[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

The point of an ambush is that the enemy does not know/suspect you are there.

Yes, that's the goal of the guy setting the ambush. That's not the same as the enemy not even suspecting you are there. Real ambushes tend to be set at certain locations, like chokepoints, close to the place that they are going anyway and so on. For a professional, it is often possible to think "OK, if I'm the enemy I'll set an ambush here."

What makes you assume they have valid reason - all the time - to assume your presence?

First, it is not all the time. I just did a campaign just to try out your BoL launch strategy. Like you, I managed to be at 5 knots when the combat started. My enemies who turned out to be a Romeo escorting a Juliett did not run into the game pinging, so it really isn't all the time. But it didn't matter since my sonar immediately got bearing on Romeo, who was above the layer. Instead of waiting to develop any solutions, I just snapshotted and then began moving through the layer and that's about when I detected Juliett under the layer (no pinging yet) so I snapshotted another torpedo.

The closer Romeo did die rather nicely (though w/o a replay it is hard to be sure whether another move could have saved him) and about then the Juliett started to ping (they really don't just ping from the outset all the time) but at least he isn't losing anything because I already have firm contact on his engines with my sonar.

About then the range firmed up, showed Juliett like 30Kyards+ away, and on course of 75 degrees at 18 knots and kept running. Anyway, the torpedo never reached Juliett.

And then Juliett just kept running. It wasn't the smartest move since I was in his baffles, but it was kind of smart since his distance et al meant that he is beyond my continuous tracking speed - I can't hold contact with him at Ahead Standard so I have to sprint and drift. If I'm not aggressive and take some risks in pursuing him, I'd lose him. Well, eventually I ran him down and I don't think I was ever endangered, but heck it was a Juliett so great things could not have been expected anyway.

Again, what are the sources for this ongoing "this was their doctrine!"?
Before we can't settle that this was or was not "the" Soviet doctrine at that time, we don't really need to debate it further, I think.

For what its' worth, on P.173 of Cold War Submarines, they do mention what happened when USS Batfish tracked a Yankee in 1978, and apparently that sub used its Kerch sonar a lot. So what's happening (and it is NOT all the time) does at least have a basis.

See above, and they do always detect you.

If they can detect you like that (better than if they tried to go passive on passive with you), then at least it is an effective tactic.

Where did I say enemy subs should never use active sonar?
Right, I didn't - so why imply it?

Well, you certainly hadn't given much hint of when you feel it is appropriate.

Again, I argued that them doing it all the time, is simply nonsensical, for reasons stated earlier - and so far not being challenged besides a broad and unsupported assumption that "they have reason to expect you" which I don't agree at all on considering the various tactical situations/encounters I had so far.

Remember that this is a game with a "jump" between the strategic and tactical maps, and there is some abstraction during the transition. Also remember there is only one basic AI in this game which has to provide an somewhat plausible challenge to a wide variety of encounters from a wide variety of players. Some may like running into enemies at 26 knots. Some may prefer the patrol speed. Others painstakingly try to ambush. Upon encounter, some use the "Close to" function and some don't. But there is only one AI.

Given this, from the way the game and options are set up, there are clearly many more ways to enter the fight where the enemy can plausibly be given some acoustical warning, so inevitably the AI's optimization would be for those scenarios. You, the deliberate Ambusher, are on the fringe.

Further, as mentioned, in reality, it is often possible for a professional to identify likely points of ambush. However, it is not realistic to expect the AI to be able to make a "fair" judgment as to whether it can or should know it is headed into a Probable Ambush Area. This game's solution to the problem seems to be to assume if the Player (roleplaying a professional Captain) can make that call, the AI (same) can and should be able to tell as well, which is at least an equitable solution to this problem.

And again ... it just isn't all the time.

Also, why do other subsims don't do that and go for the silent apporach?[/I]
[I]And why can fighting enemy submarines in these titles still be very challenging, even if you have the better boat?

As I said, I hadn't played Fast Attack so I can't compare with that. But as I said I did play the 688I Hunter Killer through Dangerous Water line. The AI submarines there may or may not be better at dodging - though I don't remember killing them as anything that hard. I remember detecting when they start evading is much easier since all you really do is stare at the DEMON and when the lines start going right that's when they are evading - you actually have to wait a bit longer in CW to know when they've started evading.

The main thing about AI enemies in games is not their survival. Their main job to be blunt is to give the player some pressure (read, threaten to Kill Player), and frankly on this score Cold Waters does much better than Dangerous Waters. As you say, other games program their AI to leave pinging to the surface ships and the subs are all passive. Since you have an acoustic advantage, once you learn to work the stations (and really, I never mastered TMA but frankly once you've classified the sub with narrowband and then used DEMON to check its speed TMA becomes very easy) you are pretty safe, especially since DW doesn't really punish all that heavily for brief indiscretions. I'm hardly a star player and I still feel comfortable with doing all kinds of crap in Dangerous Waters, up to and including using active sonar (if I'm on an American sub, I remember being completely unable to pick out blips on the reddish Russian active sonar) for targets up to about 20 K-yards, or using the Main Ballast Tanks to increase my climb rate (and then venting and making the automated planesmen compensate for my recklessness, which they do).