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I am fairly new to the game, and was testing the effectiveness of various Saturation attacks on Chinese destroyers particularly USV's and loitering munitions on the Type 055 in the gulf of Aden and was getting wildly different results for sensors hot and cold as expected, DECM was active for both tests.
So I have a query whether warships in active combat keep sensors ON for detecting threats or OFF to avoid detection?

Vmans wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 7:34 am I am fairly new to the game, and was testing the effectiveness of various Saturation attacks on Chinese destroyers particularly USV's and loitering munitions on the Type 055 in the gulf of Aden and was getting wildly different results for sensors hot and cold as expected, DECM was active for both tests.
So I have a query whether warships in active combat keep sensors ON for detecting threats or OFF to avoid detection?

As with many things, this isn't a binary answer. It's going to depend on the situation. If you know for a 100% fact your under attack, you're going to be EMCON active. If you're trying to avoid detection, can you or do you want to break contact? Are you the radar picket for your group? etc, etc.

Thank you for the answer,

I am sure I have seen somewhere a funny decision tree about whether to be Radars ON or OFF.

I will try to retrieve it

I found it

In the gulf of Aden? You're probably already spotted, turn your radars on so you can see what's coming to kill you.

In general, if you're stronger, radiate. If you're weaker, keep quiet.

To use an analogy:

If you're hunting with a rifle at night and you have a flashlight, you can shine your light and see your enemy. The problem is your enemy also has rifles and can see a flashlight much farther than you can use it to see.

So, what are you trying to do? If your task is to pass thru an area you can stay dark and try to slip past in the night, but you might blunder into a close range fight with rifles that you might lose. If you're trying to keep the enemy from passing thru then you assign guys with flashlights to shine their lights (destroyers). They might get sniped but there's a job to do and if the gods loved them they wouldn't be on escort ships.

Aircraft with sensors are like having attack dogs with light strapped to them at your disposal. You send them out to look for the enemy. They can be seen but they don't directly give away your location. But attack dogs don't drive themselves out to the country by themselves, so the fact attack dogs are present tells you the enemy is in the general area.

If you're armed with a knife or a pistol and you're hunting an enemy with a rifle you keep your damn flashlight turned the hell off because you're just making yourself a target.

If you know you're looking for an enemy that has a pistol or a knife you turn the lights on. Your problem is to avoid getting into a close range knife fight when you outmatch the enemy if you can keep them at range.

The problem is the enemy isn't going to tell you how they are armed or where they are. If you know exactly who is where they aren't the enemy anymore, they are just targets.

Knightpawn wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 5:23 pm I found it

Screenshot 2025-05-27 202138.png

Thank you so much for this