Ambiguous contacts on sonobuoys?
 

Firstly, let me momentarily mention that my submarine simulation experience has been limited to 688 Attack Sub, Seawolf SSN21, Red Storm Rising, Silent Service II, and Silent Hunter III. I'm very new to the idea of manually identifying my own ranges and contacts, so please bear with me.

I very much want to learn Dangerous Waters. I'm reading the manuals and as many of the FAQs as I can, but unfortunately manage to fail regularly at pinpointing contacts, especially subsurface ones. Since this is about three quarters of what you do in the game, I need some help.

I read the instructions on resolving ambiguous contacts using the towed array. I'm still getting used to that. In the meantime, I'm practicing with the air platforms. To learn, I'll drop VLAD sonobuoys and use dipping sonar (if I'm in the MH60) and get a fairly good idea that yes, there is something out there, and it's most likely a Victor III or what have you, and a general idea of where it should be. I'm all ready to go and blast it out of the water. I drop my weapon and wait. And no earth shattering kaboom.

So attempting to learn and find out what my problem is, I switch on "Truth" and find out that the sub is completely not where I even thought it was.

Oftentimes, like in the first Campaign mission, I'll drop sonobuoys and have a ton of ambiguous contacts. I'll end up with a submerged contact in the middle of the land, for example, and a bunch out at sea in random places. When I look at Truth, I discover that the actual contact is not located where ANY of my contacts showed up.

How in the name of Poseidon do I successfully manage to get an exact fix on these things, and why am I getting the same contact echoed so many times in so many different places?

Please remember, I'm very new to this. In Seawolf, if a contact showed up, your AI crew had already taken care of the difficult work for you.

With passive buoys, you should try to get the contact on at least two of them; the contact will be at the intersection point of the two bearing lines.

Sure, but sometimes the bearing lines are simply wrong. See the following message at the Sonalysts forum, links to screenshots included, though in this case it was the dipping sonar that had a problem:
http://www.sonalystscombatsims.com/p...opic.php?t=468

That's a new one. have you been able to reproduce it after that incident?

I didn't think the original post was asking about a bug, but that he was just generally confused. If this is about a bug, I don't have anything to say other than report it to SCS.

The linked thread reminds me, that after the 1.03 patch, i saw that the dipping sonar, when being depoyed/retracted, somehow twists and gives wrong bearings, it needs to stand still for a while to become useful :)

Several times. No reaction to it on the SCS forum though. Another bug that can cause problems is the case where bearing lines for a contact that was marked earlier will not update on the map when you mark it again at a different time. I've seen that happen with sonobuoys, while the other bug hasn't happened on any other sensor than the dipping sonar in my games.

Repost from SCS:

SCS did not decrease the bouyancy and deploy speed of the dipping sonar when they increased the length, so the dipping sonar is curling under the helo when it is deployed using the stock database.

LWAMI fixed this problem about two months ago (thanks MaHuJa for pointing this out), and the mod team notified the producers of this consequence of increasing the length of the dipping sonar cable.

I'm sorry I didn't do more to make sure the 1.03 patch included this fix, as it makes the helo a darn pain. To get around this, start deploying the cable at altitude, and then descend to dipping depth. It works some of the time... you can check the cable on the 3-d screen.

Wait, so these erroneous duplicate readings are the result of a bug, or something else? I'm a bit confused, I must say. :ping:

The cable of the dipping sonar isn't sinking as fast as it is being deployed by the helo, so it curls under the helo in the water, twisting the direction of the hydrophone relative to the helo.

So, yes, it is a bug.

Depending on how serious a DW player you are, you might want to check out LWAMI, a mod I had a hand in creating. It fixes this and many other issues that members of the community have had with DW over the year or so of its release on the internet through Battlefront.com, the first publisher.

You can find the readme at this thread: http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=49705 .

Oh wait, to answer your question... when you mark a contact on passive sonar, the bearing line is always 10nm from the sensor... its bearing only.

To get the location of the contact, use more than one sonobuoy or the dipping sonar together, and where the bearing lines cross, that is where the contact is.

READ THE MANUAL!!! :up:

(this other stuff is a separate issue)

to find a sub using passive equipment:

1. make a sonar bouy net (just a line of bouies) or just start poking around with the hydrophone.

2. once first bearing is made go out a few miles perpendicular to the line of bearing and drop another passive bouy. If you had a bouy make the first line drop the contact and reaquire it to make an updated line, do this when the second bouy comes online (about 2 minutes wait).

3. once you have an X to find the third side of the triangle do this, it's kinda hard to put into words. go parallel with the original line of bearing till you go a little past the X then drop the third bouy.

4. once online, clear all the contact and reaquire them to make the most up-to-date triangle. At the middle of that triangle is the enemy sub.

5. make a contact marker and designate it a sub and hostile, then fly over to about 3 miles (maybe less because there's no way for them to detect a passive system listening to them.) and set up the torpedo.

6. drop it and watch the guy die. if it doesn't happen clear all the bouies and try again.


How to sink a sub in 5 minutes or less:

1. go to last known location (if you're doing a datum quick mission)
or
1. do the net again but use dicass bouies.

2. when you have a passive line of bearing ping the guy. This only need be done once.

3. set the torpedo, fly to him and kill him. 1 multi-million dollar (or billion dollar if it's US) sub dead for the price of 1 torpedo.


as for the strange things going on with the hydrophone, I've never seen it happen. but then again I use active system alot (unless I'm in a P 3 then I use the mad).

Also, the subs here really are subs. Don't think of them as anything like any other game. Driving these things are like driving the real ones. That's why I stick to helicopters.

Didn't Beer use to have a great tutorial for this with screenshots? I'm sure that the P-3 and SH-60 would have similar tactics...just shorter sonobouy lines.

I believe it was mentioned above but I also find that while in DiCass active mode that each time I hit mark on the contact to update it, it does not update on the nav map. I must have marked it continously for 15 minutes or so and it did not move an inch on the map, even though it moved on the DiCass bouy display (quite a bit i might add). Is this a big of some sort? I read afterwards what was said but theres some techno jargon I dont understand :P Sorry Im used to working with MFD's, Aim-9's and SAM sites, not Dipping Sonar and Mk46 torpedos.