Helicopter behavior

[aiknx999]

While having to deal with missions involving tender or landing force elimination, after sinking all the ships I sometimes encounter a lone ASW helicopter from one of the sunk escorts still chasing me around the sea for some time. My question - what would be the standard thing to do for a helicopter in this situation in real life? For me it seems quite unreasonable for the helicopter to continue the hunt with limited fuel/range and its' landing pad sitting on the bottom of the sea, especially if it could still make it home if it started flying there immediately.
I do admit that I haven't played Cold Waters with newer patches all that much and I haven't noticed this behavior happening that often, but even if this has been patched, I'm still curious about that.

Cheers!

[-Pv-]

This is a "What's expected" kind of case. Revenge or survival?
I assume it runs out of weapons eventually and with no support or vectored weapons platforms nearby, my "expectation" is that it should give up.
-Pv-

[aiknx999]

My expectation would be for the helicopter do ditch all the weapons and go for the nearest landmass ASAP, assuming it doesn't have a clear contact on a hunted sub. That's why it was so frustrating to see a helicopter following me to the edge of the map (the only way to end the mission with that thing flying around). These days it seems it's a lot easier to loose those pesky helicopters and I did get better at not being detected in the first place :) In any case, I really have no clue how a real heli crew would deal with that situation, that's why I'm asking

[GeneralGamer]

Well It's Russian. They are expected to sacrifice their lives and never give up. So my thinking is facing you is better than going home and explaining why they gave up. Siberia is cold this time of year..:har:

[FPSchazly]

Purely out of conjecture, but I imagine if a sub just sank all of the helo's buddies, the helo would want to get revenge. It knows it's probably not making it anywhere before it would have to ditch. But I think it would depend a lot on the persons involved. It would be interesting if this was implemented as like a 50/50 leave/stay type thing.

[-Pv-]

Having to laboriously plow all the way to the end of the map being chased by an adversary you cannot combat to end the scenario and get your hard-earned score seems not fun.
-Pv-

[FPSchazly]

They run out of torps / fuel :D I mean I'm not saying the helicopter is gonna go completely ballistic and chase you until it runs out of fuel. Once it expends its weapons, it's done all it can do.

[-Pv-]

"That's why it was so frustrating to see a helicopter following me to the edge of the map (the only way to end the mission with that thing flying around)."

I would be frustrated by that too, even if it was only 50% of the time.
-Pv-

[FPSchazly]

Let me restate what I meant. 50/50 chance of helicopter leaving or staying once all friendly units are sunk. If it stays, it engages the player platform to the best of its ability with its remaining weapons and once those weapons run out, it disengages.

Just an idea. Some of the details would have to be fleshed out, like when would someone reasonably give up as the probability of finding the target as time goes on drops off pretty rapidly.

[-Pv-]

I'm imagining since this particular helo followed the player off the map, he remained "found" the entire time for some reason. Depending on the location, it can take a long time of max speed at accelerated sim time to sail off the map.
-Pv-

[IDMooseMan]

I lost contact with the enemy sub in a "The Duel" single mission play. Just for my own education, I attempted to reach the map edge. At 900-feet, 25-knots, heading 270* and accelerated time (F9) usage, after 15 minutes or more, I was still nowhere near the map edge.

Once I realized this would take a while, and the enemy sub was no longer in the vicinity, I did the only thing I could think of...Shift-R and headed for the surface. Brought most of the sub's bow out of the water, too. That was fun.

[speed150mph]

I'd say it's fairly realistic that they'd keep attacking for several reasons.

1: they are probably pretty pissed off at you for sinking their ship and our for vengance.

2: the helo has limited fuel range, and if they have been chasing you down for a while then that is probably pretty depleted so it's likely that unless they were less then 150 miles offshore that they probably wouldn't make it to land let alone an airbase.

3: it's not really suicide. Unless the ship suffered a catastrophic hit to a magazine and sank in a couple minutes it's safe to say that a good portion of the crew got out and are floating around in a lifeboat. The helo would have radioed a distress call if the ship didn't and would know that rescue was coming. All they would have to do is ditch near the lifeboat while they still had power, get picked up, and song sea shanties while they waited for someone to show up.

[The Bandit]

I'd say it's fairly realistic that they'd keep attacking for several reasons.

1: they are probably pretty pissed off at you for sinking their ship and our for vengance.

2: the helo has limited fuel range, and if they have been chasing you down for a while then that is probably pretty depleted so it's likely that unless they were less then 150 miles offshore that they probably wouldn't make it to land let alone an airbase.

3: it's not really suicide. Unless the ship suffered a catastrophic hit to a magazine and sank in a couple minutes it's safe to say that a good portion of the crew got out and are floating around in a lifeboat. The helo would have radioed a distress call if the ship didn't and would know that rescue was coming. All they would have to do is ditch near the lifeboat while they still had power, get picked up, and song sea shanties while they waited for someone to show up.

Quite true, and you have to look at the big picture as well. Obviously depends on exactly where we're talking about but almost for sure if its the Barents and arguably even in the Norwegian or Greenland Sea, not at all hard to imagine that this lone surviving helo could ring up a Bear or May to come in and ruin your day, especially if he doesn't have fuel to do anything else he could at least keep track on you for as long as possible.

[-Pv-]

I think players are reacting to the helos being the most frustrating opponent in the game.
-Pv-

[Delgard]

Be nice if sonar could pick up their noise...if conditions permitted.

[-Pv-]

I hear them when they pass directly overhead, but it's better to use the 3D view and watch for the puddles. When they are around, the game gets nasty. For the most part, the game does a pretty good job of giving the player clues that death from above is near. I can understand how the game gives the player the ability to reduce the enemy water threats, but the air threats are untouchable, driving the desire to reach out and touch someone. Will be nice when there are missions supporting war ships or escorting merchants where you know you don't have to worry so much once in a while.
-Pv-

[IDMooseMan]

I agree. Seems like if subs can fire missiles at surface ships, they should be able to fire missiles at aircraft. It would be a fun scenario to test.

[-Pv-]

I wasn't advocating firing missiles at helos. Even while trying to do this will result in the loss of the sub. It's also something which was not been done in modern warfare. I was just admitting the frustration which encourages this request.
-Pv-

[Delgard]

No Stingers. I just did a land attack in Gremika, all ships/targets destroyed. Helo dropped a sonobouy 5k away. I wasn't detected.

Not to toot a horn, but the torpedoes cruised along the bottom and went active pretty close to their targets, hitting close to the same time. Reloaded all tubes twice while the helo didn't know where to start first and fired at the land targets as fast as possible. Never detected exiting. Ran past two noisy wrecks.

Does take patience when running silent.