Best Altitude for ASW Patrol?

[BJStone]

Does anyone know what the best altitude for ASW searches? In the manual it says that keeping the range as short as possible improves detection but I can't really find anything about what the best altitude is. Can I set it too low? In reading some of the threads it sounds like anything between 1000-6000 is fair game. What altitude did ASW patrols fly at in WWII?

Right now I'm planning on my range set at 1 and an altitude of 6k since 6k seems to be the normal setting for Naval Search.


Regards,

BJ

[caballo71]

I usually use, 100 feet, although she depends on the airplane, and its typical for the search.

[CapAndGown]

1000 feet. Train for low nav bombing as well. Helens beat Orions with sonobuoys.

[kaleun]

100 or 100 feet? wow! I've been using 6000ft.
Maybe I need to fly lower.

[BJStone]

ORIGINAL: kaleun

100 or 100 feet? wow! I've been using 6000ft.
Maybe I need to fly lower.

Yeah - I hear what you are saying. I thought they needed to stay around 3-6k.

[undercovergeek]

always done a 1000ft - great success with Helens and the land locked Kates and Vals of the 1st Air Division stuck on Japan - i used to spot with the planes and send in the DDs but the planes seem to do all the damage on there own nowadays

[spence]

This is not an especially good answer for the play of AE.

I asked my father, who flew ASW patrol (in the South Atlantic in 1944-45), what altitude he flew for his patrols. He stated that the "search" altitude was 1500 ft. Attacks were to be made according to the flak encountered with a "don't fire til you see the whites of their eyes" attitude to be adopted if you felt you were taking the sub by surprise.

There are a lot of pictures taken by Navy Patrol aircraft while making attacks on U-boats at uboatarchive.net. There is an especially interesting sequence of photographic reports which show the attacks made on one U-boat by a combination of USN and USAAF aircraft and the differences in their respective doctrines are manifestly clear from the pictures taken by the attacking aircraft themselves.

[Hanzberger]

ORIGINAL: BJStone

ORIGINAL: kaleun

100 or 100 feet? wow! I've been using 6000ft.
Maybe I need to fly lower.

Yeah - I hear what you are saying. I thought they needed to stay around 3-6k.

Another juicy morsal. [&o] I was at 6k all the way.

[ny59giants]

I use 6k for Naval Search and 2k for ASW, but may try putting some of my Helens down to 1k. I hope the official patch comes out soon as many of my ASW trained air units now have high ASW experience and need to get their LowN experience up.

[Disco Duck]

Another site for everyone.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/ASW-51/

Lots of details. It looks like the typical attack height was 150 -200 feet. Search height apparently varied and the article has different results based on height.

Lots of ASW technical details in the article.

[oldman45]

I always had good luck spotting by flying at 2k. Seemed to cut down on some of the wear and tear on the planes and crew fatigue.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: oldman45

I always had good luck spotting by flying at 2k. Seemed to cut down on some of the wear and tear on the planes and crew fatigue.

+1

[sdhundt]

NO, you guys got it ALL WRONG !! Use B17's at 30,000 Ft and using torpedoes. Well that's what I tell all my Allied opponents to do, SHHHHHHHHH, don't tell them how wrong that is. you should be flying B17's at 40,000 ft and then do a strafing run at that altitude. That's a recipe for TOTAL SUCCESS, :-} Trust me !

[inqistor]

There is rumor, that the higher you fly, the bigger TFs you will detect, so for single SS you should fly low.
In WITP I had different altitudes, depending of aircraft type (100, for high experience, 2000 for DBs, 1000 for TBs), but I do not think it had any difference for detection. Question is still, what happens after detection, does plane make standard attack? If so, you probably should fly at best altitude for attack (so 10k for DB, for example).

Anyway, remember, that patrol planes are susceptible for Flak/CAP. Quite a lot SSs have AA guns, so it will be probably better to fly above their ceilings.

[uncivil_servant]

Has any of ths been modified at all?

The charts @ http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep ... SW-13.html regarding most sucessful search altitudes for spotting submarines have <2,000 feet ONLY in visibility reduced conditions (<3nm conditions) but search heights got the best results in clear/mostly clear conditions in seaches in 5K+ and 10K+ altitudes (see table3)

Is 1,000 ft. for ASW sorties still the ideal for the game? (Is the 2,000 figure possible as well?)

"Patrol height is also of importance in achieving the maximum sweep rate. For both visual and radar search the altitude must be sufficiently high to give a distant horizon, and for visual search the increased apparent area of the wake is also of importance, as explained in Chapter 4 of Volume 2. The theoretical table of sweep rates presented in Table 3 shows clearly the advantages of high altitude for visual search.

As an example of operational data confirming the value of flying at fair height, data on sightings in the Bay of Biscay area during May 1943 can be quoted. Table 4 gives the sightings per 100 sorties. As would be expected, altitudes over 2000 ft give only a slight gain when meteorological visibility is low but have considerable advantage under good visibility conditions."

[John Lansford]

I wouldn't use 100' as my search altitude; you'll get a lot of operational losses and a rapid increase in pilot fatigue and morale loss if they stay at that altitude very long.

I've been using 6k for ASW search but if everyone has been having better results with 1-2k altitude I may change down to that to see what happens; the IJN subs keep getting detected off of Puget Sound and Sydney but not many hits. The surface ASW patrols appear to be finding them pretty well though.

[obvert]

I use 1k for 2E IJAAF on ASW and search. Often the same group flying both missions to get some planes out to max distance (as ASW mission halves range).

For Kates/Jills it depends on the Nav Bombing skill of the group, so either 1k or 2-5k. I fly DBs at 5-10k on search against subs and still spot a bunch.

Jakes at 1k ASW.

-----

Related question:

What happens to the bomb load on a 2E below 6k? I though it halved, right? So are they 2 x 250lb for ASW at 1-5k?

How about Jakes? Do their bomb loads also reduce to 2 x 50kg at 1k?

Kates/Jills at 1k?

[jmalter]

i'm pert' sure that airplanes always use their 'extended range' ordnance load when assigned to ASW or NavSearch. also i've been told here that LowN skill makes no difference, only Exp & ASW skill.

i always use 1k' for ASW patrol. hits are v. unlikely - even w/ Exp in the high 60s and ASW in the low 70s, the majority of reported hits are wishful thinking from FOW.

the primary purpose of ASW air is to raise the DL on enemy subs, to reduce their search capability. detected subs are less likely to attack a convoy, and ASW TFs are more likely to find & attack them.

[crsutton]

The ugly truth is that nobody knows for sure. Anywhere below 6k and you should be fine. All kinds of pet theories but I don't think anyone has really tested it.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

i'm pert' sure that airplanes always use their 'extended range' ordnance load when assigned to ASW or NavSearch. also i've been told here that LowN skill makes no difference, only Exp & ASW skill.

I always use 1k' for ASW patrol. hits are v. unlikely - even w/ Exp in the high 60s and ASW in the low 70s, the majority of reported hits are wishful thinking from FOW.

the primary purpose of ASW air is to raise the DL on enemy subs, to reduce their search capability. detected subs are less likely to attack a convoy, and ASW TFs are more likely to find & attack them.

Well, I'm going to stick with training low nav for ASW as for the IJ it doubles as kami training, but based on 27+ months of my current game, I also do believe it makes a difference to the number of hits 'claimed.' Maybe hits are "unlikely" because you're not training low naval. [;)]

When I've looked in a H to H test at an isolated group of 2E flying ASW at 1k I found that a good percentage of hit claims were false, but not as many as I'd thought. They also resulted in really various damage, from just 10-15 flotation and a few system to putting the sub in real jeopardy with 60+ float damage and 20-40 system damage. Over maybe 30-35 runs, a very small sample, I never saw a sub sunk just from air assets, but I think it's entirely possible if it has accumulated system damage or if the player does not send it home after a first hit.

What I've continually been curious about is whether the extended range and low altitude modifiers double up. So does a 2E IJAAF bomber go from 4x250kg to 1x250kg based on both modifiers if flown at below 6k on ASW?

It would really help if we had a combat report on attacks by search and ASW planes.