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Originally Posted by Janus
Background:
I am playing the 5th mission in the “Russian Rebellion” campaign which is called “Sovetskaya” in my german version of Dangerous Waters.
The task is to locate enemy subs and destroy them (either on USA’s or russion loyalist’s side).
I started in the Akula for the Russian loyalists with the task to locate rebel SSBNs and to locate and destroy all American subs.
Okay, I patiently started detecting and classifying all contacts. Finally I had found one of the USA’s Los Angeles 688i subs under the thermal layer. Unexperienced as I am I attacked it with an anti submarine rocket.
When the torpedo released from the rocket hit the water hell borke loose.
At the next moment everybody started shooting everybody else, torpedos all around me made it impossible for me to keep track of my contacts.
So what do you do to gain a situational awareness when there are many contacts in the scenario (weapons or ships/subs)?
And by the way: what do you to classify contacts with narrowband sonar which are travelling at almost the same bearing?
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This is a tough question, and one made even tougher by the fact that the TA contacts are mirrored and 1/2 the contacts that the TA picks up are false contacts.
The easiest answer is to know what you are looking for beforehand and concentrate on those signals. For example, the American subs will have a 60Hz narrowband signitures while your own friendly ships will not. Because of this you can ignore most anything else except signals that have a 60Hz line (unless you need to ensure friendlys aren't in the line of fire). You can also find other NB frequencies that are specific to the platform your hunting and try to keep an eye out for those frequencies only. To do this you will need some 3rd party sonar profile databases that will probably be available through SubGuru's website.
If there are a bunch of ships that you already know are friendly and already know will not be shooting at you then you can be a little more relaxed on tracking their activities. You right though, once shooting starts all heck breaks loose and you will have to be resigned on things becoming a little confusing for the time being. Such is a reality of Fog-of-War. If there is even a remote chance that one of those weapons being shot is heading your way, then high tail it outta there and be resigned to try to reacquire your prey after a sufficient evasion run.
Also, like has already been said, in confusing sonar environments your spherical and hull sonar are your friends. You will have to get in closer to use them, but that fact that they are not mirrored contacts makes things clearer, and they will provide more distinct (unique) sonar frequencies that will better ID who is who.
Other than that, use every piece of information and commonsense (and even educated guessing) that you can muster to put together the picture as well as you can. You will almost never be 100% accurate in your assessment, but if your picture is "good enough" you will have just enough clarity sufficient to make an attack and kill, even if the total picture isn't clear.