Attacking a Uboat highlights possible flaws regarding modelling of hydraulic shock and AAA effectiveness

[alexglenorchy]

I wanted to highlight what I find might be potential issues with the modelling of both hydraulic shock (splash damage) and AAA effectiveness within DCS world. I am aware both of these topics have been highlighted before but wanted to add my own voice to the matter. I am currently a new owner of the Mosquito and am enjoying the clear passion that has been put in by the developers. Yet despite this I have been disappointed with trying to recreate RAF Coastal Command style missions within DCS. Whilst previously only flying modern aircraft within DCS world, I feel in a WW2 context the lack of hydraulic shock and the effectiveness of AAA can feel disappointing when compared to the high quality of aircraft that are being put out. And is also much more obvious within this time period.

Within the modern period the use of standoff weapons and highly accurate weapons means these two elements are not so noticeable. After learning the basics with the mosquito I tried to recreate Coastal Command anti Uboat operations that were conducted on the West French coast. Specifically against Uboats returning to port that were escorted in by various smaller vessels. Via intercepted messages the RAF were able to predict when the Uboats would surface, join up with escorts and move to port (and were vulnerable). Trying to create this within the Channel Map I came across the following issue - 8 mosquitos vs a Uboat and 4 E-boats the mosquitos got obliterated and no enemy craft were lost. With bombs or rockets, Uboat escorted or solo, the mosquitos failed on all attempts. Within DCS something just doesn't feel right regarding hydraulic shock and AAA effectiveness.

I am not suggesting that all attacks were successful. In fact most probably were not. And on that note I came across this page on the history of 304 sqdn who flew Wellingtons: http://www.polishsquadronsremembered.com/304/304Story.htm. This statement would agree with a lack of effectiveness "Summer of 1942 started to look like a very busy time for No. 304. Operational sorties were flown daily. All this hard work, however, paid little in terms of success. In July, only three times Poles encountered and attacked U-boats". Mostly this was because Uboats submerged, along with the fact that "The pressure hull of the U-boat was strong enough to withstand anything but a charge exploding 10 or 20 feet from its hull" (https://uboat.net/allies/technical/depth_charges.htm). But I also want to highlight this passage from the 304 sqdn webpage:

-   July 6. The crew of F/O Nowicki dropped six depth charges on submerging U-boat without any results.
-    July 10. The crew of F/O Krzyszczuk probably damaged one during its periscope run.
-    July 30. Another crew unsuccessfully depth-charged submerging U-boat.

-   On August 3, the crew of F/O Zarudzki spotted and attacked submerged ship. After the attack, oily spots and large amount of air babbles were seen.
-    On the 9th, the crew of F/O Figura caught surfaced U-boat, but to its great despair was unable to jettisoned depth charges.
-    On the night of August 12, the one of the most experienced crew was lost in a first night sortie.
-    On August 13, the crew of navigator F/O Nowicki sunk U-boat in position 47N/10W. Three depth charges fell very close to the surfaced German ship, which begun to list to the port and later submerged. British Admiralty confirmed it as destroyed, although no confirmation was found after the war.

I also want to highlight this video (Specifically 11:20): 

Regarding this clip I am aware it is effectively Allied propaganda for a home audience. This said, the point I want to make is this - the common trend in all these cases is that Uboats dive when enemy aircraft approach. These aircraft are often lone Sunderland Flying Boats, Catalina or Wellingtons. All of these aircraft are not fast nor maneuverable. Yet within DCS (to be clear not regarding their AI ability to spontaneously dive), there is no reason for a Uboat to dive. By itself it can shoot down many mosquito aircraft trying to attack it. Let alone a medium bomber.

If this were a realistic representation of WW2 AAA - why would Uboats have dived in the examples I have given above? They could have easily shot down these solo aircraft. As a counter point, quoting 304 sqdn page again "May came and the pre-invasion excitement grew.  U-boats presence near the French coast became somewhat more noticeable. On May 5, N-304 of F/Lt Miedzybrocki detected two surfaced U-boats and was greeted with fierce fire. Poles managed to attack and damage one of them, although aircraft was badly shot-up and had an onboard fire."

So regarding AAA I actually feel mixed - I can fly reasonably close to the Uboat and dodge AAA until pretty late on the attack run. Yet despite this it still doesn't feel right. Perhaps because strafing has no noticeable effect on onboard AAA (the AI don't stop shooting or become suppressed). And also with the attached track against a Uboat with the ROE "Hold fire" hits by 500ib bombs to the bow did not sink or cause crippling damage to the Uboat.

In DCS' current state, I feel I can't attack a Uboat escorted or not, flying either solo or with wingmen. Too much health perhaps? If the AAA is accurately represented, a successful hit from a bomb/rocket needs to cause more damage. Or splash damage needs to be adjusted. Something needs to be tweaked - aircraft should be a real threat to a Uboat. Especially if its by itself.

Mossie v Uboat.trk

Edited January 8, 2022 by alexglenorchy
Corrected wrong word

[alexglenorchy]

Player with AI and rockets

Mossie v Uboat 2.trk

[Gunfreak]

I was disappointed by simply how much punishment the U-boat takes.

I set 1 U-boat and 1 e boat to hold fire until attacked. This have me and 2 mossies 1 chance to take them out before they fire back. Rockers had almost zero effects. 2 hits by 500lb bombs gave the zub half damage. 20mm had close to zero effects. And once the sub and Eboat opened fire all mossies get shot down during attack runs.

[peachmonkey]

yeah, I wish ED would introduce a "game resilience" or something along those lines, i.e. reduced damage requirement for the WWII ground and naval units.

I dropped 6 x 500lbs bombs on the u-boat (registered as HIT in briefing) and uboat's healthbar was at ~85%.

 

hi, @NineLine , please see above. Is this something your team can explore?  We have game flight mode, why not have game mode damage for the AI ground/naval units? It'd make the WWII scenarios a lot more engaging and fulfilling ...

Edited January 9, 2022 by peachmonkey

[Gunfreak]

8 hours ago, peachmonkey said:

yeah, I wish ED would introduce a "game resilience" or something along those lines, i.e. reduced damage requirement for the WWII ground and naval units.

I dropped 6 x 500lbs bombs on the u-boat (registered as HIT in briefing) and uboat's healthbar was at ~85%.

 

hi, @NineLine , please see above. Is this something your team can explore?  We have game flight mode, why not have game mode damage for the AI ground/naval units? It'd make the WWII scenarios a lot more engaging and fulfilling ...

 

You don't need a game mode, you need realistic damage. Like the ability to do local damage, like track on tanks, aa turret on subs. And actually model damage on ships instead of a health. I highly doubt a sub would float after 2 direct hits from 500lb bombs. You should be able to make holes in ships so they sink.

[alexglenorchy]

Busch, 1982, U-Boats at War, Ballantine, New York, Page 123:

"In July, 1943, on her second patrol the U.441 was sighted by a Beaufighter. Before attacking the pilot warily summoned two  further Beaufighters, so that their fire power combined was no less than three 40-millimeters, twelve 20-millimeters and a dozen machine guns. Keeping out of range of the U-boat's fire, they proceeded to make a clean sweep of her superstructure, putting out of action every single A.A. gun, exploding two ammunition boxes and killing or severely wounding all twenty-four officers and men on the bridge and fore casing. Thanks to the fact that the aircraft carried no bombs and their cannon shells were unable to penetrate the hull, the U-boat was still able to submerge and finally, under the command of the ship's doctor, limp back to base.

This was one of the last experiments with a flak trap. Since the previous May some British aircraft had been fitted with a new rocket projectile which had sunk a U-boat on the very first occasion that it had been used. The introduction of the rocket made it too dangerous for a U-boat to stay on the surface and invite air attack, and in the autumn of the same year the U.441, together with other existing flak traps, was re-converted to normal use."

I believe this is further evidence that AAA on ships needs to be adjusted to go out of action from strafing. Otherwise the experience is completely unrealistic. Likewise the above would suggest rocket damage within DCS is insufficient verses the U-boat.

Edited January 9, 2022 by alexglenorchy
Phrasing

[alexglenorchy]

Hendrie, 2006, The Cinderella Service: RAF Coastal Command 1939-1945, Pen and Sword Aviation, Barnsley, Page 58:

"One of the first successful attacks using rocket projectiles was by Flg Off H.C. Bailey of No.48 Squadron, who sank U-594 on 4 June 1943. It was 25Ib armour-piercing heads, and as Flg Off Bailey commented at the time, one had to be careful to avoid some heads that followed an upward trajectory.

The rockets tended to follow the line of flight of the aircraft rather than the line of sight. Although in tests one could expect to achieve 30 percent hits, one hit was lethal to a U-boat."

[peachmonkey]

7 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

You don't need a game mode, you need realistic damage. Like the ability to do local damage, like track on tanks, aa turret on subs. And actually model damage on ships instead of a health. I highly doubt a sub would float after 2 direct hits from 500lb bombs. You should be able to make holes in ships so they sink.

That'd be amazing!  But that's a lot of work for ED. My idea is to give us the 'gaming' damage since I feel it's a lot quicker to adjust the hardness of a model rather than creating a complicated damage model for them. Ultimately, I would love to shoot wheels of the trucks, or put holes in the hull, but how long is that going to take?  10 years?

[HotTom]

Maybe I'm missing something but in my Mission Editor the only U-boat available in the assets pack is the U-Flak version. Is there a non-U-Flak version available?

Only four were built and all were stationed in the Bay of Biscay (which isn't on any of our maps). They are dripping with AAA, far more than any standard U-boat. And they were only in service for a few months in 1943. The RAF, which lost a total of six aircraft to the U-Flaks, quickly learned to attack the boats with a large swarm of Mosquitos and the experiment was abandoned.

The result is: Trying to build a Mossie attack's U-boats mission, the only U-boat I can use puts out a murderous amount of AAA and is totally un-historical.

There was nothing "typical" about the U-Flaks yet that is the ONLY U-boat available to us. What's wrong with this picture???

Edited January 12, 2022 by HotTom

[Grimleo]

I think the detailed damage model is the best hope for ships. I took out a B-17 out recently with an Anton burst because I killed the bomber pilots. You should be able to take out flak gun crews on ships with the .303s on the mossie. To speed things up, ED should make detailed damage models for WWII ships, but leave the visual representation of damage for latter. The gameness of the current damage model really shows up bad with ship targets.

WWII ground vehicles should be next starting with armored vehicles. Again, leaving the visual representation of damage for latter.  Even if that means watching artillery pieces burn like oil tanks.

 

[MJDixon]

I agree the damage model of ships and the U-Boat in particular needs work, even putting a full salvo of rockets from the Mossie into a U-Boat doesn't seem to do a lot of damage!

The ability to knock out individual FlaK guns with gun fire would help a lot with naval strikes, even just a temporary suppresion of the FlaK gun crews.

[Trolly]

On 1/9/2022 at 12:55 PM, alexglenorchy said:

Busch, 1982, U-Boats at War, Ballantine, New York, Page 123:

"In July, 1943, on her second patrol the U.441 was sighted by a Beaufighter. Before attacking the pilot warily summoned two  further Beaufighters, so that their fire power combined was no less than three 40-millimeters, twelve 20-millimeters and a dozen machine guns. Keeping out of range of the U-boat's fire, they proceeded to make a clean sweep of her superstructure, putting out of action every single A.A. gun, exploding two ammunition boxes and killing or severely wounding all twenty-four officers and men on the bridge and fore casing. Thanks to the fact that the aircraft carried no bombs and their cannon shells were unable to penetrate the hull, the U-boat was still able to submerge and finally, under the command of the ship's doctor, limp back to base.

This was one of the last experiments with a flak trap. Since the previous May some British aircraft had been fitted with a new rocket projectile which had sunk a U-boat on the very first occasion that it had been used. The introduction of the rocket made it too dangerous for a U-boat to stay on the surface and invite air attack, and in the autumn of the same year the U.441, together with other existing flak traps, was re-converted to normal use."

I believe this is further evidence that AAA on ships needs to be adjusted to go out of action from strafing. Otherwise the experience is completely unrealistic. Likewise the above would suggest rocket damage within DCS is insufficient verses the U-boat.

 

Sorry I'm a bit late to the conversation.  Found this on Youtube recently.  The answer to the question of the title is obviously 'no', but as he says, that's not what they're trying to do.  Summary:  it was normal for B-24s to strafe U-boats with their machine guns before attacking them with bombs or depth charges in order to suppress return fire from the U-boats AA guns.  Rounds on target from the 4x 0.303 guns and 4 x 20mm cannon of a Mosquito FBVI would, I imagine have a similar effect, allowing a subsequent bomb or rocket attack to be met with no return fire.

 

Maybe if the AA guns were modelled as independent guns that happen to be located on a moving vessel, rather than being part of the vessel, that would work better?  I'm not a programmer, so no idea how hard it would be to do that.