Help with submarine combat

[JamesHunt]

I´m playing X-Ray Station of the Northern Fury campaign right now and have some troubles.

1) When my submarines are evading an incoming torpedo I am not able to attack the hostile threat or do a BOL launch with a counter-torpedo towards the direction of the incoming, because my submarines always tries to "face" the direction of attack which is not possible when it is in evasion mode. I always had the impression that most modern subs can launch torpedoes like the ADCAP against the sub´s movement direction.

2) My subs almost always try to evade incoming torps by simply running in a straight line from them. While this is a viable strategy for torpedoes launched from a great distance it can be especially for close-launched torpedos the worst thing to do in submarine warfare. I know I can disable the automatic AI evasion to micro-manage the evasion - and likely also compensate issue 1) - but is utilizing decoys even a thing in CMANO or is it abstracted by final hit probability calculation? Are there settings that could help?

Those two issues combined make it pretty hard to keep subs alive for me.

[Rory Noonan]

X-Ray station is a hard one, you're going to lose subs in that scenario.

How long are you leaving it to send back a BoL shot? I've not had an issue with this in the past, and the AI does do it on occasion as well--depending on whether they heard the 'shot' or just the torpedo as it closed in

Angles and dangles (i.e. the 3d maneuvering to avoid a torpedo) do have an effect on a torpedo PoH however since they will re-attack the best course of action is to get right away from them. Decoys are used in final hit probability--although if the torpedo is decoyed it will re-attack if it has sufficient energy.

[jarraya]

I was wondering the same. Seems that the torpedo evasion is dive deep and run straight at flank. Does that mean that a player has a better chance of dodging a torp by changing course and depth manually? Has anyone tried it?

[ultradave]

They do use decoys. You can see this in the message log in the hit calculation. They don't show up on the map, like a torpedo does, if that's what you are looking for.

I have tried, when being tracked by a torpedo, to make a sharp turn at the last minute. Requires zooming in very close and good timing. I've not had much success - torpedo usually gets me as I turn. So I've left it to decoys.

X-Ray station is an exceedingly hard scenario. They enemy seems to be all knowing. After many frustrating tries I started it in the editor to take a look at Soviet setup. No spoilers but it's "interesting"

[JamesHunt]

Thanks for the answers.

I will stick with the straight outrun evasion then, if the decoying is in the final hit calculation than manual maneuvering prior the calculation obviously has less of use as it has to be done together with decoys to be effective. However for long range incoming torpedoes that aren´t active yet our outside of their aquiring range it can be still an good idea to turn off automatic evasion and to run towards the 90 or 270 degree bearing relative to the torpedo in order to "get out ouf the cone".

ORIGINAL: apache85
How long are you leaving it to send back a BoL shot? I've not had an issue with this in the past, and the AI does do it on occasion as well--depending on whether they heard the 'shot' or just the torpedo as it closed in

Yes issue 1) is definitely routed here. I tried some BOL tests with the MK48 ADCAP Ver4/5 presented here in this scenario and it can only be launched in a 90 degree cone left or right. This is what wondered me, because it is a wire-guided torpedo, but perhaps this represents safety measures, as I´ve heard that going over 90 degree raises the chance of wire-cut. I am sometimes running high time compressions and before I can react sometimes automatic evasion has already kicked in and the sub is running too fast and pointing away from the target both not allowing to BOL launch.

But for 1) I figured that turning off automatic evasion and leaving the popup - and thus game pause - upon weapon contact on is very important. I´ve turned the new weapon contact popup off because in bigger surface+air focused scenarios it can be of a nuissance to have to click away every missile but for sub combat it is important because every second matters here.

And yes I took a peek at the Soviet site, well what to say... the complete Northern Fleet is coming for you and your subs sitting there dangerously close on station. While most detection allows you a good standoff I particullary had issues with surface vessels that surprisingly popped up from nowhere - even those running at high speeds - getting detected extremely late. I accounted this trouble to the high thermic layer.

[Gunner98]

the complete Northern Fleet is coming for you and your subs sitting there dangerously close on station. While most detection allows you a good standoff I particullary had issues with surface vessels that surprisingly popped up from nowhere - even those running at high speeds - getting detected extremely late. I accounted this trouble to the high thermic layer.

This makes for some very interesting scenes in the book, but when I have a chance I will get back in and tone the scenario down a little. This one, and Sub surge are very difficult - probably because I'm not particularly good at setting up Sub combat. If you lose this one, you're not alone.

B

[JamesHunt]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

This makes for some very interesting scenes in the book, but when I have a chance I will get back in and tone the scenario down a little. This one, and Sub surge are very difficult - probably because I'm not particularly good at setting up Sub combat. If you lose this one, you're not alone.

B

I´ve just discovered your work lately and I am impressed. Just finished scenario 3 of NF and even though I couldn´t do worse at directing the SAR ops... The detail and narrative presented in this one is simply outstanding and allowed me to immerse myself into the protagonists and into the situation of a nation being under sudden attack. I was always looking for this in Command.

Prompted me into doing a showcase of the Fury series:
Command - CMANO - Fury Campaign Series - The Ultimate Global "Cold War Gone Hot" WW3 Experience

[JamesHunt]

Additional info: Issue 1) is solved by simply doing a BOL launch into the submarine´s movement direction and then steering it towards the target with F3. Wire-guided torpedoes can be controlled like ships (speed, sensors, course.) Forgot about that.