Should we start a topic on basic tactics?

[Orffen]

I'd like a thread like this. Had the game for a long time but never spent enough time with it to learn it properly.

[Kapitan]

I came from the older stuff going back to harpoon fleet command and then moved into sub command playing predominately the Akula, however in dangerous waters in the early days i did play the akula and kilo being proficient in both platforms quite highly i did sometimes run around in the 688i and seawolf and have a fair knowledge of them in game.

Way back when i met a guy called Madcap he was a frigate driver in seawolves and i must admit i hit a road block and a dam big one !

Now anyone in any previous MP game that took the FFG out i could normally sink inside 30 minuets that included the standard 10 minuet weapons free rule, except this guy.

Madcap i would say was thee most proficient FFG driver i have ever come across, now matter if i took the Akula or Seawolf he would always find me first, i would always be sunk within the hour and for him it was easy.

as the saying goes if you cant beat them join them

So i joined forces with madcap in a frigate and i must say he did teach me everything he knew and it wasn't long before we were an effective unit hours of endless fun with it.

this partnership spawned two things within seawolves a division which saw a split in the group and also two very well written books both are available on subsim download page

The Blue book is more up to date and is worth the read logic can also be applied to cold waters

The Red book has recently just been rediscovered and is also worth the read its older than the Blue book but a lot still applies.

Also take a peek at the FFG7 Guide this will give you some inclination of frigate operations.

[ET2SN]

The Red Book and Blue Book are excellent.
Kapitan, I hope you hang around this thread. He has a lot to teach us.
First, understand what game you're playing. DW and SC are the grand children of Harpoon. Sonalyst got involved when the Navy wanted a cost-effective training tool for Academy students so they could learn the basics of maneuvering and weapons deployment (ie, shooting the bad guys). The later release of Harpoon for the commercial PC market had to be "sanitized" but it wasn't sanitized that much. The basic ideas are still valid.

More than that, I would suggest learning how to develop your situational awareness (we'll get into this more in a later post). Knowing where you are and understanding where you want to be are crucial. That is very closely linked, and is different, for each platform. In other words, pick one platform and stick with it. Over time and with experience, you will learn your boat's strengths and weaknesses. It will become second nature. While I really like the attention to detail the RA folks have brought with their mods, I spend very little time looking at the 3D view during a fight. That is my one and only beef with Cold Waters. I can't develop that awareness if there are no stations to concentrate on. Maybe I'll do a re-think when CW2 or CW3 come out.

Some of you may have noticed that some of the rest have a deeper background in tactics. We literally lived this stuff for years at a time. Its how we got paid and advanced. Think of it this way, its hard not to get good at your job when you're on a three month deployment.
In contrast, the biggest thing I had to learn when playing 688I, Sub Command, and later Dangerous Waters was that they were games and not the real thing. The basics are there but I still had to adapt to what I was given. In that regard we're all on the same page.

In other words, am I saying you need to march down to the recruiter and volunteer so you can get experience? Hell no! There are a LOT of tough times you have to deal with in order to get to a small percentage of good times.

OK, so where are the tactics? We're getting there, trust me. The point of this post is to give yourself time to learn how to play the game. Whatever platform you choose to play, learn how drive it before you get in a fight. The early 688I missions that are included with RA are great for this, but take it to the next step. Go to the mission editor and create some missions where you're just goofing around in a harbor. Norfolk and Petropavlosk are great locations to do this. Get a good "feel" for how your platform handles. Get some experience working close to land and other ships. Try driving your platform in reverse while using the manual rudder station in Control. One of the keys to ship control is learning how your platform behaves as it transitions from forward movement to reverse. Another area to concentrate on is learning how to get the most out of your Nav Map view.

You may notice I'm being vague on some of this stuff. That's because a lot of these things are learned by doing. You can't learn a lot of this stuff by just reading about it, you have to give yourself the experience.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

The Red Book and Blue Book are excellent.
Kapitan, I hope you hang around this thread. He has a lot to teach us.
First, understand what game you're playing. DW and SC are the grand children of Harpoon. Sonalyst got involved when the Navy wanted a cost-effective training tool for Academy students so they could learn the basics of maneuvering and weapons deployment (ie, shooting the bad guys). The later release of Harpoon for the commercial PC market had to be "sanitized" but it wasn't sanitized that much. The basic ideas are still valid.

More than that, I would suggest learning how to develop your situational awareness (we'll get into this more in a later post). Knowing where you are and understanding where you want to be are crucial. That is very closely linked, and is different, for each platform. In other words, pick one platform and stick with it. Over time and with experience, you will learn your boat's strengths and weaknesses. It will become second nature. While I really like the attention to detail the RA folks have brought with their mods, I spend very little time looking at the 3D view during a fight. That is my one and only beef with Cold Waters. I can't develop that awareness if there are no stations to concentrate on. Maybe I'll do a re-think when CW2 or CW3 come out.

Some of you may have noticed that some of the rest have a deeper background in tactics. We literally lived this stuff for years at a time. Its how we got paid and advanced. Think of it this way, its hard not to get good at your job when you're on a three month deployment.
In contrast, the biggest thing I had to learn when playing 688I, Sub Command, and later Dangerous Waters was that they were games and not the real thing. The basics are there but I still had to adapt to what I was given. In that regard we're all on the same page.

In other words, am I saying you need to march down to the recruiter and volunteer so you can get experience? Hell no! There are a LOT of tough times you have to deal with in order to get to a small percentage of good times.

OK, so where are the tactics? We're getting there, trust me. The point of this post is to give yourself time to learn how to play the game. Whatever platform you choose to play, learn how drive it before you get in a fight. The early 688I missions that are included with RA are great for this, but take it to the next step. Go to the mission editor and create some missions where you're just goofing around in a harbor. Norfolk and Petropavlosk are great locations to do this. Get a good "feel" for how your platform handles. Get some experience working close to land and other ships. Try driving your platform in reverse while using the manual rudder station in Control. One of the keys to ship control is learning how your platform behaves as it transitions from forward movement to reverse. Another area to concentrate on is learning how to get the most out of your Nav Map view.

You may notice I'm being vague on some of this stuff. That's because it a lot of these things are learned by doing. You can't learn a lot of this stuff by just reading about it, you have to give yourself the experience.

Must say the Nav map in CW lacks some what in terms of capability whats more CW is more arcade simulation and something i'm not too big a fan of.

Spending many years in DW using the FFG taught me how to counter submarines very well, i found myself using its strengths to weed out the submarines weaknesses, i can also lay out some good buoy patterns with the helo's and that is crucial to executing a successful attack it can also serve as great intelligence gathering.

I even adapted the helo's mission profile which is primarily to hunt for submarines into a forward observer and also AEW roles often sacrificing one helo in a mission to this role to provide me an over terrain radar warning, something the FFG guide and many others wont tell you about you could also use link data to view the on board helo camera and thus bring down the 4.5in shells on target accurately.

One of the biggest mistakes a sub driver always made when they entered a MP game and started at PD was to dive deep, turn and run realistically a submarine can fight the entire battle at PD and never really exceeding 5 knots.

i have a fair bit to do with regards to a project i have on going but il stick around and throw some points out there for sure.

[ET2SN]

So, on to a more "meat and potatoes" post.

Let's visit our old friend, the Knife Fight.
You're in close to the bad guys. Really, really, close and its turned into a real hairball.

If you're driving a frigate or helo, pat yourself on the back. You're in your best position to kick some A and you have all of the advantages in your favor.

If you're driving a sub, WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU IN A KNIFE FIGHT??
You have NO advantages, your platform wasn't even designed for this type of engagement, and the ONLY thing that will save you is Luck. You don't want to count on luck so why not put yourself in a better situation?
Even if we're talking about a sub-v-sub fight, you're still at a disadvantage. Your fire control wasn't designed for this stuff.

THE BEST WAY FOR A SUB TO WIN A KNIFE FIGHT IS SIMPLE, NEVER GET INTO A KNIFE FIGHT.
If you're working a contact closer than 5,000 yards and you aren't in a "track and trail" situation, you're doing something wrong.
In essence, you're minimizing your advantages on purpose.
Stick to what your platform is best at. Your torpedo pre-sets are a pretty good clue about where you should be. Take that number and double it.

If you do find yourself stuck in a close-in situation, get out. Go deep (the fast end of your cavitation curve plus another 100 feet), pick a general direction ("somewhere over there"), cross your fingers, and start making tracks.

If you're in a sub-v-sub fight, trust your instincts on how to get the other guy frustrated. Use the stuff that's frustrated you in the past. Think about running at a full bell and using small rudder angles to create a curving path. Fire control stations HATE curving paths.

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by Orffen

I'd like a thread like this. Had the game for a long time but never spent enough time with it to learn it properly.

True story time.

My COB on the Bremerton: "Hey ET2SN, do you remember any of those guys on the HMAS Ottoway?"

"No, but my liver does.."

We were their "host boat" in Pearl when I was on the Barbel, and host we did.

When they came back a couple of years later, the Bremerton was picked for this honor.

[ET2SN]

So, what is situational awareness?
For the purposes of this post, I'm limiting this topic to submarines.
For most of the time you are limited to one type of sensor, sonar. There are no windows to look out of because below 50 feet there is nothing to see.
Sonar provides you with three or four basics. The sound from another contact, ie something is out there, the direction that sound is coming from, and the contact's Blade Count. If the contact is loud enough your sonar crew and their equipment can also take that sound apart and isolate the frequencies its made of.
Blade Count (or Turn Count) is a freebie as long as you're confident in what type of ship is making the sound. If you know the Blade Count and the ship type (or "class") you can derive the speed the contact is travelling. You also get one more freebie, and its always the first sonar screen you should check, your sound velocity profile. If you have a strong layer, make note of where the boundry is in case you'll need it later.

So let's take a minute to look at what these sounds represent. Ships make noise. There are machines constantly running inside the hull- motors, generators, the main engine, laundry machines, you name it. Those sounds radiate from the hull into the ocean. Different ship classes produce different frequencies of noise. Most ships also use one or more propellers (from now on, we'll call them Screws) to move the ship along its way. The screws generate their own noise as they rotate. As long as we know how many blades are on a screw we can calculate how many RPMs that screw is turning and from that we can make a very good guess at how fast the ship is travelling. Its worth noting that the lower the frequency of the sound, the better it travels through water. This is why you'll always detect the 50 or 60 hertz tone in narrow band first. BTW, 50 and 60 hertz aren't magic. They are based on standards for generating electrical power. Some countries like the US use 60 hertz as a standard while most of Europe uses a 50 hertz standard.

OK, enough of that, let's get back to being aware. We're on a sub so we don't have a lot of information to use. All we have is sound coming from a direction.
We can make a pretty good guess what's causing that sound and how fast its moving. We can also focus on the direction and how that direction changes over time.
These are the basic fundimentals of TMA, or Target Motion Analysis. One thing you absolutly have to understand is that TMA is NOT the same thing as looking at the radar display in a fighter jet or helo. Radar is NOW and its accurate while TMA is a prediction over time. Say it out loud so I'll feel better, "TMA is a prediction over time". TMA is NEVER going to be as accurate as a radar locked onto its target. TMA is based on the assumtions you make. You need to factor in Time to make sure those assumptions aren't falling apart. The first assumtion you have to make is a big one. The target is moving at a constant speed and travelling on a constant course. Do me a favor and read those last two sentances again, this seems to be something that causes a lot of confusion or gets ignored.
You can change your speed and direction to see how it effects your solution, in fact you'll want to do this to refine your solution. If your target changes speed or direction, your solution is now garbage and you have to go back to "square one" with your solution and start over.
Your next assumption is that your target is travelling towards you. You don't know his course for certain, yet, but its safe to assume that if you picked him up at long distance and you're still tracking his sound, he's closing towards you. The only time you can't make this assumption is if you deploy your towed array and all of a sudden you get a nice, bright trace or spike in your broadband display. In other words, deploy the Toad and deploy the Toad early.

So, before this drifts into too much detail, what else is important when it comes to staying aware? While you assume your target is sticking with the first assumption, realize that targets WILL change course and speed at some point. These changes are known as a "zig" and its up to you to be able to spot one. If your sonar uses a "waterfall" display in broadband, learn how to spot the zig on it. You can create some simple missions of a single contact travelling towards you that turns or changes speed at a known point in time. Be aware that you should drop a solution after the contact passes its closest point of approach. Once that contact is moving away the calculations will change but those calculations will screw up your current solution. Be aware that sonar has its advantages but it also puts blinders on you because you're forced to look into the present and future using old data. You also have other sensors but they come with a risk of detection. Learn when to use them and what their maximum effective ranges are.

[p7p8]

@ET2SN
I appreciate your enthusiasm but... you mislead people!
Too much words but merit value = zero

Did you ever play Dangerous Waters? I think you just read about that game or launch DW once or twice. BTW not everything in game is like in real world.


Example of you misleading:

Sonar provides you with three or four basics. The sound from another contact, ie something is out there, the direction that sound is coming from, and the contact's Blade Count. If the contact is loud enough your sonar crew and their equipment can also take that sound apart and isolate the frequencies its made of.

You suggest that counting blades is "normal thing" but checking frequencies needs stronger source of sound. In DW for counting blades you have to give tracker to contact in BROADBAND mode, but NARROWBAND can detect first frequencies even when broadband screen is clear! Its because NB is much more "sensitive" than BB (of course it is some kind of simplification).
Your fantastic idea for counting blades and determining what kind of ship is your contact is taken from books or popular myths but definatly NOT FROM GAME.
Most of new players wanna count blades and they ignore fact, that for all visible blades they have all narrowband frequencies. Its because first frequencies are shown earlier than broadband signal!
You don't need count blades - all informations are "coded" in sound signature!

Formation of frequency profiles in RA v1.43:

Frequency String 1 – Generator Type
50 or 60 Hz for units
55 Hz and 65 Hz for torpedoes.

Frequency String 2 – Tonnage Factor
100 Hz – 41000 Tonns and more
130 Hz – 25000-34999 Tonns
145 Hz – 21000-24999 Tonns
160 Hz – 18000 -20999 Tonns
175 Hz – 15000-17999 Tonns
190 Hz – 12000-14999 Tonns
205 Hz – 9000-11999 Tonns
220 Hz – 6000-8999 Tonns
235 Hz – 3000-5999 Tonns
250 Hz – 2000-2999 Tonns
265 Hz – 1000-1999 Tonns
280 Hz – 500 – 999 Tonns

Frequency String 3 – Engine Type
310 Hz – Surface Steam
325 Hz – Sub Nuke
340 Hz – Sub Diesel
355 Hz – Surface Diesel
370 Hz – Sub AIP
385 Hz – CODOG
400 Hz – CODAG
415 Hz – COGOG
430 Hz – COGAG
445 Hz – GAS-Turbine
460 Hz – Torpedo Gas-Turb
475 Hz – Torpedo Peroxid
490 Hz – Torpedo Electric
505 Hz – Pump Jet Surface
520 Hz – ACTUV
535 Hz – Pump Jet Submarine
550 Hz – APR-2, APR-3, SHKVALs
565 Hz – DSRV

* - fourth frequency - it is not tied to any class – DDG, FF or CV, as it is in the default game sonar profile.
Only ACTUVs and DSRV tied to unique class.
Frequency String 4 and 5 – Unique frequency for each class
* - fifth frequency - it is not tied to any class – DDG, FF or CV, as it is in the default game sonar profile.

Of course vanilla DW haven't that feature but even earlier than RA mod it was feature of LwAmi mod.


Its only one "position" from long list of your misleading. Don't ask me for to point out further ones. Instaed try to find them yourself. And one advice for you: before you write long and pointless post - just check empiric in game what you wanna share to community.

Best method of learning is to participate in MP games. It veriffies very quickly value of any "superb tactics"

[Kapitan]

Think its more about real world adaptability to the game if you look at the guides that are out there a lot of the things in them are real world tactics simplified

Yes the sensors are not real world spec we need to remember this game launched in 2005 and is 12 years old few people now play this game but any interest in it should be welcome.

The game doesn't depict fully real world however what you can obtain is a knowledge of real world tactics to adapt to game play think thats the point of this post, it also serves to enhance your knowlege and make you think about what your doing.

If you look at the screenshots i supplied i have used real world tactics to hunt a submarine and found it but adapted them for gameplay.

I think the original poster is clearly addressing this point.

[p7p8]

Consequences of that kind of guide is asking during MP game "how to identify contact if i haven't shown all blades" (its from real game). In my opinion suggesting that counting blades is important for inentification is only misleading.

DW players should know that DEMON can show you blades only after giving tracker in BB - it's always happens later than checking first and second freq on NB. So this "guide" learn "how to be cannon fodder" for more experienced players.

Other parts of this "guide" also aren't merit:

So let's take a minute to look at what these sounds represent. Ships make noise. There are machines constantly running inside the hull- motors, generators, the main engine, laundry machines, you name it. Those sounds radiate from the hull into the ocean. Different ship classes produce different frequencies of noise. Most ships also use one or more propellers (from now on, we'll call them Screws) to move the ship along its way. The screws generate their own noise as they rotate. As long as we know how many blades are on a screw we can calculate how many RPMs that screw is turning and from that we can make a very good guess at how fast the ship is travelling. Its worth noting that the lower the frequency of the sound, the better it travels through water. This is why you'll always detect the 50 or 60 hertz tone in narrow band first. BTW, 50 and 60 hertz aren't magic. They are based on standards for generating electrical power. Some countries like the US use 60 hertz as a standard while most of Europe uses a 50 hertz standard.

Example up here - lots of words and little usefulness of information.
All of this only blurs what is really important - it does not help and even harms.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by p7p8

Consequences of that kind of guide is asking during MP game "how to identify contact if i haven't shown all blades" (its from real game). In my opinion suggesting that counting blades is important for inentification is only misleading.

DW players should know that DEMON can show you blades only after giving tracker in BB - it's always happens later than checking first and second freq on NB. So this "guide" learn "how to be cannon fodder" for more experienced players.

Other parts of this "guide" also aren't merit:

Example up here - lots of words and little usefulness of information.
All of this only blurs what is really important - it does not help and even harms.

It depends on which type of game play you prefer, while a lot of people always saw DW as a platform to run around shooting others like myself found the hunt just as satisfying.

I have spent a few hours at a time trying to track targets in MP using a system where by the first one to track and get in behind wins this sort of MP doesn't mean you have to shoot, for myself and the other person it was always about skill of manoeuvre and how to out whit the opponent and not out fight them.

Any person who uploads DW can jump in a platform shoot a load of torpedoes or missiles sink a few ships submarine aircraft etc and say look at my high score to me that's like playing bingo or shooting fish in a barrel with a shot gun it shows no real skill level.

Using the sensors to accurately classify a contact move in close enough and set up a solution shows skill and restraint, that's what isn't shown in the game.

For me personally the skill level comes when you can get within 500 yards of your target without them knowing it and calling in their co ordinates and saying i got you oh and getting a sneaky screenshot of their props from the periscope too.

Apples and Oranges i prefer to hunt and trap others prefer to kill i'm at home with both but i do like to track and trail too.