Last Chance at my Skipper stripes...

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Of course, a couple of times I had a torpedo coming at me before I even knew anyone was there, and got myself dropped like a bad habit, but thats how we learn, I suppose....

Yeah... torpedo evasion is a whole separate issue. The best thing you do is drop lots of countermeasures, try to put them between you and the incoming torpedo, and get as far away from the torpedo as possible while minimizing your vulnerability to it's sensors. That's three things to balance, and you'll see people here argue about exactly how to do it to the point of blows.

On one occasion I was so close to a Kilo that I could see him in my external view, yet I could not find him on the BB or NB. A little puzzled by that. He was at 2kts, so maybe he's silent?

Yes. Kilos can be extrordinarily difficult to detect acoustically. The good news is that they don't have very good sonar themselves so if you stay quiet, you'll often detect them at about the same time they detect you. This can lead to some violent exchanges of hastily fired torpedos, as I'm sure you can imagine.

I also kinda self taught myself how to use the incoming ping screen ( I know thats not the correct terminology, but my head is fried from 7 hours on the scope...:rotfl: ) to locate a target that is banging away with active Sonar....

Active intercept is really important. When I drive the KILO, it's the only acoustic system I really use an awful lot, partly because it's a good way to know exactly who the combattants are from a long way away. Anything with an active sonar is most likely something that can also shoot you.

[Enigma]

I must be getting the hang of DW, because all I do now is complaina bout how bad some of the default missions are :hmm:

My main "hmmmm" at this point is as follows. Most of the time, I cant hear an enemy outside of 10-12 miles. This gives me a very narrow berth in missions like the Russian Rebeliion campaign mission that calls for me to witness the launcing of a Chinese missile. It drops you in about 600 square miles of ocean and tells you find the sub, which means picking up a contact within 10 miles of my boat. Thats alot of water to find a sub in, when I have had no direction from command of how or where I should search for this boat. I ended up going to PD and using the ESM to locate anything around, then diving to 150 feet and listening for what felt like forever. I only ultimatly found the sub by cheating (truth).

As for the Sonar, im quite comfortable with it now. Its amazing howit just clicks and makes sense one day! The only trouble I have there is that when I have multiple contacts, I sometimes have a hard time managing them and recalling what is what. Then, ometimes I get fooled by the duplicate contacts portrayed by the towed array. This isnt such a problem with the seawolf, as the display kind of answers the question of which is the real and which is the dummy contact without my having to swing the boat around to see what moves.....

Ive also grown partial to the seawolf over the LA class. Simply for the view and feel of the systems on board. I find them alot more managable.

Now it's just about finding all the best missions and putting myself to work! I've downloaded some great single missions from Subguru, but Im looking more for full blown campaigns to play.....As in Subguru's Red Storm....

Anyway, as more questions arise, I shall be here to ask. (Demon still a little mysterious, but im getting it...)

Thanks to everyone who has helped out, it really is appreciated. You helped save me from trashing a perfectly good game! (sonalysts thanks you too.)

Seaqueen, ...Thanks.

[Enigma]

Oh, while im thinking of it....

Is my ESM signal when the mast id raised detectable by enemies?

[Pisces]

ESM is a passive radar receiver. It doesn't emit any signal to the outside world. Perhaps maybe it creates a tiny bit of extra passive sonar noise due to wake. It sounds plausible, but I don't know if that's modelled. Also, I read here on the forum that masts do not reflect radar signals, so you are save from that. I'm not sure about visual detection though.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Enigma

My main "hmmmm" at this point is as follows. Most of the time, I cant hear an enemy outside of 10-12 miles.

That's pretty typical. I usually figure a convergence zone detection at ~30Nmi is long range, 10-15Nmi is medium range, and inside of 10Nmi as close range. Incidentally, approximately 10Nmi is about the range of a lot of Russian made torpedoes in the game, so I figure it's a good rule of thumb.

Also, remember that your sonar performance is influenced strongly by depth, and not just above or below the layer. Even within a surface duct there's better and worse places to be. Similarly, below the layer some places are better than others.

I guess that's a more subtle layer to the puzzle, though.

[quote]
It drops you in about 600 square miles of ocean and tells you find the sub, which means picking up a contact within 10 miles of my boat. Thats alot of water to find a sub in, when I have had no direction from command of how or where I should search for this boat. [quote]

Actually it's not too bad. If you figure on a sonar range of 10 Nmi, and a search speed of about 5 kts, then you're covering 2*10Nmi*5Nmi/hr = 100Nmi^2/hr so in 6 hours, if you mowed the lawn you'd be certain of detecting him. In general, you don't do as well as that, though. It works out that in 6 hours you still have about a 63% chance of detecting him. For sub v. sub battles 6-8 hours is short.

Try Kara Sea Strategic ASW. Don't try it in one sitting, though. With ~2500Nmi to search, unless you get lucky it usually takes quite a while. You'll probably spend a lot of time listening to whales or nothing before finally locating one of the submarines.

Seaqueen, ...Thanks.

Any time.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Oh, while im thinking of it....

Is my ESM signal when the mast id raised detectable by enemies?

No. ESM is just listening to other radar emissions. It's like the radar warning receiver on a fighter jet. You use it in a submarine mostly when you're searching for or tracking surface ships. It's nice because it has a very long range. You might get detected in DW because you raised your ESM mast if you were a bit too shallow and broached your sail due to a high sea state. At that point, you might show up on the radar set you were monitoring!

So... yeah... most of the time people design missions around something relatively benign, though. Sea State 3 or 4 is usually what I see. I'm not sure if you can spot masts visually in DW. In multiplayer games someone who kept a sharp lookout might shot you that way.

[Dr.Sid]

Visual spotting of subs is only modeled in the latest (still beta, correct me if I'm wrong) LWAMI.

Masts are not detectable with radar in DW.

Masts only increase the noise, both BB and NB. It only should affect BB, but in DW all noises just increase complete emitted sound level, so the change is visible on NB too.
Anyway, masts gives just little noise. It will mostly affect your sensors (which is easy to notice).

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

Visual spotting of subs is only modeled in the latest (still beta, correct me if I'm wrong) LWAMI.

So you can't just look out the window or your binoculars and notice them?

[Dr.Sid]

I mean AI ships spotting AI or human subs.