Are planes able to detect submarines?

[sacia4]

I had to stop playing for some months and I out of the news. So, I'd like to know if planes (from AI and player) are able to detect submarines and engage on them?

[cswiger]

Rarely, but yes. A full squadron of Avengers armed with depth charges can sink a sub in maybe 1 out of 5 attempts, if you can still find it on the tactical map before it dives.

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by sacia4:

I had to stop playing for some months and I out of the news. So, I'd like to know if planes (from AI and player) are able to detect submarines and engage on them?

Aircraft detection of subs was removed from the game. You can put it back in by editing config.txt. Change "hideStrategicMapSubs":true," to "hideStrategicMapSubs":false,"

[Lanzfeld]

Any idea why they did that?

[JazzObserver127]

Originally posted by cswiger:

A full squadron of Avengers armed with depth charges can sink a sub in maybe 1 out of 5 attempts, if you can still find it on the tactical map before it dives.

A squadron of Avengers armed with rockets needs at most 2 tries to sink a submarine, but most of the time it only needs one run.

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by Lanzfeld:

Any idea why they did that?

Originally posted by byepopejoy:

1) ASW aircraft (like rocket-armed Avengers) massacred AI submarines in short order.

2) Player controlled submarines were virtually immune to air attack - they could dive out from under pretty much anything the AI threw at them except the occasional B-17 strike.

3) Human-controlled submarine TFs could screen surface TFs from air attacks. The AI aircraft would go for the subs, expend their ordnance, and fly back to base, while the human-controlled subs just dodged and used their periscopes to watch the planes fly away.

I would add a 4th reason which I saw in a post that I can't find now:

If you had ships in the area, the enemy sub would spawn on the tactical map submerged near your ships and launch a torpedo attack on your ships.

Removing the air spotting of subs is just a temporary fix until the developer has a chance to make some changes to how subs work.

[Ragol]

kinda wish the ai would trigger encounters and use aerial depth charges with avengers or even have scout planes with them vs the player subs, it would make subs a little more scary to use.

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by Syaimaar:

kinda wish the ai would trigger encounters and use aerial depth charges with avengers or even have scout planes with them vs the player subs, it would make subs a little more scary to use.

Before I turned on "subs visible" to aircraft, I did have a situation where AI aircraft (F4F Wildcats) initiated a tactical encounter and attacked my submarine which was on the surface at night. I don't know how the sub was detected, but the Wildcats had bombs because I use "The Tokyo Express" mod, and fighters carry two small bombs under their wings by default. The Wildcats dropped their bombs before I could submerge, and they sank my submarine. I replayed the tactical encounter by loading the autosave, and once again the fighters sank my sub before I could submerge even though I gave the command to submerge immediately upon entering the encounter.

So, you can have the behavior you want if you use The Tokyo Express mod, but right now the mod requires the latest beta version of the game. Going forward from now, The Tokyo Express mod will not be tied to the beta version of the game. It will be updated to the latest release version of the game. So, I would advise to wait for all the campaign rebalancing that is going on right now in the beta to be finished before trying the mod.

[Crazed Possum]

Here is a clue to some folks:

Japanese subs have float planes and if you find yourself in a spot where you locate a float plane just follow it until it stops and initiate tactical view and there is a good chance of finding either the fleet or a sub.