DS
08-06-06, 08:37 PM
1. My KILO is dead quiet at slow speeds.
At 4 knots, I can detect a 688 Flight 1 moving also at 4 knots from 5100 meters away, while he still has no idea I'm there...
At all stop, that same 688 can pass right by me at 4000 meters, and still not know I'm there... (I did this today, just before I put two torpedoes into him. He was not even able to return fire)
In a KILO at all stop, I am an invisible, noiseless, black hole, drifting in the currents, listening to and tracking everyone else around me...
2. My KILO, with limited maximum speed and limited endurance at high speeds, will not allow me to get reckless. She will force me to use patience and skill to defeat my enemies in their larger, faster, nuclear boats. Because she can not move at speed for long, she teaches me to never chase the enemy, thereby revealing my position. Instead, she teaches me to move slowly and silently into the right position, and let my enemies fruitlessly search about and ultimately use their speed to eventually come to me. When I shoot, I shoot from very close range, giving my enemy no time to react, or make use of their superior speed and firepower. By the time they hear my torpedoes, it is far too late fopr them to do anything about it...
In short, my KILO teaches me how to use my enemies strengths against them...
3. My KILO can still be sufficiently swift if needed. At 20 knots, she can not easily out run torpedos. Instead, she teaches me to move slowly, detect the weapon very early, and move laterally out of an oncoming torpedo's acquisition cone before it enables. She does this with finess at 15-20 knots, not at a brutish, frantic, and noisy 30+ knots as her enemies do, for everyone in the ocean to hear.
As the topedo passes by harmlessly and my KILO slows, she again becomes a silent hole in the water, but now still within striking distance of the firing submarine who has revealed themself to her...
4. My KILO, with no towed array, is free to creep along at the bottom at slow speeds without fear of dragging my most sensitive array in the mud, or scraping it on the rock. Further, I have no need to operate noisy array winches to manipulate my sonar sensors. They are all on board, and they are listening at all times...
Further, in an emergency, I am free to manouver without needing to pause and concern myself with the decision to retrieve or cut a key sensor I have grown dependant on, and which may be my only sensor source monitoring my enemies when the emergency occurs. Cutting an array is tantamount to losing your limb to save your life. A difficult choice, and something my KILO will never force me to make. If I need flank speed, she lets me go to flank speed, with no hesitation, and no resulting permanent loss of a key sensor.
5. My KILO hungers for air, unlike her nuclear bretheren. As such, she teaches me conservation of strength, and long term tactical planning as well as short term tactical planning.
6. My KILO builds my submarine hunter's skills. Though, strictly speaking, she is not built to hunt her cousins of the deep, she laughs at Sea Wolf and Los Angeles classes, and even her own Akula brothers, who plink helpless older, noisier submarines like tin cans, while gloating at their "successes". She has listened to this behaviour many times, sometimes very close by, them always none the wiser to her presence. When I kill my target through her, my KILO assures me that I have faced real odds and that skill, not technology, played a large part in my victory.
7. My KILO is small, but she drafts a third less water than a 688, as well as most other larger boats. In littoral warfare, this means she can operate in places where they can not, and she can be where most opposing skippers assume she could not possibly be...
8. My KILO does not boast 10 or more torpedo and missle tubes. She has a limited complement of weapons, but they are effectiveweapons. She does not allow me to fire them all about like a shot gun. She teaches me to be the assassin, quick with the blade, striking from close range in the dark, when you least expect it, before she slips away silently back to the depths, her enemy's hull break up sounds in her wake...
9. My KILO is shows me that you need not be expensive to be effective. She further teaches me that war is about people and skills, not machines.
10. My KILO is my teacher, and my protector. She teaches me patience, conservation of power and resources, and how to use the ocean and her characteristics to defeat my enemies. Through her, I grow as a cyber-skipper.
And, as a bonus, #11. My KILO may be short and pudgy, but at least her model is accurate!!
At 4 knots, I can detect a 688 Flight 1 moving also at 4 knots from 5100 meters away, while he still has no idea I'm there...
At all stop, that same 688 can pass right by me at 4000 meters, and still not know I'm there... (I did this today, just before I put two torpedoes into him. He was not even able to return fire)
In a KILO at all stop, I am an invisible, noiseless, black hole, drifting in the currents, listening to and tracking everyone else around me...
2. My KILO, with limited maximum speed and limited endurance at high speeds, will not allow me to get reckless. She will force me to use patience and skill to defeat my enemies in their larger, faster, nuclear boats. Because she can not move at speed for long, she teaches me to never chase the enemy, thereby revealing my position. Instead, she teaches me to move slowly and silently into the right position, and let my enemies fruitlessly search about and ultimately use their speed to eventually come to me. When I shoot, I shoot from very close range, giving my enemy no time to react, or make use of their superior speed and firepower. By the time they hear my torpedoes, it is far too late fopr them to do anything about it...
In short, my KILO teaches me how to use my enemies strengths against them...
3. My KILO can still be sufficiently swift if needed. At 20 knots, she can not easily out run torpedos. Instead, she teaches me to move slowly, detect the weapon very early, and move laterally out of an oncoming torpedo's acquisition cone before it enables. She does this with finess at 15-20 knots, not at a brutish, frantic, and noisy 30+ knots as her enemies do, for everyone in the ocean to hear.
As the topedo passes by harmlessly and my KILO slows, she again becomes a silent hole in the water, but now still within striking distance of the firing submarine who has revealed themself to her...
4. My KILO, with no towed array, is free to creep along at the bottom at slow speeds without fear of dragging my most sensitive array in the mud, or scraping it on the rock. Further, I have no need to operate noisy array winches to manipulate my sonar sensors. They are all on board, and they are listening at all times...
Further, in an emergency, I am free to manouver without needing to pause and concern myself with the decision to retrieve or cut a key sensor I have grown dependant on, and which may be my only sensor source monitoring my enemies when the emergency occurs. Cutting an array is tantamount to losing your limb to save your life. A difficult choice, and something my KILO will never force me to make. If I need flank speed, she lets me go to flank speed, with no hesitation, and no resulting permanent loss of a key sensor.
5. My KILO hungers for air, unlike her nuclear bretheren. As such, she teaches me conservation of strength, and long term tactical planning as well as short term tactical planning.
6. My KILO builds my submarine hunter's skills. Though, strictly speaking, she is not built to hunt her cousins of the deep, she laughs at Sea Wolf and Los Angeles classes, and even her own Akula brothers, who plink helpless older, noisier submarines like tin cans, while gloating at their "successes". She has listened to this behaviour many times, sometimes very close by, them always none the wiser to her presence. When I kill my target through her, my KILO assures me that I have faced real odds and that skill, not technology, played a large part in my victory.
7. My KILO is small, but she drafts a third less water than a 688, as well as most other larger boats. In littoral warfare, this means she can operate in places where they can not, and she can be where most opposing skippers assume she could not possibly be...
8. My KILO does not boast 10 or more torpedo and missle tubes. She has a limited complement of weapons, but they are effectiveweapons. She does not allow me to fire them all about like a shot gun. She teaches me to be the assassin, quick with the blade, striking from close range in the dark, when you least expect it, before she slips away silently back to the depths, her enemy's hull break up sounds in her wake...
9. My KILO is shows me that you need not be expensive to be effective. She further teaches me that war is about people and skills, not machines.
10. My KILO is my teacher, and my protector. She teaches me patience, conservation of power and resources, and how to use the ocean and her characteristics to defeat my enemies. Through her, I grow as a cyber-skipper.
And, as a bonus, #11. My KILO may be short and pudgy, but at least her model is accurate!!