UBOAT – How to Fight Planes as Submarine

A brief collection of tips for surviving aircraft attacks.

How to Fight Planes as Submarine [Game Version B123]

Note: Credit goes to Rather Useless

If you encounter an aircraft and are either unable to avoid a fight, or choose to fight, then I have had a great deal of success with the following approach:

1) Try to make sure you have the engines working at full capacity, so you have your full range of gear options available. Also have a spotter on the conning tower with full crew support, and your chosen gunner at their post with as many crewman as your current number of available anti-aircraft guns require to operate. As a good rule of thumb I strongly recommend maintaining at least 1000 rounds of high explosive rounds for each plane you fight. Finally, try not to fight planes at night– the performance of your gunners dramatically decreases at night. The essence of successful sorties with aircraft is ending the exchange quickly, minimizing the number of attack runs the aircraft can make. Fighting at night is a guaranteed way to maximize the number of attack runs the aircraft can make. Try to avoid this. Dawn and Dusk seem largely okay.

2) Once visual contact with the offending aircraft is made, utilize your map to ascertain its approximate altitude– either “high” or “low”– and its course of approach. If the plane is high up, it will gradually circle you and descend to a low altitude before beginning an attack run. If the plane is low, it will most likely begin its attack run immediately. In either case, make sure your engines are set to full speed ahead.

3) In case of a high altitude initial contact, set your submarine’s course toward the direction of the aircraft. Keep the engine gear control UI open at all times. Allow your gunners to fire freely, monitor the descent and course of the aircraft carefully by alternating between the map view and the 3rd person submarine or free camera views. Locking camera on the aircraft itself is also good for this. When the aircraft finally does begin its attack run, quickly set your submarine’s course perpendicular to the aircraft’s line of approach. Your submarine will almost certainly be unable to accomplish this in time, but every little effort to cross its T, as it were, is better than nothing. Now is your moment to shine– using the map view to monitor the aircraft’s distance from you, wait until it appears to be approximately 500 to 750 meters away. Then, switch your engine’s gears from ahead full to full-reverse. If you have timed it right, the aircraft will be too committed to its line of attack to alter it, but there will still be enough time for your submarine to stop, and begin reversing. If you are successful, the charges dropped by the plan should land slightly too far from your vessel to do any damage, or at the worst the damage should be very modest. Once the aircraft has passed, set engines ahead full again, and repeat this routine until the plane is shot down. During day time, it probably won’t require more than one or two such passes to down the aircraft if you are allowing the gunners to automatically fire. Your principle job here is to manage the engines and course of your submarine.

4) In case of a low altitude initial contact, set your submarine’s course perpendicular to the aircraft’s line of approach. Your submarine will almost certainly be unable to accomplish this in time, but every little effort to cross its T, as it were, is better than nothing. Now is your moment to shine– using the map view to monitor the aircraft’s distance from you, wait until it appears to be approximately 500 to 750 meters away. Then, switch your engine’s gears from ahead full to full-reverse. If you have timed it right, the aircraft will be too committed to its line of attack to alter it, but there will still be enough time for your submarine to stop, and begin reversing. If you are successful, the charges dropped by the plan should land slightly too far from your vessel to do any damage, or at the worst the damage should be very modest. Once the aircraft has passed, set engines ahead full again, and repeat the bulk of the routine outlined in — 2a. — until the plane is shot down. During day time, it probably won’t require more than one or two such passes to down the aircraft if you are allowing the gunners to automatically fire. Your principle job here is to manage the engines and course of your submarine.

5) Collect your 4000 ducats for each plane you down, and invest in conning tower research and improvements. By the time you get the quad-turret and two smaller machine guns, your gunner and two supporting crew will often be able to shoot down planes before they can even perform one bombing run. Especially once you have the quad-turret, you can often manually shoot down planes during their bombing approach without much difficulty.