Black sea ships

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Hi All, Now that we have ocean going shipping with the Kuban map, will the Devs introduce an air dropped torpedo, not sure regards the Russian aircraft but the Ju 88, He 111 and even  the Fw 190 had that capacity.

 

Flew a Ju 87 out over the sea and attacked a couple of large cargo ships being escorted by gun boats, managed to sink one cargo ship but then got my wing blown off !    perhaps would have had a better chance of survival with  a torpedo equipped bomber ?

 

 

Cheers

[Finkeren]

The devs have said several times, that air dropped torpedoes are not planned for BoK, but they are going to be in the next Midway title, and after the tech has been developed for the Pacific they might retroactively make some for BoK - but nothing is certain yet.

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Thanks Finkeren.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Try a faster plane for skip bombing.

 

I did several successful attacks with the P40 last night.  I would think the FW 190 with a bomb would do well at it.

 

It's nice to know I haven't lost my ship killing touch from '46

[Gambit21]

I loved skip-bombing in 46.

I was wondering if that was possible now - thanks Blitz.

[TXSailor_1]

  perhaps would have had a better chance of survival with  a torpedo equipped bomber ?

 

 

Cheers

 

If history is to be believed, the answer to THAT is "no" lol.

[sniperton]

For a torp attack you have to fly straight and level. Easy meat for AA.

For skip bombing you can curve in fast in a shallow dive. Most of the time you'll survive, provided you zoom out the way as you came in.

BTW the 500 kg bomb is deadly for ships, you don't even have to be precise, a near hit usually suffices.

[Yogiflight]

 

 

For a torp attack you have to fly straight and level. Easy meat for AA. For skip bombing you can curve in fast in a shallow dive. Most of the time you'll survive, provided you zoom out the way as you came i

On the other side, you have to get quite close to the attacked ship for skip bombing, while a torpedo can get dropped more than a kilometer away.

[sniperton]

Sure, much depends on AA density. What I described was based on my Kuban QMB experiences, where a fast plane like the P-40 can evade those 2 to 3 AA stations. This would probably not work against carriers or battleships with many AA stations and also screened by a number of destroyers.

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

On the other side, you have to get quite close to the attacked ship for skip bombing, while a torpedo can get dropped more than a kilometer away.

The ships AA can be intense and quite accurate, i have tried different a/c with a range of mixed bombs/rockets and cannon, i can score hits and the odd sinking, but have never returned to base !   perhaps the high angle bomber boys may have more luck ? if so, let us know.

[unreasonable]

If you are attacking a ship on your own for fun you will get the whole weight of the AA.  A more reasonable approximation would be to have a flight or whole squadron attack a group of ships together. Your chance of survival should be much better.  

 

(ie QMB many/many with 2 flights on your side, flight 2 as escort, 1 on the enemy with one aircraft (why you cannot set up the enemy flight with 0 aircraft I have no idea), plus ship targets?)

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Did a quick clumsy finger mobile drawing but hopefully it gets the idea across.

 

I worked on this a while ago after some pretty lousy ship attacks online caused by poor tactics. Basically (and this is doable with AI wingmen as well if you can figure out their pattern) both aircraft are flying the same pattern but with some displacement.

 

The leader (dark red) flies past the ship perpendicular to it, within AAA range. The crossing target makes shooting difficult, but as the closest threat the gunners will focus on it. The wingman (bright red) is echeloned to the right, with considerable separation.

 

Roughly at the same time, both aircraft turn 90 degrees. The leader does this to stay within AAA range, now parallel to the ship, while the wingman is lined up with it and closing in fast. The guns are pointed north towards the leader, and have to cease fire and take a few seconds to aim at the incoming wingman who can make a clear pass on target. The wingman immediately becomes the nearest threat as it flies over, and the AAA which had just finished taking aim at the wingman form the east will need to spin 180 degrees to keep up.

 

While still within AAA range, the wingman turns 90 degrees towards the South and away from his leader to draw the flak further, while the leader turns 90 degrees to hit the target from the north.

 

Depending on the results of the attack, go home while being careful to avoid flying straight and level, or get some distance, observe the situation and repeat the attack.

 

 

TL;DR: Bait the flak with one aircraft, go in with another, being mindful of the angles travelled by ship gunners to hit one or the other.

[unreasonable]

 Nice illustration, Lucas_From_Hell !

 

I would have thought it was simpler just to have two aircraft - or even better flights - attack the same target from different directions.  Ships want to turn broadside into a bomb, dive bomb or strafe attack but into or away from a torpedo attack, so your two flights should go in at right angles to one another.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Makes sense

 

To be fair I'm used to bombing wee river barges with no room to manoeuvre, and regular ground targets which obviously don't go too far either. Are the ships in Kuban taking evasive action in this version?

[BlitzPig_EL]

Had a go at that Russian destroyer last night.

 

You can knock out all it's guns, have fires burning on deck, but sink it? 

 

Ummm... nope.

 

Several of us made multiple attacks on the thing with different types of aircraft and armament, and it would not sink.

 

Methinks it has the DM of a battleship.   Really.

[unreasonable]

Had a go at that Russian destroyer last night.

 

You can knock out all it's guns, have fires burning on deck, but sink it? 

 

Ummm... nope.

 

Several of us made multiple attacks on the thing with different types of aircraft and armament, and it would not sink.

 

Methinks it has the DM of a battleship.   Really.

 

It might have sunk hours later.  We were discussing this kind of thing in the "Bombs under water" thread - interesting report posted by Arfsix, well worth a read. 

 

My take on it is that to sink a warship - even a destroyer - you have to hole it below the water line or have it blow up.  The latter is really only possible with a magazine hit.  Even if you hole the hull, the ship might not sink if damage control is good, or might sink many hours later.

 

To hole the hull from the air you need a torpedo, a large bomb that goes clean through the hull and out of the bottom, or explodes right at the bottom, or near misses that crack open the hull.  (Or something like the HS 129's AP gun, if you can get hits right at the water line?).  The controversy is about how close you have to get with airdropped bombs to crack open the hull sufficiently to overwhelm the damage control parties.  

[Finkeren]

Sinking a large warship is no easy task. Putting it out of action is much simpler and is often enough.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Finkeren

[Yogiflight]

A hole in the waterline would be enough, if it is in the engine room. It is a very large room, so it can take a lot of water.

[Finkeren]

A hole in the waterline would be enough, if it is in the engine room. It is a very large room, so it can take a lot of water.

It still has to be a hole large enough that the ship's pumps can't keep up. In such a situation there would be dozens, maybe hundreds, of men working hard to ensure, that the ship stayed afloat. A single hole in the hull has to be pretty severe to result in the outright sinking of a warship.

 

Multiple leaks all over the hull combined with damage to the upper structure that would put many of the onboard systems out of action might do it, but to sink a warship above a certain size with a single hit would be a very rare occurance.

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

Fw 190 A-5 and 500 Kg bomb, drop at the side hull using skip bombing at 500 km/h and you will sink it. I managed to do it like 5 out of 6 times. You will need to come in fast and very low on the water (15 - 20 meters altitude), throw some shapes to evade AAA and level out in the last moment to drop the bomb. It will sink the destroyer most of the time.

It's an intense attack but very satisfying if you pull it out succesfully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by -=PHX=-SuperEtendard

[Finkeren]

A direct hit with a 500kg bomb would not so much blow a hole in a destroyer as it would blow it in half. 

 

Such a hit should obviously be fatal.

Great shots BTW.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Nice bomb run.

 

Why was it not shooting at you?

Edited September 3, 2017 by BlitzPig_EL

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Nice bomb run.

 

Why was it not shooting at you?

AA has been turned off, you my get a hit but you will be smoking by the time you passed over the destroyer if the AA was active 

[Albino]

A quick note of appreciation for the sinking physics. 

 

I've run only a handful of sorties against the new shipping. Examining the results and pictures here, the ships sink realistically depending on the location of damaged sustained. I landed RS-132 strikes on the bow of the 14,000 tanker and it sunk bow first with the aft and prop shafts well into the air. In Etendard's photo, the destroyer clearly lists to the side of the bomb strike. 

 

I'm impressed

[Feathered_IV]

If sinking takes too long, some sort of dead in the water listing or oil would be good.

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

Why was it not shooting at you?

 

 

AA has been turned off, you my get a hit but you will be smoking by the time you passed over the destroyer if the AA was active 

 

It was on, but they just weren't firing in that moment, they emptied their ammo and were reloading when I took that picture. Also they started to fire relatively late, I was going very fast (~550 km/h) so they only got a couple of seconds with their light flak before I dropped the bomb. Starting the dive I was being fired by the heavy flak, but once I got low they couldn't fire anymore.

 

I got hit a couple of times by 12.7mm from the torpedo boat behind the destroyer, but they didn't do any significant damage. Here's the replay if you want to check it out.

AntiShipAttack.zip

Edited September 3, 2017 by -=PHX=-SuperEtendard

[ShamrockOneFive]

I just did some ship attacks for the first time and like many of you... I'm really impressed. Compared to the original IL-2 this is a definite upgrade. The ships will avoid burning/sinking ships ahead of them. Damage locations matter. The ships list and sink realistically and you can reliably knock out gunner stations with lighter weapons as appropriate.

 

Superb.

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Apologies, turning off AA does not apply to ships, and i agree with Super Etendard that fast and low in a 190 is your best bet  

[chris455]

Not exactly on topic, but I have a question for the group:

 

Last night was flying red in the P-40, overflew a tanker being escorted by what looked like a torpedo craft.

 

Got a little too close and was taken under fire by the PT.

Thought these ships were all Russian?

 

Tried to see markings or flags but thought better of it when the AAA got too close.

 

Why was I fired on?

[Finkeren]

Not exactly on topic, but I have a question for the group:

 

Last night was flying red in the P-40, overflew a tanker being escorted by what looked like a torpedo craft.

 

Got a little too close and was taken under fire by the PT.

Thought these ships were all Russian?

 

Tried to see markings or flags but thought better of it when the AAA got too close.

 

Why was I fired on?

There are German ships for the Kuban map. In fact, if you got attacked by something that looked like a torpedo boat, it most likely was German. The Soviet G-5 torpedo boats look more like miniature submarines going 100kph.

 

Even before the Kuban map, in QM they'd use the Soviet river boats as stand-in for German ships, if you flew as VVS and had ships on the map, and they would fire at you.

[=SqSq=Sulaco]

As SuperEtendard stated above sinking the destroyer seemed relatively easy to me with bombs, I used a 110 with 2x 250's 3sec timer (I think). Buster speed from the broadside right off the deck, literally skimming the water, at the last second dropped both bombs and climbed hard to avoid crashing into the ship. The destroyer sank within minutes after this, tried it twice with success both times. Keep in mind, the chances of making it home after this type of attack are pretty slim, both times I lost one engine but managed to make it to a nearby airfield.

 

Anyway, thought I'd toss my 2cents in the ring to see if anyone else had any success with this method or if someone had better ways of dealing with the destroyers.

Edited September 3, 2017 by Y-29.Sulaco

[Uufflakke]

Talking about Black Sea ships and torpedoes.

This short video gives a nice presentation of how a U-boat submerges, releases some torpedoes and emerges to surface again.

Well done.

 

[ShamrockOneFive]

That was super cool! I've been doing shipping strikes all morning and they look awesome!

 

[Herne]

for skip bombing which fuse should you use ?

[ShamrockOneFive]

Well... 3 seconds seems to work for me!

[Albino]

If sinking takes too long, some sort of dead in the water listing or oil would be good.

 

I feel guilty to ask, since we have been given so much already!

 

Oil slicks around sinking ships would be excellent. Also, it could remain in the water once the ship had disappeared. Otherwise you can fly over the spot where you sunk a ship and there's no sign it ever existed. Lastly, if smoke columns cast shadows (I don't think they do now), that would look lovely.

 

Time for me to stop getting carried away and go flying.