1968 Sub vs Sub tips?

[The Bandit]

Originally Posted by CaptainCruise

Is this accurate sub hunting doctrine? Did we really send our guys out to hunt boomers back in the late 60's with Mk16's that were basically WW2 leftovers...no wire, ran straight and level until a hit or out of fuel, and Mk37's that would blow off the bow of your own sub if you launched them above 10 kts, and could be outrun by any sub or surface vessel with a top speed over 22 kts. This seems like a foolish way to go to war. I've read here on the forums that the USN upgraded the Mk37's for more speed and range becoming the Mk37C, but I don't know if the game will eventually give them to us or not as we play on thru the years. I don't know what version of Mk37 the game is giving us.

Didn't we have the Mk48 come online in the late 60's or early 70's? Is there another torp that comes online as a "stopgap" between the Mk37 and the Mk48?

If anything, maybe our modders just need to do a realism tweak to the crop of 1968 torps to simulate upgrades and more realistic performance. What I mean by realistic is having a snowballs chance in hell of completing a boomer hunt with a torp that actually catches up to subs and goes *BOOM*.

What about a early version of the Mk48 pre-ADCAP? When did the USN have them available? Thanks guys...

Tom "CC"

The Mk 16 was never considered an ASW weapon, although it could be launched as deep as 200 ft, I don't think it could be set to run at a depth deeper than 80 ft. I mean I suppose you could probably use it if you found somebody particularly unlucky at PD/ snorkel depth but slim odds on that.

The Mk 37C which became the NT-37 program and continued on to have about 20 years of commercial success was initiated as a private venture in the mid-to-late 60s and started testing around 1968. It used mainly off-the-shelf parts (notable the engine from the Mk 46 torpedo) but was put through extensive testing until 1973, which was a little bit after the first Mk 48s started going to sea.

From what I can gather on the 37C, the navy wasn't overly enthusiastic about it because they feared (probably rightly so) that it could end up being used as fuel to cancel the Mk 48 at a time of shrinking defense budgets. A whole lot of $$$ was going to fight the Viet Nam war and its quite conceivable that somebody could have gotten it into their head that "We don't need a 55 knot torpedo because the Soviets don't have any 55 knot submarines! Give us the 36 knot upgrade instead!"

The Mk 48 had quite the design program, going from the late-50s/early 60s until 1972 when the first unit entered service. In this time it went from being an ASW torpedo to a general purpose torpedo and three different designs from two different companies were tested against each other in 1971. Before that, the closes thing you have to an "Interim Solution" is the nuclear Mk 45 ASTOR.

In my opinion, the only way that the 1968 torpedoes could be portrayed more "realistic" is some of the steps I've taken with the OAS mod, namely the creation of the Mk 37 Mod 0 and Mod 3 non-wire-guided torpedoes. From what I've been able to tell, these launch at full speed (27 knots vs 26 for the wire-guided variant) and have a shorter range (both because they are smaller, and because they are running at top speed) and again from what I can tell were primarily intended for snap-shots against fairly close / non-maneuvering targets.

The effectiveness of the Mk 37 Mod 2 (main wire-guided version) all comes down to how you use it and who you use it against. If you just make straight on shots with it like you would a Mk 48, your target is going to hear you almost every time, and if he's not a diesel boat he's probably going to escape. Against nuclear submarines, you need to take a very careful, nuanced approach, however this is one that the Mk 37 lends itself well to.

Step 1) Get behind the target
If you are in his baffles, he can't hear you and therefore can't hear you shoot (although the Mk 37 is a swim-out weapon so generates little-to-no transient noise on launch)

Step 2) Get into firing position
Inside 2000 yards for most targets. You have to be extremely careful here as its mandatory that you don't lose the wire, if you do and he launches a decoy, your Mk 37 may come right back! If you do loose the wire, as long as you are right behind him dive quickly, even if you make some noise he likely won't hear it since you're still in the baffles.

Step 3) Keep the torpedo slow
There are a lot of unhappy people dissatisfied with the Mk 37 because enemy subs almost always hear it and get away, even on a baffle shot. They key is, as long as the enemy isn't traveling too fast, keep your weapon pre-enabled until around 800-1000 yards, but no more than that. By activating that close in (and ramping your torpedo up to 26 knots almost instantly and guide it home manually) you are not giving your opponent enough time to accelerate and out-run the fish, under these circumstances you have very favorable odds of scoring a hit. With luck this should slow him down and make a follow-up shot (which is almost always necessary for nuclear boats) that much easier. I have sunk multiple Victor Is using this method, and while some have got away, its worked more than once.

Capt. Jack Harkness has been experimenting with making the Mk 37s quieter at full speed, so they don't get noticed so much on baffle shots and I think this bears out and will probably see about implementing it in my mod.

Anyways sorry for that long rambling explanation but as unorthodox as it seems, this is how the USN would have had to use the Mk 37 against the Soviets in the 60s, there was no other solution (other than the Mk 45 ASTOR) except maybe for running away and trying to call in air support on the radio (which would probably be just as dangerous for you as it would be for the Russian!)