Torpedo acquisition range

[CV32]

Okay, I just tried Backyard II again, with the new db, and got almost immediate contact with a group of four Red subs - 2 Charlies, a Victor I and a Victor 2. I sent 3 SH-60J and 3 Vikings out to play with them, with a total of 15 ASW torps carried. After expending all 15 torps, acquisition still seems to be something of an issue - more than half of the torps failed to acquire, even though none were dropped from more than a mile away, and most were dropped with the a/c icon literally on top of the sub icon at *64 magnification on the unit map, and in every case with a solid lock on the target sub. However, with that said, I have to report a significant improvement in results. In the game for which I posted the AAR recently, I expended something like 20 torps to kill one sub. This time, 15 torps got me 3 of the 4. This is still a rather small sample size, IMO, but it certainly looks like an improvement! B)

 

Thanks for that, Warhorse. Anyone else with a report?

[mavfin]

Okay, I just tried Backyard II again, with the new db, and got almost immediate contact with a group of four Red subs - 2 Charlies, a Victor I and a Victor 2. I sent 3 SH-60J and 3 Vikings out to play with them, with a total of 15 ASW torps carried. After expending all 15 torps, acquisition still seems to be something of an issue - more than half of the torps failed to acquire, even though none were dropped from more than a mile away, and most were dropped with the a/c icon literally on top of the sub icon at *64 magnification on the unit map, and in every case with a solid lock on the target sub. However, with that said, I have to report a significant improvement in results. In the game for which I posted the AAR recently, I expended something like 20 torps to kill one sub. This time, 15 torps got me 3 of the 4. This is still a rather small sample size, IMO, but it certainly looks like an improvement! B)

 

Thanks for that, Warhorse. Anyone else with a report?

 

Still not having a ton of luck. Over-the-side shot never acquired at 3 miles in my remade Gauntlet scenario, and 4 helo drops right on top, with no uncertainty zone, never acquired, either. So, not sure exactly what to say about it yet.

[CV32]

Still not having a ton of luck. Over-the-side shot never acquired at 3 miles in my remade Gauntlet scenario, and 4 helo drops right on top, with no uncertainty zone, never acquired, either. So, not sure exactly what to say about it yet.

 

Torpedo types involved?

[mavfin]

Still not having a ton of luck. Over-the-side shot never acquired at 3 miles in my remade Gauntlet scenario, and 4 helo drops right on top, with no uncertainty zone, never acquired, either. So, not sure exactly what to say about it yet.

 

Torpedo types involved?

 

Mk 46 Mod 5, I think? Whatever Boone carries in her tubes by default in HCDB 110304, and I think I was using the ASW loadout with 2 of the same on the SH-60Bs. Stingrays on the Lynx XXX.3. (as opposed to the HMA.8)

 

Couple more tries at the scenario, still no torps acquired. No animations for misses, either. And, the only time the Victor II even fired was when it was 4 miles from the Boone and I turned on Active Sonar. I've had it at 3 miles from the Boone, 5 miles from the merchies, and I just turned away at 18 knots, and no torpedoes fired...Is his sonar that bad?

[CV32]

Mk 46 Mod 5, I think? Whatever Boone carries in her tubes by default in HCDB 110304, and I think I was using the ASW loadout with 2 of the same on the SH-60Bs. Stingrays on the Lynx XXX.3. (as opposed to the HMA.8)

 

Okay, acquisition range is 2,500 yd (1.2 nm) on the Mk 46 Mod 5, and 3,000 yd (1.48 nm) for the Stingray Mod 0.

 

I am hesitant to boost (fudge) it much more than I have, but this remains an option.

 

Couple more tries at the scenario, still no torps acquired. No animations for misses, either. And, the only time the Victor II even fired was when it was 4 miles from the Boone and I turned on Active Sonar. I've had it at 3 miles from the Boone, 5 miles from the merchies, and I just turned away at 18 knots, and no torpedoes fired...Is his sonar that bad?

 

Sounds like no CZ detect for him. His direct path passive sonar range is 1.7 nm. (The 5 minute sonar checks are in play too).

 

OT: I am not terribly happy with some elements of the sonar model, but that's a topic for another beta forum thread.

[donaldseadog]

Mk 46 Mod 5, I think? Whatever Boone carries in her tubes by default in HCDB 110304, and I think I was using the ASW loadout with 2 of the same on the SH-60Bs. Stingrays on the Lynx XXX.3. (as opposed to the HMA.8)

 

Okay, acquisition range is 2,500 yd (1.2 nm) on the Mk 46 Mod 5, and 3,000 yd (1.48 nm) for the Stingray Mod 0.

 

I am hesitant to boost (fudge) it much more than I have, but this remains an option.

 

Couple more tries at the scenario, still no torps acquired. No animations for misses, either. And, the only time the Victor II even fired was when it was 4 miles from the Boone and I turned on Active Sonar. I've had it at 3 miles from the Boone, 5 miles from the merchies, and I just turned away at 18 knots, and no torpedoes fired...Is his sonar that bad?

 

Sounds like no CZ detect for him. His direct path passive sonar range is 1.7 nm. (The 5 minute sonar checks are in play too).

 

OT: I am not terribly happy with some elements of the sonar model, but that's a topic for another beta forum thread.

I seem to have had good results with Mark 48 Mod5 ADCAPs and MU-90 impact, I'm looking at some others and will get back.

Don

[CV32]

I seem to have had good results with Mark 48 Mod5 ADCAPs and MU-90 impact, I'm looking at some others and will get back.

 

Thanks, Don. More reports will help determine the best course of action here.

[CV32]

With the somewhat mixed results being reported, I am adding a further 250 yd to the torpedo 'acquisition' range values, for a total of 1,250 yd above real life values. Continuing with my usual conservative approach.

 

Please continue to report your results with torpedo acquisition.

[Warhorse64]

I ran some more scenarios using HCDB 110225. I made one attack with a UGST/UDWT torpedo from a Victor III SSN against a Kamehameha class SSN from about 12 nm, for a successful kill. Several attacks against Victor III class SSNs using Mk 46 mod 5 torpedoes launched from P-3s and S-3s at a range of 1 nm or less resulted in successful kills after an average of 4 shots per sub. Acquisition seemed to occur about 3/4 of the time. One attack by RAF Nimrods using Stingray mod 0 torpedoes at a range of less than 1 nm against a Los Angeles class SSN resulted in a kill on the 5th shot, with all but one of the shots successfully acquiring the target. One attack by several Bear-Fs against an Improved Los Angeles class SSN at a range of 1 nm or less was unsuccessful after 9 APR-2 Orlan torpedoes; however, all but 2 of the Orlans successfully acquired the target. All of these engagements were done in various scenarios in the EC2003 GIUK battleset, using the 'Reveal All' keyboard cheat to speed the process of finding targets. Hope this helps.

[Warhorse64]

As an addendum to my comments above, I did notice that with air-dropped torpedoes, even a short distance between the dropping a/c and the target sub seems to make a big difference in the chances of acquisition. Most of my drops were conducted with the icons for a/c and sub superimposed in the unit map at 32x or 64x magnification. In those cases, I would estimate that my torpedoes got acquisition about 90% of the time. If I allowed any sort of gap to open between the icons, the acquisition rate dropped significantly. It appears that airborne ASW rewards micromanagement rather significantly ...

[TEPonta]

Is ballistic travel for air dropped torpedoes modeled? I can't remember the exact formula, but an air dropped torp travels in the direction of the A/C heading before entering the water, distance varying with altitude and speed. For that reason, vectoring your A/C from astern of the contact on the same heading as the contact is optimal, putting the bloodhound ahead of the sub at water entry.

[donaldseadog]

As an addendum to my comments above, I did notice that with air-dropped torpedoes, even a short distance between the dropping a/c and the target sub seems to make a big difference in the chances of acquisition. Most of my drops were conducted with the icons for a/c and sub superimposed in the unit map at 32x or 64x magnification. In those cases, I would estimate that my torpedoes got acquisition about 90% of the time. If I allowed any sort of gap to open between the icons, the acquisition rate dropped significantly. It appears that airborne ASW rewards micromanagement rather significantly ...

I also did some more tests, predominantly from helo air drops and with rather poor results.

Question: I am now not sure I'm correctly judging getting acquisition, is it indicated by the unit report box showing "x miles to target, xx;xxmins to targe"t?

 

I dropped NST-58, Stingray Mod 0, A244s, Mk46 mod2 and mod5 and L5 mod4 (Not sure I have the last written correctly), I also did sub launched Mk48mod5 ADCAP. My targets were Collins class subs generally doing 21kts deep (evading torps).

The ADCAPs had a near perfect hit rate, except in one case when they fired to early and the ships out ran them.

Of the others, generally helo launched in pairs as close to the target as I could manage, generally showing helo and sub coinciding but the torpedoes apparently hitting the water within 2 nm (from the unit report box) I only got kills from stingray, Mk46 mod 2 & mod5 and about 15% - 20% hit rate, a couple of nights back I got good results doing much the same (helo drops) with single MU-90 impact.

One thing I noticed was that some of the torps doing a long back and forth (hunting) at 0 nm, 0 mins to target, it seemed to be mostly the Mk 46 doing this, and it generally resulted in a 'near miss' bringing up the little video showing the torpedo cruise past.

Once some one clarifies for me the method of determining when acquisition occurs I'll go over it all again.

Oh yes, regarding warhorse's comment on getting the helos in close, while I tried to do this the torpedo often hit the water still 2 mile out as reported in the unit report window even though at full resolution (and a fairly large unit window) the helo was hovering on top of the target with a solid fix.

Don

[Warhorse64]

I've been assuming that range/time at 0/0, with the torp's course bouncing back and forth through 180 degrees as depth heads for that of the target, is a sign that the torp has successfully acquired the target and is attacking it. I have most of the animations turned off, so I don't know how often or even if they would have come up.

[CV32]

I've been assuming that range/time at 0/0, with the torp's course bouncing back and forth through 180 degrees as depth heads for that of the target, is a sign that the torp has successfully acquired the target and is attacking it.

 

Yes, that's a very good indication that the torpedo is tracking.

 

Generally speaking, as long as the torpedo continues in the general direction of the target, and the countdown is still good, your torpedo is in good shape.

 

If the countdown reverses itself, and the time to target starts to climb, then you've likely lost acquisition. I have seen torpedoes recover from this, but not often.

 

Two other important points:

 

1. The torpedo seeker angle is 90 degrees, but remember its still a lot shorter ranged than a missile.

 

2. As I stated in post #11, it remains critical that you get a solid contact and drop as closely as possible. 2 nm is probably too far, as that is still outside the acquisition range of even the most modern LWTs, even with the 'fudge'.

[mavfin]

2. As I stated in post #11, it remains critical that you get a solid contact and drop as closely as possible. 2 nm is probably too far, as that is still outside the acquisition range of even the most modern LWTs, even with the 'fudge'.

 

I think the issue has been that, at times, you can drop directly on top of the sub in the zoomed-in unit window, and it still shows dropped at 2 miles sometimes, so the 'granularity' of the unit window does seem to matter in some cases. Maybe that's why the original fudges were there? Not to say they needed to be as big as they were, of course, but if you drop on top and you're still at 2 miles, that could be an issue. Also, one hit out of 4 or 6 torps is fine if you're using P-3s or you have a CVH nearby, but if you have 2 tin cans with only 2-4 helos available, and 1 or 2 of those on the deck being readied at any particular time, that's going to be difficult, especially if you can't even get a hit from an over-the-side shot of all three tubes when the sub's close enough for that.

 

Seems like sub-launched torps are doing pretty well. It's most of the air-dropped torps that are having issues, it seems.

 

I'll test the new DB and see if it helps. I'm sure that it's a case of 'just a little more' will get us there where it feels like you're actually dropping 'smart weapons', not just dropping rocks in the water.