[Sgian Dubh]

Hi all,

After a long hiatus form SC, I am really enjoying coming ramping back up with DW.

I am running DW 1.03 + the L????? mod.

I have what I think are pretty good procedures for torp evasion, contact prosecution, etc.

The one procedure that I feel is insufficient is what to do when you get a TIW on a bearing for which you have no current contact information?

I always find myself waffling between immediate evasion, waiting a bit to see if I can track the torpedo to see if I am the target and any mixture of the above.

So I want to solicit opinions:

Here is the situation.

You get a TIW bearing 315 and the torp goes active almost immediately Up to that moment, you have no contact (other that the torpedo) with any of your sensors on that bearing. Checking now, you can't even get a whiff of a sonar contact on 315 or anything close.

The rub is, of course, that reacting blind is a very bad thing. But if you take the time to try and resolve the torpedoes track, and it is close and acquires you - then it may be too late to evade.

So you are completely blind. No range, no contact, no platform SWAG, and an active torpedo in the water.

What would you do?

And yes, I know the first answer - Never let yourself get caught in this situation. But it will happen to most, if not all of us, at some point.

I'll start:

I would assume the worst. I've been caught with my pants down and the hositle it close and has a good TMA on me. I would drop CMs, turn to put on an opening perpendicular course (say 115 degrees off the TIW bearing) and perhaps crank up to 10 or 12 knots. Enough that I am clearing datum as a reasonable pace, yet can still listen with the TA for the torpedo at the moment. If I have the room I might consider changing depth. I would definitely prepare two Snapshots torpedos, Active, initially set to 10 degrees on each side of the TIW bearing, flood and equalize the tubes. Since I have nothing on the TA on the bearing of the TIW, I would bet enable range to about 9 kYards. I would then hope that in the next few minutes I get some kind of data to refine the range SWAG and then consider shooting the Snapshots.

This question arose from an experience I had in DW. Here are the particulars:

Single Player quick battle in the Bering Sea. Ice cover. No layer as too shallow. I don't think there was 150 ft of water to play in.

I was in the game in a 688i moving at 4 kts. I had deployed my TA as much as the water/speed/iceberg situation seemed to safely allow. I initially had Autocrew on sonar, then switched it off to do my own sonar workup. After about 20 min game time, I got a TIW from 230. I had no sonar contact on that bearing other than the torpedo. The torpedo went active almost immediately. I dropped a CM and changed course apporpriately and increased speed to 6 kts. Maneuvering was hampered by icebergs.

Initial torpedo passed astern and was lost. I assumed the CM confused it and it never found me.

about this time I get another TIW from roughly the same bearing. Again I have not sonar contact on the bearing except the torpedo. Again the torpedo went active almost immediately.

I launched CM and changed course to what I SWAGed was an opening course while avoiding ice flows.

This time the torpedo acquired me and I was unable to shake it. I could not go to flank bells due to the icebergs being thick in the area I had to maneuver through.

After it was all over I turned truth on. I had been nailed by a diesel sub that was only about 11 kyards away. I never got so much as a hint of a trace on him on sonar, yet he had locked me up quite nicely.

So I was expending this to what if this happened in open water where you had more room to maneuver? In general, what else might I have done had I been able to do so.

I never fired a Snapshot in the game because I was a bit busy with the icebergs to do it.