A tactic in Sea Power...real or bullshit?

[Mgellis]

I enjoy the Sea Power videos created by Stealth17 Gaming, but I had a question about one of the tactics he sometimes uses...

On a couple of occasions, I've seen him have a submarine, undetected by the enemy, fire a torpedo at a group that has no real chance of hitting anything. (In Command, I imagine this would be a bearing-only launch.) His reason for doing this is to scare the enemy group and make them change course in the opposite direction. In some cases, he is trying to chase them towards a second submarine that will then fire torpedoes they can now no longer evade. (The link below is for one of his videos where he does this...the sequence in question starts at around 17:50.)

So...can you use a torpedo to "flush" a surface group? And, if you can, is it worth effectively giving up your submarine's position (one assumes if one can hear the torpedo, one has a pretty good idea of where it came from, and that is where one might send ASW helicopters, etc.) to do this?

(I can imagine using two helicopters to flush a submarine...you try to get a hit with the first torpedo, but if it misses and the submarine speeds up, it might give away its position, allowing you to finish it off with a second helicopter that flies ahead and launches a second torpedo from an angle where the submarine is running right into it. I have no idea if this would actually work, though.)

Real tactics or bullshit? Discuss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYc3CW5kHwY

[turmoil]

I can't really imagine it would get used because if you know where the enemy is I expect you shouldn't be a) potentially giving away your location, and b) wouldn't you just coordinate to converge on the group? Knowing their location is arguably the most important factor.

That being said, I've used similar strategies in CMO before, and it COULD be feasible if you dog-legged the torpedo to hide your launch position. The only other thing I can think of is if you want them to significantly speed up and make it harder to hear contacts in the water. I have a hard time believing the risks would be worth it though.

Using helicopters to do this is viable though IMO. Especially for very quiet subs that you've narrowed down to an area but aren't certain of the exact location. Probably easier to just use more sonobuoys, though...

[DWReese]

Preface: I often release a bearing-only torpedo when my unit comes under attack. I've seen that done, or read about it being done, many times, so it would seem that it is a tactic that is actually used. Moreover, it also seems to logically be something that should be done. If nothing else, it could break the wire, and it could put some distance between your unit, and the enemy.

That said, I don't see how subs could plan a coordinated torpedo launch to chase the enemy from one location and into the direction of another. It seems that you would need lots of communication, and intelligence ahead of time, and with no direct contact, it would seem to be unlikely to me. I like the idea, if the units were aware of all of the actions of the enemy and the other allied units, but that probably isn't the case in real life.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be done in real life, but as war game players, we often have far more knowledge about the whole battlefield than we would if we were merely in charge of some specific unit, or group. In other words, we are privy to all available information as to the status and whereabouts of all of the enemy, if they have been detected, which probably isn't true for some lonely sub who is hoping for a coordinated effort of chasing an enemy group from one area to another through the use of a pre-emptive bearing-only torpedo attack.

So, in real life, this tactic probably wouldn't be very likely. In playing war games, however, it seems like a great idea to "win" the game.

That's just my opinion.

[thewood1]

I think the biggest issue is setting up an enemy AI reaction to the firing. In Sea Power, you are very limited in getting the AI to do anything but a basic reaction. In CMO, you have a number of tools to react to being fired on. From firing down the bearing, running away, breaking ships out of the formation, going quiet, full speed down the bearing, launch helos, etc. All dependent on the scenario designer's expertise and plan. Sea Power has none of that right now.

I look at Sea Power as a slightly above average in realism naval "shoot 'em up". Its cool to watch the missiles fly, but the AI is fairly dumb and the scenario builder has no tools to go much beyond that...yet.

[Tcao]

Hammer and anvil. You can use the same tactic in CMO, especially if you just have to bully the AI.
Assuming you have a fast but noise nuk boat, and a slow but quiet diesel-electric boat. Fast Nuke can fire torp at max range then immediately change its position running away at max speed. In old version of CMO, surface ship will evade the incoming torp by simply running away from torp, so the whole formation can be easily driven to your 2nd Sub’s position just like herding a group of sheep. In Later version the evasion takes more complicate maneuver, but the torp can force the target surface group to break up the formation, degrading their sonar sensibility, creating the opportuninty for the 2nd sub.
What’s more important, your first sub will generate a goblin contact on the map, it will attract large amount of airborne ASW assets to investigate the contact. If the scenario designer put most of the ASW helicopters as ASW intercept mission, it may attract all the Helos available to persecute this contact. But as mentioned above, your 1st sub should run away at max speed, and it should already be in a relatively safe position in 5 min. In the meantime, by attracting the enemy ASW into a different direction, it should open the door for the 2nd sub to initiate its attack.