Yeah I'm with you as far as where to find info at trainworld, I was looking at those specs as well as the armament listings for the subs. It doesn't have any relevant information that I didn't already have in my original post. I just didn't know for sure what kind of sailor slots there are on each sub. Last thing I want is to start leveling specific sailors up on an assumption... afterall, flak guns are historically AA, and that's the role that real U-Flak I subs had in WWII, so common sense would suggest I level up AA gunners. Plus, the mine launcher really threw me for a loop on the Type II.



Awesome, thanks. I'm assuming then that the SS2 has one sailor slot for the gun and the SS3/4 both have two gunner slots?

And yeah, the forums are thick with information about whether to use the guns, or go with repairs/restorers. I'm probably going to level one of each and a pair of gunners to add to my crew of torpedo men and sonar/planes/engineer. I'll be able to switch between configurations and if I settle on one or the other, I will have two sailors I can sell off. The only question now is whether to use 11/11, 12/9 or 9/12 gunners. How do SS guns handle? Do U-Flak I subs fare better using DD tactics (rush + broadside spam) or BB tactics (max range, accurate salvos)?

this youu cant move :bo, sonarman, planesman, 1 enginer 2 torpedoman in KM SS. In R slot 2 gunners or repairs you choose

It does, but it's buried in one of the posts. I was mostly just wanting to know exactly what spaces for sailors were on each sub, so this thread was a specific question and not a general "what should I level for my sub" question.

xristi4n fell into the old "let me just tell you what crew I think you should have" habit, which is exactly what I didn't want when I asked my original questions.

Sonar and planesmen go into support slots, and they are _very_ important for subs (though technically not required). The bottom line is that SS4 will have three support slots, 2 T-sailor slots with torpedo mounts, and 2 R-sailor slots with deck guns.

What I ended up doing with my KM crew is this:
BB BO
SS BO
Torpedo man
Torpedo man
Planesman
Sonar
Engineer
Gunner
Gunner
Repair
Restore
Engineer

The "BB BO" is only there to give me a CA to grind my sailors on instead of trying to level sailors on a sub. When I reach SS4 I'll be able to choose whether to use gunners or repair/restore on the R slots, and if SS5 gets another support slot I will have enough engineers to fill them.

To reiterate, this thread's purpose was just for sub crew slot information so I could make my decision on my own instead of being told what to have.

Sonar is a tricky question. What I do is use a +14/x/x pot/rep/res to start with, while leveling a +13/11/11 support sailor delay-classed all the way up to about 60. I use the +14 sonar man on my SS1 and SS2, while leveling the other guy on my gunship crew. At 60 I class the support to 1st sonar and enjoy a ton of repair/restore.

The thing about sonar is, a very bad sonar man is still 80% as effective as as very good one. Sonar true ability works in steps (plateaus, soft caps, or whatever you want to call them) I think they start at *roughly* 650k, 850k, etc and get up around 1.3M and then 2M. Don't quote me on that, because those numbers are old and I don't remember them well--google is your friend. No sonar at all means you get about 3.5 pips of sight while submerged (pips being the interval markers on your guidelines). A sonar man with 0 <= TA < ~650k gets something like 8.5 pips. Each TA step you reach adds a little bit more. A boosted 13/11/11 sonar man will easily reach the 2nd last step at SS5 levels.

So you have three choices with sonar. If you're BB/CV hunting, you either want to ghost him completely or build him for SD and repair. Seeing that BB a little sooner isn't a big deal. If you prefer ASW (which is KM's natural talent) you may want to go for the sonar cap, so you can spot enemy subs a little before they spot you.


Planesman is quite important. This is the only sailor I boost, personally. Were I to start over, I would use an elite instead of a +14/10/10 pot/rep/res.


I was just testing the KM SS5 on the test server. Torpedo cap is about 854k TA. Don't boost them. +12 is enough; even +10 will cap.


Don't trim your engineers or repairman. You may want them boosted, depending on whether you can afford it... these sailors will be shared with your BB crew, so whatever is good enough for your BB should be good enough for your SS too.