Variety of questions looking for opinions / pointers in '68

[jerseytom]

To say I've had mixed success in '68 campaigns would be putting things mildly. Like managing a week of the war is an accomplishment. Lot of dumb errors that are easily cleaned up, but I'd be curious to hear some thoughts and opinions from other people here, on any topic you have strong opinions or observations on.


Boat
When I get home today I'll have to make a table of performance stats of the Skip, Permit, and Sturgeon for comparison's sake.

Typically I've gone with the Sturgeon, wanting to be as quiet as possible with a good sonar package. Speed is definitely lacking... wondering now if having a quieter boat is mitigated by having to run full or flank to chase ahead of target groups. Maybe I should give the Skipjack a go? That or maybe I need to allocate some more time to these engagements and play a really long slow game.


Load Out
Seems I've been leaning toward fewer Mk16's and more Mk37's as a starting load out. For as pathetically slow as the Mk37 is, at least I can fire it from depth and guide it for some higher hit percentage. Really haven't used Mk16's much at all to be honest. Similar feelings?


Engagement Ranges
What's a reasonable or preferred engagement range for either a surface target with a Mk16, or a submerged target with a Mk37? I've been given more sub targets than surface groups and my MO has been to get within ~1500 yards dead astern before letting a Mk37 out. Has cost me... in missing and a torpedo re-acquiring on me, but I feel like if I don't shoot point blank there's a high likelihood of a wire breaking or a target getting a sniff of it and outrunning it. Maybe more specifically, I wait until the last moment to go active even when in passive mode.

Thoughts on preferred distance for a Mk16...?


Diesel Targets
Trying to find and engage some submerged diesel boats, they can be a challenge to pick up. Even at 10 knots starting speed it seems more often than not I start with "contact has faded." Not sure whether I'm best off staying with ultra quiet 1/3 speed and passive sonar going off in their reported direction, or being aggressive with active search.


Breaking Contact w/ Torpedoes
I can dance and evade torpedo strikes with some amount of proficiency, but I find it damn hard to actually break contact to where I won't get reacquired - short of getting lucky and it acquiring a close enemy. Any tips here, or are you pretty much stuck bobbing and weaving until if/when it runs out of steam?

Seems the SET-65's stop pinging if I make a successful evasion. Does that imply they switch into passive search mode? I.e. is there a chance of successfully breaking contact if I rig ultra quiet or all stop when it goes past and starts its search arc again?


Torpedo Active/Passive Search & Noisemakers
Should a noisemaker do anything to a torpedo in active search mode, pinging away? It seems to... but I'm not following how or why that would be. You'd think a boat would be a vastly larger return on a ping, than a tiny little noise maker.


Surface Capitol Ship Groups
I get that not all missions / engagements may be winnable, but jeez. A missile frigate, with a pair of DD escorts, and a Victor I lurking around, seems like an awfully tall order for one attack boat! Have to run at full just to keep up with their speed, flank to have a chance of catching or getting in position - at which point it's awfully hard not to get detected. Maybe I need to be more patient and try to get ahead on position from way further out. Not sure the best approach for this type of engagement to have any chance of success.


Enemy Nuclear Subs Surfacing?
Anyone else notice that Novembers will at times go up and run on the surface to try and get away? In one of the '84 single missions I believe an Oscar tried this as well. Does that make any sense? Not sure what they'd be trying to achieve there, I'd think surface speed is less than submerged, no?

[The Bandit]

Originally Posted by jerseytom

To say I've had mixed success in '68 campaigns would be putting things mildly. Like managing a week of the war is an accomplishment. Lot of dumb errors that are easily cleaned up, but I'd be curious to hear some thoughts and opinions from other people here, on any topic you have strong opinions or observations on.


Boat
When I get home today I'll have to make a table of performance stats of the Skip, Permit, and Sturgeon for comparison's sake.

Typically I've gone with the Sturgeon, wanting to be as quiet as possible with a good sonar package. Speed is definitely lacking... wondering now if having a quieter boat is mitigated by having to run full or flank to chase ahead of target groups. Maybe I should give the Skipjack a go? That or maybe I need to allocate some more time to these engagements and play a really long slow game.


Load Out
Seems I've been leaning toward fewer Mk16's and more Mk37's as a starting load out. For as pathetically slow as the Mk37 is, at least I can fire it from depth and guide it for some higher hit percentage. Really haven't used Mk16's much at all to be honest. Similar feelings?


Engagement Ranges
What's a reasonable or preferred engagement range for either a surface target with a Mk16, or a submerged target with a Mk37? I've been given more sub targets than surface groups and my MO has been to get within ~1500 yards dead astern before letting a Mk37 out. Has cost me... in missing and a torpedo re-acquiring on me, but I feel like if I don't shoot point blank there's a high likelihood of a wire breaking or a target getting a sniff of it and outrunning it. Maybe more specifically, I wait until the last moment to go active even when in passive mode.

Thoughts on preferred distance for a Mk16...?


Diesel Targets
Trying to find and engage some submerged diesel boats, they can be a challenge to pick up. Even at 10 knots starting speed it seems more often than not I start with "contact has faded." Not sure whether I'm best off staying with ultra quiet 1/3 speed and passive sonar going off in their reported direction, or being aggressive with active search.


Breaking Contact w/ Torpedoes
I can dance and evade torpedo strikes with some amount of proficiency, but I find it damn hard to actually break contact to where I won't get reacquired - short of getting lucky and it acquiring a close enemy. Any tips here, or are you pretty much stuck bobbing and weaving until if/when it runs out of steam?

Seems the SET-65's stop pinging if I make a successful evasion. Does that imply they switch into passive search mode? I.e. is there a chance of successfully breaking contact if I rig ultra quiet or all stop when it goes past and starts its search arc again?


Torpedo Active/Passive Search & Noisemakers
Should a noisemaker do anything to a torpedo in active search mode, pinging away? It seems to... but I'm not following how or why that would be. You'd think a boat would be a vastly larger return on a ping, than a tiny little noise maker.


Surface Capitol Ship Groups
I get that not all missions / engagements may be winnable, but jeez. A missile frigate, with a pair of DD escorts, and a Victor I lurking around, seems like an awfully tall order for one attack boat! Have to run at full just to keep up with their speed, flank to have a chance of catching or getting in position - at which point it's awfully hard not to get detected. Maybe I need to be more patient and try to get ahead on position from way further out. Not sure the best approach for this type of engagement to have any chance of success.


Enemy Nuclear Subs Surfacing?
Anyone else notice that Novembers will at times go up and run on the surface to try and get away? In one of the '84 single missions I believe an Oscar tried this as well. Does that make any sense? Not sure what they'd be trying to achieve there, I'd think surface speed is less than submerged, no?

I'll try to answer these a best as I can for you.

1. Boats
From what I've heard most people prefer the Skipjack because of its speed and maneuverability, that being said its passive sonar is quite inferior and its a good bid louder (140db vs 130 of the Sturgeon default) so there are trade-offs involved.

2. Loadout
That's where I'm at too in 1968, as marginal as the Mk 37 is, I find it to be a lot more useful than the Mk 16. Really the only time I can set up good Mk 16 shots is when you can get something to run from a Mk 37, usually any other time, unless you launch a very good and pretty wide spread with the Mk 16 they are going to take effective evasive action. I would think this is pretty realistic though because even if a vessel like a cargo ship doesn't have sonar, its escorts would still warn it.

3. Diesels
Diesel boats in many cases are going to be quieter than nuclear submarines, honestly though I rarely would try to use active sonar to find them (only possible exception is in garbage sonar conditions if I'm feeling impatient and even then this can get you into trouble so its not recommended). Work your last known bearing and search in a zig-zag pattern, in some conditions if you dive deeper you can have a better chance acquiring a contact at range due to the deep sound layer.

4. Breaking contact
Most effective (and economical) way to break contact is to maneuver in the vertical plane. As soon as its clear torpedoes are in the water, put them on the beam and try to run perpendicular to them, you're not going to be able to out run them but if you can get outside of their acquisition cone they won't be a threat. If they do acquire you, I typically take them as deep as my boat can go (even a little bit beyond test depth) and let them get close, maybe within a half of a boat length from my screw, then fire off a noisemaker and immediately go to full rise on the planes and full positive ballast. If you can tell what direction the torpedo veered off to and steer the opposite this can help too but what I've noticed is that I can change depth faster going in a straight line vs turning so try to straighten out your rudder as soon as you can. The point in all this is, if the torpedo loses you deep and doesn't re-acquire as your ascending, its going to stay deep and run a search pattern looking for you. Ditto if you manage to lose it up top. The key here is if you do this right, you can get by with only using one noisemaker instead of 6 staying alive until the torpedo runs out.

5. Noisemakers
For the sake of this game (I don't know how much this ties into realism as far as what was available in 1968, but the Skipjack did have a "decoy ejector tube" I know I'm not calling it by its proper name) the noisemaker emits bubbles which will appear as a solid object to active sonar, thus decoying the torpedo.

6. Capital ship groups (and invasion forces)
This may seem cheap, and won't win you any medals but, the game is pretty fair when it comes to victory conditions. Usually the victory conditions are tied to a specific ship or set of ships. In the case of an invasion force, if you DAMAGE 50% or more of the troop-ships, this is a victory. Same thing for most of the SSGN or submarine intercept missions, whatever your after, even if you can only put one fish Mk 37 in it, the game will usually count this as a mission kill, and rightly so. I suppose its very possible for a cargo ship with its bottom ripped out to beach itself and unload its cargo, however if you're talking about a submarine or war-ship receiving this type of damage, 99% of the time offensive operations for it are done and it will be into "go back home and live to fight another day" mode.

7. Enemy subs surfacing
This is a bug. The only viable reason I can give you for a sub to surface like this would be to get his crew off before he scuttles. That being said, I do kind of like it for certain reasons. It should not happen nearly as often as it does (same with enemy subs imploding) but another "viable" reason for this to happen is if the submarine loses depth control and goes into an uncontrolled ascent or dive. I would think that anybody who is capable of watch-standing on a submaine would know his boat well enough NOT to allow something like that to happen, but I do think it would be interesting to see like 1% of the time if the AI sub-driver gets spooked trying to evade torpedoes.

[kstanb]

Unguided torpedoes were the default up until the early 80s; so the fact that nobody uses them in the 68 campaign is a problem with the game. I mean I wonder how was it possible to win WW2 with so crappy torpedoes!!!

The answer of course is that against ships that were unaware of being targeted and with real life conditions that made it very difficult to a) spot a torpedo b) change speed c) maneuver
then unguided torpedoes were extremely successful. Usually by the time a torpedo was spotted and actions were taken, it was not going to get out of a spread because moving in one direction or another will just put it in a path of one the torpedoes

You just need to look at the Falkland's war Belgrano's sinking.
Conqueror's skipper had a choice of homing and unguided torpedoes and he chose the later, knowing that with reliable torpedoes, a good solution and spread, there was no chance of it surviving

[kstanb]

with the game in its current state:

- I will carry maybe 3 or 4 Mk16s, the rest of the load is Mk37s

- Use Mk16s only against targets that are running away, because they will no longer change heading, or they won't for a long time.

- Against big capital ships: Use Mk37s to damage ships, reducing speed enough as to make it easy to finish them off with Mk16s.
Better to spend 1 Mk16 + 1 Mk37 than 3 Mk37s

[jerseytom]

Thanks for the input, guys. Tried a new campaign last night in the Skipjack - vastly more success on my first patrol (including surviving!) than I've had previously. Not sure how much of that is the boat versus just getting better in general.