 2:1 ratio of lost to shot down with 22% (this is rounded up from 21.6%) of all Uboat sinkings coming from aircraft.

Uboats lost - 1154
Uboats lost from aircraft - 250
250/1154=21.6%

It would be nice to have figures of how many aircraft were, total, sent out on hunter missions so we can see what percentage of aircraft were shot down by Uboats.

I still think a Uboat would win if one-on-one against an aircraft. No reason they should be nearly indestructable.

[U-Bones]

Originally Posted by CybrSlydr

Excuse me if I'm wrong... but to attack me, they have to be coming towards me. Aside from not having to shoot more above the plane, it's effectively a stationary target...

Stationary in a 2D sense, yes. In the real world, they are hard to hit, while you are a sitting duck.

Originally Posted by CybrSlydr

...I still think a Uboat would win if one-on-one against an aircraft. No reason they should be nearly indestructable.

Your logic would not be welcome in a foxhole (at least while I was in it).

[CybrSlydr]

:rotfl:

We'll agree to disagree.

[joea]

Originally Posted by CybrSlydr

:rotfl:

We'll agree to disagree.

It's not a question of disagreement but historical facts! How could small rocking u-boats knock down a plane when on some occasions battleships could not do to well? Bismarck shot down not one attacker...Yamato shot down very few of 200-300 US planes attacking her. Plus I bet some fo the Coastal Command planes shot down in 42-43 might have been caught by chance by the Luftwaffe or ran into bad weather etc.

Well, to be honest, Bismarck is a bad example. The mechanical computers the AA guns had, that automatically compensated for lead, simply overestimated the Swordfish speed, making them constantly shoot in front of them (oddly enough, the dsigners didn't account for biplanes and their lower airspeeds). Not sure what the Japanese' problem was.

It is, however well documented that U-boats made very poor gunnery platforms; they were small, rocked quite a bit, and their accuracy suffered for it.

To use the skeet example... imagine going skeet shooting. Now, add me (I weigh ~200 lbs) holding your shoulders, and moving you back and forth. Gets quite a bit tougher.

[CybrSlydr]

Originally Posted by Engel der Vernichtung

To use the skeet example... imagine going skeet shooting. Now, add me (I weigh ~200 lbs) holding your shoulders, and moving you back and forth. Gets quite a bit tougher.

I weigh 240lbs.

Sorry the top image is so big. I resized it several times, and it just wouldn't take.

Originally Posted by CybrSlydr

I weigh 240lbs.

Yes, but rocking you back and forth is still going to make that shot (which would have been not so hard) quite a bit tougher.

[Sacs]

Well, just got my brand spanking new VIIC/41 with /4 conning tower and 3 * M42 twins. (I want to have their babies! They ROCK)

Having fun with the new ordnance, puffs of flak smoke obscuring the sun. Whole squadrons of Sundies trying to breathe the Atlantic...

If only they wouldn't try to use me as an emergency landing strip...

< 12 hours out of Brest, return to port. All bow torps destroyed, I can't dive deeper than my bath tub, and need to requisition more body bags.

You'd think your highly trained gunners wouldn't finish off the plane when it's on its terminal dive directly at you