[suBB]

I have recently gotten pretty good at obtaining a manual firing solution, generally using just the towed array

It's great isn't it!!! I've been doing manual TMA using the TA since 688I came out and accurate manual solutions really make you appreciate the sim that much more. if you are proficient with manual TMA in this fashion, the akula offers unmatched flexibility that will easily make up where TMA lacks, usually in the case of evasion and new data at different speeds.

Once his speed has topped off I punch that into the TMA screen and lock it. I then wait for new lines and here's where I start having trouble. I've only been studying TMA for about two or three months and so I'm not really sure what to do with the information I get.

this is the beauty of the akulas weapons deployment system. to compensate, fire what are known as a 'bracket', 'triangle' or 'box' salvos. Designate these salvos to your outer tubes. And actually the evading contact will be doing you a favor simply by closing the distance to itself and the soon-to-be location of the asw torp. for a more aggressive follow-up.. fire a internal tube spread on the target soon as the asw torps hit the water; good chance he won't be sitting still at this point. But if he is running, he is not listening.. meanwhile ping em, match bearing and readjust..

If its a torpedo run(I.E. 688), you'll need to get in as close as possible for your initial attack and reduce the chances of a successful evasion. Under these circumstances, fire a torpedo spread over his bearing.. The spread angle is inversely proportional to range.. meaning the farther the contact is, the smaller the spread angle, and vice versa.. If you can, fire from the target AFT section as best as possible, and there are two reasons for this..1 - if the target tries a lateral evasion, making a course change will delay his evasion and give your fish more time to reach target. the time delay is due to a brief loss of momentum on a turn(course change) to an evasion course and ramp-up to flank.. hopefully you'll bag em before full momentum is restored.. 2.. if the target returns fire, he will need time to steer his fish on your bearing, thus giving you more time to evade.. also depending on the mod, active intercept has a baffle area, so the target won't hear your active fish closing.

So here is a bit of a ragtag bag of questions in no particular order. How do I tell if he is on an opening or closing course?

you said you usually have DEMON on your initial salvo. Well if he is closing then you will see more DEMON lines appear and grow in amplitude (brightness), when you see this, he is closing. to confirm closure, use other sonar arrays that were not picking him up before and see if he is showing up on those as well. Of course the situation is opposite of he is opening, (DEMON losing lines, amplitude growing weaker, other arrays losing contact.

Any help would be great!

hope it helps and leads you to new more effective tactics and strategies..