ASW aircraft arming

[FAdmiral]

I see a big flaw with what I can arm the ASW planes going out on patrol.
Torpedos would be fairly useless and bombs would have been my second choice.
My first & formost weapon would be DEPTH CHARGES which
I would tend to think they really had back in the WW2 days. Most subs caught by
aircraft would be diving or at PD (shadow or Per wake) so the DC would be the
best weapon of choice. Bombs would be OK only if the sub stayed up and fought
the plane off with its AA weapon(s) Not too many skippers did that I'll bet !!!!

JIM

[Ghertz]

I don't know which of depth charges, bombs, or torpedoes was preferred, but all three were available for Catalinas:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBY_Catalina
 
Armament:
 
[*]3× .30 cal (7.62 mm) machine guns (two in nose turret, one in ventral hatch at tail)
[*]2× .50 cal (12.7 mm) machine guns (one in each waist blister)
[*]4,000 lb (1,814 kg) of bombs or depth charges, torpedo racks were also available

[Ghertz]

Also, depth charges seem to be in short supply for both sides

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: FAdmiral

I see a big flaw with what I can arm the ASW planes going out on patrol.
Torpedos would be fairly useless and bombs would have been my second choice.
My first & formost weapon would be DEPTH CHARGES which
I would tend to think they really had back in the WW2 days. Most subs caught by
aircraft would be diving or at PD (shadow or Per wake) so the DC would be the
best weapon of choice. Bombs would be OK only if the sub stayed up and fought
the plane off with its AA weapon(s) Not too many skippers did that I'll bet !!!!

JIM

aircraft on nav search or ASW don´t use depth charges but the reduced loadoat of the ac which always are bombs. So a PBY drops a couple of bombs on a sub if attacking. No matter if you call it bomb or DC if the Cat hits the enemy sub it´s got a problem. The bombs work, if you would see PBY attacking with DC it would not be different than PBY attacking with bomb. Would only add some chrome.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: FAdmiral

I see a big flaw with what I can arm the ASW planes going out on patrol.
Torpedos would be fairly useless and bombs would have been my second choice.
My first & formost weapon would be DEPTH CHARGES which
I would tend to think they really had back in the WW2 days. Most subs caught by
aircraft would be diving or at PD (shadow or Per wake) so the DC would be the
best weapon of choice. Bombs would be OK only if the sub stayed up and fought
the plane off with its AA weapon(s) Not too many skippers did that I'll bet !!!!

JIM

You're correct. This is discussed in Methods of Operations Research. They even discuss the period when German subs were staying up and fighting the plane off with AA.