(ask) problem with enemy's course and precisely fire torpedo with sonar

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Daniel Prates

Yeah, again, this is a playing-style subject, but in this scenario, the next line for them could be "left full rudder, all ahead flank", and your torp would probably be a miss. Visual ID and ranging has the advantage of being able to lurk silently up until a torpedo impact.

We discussed this last year, but I dont remember the outcome: if you are in a ship, say, a freighter, can you hear a sub pinging you?

That's just it, the merchies had no listening gear at all. The warships, rather than turning to avoid, if anything, would turn to engage. But they can't tell the bearing from which the ping is coming.

Their logical reaction would be no apparent reaction at all as their sonar guys feverishly try to hear the sub and get some kind of bearing. THEN they would turn toward, but they would have done that anyway upon deciding that they had a solid sonar contact on a sub by passive sonar. They would turn toward and go active.

Since their reaction to a ping is the same as their reaction without a ping, the only difference is that you've definitely told them you're out there.

Therefore pinging (with warships) should be done with a lot of thought if you believe they don't even know you exist. At that point you have such a huge advantage you may wish to keep it that way and listen passively. Good periscope technique is also probably going to keep you totally unknown.

Pinging warships is a slam dunk when they already know you're out there and you're looking for an edge. You've told them what they already know and you've learned their exact location.

But with merchants it doesn't matter. They don't know you're pinging. That's historically accurate too.