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Originally Posted by ReubenJames
What is the SSP and Bottom Type? How does it affect my searching effort?
Looks like that it's all a game of searching.
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SSP is sound speed profile. If you're searching with sonar, it determines how the sound waves travel through the water, and so it impacts your sonar's range. If the SSP favors it, and the water depth allows for it, you might get a convergence zone and maybe detect some targets from 30Nmi or more away. If the acoustics favor it, your sonar performace is will be far better than your radar performance, and potentially yield more information.
On the other hand, though, in a bottom limited environment, though, you might only get 2Nmi.
Bottom type is whether the bottom is rock, sand or mud. That also effects sonar performance. If you can get a good bottom bounce, then the fact that the SSP is bottom limited, might not be so bad. You might get 10Nmi or so of effective range.
Another thing is sea state. If you have a windy day with big waves, then you'll get lots of noise near the surface. That makes a big difference in your sonar performance too. On the other hand, if you have a towed array, you might be able to minimize that by towing it at a depth below the noise (just don't drag it on the bottom).
One should not overemphasize sonar. You have other sensors too, which frequently have longer ranges than that (ESM and radar), but sonar is probably the most complicated of all of them in the game.
And yeah, an awful lot of this game is either searching for the enemy or complicating the enemy's search efforts. Whether you get hit with pair of torpedos, a salvo of cruise missiles, a barrage of cannon fire, or a suicide boat, the person who strikes first will almost always be utterly devastating to his adversary. The only way to win consistently is to find and identify your target before he can make a strike at you, because if he plays well, you won't get to shoot again. You'll be out of action shortly after he opens fire.