@ Sea Queen

[Bellman]

SQ: There are similarities which remind me of our RAF procedures pre computerisation in so far only as employing
manual systems of information control. We had a SATCO who dreamed up a very original control process.

Linton: See my reference to 'plate spinners' - remember the stage act. In ATC its called ' keeping the flick.'
Information flow is vital for the controller and the modus of achieving that has relevance for manual sonar.
No SATCO would negate procedures. In practise they are highly regulated but the art is in adaptive flow control.
The art is in what you do when there is a computer outage or a storm front causes mutiple diversion requests.

In practise 'Local Control' is relatively easy. The old 'Tower' sim was fun but ridiculously easy even at maximum
traffic rates. Approach Control can be challenging at busy airports !

Re torp run times - a search around some old SC sites will show up several charts in various formats. TTT at various
speeds etc. All pretty basic stuff ! Sure TLAM and Tacman had some plus the docs folder for SCX11c.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bellman

SQ: There are similarities which remind me of our RAF procedures pre computerisation in so far only as employing
manual systems of information control. We had a SATCO who dreamed up a very original control process.

I don't doubt it, at least with maneuvering board calculations and probably other stuff as well. The thing is, in the ocean, things happen a lot more slowly so you don't really need a computer. I'm sure the math is all the same, at least for maneuvering board calculations. Other stuff, as far as optimization problems of various types, I'm sure it's all very similar. All of those problems draw on operations research. It's actually a fun little field in applied mathematics. The other field that draws on it a lot is financial planning. If you ever want to make a computer model that will help you score big on the stock market, the math will come from OR.

It's kind of funny, because the other day at work we were talking about how it seems like people are reluctant to actually do even very simple calculations themselves. With all of these very powerful pieces of software which help people plan optimal resource allocation or whatever, people tend to assume everything is so complicated that only a computer could possibly take into account all the necessary variables to come up with a reasonable solution.

What's even funnier is that a lot of these computer programs are actually pretty simple in principle. They just do the same math you would have done by hand. In fairness, some of them are definitely not simple. Some of the ones that do a lot of the Bayesian revision, make use of genetic algorithms whatnot are quite complex. The thing is, sometimes, it just gives you the same answer as you'd come up with using a simple, old fashioned, linear program like they did in WWII, and there's a lot less to go wrong that way too.

Re torp run times - a search around some old SC sites will show up several charts in various formats. TTT at various
speeds etc. All pretty basic stuff ! Sure TLAM and Tacman had some plus the docs folder for SCX11c.

Hello!

distance = rate x time

That's all you need to know for that one. :-)

[Linton]

My question was on whether people in the game actually bother to work out run time or just use the auto side of the game?The maths for that is easy.I went on the radar sim at Drayton not the tower one.I think I had about 15 contacts on the go at one point.Great day out and the platespinners bought the beer!

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Linton

My question was on whether people in the game actually bother to work out run time or just use the auto side of the game?

They probably don't most of the time, if MP games are any indicator. From what I've seen is that they rely on their intuition and wire guidence to shoot. If you assign a target to your torpedo it will automatically calculate the intercept course for that one torpedo.

The trick is, that's not necessarily the best solution unless you're already fairly close, you're not using autocrew, and the target does a lousy job of evading. Ideally, the torpedo should acquire the target almost as soon as it enables.

For a longer ranged shot, where time late for the torpedo can be significant, particularly if the target does everything he can to evade, as soon as he hears the TIW call, by the time the torpedoes actually arrive at the calculated intercept point and activate, your target might be long gone!

That's where firing a spread of 2 or 3 becomes smarter, and to figure out how wide an arc you want to shoot them over, you need to know the torpedo run time.

[Linton]

SQ thankyou for your answer.I must admit i do both it just depends on how difficult the target is going to be to hit.A shallow stationary target with a lot of other clutter around it will always get a lot more attention to a firing solution than something just steaming along

[Bellman]

Of course as so often in diving an initiial torp range and course judgement must be revisited via wires when the diver
overcomes sonar cluttered with multi-counterfires (sic) and regains good TMA after his own avoidance manouveres.
Hence the need to adopt system/s which maintain full situational awareness of the OA during this partial
loss of the picture or at worst allow it to be regained as efficiently as possible. The diver who maintains the 'flick'
will have the edge and dominate.

Linton - any connection/s with Linton-On-Ouse ? No 1 FTS ?
If you have developed a taste for ATC from Drayton try 'London Control' and test your stress tolerance levels !
Some sectors are a moribund string of pearls where the controller may have a 30+ 'procession' and is only a traffic cop.
Others like Heathrow finals can induce a little perspiration.

With 'ATC Sim' you can drop into the seat at some pretty lively airports and choose your duty roster
at peak movement times 100+ p.h. departures and arrivals where a few crawling Props with poor comms
screw your day ! Then Spreadsheet paper only serves one purpose!!

Sorry I have digressed - comes from a lifetime interest in all things aviation including many flight sims
and ATC packages. I regret my boots have been hung-up now !

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bellman

Of course as so often in diving an initiial torp range and course judgement must be revisited via wires when the diver
overcomes sonar cluttered with multi-counterfires (sic) and regains good TMA after his own avoidance manouveres.

To me, this means you have a bad firing solution in the beginning, and all of these are essentially just snapshots. You might as well just drop the wire and let them do their thing on their own. All of this adjusting and re-adjusting, it's nice to have the capability but it really means the shot was ill conceived.

If you have DEMON, then you should be able to develop an excellent firing solution. You should assume the bad guy gets a TIW call and begins evasion immediately. When your torpedo arrives where could he be? The answer is he is anywhere in a circle centered on the initial position with a radius equal to his maximum speed times the time late for the torpedo.

Now it becomes a question, for a given salvo size, what is the maximum range to target at which the entire arc subtended by his circle diameter and originating at your position at the time of firing, is covered by at least one torpedo sensor? Just inside that is your optimal firing range.

Take that distance, subtract it from your target range. That's your RTE. No sense in letting him pull a Marko Ramius on you.

This still doesn't defeat the problem of countermeasures, but it does insure that no matter what direction he runs there's going to be a torpedo there even if gets away from you on sonar.

The success of this tactic depends entirely on good TMA. If you don't shoot with an accurate range to the target, you're more likely to whiff. How much more likely depends on how big the error is.

If you have a good solution, though, it's creepy to watch in "Show Truth" how quickly the torpedoes acquire their targets. They're TOTALLY right there. I also think it's a really great way to shoot wakehomers.

For some reason, I think it actually does have some impact on countermeasures effectiveness, although I can't proove it. I suspect it has something to do with what the torpedo acquires first. With it enabling in just the right place and acquiring the target so quickly, it seems to acquire the target more often before it releases countermeasures. I dunno....

[Bellman]

SQ That wont do - you choose mischeivously to run with a convenient ''bad firing solution'' interpretation
of what was in fact a strong(ish) criticism of your suggested scatter-gun tactics.

It isnt possible on all occasions when one is fired upon to have a good TMA solution. But you rather defeat
your own argument because of course facing this scatter tactic one generaly has to counterfire with ''ill conceived''
possibly premature information.(Just your modus) The deal then is clear the datum, if necessary, collate information
work up the TMA adjust the run/s by wire. Exactly my point We merely disagree on the causes,
the solution and the modus. Just a small chasm then !

Post edited and pruned extensively in an effort to maintain good Anglo-American relations !

[Linton]

Bellman-Nothing do do with Linton(-on Ouse),more Tubby Linton V.C. a little known (to some)RN submarine commander from Newport,Monmouthshire.SQ -interesting thesis about where a target could go when there is a Tiw,but it must become a big circle for a fast moving ff/dd.I generally fire in pairs.One noisy shot to get the target moving,having offset it first,followed by a passive shot about when the first torp goes active.They never hear the second one coming because they are always running fast from the first!

[Bellman]

Thats a favourite of mine - while the target churns the water avoiding the active you quietly stalk with the passive.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bellman

SQ That wont do - you choose mischeivously to run with a convenient ''bad firing solution'' interpretation
of what was in fact a strong(ish) criticism of your suggested scatter-gun tactics.

It isnt possible on all occasions when one is fired upon to have a good TMA solution.

That's true. After thinking it through and experimenting some, I've come to the conclusion that salvoing torpedoes in the absense of a good firing solution (i.e. counterfire) is wasteful. Counterfire is best with single shots or maybe two.

If you shoot more than that, you do increase the likelihood of killing your bad guy somewhat, but the lack of an accurate range makes it impossible to determine how many torpedoes to salvo most effectively. In light of that, the logical choice is that you have to salvo all of them.

If you salvo all of your torpedoes, the first problem is that the small-angle approximations used in the calculations I made become sufficiently inaccurate that gaps appear in the area searched by the torpedoes beyond anything but the shortest ranges. The other problem is that with the torpedoes activating early as is the case in counterfire, their speed is significantly reduced because they're snaking. So, their time-late increases and the arc of uncertainty surrounding the target increases. So the optimum firing range for the tactic is decreased well inside of where you probably OUGHT to have detected and developed a solution on the guy in the first place, unless the acoustics are truely awful. In that case, you have a close-in situation where the search width of a single torpedo is sufficient to insure a reasonable likelihood of getting the guy.

You do a little bit better, but not much. You also consume torpedoes astoundingly fast. I think the tactic works best on shooting fast targets at medium range, where you have a good firing solution, but you worry he might slip away from you.

The deal then is clear the datum, if necessary, collate information
work up the TMA adjust the run/s by wire. Exactly my point

For counterfire, yes.

After working out the numbers, and experimenting in the sim, I no longer advocate firing spreads of torpedoes over an arc as counterfire. It doesn't buy you enough to worry about in a realistic scenario. Although in some of the MP free-for-alls (the scenarios that make me cringe) where everyone is piled on top of each other, it might still. The tactic in that case is pure munchkinism, but I don't care because those kinds of scenarios are cheesey anyhow. They're all about firepower, so if you've got firepower, USE IT.

Post edited and pruned extensively in an effort to maintain good Anglo-American relations !

You'll never get my spreadsheet now.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Linton

SQ -interesting thesis about where a target could go when there is a Tiw,but it must become a big circle for a fast moving ff/dd.

True. That's why you want to fire multiple torpedoes in an arc. If you imagine each torpedo searching out a strip of water. You want to space them so that the total width of all of the strips of water searched by all the torpedoes covers the entire arc originating at your ship and subtended by the the circle's diameter.

I generally fire in pairs.One noisy shot to get the target moving,having offset it first,followed by a passive shot about when the first torp goes active.They never hear the second one coming because they are always running fast from the first!

I'm still trying to decide if there's a best combination of seeker settings. I'm thinking of it from the perspective of defeating countermeasures.

[Bellman]

SQ: This thread has acquired continental drift, but on the issue of scenarios, I must go with your flow.
There is always an ongoing debate about the character of MP scenarios. Do they pander to the 'knife -fighters'
or have they huge maps, large search areas and long run-in times ?

Personaly I dont think it behoves any of us to get too sniffy about scenario types. The MP scenario market has to
serve widely differing tastes from the quick fix knife fight pseudo flight sim dogfighters to the ultimate reality
of ''real-time' missions. We simply have to cater for all tastes !

We have to face the fact that the main demand is for the former and the game scene has responded to
'Dogfighter'demand ! Now some of us are happy to mirror reality and search unproductively for days and
get a buz from it. But we should'nt expect a majority of players to enjoy and seek out this type of scenario.
Sub Command reality scenarios for MP, unfotunately, did not and will not be dominant.

It seems sensible therefore for the designer to try to meld together elements which are difficult to bring together.
To try to achieve in a single MP scenario a balanced menu without pandering to extremes in diet requirements !!
This allows for the not improbable concept that while we eat fish today its fowl tomorrow. Our tastes vary !!

Okhotsk is my first attempt to achieve these ends by marrying together in one scenario interest
hooks for many types of player. In a Team, one player can confront ,or draw,the opposition while the other adopts
stealthy practices, stays out of trouble and goes for the Boomer. Alternatively, if the blood is hot, both attempt
to fight their way through, IF necessary.

Developing the idea of 'hooks' further I am working on a Phillipine Islands scenario called 'Knife Edge'
The first hook is the Team does'nt know what the ROE are at SOG except 'Monitor XX team and YYY and staying
weapons range. Standby' Weapons Tight. An attempt to achieve RL reconnaisance stealth activity in preparation
for possible action. The second hook is that the timing is randomised within acceptable MP parameters
- so Teams are at the highest alert 'Ready' status for an indeterminate period - on the 'Knife Edge !'
The third hook is goal related and other hooks subtend.

As usual, the main problem is locating starting positions suitable for execution of the mission within the average
MP players available gameplaying timeframe. Thats the rub - and is always at the heart of attempts to achieve reality.
Kilo range and speed limitations add further dimension to the problem. Other factors include length of time
online to maintain connectivity and interest in Teams of 7 players in 'busy(ish) 'waters!

Another rub is my impression that the serious 'reality' players are in SP. But it would be sad neglect of all SAS have
achieved if we cant fully attempt to exploit the games MP potential by hopefuly bringing all types of players onboard
in scenarios.which endeavour to suit all tastes The sim has potent adrenalyn built in supercharged by the
multiplayer potential.

Its doubtful though whether the necessary discipline and self restraint necessary for 'reality' team simulation
can be maintained anywhere outside of the Fleets ! Elsewhere there are no sheriffs, no judges, no penalties just
a lawless frontier town with a casino, whisky and girls !! Heck made that sound too appealing !!

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bellman

SQ: This thread has acquired continental drift, but on the issue of scenarios, I must go with your flow.
There is always an ongoing debate about the character of MP scenarios. Do they pander to the 'knife -fighters'
or have they huge maps, large search areas and long run-in times ?

My experience is that if you make a scenario too huge in DW, it ceases to be a good one. DW is best when there's just a few platforms doing something well defined. DW is not Harpoon. That being said, the scale on which they build most DW scenarios is wrong simply because, as I've said before, they've over simplified the search problem.

I like to think of DW scenarios as individual vignettes in a larger Harpoon-type scenario.

We have to face the fact that the main demand is for the former and the game scene has responded to
an influx of 'Doomers.' Now some of us are happy to mirror reality and search unproductively for days and
get a buz from it. But we cant expect a majority of others to have this approach.

No, but by the same token, I can't help but be resentful when I work out the statistics and given the scale on which the scenarios are designed, even the most ill-placed single shots are likely to hit SOMEBODY, because everyone is piled on top of one another.

Scenarios should be designed so that searching unproductively for days is possible, particularly against a skilled opponent, but unlikely. That's realistic. They wouldn't allocate a mission to just a few platforms if they felt it was most likely going to be impossible to accomplish. The Kara Sea search mission I made, for example, I sometimes start and finish in just a few hours. Other times it takes me a whole day.

The first hook is the Team does'nt know what the ROE are at SOG except 'Monitor XXXX and YYYY and stay in contact. Standby' An attempt to achieve RL reconnaisance stealth activity in preparation for action.

That's an interesting idea provided it is a challenge to acquire the target and avoid counter detection.

The main problem is locating starting positions suitable for execution of the mission within the average
MP players available gameplaying timeframe.

Play time is a fair restraint. It's actually not necessarily that difficult to figure out. What search tactic do you anticipate them using to acquire the target?

Kilo range and speed limitations add further dimension to the problem. Other factors include the maintaining
of connectivity and interest in Teams of 7 players online in 'busy(ish) 'waters!

I don't think it's a good idea to have more than two or three platforms on a side. One should actually be the most typical case for most submarines.

Another rub is my impression that the serious 'reality' players are in SP.

That's ultimately where I'm beginning to think all the interesting simulating is. I also can't help but wonder how many of the old submariners here have made scenarios inspired by things they remember but they're sitting on them because they're concerned about compromising things they may have been exposed to.

At it's worst, though MP is hopeless.

Single player also has the advantage of being able to "save game." It'd be nice if I could create a MP coordinated ASW scenario where the distance and time scales are correct, and if it started to run little long, we could quit and pick up where we left off tomorrow.

It's not like single player scenarios are really that much better, realism wise. They have their own shortcomings. In that case, they're often limited by the AI and communications issues.

But it would be sad neglect of all SAS have
achieved if we cant fully exploit the games MP potential by hopefuly bringing all types of players onboard
in muli-taste scenarios. The sim has potent adrenalyn built in supercharged by the multiplayer potential.

The thing is, I don't think you're ever going to satisfy both camps. The one camp is in it to shoot torpedoes. The other camp recognizes that the ASW game is about more than that, and is interested in it for a much wider range of tactics.

[Bellman]

SQ: I suspect that there is much truth in what you say, and we agree that there is a natural encampment of ideologies.

But 'bridging' theories, however improbable, should be tested. 'Composite' is worth a go and I remain optimistic.
Can you say the same for 'Scatter' - ' C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre ' ?