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Advanced Evasion Tactics by Andrew Czernicki January 2001 |
WWII Evasion Rules
The scene is familiar to many armchair sub-skipper: You've just fired a volley of torpedoes at a huge convoy. Some ships scatter, others plod along, seemingly unaware that their fate lies at the bottom of the sea. You see the plumes of water and smoke as your fish hit, then scan the ocean for more targets. Suddenly, a destroyer is abeam, 1200 yards and closing. Automatically, you set the deck gun to automatic (Silent Hunter) and fire a fish down his throat. Almost as automatically, your gun crew is inept and your torpedo is either a dud or a miss.
What now? I'm writing this to share a few ideas that might help you the next time you're commanding in Silent Hunter and you find yourself needing to run faster than a 35-knot destroyer, and your in a 20-knot sub on the surface. First of all: Don't panic! That'll disorient you from the situation and you'll lose focus.
The first step is to increase speed to FLANK. Try to put your boat heading towards the enemy at a 45 degree angle. This often makes him fire too short and behind, and it also gives you a better chance of avoiding the inevitable depth charge.
Step 2 is, naturally, dive. Just press the down key on the keyboard, don't crash dive. The down key puts your sub under quicker: fine tuning your depth can be adjusted later.
Step 3: once under, continue course and speed, while readying yourself for an aft tube shot. Use the offset angle dial here to place one fish to the left, and one to the right of your target. He turns, he's toast.
Step 4: once you have fired (hopefully you evaded the charges), slow and go deep. Try to bottom the sub for a while, I've found this works. If you can't, then run quietly away from land, zig-zagging your course every so often, like five minutes or so. Do not use waypoints. It occurred to me that perhaps the computer situates itself at those waypoints, maybe a programmed thing. Not just that, but you may find yourself turning towards shallow water or towards an enemy ship that came from nowhere. After a severe depth charging, release debris and go fast for a moment to clear the debris field. If you're skilled enough, you'll survive.
Nukie Evasion Policies
That's how to evade a depth charging in a World War Two submarine simulation game. Naturally, this sort of attack is the one main attack of the game, when a destroyer or PT boat charges you. But in the world of nuke subsims, such as 688(I) and Fast Attack, you need more finesse, and more skill, to get away from those "tin fish".
Let's assume you've detected a torpedo, say a Type 53 with a 58-knot speed of advance. Assuming you've detected it at a reasonable distance (~11,000 - ~28,000 yards) you might be able to simply go beneath the thermal layer (unless the water is isothermal) and change course, popping decoys and noisemakers and running like Hell. But if the torpedo is closer, and/or has activated (possibly acquiring as well) you need more help. Through trial and error (mostly error), I have found that running directly from the torpedo is ineffective. The fish will outrun you, every time. Unless the torpedo is fired from so far out that it simply doesn't have the range to get you running, you're screwed.
You present the torpedo with a target moving with a relatively simple intercept course. The most difficult course to intercept you at would be to turn your bow fifteen degrees off of the torpedo's bearing, as this calls for the torpedo to make rapid course adjustments, usually missing. But, this gives the torpedo the bonus of using up less fuel to approach your sub, and homing torpedoes will circle for as long as they have fuel.
Step one to a successful evasion; Don't panic. This is paramount, as it will retard your ability to think and act. Dive as deep as possible. Don't be afraid to go past the 1200 foot mark.
Step Two: Put your sub on a course heading away from the torpedo at a 45-90 degree angle. Use a very sharp, quick turn, and place a noisemaker halfway through the turn. Often a torpedo will follow you and hit the noisemaker instead.
Three: Increase your speed after turning. This will give the torpedo less of an aspect angle from which to home in and kill you.
Four: After the turn, travel two miles at flank and then return to your original course. Assuming the torpedo was not fooled by the original tactic, this will put yet another knuckle in the water. Release a noisemaker halfway through your turn, as before.
Five: If the torpedo has still not been fooled, you can either repeat turning, or you can start release strings of noisemakers and decoys, hoping to spoof him. Release at irregular intervals, and in pairs if possible. As a last resort, change course and/or depth rapidly while popping out noisemakers like mad. DO NOT PERFORM AN EMERGENCY SURFACING!!! IT WILL GET YOU KILLED!!
All these tactics are yours to try. I've found about a 70% effectiveness in the turning tactic, and nearly 20% in the last resort measures of turning wildly and/or stringing countermeasures. The other 10% of the time... well, neither worked. You can't win them all!
Now and Then
I discussed how to evade enemy weapons fired at you and successfully survive an attack. Now, I believe it would be good to point out some things that the enemy might do to attempt to evade your weapons.
I. Then - Silent Hunter
A. In my experience, I've noticed that not only do the convoy ships of Silent Hunter scatter when the first one is hit or a destroyer depth-charges your boat, they also vary their speeds. This will usually cause a torpedo to miss forward or aft. Thus, when attacking a large ship in a convoy, I use the 'offset angle' dial on the TDC to angle my shots forward and aft of the target. He slows, I hit his screws. He speeds, I nab him in the bow.
B. A destroyer will often simply turn slightly. At high speed, this will cause the torpedo to miss by about thirty yards. Using the offset angle command is useful here as well, but so is speeding up and anticipating that he will turn to follow you. If he is coming at your broadside, he will be forced to turn continually to track you. An aft tube shot with the angle set to intercept his turn will set him right. If that doesn't work, try to catch him after he's dropped his charges, when he's broadside-on, heading away.
II. Now - 688(I)
A. Now for today's tactics. Firing on an enemy sub in Janes 688(I) will cause the sub to: A) Speed up and make a hard turn. B) Go shallow and slow down (boomers especially) C) Counter fire and turn but not speed up D) Counter fire and speed up, but do not turn Usually the decoy's from a Delta class SSBN are launched in pairs or quad sets - look out, they can be very effective. You might consider resetting the weapon and activating it just before impact. If you have the 3D View cheat on, you can do this better. With practice, you no longer need it.
B. A surface ship will not evade a Harpoon - he will attempt to shoot it down. Don't let him. Set the activation range to be just two miles short of the ship, and have the search pattern on narrow. He'll never see it coming. Torpedoes produce varied results from surface ships, usually resulting in a torpedo to hit anyway.
III. Now - Fast Attack
A. Fast Attack is somewhat different. This Sierra game makes it hard for you to anticipate the enemy. I can give one piece of advice for handling an enemy nuke - use TWO ADCAPs!
B. Killing A surface ship is slightly easier, but can still be frustrating, since you cannot effectively track your torpedo. If you are quick with numbers you might guess how far your torp has traveled and in what direction. This is reinforced by the tracking feature in the TMA, but still isn't assisted much. Use a Harpoon - it's quick, it's easy, and it gets the job done. I've not, however, been able to figure out the complex VLS panel and fire a TASM at an unsuspecting Kirov - more on that later.
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