How to sneak into a port

[Deathblow]

Okiedokie,

so we see this mission type over and over and over again from mission designers and I've yet to find a reasonable approach at solving it: Sneak your sub into a heavily defended port for some reconnaisance.... Only one problem though, there is always 2-3 frigates with active sonars blaring right at the entrance of the port... so how do we get passed them?

All of the obvious tatics usually don't apply. The water is always too shallow to "go under the layer" so that options out. Also, there's usually a time restraint... "Get into and out of the port by X hours"... so taking the long way around and skirting the coast usually is out too....

...Also most of the boats that are blaring their sonar are "pacing" back and forth across the port entrance turning with enough frequency to forbid a "quick sprint" when their backs are turned...

so the only tatics thats left is... hmm... :-? ... there are no tatics left :dead:

Any ideas? Active sonars stink :(

[BigBadVuk]

Well maybe the only limit here is time...if u have enough time to do something then you will heve no problem in sneaking in...I still remember the SEAL insertion mission in SC duuude..this was the point of campaign when i almoust cracked my keyboard in half :damn:

The only solution wort this situations is to be fast and silent as s as p..but that is usualyimpossible to do etc..etc...Any of u boomer-masters here with nice solution? :arrgh!:

[Molon Labe]

Follow a bunch of whales in, and have a trigger set for the defenders to fail the mission automatically if they sonar-blast the whales. Oh wait, we lost the "Useraction=" doctrine in DW. Oh well, I tried.

PS: I actually wanted to make another mission in my Taiwan-China war series called "Yokosuka Surprise," which I cancelled due to this problem. Although, I might want to see what happens with LW/Ami 3.0 on the absolute worst sonar conditions... :D Even if it did work though, it would probably suck without masts being detectable... :damn:

[Hartmann]

i never tried this yet with a modern sub :roll:

but i think that this will be a suicide mission because you will be trapped if the enemy detect you.
Also the speed is limited in shallow waters making very difficult evade torpedoes. :dead: :dead:

Perhaps slowly and silent,,, :hmm:

[HydroShok]

Cut off quick aircraft launch, otherwise kirov's will launch all 3 choppers back to back, etc. If you know there's a chopper on the way, get ready to launch SAM's because you'll be dead anyways if you don't.

Put some ground in between the line of sight between you and the pinging ships. Sometimes if you hug the shoreline really close, they don't seem to get returns from pings.

come up as shallow as you can and extent periscope, then go to like 4x or 8x (16x is too slow) and hold one of the arrows and just spin it around. You can mark/take photo of the ships at a greater distance than you think you would in game. Kinda cheesy this way but works.

if a ship is going 20 knots and its pinging, just ignore it, he can't hear the returns, at least he shouldn't be able to.

If a ship isn't pinging, I would assume his passive sonar is so bad that he probably can't even pick you up 2 miles away. Especially if he is parked, you know he couldn't be using TA

Even though its shallow, stream TA 25% or so. Still works good.

Sometimes in the early campaign missions, the loyalist and rebels, neither may be tasked to kill you. They might be sneaking in too.

I think i know what mission you're talking about it. You take some pictures in "Vlad" and go find some boomers in "petro". The computer will always lay a sonobuoy barrier at the "main entrance", I cut over to petro the quickest, shallowest way, and eventually surfaced out of radar range to get through the extra shallow water. Otherwise you'll never get past those buoys

[LuftWolf]

LWAMI would definately help a bit because of the increased aft baffle for surface active sonars... so theoretically as long as you were able to stay behind any ship that was close enough to detect you without being picked up on TA you would have a chance, in which case I would look at setting the acoustic conditions to mud or sand bottom and the sea state reasonably high with a bottom limited environment and you might have a decent chance if the port is large enough.

[Molon Labe]

All the FFG player has to do in that case is turn to clear the baffle every now and then. The problem's still there.

[Deathblow]

Do ASW platforms really do all this anyway? Just sit on a port entrance and blow there active sonar nonstop even though they don't know what they are looking for? I can understand if there is a known sub in the area, or if they are trying to clear the port for a short time, otherwise, it just doesn't seem likely that a ship will just ping for hours on end... :-? ... but maybe I'm wrong :hmm:

[Molon Labe]

You're right, I think, but how do you enforce that?

[SeaQueen]

I can understand if there is a known sub in the area, or if they are trying to clear the port for a short time, otherwise, it just doesn't seem likely that a ship will just ping for hours on end... :-?

What's wrong with that? If sitting and pinging is your best change of detecting a submarine, then that's what you should do.

[MaHuJa]

One of the biggest contributors to the active return is still the sub showing its side, as opposed to nose or tail.

[Dr.Sid]

You just can't avoid active sonar. With 1.03 and strong layer you can get to about 5 miles without detection if you face the ship (giving almost no reflective surface). I tested this yesterday - and it was seastate 1. In rough seas you could get even closer I guess.
But if you show him the side of the ship, he can hear the return much further. Without layer there is just no chance.

[LuftWolf]

Actually, in bottom limited environments other than Rock bottom, active sonar is quite limited.

Rock bottom shallow bottom limited environments seem to conduct sound just as well if not better than the top layer of a surface duct or CV, which both allow sound to propagate quite well and some distance. However, as I said, if you change the same situation with a bottom limited environment to Sand or Mud bottom, and the acoustic conditions change dramatically and the detection ranges are much shorter.

[Deathblow]

I can understand if there is a known sub in the area, or if they are trying to clear the port for a short time, otherwise, it just doesn't seem likely that a ship will just ping for hours on end... :-?

What's wrong with that? If sitting and pinging is your best change of detecting a submarine, then that's what you should do.

I'm not saying that its not possible. Just wondering if its the real case. DW is the first game/book/fiction etc that I've heard of that tatic... the indefinate and continuous port pinging. Still.... it might be the case, anyone know? Bubbleheads? Sailors?

You're right, I think, but how do you enforce that?

Good question. EMCON I think would put ships into passive mode only ... at least I think that it would..... a standing trigger for all ships to discontinue EMCON when any platform detects the enemy sub could make the ships "go active"

[Molon Labe]

EMCON doesn't work against a player, they can turn it on at will unless you script system damage, which seems a bit too harsh.

In single player, this isn't even a problem, since you can place the defenders whereever you want and have then engage in whatever patrol fashion you think is most realistic to the scenario.

[SeaQueen]

I'm not saying that its not possible. Just wondering if its the real case. DW is the first game/book/fiction etc that I've heard of that tatic... the indefinate and continuous port pinging. Still.... it might be the case, anyone know? Bubbleheads? Sailors?


In peacetime, the US Navy is very careful about turning on it's active sonar because they're concerned about marine life. In wartime, though, that's all off. Other navies, other than maybe the Europeans and the Canadians, aren't so green.

Submarines don't use active sonar so much, but surface ships, being less concerned about stealth, use active sonar much more liberally. While a submarine is unlikely to go active unless maybe it'd already been shot at and still needed to find the target (even then, probably not), a surface ship might use active sonar as a search or screening sensor.

[LuftWolf]

Not to mention the fact that most sub skippers probably wouldn't go near a harbor defended by four destroyers or FF's pinging away with helos and MPA's circling in the skies and friendly diesels lurking around.

It would be a major deterent. :|\

[MaHuJa]

DW is the first game/book/fiction etc that I've heard of that tatic...

Some very old (fiction) books in my basement portray such things going on during world war II - though it's more by being told about it happening, or should I say happened, than then the reader taking part in the action.


DW Subs are particularly nasty for minelaying in enemy harbors, though.