SUBSIM
Review
  Dangerous Waters
Hands-on Multiplayer Preview
by Neal Stevens, Bill Nichols, Tim Grab, Ramius, Smuook

Nov 25, 2004

Page 3


   

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Mission Time: 1115

Bill (688(I) sub): As I move north at a slow 4 knots, sonar begins to report multiple active contacts ahead of me. It appears that there is a line of sonobuoys between the convoy and me. Not wanting to go through the sonobuoy barrier, I turn west to go around them. It may take a little longer but I'll be less detectible and the waiting should raise the blood pressure on the surface guys.
 

Ramius (Kilo): Back to periscope depth again after nearly 20 minutes. Same P3 on EW (electronic warfare) tracking nicely South with the pings still to my NNW. Surfaced again and started the diesels - charging the batteries incase I need the power at a later time.

Suddenly the P3 seemed to turn towards me. Stopped the diesels and started to carefully watch my ESM screen. Flicking back and forth between the NAV and ESM screen for tracking info. Started to gain a few sonar contacts, so guessed the plane was laying some buoys.

The pings also seemed to change at about the same time - Neal deciding to charge me? So I thought I'd do the same - turned toward him, staying on the surface. Fired off a couple of SAM's at the P3 to no avail. I left two in reserve - 1 in case it got close again and another for Tim (still out there somewhere).

 

Smuook (Orion plane): I came inbound and dropped down to 200ft to use my MAD. I laid a line of buoys that covered the convoy heading east. From there our side tried to communicate and determine who was who and identify all our contacts. Teamspeak would have been real nice here, could've spoken our communications like similar to using a radio, freeing our hands for playing instead of chat.

At just about the same time I started to pick up the 688 frequency alert on a buoy and also got a radar riser down to the south. It appeared Bill (688) was starting to approach my sonobuoy pattern while Ramius (Kilo) had come to the surface. I decided to turn towards Ramius and launch a Maverick missile at him. I was about 25nm inbound and couldn't assign the Kilo to the missile. I had previously ID'ed him as a submarine... not understanding at the time that the Maverick couldn't be assigned to a classified sub... even if he was at the surface.

 

Tim (Seahawk Helo):  Smuook reported a hit of suspicious ESM energy to the south and went to investigate. With my MAD sensor deployed, I continued to deploy my buoys and monitor their signals. It was essentially quiet in my sector, but quiet means nothing when dealing with submarines. That's their job, and it was my job to flush them out.

A short time after Smuook winged south to investigate the ESM signal, he reported going into the drink - apparently shot down by a SAM from a surfaced enemy sub. Consulting the link, I saw that Neal had started to drive his FFG in that direction to get an active sonar fix on the rascal.

 

 

 

Ramius (Kilo): So, one of my SAMs found its mark after all, eh?

 

Smuook (Orion plane): I kept trying to different methods to try to launch the Maverick. Meanwhile, Ramius did some launching of his own. I detected flurry of SAM's coming in my direction. I began launching countermeasures and kept fumbling to launch my missile at him. The best thing to do would have been to turn away and open out of his range and figure out what was going wrong. But instead I probably launched 1 less countermeasure than his SAM's and I went down in flames.

 

Tim (Seahawk Helo):  With Smuook down, we had lost that much more buoy analysis capability, so I began monitoring Smuook's buoys to see what I could pick up, setting my Acoustic station frequency alerts to listen for one of the lower sub frequencies. Neal promoted a good active sonar contact to the link and I launched a Mark 50 torpedo on the bearing.

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