About firing solution

[Bayu Pamungkas]

Hi All, a few days ago I was starting to learn manual TMA. Firstly I learned using spherical array only, and i can made good solution for static targets like civilians and some surface warships. So something I want to ask is
1. How to deal with a maneuvering contact? Usually ai sub will maneuvering after hear TIW.
2. Is triangulation using TA+SA effective to deal with maneuvering target, at least knowing her newest position? If yes how much LOB you need?
3. How dangerous to use active sonar? To check if there are some nasty CMs, or other safer solution to know that there are some CMs and guessing where does she placed them?
4. How accurate is the autoTMA?
5. Do the ai surfaces deaf? They often didn't change courses, using nixie, or shoot back at me after I launched torpedoes at them, unlike the ai subs which usually doing some maneuvers, dropping CMs, and sometimes, worst, shoot back.

[p7p8]

Im not big fan of manual TMA because other aspects of game are more interesting for me. However in my opinion all players should have knowledge how it works and what kind of maneuvering makes TMA works easier.

0. Using only spherical sonar is NOT good choice.
- this sonar have shortest range for quiet contacts
- it won't teach you how to deal with mirror contacts (like TA)

1. When contact tries to evade your torpedo it's very difficult to predict his way.
You should attack only with good solution, place mark on map and start TMA work almost from beginning (from last good solution marked on map)

For contacts which changes course but goes generaly in the same direction its quite easy. You should to watch this video:



...and play this mission because its good for improving TMA skill (RA mod required).

Scenario link is under description.

2. No
3. Depends. All enemy submarines probably will attack your sub if you will be in range. In other hand, not all surface ships can detect active sonar. Onlu specialized in ASW or ASW/Multirole warships.
4. Auto TMA can be very accurate and very inaccurate :P
You should track target some amount of time. Place marks on map when solution have "age= 0". With little experience you will recognise when solution is good/bad.
5. Not all surfs can detect active sonar. It depends on what kind of warship you attack.

[ET2SN]

What makes DW great is there is no ONE way to play the game.
Really, you play the game as the OOD (officer of the deck) but you can also focus on the watch stations in Control and Sonar if you choose.

With the auto crew, I look at it as they are only as good as you let them be. Its your job to put the boat in the correct location so the auto crew can do their thing. If they screw it up, its up to you to spot the mistakes and make the corrections.

The bigger issue you're asking about involves Situational Awareness. You're in a given location with other ships. What kind of ships are they? Where are they going and what are they doing? Once you figure that out, how capable are they?

If a patrol boat is blasting away with active sonar, is that a bad thing or no big deal? Can they detect you? Do they carry weps that can reach out and touch you?

Overall, the purpose of TMA is to put your weps where they can do the most damage. This is key, you don't get bonus points for figuring out a contact's speed and heading within one knot and two degrees.
Your weps tend to have good homing capabilities once they detect the target, all you have to do is put them in the right position without putting yourself in a bad situation.

I know this reply is very generic, my main point is for you not to focus-in on one detail so that you lose the big picture.

[tAKticool47]

One thing I have long wondered and never asked for fear of being told "read the manual" is about "merging contacts".

Let's say I am at periscope depth, I raise the radio & ESM masts and periscope and there is a few surface ships in the area.

I can then get the same contact via visual, sonar, ESM etc. and perhaps a friendly unit has identified it so it also shows up via Link.

Initially there might be 3 or 4 "contacts" in the vicinity - with enough time that goes by, the auto TMA assistant will put some of them together as a Master contact.

Unfortunately it never puts them together with the Link contact. If you go into manual TMA, you can "Merge" some contacts together manually. You can't do that with everything though and you can't use the Link in the merge area.

I have been wondering if there is a way (that I haven't figured out) to use the mouse to merge contacts on the screen? I am wondering if it was "vanilla-vs-DW?" ? I know in "vanilla" DW, you could use the mouse to shoot the Harpoons in the FFG-7s, that isn't in the DW, could merging contacts be something like that?

OK Thanks.

[FPSchazly]

You can't merge with Link, at least as far as the game is concerned, because Link contacts aren't made with ship-borne data. They come from other platforms. Therefore, you would have no LOBs with which to do TMA.

[Mike Abberton]

I generally find that linking non-passive Sonar tracks with sonar data is not helpful. By the way, I am including Active Sonar Intercept tracks as passive sonar data for this purpose.

Whenever I try to include data from ESM, radar, active sonar (from ownship), visual, etc. into my passive sonar Master tracks, I find it just clutters up the screen and confuses my solution rather than helping. I typically use those other types of tracks as a check on my passive-sonar-data tracks instead.

Mike