Radar mast, ESM mast performances

[japp_02]

using the masts can be a paying tactic although generally dangerous to use because of easy detection of your sub.
But when chasing some escaping tenders after battling with escorts and you don't want to make a long catch-up for 30 miles or so, or if you lack torpedos but you have Harpoons, this is a good occasion to use the masts and prepare a fire solution for missiles.

I understand that these masts have limited range because of Earth curvation, but anyhow: if I see nothing at periscope depth, then when I surface and raise the masts I should see further away, ok?
Have you experienced this, has this helped you, and is this detail modelled in the game?

Thanks,

[Justicier10-7]

I use ESM quite often, but only leave it up for a second or two at a time... I don't need to get bearings on targets, just need to know if there's a hostile close enough to be a threat. I use RADAR much like you seem to, for targetting escaping cargo ships at long range. When using it I almost always use Harpoons or TASM instead of torpedos due to the ranges involved.

However, sometimes RADAR is a fantastic "bait and switch" tool. If there are escorts out there and they detect a radiation source, they'll head straight for it. As soon as I have range and bearing data, I launch missiles straight for the oncoming escort vessels. Since they're going to be headed straight for you, you'll be launching straight for their bow at a zero degree deflection... a gap in the coverage of most if not all CIWS equipped ships. Most often, this will destroy their ships outright, or cripple them. The only danger is when multiple escorts are charging you in something of a formation that will allow their CIWS guns to cover each other... but this is rare. I must say, playing the "Missile Boat" and only using missiles instead of torpedos against surface vessels is great fun

[rokvam]

This is a valid tactic to use in said situation in the game, but in real life the use of the radar mast to aquire a fireing sollution would be limited.

The reason beeing, that the radar on submarines is primarily used as a tool for safe navigation.

Chanses are your sonar has better range than your radar in most cases.

That said, this is a game, and the radar is there. So use it. Just don't radiate for to long :-)

-Dolphin 38

[SSBN Driver]

This may help, as a qualified ESM operator I found that most of the time ESM was useless in terms of finding threat contacts but very helpful if you have to do an emergency transmission via communications which we once had to do and in that situation ESM went nuts with airborne threat detections immediately after the transmission. Normally threats do not transmit any more then you would want to transmit on your radar. Dolphon38 has it right, we used radar only for surface navigation, never never for threat contact detection except perhaps for this game but in the end that's why we prefer passive or listening sonar.

My personal experience was that ESM was great for dropping in on radio Reykjavík on one of my North Atlantic runs and our comms mast was raised to patch it through the boat. Only negative part was nobody could understand Icelandic news broadcasts. Ahhh the gold old days!

[Safetypin]

In my experience, the radar in the game is not very powerfull in the way that it doesn't detect ships that are far out. I also tried surfacing the boat to get more range but I doubt that this is modeled. Since a submarine is not particularly tall, I imagine the range gain on radar and/or persicope is negligable. I'm too lazy to calculate this. The detectionrange of the radar should be in some txt file, but I don't know which one.

[rokvam]

Originally posted by SSBN Driver:

This may help, as a qualified ESM operator I found that most of the time ESM was useless in terms of finding threat contacts but very helpful if you have to do an emergency transmission via communications which we once had to do and in that situation ESM went nuts with airborne threat detections immediately after the transmission. Normally threats do not transmit any more then you would want to transmit on your radar. Dolphon38 has it right, we used radar only for surface navigation, never never for threat contact detection except perhaps for this game but in the end that's why we prefer passive or listening sonar.

My personal experience was that ESM was great for dropping in on radio Reykjavík on one of my North Atlantic runs and our comms mast was raised to patch it through the boat. Only negative part was nobody could understand Icelandic news broadcasts. Ahhh the gold old days!

We used the ESM rather activly during snorkeling.
We used it to detect ASW aircraft sniffiing with their search radar.

When the ASW aircraft got to close, according to ESM readings, we could shut down the snorkeling procedure and go deep to avoid detection.

We did not use it much as a primary tool for identifying surface units, but we did, from time to time, use it to check a sonar classification, to see if we could find radar emissions matching the classification of the sonaroperators in roughly the same bearing...

-Dolphin 38

[SSBN Driver]

Echo 1 + Sierra 1 = Master 1

ESM could also be used for detecting incoming radar guided missiles, most boats had a second mast lowering switch in the ESM bay because seconds counted on a detection hence bypassing the officer of the deck. Once in awhile I would ask to test it and I would lower it remotely, it worked fine except sometimes the ballast control panel operator would go "Huh - I didn't do that" because he didn't hear the request to lower it so to him it suddenly came down on its own. Unlike Cold Waters, you cannot run ESM and Radar at the same time for obvious reasons.

ESM is boring, nobody to talk to while the system searched and one night while at periscope depth and rigged for black I was viciously attacked by a Navigation Electronics Tech (NAV ET) who nailed me with a squirt gun. Ok I better quit with the sea stories or someone is going to get annoyed with them.

[rokvam]

:-)

[Majin]

Originally posted by Justicier:

I use ESM quite often, but only leave it up for a second or two at a time... I don't need to get bearings on targets, just need to know if there's a hostile close enough to be a threat. I use RADAR much like you seem to, for targetting escaping cargo ships at long range. When using it I almost always use Harpoons or TASM instead of torpedos due to the ranges involved.

However, sometimes RADAR is a fantastic "bait and switch" tool. If there are escorts out there and they detect a radiation source, they'll head straight for it. As soon as I have range and bearing data, I launch missiles straight for the oncoming escort vessels. Since they're going to be headed straight for you, you'll be launching straight for their bow at a zero degree deflection... a gap in the coverage of most if not all CIWS equipped ships. Most often, this will destroy their ships outright, or cripple them. The only danger is when multiple escorts are charging you in something of a formation that will allow their CIWS guns to cover each other... but this is rare. I must say, playing the "Missile Boat" and only using missiles instead of torpedos against surface vessels is great fun

I know thread is old but something similar actually happened to me once when I was still new to the game. I was approaching an enemy battle group with mix of surface vessels and one sub. Dove down pretty deep and traded salvos with the sub first. Sunk him but was damaged myself by a torp and ended having to blow emergency ballast due to flooding. Breached the surface and 3-4 ships already making a bee line toward me and firing their deck guns. Rounds start coming in and hitting the water all around the sub. I lift up all the masts because why the hell not at that point might as well know exactly who is going to kill me. I realize I have 4 harpoons loaded and just rapid fire one after another at each enemy ship. 10 seconds later all the firing stops and all the ships are dead. End up recharge ballast and high tail out of there back to port for repairs. Not sure if the ships I sunk just didnt have point defence cannons or if it was this zero degree blind spot but that was probably most intense/fun time I had in the game.

[It Wasn't Me]

Yes the range can/does change with depth, but it also depends on the radar sig size of the vessels you are trying to find.

So, yes.. Height of the Transmitting Aerial does matter

[Majin]

Originally posted by It Wasn't Me:

Yes the range can/does change with depth, but it also depends on the radar sig size of the vessels you are trying to find.

So, yes.. Height of the Transmitting Aerial does matter

Really? Had no idea. I guess the weather is a factor then too? I would think higher waves/ choppy seas affect the range as well as your visibility?

[SweatyNeckbeard]

Yes in game the radar can be extremely useful to locate and pinpoint running targets. If I'm pretty sure the escorts are dead I will use the radar to quickly locate and pinpoint the remaining targets. Launching harpoons in their direction instead of running them down or waiting for a torpedo to run them down is much easier. I know it's gamey but it saves a lot of time and torpedoes.