Using Radar to Search for Submarines

[LoBlo]

I don't know much about that part of the globe, but how about some merchants transiting out of the port? Unless all merchant shipping has been halted owing to the minefield? (maybe a corridor thru the minefield that merchant shipping uses and a SSK sitting right in the middle to ensure only merchants (not enemy subs) use it.

By the way. Great mission. Got thru it the 1st time and wasn't until I turned on the replay did I see all those mines! Yikes!. Talk about lucky sailing.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

I don't know much about that part of the globe, but how about some merchants transiting out of the port?

You're right, Trondheim is a major port.

Unless all merchant shipping has been halted owing to the minefield? (maybe a corridor thru the minefield that merchant shipping uses and a SSK sitting right in the middle to ensure only merchants (not enemy subs) use it.

I thought about it. I didn't think it was really essential to the mission and it might lead a player to think there was a "right" way to get through, and I don't like to do that. I like things to be more open ended.

By the way. Great mission. Got thru it the 1st time and wasn't until I turned on the replay did I see all those mines! Yikes!. Talk about lucky sailing.

The mine barriers shouldn't be terribly effective. It's such a large area to mine that it's hard to put out enough mines out there to be even 80% effective. They might make a decent deterrent, though, if one ship got hit. I threw them out there in a way that would probably be typical of a minefield intended to deter amphibious assault. The hard part of that, though is deciding how much preparation the enemy has to plant mines. I assumed they didn't have much time. A less favorable assumption would be that they had months.

[LoBlo]

By the way. My experience with the DW AI is that it automatically classifies any human target it encounters, meaning that it automatically knows whether it is hostile or friendly the instant it is detected (if you look at debug view while the game is running).

Can anyone else confirm?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

You're right, Trondheim is a major port.

I just noticed that the depths for it in DW seem just about right for a Kilo to pull a harbour pentration mission...

I thought about it. I didn't think it was really essential to the mission and it might lead a player to think there was a "right" way to get through, and I don't like to do that. I like things to be more open ended.

Unless of course the shipping channel has CAPTORs or other mines that discriminate.

[LoBlo]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Unless of course the shipping channel has CAPTORs or other mines that discriminate.

A little off topic (not to hijack the thread), but were Captor's ever deployed?

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Unless of course the shipping channel has CAPTORs or other mines that discriminate.

I'm not sure that'd serve the right purpose. For an amphibious assault, you want to deter the assault by insuring that ANY platform that approaches the coast stands a chance of getting hit. Ultimately your minefield isn't really targeting submarines at all, it's targeting grey hulls and any commercial shipping being used to haul military forces (MPF ships).

You'd use mines that discriminate if you were narrowly targeting specific types of vessels, but to deter amphibious assault, I'd want floating mines in the deep, teathered mines as it got more shallow, right on up to bottom mines in the shallows. I'd want to send out a big loud message "STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM HERE, EVERYONE!!!" Bare in mind, even a small speedboat could contain special operations forces.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

A little off topic (not to hijack the thread), but were Captor's ever deployed?

Yes. But mine warfare is sort of the ugly stepchild of the US Navy. Both mine sweeping and mine laying are not considered high priorities by them.

Honestly, I'm doubtful that US Navy will ever really use mines on a wide scale. There's reasons that range all the way from the laws of war and humanitarian issues, to the generally risk-averse mindset of Naval officers. If they did lay mines, it'd be very interesting, because it's a really complicated question regarding what they'd be trying to accomplish.

For example, suppose you were mining a harbor, if it was a commerical harbor then you'd be targeting merchant shipping. The thing is, mines don't discriminate between neutral shipping and targeting shipping. These days it's especially important because the shipping industry is so globalized. The shipping companies are TRUELY multinational, changing flags and registries as convenient. So, even if you were targeting, say, Iranian shipping, you'd be most likely hitting vessels belonging to almost every seafaring nation of the world. Since in the US we like to try to obey international law (the previous administration aside), the legalities of this would be complex. The political angles might be every more complex. Suppose you hit a Ukrainian container ship, pulled into an Iranian port, filled with everything from arms to Algerian terrorists to microwave ovens intended for consumption in the US. It gets weird fast. Naval officers don't like weird. They like easy, straightforward and minimal risk. Hence, I'll be amazed if the US ever employs mines in any large quantities.

And if we did use them, they'd most likely be layed by B-52s, B-1s and B-2s. The Navy MIGHT lay a few of them for ceremony's sake, but all by themselves, they can't lay a minefield of any real effectiveness. I mean... come on... if you filled a 688 with mines that'd be only 24. You need more than that to lay a good barrier. Quickstrike mines are the way to go.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

I mean... come on... if you filled a 688 with mines that'd be only 24. You need more than that to lay a good barrier. Quickstrike mines are the way to go.

Actualy it would be about 50 since in general 2 mines can be carried in the place of one torpedo unless its a SLMM which is just a torpedo that functions as a mine. 50 Captors would be fairly nasty off a Bandar'e Abas.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Actualy it would be about 50 since in general 2 mines can be carried in the place of one torpedo unless its a SLMM which is just a torpedo that functions as a mine. 50 Captors would be fairly nasty off a Bandar'e Abas.

That depends on what their actuation radius is and what you're trying to do.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

That depends on what their actuation radius is and what you're trying to do.

Valid point.

However the closer you can get to where ships are coming from (a port) the less mines are needed to isolate/destroy them. So a submarine with fewer mines can do more damage than aircraft(s) or ships can with more. Since the aircraft risk being shot down (and their pilots bailing out in enemy airspace) and the ships risk being attack by costal defenses.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

However the closer you can get to where ships are coming from (a port) the less mines are needed to isolate/destroy them. So a submarine with fewer mines can do more damage than aircraft(s) or ships can with more.

That is true. Covertness is definitely the submarine's advantage. None the less, the Airforce, at the present time, doesn't seem to have much trouble surpressing air defenses sufficiently to allow their B-52s, B-1s and B-2s as much access as they need. The other thing about submarine mining is that it basically takes a submarine out of the game. That one submarine is dedicated to mining, and that's pretty much it. After it lays it's mines, it has to go all the way back to wherever they've forward based it. Then it'll most likely be weeks until the submarine can begin transiting back to the theatre. At that point, things will be pretty much over. Unless you just happen to have a spare submarine in the theatre, still I wouldn't do it.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

That is true. Covertness is definitely the submarine's advantage. None the less, the Airforce, at the present time, doesn't seem to have much trouble surpressing air defenses sufficiently to allow their B-52s, B-1s and B-2s as much access as they need. The other thing about submarine mining is that it basically takes a submarine out of the game. That one submarine is dedicated to mining, and that's pretty much it. After it lays it's mines, it has to go all the way back to wherever they've forward based it. Then it'll most likely be weeks until the submarine can begin transiting back to the theatre. At that point, things will be pretty much over. Unless you just happen to have a spare submarine in the theatre, still I wouldn't do it.

Well I have to disagree with you on the USAF's ablity to conduct SEAD in this case. To lay mines they would need to fly at low altitude a to avoid damage to the mines when the enter the water. So unless they fly far off the coast they are voulnerable to MANPADs and other light SAMs not to mention small arms fire ("Every cousin with a rifle" to quote Flight of the Intruder).

The Swedes and Germans have gotten around the whole taking a sub out of the game thing. They use GRP mine cratles to haul dozens of mines around in additon to their torpedo armorment.

[bottomcrawler]

I could easily imagine a hull-conformal mine storage. I don't know the size of a typical mine, but I'm certain a fair number could be hauled along outside the pressure hull. But it would make for a slightly noisier sub, and a slower one.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by bottomcrawler

I could easily imagine a hull-conformal mine storage. I don't know the size of a typical mine, but I'm certain a fair number could be hauled along outside the pressure hull. But it would make for a slightly noisier sub, and a slower one.

A mine is roughly half the size of a torpedo (torpedoes are about 533mm wide 8 meters long). It woudn't nessarly be much noiser if the storage girdle was streamlined, the sub would lose some speed. Also the storage girdle could be jettisoned after the mines have all been deployed.

[bottomcrawler]

Perhaps not much noisier, but I'm pretty sure one noise component is the water flowing over the surface, and if the wetted area increases, that noise component should increase as well. Seams and ports would also produce some noise due to flow disturbance, I would imagine.

Perhaps I'm wrong here, but I tend to think of drag-inducing factors as noise inducing as well. But I'm really mostly into aviation, not subs...