688I vs. Collins Class SS - Any tips?

[heartc]

Hi there!

Usually I'm a flightsim guy, but I've also had lots of WWII subsim sessions in the past, mainly SHI and SHIII.
Recently I've decided to check out their modern counterparts in DW, so I'm still new to this but slowly I'm coming to grips with all the gizmos that come with the modern hardware. TMA took a while though...

Currently I'm on a Quick mission in the Barents Sea, commanding a 688I. Mission is ASW Barrier Search. I'm using manual stations except for the active intercept station, you know, the one where you intercept pings from active sources. My target (as I found out after saving and exiting the mission) is a Collins Class Diesel Electric Sub. Now after reading something about it, I know why I never picked him up on Passive Sonar. All I had were 2 Oilers. After I sailed along the search area for hours, I got bored and finally gave in to send out one active ping. Lo and behold, in addition to the 2 oilers I've already tracked down I got that tiny return signal bearing 025, 27k yards. I figured it would be pointless to launch from this range, so I decided to close in somewhat. Except there was indeed a torpedo coming down my bearing. But it went active somewhat early and was easy to avoid, I guess it caught on to my CMs at 3000 yards out and I was off at a course of 310, before returning to target bearing 025 and firing two torps myself, one active and one passive (does this make sense?). When they were still running their search patterns beyond the suspected target's position, and after turning the active one around without any results, I decided to scuttle them lest they hit one of the oilers, even though they were far out, but I was not positively sure about their position anymore at this point.

So, since this is my most fun mission yet and the first one where after learning TMA I do have *some* idea of what is happening around me, my question is, what would you do next? Just continue in on the last known position of the target? What max speed is advisable? Will I be able to detect him first on passive sonar? Seems like the Collins Class is...uhm...*quiet*. I guess he's also running (or rather sneaking) down my bearing now. BTW, difficulty is set to medium.

Also: What is the point of passive torpedoes? Since they are pretty loud, no one will have any trouble to detect them on Passive Sonar anyway, so I would think I should just fire active ones, no?

[Dr.Sid]

Passive torpedoes are better against loud contacts. AI uses both passive and active CM. So there is not much reason for doing so. Some humans don't use both CM so this can help in MP games.

Maximum operation speed should be 5kts. Every knot makes you louder. Only go faster when you know the situation, and even then, do stops time to time.

For sure use towed array and narrow band screen for first contact with anything. It has the most range. There is also problem that weak NB (narrow band) lines are darker then the screen and they are really hard to see, especially on some monitors.
Also be sure you don't drag TA (towed array) on the bottom (you'll see bright noise on the screen). Don't extend your TA to the full, 1/3 is enough.

Go to www.subguru.com and download guides and tutorials, as well as some cool missions.

As for your mission. Collins is really hard to beat. Forget it without TA.
Also some quick missions are impossible to complete. They are just random. Sometimes the target is too far away, sometimes it is too close (I once collided with enemy Kilo in FFG just few seconds after mission start).

Btw. you can store random seed of the quick mission (it is also written in player's log). Post it together with other info (mission type, location etc) and we can try too.

Also .. what you mean by difficulty ? There is no such thing in DW.
Edit: Oh I see .. you mean quick mission difficulty. That is just mission setup. Number of targets in general. Against sub, Easy means one enemy sub, one allied surface ship (which often sends target location via link). Medium means one target,no allies. Hard means 3 or even more enemy subs, no allies.

[Molon Labe]

You're not picking up a Collins on passive unless you run him over or he steps on the gas. Using LW/Ami will help make him more detectable if he does put on the speed (+13 NL instead of +5 when at flank).

Active sonar is your best friend when you're taking an SSN against an SSK with no friends. The Collins is going to be the toughest SSK though, because it has a good sonar and carries the ADCAP instead of crappy short-ranged torpedoes. But, you can take advantage of the fact that the AI doesn't resteer its torps.

So go ahead and ping away, and be ready to get shot at after you do. When you get shot at, clear datum until the torp is no threat, then close a bit and repeat the process until you're close enough to shoot. You might be able to get him on the TA when he starts running, so keep an eye out for that happening too.

[LuftWolf]

Actually, the Collins is going to be LESS detectible in LWAMI up to about 10kts, because the base PSL has been lowered to 53, as opposed to the stock 60.

Cheers,
David

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by heartc

So, since this is my most fun mission yet and the first one where after learning TMA I do have *some* idea of what is happening around me, my question is, what would you do next? Just continue in on the last known position of the target?

Sort of. The trick is to make some assumptions about how quickly your target fled the datum you shot at. So long as you make some reasonable assumptions about that, you can narrow the range of where he is to a circle with a radius equal to the assumed speed of the target times the time since you lost contact plus the time it takes to get yourself into a position to start searching along the edge of that circle. If you know something about his course, then you can narrow it down to a pie slice.

What max speed is advisable?

It depends on what you're trying to do.

Will I be able to detect him first on passive sonar? Seems like the Collins Class is...uhm...*quiet*. I guess he's also running (or rather sneaking) down my bearing now.

They are quiet. You'll probably be able to detect him with passive sonar eventually, but depending on the conditions, he'll most likely be quite close, so you should be prepared to shoot very quickly.

Also: What is the point of passive torpedoes? Since they are pretty loud, no one will have any trouble to detect them on Passive Sonar anyway, so I would think I should just fire active ones, no?

No. Whether you shoot active or passive depends on the situation. All torpedoes are very loud, but sometimes targets are also very far away, or else running so quickly that they might not always be able to maximize the use of their sonar. Being unaware of what a torpedo is doing makes them more difficult to evade. I've also found they are quite good against surface ships, often acquiring the target much more quickly than the same torpedo in active mode. Ideally, I'd prefer to use passive torpedoes because any little thing I can do to make it harder to be localized is a good thing.

Actually, these days, I find myself using passive torpedoes more and more.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

Actually, the Collins is going to be LESS detectible in LWAMI up to about 10kts, because the base PSL has been lowered to 53, as opposed to the stock 60.

Cheers,
David

Which is why I said it would help when he's running. :p

[heartc]

Thanks for all the advise, folks! Didn't yet find the time to continue the mission, maybe tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

Also be sure you don't drag TA (towed array) on the bottom (you'll see bright noise on the screen). Don't extend your TA to the full, 1/3 is enough.

Hehe, yeah, I know that since I went "WTF?" the first time that happened to me and I didn't figure it out until I switched to outside view.

Btw. you can store random seed of the quick mission (it is also written in player's log). Post it together with other info (mission type, location etc) and we can try too.

You mean post the number just like that, and you will be able to play the same mission? Cool.

Random Seed: 1171794304
Mission Type: ASW Barrier Search
Location: Barents Sea
Ownship: 688I
Difficulty: Medium
You start out at the Northern half of the search area. I initially analysed the oilers and then after a while with no other contacts I went to the SW corner of the search area, eventually on time compression. From there it was when I sent out an active ping which revealed the Collins Class at true bearing 025°, 27k+ yards.

[Dr.Sid]

Yes .. passive torpedoes are good on surface ships. Even better than wakehomers. Wakehomers tends to follow even quite old wakes, thus attacking ships you didn't want to attack. Kilo Demo mission is nice example of that.

I didn't try them on subs, but I guess they'll work well especially against human. It won't ping so they won't be alerted that much and most humans only drops active CMs.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

For sure use towed array and narrow band screen for first contact with anything. It has the most range. There is also problem that weak NB (narrow band) lines are darker then the screen and they are really hard to see, especially on some monitors.
Also be sure you don't drag TA (towed array) on the bottom (you'll see bright noise on the screen). Don't extend your TA to the full, 1/3 is enough.

Dr.Sid are you sure about this ?
I though that maximum sensitivity was achieved by extending completely the TA.
Does LwAmi model this ?

[sonar732]

Originally Posted by goldorak

Dr.Sid are you sure about this ?
I though that maximum sensitivity was achieved by extending completely the TA.
Does LwAmi model this ?

As with everything in this game, it depends on your tactical situation.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by sonar732

As with everything in this game, it depends on your tactical situation.

Of course, I know that if you're in shallow waters extending completely the TA would prove mostly useless as it would drag on the seafloor.
I was talking about situations where you can extend completely without problem the TA.
Case in point : patrolling in the mid of the atlantic, or in the mid of the pacific.
In such cases why would you NOT WANT to ? :hmm:

[Molon Labe]

If there is any gain in sensitivity after deploying the TA about 1/3 of the way, I haven't noticed it. That does't really bother me much, since that's still a long way from the boat and any interference it might be casuing. Don't forget that the LW/Ami TA's are substanially longer than the TA's in stock DW.

As for why not to deploy it all the way... reaction time. Sometimes you really want to start that other leg sooner, and having the TA in a turn makes it pretty useless. The sooner its back on track, the more data you get. The only reason I can think of why you'd want it longer is better triangulation if you get a second array on the contact.

[Dr.Sid]

1/3 .. quite sure. You can see it on BB display when deploing TA. After 1/3 there is no noise decrease or signal increase. And reaction times matters a lot.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

1/3 .. quite sure. You can see it on BB display when deploing TA. After 1/3 there is no noise decrease or signal increase. And reaction times matters a lot.

If true, then this is something for our resident modding man to take a look at.

Maybe some improvements should be incorporated in a future version of lwami.

- increase sensitivity of the TA proportional to how much of the TA has been extended.
- make bearing error of TA dependent on its length so that triangulation is less acurate with a short TA and more accurate with a long TA.

[FERdeBOER]

There's other important thing about extending the TA to its maximun... you can go just above the layer at 3 knots...and the TA will fall below the layer... the longer the cable, the best this can be done... and of course with LWAmi this is very easy to do because the cable is longer than in stock.

EDIT: I know it can be done, if you look the 3D screen you can see the cable bending down... and I think it works that seems to me when I tried this, but I'm not so good in this game to know if it works or is just my imagination...