Last Chance at my Skipper stripes...

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Enigma

So, when I raise the mast and get contacts from the link, and I see a target displayed on the map, I can opt to "Engage with MK48". dos this simply pop off a torp into the last known location of a target?

Sort of. The thing about using linked contacts is that you have to pay careful attention to the contact age. If it hasn't been updated frequently and the link is from an AI, then it's most likely inaccurate and the AI that reported the contact is no longer detecting it. People don't automatically update their plots like AIs do, so if a person promotes a contact to he link sometimes the contact age is not always a good indicator of it's reliability. If that's the case, then the best thing to do is just ask them.

I made some progress with NB and BB today, but just scratching the surface.

Good to hear it.

The LA class has the option of listening to the towed wire, the nose, or the hull of the boat (at least thats what I determine from the diagrams on the buttons). Can anyone explain the benfits of each, and when and why i should be using each area?

The towed array (or towed wire as you called it), is basically a long rubber hose filled with oil to keep it neutrally buoyant, and also hydrophones. The advantage of it is that because it is long, it can have lots of little hydrophones in it, which makes it very sensitive, and it also has a lower band pass. A lower band pass means it can detect lower frequency sounds. That's important because low frequency sounds (<1kHz) are the ones which suffer the least attenuation in water.

The towed array has some disadvantages, though. One of them is that every time you turn sharply, the array bends and yields wildly incorrect bearings. It can also break if you do strange things like throw the boat into reverse or go too fast.

Because the towed array typically has the longest range, that's the sensor I use most often for searching.

The sphere (nose) and the hull arrays are less sensitive. If you detect something on them, it's probably really close. They have a higher band pass than the towed array, so they can detect higher frequency sounds, albeit you have to get close to do it. The higher frequency sounds are ones that often allow you to identify a target with perfect accuracy using the filters. You don't usually need to do that, though, if you use your head. The sphere also has the ability to emit an active sonar pulse.

The advantage of using the sphere and hull arrays is that they don't bend if you turn, so if you use Ekelund ranging you don't have to worry about the bearings being wrong after a turn like you do with the towed array. Therefore it's more likely to be accurate. The sphere can see forward, the towed array cannot. They also can't be lost by doing wild maneuvers.