[fireship4]

I have been playing a couple of the sub command missions against Kilos over and again trying to learn the game.

The first: "Super Escort", has you escort a super tanker through a strait, requiring you to navigate around some 43ft (!) undersea geography and protect the tanker from unknown lurking subs.
The mission is typically played as a 688I FIII, and is a bastard. I have tried everything from slow and quiet with the tb-26, going further south, going as close around the underwater hill as possible while pinging, either using the TB-16 at medium speed or with it stowed and at high etc. etc.
What is to be done against a lurking diesel boat? I understand when they are on battery they are supposed to be pretty much invisible, so presumably if they are waiting for you in ambush, active sonar must be the answer. But even at under 10kyards I am not reliably picking them up at any depth and speed, and I have tried to account for them being close to the bottom or in shadow zones etc.
I find it hard to believe active sonar and US subs would be so useless against these (old and presumably non-elite crewed, export version) targets. Perhaps I am a poor submariner or the mission is unwinnable.

I am having similar trouble with a second such mission: "Iran to the Strait", in which you have to intercept a Kilo moving south through the Gulf of Oman from Bandar Abbas, before it crosses a certain line of longitude.
Several neutral ships are in play (as with the previous scenario) and the kilo moving south will shadow one on occasion to mask its signature. Complicating matters is a patrolling enemy P-3 Orion.
I have more success picking up the enemy in this mission and have won a few times, but I understand that staying outside 10kyards is recommended practise with diesel subs, and at this range they can be hard to detect in game even with the TB-29. I understand this mod has at times been portrayed as making red subs unrealistically effective - I am not sure I can make that judgement. But shouldn't a Virginia (used in this mission) be more effective against these platforms?

PS A couple of potential bugs are noticable in the second mission:

# The mission will sometimes be called a failiure before the southbound Kilo has reached the line mentioned in the briefing (always in fact, but sometimes even as it is still stuck rounding the land to the NW).

# I have a suspicion the enemy Orion can somehow "hear" you ping. On two occasions when I have made use of active sonar (at 200-250ft) it seemed to notice and drop a torpedo on my head. I have a replay file of this happening if it is useful.