Just a little story arising from taking a certain HCE demo scenario for a spin ...

 

HMS Oberon and HMS Odin patrolling some 200 nautical miles west of enemy occupied Bodo, tasked with the priority mission of acting as a roving ambush for surging Soviet submarines that might try to slip down the coast of Norway. Secondary task of potentially interdicting a powerful Soviet surface action group reported to be heading south.

 

Patrolling about 10 nm apart, Oberon suddenly loses contact with sister boat Odin.

 

Soviet maritime patrol aircraft are known to have forward deployed to Bodo, their radar emissions having been picked up a Nimrod patrolling far to the north, snooping on that Soviet SAG. Could one of these - maybe a Be-12 Mail - been the culprit?

 

Some time later, a passive sonar contact to the east. Submarine. Maybe 16,000 yards.

 

Within half an hour, the contact is classified as a Project 641B (NATO codename 'Tango') diesel-electric. But he must be creeping, still can't get a firm fix.

 

Oberon creeps east at 5 knots. The range to contact falls ever so slowly, the bearing changing more slowly still.

 

Finally, at 8,000 yards, the contact firms up. A Tango alright, moving at 5 knots below the layer, heading north.

 

Oberon slows to steerage speed (3 knots) and slips above the layer.

 

Two Tigerfish wire guided torpedoes are readied in their tubes. Match bearings and shoot.

 

The torpedoes race off to the east at 35 knots. A big storm had moved north a few hours ago. Maybe the surface waves were still choppy, hiding their noise.

 

For what seems the longest time the torpedoes close the distance, the Tango showing no signs of having heard them.

 

Then, with the two fish less than 2,000 yards from their goal, the Tango comes to life. His speed climbs to 16 knots and he turns east, running for his life.

 

Oberon takes this opportunity to turn west and widen the gap against a possible counter-fire down the bearing of attack.

 

It is a futile dash for the Tango. The Tigerfish finally catch up, closing now in the endgame with the pings of their active sonar homing heads lashing the hull of the Soviet diesel boat.

 

Oberon's sonar operator listens intently for the crashing boom and echo of the torpedo warheads. It doesn't come. Both Tigerfish missed.

 

Commander Wreford-Brown was apparently really onto something with his choice of the Mark 8.

 

What rotten luck.

 

Oberon continues west. Hoping to return to the stalk once things settle down.

 

The Tango eventually slows from his high speed dash and once again becomes a faint, distant contact.

 

An hour passes, and Oberon turns once more to the east, hoping to relocalize and repeat an attack on the Tango. This time, one hopes, with a successful kill.

 

The range closes to 6,000 yd. Gonna take a little more distant shot this time. The Russkie knows the Brit is there, somewhere.

 

Suddenly, the sonar operator screams 'Torpedo contact! Really close!' They are the last words he will utter.

 

A deafening crash. A sudden rush of ice cold water. Darkness.

 

Oberon joins the quiet wreck of Odin, 15 miles to the north, on the bottom of the Norwegian Sea.

ASW chasing is ever very thrilling, more sub vs sub.

I was thinking these days in a great number of German submarines in WWI were sunked with unguided WWI torpedoes by British submarines, habitually unperceibed of the hunter's presence and cruising on surface (Yes, WWI and very crude torpedoes, aiming and firing procedures, not WWII ), but only now, today, after your vivid account of the scenario, I remember my grandfather was sunked in the same manner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_submarine_C-3

Hello CV32 (& others).

 

I'm a pen & paper harpoon guy. But i have loved reading the AAR and scenario ideas in the PC section.

 

Couple of quick questions;

1. Will Harpoon play on a mac?

2. How long (time) roughly do the smaller scenarios take, or how long do you spend playing a game (i know you can modify the game speed up/down)?

3. Can anyone point me to any real life Sub v Sub AAR's (even training drills) that i could read?

1. Will Harpoon play on a mac?

2. How long (time) roughly do the smaller scenarios take, or how long do you spend playing a game (i know you can modify the game speed up/down)?

1. There is a version of Harpoon 3 for Mac but it is no longer officially distributed. That was back in version 3.6.2/3, about a decade old now. Your only other alternative on Mac is by running Windows in a virtual machine and running Harpoon on that. I do that using HC with great success but haven't tried the recent H3 versions though they will certainly work given the right settings and a happy virtual machine (HC only uses Windows GDI graphics calls so it isn't nearly as picky about systems as H3).

 

2. The smaller scenarios I'll spend 2-3 hours playing. I would say I'm an average pace player. In most small scenarios I'll be from 5x to 30x time compression. That said I usually play larger scenarios over multiple gaming sessions (often I'll luck into an 8 hour session, save, then continue in 2-3 hour sessions after that, often multitasking during play).

3. Can anyone point me to any real life Sub v Sub AAR's (even training drills) that i could read?

 

I'm thinking that apart from books (mostly fiction) alike, detailed accounts of sub vs sub action are hard to come by.

3. Can anyone point me to any real life Sub v Sub AAR's (even training drills) that i could read?

 

I'm thinking that apart from books (mostly fiction) alike, detailed accounts of sub vs sub action are hard to come by.

 

Do the Navy's manuals ever become de-classified?

 

1. Will Harpoon play on a mac?

2. How long (time) roughly do the smaller scenarios take, or how long do you spend playing a game (i know you can modify the game speed up/down)?

1. There is a version of Harpoon 3 for Mac but it is no longer officially distributed. That was back in version 3.6.2/3, about a decade old now. Your only other alternative on Mac is by running Windows in a virtual machine and running Harpoon on that. I do that using HC with great success but haven't tried the recent H3 versions though they will certainly work given the right settings and a happy virtual machine (HC only uses Windows GDI graphics calls so it isn't nearly as picky about systems as H3).

 

2. The smaller scenarios I'll spend 2-3 hours playing. I would say I'm an average pace player. In most small scenarios I'll be from 5x to 30x time compression. That said I usually play larger scenarios over multiple gaming sessions (often I'll luck into an 8 hour session, save, then continue in 2-3 hour sessions after that, often multitasking during play).

Just a note, the H3 versions play just fine on my Mac using Virtualbox and an XP VM that I imported from VMWare when I didn't want to pay for VMWare anymore. (Vbox is free.) HCE of course works great.

 

 

 

3. Can anyone point me to any real life Sub v Sub AAR's (even training drills) that i could read?

I'm thinking that apart from books (mostly fiction) alike, detailed accounts of sub vs sub action are hard to come by.

 

Do the Navy's manuals ever become de-classified?

 

One source I found that was very helpful are the Newport Papers, published by the Naval War College...

 

https://www.usnwc.edu/Publications/Naval-War-College-Press/Newport-Papers.aspx

 

Of particular interest are two volumes dealing with the Global War Game (vol 4 & vol 20). Also the book on naval strategy in the 1980s (vol. 33). These provides a fairly detailed explanation of how World War III might have been fought at sea in the 1980s.