Shark tactics?

[Gargamel]

Howd you get those range circles on the merhcys? I couldn't figure it out.


<---- new to DW

[CCIP]

The red circles aren't merchies - those are actually aging sonar tracks - indicating roughly where the target could be since you lost continuous sonar contact with it. Any time you pick something up on sonar then lose it, these circles start 'growing'. So the circles there there are an old return from the sub (not yet merged with the main track), and probably a bunch of shrimp and trawlers further south picked up by the same pings but never followed on.

So far so good - managed to hit over 20,000pt on the night mission with the Shark, but it was all due to that quick dash, followed by me sticking to the SSK like a leech while dodging the merchants and fishing boats only slightly...

[Gargamel]

OK yeah.. know that.... duh.

IN the manual it says you can mark range circles on various objects. OR can you only do that to yourself?

[moose1am]

The future is fuel cell submarines that don't need to surface very often now. They can stay underwater for long periods of time and don't need oxygen to run diesel generators to recharge the batteries. They make their own electricty by taking sea water and splitting the oxygen from the hydrogen and storing that on board the sub. Then they use the fuel cells to recombine the oxygen and hydrogen to produce water and electricity. That's the modern enemy of the future and they are hear today. They have little or no moving parts in the power plants. IE they are very very quiet and still very dangerous to surface shipping.

Originally Posted by Krauter

I'm not really familiar with Modern ASW Warfare.. all my subsim experience is in either a Gato, Type 9 or Type VII.

Because of this, the difference between Narrow Band, High Frequence, Low Frequency, Medium Frequency Sonars is zero for me. I have not a clue what they're individually used for, so bear that in mind when I comment

As you say your contact is an SSK, thus meaning he's a diesel electric submarine, could you not try to keep within the general vicinity of the submarine and wait until he snorkels to recharge his batteries? I'm not sure if there's a specific frequency of detecting those sounds at long range, but I presume a snorkelling submarine is pretty loud, not to mention susceptible to being detected by radar (Does ACTUV have radar?)

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by moose1am

The future is fuel cell submarines that don't need to surface very often now. They can stay underwater for long periods of time and don't need oxygen to run diesel generators to recharge the batteries. They make their own electricty by taking sea water and splitting the oxygen from the hydrogen and storing that on board the sub. Then they use the fuel cells to recombine the oxygen and hydrogen to produce water and electricity. That's the modern enemy of the future and they are hear today. They have little or no moving parts in the power plants. IE they are very very quiet and still very dangerous to surface shipping.

The fuel cells still need diesel engines (or other power source) to get the energy to split H from H2O to charge the cells

Fuel cells are more like super batteries for low speed operations. Batteries are still useful for high speed operations since they can dump a lot of charge to the E Motors quickly.

[LoBlo]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I'm sure a lot of things go into this! Money and practicality not the least of them. As with most research, some of it is promised but the 'customer' (i.e. the military) may not have the confidence that it will actually be delivered.

Hm...there is one obvious reason that you alluded to earlier... most likely 4 of the 5 ACTUVs are completely fabricated with fictional capabilities with only 1 of them the real model. The other 4 or there are decoy's to keep the general public and ie enemy intelligence from guessing the real capabilities.

On a related note, I hate the way that the SSK doesn't respond or detect HF Sonar. DW had the same bug. In reality a real SSK would detect HF sonar pings and start evading just like MF sonar pings wouldn't you think?

PS) love the signiture CCIP

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

OK yeah.. know that.... duh.

IN the manual it says you can mark range circles on various objects. OR can you only do that to yourself?

Control+Shift+C, click on the target.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

Control+Shift+C, click on the target.

TY sir.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

Hm...there is one obvious reason that you alluded to earlier... most likely 4 of the 5 ACTUVs are completely fabricated with fictional capabilities with only 1 of them the real model. The other 4 or there are decoy's to keep the general public and ie enemy intelligence from guessing the real capabilities.

On a related note, I hate the way that the SSK doesn't respond or detect HF Sonar. DW had the same bug. In reality a real SSK would detect HF sonar pings and start evading just like MF sonar pings wouldn't you think?

PS) love the signiture CCIP

Thanks

After a few tries at the Shark, I think I got it down pat. It's definitely got some weaknesses, but I now have little trouble sticking to the sub even if it speeds up to 15-20 kt and starts evading - even when it pops decoys. I've come to the conclusion that yup, I do like the shark, although it's not a vehicle that can just passively stick to the target - you really do have to go in stops and starts. Otherwise I've been able to get over 20,000pt on every mission with it.

Also, forget the HF sonar 'stealth' - the sub doesn't react to radar or visual on the ACTUV, which I find odd - although perhaps it's just choosing to blatantly ignore you....

[LoBlo]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Also, forget the HF sonar 'stealth' - the sub doesn't react to radar or visual on the ACTUV, which I find odd - although perhaps it's just choosing to blatantly ignore you....

I find this uber lame. DARPA/SCS... fix it please.

[LoBlo]

Originally Posted by CCIP

So far so good - managed to hit over 20,000pt on the night mission with the Shark, but it was all due to that quick dash, followed by me sticking to the SSK like a leech while dodging the merchants and fishing boats only slightly...

Still trying to get the shark down. Seems like the shark would be better served in wolf pack tatics with at least two units. One maintaining contact, while the other sprints ahead at alternating intervals.

[Jamesrbird]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

Yeah, the wide range of sonar capabilities is sortof baffling... how can active sonar have such widely variable speed/range capabilities... does this really simulate reality?...

... of course no one will ever tell.

Hello, First time poster.

The various types of sonar exist because, based on the frequency of sound, you get various performance on Sonar.

Generally, the lower the frequency of sound, the farther the sound can travel in water before attenuating below usefull levels. Inversly, the higher frequency of sound, the better the resolution of the data obtained from the sonar. Thus, MF Sonar has pretty good range, but does not give you great data clarity (generally just contact bearing and range). High frequency sonar can have sufficent resolution to allow for a level of imaging (which is why side scan sonars used in underwater survey use this range), but they are only useful for very short ranges.

As for the directionality of sonars in the game, that is realistic. a Transducer element is directional, so, to gain 360 coverage, you will need multiple transducers. Also, The higher the frequency of the sonar, the smaller the transducer that is required to produce a coherent beam, so that plays in to the selection of frequency.

As for HF sonar stealth, I think that is also likely realistic. Submarines rely on passive sonar for detection, so their arrays would be focused on frequencys that propogate well in the water. HF sonar frequencys are so high as to not be particularly usefull for passive sonar to listen to because the noise would not travel very far from the sound source, so they are probably not listened for

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Jamesrbird

Hello, First time poster.

The various types of sonar exist because, based on the frequency of sound, you get various performance on Sonar.

Generally, the lower the frequency of sound, the farther the sound can travel in water before attenuating below usefull levels. Inversly, the higher frequency of sound, the better the resolution of the data obtained from the sonar. Thus, MF Sonar has pretty good range, but does not give you great data clarity (generally just contact bearing and range). High frequency sonar can have sufficent resolution to allow for a level of imaging (which is why side scan sonars used in underwater survey use this range), but they are only useful for very short ranges.

As for the directionality of sonars in the game, that is realistic. a Transducer element is directional, so, to gain 360 coverage, you will need multiple transducers. Also, The higher the frequency of the sonar, the smaller the transducer that is required to produce a coherent beam, so that plays in to the selection of frequency.

As for HF sonar stealth, I think that is also likely realistic. Submarines rely on passive sonar for detection, so their arrays would be focused on frequencys that propogate well in the water. HF sonar frequencys are so high as to not be particularly usefull for passive sonar to listen to because the noise would not travel very far from the sound source, so they are probably not listened for

I would assume most of us are familiar, at least the basics of sonar technology, but if not, that was a good primer.

But what I think he meant was why the weird combination of sensors? Some of the models have long range 360' MF, and crappy HF, while others have no MF and Long range, High speed 360' HF.

I really think these are proposals from the contractors bidding to build the drone, and SCS was tasked with coming up with AI tactics for each one.

My question then is, why couldnt they just build a bigger platform, and through the best of each sensor on it? Or at least a compromise of what we want. (LR High speed MF w/ a Mid range mid speed HF).

[Enigma738]

Hey guys, I finally came out of lurking on these boards to add my thoughts to the discussions.

So far I've just had a few runs with it tonight and have the game play down pat. Apart from my very first run, I've been in the Triton all this time, so I don't have much to add to the Shark discussion so far.

What I *can* bring to the table is a neat and relevant topic from the realms of artificial intelligence. No matter how 'smart' an AI agent may appear, it's often just doing the same thing we're doing - searching for the minimums and maximums for a problem. Understandably, a computer is much better suited for the raw calculations, hence why we trust in Excel to plot out our functions when we want to make sense of things.

The flip side to this is that we possess a HUGE advantage over a given computer in that we've been around for far longer and have thus gathered much more experience in life. All those hours of playing catch, watching traffic to know when it's safe to cross, those are all examples of us using the basic object tracking skills we have. We're way better than we give ourselves credit for!

... In fact, we're so good at making very quick and rational decisions with such reliability that it's common to collect data from human trials in complex scenarios to save the young and fresh AI agent from having to learn on its own. Collectively, we're striving for the top scores and figuring out tactics, consider it being a parent to the brains that will make ACTUV run. Without the help gathered from this software, it'd take a lot of resources to essentially re-invent the wheel.

After collecting enough data from us the computer can start to make use of its talent with numbers to smooth out our human mistakes, like hitting the wrong key, or selecting the best strategies to work with for each small part of the problem. Stitch those together and you have yourself a fairly well suited brain for tactical tracking!

Pretty neat stuff, I have to say, hope it's an enjoyable read!