A black hole

[Orm]

It is common to say that the Kilo is so quiet that it is a black hole in the water. Now I wonder through some old readings, meaning that I am not very sure, that it is just the problem when a sub is too quiet as you get a particular signature (I believe on BB sonar screen) of literally a noiseless hole/area in the natural ambient noise. Is it true or just my imagination? And if it is true, why DW doesn’t simulate this characteristic that could resolve a lot of problems when encountering a Kilo.

[Kapitan]

well for a start the kilo isnt that quiet no more in fact its quite noisey as it is some thing like 20 years old.

in terms of good quietness it has to go to the germans thier type 212 / 214 are just one of a kind there great submarines and got everything a good sub needs.

currently the SSK list stands something like this:

type 214 / 212, lada / amur, scorpene , joint type 209 and kilo

roughly something like that as for the kilo in dangerous waters i do sometimes have problems finding them.

[Orm]

Kapitain wrote


roughly something like that as for the kilo in dangerous waters i do sometimes have problems finding them.

Do you really find the Kilo with passive sonar? Or do you use active to pinpoint this sub?

[Kapitan]

towed array can pick it up but i have to be quite close i have had flukes where ive picked up a kilo using passive but that was when kilo was at speed.

other than that i have severe trouble finding this thing

[MaHuJa]

And as for a "anti-contact" - being silent means fading into the ambient noise. It won't make the area around it appear silent.

I dislike the 'black hole' analogy badly anyway - there isn't much stealth about a black hole.


Speaking from lwami 2.01:
The kilo is nearly impossible to find on passive when slow. When you find it, you're usually either in danger of colliding with it, or you have been and may have it collide with your towed array :)

Either way, you'll be hit by a friggin' wakehomer before you can react if he decides to fire.

And active isn't the see-all it once was.

[Orm]

Kapitain wrote


other than that i have severe trouble finding this thing


I have been diving quite a while with the Seawolves, and mostly with the Kilo at the beginning. And I can tell you that NO ONE ever found me with his passive sonar, TA or else, as you know that on combat dive, you will rarely cruise at more than 3 knots. They had to use their active sonar, or I had to launch a couple of torps, that they could put me on the map.
And about this "black hole" (no matter what sub), it would be nice to know if I am imagining the thing or if it is true.

[Molon Labe]

In DW 1.01+hotfix, detection range for a Kilo is less then 2nm.

LW/Ami will extend that out to about 6 in good conditions if the Kilo is moving at all; it essentially has SSN noise levels even at low speeds.

[SeaQueen]

It is common to say that the Kilo is so quiet that it is a black hole in the water. Now I wonder through some old readings, meaning that I am not very sure, that it is just the problem when a sub is too quiet as you get a particular signature (I believe on BB sonar screen) of literally a noiseless hole/area in the natural ambient noise. Is it true or just my imagination?

Not quite. That's a bit of hyperbole that you're taking too literally.

When people say a submarine is "quiet" what they really mean is that the specific tones emitted by the submarine are difficult to distinguish from noise at a great distance. Most submarines are detectable if one gets close enough, however, whether that distance is useful to someone trying to defend themselves against that submarine is another question.

In publicly available literature, you will see a lot of blanket statements about the "quietness" of various submarine classes. Really, though, such statements are meaningless (hence they are included in unclassified literature).

To really make useful statements about sonar performance against a specific class of submarine, one must qualify the statement with some description of the environmental variables (sea state, SVP, salinity, bathymetry, season, ambient noise, bottom type, etc). Unfortunately for people curious about these sorts of technologies, because of the necessity of protecting defense secrets, the real nuances of the facts tend to be lost.

In a convergence zone environment, an environment with a good bottom bounce, or an environment with a good duct, one might have respectable performance against a "quiet" submarine. The thing is, one of the advantages of submarines, is that they can usually choose where they want to strike. In a bottom limited environment, in a warm season when there's little or no duct, and the water is shallow, then a "quiet" SSK operating on his battery, might be VERY difficult to detect beyond a short distance.

Usually, in the publicly available literature, what they really would say, if they were able to, when a submarine is said to be "quiet" is that the submarine is "quiet" in the environment they expect to encounter it.

[FERdeBOER]

That's the good point for using Kilos: it's very silent when used with patient.
On the other hand it can't run at great speeds and have to recharge batteries, wich is very noisy.

All kind of subs have its good and bad points.

[Kapitan]

yes they do on the downside i see the seawolf as too complex and thats its downfall it takes a long time to be able to use it properly.

every thing has good and bad points