Multi sphere engagement with the Perry

[Kapitan]

This mission is a follow on to the stock convoy escort mission but there is a big difference.
This mission requires you to fight the ship in a multi threat environment, in a confined waterway.

Here the Perry is tasked to escort 3 tankers through the straight of Hormuz and is the lead ship, it is assisted by a British type 23 FFG to the port side some miles away.

This mission may seem rather far fetched but in actual fact its quite realistic in that region with the exception that the Iranian assets will fire on you.
This is a mission performed routinely especially since the boarding of tankers by Iran over the last few years, it was also the same during the Iran Iraq war of the 80's and Desert storm, Iraqi Freedom more recently.

The objective is simple get the tankers around the tip of Oman and into the Indian ocean un harmed.

being a multi layer threat mission you will find that your going to be attacked by Surface air and submarines, and even though the Perry has its limitations it can be done.

This is the chart of the area, note your also backed up by an E3 which is common in the area so Link data can be a good friend here for classifying contacts quickly, but it can also cause some confusion.


The mission is simple in and of itself get from the start point to the end line its 30nm away roughly and your travelling at 12 knots.

The formulas I use are generic and simple:

Nautical Mile (NM) = 2000 yards (yds)
1 knot (kt) = 1 NM / hr = 2000 yds/hr (this is the equivalent to MPH)

The 3 minutes rule Speed (kts) * 100 = Distance (yds) traveled in 3 minutes

The 6 minutes rule Speed (kts) / 10 = Distance (NM) traveled in 6 minutes

So I am wanting to travel 30nm at 12 knots in this mission I need to do the following:
12kts / 10 = 1.2 miles in 6 mins * 10 = 12nm * 2 = 24nm from that I can basically just make the assumption mission time is 2.5 hours.

It is important to have a handle on above rule as this mission you will slow down speed up turn etc and you do need to be fairly accurate in the turn area to avoid collision or crossing into Iranian waters it will also serve in future operations for you as well.

This mission is much different to an open water mission, first of all the water is shallow it has a mean depth of 525ft, and this restricts the type of buoys you can use.
Different bottoms Rock mud and sand have different acoustic characteristics, and it is some what modeled in game.
The Gulf is generally sandy which is not good for an ASW unit as sand is a good absorber of sound (Rock is the most reflective of sound and mud isn't far behind) so choose your buoys carefully.

Dicass = Directional Command Activated Sonobuoy System
Difar = Directional Frequency Analysis and Recording
Vlad = Vertical Line Array Directional Frequency Analysis and Recording

In the Gulf region your limited to using only the shallow buoys, the water isn't deep enough to use the deep ones so immediately your handicapped.
This will dictate the type and way I place my Buoys, the usual open water tactic of datum prosecution is no good here.

Given the confined spaces and constraints operationally and by the sea I will use loose barrier sonobuoy formation the white crosses on the chart depict how I plan to lay the field, all crosses in the line are 5nm apart and all will be shallow.


Line 1 will ultimately working near to far be laid as Difar Dicass Difar
Line 2 the center line working Oman to Iran Vlad Dicass Vlad
Line 3 again Oman to Iran Vlad Dicass Difar Dicass

The helicopters will be split, as I am working with a type 23 I don't need to worry too much about the ASuW side, but one helicopter is still armed with ASMs.

Helo 1 will lay the north barrier line and is armed with ASMs as theres a lot of shipping out there, Helo 2 is pure ASW and armed only with 3 torpedoes it will also do most of the leg work for buoy laying.


Being aware of what's around you is important this mission has a lot of neutrals and you don't want to engage them, Visually IDing them is paramount, is the boghammer your targeting actually a fishing vessel?



So in this mission the Type 23 lynx engaged 2 fast attack craft while my SH60 took down another, I used the helo forward observer to visually confirm the target before striking it as it was close to fishing vessels.

All the while I am trying to confirm another air contact, it turns out its an Iranian P3C, and it fires a lot of missiles at us, so we got busy with that and I didn't have a chance to get screenshots.
I turned due south east flank speed to bring the CIWS into its weapons arc , this gives me more ability to have multiple weapons engage but critically I loose the ability to use my main gun on any other hostile boghammers

Once the P3 and the bog hammers were dealt with then it was a matter for plain sailing


Not quite I have to recover the SH60 to re equip it, which was done


I then send the helo off to join the other helo forward.

Once this helo arrives in the area I recover helo 2 which by now is low on fuel.

I am using the helo as a relay station back to the ship and this is what the ASTAC is seeing from multiple buoys.


Later it will classify and confirm a Ghadir class submarine which is promptly engaged and sunk.


The convoy crosses the line much later on the troubling thing is I didn't get the second submarine.