Quote:
Originally Posted by Kapitan
In real life the Virginias sonars will be more advanced with more up to date hydrophones so would stand to reason they are a little more sensitive.
Being sensitive id fully expect the washout speed to be slightly lower as well, from what I am told by guys on the boats the Virginia sonar is better than the seawolf in many areas.
Dont forget that Virginia is pretty much a brand new unit while the seawolf is 20+ years old its already 2/3 through its life span roughly.
Hydrodynamics will also play a part, the Virginia has the VLS system and a chin array installed and the seawolf doesn't again this has an affect on sonars with regards to the build but critically water flow over the chin array.
To give you some scope the Trafalgar's which had the sonar spike on the bow also encountered some resonance in the sphere array, this was since re done on the astute to cancel it out.
With regards to the MF Active the Virginia may well use the same hardware system but its going to be the software package that makes all the difference and looking at this the Virginia is using the V4 which looks to me like a major software upgrade.
The swap over of the towed array data is probably an accident, there's still some bugs with the RA 151.7 and fixes.
The seawolf sonar was specially designed for that class of boat and designed very specifically for anti submarine warfare, you also need to factor in the 688 and Virginia have a different mission package to the seawolf.
The 688 and Virginia are more general purpose submarines where as the seawolf is a pure hunter killer like the astutes.
BSY-2 is a generation ahead of the older BQQ10 systems the 688s employ, whilst the BQQ10 V4 is an evolution on the older BQQ10
This is limitedly modeled in game as true values are classified but id expect to see seawolf remaining at the top followed by the virginia only slightly behind then the 688's.
The modder has also taken into account hull flow, that chin array and VLS hatches have a slight affect on the sonar capabilities, and also being of an earlier design but upgraded version the limitations that will ultimately be forthcoming.
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As usual, top notch informative response. The things you pointed out make sense, especially the software upgrade (in real life).
I don't know how much of that the RA mod simulated, but it sounds like the Virginia is just a better, quieter version of the 688i with more sensitive sonar, even though it's slower.