I did see from years (think ever, from the Computer Harpoon start) when an ASW aircraft has two or more types of sonobuoys, in each flight stop it drops one sonobuoy of each type, depleting its magazines faster than in I think more realistic drop of only one sonobuoy in each stop (To avoid this behaviour, in my personal DBs I change the loadouts to have only a single type of sonobuoy).

Just observed again in a new little scenario in preparation.

Toughts?

At one point there was discussion of having sonobuoys in a loadout dropped in the order in which they appear (e.g. all of the passive buoys first, followed by all of the active buoys).

 

This was not the best arrangement, but it is perhaps preferable to having two dropped at a time.

 

Single type sonobuoy loadouts is a distant third, imho.

I would like to be able to choose which sonar buoy I drop. In some cases an active buoy would be nice.

 

When I'm dropping a line of buoy's in a search pattern or as a defensive line I would only want to drop only passive buoy's so I don't give the position away where my defensive line is.

I would like to be able to choose which sonar buoy I drop. In some cases an active buoy would be nice. When I'm dropping a line of buoy's in a search pattern or as a defensive line I would only want to drop only passive buoy's so I don't give the position away where my defensive line is.

 

This is ordinary and longstanding doctrine. Lay passive buoys to sniff out a contact, follow up with active buoys to localize.