Submarine Operations

[Sea Dragon]

Hey guys. It has come to my attention while playing around with some senarios that submarine operations are particularly difficult to handle in this game!
This stems from the simple fact that for a submarine to be effective (especially a conventional sub) it has to be able to infiltrate and attack an enemy territory.

This is difficult at times (as it should be) but not impossible. So far however i have found it ALMOST impossible while engaging single warships, task forces and other submarines to engage the enemy having infiltrated. As soon as i fire a torpedo the computer somehow detects me and launches 5-6 torpedos.

Now i know that a torpedo launch is annoying. However it also seems a bit off how quickly the computer gets a bead on you as soon as a torpedo (even just one and not a volley) is launched.


Any advice guys?

[Mudslide]

I don't see it that way.

If I'm commanding a frigate and have torpedoes coming at me, common sense says I should match bearings and fire torpedoes back, even if I don't know the exact location of the sub. I would do so in hopes that it forces the sub commander to break off his attack, even if only for a moment, to deal with my torpedoes coming in his direction. That allows me to flee and then come back and try to get a better fix on his position.

[Sea Dragon]

You have to first consider that you may not even be remotely aware of the torpedoes untill the strike. In fact with a skilled submariner that is a very distinct possibility! Secondly you will not have the torpedo launch from start. The ship may pick up the torpedo at a point inbound. When a torpedo is heading towards you at 35+ knots, action stations are being called, chaos rains it will not be particularly easy to work out an exact bearing and then get a launch.

This is where the problem lies. The computer doesn't snap off 1 or 2 or even 3 shots. It will unload all of its torpedoes continuously untill the submarine is sunk. Regardless of the number of torpedoes heading towards it. More often than not those torpedoes are very accurate as well.

My problem is not that i am being shot at, or indeed losing assets (an eventuality of war. Afterall those who win war are not those who make no mistakes but those who make the LEAST mistakes). It is that i cannot engage an enemy ship with torpedos from a submarine and not end up killed but other enemy assets and/or the ship itself.


Is this a bug or a problem in the way i direct submarines?

[Mike D]

You have to first consider that you may not even be remotely aware of the torpedoes untill the strike. In fact with a skilled submariner that is a very distinct possibility! Secondly you will not have the torpedo launch from start. The ship may pick up the torpedo at a point inbound. When a torpedo is heading towards you at 35+ knots, action stations are being called, chaos rains it will not be particularly easy to work out an exact bearing and then get a launch.

This is where the problem lies. The computer doesn't snap off 1 or 2 or even 3 shots. It will unload all of its torpedoes continuously untill the submarine is sunk. Regardless of the number of torpedoes heading towards it. More often than not those torpedoes are very accurate as well.

My problem is not that i am being shot at, or indeed losing assets (an eventuality of war. Afterall those who win war are not those who make no mistakes but those who make the LEAST mistakes). It is that i cannot engage an enemy ship with torpedos from a submarine and not end up killed but other enemy assets and/or the ship itself.


Is this a bug or a problem in the way i direct submarines?

A couple of things to remember: FC isn't real life and that every situation is different so your response needs to be flexible.

While FC is pretty good the sensors, ocean sound profiles and weapon guidance and counter-measures are only 'close' to reality, they aren't reality. So the things you think might be done in real life may not work in FC.

Mudslide is correct, if I as a ship commander detect a inbound torp I do a snap analysis. Can I determine the type, what speed, what direction and depth, etc. Then I think, ok; it's a Yu-4 at 30kts at 50 feet from the north. I know the Yu-5 has pretty short legs, about 5nm. I have Mk48's and RUM-139s so I go for an active ping and I turn tail and go to emerjency flank speed activating my nixie. If I got a contact then I fire a RUM-139 and try to out run the torpedo. If I didn't get a contact I still fire a RUM-139 and I launch a Mk46 both down the bearing bracketing the max launch range for the Yu-4, both of my torps programmed for active search and hope to flush the hostile sub. But, FC doesn't allow blind fire. You have to have a passive or active sonar contact to launch on, the CM in FC are always on and never have equipment problems. So I can't follow what I think should be done in real life. What I do is go to active sonar, ID the torp and hit Pause. Then I look at what I have, do I have a sonar contact for the sub? If so can I launch on it? If not then run like hell and launch your helo if you have one. Also, remember your playing an AI, not a human. If I out ran the torp I come back with sonar and radar on, as soon as your in range the sub will launch again so I run again, keep up this dance untill all the subs torps are gone then kill it. A human running the sub would have dove deep and run, or waited to shoot, or done something else.

My point is don't get lost in how things "should" work, deal with how it does work, be flexable and go from there.

As an FYI, before I updated the sub sonars in 19.0 I never lost a ASW capable ship to a sub. Now I rarely but ocasionally do. Learn how the sensors work and how the AI controls platforms and your 70% there.

[Tibe]

Mike a question, maybe you have more clear view

Is there a difference in keep a ship/sub steady as you can at low speed to avoid the torpedo cone or the best choice is to run as fast as you can out flanking the torpedo??


I tried this two tactic (fast and slow) but with diferent results so I don´t have a clear pictures of this....

Is pretty hard with a sub to avoid incoming torpedos....but not imposible

[Lancer]

Mike a question, maybe you have more clear view

Is there a difference in keep a ship/sub steady as you can at low speed to avoid the torpedo cone or the best choice is to run as fast as you can out flanking the torpedo??


I tried this two tactic (fast and slow) but with diferent results so I don´t have a clear pictures of this....

Is pretty hard with a sub to avoid incoming torpedos....but not imposible

I've had a pretty good survival success rate max diving the sub (or in an aircraft, max altitude climb) at a 45 degree bearing heading in relation to the torp's. They will have difficulty making turns at an acute angle.

[Tibe]

I've had a pretty good survival success rate max diving the sub (or in an aircraft, max altitude climb) at a 45 degree bearing heading in relation to the torp's. They will have difficulty making turns at an acute angle.

Fast or slow manouver?? yeah is a good tip now that I think of

[Lancer]

Fast or slow manouver?? yeah is a good tip now that I think of

Max speed all the way, no time for a slow descent. I leave slower speeds for ESM sensing and stealthiness.

[DHX]

My usual tactic for subs is get about halfway into my weapons engagement zone, fire a spread, wait until they get relatively close and then turn, throttle up to full speed and dive as deep as I can. In other words, put it on the bottom and run away as fast as I can.

If I've got torps on my tail at my depth I might try switching depths and a sharp turn or two but generally it seems best to simply try to run them out of fuel. Of course a good fast nuke boat is best for that.

If you're using a Russian sub in deep water you can usually out dive pretty much any torpedo anyone can put in the water to chase you. When you get shallow....well... then it gets interesting.

[Sea Dragon]

Cheers for the advice guys. Will try and experiment with those suggestions and see what happens :)

[steel_selachian]

The AI can definitely be trigger-happy with counterfiring torpedoes; I eventually got fed up and pulled SS-N-15s and -16s off most of my Russian subs after a couple of unfortunate engagements (I may go back and check some of the settings; I don't see how it's realistic for an Oscar-II doing 8-9 knots to pick up a Virginia doing <4 knots 40 nm away and match bearings accurately enough to drop 4-8 SUBROCs within killing range). I had a similar experience trying to attack a Ukrainian formation that included a couple Krivaks with a Russian Kilo; I got picked up at a ridiculous range and showered with Silex missiles.

That said, I have had some episodes of sheer murder when launching sub attacks - I used a coordinated SSN assault to knock out the AAW escorts for a Russian carrier group and scored six kills without getting a shot fired back at me. This was partially due to a smidgeon of cheating (I cut the sound levels for Seawolf and Virginia in the database by half), the SSP profile (I'm pretty sure that on Surface Duct they started out below the thermocline), and dumb tactical formation on the Russian side (their best ASW ship, a Udaloy-I, was sticking close to the carrier and was too far away to flip off SS-N-14s).

[Chill31]

I dont have any hard evidence for any of this, but oh well...

Most powerful military countries, esp US, have good if not great anti sub equipment. The US is very good at tracking a sub that is trying to be stealthy, so picking up a 35 kt torpedo is no challenge. I think its a safe bet that if you launch a torpedo, you are almost 100% to get counter fire. With the many automatic search modes of torpedoes and the like, you are probably going to get hit sooner than later. I'd bet a lot of money that launching a torpedo is every sub commanders worst nightmare.

the real bread and butter of subs is recon, special ops delivery, and ICBM delivery. once the enemy knows youre there, its waaaay hard to get away

if there are any sub commanders out there, please do chime in...

[killerr]

I dont have any hard evidence for any of this, but oh well...

Most powerful military countries, esp US, have good if not great anti sub equipment. The US is very good at tracking a sub that is trying to be stealthy, so picking up a 35 kt torpedo is no challenge. I think its a safe bet that if you launch a torpedo, you are almost 100% to get counter fire. With the many automatic search modes of torpedoes and the like, you are probably going to get hit sooner than later. I'd bet a lot of money that launching a torpedo is every sub commanders worst nightmare.

the real bread and butter of subs is recon, special ops delivery, and ICBM delivery. once the enemy knows youre there, its waaaay hard to get away

if there are any sub commanders out there, please do chime in...

I'm not a sub commander but i wonder what the captains of ARA Belgrano, INS Kukri, IJN Shokaku, IJN Taiho, IJN Shinano, USS Wasp (CV-7) and USS Indianapolis (CA-35) would have to say about torpedoes being a submarine commander's worst nightmare.

[Mike D]

The AI can definitely be trigger-happy with counterfiring torpedoes; I eventually got fed up and pulled SS-N-15s and -16s off most of my Russian subs after a couple of unfortunate engagements (I may go back and check some of the settings; I don't see how it's realistic for an Oscar-II doing 8-9 knots to pick up a Virginia doing <4 knots 40 nm away and match bearings accurately enough to drop 4-8 SUBROCs within killing range). I had a similar experience trying to attack a Ukrainian formation that included a couple Krivaks with a Russian Kilo; I got picked up at a ridiculous range and showered with Silex missiles.

That said, I have had some episodes of sheer murder when launching sub attacks - I used a coordinated SSN assault to knock out the AAW escorts for a Russian carrier group and scored six kills without getting a shot fired back at me. This was partially due to a smidgeon of cheating (I cut the sound levels for Seawolf and Virginia in the database by half), the SSP profile (I'm pretty sure that on Surface Duct they started out below the thermocline), and dumb tactical formation on the Russian side (their best ASW ship, a Udaloy-I, was sticking close to the carrier and was too far away to flip off SS-N-14s).

Part of your problem is the AI, it automatically ID's all non-AI side subs as hostile as long as it has a >40% reliability on location. While the player side gets "unidentified" subs more often then not. Also remember that towed arrays have a dead spot forward of the ship. If the Oscar is off your bow but your off the Oscars beam then he's in your dead cone while your in his towed array zone. I have configured all the towed array sonars in NWP to have a 320 degree sweep to the stern and a 40 degree dead zone off the bow. A 40 degree cone at 10nm gives you about a 7.25nm wide dead zone, at 20nm it gives you a 14.5nm dead zone, for every 10nm the dead zone it roughly doubles in size. Lots can hide in that area.

Also don't dis the Russian sonars too much, they may have been about 10 years behind the US sonars but they were still pretty good on the subs. (When they actually worked.) The Pelamida low frequency towed array on the Oscar II wasn't too bad. It specialty was to detect slow speed prop noise, especially on large ships like carriers but it was pretty good on subs at slow speed at a distance. It was just getting a true bearing and range that was a problem. Today though I understand that many of the sub towed array systems are inactive, they can't get the replacement tubes for them and they don't have the money to upgrade to fully solid state systems right now. With a SS-N-14/15/16 all you need is bearing and an approximate range to make it worth launching on you and once you go high speed to escape then they can definitely get a lock on you.

[steel_selachian]

Part of your problem is the AI, it automatically ID's all non-AI side subs as hostile as long as it has a >40% reliability on location. While the player side gets "unidentified" subs more often then not. Also remember that towed arrays have a dead spot forward of the ship. If the Oscar is off your bow but your off the Oscars beam then he's in your dead cone while your in his towed array zone. I have configured all the towed array sonars in NWP to have a 320 degree sweep to the stern and a 40 degree dead zone off the bow. A 40 degree cone at 10nm gives you about a 7.25nm wide dead zone, at 20nm it gives you a 14.5nm dead zone, for every 10nm the dead zone it roughly doubles in size. Lots can hide in that area.

Also don't dis the Russian sonars too much, they may have been about 10 years behind the US sonars but they were still pretty good on the subs. (When they actually worked.) The Pelamida low frequency towed array on the Oscar II wasn't too bad. It specialty was to detect slow speed prop noise, especially on large ships like carriers but it was pretty good on subs at slow speed at a distance. It was just getting a true bearing and range that was a problem. Today though I understand that many of the sub towed array systems are inactive, they can't get the replacement tubes for them and they don't have the money to upgrade to fully solid state systems right now. With a SS-N-14/15/16 all you need is bearing and an approximate range to make it worth launching on you and once you go high speed to escape then they can definitely get a lock on you.

I think in this scenario I had the Virginia-class SSN "crossing the T" on the Oscar-II. So it was probably in the dead zone for the SSGN's towed array; it wasn't a matter of the US boat being surprised as just outranged. That scenario was so long ago (got deleted when I installed 19.01) that I don't recall the specifics. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't expect a Russian sonar set to pick up a Seawolf or Virginia at 80,000 yards. 18,000 at best, probably more like 8000. For that matter, I'd be somewhat surprised if the US boat picked up an Oscar-II at 80,000 yards. Remember during the Cold War that tailing Soviet boats often involved getting close enough to risk collisions; I wouldn't think that would be required if you could track them from 40 miles off.

Generally, a decently quiet sub seems to have the edge against surface ships. Read up on recent NATO or RIMPAC exercises where quiet diesel boats have wreaked havoc - I think one of the Norwegian Ula-class SSKs got pulled from a 2004 exercise because it was singlehandedly decimating the entire BlueFor surface group. I'm not sure if an ultraquiet nuke boat like a Seawolf or a Virginia is as quiet as a modern SSK running on batteries, but I wouldn't want to try and find one with an ASW escort. I liked the summation of ASW one of James Cobb's characters gave in Sea Strike - it's like hunting rattlesnakes with a shovel, and when you find one you have to hit it before it bites you or slips under a rock.

Sub vs. sub? Then it gets interesting.