Inspired by Smithcorp's excellent DW AARs, I recently fired up DW myself. I grabbed a large mission pack from SubSim.com and have been having a lot of fun with the game again. This particular mission takes place following a PRC invasion of Taiwan, where a US Navy sub is sent to destroy some air defences in anticipation of a large air strike. Apologies for the stupid FRAPS FPS counter in the corner, I'm not sure why that was left behind in some shots.



Briefing intel indicates a variety of threats, both surface and sub-surface, and at least one land target to be destroyed. I outfit my sub with a mix of missiles, torpedoes, and UUV remote sensors. My VLS tubes are loaded 50/50 with Tomahawk land-attack and anti-ship varients.




Time to get underway. I check the map - I'm relatively close to the objective area - certainly close enough to launch Tomahawks. But my first objective is to destroy the Sovremennyy, so I need to get a lot closer and snoop around a bit.



A quick scan of sonar reveals nothing. But I'm also beneath a fairly substantial layer, so I give orders to head to periscope depth for a look around.




Not long after passing above the layer, I have a sonar contact. Narrowband suggests it may be the Soveremennyy, but I'm not certain. I start a TMA track on it and continue up to periscope depth.




Upon reaching periscope depth, I raise my radio antenna to copy the broadcast. The UAVs overhead have kindly detected most of the surface traffic for me, and are transmitting them across the link. I note the position of the Sovremennyy (0037) - it's along roughly the same bearing as S05, which was a contact from active intercept.



I lay in an intercept course, go deep, and hit the gas.




Sonar calls out a few torpedoes in the water on the way. I check the bearings on the map, and it looks like they're from the Hai Lung's patrol area. Confident that they aren't intended for me, I continue on my way.



While closing the distance, I take a few minutes to program the SAM site locations into the TLAMs. I prep a package of four missiles for the strike.



Nearing the last known position of the Sovremennyy, I pass above the layer for another look - bingo, sonar contact. I start a TMA track and am fairly confident in my contact - confident enough to shoot. It's only a short distance away from its last reported location. I dial in the presets for two Mk48 ADCAP torpedoes in tubes 1 and 2.




Tubes 1 and 2 ready to launch. I've also pressurized my VLS tubes for TLAM launch. My plan is to knock out the Sovremennyy, then quickly bob to periscope depth to launch the missiles. I should then be able to escape before the Chinese are wise to what's happening.



Torpedoes away!



Watching the DEMON display, I see the target hit the gas upon hearing me launch my torpedoes. Within a few seconds, it accelerates from a dead stop to 20 knots.



My torpedoes go active at 8,000 yards, however, and after that it's only a few short seconds before I hear explosions and lose contact with one of my torpedoes. The other was presumably fooled by a decoy and has gone off course.




The target's aflame, but not yet sunk. I figure the jig is up, so I quickly assign four anti-ship Tomahawks to the target. I launch both the anti-ship and strike missiles in a single volley.




The land-attack missiles branch off, while the anti-ship missiles continue on to the Sovremennyy.



Point-defence systems open up...



...but it's game over for the target.



The SAM site, too, has seen better days.



If the Chinese didn't know I was here before, they definitely do now. Time to clear datum and get the hell out. I go deep, order a new course, and increase speed.



Before long, sonar reports torpedoes in the water on my six o'clock, and high-frequency pinging starts soon after. Probably air-dropped torpedoes on my last location, but they don't chase and I'm soon confident that I've escaped.



My last objective is to rendezvous with the USS Buffalo. After wandering around its patrol area for a while, I pick up the sonar contact.



Confirm range to target - one ping only!



I plot an intercept course and link up with the Buffalo after a few minutes.





Mission complete!

Neat AAR fatty and here's hoping there'll be more DW AARs in future!

I haven't played any of the US submarine platforms yet. I'm leaving the US subs to later so I can get familiar with the air platforms, sonobouys etc. They look complex! I have a couple of questions please - when you hit the gas in the sub, under the layer, how fast do you feel you can got and remain undetected? The top speed I can see in your screens is 10 knots, but can you go faster?

Also, was the TMA on autocrew? They got a nice dot stack and while I haven't played subs much in this game yet, I haven't found the autocrew being that good!

cheers

smith

Hi smith, glad you enjoyed, and thanks for the questions.

Hard to say about speed; I know some die-hards have dissected the game's engine inside and out and could give you a solid answer, but it's an imperfect science for me. The layer was particularly "strong" (I know there's an entire lexicon behind this which I have not bothered to learn). So strong that while beneath it, I was deaf to any noises above it, including active sonars banging away. And, presumably, they were deaf to me. So I would probably have felt safe ringing up ahead standard (15 knots). But, given that a) the mission objectives weren't time sensitive, and b) there was a possible submarine lurking around, and I had no idea where it was, going faster would be an unnecessary risk. So, I stayed at two thirds (10 knots) for most of the mission, except when above the layer (5 knots) and clearing datum (15 knots).

TMA was all manual. It's easy to get a tidy dot stack on stationary or slow-moving targets like I did. I think the autocrew sometimes cheats and produces a messy dot stack but a nevertheless accurate solution, and it's much better at developing solutions for maneuvering targets than I am. But I still find it enjoyable and challenging to get my hands dirty and do my own TMA, though I usually switch to autocrew when things get hairy and I need to concentrate on evading torpedoes.

Ah, thanks for the reply fatty. i had assumed the TMA was autocrew and I'm glad to see it wasn't. I have tinkered with TMA and its still a bit beyond me.

Excellent AAR Fatty.

TMA is not so bad once you get a handle on it. The way I proceed is to first acquire as many lines of bearing on the target as possible. This can be achieved with one sensor over a long period of time (example: a towed array tracker for half an hour or more) or multiple sensors fusing data together (example: ESM, bow sonar, towed array, and active intercept contacts merged).

Once I have a good dataset from which to proceed, I lock in the known particulars for the contact. You can get bearing from any sensor, and DEMON gives you speed. So, enter those into the TMA interface and lock them.

Then I take a best guess at the range. Some times, it's easier than others. If I am running parallel to the contact, have my towed array streamed, and have detected the contact on both bow and towed array sonars, it's simple triangulation - where the lines of bearing intersect is roughly where the contact is.

Once I have bearing, speed, and a best guess at range, I lock all of those in and then play with the ruler to try to find a decent dot stack.

After that, it's just refining the solution over time - as more data comes in, tweak and update to make a better dot stack.

Superb AAR Fatty! Very much enjoyed that. I may fire up my CDs as well. You guys are giving me the itch to play. What resolution do you play at Fatty? I have a widescreen monitor and frankly that is why I don't play DW anymore, I can't stand the stretching of my visuals. I was wondering if you have found a way around that if you play with widescreen that is.

I play at 1600x1200 squished to fit my 1680x1050 monitor. Using the higher resolution seems to keep things from getting too distorted - I don't really notice it anymore.

fatty, This my favorite naval warfare sim from any era.
Very nice indeed. This is one of the first sims that I install on any new rig.
I didn't notice if you've modded it.

There's LWAMI 3_10, RAModv1_31, and AlfaTau.
You seem to be enjoying yourself.

Jaeger

Great AAR, fatty, thanks for taking the time to share that with us!

Cheers!

Rick...

Thanks Sauron and jaegermeister

jaegermeister, I use LWAMA 3.10. What do RAMod and AlfaTau do? I've also seen DWX. I'm interested in running mods, but it seems there are no clear write-ups anywhere of what these mods do. I only stick with LWAMI because I followed the development way back in the day. IIRC RAMod, AlfaTau, and DWX came later, but I'm scratching my head with regards to what changes they make.

Hi fatty,


I just woke up so anything I screw up cannot be held against me. Here's RA-Mod 2 links:http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=145517 and
http://www.redrodgers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4912

here's Alfa Tau Mod 2 links: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=145516 and
http://www.maricosom.net/. The 2nd link is an Italian website. Alfa Tau resembles Lwami, and is done by someone else.
You can download Alfa Tau, by googling it or asking one of the the guys at Subsim for the link. I think CADC has it but you must register.

RA or ReinForce Alert can be downloaded direcly from CrazyIvan "Bugcatcher's" site.
all these mods require a patched to 1.04 DW. Then exporting the reg entry after patching, the patched REG entry should look like this.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\Dangerous Waters]
"DisplayName"="Dangerous Waters"
"Language"="English"
"CD Drive"="F:\\"
"Install Dir"="D:\\GAMES\\SONALY~1\\DANGER~1"
"Product GUID"="{DCFF5D9C-C618-45C9-A61E-14A6981F28C6}"
"Installed From"="F:\\"
"Region"="NA"
"Folder"="Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\Dangerous Waters\1.0]
"DisplayName"="Dangerous Waters"
"Language"=dword:00000001
"LanguageName"="English"
"rootInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters"
"cdInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters"
"scenarioInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters"
"dbInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters"
"interfaceInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters\\Interfaces"
"graphicsInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters\\Graphics"
"sfxInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters\\Audio\\Sfx\\sfx.agg+"
"musicInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters\\Audio\\Music"
"cinematicInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters\\Cinematic"
"aLetter"="e"
"buildNumber"=dword:0000017a

Save this DOT_REG file as you'll be using NOTEPAD to edit it so that when you install
Tau and/or RA the installers/executables will be able to find each one.

Here's my RA_Mod REG file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\Dangerous Waters]
"DisplayName"="Dangerous Waters"
"Language"="English"
"CD Drive"="F:\\"
"Install Dir"="D:\\GAMES\\SONALY~1\\DANGER~1"
"Product GUID"="{DCFF5D9C-C618-45C9-A61E-14A6981F28C6}"
"Installed From"="F:\\"
"Region"="NA"
"Folder"="Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\Dangerous Waters\1.0]
"DisplayName"="Dangerous Waters"
"Language"=dword:00000001
"LanguageName"="English"
"rootInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31"
"cdInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31"
"scenarioInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31"
"dbInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31"
"interfaceInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31\\Interfaces"
"graphicsInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31\\Graphics"
"sfxInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31\\Audio\\Sfx\\sfx.agg+"
"musicInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31\\Audio\\Music"
"cinematicInstallPath"="D:\\GAMES\\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\\Dangerous Waters RAModv1_31\\Cinematic"
"aLetter"="e"
"buildNumber"=dword:0000017a

Can you see the difference? It starts at "rootInstallPath"="
You have to manually edit the REG file yourself.

Anyway head over to Subsim and under the Dangerous Waters mod forum you can read up on these mods.
RA is much more comprehensive but, Lwami is the stablest IMHO. I play all three.
The people over there are like over here, very helpful.
As a matter of fact +G and I had a short discussion before He died about a file
I had pointed him to on Subsim, that actually had +G's 'copyrighted' material enclosed,
We had a chuckle about that for, he was unaware of the file being used over there.
It was actually a link to the file IIRC.
I pray +G is having lots of fun simming "up there".

Here's the thread with+G : http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2672496/Re_SHIII_error.html#Post2672496

Before you start modding back-up the DW folder and the DW Reg entry.
Read up on it before you do.

Jaeger

Some resources that may help:

Cavitation Profiles

Slightly older chart, still handy

Try reading this http://www.subguru.com/downloads.html "TimmyG00's Tactical Manual"
containing "SCHQ TACMAN REV2" cavitation on pp# 17 and, "target_motion_analysis" both are in the same download\zip.

"Cavitation
The phenomenon of cavitation in submarining is caused by the
submarine's propeller moving through the water rapidly, thus causing a
separation in the flow of the water. This separation is manifested in the form of
vacuum bubbles, which collapse rapidly. The collapsing bubbles generate
significant broadband noise above 10kHz, which can lead to the detection of the
cavitating platform by other platforms, including passive homing torpedoes. This
makes it an undesirable phenomenon.
In order to avoid cavitation, it is important not to transit at high speed in
shallow water. The higher pressure of deep water will prevent cavitation. Refer
to Appendix C for a cavitation chart. This chart plots the speeds at which each
playable submarine will cavitate at a given depth.
PC Equipment Considerations for Passive Sonar Searching"


Jaeger