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1. Does movement speed of a surface ship affect the detection effectiveness of an active sonar operating on that ship?
2. Does operation of nearby active sonars affects (cancels out) the detection effectiveness of active sonar operating on a ship? (in other words: in a CVBG does it pays to have only one active sonar on, or the more the merrier?

While I am interested in "real life" answers, It would be good to know if those "real life" answers are also modeled in CMO behavior

Thanks

There is a sweet spot around 15 knots or so. Faster than that degrades range.

Active sonar has its place though. Good for deterence. Attack. Herding. Puts a lot of noise in the water, that can affect passive sensors. Good versus SSK on batteries where passive struggles. Generally you would only want your dedicated close ASW screen to even use active sonar and it gives away the position of the equipped ships and the area of those they are protecting.

In a CVBG, your distant ASW assests will want to be fully passive. A close escort might be active in case a sub has got in amongst the 'sheep'. Also dont forget that most modern CVBGs come with their own SSNs as escorts.

Thanks for the replies.

I tend to use active sonars on ships a lot. Yes they do give away position, but for a ship (not a sub) I consider this a positive. It is essentially a message "better stay away lest that you get sunk". Am I wrong?

Knightpawn wrote: Fri Jul 11, 2025 5:15 am Thanks for the replies.

I tend to use active sonars on ships a lot. Yes they do give away position, but for a ship (not a sub) I consider this a positive. It is essentially a message "better stay away lest that you get sunk". Am I wrong?

I think that would depend on the mission of the ship(s) and the threats it faces.

In a scenario with just a ship vs. subs? Your strategy checks out.

But let's say there is an aircraft/missile threat too, or a surface one. If a sub detects your emissions, it doesn't need to attack. It can que other platforms to do it.

Theoretically, there is a cost-benefit factor dependent on the specific situation. If the aircraft-ship threat is just a small number of borderline antique AShMs, you might feel confident in your AA defense and feel it worth it to risk missile attack if you can deter submarine attack.

But there's a bigger factor, one that comes from the game and not real life... it's that the AI will usually not be "deterred" at all, because they are set up to attack anything, no matter the possibility of their own destruction.

Submarines can be set up to "avoid contact"... but usually, that means they are an SSBN or something that is trying to hide, and you are tasked with finding and destroying them, in which case scaring them away is a bad idea.

Of course, you could set up a scenario in such a way that active sonar has that theoretical benefit. But in my experience a lot of scenarios, whether they be in the community pack or in campaigns, are set up in such a way that passive sonar is preferred in most cases.