Nibbles the Shark posted:

Dawncloack posted:

I've just watched a video LP of this on youtube, and I'm gaining all the more appreciation for this game. Russians speak Russian for instance.

And I have a question for the navy guys. So... what does a torpedo battle actually entail? I thought it was down to who found whom first, if you shot a torpedo you had X% chance of hitting, minus X% for the countermeasures, if you launch more torpedoes you get more chances, etc.etc. I thought it was pretty simple. What else is there to it?

It's complicated. When you initially detect something on sonar, you don't know anything about range, course, and speed. You have to determine those things based on things like blade rate tonals to determine its speed or maneuvering around for target motion analysis, using geometry to narrow down where the contact really is. Here's some poorly drawn MS Paint examples.




That's what they mean when you have a solution. It's a literal geometric solution on the contact's actual course, speed, and range. Since it takes a long time for torpedoes to get close to the target, you want to make sure you're actually sending your shots to where the enemy is going to be instead of missing him by miles. Classifying the contact depends on methods such as listening to it, identifying specific narrowband tones from its acoustic signature, seeing it on a periscope, or using other sensors like the target's own radar or active sonar, so that you know it's an enemy submarine and not a fishing trawler.

Then you can shoot torpedoes or what have you on a course to intercept it. Torpedoes can then home in using passive sonar or active sonar. The target can try to evade by turning and running in a different direction to get out of the way before the torpedo detects it, and/or dropping countermeasures to decoy it by making noise to draw away a passive torpedo or drawing away an active homing torpedo by a cloud of bubbles. Of course, if the sub is still in the vicinity, it may still get detected and hit instead, or the torpedoes could keep seeking and find the real target eventually. This is especially hard if the attacker is using wire-guided torpedoes, such as the Mk48 ADCAPs used by US subs, which can be manually steered around from the launching submarine.

It's possible to shoot a torpedo down the bearing of the contact without doing all the complicated geometry if you think it's close, especially if you're shooting back at someone else since he'll be more concerned about getting away from your return fire instead of making sure to kill you.

Edit: Damn this game!