I was recently playing around with some homemade airborne ASW scenarios, specifically Nimrods hunting in the GIUK gap and was struck by two things:
1. Currently CMANO seems to treat each and every sonobouy as an allied asset in it's own right (rather than a sensor belonging to a parent asset). As such, the bouy's sensing output is visible universally to all allied units until it scuttles. If true, perhaps this is a fair compromise for the sake of play-ability, but I fear it is placing unfair advantage in the hands of the allied commander, presiding over vast fields of staring sonobouys, irrespective of whether or not an allied ASW asset is around to pick up their transmissions. Perhaps a more realistic implementation could apply some additional logic, such as:
- only display bouy sensor output when in RF range of a suitably equipped allied unit.
- When multiple bouys are in range of such a unit, limit the number of bouy sensors displayed at any one time, in accordance with the RF channel handling and simultaneous monitoring capacity of said platform. Perhaps the 'active' or listening bouys could cycle, simulating the platform's operator switching between channels?
2. Currently, when I drop a bouy, regardless of platform altitude or bouy setting, the bouy is immediately live. My understanding is that in reality, 'shallow' bouys take around two minutes to go live once wet, and deep bouys about four. Add to that the decent time based on altitude and you have a fairly significant window in which an evading submarine could clear the datum...
If there are any ex-Orion or Nimrod or Bear Tacco's reading this, please feel free to wade in
Cheers!
