Dealing With GWX Aircraft

[GoldenRivet]

Been reading these forums for some time now. finally decided i would join up and create my first post.

If your playing the GWX mod one thing you will notice particularly late in the war is that air patrols are not only frequent, and annoying, but they are lethal.

it always seems that no sooner can you get your batteries charged or nearly so and there is an aircraft coming down on you or your radio man is detecting radar!

One thing i did to counter the threat of aircraft - and this may be old news - but i equipped the boat with the Flack Boat watch tower with 2 four barrels and the twin AA gun. Instruct the gun crews to hold their fire. Watch the inbound airplane approach you. The second he starts his dive to drop bombs on you, tell your gun crews to fire at will. The result is almost always lethal for the incoming aircraft. Usually they plane will erupt into flames, pass over your boat, and crash into the sea before having the chance to drop any bombs.

The only time i dont try this little tactic is when i am being engaged by multiple aircraft, or of course when the seas are too rough to permit manning the AA guns.

[d@rk51d3]

The only place that aircraft really bother me is the bay of biscay. No damage sustained - yet, but almost out of ammo by the time you reach the other side.

[Brag]

Welcome aboard Kaleun GoldenRivet. Interesting tactic, thanks for sharing

[Letum]

I never fight it out with aircraft. It's almost always safer to crash dive.

Im in May 1942 on my GWX 1.1 patrol. I saw a pair of hurricanes back in '39, but I have not seen any other enemy aircraft.
When the air gets busy I will run on the surface only at night......until the enemy can see me on radar before I can see them at night!

[Dantenoc]

With GWX I've been regularly experiencing events where my watch crew get's totaly surprised by aircraft, even in early war days. Sometimes, the only warning I'll get of an airplane is the bomb going off at the side of my boat... or, if I'm very attentive I can sometimes hear the plane's engines just before it starts it's attack run, but the watch crew will say and do nothing. The green bar on the bridge "section" is completely filled, of course, so I would guess that giving out more watch crew qualifications would do nothing to solve the issue. Has anyone else experienced this?

I play at 128xTC or sometimes, rarely, at 256xTC, and I've tweaked my game via SH3 commander so that time compression drops down to 1xTC as soon as a ship or plane is sighted, but the time compression just doesn't drop down since the crew don't see anything.

As a side note, while hunting for lone merchants, I've had the game drop down the time compression to the "being hunted" level, before my crew even reports any sightings of the enemy. So even the merchants are getting the jump on me!Again, this is in 39/40, with the green bar maxed out for the bridge.

[GoldenRivet]

a few times the total surprise by aircraft has happened to me. but i would say only something like 2 out of 10 times if that!

most of the time the watch crew spots the planes in time for me to at least get to 30 meters depth. I like to run on the surface with just the watch tower above the waves - this reduces the dive time.

I dont like to duke it out with aircraft unless repairs or something of that nature require me to be surfaced. I find that the tactic of waiting until the aircraft starts its dive down on you - hold your fire till then - almost 100% of the time results in a downed aircraft. I played a short late war campaign recently where "testing" this method resulted in 46 enemy planes downed... the price of course over the course of 13 patrols was 5 crewmen

Right now Im playing with GWX and SH3 commander too, March 1940, in base before my third patrol with 84 % realism. (Sorry i like the outside views too much hehe)

Just ran across the HMS Rodney in the middle of a convoy a while ago, closed to within 700 meters undetected- shot a spread of 4 at her, brilliant explosion followed, 36,000 tons to the bottom. managed to get a stern shot off at a large tanker. Both ships went down.

shadowed the convoy for another day, and went in for another attack the next night, got an ammunition ship, and a small tanker.

went deep and got the heck out of dodge after that.

[OuNiS]

Originally Posted by Letum

I never fight it out with aircraft. It's almost always safer to crash dive.

Ok. But if the airplane is to close your boat mostly slow down your speed while diving and it's a better chance to airplane to hit your boat by a bomb. In this case I ordered engines to ahead flank and try to avoid bombs. After the airplane fly over my boat I mae crash diving.
When aircraft is far away from me I make crash dive and when I am _fully_ submarge I always make 'crazy ivan' because the airplane may plot my hipotetical course and hit my boat even than I'm submarge.

[GoldenRivet]

another good anti aircraft tactic is to totally erase your plotted course waypoints, go to flank speed and create new waypoints just ahead of your sub that will cause your sub to steer a tight "zig zag".

I have noticed that this throws the planes off when they are trying to drop their eggs on you.

Of course these are only tactics i use when crash diving is out of the question.

[AndyW]

I'm playing in 1944 and the enemy a/c are real buggers. In average I am attacked two dozen times during a patrol, even though I'm driving submerged during daytimes.

My tactics are as following (and I'm still learning):

1.) I buy all the neat anti-radar warning devices (FuMB Metox, Naxos etc.) I can get. Don't be stingy, they are your life insurance.

2.) I submerge from two hours prior sunrise until two hours after sunset. That leaves you just with the RDF-equipped night patrol a/c

3.) I drive decks awash (7m). This is reducing my crash dive time dramatically from around 45 seconds until I pass the 25m-depth to only 25 seconds (I have a Type VIIC).

4.) During surface runs, I order the AAA-crew onto deck, ready to fire

5.) If I have an air contact, there is only one decision: Is the enemy a/c

a) closer than 2500 m (case a) or
b) more far away (case b)?

case a): I turn my boat into the general direction of the approaching a/c, flank speed and order the AA to fire. By this my silhouette is small, the aft of my boat with the Flak is showing to the attacking a/c and my turn ruins the attacker's strafing approach (well, maybe ). After the enemy a/c had passed my boat, I crash dive.

case b): crash dive.

I found it mandatory to dive. Even if you win the shoot-out 9 out of 10 times, the 10th a/c will get you and cause damage on you. Given the very high number of attacks, you end up with damage and low hull condition even before you have reached your assigned patrol grid.

Cheers,
AndyW

[HunterICX]

@AndyW
please change the color of your Text, because I cannot see it.


OT:

When I tested the GWX Beta, I was testing the indian area with the IXD2
I decided to pay australia a visit.

before I went I noticed I had the Radar detector and the Guadalupe AA guns

When I got radar reports of incoming planes I decide to point my Stern into the dirrection of the Aircrafts and when Flank speed.
when I got visual of the Aircraft and clearly heard them I let my AA Crew fire on Medium range...4 planes down, 1 crashed about 10 meters beside me.

Radar detector is really a Must in later war. because your crew mostly spots the plane too late.

[Jimbuna]

Welcome aboard kaleun Golden Rivet

In my experience I would always prefer to dive But if that is not an option I like my flak gunners to commence firing asap....waiting for the aircraft to start diving on his bombing run usually implies he is lined up on his target and stacks the odds in his favour :hmm:

[Gildor]

My current campaign is Jun 1943. I cant stay on the surface anywhere near France/England longer than 30 min without having aircraft appear. They seem to be programed to show up every 30 min.

Luckly, I have detected them first and I am able to dive to avoid them, so far. i have yet to be surprised.

I was lining up to attack a liner today and a few minutes before i could take the shot i got the "radar signals detected", I did a quick calculation and found that I would not be able to stay surfaced and get into the proper positon. (the liner was doing 18 knots). I reluctantly ordered us to 30m, thereby losing the liner. After the aircraft were gone i was so pissed i surfaced and got into a surface battle with the liner. I won and it went to the bottom.

[Jimbuna]

All that aircraft traffic and the onset of radar techno;ogy must have made a kaleuns life hellish at times

[Penelope_Grey]

It all comes down to momentum, the slower you are going when you hit the crash dive the worse off it is for you.

The faster you are going when you hit the Alarm the more inertial drive the U-boat has and thus it can power under the water a little better, simple physics, the foward momentum counteracts the U-boat buoyancy and upthrust effect of the water, like dropping an ice cube into a drink, it will not float immediately. When you are sailing in areas that you know have lots of planes, such as off the North East of Scotland round the area of scappa flow, I recommend wherever possible making your U-boat move along at 1/3 power. So that it will respond appropriately.

Unless of course its a IID you have in which case no worries as they sink like a brick when you hit the alarm! The VIIC's are not bad by half either. The thing about aircraft is, the U-boat's hull integrity drops like a stone when they start peppering you with bullets. A far cry to stock where the U-boat was essentially impervious to bullets, as regards to hull integrity.

Fighting Sunderlands is lethal. I don't advise it in the slightest. The worse is, after they pass over they can still pelt machine gun fire at you by way of an aft gunner.

[Jimbuna]

Give it a couple of years and see what the rocket armed aircraft do to your hull integrity!!