Submarine Tutorials - Basic Submarine Operations

[ultradave]

Yeah, I had a few times where I went deeper, lost contact, creeped into position (I thought) and then when I regained contact had a "Oh, crap, I'll never get a shot off" moment. Way out of position, but nice and quiet and ready. No ship to shoot at though.

[$trummer]

That strikes me as tactically realistic. My hunch is that a diesel sub vs. a frigate with a dipping helo is far from an assured victory for the sub. Losing the ship is a draw where hitting the ship and getting away is surely a win. It’s a well made scenario because the only advantage the sub has is the terrain.

[jack54]

Thank you apache85...

[giantsquid]

Great work, thank you. I learned something new, especially on diesel subs.

Francesco

[Rory Noonan]

ORIGINAL: $trummer

So much of this involves understanding the precise limitations of one’s own weapons platform, in this case a diesel sub with torpedoes that are not capable of outrunning the target frigate. The scenario vexed me, too. I did not realise at first that a submarine’s passive sonar can maintain contact with a target using active HF sonar from about 350 ft below the surface. So, even though the object of the exercise is to use shallow waters tactically, I could not reach really shallow water in time to intercept the frigate so I settled for medium depth, picked a spot and stopped moving, as advised by the briefing. You need a solid contact (passive, from the ship’s HF active sonar) and a lot of patience to allow it to get really close and to determine its direction of travel in order to maneuver slowly into its baffles. To ensure a high torpedo PK, you have to be *really* close because the target ship is fast. If it were cruising at 20 kts when first detected, I don’t think this diesel boat could ever get a decent torpedo shot at it but perhaps I am mistaken. Luckily it’s meandering along at about 12 kts.

The only misleading thing to me about this excellent tutorial is the lack of a definition of “shallow”. As I said, I could only stage the intercept in medium-depth water but 350 ft was deep enough not to get detected while stationary (a noisier nuclear sub would have been detected, I imagine, even while not moving) yet not too deep to launch torpedoes. The slightly tricky thing is to pick up the contact again after going too deep to maintain visual contact via periscope and/or HUMINT.

Good point, I'll add a better definition of shallow in the next update.

[$trummer]

Hey Rory, any update on when you might release more sub tutorials? Before starting Silent Service I feel I have to complete your course because I'm a little old for Perisher (and not in the Navy, which is a problem)...

[c3k]

Thank you for these.

[mikkey]

And after Basic Submarine Operations you can continue with Intermediate Submarine Operations[8D]

[i224747]

In mission 1.2 you can read "You can tell whether a radar is over the horizen (OTH) by reading its database entry...".
Where do i find these database entries?? The database viewer lists only aircrafts, ships, submarines, facilities ... but no sensors.
The SSN 700 Dallas, the main sub of this mission, has 1 radar, the AN/BPS-15A. The entry there says nothing about a OTH capability.