FFG evasion

[drEaPer]

Hey, is there any ressource on this?
Or maybe we have some FFg experts here who can tell me how to best use the nixie and what else to do to survive active torpedos?
Also, why are there no CMs? Do expensive for such an old little ship?
Thanks!

[Molon Labe]

The Nixie is the anti-torpedo CM that US ships use.

[Wildcat]

There are some special countermeasures that I sometimes use against certain torpedos. They don't always work though. That's top secret ;)

The best way to evade a torpedo is to A) Know where it is, B) Know where it came from and C) Know where it's going. There is no point in evading if you can tell it's clearly going north when you are in fact 10 miles south of it.

Likewise you should not trundle along in a torpedo's path when it's coming toward you.

So here's what I recommend when you receive a TIW message. First, turn 60 degrees to the bearing of the TIW. Try to locate it on any of your sonar sensors, or even your active sonar. You might as well make a few pings, someone knows you're there if you got shot at. Once you've found it, try to determine whether or not it's coming at you. You will need to do this within about 2 minutes or less of TIW. That means you have to rely on your sonar skill, not the auto TMA to determine where the torp is and where it's going.

If it's coming at you, turn to a heading that is exactly opposite of its current bearing to you. You want to head away from it as fast as possible.

Now there's a couple things to keep in mind, you may have a wake homer, a passive torpedo, or an active torpedo heading toward you. If you are in multiplayer and have a sub on your team, ask them if they hear pinging. Otherwise, assume that there is an active torp out there and take measures against it.. PM me on how to do that.

There is an evasion method posted by either SeaQueen or Sea Demon for evading wake homers. You might try that method, What I usually try though is getting as far away as I can, then make a 90 or greater degree turn and slow to 4 or less knots, travel at that speed for some time, then accelerate away in a different direction. Don't cross your old wake or the torpedo will lock in on the strongest (closest to you) wake.

For passive torpedo's it's pretty simple. Get far away then slow down, put your engines to stop or 1/3rd. Listen in on it every once in a while to see if it's following you.

As for the nixie, you need to reset the nixie every time it gets hit. So if you have two torpedos coming in and one hits your nixie, make sure you retrieve it and stream it again if you want it to save you again.

I'm not sure if nixie explosions kill the towed array but it might be worth retrieving the TA to a short length just in case. If you're sure a torp is going to hit you, you can retrieve it fully.

Lastly, you should generally fire a torpedo down the bearing that you are being attacked from. But this really depends on the kind of torpedo shot at you. An akula can launch an attack from pretty far away, so it may be a waste to try, better to use your helicopter to attack that bearing. Just have it make a ladder of vlad and difar buoys and the contact will eventually show up.

[OKO]

I heard about naval proverbs concerning the perry's safety :


about torpedoes threat, 4 famous proverbs :

- big eye see everything
you can use TA to ID incoming torp, works fine

- a wake homer need a wake
if you are at less than 5 knts (and changed course), a wake homer can't hit you

- small eye give you the top
watch the passive sonar to wait until torps go behind you (if a wake homer ....)

- OHP can outrun any torp
once big eye saw a trouble (a non wake homer torpedo) it's time to evade at 120° flank with nixie deployed



and for the air CM, other well known proverbs :


- blind people misfire
Missiles could be best jammed if CM are used properly, CM are 25% effectivness.
The goal is give the missile many choices to confuse him.

- better too much than too few
you have 10 CM, use them to create a good wall once ennemy missile detected, learn to release then at efficient rate (~5 to 10 seconds)

- IR mean Insubstancial Reaction
Most ASM missiles if not all are radar guided
no need of flares here, just chaffs
So, load chaff only.

- give the mash to the pigs
When ennemy missiles pop up on your radar screen, start releasing chaff and turn hard to go behind them => this way there will be some chaff beetween the missile and you (and the missile don't relock as a torp after deception, he just die), your RCS will be small (only your rear parts) and your CIWS will be in the best position to defend your low exposed platform.
Well ... sometimes you don't have enought time to do that ...
But if you have this reaction as soon as missiles are confirmed for you, you could improve a LOT your survival.

Ok, ok I admit ... those are personnal proverbs :-j

[Mau]

A lot of good points here OKO,

But I have to disagree with this:

''When ennemy missiles pop up on your radar screen, start releasing chaff and turn hard to go behind them => this way there will be some chaff beetween the missile and you (and the missile don't relock as a torp after deception, he just die), your RCS will be small"

The stern is the biggest RCS (created by all the right angles of the hangar).
As well (yes may be it works like you are saying in the game), by beeing just behind chaff you are looking at Fly Up and Fly through situations. This killed the Atlantic Conveyor during the Falklands war.

When you are saying 120 deg for torp evasion, you mean 120 from the torp bearing?

Cheers

[Wildcat]

There is no reason to go 120 degrees from the torpedo bearing, that just lets the torpedo close distance on you. Use sonobuoys if you want to keep track of the thing, you've got some 300 of them onboard. 180 degrees is the bearing you want to be from a torpedo that's heading towards you.

As far as turning 180 from a missile, well, in the game it makes not much difference. I personally like to turn toward a missile at about a 30-45 degree angle. There is the downside of possibly losing your CIWS fire though, because there's a no fire zone toward the bow of the ship.

Make sure you do launch a LOT of chaff though. Don't worry about conserving it, throw as much chaff into missiles as you can, because the odds are you will die if you don't. For every missile fired at me I usually launch 5 chaff and 3 flares. If more than one missile is fired at you in a salvo, launch almost everything and bug out.

[OKO]

The stern is the biggest RCS (created by all the right angles of the hangar).
As well (yes may be it works like you are saying in the game), by beeing just behind chaff you are looking at Fly Up and Fly through situations. This killed the Atlantic Conveyor during the Falklands war.

As you said, it's a game tactic (I must confess I've nerver been on a real OHP :lol: )
goal is to put lots of chaff beetween me and the missiles.
With this manoeuver (going behind the CM wall), I don't go exactly 180° from missile because you need to get more than that to go really behind => flank and full rudder until you are behind.
during that, you give your 3/4 rear to the missile, that is WAY more lower RCS than the side of the ship.
This coupled with a CM wall + CIWS works really very nice, especially if you managed to reduce the threat with SM2.
The main problem is simply you must really train for this because there is lots of this to do in a few time.
But when you are trained, you improve a lot your chances to survive to a missile attack.


When you are saying 120 deg for torp evasion, you mean 120 from the torp bearing?
Cheers

yes
once the torp ID at TA (and tracked)
if it's a wake homer => 5 knts and change course (you will NEVER be hit by a wake homer if you proceed this way)
if it's an active torp => 120° from the TIW and flank for at least 4 minutes before using again TA
reacting soon save life 95% of time, except against advanced torpedoes, of course.
But a simple fregate is just a small toy against a nuke sub if the sub commander know a little the job ...

[OKO]

180 degrees is the bearing you want to be from a torpedo that's heading towards you.
so ...
1) you go away from your target and let him all the initiative
2) all snapshots on you will be a treath to you

if you go 120° for 4 minutes, then 90° and use TA, you could easily avoid torps with STILL attacking the ennemy

"who want to be the winner at sea must always attack"
Can't remember who said that, but that's a very true sentence.
The main advantage of OHP vs electric subs is the speed
OHP could avoid quite fast a threat, contourning it, then quickly attack the contact
If you fly away, you will be always under pressure, when your job is to put as soon as possible the pressure onto the ennemy.

[Wildcat]

Why would you have to stop attacking if heading 180 degrees from a torpedo? You still have 2 helicopters and 6 torpedos with a range of nearly 14km.

The odds are totally against you by not running 180 degrees from a torpedo. Especially if it is wire guided. By not turning 180 degrees to a torpedo heading at you, you just make yourself a better target. You can attack and track incoming torpedos without giving your opponent the advantage of torpedo range and followup shots.

Makes more sense to get as far away as possible from a submerged contact and attack if from a stand off range, that's the entire point of having the helicopters. Not increasing the distance between yourself and contact / torpedoes is just wasting resources.

[LuftWolf]

The stern is the biggest RCS (created by all the right angles of the hangar).
As well (yes may be it works like you are saying in the game), by beeing just behind chaff you are looking at Fly Up and Fly through situations. This killed the Atlantic Conveyor during the Falklands war.

Not modelled in DW.

The lowest radar profiles on all platforms are dead-ahead and dead-astern.

[GunnersMate]

Put incoming vampires on the stern to un mask CIWS since the Mk13 doesnt need to be unmasked

[drEaPer]

Okay thanx for the input guys!
How exactly does the nixie work?

[OKO]

Why would you have to stop attacking if heading 180 degrees from a torpedo? You still have 2 helicopters and 6 torpedos with a range of nearly 14km.

The odds are totally against you by not running 180 degrees from a torpedo. Especially if it is wire guided.

If you read again more carfefully proverbs above, you will see you HAVE to know if it's a wire guided or not, using TA.


By not turning 180 degrees to a torpedo heading at you, you just make yourself a better target.

Sorry Wildcat, but I disagree
The real target is the one that only run and never engage.
There is so much different situations, resuming them like this is just wrong.
Most of the time, if not always, you just shouldn't do what you said, except to definitly moving away from the battlefield.

Doing it is also the best way to be sure you will die against advanced torpedoes : this is the most easiest work to do for a nuke sub, firing at a constant bearing target => he don't even need your distance because you always have the same bearing ... a turkey shot ...
... But anyway FFG won't have any chance against a nuke sub with skilled commander.

Against electrics, you forgot you have a great active sonar
It will told you not only where is the ennemy, but also how much time you have to react, and where to go in case it's an active torpedo (you are supposed to have identified it with TA...).

Generally speaking, always ping an ennemy torpedo launch =>
with the right bearing, it become quite to find the sub if he is in your 10 miles.
If he is not in your 10 miles ... you don't have to care about it, just going 90° from TIW for 4 or 5 minutes then come back to your course.
the ennemy sub certainly engaged another platform, or, if he engaged you, he fired wayyy too early with his short range torpedoes.


With electric subs, guided torpedoes are 40 knts, much slower than non guided.
so if you start going 120° (once topr identified at TA), you will evade the unguided quite easily, in 3 or 4 minutes, and you will only have guided torps as remaining threat.
If you marked it on the TA, things become really easy to finish to evade => going 90 from them when it's time to do it
a 40knts torp with 10 miles range will run for 15 minutes
A 40 knts torp is going only 1/4 faster than you at flank.

You can attack and track incoming torpedos without giving your opponent the advantage of torpedo range and followup shots.

you mean your isolated and uncovered helo must do the job for you, expecting the lack of coverage from you won't be fatal to him ...


Makes more sense to get as far away as possible from a submerged contact and attack if from a stand off range, that's the entire point of having the helicopters. Not increasing the distance between yourself and contact / torpedoes is just wasting resources.

OK, I just understand here you never attack with your own torpedoes, keeping you distance from danger without trying to put pressure on him, and using only your helo to engage.

I'm sorry ... but I wouldn't like to be a ship escorted by you !
Your helo is far to be the only weapon to your disposal.

And it's much better for the sub to have to fight against only an helo, this way he just have to wait the right time to shoot down this helo without any possibility for you (you flyed away ...) to defend him with SM2 ...

On the opposite, if you help your helo to put pressure on the sub, sub will be overloaded of work, and will have to face 2 fronts.

You are very well equiped to fight against electrics on your FFG.
Your active is an efficient tool, you have more speed than electric subs, same kind of torpedoes, you must learn how to use all of this.

[OKO]

Okay thanx for the input guys!
How exactly does the nixie work?

nixie is a decoy for active / passive torpedoes only, it doesn't work for wake homer.
deploy it ONLY when you are sure there is one torpedo of this type coming at you, during your evasion manoeuver.
Other time rectract it, because it's a noisy device and it will give away your position.

[drEaPer]

Will the nixie be destroyed when it successfully detonated a fish?

[MaHuJa]

Other time rectract it, because it's a noisy device and it will give away your position.

This effect is not seen in the game, to the best of my knowledge.

[MaHuJa]

Will the nixie be destroyed when it successfully detonated a fish?

It will stop working until it has been retracted.