Tips for dealing with bull nose sonar?

[ShepherdOfCats]

I'm loving this game. Getting good at fighting other subs, even hard-to-detect diesel electrics. In fact, that's why I'm making this discussion, because oddly enough it's the convoys I can't do anything against. Subs are currently easier for me to sneak up to and destroy than noisy surface vessels.

I've only played the 1968 campaign since I've had the game, and after immediately going to the 'elite' difficulty, I've scaled back to realistic after I found out the AI gets detection bonuses on the hardest level. I've always started any game on the hardest level because I love the challenge, but i don't want to go beyond realistic for my subsim games.

However, even on realistic, I can't seem to get close to any convoy with anti-sub cruisers equipped with the god-like bull-nose sonar systems. Most times when I'm tasked with destroying these cruisers, I just let the mission expire even though the news stories really make you feel like crap for your failures, lol.

I understand the 'cheat' in the signature tab, which shows how detectable you are, needs to be kept in the negatives, ideally, but I can rarely close into more than 8,000 yards without making a cruiser curious enough to break off and close to me, get my range, and start launching the 6,000 meter range depth charges at me. Layers don't seem to help much, and I have rotten luck and only seem to get weak layers when I intercept these fleets. I've even gone to 'all stop' to try to get him to lose interest but they keep closing and at that point you can't run away, you can only really try for a 4-tube Mark 16 8,000-yard "hail mary" spread and hope you hit something, or launch the slow wire guided mark 37(?)s, and you can only control 2 at a time with wires, and hope you can somehow circle and trap a fast destroyer or cruiser and hit them with a weapon that does less than half their top speed. i've had no success with the mark-16s at long range, and they aren't really a long-range weapon anyway. Wire guided torps are fun (and satisfying when you can keep making the enemy poop their pants over and over) but the moment you have to do some evasive maneuvers, you'll probably break your wires and have to start over.

I was a huge 'dangerous waters' fan back in the day, and while this game holds your hand with the crew calculating the TMA for you, the concepts for sonar in Cold Waters works much like it should, even with the automation. (I will admit there was nothing more satisfying than working up your own TMA solution in Sonalyst's "dangerous waters" and then getting a hit without ever being detected)

TLDR:

I need tips for dealing with anti-submarine cruisers in 1968. Or just keep pretending like I had radio problems and never got the orders to intercept these fleets.

[gazzmilsom]

With the exception of the Moskva all surface escorts in 68 are rubbish. In quiet conditions it has detected me before I detected it! It definitely seems to be too good on that front. Short of a full on storm, what can you do?

Dealing with one... If you get detected it's time to go loud. Never sit at zero knots! Bear in mind that RBUs require a very accurate firing solution that only active sonar can really provide.

You have seen what happens to your TMA of another sub when it goes evasive? Though it makes more noise you loose your solution. This same thing works for the ai. When detected head towards your target, the merchants/tankers etc zigzaging at a progress speed of at least 20kts. Your extra speed is for throwing zigzags. Make some big changes in heading, put big kinks in your course and the AIs TMA will never get high enough to hit you.

To deal with the escorts and keep them from active sonar range shoot a mk37 at them. It doesn't matter if you kill them you likely won't. A mk37 runs for about half an hour. All that time an escort is either evading or running. Both of those involve high speed which makes them sonar blind. Activate them, set them straight running at 26kts or if you don't have the wire put them out circle search in the detection of the charging escort to act as a barrier. When they run to you they get to the mk37 first. If you cannot get near the Moskva get a mk37 off in its way too. Even a single mk16 will cause it to run and when it runs its sonar blind too. By the time the Moskva has out run a mk37 you will be long gone chasing the merchants. So far away you can cavitate at pd and not be detected.

Don't try to kill the escorts or the Moskva. Just keep them occupied with mk37s while you kill the target ships. You are simply scattering the convoy, separating the escorts from the targets. Try to not be detected but if you are, fall back on a nuclear submarines second great trump card. High sustained underwater speed.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Thank you for your suggestion, and I'll have to try it. i've honestly never considered "going loud" once detected.

Most submarine sims i've played have put me in the habit of going quiet (to the point of physically holding my breath in front of the computer screen, haha) to hope the enemy passes by until I can sneak out in the baffles. That tactic doesn't work so well in the 1968 campaign. They just keep closing the distance until they get close enough to detect you anyway. In good conditions the Bull Nose sonar system can detect and locate you up to 7-8,000 yards away even if you aren't moving, but that's still way too far to take any successful shots if they are the mission objective. i find those missions very frustrating, but at least they are rare. The Moska cruisers don't have any sonar at all so they are fairly easy to get close to if you need to sink them as the objective.

One of my biggest frustrations is that the game doesn't seem to be programmed to return enemies to their original course (or at least, stop running in a straight line towards the end of the map). For the capital ships, you seem to only get one chance and then they run away flank speed off the map if you miss. At some point you think they would turn around and continue with their objective, maybe a bit more cautiously but nothing like a full-blown retreat because a torpedo crossed their bow.

[gazzmilsom]

The Moskva is the big helicopter cruiser with the amazing sonar and towed array. The Svedlov is the old light cruiser with no sonar but a 36kt top speed.

The 8k detections are from the Moskvas active sonar. Active gives range and bearing straight away. A few more pings and your course is known too. That lets them drop RBU6000s right on your head.

68 plays halfway between silent hunter and the 84 campaign. An interesting blend of very modern and very old technology. Nuclear subs that go 25+kts armed with WW2 torpedoes. Soviet escorts with scary ASW weapons but WW2 sonar so they can't use them effectively.

Sometimes in 68 you just have to do things that would get you killed in 84 or dangerous waters. You don't need to be silent just silent enough, so if you can get away with 15kt sprints why creep at 5kts? You can get out of the line of the convoy if you go deep and run straight away. Even at a flank bell you can get away with it quite often.

Everything seems to come right at you at the moment so getting out the way at the start can be a good idea. You have the speed to approach from behind after all. Watch out for submarines escorting fleets, they sometimes do. Once in a storm I detected a Romeo at 300 yards off my right bow! He didn't survive but it was very close.

Did you ever do surfaced torpedo attacks at night in silent hunter. It sounds insane and if the escorts have radar it is. However it's night, merchants make crappy watchkeepers and charging at 20kts on the surface gets you into a fireing position more reliably than trying to thread between escorts at 2-4kts

[ShepherdOfCats]

Ah, i don't really know all the ships then, I was thinking of the svedlov w/o any sonar. I actually tried what you said, and I think i was able to throw off an enemy sub by running 20 knots and then cutting course and speed radically. He fired a torpedo about 5 minutes later in the direction where I would have been if i'd stayed on that course. It's nice to see the AI can be fooled that way.

I played a lot of SH4 but was disappointed with SH5. I tried SH3 through steam but as far as the silent hunter series goes, after a while it felt like too much work trying to find the right mods for it. Mostly I played SH4 unmodded, though I like the german subs in 3. Never tried a surface night attack. The surface torpedo attack was just hard to do with the optics on the conning tower if the waves were anything but calm. It was like riding a bull during an archery contest. (there was probably a mod to help stabilze the scope but I didn't bother)

Most of my subsim time was spent with Dangerous Waters, but I reinstalled it recently and thought, "man, these graphics really suck."

Just double-checked the unit reference. The Kresta-1's are the ships that give me trouble. They're classified as Guided Missile Cruisers but they might as well be sub-chasers with the Bull Nose system. Unfortunately since they are guided missile cruisers they are sometimes the mission objective.Someone should tell the top brass that you can't get within 7,000 yards of one, lol

[gazzmilsom]

Yeah SH5 never felt the same. Sh4 for me too. Tried sh3 with the grey wolf's mod a few times. 1943 and onwards it's total suicide!

I'm sure the Kresta doesn't have a towed array. I remember underhulling one once in a permit. If it doesn't, get into its baffles and go go go.

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Първоначално публикувано от ShepherdOfCats:

One of my biggest frustrations is that the game doesn't seem to be programmed to return enemies to their original course (or at least, stop running in a straight line towards the end of the map). For the capital ships, you seem to only get one chance and then they run away flank speed off the map if you miss. At some point you think they would turn around and continue with their objective, maybe a bit more cautiously but nothing like a full-blown retreat because a torpedo crossed their bow.

I do so agree with this. In Red Storm Rising, you would attack, everyone would run. After the attack, they would return to original course and speed, leaving their disabled ships behind. I meanwhile would be manuevering to the next intercept spot for their expected course and preparing for my next attack.

I would do this over and over until everyone was sunk, and then go back and finish off the disabled ones.

It was all very satisfying.