@ Sea Queen

[Kapitan]

-My laptop, with my ASW planning spreadsheet for quick an easy calculation of various things that seem to pop up again and again (limiting lines of approach, CPA course, CPA distance, barrier effectiveness, area search effectiveness...). It's mostly navigational kinds of issues. Also I have the frequency list opened.

You said this in the resources thread can you explin all this please as to what you have and do alot of us are very intrested, also if you could supply it to the comunity im sure it wont go un noticed.

Cheers

[Bellman]

Yep - ''a lot of us are very interested'' You bet !

But I wont give odds on the community getting much detail !!

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

You said this in the resources thread can you explin all this please as to what you have and do alot of us are very intrested, also if you could supply it to the comunity im sure it wont go un noticed.
Cheers

Well... ya know... calculations are a part of seamanship. Navigation, for example, is intensely mathematical. One of the basic skills of seamanship for example, is being able to perform calculations on a maneuvering board. Being able to quickly come up with values such as CPA distance, or calculate intercept courses is an important skill. On the FFG it will calculate this for you, but in a submarine you have to do it yourself. I don't know how to work a maneuvering board (I'm trying to get the guys at work to teach me), but I know how to do vector algebra, so I stuck a bunch of calculations that come up frequently in my spreadsheet, and just let it run. I think in NROTC courses they show you how to do this on a maneuvering board.

There's other more complicated things too that I take from operations research and are useful for planning and scenario design. Probability of detection versus time is a good one. I put in a couple of search tactics that I use a lot, and it gives me an idea of about about how long things should go on average. You can get these kinds of things out of Wagner's Naval Operations Analysis, or Koopman's Search and Screening.

Then I also added a fun little calculation using Baye's theorem, where suppose I had cleared 95 percent of my OP AREA, and found two submarines. How confident am I that there's no more? I made this one using my own math after seeing a presentation a coworker of mine made.

Another good one to have is barrier effectiveness. Let's suppose you had a barrier so long, and you could see so far, and you were going to patrol at a certain speed, and you expected the bad guy to be going another speed. What's the probability of detecting him? This is another sort of Koopman/Wagner calculation.

Limiting lines of approach are very important. It'll tell you where you care about looking if you're screening a ship. I've noticed people tend to just sort of be random. Harpoon includes a similar tool in it's Formation Editor, but it doesn't say "this is the answer." It just hints at it. The formula is in Koopman.

Another good thing to keep in there is a random number generator. How often do you want a random number between 000 and 359, for example? People are frequently predictable. How often have you gotten hit by someone wire guiding a torpedo along a direction that he only could have guessed because he just figured out, "oh... he goes this way..." With an evasion course uniformly distributed, no particular direction is favored.

I've also been experimenting with calculating over what angles you should shoot a salvo of torpedoes given that the torpedo's seeker can see so far, the torpedo goes so fast, and the target is likely to evade at a certain speed. This is my own math, but it's just geometry and kinematics. It's a highschool physics problem, really.

I don't want to release this, though, because even though I haven't made use of anything classified for formulating it, I do use a lot of these calculations at work too, so I figure it's better to err on the side of caution. I'm also sort of skeptical of it's value. I'm trying to figure out how to integrate it into my tactics, and so far I've gotten worse, not better.

None the less, I strongly encourage you all to look into the literature on operations research for insight into the type of thinking I'm putting into these calculations. We're all sharp people here. I have a feeling it'd be interesting to see the kinds of creative solutions you'd all come up with. Some of the things in there are more useful for designing scenarios, than for playing them, but it's all fun to experiment with. Sometimes it will surprise you how things you thought were important aren't really, or things that you never thought of before are important. It'll also give you some interesting insight into why things on warships are the way they are.

[Sgian Dubh]

There's other more complicated things too that I take from operations research and are useful for planning and scenario design. Probability of detection versus time is a good one. I put in a couple of search tactics that I use a lot, and it gives me an idea of about about how long things should go on average. You can get these kinds of things out of Wagner's Naval Operations Analysis, or Koopman's Search and Screening.

Well, I am always up for more light reading....

So I checked Amazon. "Search and Screening" is available used for the hefty price of $288.00 US. Naval Operations Analysis is available around $35.00 US.

So I guess I know which one I will petition the Domestic Appropriations Committee Chairwoman for

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Sgian Dubh

Well, I am always up for more light reading....

So I checked Amazon. "Search and Screening" is available used for the hefty price of $288.00 US.

The out-of-print original version, yes. The Military Operations Research Society keeps "Search and Screening" in print. You can order it from them for about 20-30 dollars.

Naval Operations Analysis is available around $35.00 US.

Yeah... and it contains a lot of the same material as well as some other stuff that's of interest. The two books complement each other. Wagner is a little more generalized, while Koopman focuses on specifically search.

[Kapitan]

always have a scientifc calculator handy and note pad and pencil i do alot of calculations by hand.

[Linton]

Does anybody else have a spreadsheet programme that may be useful?

[Sgian Dubh]

This may be an ill-thought out request, but is there any place where some or all of these equations and formulas are available outside of the books?

Or perhaps the equations are useless out of contex?

If there was a place to start.... Just like there are places to start on Aeronautical navigation on the web to see if you 'take' to it.

[Bellman]

In RL these processes, I suspect, are computerised with software allowing 'what if ' prediction techniques.
The navigation computers on civil aircraft have some similar characteristics.

Given the emphasis on crowded waterways it would be interesting to know what techniques
players use to systemise the progressing of manual sonar.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Sgian Dubh

This may be an ill-thought out request, but is there any place where some or all of these equations and formulas are available outside of the books?

Or perhaps the equations are useless out of contex?

If there was a place to start.... Just like there are places to start on Aeronautical navigation on the web to see if you 'take' to it.

I know what you're saying, and from what I've seen these things don't really exist. OR seems to be the sort of thing people just sort of "fall into." It's sort of like asking "are there any good online sites that explain Bose versus Fermi statistics?" The content is really in the calculations. In order to get into it, you really need to know the details. Web sites rarely discuss these kinds of things.

James Dunnigan, a very experienced veteran of both civilian and military wargaming, who does The Strategy Page, wrote a book about operations research kinds of topics that deals with mostly land combat (his roots as an Army OR guy show). It's called "The Complete Wargames Handbook"

http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm

Even then, it doesn't really get into the details of statistics and what not.

And yes, in the absense of data, they are useless. That's why they're unclassified. None the less, we as wargamers can go into the DB editor, and read the relevent game numbers out, plug them into our calculations and develop our own plans, tactics, proceedures, etc. based on the mathematics of search, firing, etc.

Ideally (and honestly, this has yet to play out for me in game play, since I've been trying to apply a lot of this stuff, I've actually gotten worse) it would give you improved performance in the long run.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bellman

In RL these processes, I suspect, are computerised with software allowing 'what if ' prediction techniques.
The navigation computers on civil aircraft have some similar characteristics.

Some of it is still done by hand, just like in WWII. They still use maneuvering boards on ships. I've seen it done. Once you know what you're doing it's just as quick and easy as having a computer, from what I can tell. It's also more versatile. A manuvering board is essentially a paper computer.

There actually does exist a company that specializes in search related software for the Navy and the Coastguard. It's called Wagner associates. The guy who wrote one of the books I recommended founded it.

http://www.wagner.com/

From the website, apparently they were involved in some of the events described in Blind Man's Bluff, back in the day.

[Bellman]

SQ - ASUWTDA :|\
Pity about the scrambling (but understandable of course !)

I've been working for some time on a handy desk top 'manouvering board' for DW divers. A system for progressing updating and working-up sonar contacts whilst maintaining situational awareness during manouvers in high contact density environments. Its objective mirrors ATC data tags and has been developed from the rudimentary SVAK. Helps me a lot.

In fact the tasks are akin to ATC. Whilest talented 'plate spinners' see the process as an art, the constant updating of information, and changed states, depends on software systems. For those interested try London Control, ATC Simulator or Xavius software. I've hung up my boots now, but remain interested in related salty topics !

http://www.londoncontrol.com/
http://www.atcsimulator.com/
http://www.xavius.com/

The latter has currently witheld general release of Version 2.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bellman

SQ - ASUWTDA :|\
Pity about the scrambling (but understandable of course !)

How interesting! There's actually enough information there to build a fun little DW or Harpoon scenario.

I've been working for some time on a handy desk top 'manouvering board' for DW divers. A system for progressing
updating and working-up sonar contacts whilst maintaining situational awareness during manouvers in high contact
density environments. Its objective mirrors ATC data tags and has been developed from the rudimentary SVAK.
Helps me a lot.

In fact the tasks are akin to ATC. Whilest talented 'plate spinners' see the process as an art, the constant updating
of information, and changed states, depends on software systems. For those interested try London Control,
ATC Simulator or Xavius software. I've hung up my boots now, but remain interested in related salty topics !

Interesting. I never thought of it in those terms.

[Linton]

Belman,I once visited west drayton for a famil visit.I got taken around the ops room and had a go on their simulator running LGW/LHR DEPs and ARR.Great fun.I asked if they had any set srtategies that were employed but the senior atco i was with said they just make it up on the day using experience.Radar headings and speed control work well in tactical situations with different categories of aircraft.Did you know that if a pilot turns his transponder off all atc info is lost

[Linton]

What if predictions on civil aircraft are mainly used for step climbs\descents.You tell the fmgc that you would like to change level and it tells you if it is economical to do so.You can also change crz mach in the box and look at time/fuel benefit.All you are really doing is getting it to recompute a different set of numbers.Going back to gaming I am more interested in probability of success of different torpedo attacks,and some nav stuff to determine time to target closure etc.Does anybody work out a manual run time for their weapons?