Missiles Useless

[Mr. B]

I'm playing the Dot mod and I find that missiles (for surface ships) are practically useless. IDK how many times I've shot them all to get 0 (ZERO) {NONE} kills. Has anyone else found them as useless as I have and have you found a solution? Otherwise, I'll just stick with torps.

[OldRecluse]

Don't shoot missiles at ships that are described as having anti missile defense systems. When you do shoot a missile be sure the bearing of the missile will be at the same bearing as your target.

[strykerpsg]

They work well for me. You do realize your opponent is able to shoot down your missiles too, whether using their CIWS counterpart or shooting SAM at your incoming ASMs, be it SAMs used as ASMs or actual ASMs. You have to over saturate their systems. Best Soviet Cruisers can only fire 4 SAMs at once.....shoot 8 missiles at her. You may not sink her but you will damage her.

[Lock&Load98]

Also don't do what I did and spam them all in anti missile mode.... make sure it's set to anti ship. Whoooops.

Missiles work great then. But as said above do gotta use a few more at the same time. Might need to aim them a bit back. Could be too close? They arm I think at the point your fire them at then keep going "looking" for targets.

Also 1 of the tomahawks are land only and can't be set to anti-ships. Think it's the L one and S for ships. Just things I did. But noob disclaimer.

Also found the RIMS work better than the harpoons vs ships with defenses (and faster). Though the harpoon is bigger boom. Just slow.

Oh and there is a torpedo missile that just has a torp on it that lets you fire at range. Could be using that maybe? Idk it's only 10km or so most likely you're not.

[Mr. B]

I have tried multiple times with multiple results, all failure. Especially when you have 3 torps left and 5 Anti-missile ships. Also, once you lauch them, the enemy knows RIGHT where you are, even if it's night.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by Mr. B:

Also, once you lauch them, the enemy knows RIGHT where you are, even if it's night.

That part is called "realism".

[strykerpsg]

Originally posted by Mr. B:

I have tried multiple times with multiple results, all failure. Especially when you have 3 torps left and 5 Anti-missile ships. Also, once you lauch them, the enemy knows RIGHT where you are, even if it's night.

I'm not trying to make any sort of fun towards you, but have you ever played, read or seen any modern naval shows, say from 1975 onwards? I ask because modern naval warfare has changed dramatically. There's various levels of EMCON, there's ESM gathering, ELINT, satellites, aerial surveillance, etc, etc......that's just covering active and passive sensors regarding RADAR, Sonar, (active/passive) radio direction finding, IR, thermal and plain visual. It's truly a measure, counter-measure and counter-counter measure game. If one avoids or lessens the chance of detection in the previously mentioned detection spectrum, the next step is weaponry.

First we had just dumb bombs, which evolved into guided bombs, which morphed into laser and tv guided, followed by radar guided or GPS directed. Then, missiles inter the fray. SARH, fire and forget, active RADAR homing, GPS guided, etec, etc.

Today, a good captain goes passive sensors first, no active RADAR or Sonar. They also travel in dog legs, at various speeds, in hopes of losing any subs passively listening. Of course, night time is the best time to move, however, without active sensors, one can only use their lookout's eyes and some thermals and RDF. That's just to get close or trying to triangulate your target. Use this time to find and fix your target. If you are good enough, you can shoot some weaponry on bearing only fixes, but it's a gamble because one needs to know when to activate the missiles sensors to increase the probability of a hit. Of course, if you are the recipient of the incoming missiles, you have 2 choices...move silently in hopes of catching the other guy off guard or activate all your sensors to shoot down the incoming missiles the farthest out.

If you have time, I would highly encourage you to stop by subsim.com. The developer hangs out there a lot and there's a huge player base that can help. In the end, everything works correctly, you just need to know how to implement and defend against it.

Best of luck

It's definitely a thinking persons game and therefore the allure to many.

I would highly recommend reading up on 21st century naval tactics if you have not already. The dot mod took me a few days to figure out, mostly because there's no tutorials or manual to accompany the mod. However, plenty of videos out there of people testing or playing the mods. Once you get the hang of it and you understand modern naval tactics better, you will appreciate what the designer has put together.

A final thought on your remaining loadout, you also have to know when to accept a tactical withdrawl and live to fight another day.

[Mr. B]

Yes, I know I'm kinda whining, but I was wondering if it was just my (current) incompetence. I have read some old (modern 80s) sub combat books and I grew up with all the old WW2 and on movies. Anyway, thanks for the input.

[kschang77]

It can work, but you can't just spam them as they'll be pulled by chaff off course even if you manage to get them through the SAM screen.

Fire them off at the speed of 1 every 2-3 seconds. The idea is to get one through while his chaff is reloading.

I've actually killed a Kirov with my Knox FFG and OLP FFG this way: I used the SM-2ER as anti-ship. Sure you need like 6-10 hits, but they get through his defenses easily due to high speed.

https://youtu.be/WCpnHh6_eeU

[davidt_man]

Originally posted by Mr. B:

I'm playing the Dot mod, and I find that missiles (for surface ships) are practically useless. IDK how many times I've shot them all to get 0 (ZERO) {NONE} kills. Has anyone else found them as useless as I have and have you found a solution? Otherwise, I'll just stick with torps.

I have noticed that Russian SAMs tend to suck, but many of their warships have ridiculous amounts of CIWS's which make hitting them very difficult. The larger ships like the Kresta II, Udaloy, Sovremenny, etc... can take up to 6-8 antiship missiles launched just to score one hit. You can always mod the game to reduce the effectiveness of the Russian CIWS. I did that but it still take 4-5 missiles to score a hit.

[kschang77]

It'd be as ridiculous as this, right?

https://youtu.be/QkMBoWs0rHk?t=155

[kschang77]

Actually, I've found that SM-2ER (RIM-156 in game) is more effective than UGM-84 Harpoons in penetrating Russian/Soviet SAM screens and possibly CIWS as well. Their high speed means smaller interception window, and less likely for CIWS fire to affect their trajectory. They can still be drawn by chaff though. So you have to learn their chaff rhythm and try to slip extra hits through.

[kschang77]

Just tried the "intermittent" method of ASM launching. By spacing out the launch of ASM and put a gap of 2-3 seconds between, you can get more ASM through the defenses than if you just spammed all the missiles out as fast as possible.

Use an OLP long hull against Kirov. 16 Harpoons.

Tried the spam method... none got through.

Tried the spaced out method, had to fit them between the SAM launches to intercept the Granits. Not only I killed the trawler near the Kirov (hit it 3 times), I still got like 4 hits on the Kirov and killed it, out of 16 missiles.

https://youtu.be/7dHqjyy7CVw

[kschang77]

Regular SM-1s are not that good for anti-ship duty unless you're dealing with a smaller ship. Against Kirov they don't seem to work. SM-2ERs, on the other hand, when spaced out like above, cuts through defense like a knife. Some still get hit or spoofed, but enough will get through to make a kill