[FPSchazly]

Originally Posted by banryu79

Define "easiest way to ID a target" and I will able to respond
If your contact is a subsurface platform you cannot use the periscope to ID it, of course, nor his electronic emmission

Let's say it is a surface platform.
Which sensor array you use to ID it depends by the tactical situation you have in a given moment. Without discussionf tactical opportunieties, let's say the obvious things:

Periscope - if in range and you can see it you can take a photo with the scope, and then you can manipulate (AOB) and compare it with the patform database and find its class.

ESM - if the platform is emitting and you raise your ESM antenna you instantly have the exact bearing and its ID. The electronic signature is unique so no need to do any guesswork at all.

Sonar - if you can hear the patform on narrowband you can examine its acoustic signature. Depending on how well you hear it (range, acoustic conditions, strenght of signal) you will pick up one, two or more frequency components of its acoustic signature.
Then you can compare it (partial signature) with the acoustinc signature database and find how many profiles can match it. Many profiles? Clearly you have to do more guesswork/investigation/improve the signal... Two profiles only? You have a good ID estimation (Med confidence) and with an elimination process you can get just... One profile? High confidence, you know who they are.

Obviusly, the "sonar option" is not an instant "take away" as the Periscope or ESM are... so it requires more work on your part. For example: if you have intelligence data (info given to you in your mission briefing or in-mission communications) about it you can use it to eliminate some possibilities... If you can hear him on broadband you can use DEMON to obtain more info and again, eliminate some possibilities... and so on.


This is because in the vanilla game, many acoustic signatures are very similar to each other, and in order to uniquely ID a platform from its acoustic signature you have to pick up all its frequency components. I play with the LAWMI mod (that I strongly raccomend if one is interest in "realism"), and in this case the acoustic signature are "more" unique so usually I have to do less guesswork to isolate the candidate profiles to ID my contacs.

All great info, well done!

If you're close enough to a contact, you might be able to pick them up on both the towed array and the spherical/cylindrical. The towed array is much better at detecing low frequencies and the cylindrical is better at the high frequencies. So, using those two sensors, and assuming you're close enough, that's how you can pretty much nail down what a contact is with sonar.

However, this method can get tricky if there are a lot of contacts on your sonar as it can be difficult to tell if you're looking at one or multiple tracks on sonar between the towed and the spherical. This is because the towed and spherical are in physically different locations so they'll have different bearings to the contact.