Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980
I am the same, I can not remember last time I used my AA guns against aircraft outside of testing. US subs simply did not joust with enemy aircraft unless absolutely forced to and I can not recall any incidents outside of Pearl Harbor when they used AA guns, let alone shot one down. I can be wrong, may have happened once or twice, but extremely rare. Due to this , I just dive and avoid circumstances where would need them. Of course, in my TMO update once shallow water operations becomes the norm in late 1944 into 1945, more likely to be in shallows. Basically, unless at night and can reach waters at least 70 ft deep by dawn, I avoid the shallows.
I was once off China coast approaching Shanghai in March 1945, had shadowed northbound tanker convoy all day, diving many times to avoid patrol planes. Then lost contact, since as they did in real life, many convoys operating along the coast of china etc in my update will sail into a cove or harbor and stop (slow way down to appear stopped) for the night and not exit till the morning. I surfaced at dusk and chased them about 15 NM in coastal waters with 50 ft under keel. Sunk two tankers before entered harbor, but then had three escorts, who could match my speed chase me. So I could not out run them but they could not close beyond 4000 yards. Close enough to fire at me , one was getting rounds close because he had radar. Then a night flier came in, it was a BETTY . So I could not submerge, had a radar equipped plane coming in, could not evade too much or escorts would close.
Of course the plane bombed and missed, my AA guns blazed away but at night on a fast moving betty did not do any damage until about 10 minutes later, when it came in low on a strafing run, which wounded my XO on the bridge and a lookout, the 40 MM lit it on fire, of course it made a few more runs (lmao, wish could figure out how to fix that) before departing.
I fired four torpedoes with zero AOB and gave wide spread on the TDC dial, stern torpedoes went out in a V formation, no hits but the wakes scared the escorts, they slowed to evade long enough to let me escape. The radar equipped one sped back up but never got back within 5000 yards and finally gave up.
Problem is dawn was breaking and I still had 30 NM until was anywhere close enough to really dive. So I was harassed by plane after plane, aa guns did nothing for us, two close depth charge landed along port side at close distance from a "LORNA" and damaged the boat pretty seriously. In reality, likely would have a kill or crippled the sub. I submerged to the bottom at 65 feet and "hovered" i.e. to simulate boat being on bottom, conducted repairs for 7 hours, was bombed few more times by passing planes who saw me in the clear shallow waters. Just as I surfaced, over the horizon comes a patrol. Luckily they were PC types and slower than me, could not catch me. Finally made it the deeper waters but in a Gato with 42 percent hull damage (no visible holes, just damage from near misses) and submerged to 125 feet, surfaced that night and headed home to Guam.
TMO planes are deadly and all are set to veteran or elite, so they are not incompetent as when set to lower skill levels. I am working to fix their payloads as the mixed load of bombs and depth charges causes them to make nonsensical dry runs when deciding which one to use, especially when player is in transition of diving, a allowing player to escape. Zeros will have no bombs, they will strafe Bombs will carry bombs, patrol planes depth charges . Should resolve the issue.
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