Advanced AWS Exercice question

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Advanced AWS Exercice question - 2/17/2021 9:11:36 AM

Nicals

Posts: 11
Joined: 6/19/2020
Status: offline

Hi,

Just finished the tutorials and tried this mission: "Advanced AWS Exercice". It seemed that it went well, but I'm not sure I correctly understood how to execute such a simple task.

In this mission, you have three surface group that needs to travel to a zone 50 or 100nm away. Briefing says that there are 3 enemy subs on the way. I also have one ASW plane and some ASW Helos.

Here is how I did it: I defined an AWS patrol zone in front of my 3 groups, made the zone relative to the groups and assign two Helo and the plane to patrol it. They literally shattered the ocean with sonobuoys. I plotted a direct course at cruise speed (cavitating) for all my ships and turned their sonar on.

The first enemy sub launched two salvo of guided missiles from far away (outside my patrol box). I plotted the course of each salvo, found an approximate position by crossing the heading lines of each salvo and send some Helo to track and destroy it. I did the tracking manually, I assume it would work exactly the same if I had defined a zone around the contact and create an ASW mission ?

The second sub was detected when it launched a torpedo. Again, send helo and sunk it.

Third sub was detected near one of my ship by a LOFAR sonobuoys when it fired its engine to get into position. Tracked and sunk by helos.

Since the ocean was covered by sonobuoys, but none of them was able to detect any enemy subs before it was too late, what did I missed ? I understand that some of them can remain undetected, but I did this mission two more time and wasn't able to detect any of them until they kindly revealed their presence to me...

Thanks

Post #: 1

RE: Advanced AWS Exercice question - 2/17/2021 2:13:13 PM

Sardaukar

Posts: 9847
Joined: 11/28/2001
From: Finland/Israel
Status: offline

Don't use active sonar if you can avoid it. It is like turning on flashlight in dark forest. Enemy can see (in this case hear) you from far.

And avoid cavitation, it makes you very easy to detect.

_____________________________

"To meaningless French Idealism, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality...we answer with German Realism, Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery" -Prince von B�lov, 1870-

(in reply to Nicals)

Post #: 2

RE: Advanced AWS Exercice question - 2/17/2021 11:30:18 PM

Rory Noonan

Posts: 2816
Joined: 12/18/2014
From: Brooklyn, NY
Status: offline

Old sonobouys (this scenario is set in the 70's if I recall correctly) are terrible. Active ones also let the sub know they're there, and the sub will move to avoid them if possible.

From what I can gather, this really was the reality in the mid-late Cold War; the first sure sign you'd have of a submarine would be a 'flaming datum' when they'd launched weapons. Aside from SOSUS tt was really only when towed arrays became common on surface escorts that detecting a submarine before launch became an expectation.

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(in reply to Sardaukar)

Post #: 3

RE: Advanced AWS Exercice question - 2/18/2021 11:59:43 AM

laro

Posts: 68
Joined: 11/24/2019
Status: offline

I second what Rory said.

Keep in mind that a maximum range of the sonobuoys it just that. In practice (and in game), passive ones against slowly moving submarines are much less effective (max 5 Nm may very well mean 1 Nm - even for active ones if a quiet diesel submarine is laying on the bottom of a shallow sea).

Circle ranges may be misleading, as they show the maximum range. Also, be aware that some of the sonobuoys are dropped under layer, some of them are over. You need to include that in the planning - under/over layer coverage is much worse than circles suggest. In this scenario in order to detect submarines earlier you need much better density of sonobuoys than a standard ASW mission creates early in time. You can drop them manually (both over and under layer) or try to just cover the best approach sectors for submarines (this may give you a desired density). Keep in mind that subs' effective torpedo ranges and torpedo speeds are limited (to a few Nm), so you can use this to your advantage. Try not to make too much noise from your ships. Keeping low noise level (and emissions in case enemy subs are at periscope depth or have air support) helps avoiding detection from their side.

Make sure you include all helicopters available so you have good coverage from them (some of them have dipped sonar AFAIR). Use your ASW planes to their full potential (they are faster and carry a lot of sonobuoys).

As soon as I increased the density it was much easier to find the submarines (still not trivial though). Before that I had been slaughtered few times. If you are a sub and if you get detected is is almost certain death if the opponent is capable of narrowing the search and keeping the contact.

(in reply to Rory Noonan)

Post #: 4