A new player requesting advice.

[AirHippo]

All right, I'll say it first: I'm no naval expert. I'm an undergrad studying military history, and I have a special love for naval history, but my understanding of the depths of submarine warfare is, at best, minimal. I was, until a year or so ago, a keen Sub Command player; the advent especially of SCX, and SCU's Sub Changer, added a good two years' life to the game. I finally came across DW in an exchange shop in Manchester, and, seized by the promise of similar experience with a Kilo to boot for a mere eight quid, laid my grubby mitts on the game, took it home and installed it.

Now let me also say that I like DW. It seems to have a lot going for it; the ships and submarines certainly seem to... move more realistically, the new station in the conning tower is a nifty plus, and the new sub (I very seldom play as the US, by the way) is entertaining. However, that's where things really begin to go wrong. See, I just can't seem to get my head around the way DW works. Let me also say, before I start, that I apologise if this is in the wrong place.

Allow me to give you an example. A mission named "rough riders" sees my Kilo sitting pretty much bang in the path of a US CVBG. I'm pottering along at a depth of 216m, well below the layer, which lies at 100m or so. The sea is high - state 4 or 5, I'd say - but there's no rain, and there's about 2,000m or water beneath the keel. Not ideal conditions, but not appalling, either. A quick glance at the Truth (because it's fun to watch happenings while you wait for things to liven up round your own end) reveals a Seawolf barrelling towards me, some 25km distant, at about 35 knots. Of course, I don't know this, so my Kilo keeps ambling along, with the as-yet unknown Seawolf passing gradually through the arc of her cylindrical array. Finally, my own sonar finally gets the hint that the Seawolf is there, and my auto-crew duly mark her down. About 11km away, somewhere off my starboard bow, is something new.

Using the logic I almost always employ - if it's that close, and it's not using its active sonar (or not at the right frequency), it's most likely a submarine, I provisionally call it "some kind of sub". In it comes, still doing around 25 knots. Thinking that it might be wise to make sure he gets within range of my torpedoes (because previous experience has shown me that Russian torpedoes' sonars are about as much use as a chocolate teapot), I stop engines and drift. All is quiet as my TMA crew plot the sub's approach. The time approaches. And then, something odd happens.

About 5,000m from me, the Seawolf suddenly smells something. Quite how is a mystery, since he had accelerated to 35 knots a moment previously (and I'm pretty sure that even a Seawolf can't be confident of remaining undetected at that speed, so steaming away when you think there's another boat out there is surely not quite the normal approach for the AI to take). At any rate, he slows right down. My sonar suddenly loses him. The only thing for it is to shoot and hope. Off go two TEST-71Ms down the last known bearing. Back at me comes first one, then two ADCAPs. ****. Down to 300 metres and onto flank speed, turning perpendicular to the torps and putting down a pair of decoys, sends one cannoning off in the wrong direction and another circling the decoys - of course, not that I know this at 20 knots. The pinging stops, and my boat slows down - to find another ADCAP screaming in. THis time, it's curtains - my Kilo is soon at the bottom of the Med. Fair enougbh, I think; but how did he find me in the first place? Why did my own pair of TEST-71Ms miss so comprehensively at a range of about 3,000 metres?

So what am I doing wrong? How did that Seawolf suddenly detect my near-silent boat? Why are Russian torpedoes apparently incapable of hitting their targets? Am I just dense? Any answers will be very happily appreciated, because this is just one example of a host that have had me tearing my hair out - that's without even going into tales of Ticos which don't notice you when you're practically inspecting the props and carving "I love Claire" into the hull, but will quite happily pop three torps at you 10 miles away, or one famous incident where my helmsman evidently got a little tipsy and steered my precious Akula round in circles at 35 knots despite all attempts to make it turn the opposite way!

[Blacklight]

That's funny. The Russian torpedoes work fine for me.

It could be possible that when you fired, the Seawolf was at a lower or higher depth than where you fired. Did the Seawolf drop decoys ? That could also explain the miss... or it could be that you just had a poor fix on him.

As far as the initial detection, it may have happened long before you stopped your engines and it was just acting on your probable location depending on the solution he developed for you at the time he saw you.

Do you use the LWAMI mod ? I REALLY reccomend putting that in (after of course you patch the game up to version 1.4), It fixes a bunch of bugs, adds a bunch of new units, and makes the behavior of everything more realistic.

You can get LWAMI here:
http://www.subguru.com/downloads.html
Look for:
LuftWolf and Amizaur's Weapons and Sensors Realism Mod (LWAMI) Version 3.08

Also, the Sakura Mod v1.02 That you can get here:
http://savefile.com/projects/808585583

It makes oil rigs targettable by missiles and also adds a few little enhancements.

These two mods are well worth putting in. The only catch is, a couple of the missions in the stock campagn don't work well with LWAMI (meaning become almost impossible to beat) , but beyond that, it's fantastic ! Most of the user made scenarios out there are made with LWAMI in mind.

[Dr.Sid]

From what I knouw about DW AI, seawolf at 35 kts can mean two things. He's evading torpedo, or sprinting toward to investigate KNOWN target. It's bit too fast, he sold himself out, at such seastate with Kilo's poor sonar you should have little chance. But he knew about you in the first place, or the surfaces did and told him, which is quite a possibility since Kilo is damn quiet, and even Seawolf can hit it with such seastate without noticing it first (happened to me once).


As for the torpedoes, you was quite close, could be wrong depth settings, late activation. Play the mission again. Find it out.

And oh yeah, LWAMI is a must. Some campaign missions are impossible to meat sometimes, so try to start them over.

[AirHippo]

Hrm. I'm pretty sure the Imperialist Dog™ dropped a coupla decoys behind him, yes. Depth difference was probably there, too. And yes, I do have LWAMI installed, and yes, it does go a long way towards making certain campaign missions rather difficult (the first Russian mission has had me going "WTF!?" for some time now!), but is still rather nifty. A quick experiment on another mission today yielded a first submarine kill for me and K-157 (albeit on the third attempt, and then only by the skin of our teeth - sucks to be on the USS Columbus right about now), only then to meet my maker at the hands of an unusually perceptive Tico.

Guess it's just a matter of practice. But I'm surprised, if an escort had Linked the Seawolf to my position. Firstly, I was way off from the CVBG - you're talking a good 40km at least - and secondly, why not send a helicopter if I was that visible? Just seems odd.

[Dr.Sid]

40 km sounds too far, youre right. So maybe he was scripted to sprint & drift ?

[AirHippo]

Could be, aye. Christ, of all the bad luck! Anyway, going to re-attempt that one when I'm next awake. Funnily, last time I played it in an Akula I got a sub (albeit only a 688) and a pair of destroyers before some poor manoeuvring on my part made me chase the CVBG - straight into a line of DIFAR sonobuoys. D'oh!

[Molon Labe]

Come on guys, you should have known it was LWAMI from this:

Down to 300 metres and onto flank speed, turning perpendicular to the torps and putting down a pair of decoys, sends one cannoning off in the wrong direction and another circling the decoys - of course, not that I know this at 20 knots. The pinging stops, and my boat slows down - to find another ADCAP screaming in.

:p Lufty is quite proud of that feature.

Anyways, taking on a Seawolf in a Kilo is a losing proposition. The Kilo's usefulness in RR is that it can evade passive detection from the P-3's sonobuoys and the two US subs better than the Akulas can, so it has a better chance at getting close in. You should not be trying to fight the US subs. I should also mention that the more recent versions of RR are more balanced and have 2 688Is instead of a SW.

To address the specific points...
The US subs will sprint in the beginning of the scenario to arrive at the first waypoint after spawning in a random start box. Then they have scripted spints so that they roughly keep pace with the CSG. EDIT: At 25 knots, that was probably a scripted sprint. Those sprints aren't long, he probably just came out of it close to you; bad luck. A DW-engine programmed investigatory sprint would have been at close to flank speed....which that last 35 knot sprint might have been. I don't know what to make of that last part...maybe someone heard one of the Akulas.

Next, a Kilo at rest is not undetectable to a SW. Just off the top of my head, I'd guess a detection range of about 5nm would be possible against an Improved Kilo, even under the layer. But you've got the non-improved Alrosa.

The last point is that the TEST for all practical purposes is not capable of hitting a Seawolf. It's only got 2 knots of closure on it, and the seeker isn't that great so it has to get really close to acquire and might get shaken off rather easily. And it can't dive as deep as a SW. If you really need to fight an SSN, use the USET. And better yet, put a UGMT-1 on the other side of him so he can't drag the USET as easily.

[AirHippo]

Aha! The creator arrives! :p Yeah, I'm thinking I just got unlucky on a scripted sprint. Such is life; I guess years and years of gaming have made me paranoid against AIs . Anyroad, I suppose I ought really to have worked out that the K isn't meant to take on a submarine. Funny though, I had no idea the TEST-71 was so poor against subs. I sorta had the logic of "wire-guided = torp sensors + own sensors = superior hit probability" going, but if the seeker's useless and you're too busy evading to guide it, the logic does become rather broken!

Edit: Well, suppose I'm learning. Managed to get the Roosevelt, the Scranton and an escort before yet another goddamned Tico made a mess of my Akula. The fact that two 56-65Ks I'd fired at him from about 2,000m managed to miss was probably not helpful. If you want a job done properly, do it yourself, as they say - shame I can't rely on the FC auto-crew to input a simple enough set of numbers.

[TLAM Strike]

Well if you manage to detect the SW (Possable if he is on the sprint) in the Kilo stay out of his way unless you know exactly what you're doing. In this mission your objective should eather be Recon (locating the CSG) or ASuW, NOT ASW. The Kilo dosn't have the capablity to engade an enemy SSN in the open sea unless its captian really knows what (s)he is doing.

BTW if you want to know more about handline the Kilo do a search on this board for the guide I wrote called 'The Kilo Doctrine'. There will be a new updated verson out in the coming weeks with more hints and tips.

[Castout]

AirHippo get Alfa Tau mod.
Here,

http://www.forum.maricosom.net/viewforum.php?f=26

[Kapitan]

Ok the kilo is a good platform but it wasnt ment for ASW duties hence the no towed array, for a small submarine it packs a good big punch.

Never ever underestimate the capibilities of other nations weapons and units, they may be old out of date and obsolete but they can still do damage one lesson from the falklands with belgrano a 50 year old cruiser had nothing going for it yeah sure the RN could fight it and they did, but the one thing it had that was no match for the RN was the main 6inch guns they could out range the 4.5's on the DDG's and FFG'S which ment all RN ships would be sitting ducks, and being a well build cruiser it could take some damage beforeit goes down hence why they chose to sink it with a nuclear submarine because niether belgranos escorts nor the belgrano her self was able to properly detect or destroy an SSN.

The russian towed array on the akula is a little bit more sensative than the american ones but the american sonar and this is where it does go tits up for the russians i do have to say, the americans have a waterfall display with history the russians dont (untill now) meaning although the sensor may detect you 20 miles away it appears and an incredibly small mount on the screen the operator cant see it that well which is why its a bit miff in a russian sub.

If you want to do a MP game im up for that i love akulas not overly keep on kilos but its good fun.

[LoBlo]

I may be wrong, but I think that there's a bug in that AI Subs will detect enemy subs if it get close enough despite being past there sonar washout speed. At least in my experience.

[GrayOwl]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

I may be wrong, but I think that there's a bug in that AI Subs will detect enemy subs if it get close enough despite being past there sonar washout speed. At least in my experience.

It can not a passive source?

Active high-frequency (which is used under ice) sonar can give back coordinates of an enemy sub.

However ping is -= HF Under ICE Active Sonar =- is not simulated in game and the player simply does not hear him.