Close in trail tactics
 

Ok i need some new ideas for tactics i can develope for close in trails bear in mind i will be using the akula and possibly trailing a british french or american submarine maybe even chinese.

I am due a patrol in the northern waters later on this wek (about sunday monday time) where i might find a submarine i realy want to get in close to them i can do it with my old tactics but theres nothing like trying something new.

any suggestions? even out of the box ideas will help lead to something.

I actually have the same question...how do you trail a [credible threat] submarine with his TA dangling in your face?
Back when I actually had time to play the game, I did one of those random missions in a 688 or Akula (can't remember which). There were three other subs out there, I bagged two of them and started trailing a third. I decided to see how close I could get to the third boat before he shot me, and I ended up riding right up to his screw. :) But he turned out to be a Han, so no great achievement there I guess. All I did was drive right up on him, no more than 15kts if I remember. But it was funny, he was painted clear as a bell on my HF active sonar. I had to call all stop so I could drop back and shoot him.

they don't always have their TA out, so you've got a 25% chance of no detection. combine that with, if you tail correctly, will have a heck of a time tring to get a solution on you. So, to trail:

1. get close. Its TA is almost always full out or nothing out. get close enough so the actual hydrophone sensor is behind you.
2. Get REAL good with TMA, as just a slight turn will require two minutes to show.
3. if possible, try to find its depth. In real life, the TA "blind spot" is actually a cone, at if its deep enough and you're shallow enough, it can hear you alittle ways ahead of it self.
4. If all of this fails, and you are spotted, fire a dud torpedo at him (RTE is much farther that he is). It will cause him to slow down while you can make your escape.

4.5: If all of THIS fails: flood tubes one and two, RTE 00000, equalize, magazine, fire-fire! Send its crew of a taste of fresh salt water.

You trail slightly deeper or shallower and also off to one side just incase the guy stops changes depths or turns you have enough space to react.

In DW best trailing method is high-frequency sonar. Scope can't be unfortunately used for tracking subs. Subs are not rendered underwater somehow, when using scope. Surfaced subs are visible, but once they reach certain depth, they vanish.
But HF shows them nicely.

It should be noted that IRL the HF sonar would be detectable. It therefore not being available can take a lot of the blame for the numerous sub collisions that was during the cold war.

Yes HF sonar would be detectable its good for under ice navigation foward looking anyways also good for seraching for polyna.

How I would do a track and trail kind of thing:

1) Set up a barrier search across a choke point. I can gauge the effectiveness of my barrier by making some assumptions about my target's transit speed and my own sensor range. There exist various formulas I can plug those numbers into. They all come from the same idea, just figuring out the fractional area covered by a searcher in a reference frame where the target is stationary. It's more Koopman geeking, basically. Naval Operations Analysis by Wagner explains a lot of it.

A good scenario like this should begin with at least the initial position of the target uncertain. The speed is another variable to play with. This is one of those scenarios where the outcome depends on geometry that I keep harping about.

2) Once I detect and localize my target, it depends on how quickly he's moving. A faster target will be more difficult to maneuver close to, even though he'll be easier to detect. Once I make my decisions about how to navigate close to him, i figure I'll just close until I get broadband on the sphere. From that point on I'd just keep my weapons ready to go.

For those of you reading stories of 'trailing' in the cold war, keep in mind that the US Navy's definitions of the words "track" and "trail" may be different than yours.

"Trailing" is generally done at long (sometimes VERY long) ranges. "Tracking" is actually closer in, but not as close as y'all are talking :o. The goal is always to maintain the best track possible (whether continuous or intermittent depends on the platfrom in question) while maintaining tactical control of the geometry and avoiding counterdetection. If you can accomplish a steady track from several miles away then you may as well stay several miles away until it's time to attack. Usually the potential benefits of getting close don't come near the risks involved. It's a simple ORM (operational risk management) problem.

Huuum... so I guess maybe that's why I keep banging into them...

Two collisions in my whole history of sub simming both in DW first hit the USS Rhode Island SSBN then got run down by the USS John C Stennis CVN not good :(

Against surface ships sometimes it gets really scary. It's easy to do if you get in front of a fast moving formation of ships and you're spending a lot of time at periscope depth, etc.

I could totally see someone getting plowed under every once in a while when conducting ASuW.

I've noticed this too. You can be within spitting distance of another sub that is clearly showing on HF sonar but you see nothing through the periscope or in the 3D window. It's something to do with how show truth affects the 3D view. If you turn show truth on it will appear in the 3D window exactly where the HF sonar says it is, turn it off and it disappears even if it's only 50 yards in front of you. Perhaps the 3D window (not the nav map) should be coded to show truth all the time to get round this (like SHIII). If you were to consider this a big cheat just don't use the 3D window to find enemy units, only use it to look at your sub or follow your torps which is what I use it for most of the time, or don't use it at all. The same thing happens in SC.

Nemo

I'm talking about periscope, not 3d window. Periscope is truth sensor and should show truth all the time. It however does not apply to submerged contacts.

You can however watch ships. I guess some intell mission where you have to make pictures of new russian carrier screws could be nice.

So far with the USS Santa Fe ive exercised with the brizilian navy i have some good pictures of the air craft carrier sau paulo's under side include her screws also some good shots of the type 22 frigates escorting her :D

Now im off to the bay of biscay to exercise with the french and british.