Bravo Zulu Pony! I was a USN SWO with ASW specialty 78-93, Pony seems later. A couple comments: A submarine would hear the patrol plane long before it heard the bouy splash. Task force operations were split by warfare area - AW focused on anti-air, AS on ASW etc. MAD was used for triggering torpedo drop in an attack, Soviets in shallow waters did use it for search. Historically first used to great success in 1943 as search gear by Blimps operating in Straits of Gibraltar. In the early 80s DIFAR and DICASS were still rare, mostly we had LOFAR and CASS - no directional info. VLAD was just a future concept. Area search with fixed wing (Orions, Vikings etc) was always lines, because everything before Victor III were easily detected in CZ (convergence zone - a ~mile wide circle ~25 miles away from the bouys). Also, the patrol planes could only track 16 bouys at a time, helos only 4. So a 16 buoy line could effectively search an area 66 x 50 miles. A four bouy pattern was usually one in the center and three on a circle around it. And yes, ship dropped bouys were a thing when aircraft were not available - I did use them. Mk48s could be outrun, I did it on AUTEC. Also, until ADCAP they had real difficulty with surface targets. Same issue with Tigerfish - why the Belgrano ate Mk 8s. Prairie Masker worked beyond our wildest dreams - more lessons learned on AUTEC. Soviet and NATO ASW were two very different worlds - pretty much mirror images. We learned our lessons in mid-ocean blue water, they learned in shallow arctic waters, and what worked in one often did not work in the other. Our focus was on narrowband, theirs on broadband. Much was learned after the wall came down, they were far ahead of us on MAD and broadband.
Wondering if part of why MAD was so effective there was the ability to generate a "background map". Since anomalies occur naturally due to ferrous deposits in the ground, etc, I would think that having a map of all known / expected strengths would let you spot an "anomalous anomaly" much more reliably?
Active sonar announces to any passive sonar listening in. You would give away approx range and bearing way before you would detect them. Think of active sonar as being a torch in a dark room, others can see you but you can only see what's in the cone of light.
One tactic not discussed is recon by torpedo. When you were looking for the second sub, send a torpedo that way and as long as your wire is still connected you may find it or spook the other sub into a mistake.
Active sonar is like Active radar, activating it will give the enemy a really good idea where you are if not an exact position .Also the same thing applies as radar, they'll hear you long before you get a return on their position. Basically you should be very sparing with active sonar and use passive sensors or airborne sources to preserve your stealth as much as possible. It's better to use things the submarine can't shoot at to find and kill it.
Listening to an expert talking about at niche subject is always so interesting. Big thanks to Pony, and as always, thanks Cap for this captivating video.
Also Air Independent Propulsion does change the Diesel Electric game. It allows AIP diesels a lot more flexibility in using their diesel generators and makes AIP Diesels substantially more dangerous and hard to detect, they can charge the batteries without needing to be near the surface or otherwise use fuel cells which can generate electricity without needing external oxygen
Amateur radio operators have all sorts of fun "playing games" with atmospheric effects like ducting (probably the cloest analogue to a thermocline). Among other things, while theh can interfere with reception "across layers", it can also channel signal (thus "ducting") to let you get past the horizon, because it can bend to follow the curvature of the earth. Also, anything that would show up on a weather radar _may_ interfere with other types, although I would expext that to depend heavily on frequency interactions. But something like a sandstorm seems like it would be fairly "opaque" to almost everything, given that the ground is rather infamously difficult to see through with anything that will reflect from metal...
I was chuckling at first about how silly it would be to launch a sonobuoy from a ship… if there is a sub within range, you’re already dead. But it could be interesting if you were in a setting where you were concerned there was a sub trailing you. Of course you’d want to delay the activation of the buoy in such a case.
I used it effectively on a number of occasions. LOFAR bouys could be monitored from 2-12 miles away and would see what the ship could not because of water conditions. Ocean temperature gradients create blind zones in very interesting patterns. Especially in the 80s subs were not the wonder weapons civilians think they are.
4:22: It's worth mentioning there are a handful of subs with air-independent propulsion around, which carry some sort of oxidizer (usually liquid oxygen, but some early models used hydrogen peroxide) to use instead of air in a combustion engine when they're completely submerged. This is still finite, so they can't run forever like a nuclear sub, but they can generally last days to weeks without surfacing.
Something I use quite a lot in Cold Waters, when I'm sneaking into a position, is something that's called the "Sonar Dead Zone", this is ~50ft above or below the Layer where return pings get scattered and bounced off the Layer, scrambling your Sonar Return for the enemy, of course, this works both ways and makes you effectively blind. However, I have no idea if this is modeled in Sea Power. Also, with active, remember the ping has to return to you also, so there is a range where the Enemy can hear your ping and get a bearing to fire down, but your sensors can't pick up the return, this is what usually gives up Enemy subs in Cold Waters as they love banging away on Active Sonar.
Great show, I'm very excited about this sim, it might be cheap enough for me to afford as a disabled old man. Thanks for all the info, better than all the movies put together. Keep em coming Supercap we love your show.
The US and UK p8 posidons dont carry MAD probably for the reasons pony mentioned In ww2 they had a version which automatically triggered weaponnrelease, the bombs being fired backwards so as to fall at the point of detection rather than the normal bomb descent path.
As i understand it subs in this era also might have towed arrays that were clip on, so they would have it attached by a tender as they left port. Not sure if they could cut it when underway.
There are also fuel cell powered subs, using Hydrogen. Fairly sure, Germany has some and quite a few others. Pretty sure they are a quieter (no moving parts apart from pumps, certainly less than Diesel) and can stay under water longer. I think fuel cellls have come a long way since Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle. I seem to have hear that Germany keeps them mostly for itself and exported Subs are mostly classical Diesel.
One more key difference between a nuke boat and a Diesel boat: Diesels are even more quiet. Even the USN needs a lot of luck to catch western Diesel boats.
Does Sea Power have anything related to SONUS, or is that out of scope / not relevant / still classified enough that no useful information is available?
44:00 How in the world did you launch a torpedo while the sub was moving at flank speed? Attempting that action should cause serious problems for the launching submarine. Guess it's not modeled in the game yet. I've heard the game launched, but features are still at the beta level. Seeing the flank torp launch reinforces the beta reports. Great episode, BTW. Loved it!
Great stuff guys! I have had better success in the game by laying lines of bouys ahead of the group. I have also had a MAD contact but it was off a faint bouy contact. Flew a pair of helos over, the lead with MAD and the other to drop 46's on the sub.
I'm no expert by any means, but don't modern diesel subs have AIP systems? Air Independant Propulsion? The Gotland class has a Sterling engine, and the 212 has a hydrogen fuel cell. And those are 30 years old. So the electric propulsion system has come a long way since it was just a bunch of acid batteries. And the HNLMS Zeehond (Dolfijn class in service from 1960 to 1992) was converted into a technology trials demonstrator in 1990, equiped with a closed cycle diesel air-independant propulsion system until 1994. So even the diesels aren't fully dependant on snorkels anymore. I'm probably wrong about half of it. But I'm pretty sure diesels have come a long way since WWII. Of course they still pale in comparison to nuclear subs, when it comes to endurance and power output.
I just wanted to let you know they have a new mod for soviets ships that bring them up to 1990s standards .which gets them balanced against ntu American ships
I am amazed by CAPTAS CAPTAS 4 can detect subs at up to 150 KM. CAPTAS 2 about 60 KM CAPTAS 1 around 30-40 KM. This is from a interview with the maker.
Oh, Sea Power definitely can be enjoyable in player vs player multiplayer, the problem is people don't understand how to develop the proper scenarios for it. I've played a lot of such scenarios back in early 2000s and it did work just fine. Just don't expect to be doing a scenario crammed with large CVBG vs CVBG with +100 missiles in the air at the time and all other crap going on at the same time. The game has issues handling that now in single player.
More a matter of the task force commander arrogantly dismissing a threat he actually could counter quite effectively. I've worked as part of a carrier screen on many occasions.
Can I say a big thank you for listening to the viewers, this was fascinating to hear Pony a specialist talking about this subject, cheers Cap.
Look at me shutting up.
Bravo Zulu Pony!
I was a USN SWO with ASW specialty 78-93, Pony seems later.
A couple comments:
A submarine would hear the patrol plane long before it heard the bouy splash.
Task force operations were split by warfare area - AW focused on anti-air, AS on ASW etc.
MAD was used for triggering torpedo drop in an attack, Soviets in shallow waters did use it for search. Historically first used to great success in 1943 as search gear by Blimps operating in Straits of Gibraltar.
In the early 80s DIFAR and DICASS were still rare, mostly we had LOFAR and CASS - no directional info. VLAD was just a future concept.
Area search with fixed wing (Orions, Vikings etc) was always lines, because everything before Victor III were easily detected in CZ (convergence zone - a ~mile wide circle ~25 miles away from the bouys). Also, the patrol planes could only track 16 bouys at a time, helos only 4. So a 16 buoy line could effectively search an area 66 x 50 miles. A four bouy pattern was usually one in the center and three on a circle around it.
And yes, ship dropped bouys were a thing when aircraft were not available - I did use them.
Mk48s could be outrun, I did it on AUTEC. Also, until ADCAP they had real difficulty with surface targets. Same issue with Tigerfish - why the Belgrano ate Mk 8s.
Prairie Masker worked beyond our wildest dreams - more lessons learned on AUTEC.
Soviet and NATO ASW were two very different worlds - pretty much mirror images. We learned our lessons in mid-ocean blue water, they learned in shallow arctic waters, and what worked in one often did not work in the other. Our focus was on narrowband, theirs on broadband. Much was learned after the wall came down, they were far ahead of us on MAD and broadband.
Wondering if part of why MAD was so effective there was the ability to generate a "background map". Since anomalies occur naturally due to ferrous deposits in the ground, etc, I would think that having a map of all known / expected strengths would let you spot an "anomalous anomaly" much more reliably?
LMAO. " Cap and Fly won't constantly interrupt you" Then starts with the introduction with the sim in a thunder storm! Hilarious
Video was pushed to my feed within 1 minute, fantastic, thanks Cap! Merry Christmas everyone.
Yeh Sea Power is REALLY helping me out.
Active sonar announces to any passive sonar listening in. You would give away approx range and bearing way before you would detect them. Think of active sonar as being a torch in a dark room, others can see you but you can only see what's in the cone of light.
One tactic not discussed is recon by torpedo. When you were looking for the second sub, send a torpedo that way and as long as your wire is still connected you may find it or spook the other sub into a mistake.
I was on a destroyer in 80s an understood nixie could be configured that way as well as other uses
Active sonar is like Active radar, activating it will give the enemy a really good idea where you are if not an exact position .Also the same thing applies as radar, they'll hear you long before you get a return on their position. Basically you should be very sparing with active sonar and use passive sensors or airborne sources to preserve your stealth as much as possible. It's better to use things the submarine can't shoot at to find and kill it.
Bathythermal layers which can reflect sounds. Sonar: lofar difar and fm chirps, you no mention MAD and dunking sonar or barra.
Great episode Cap. Thanks to Pony.
Listening to an expert talking about at niche subject is always so interesting. Big thanks to Pony, and as always, thanks Cap for this captivating video.
Pony is Money. Awesome nails accurate briefing.
One of the best ever explanation of asw videos I've ever seen. Thank you to the guys who were involved in making it.
Also Air Independent Propulsion does change the Diesel Electric game. It allows AIP diesels a lot more flexibility in using their diesel generators and makes AIP Diesels substantially more dangerous and hard to detect, they can charge the batteries without needing to be near the surface or otherwise use fuel cells which can generate electricity without needing external oxygen
Should drop a noise maker when you turn and accelerate as it makes a knuckle in the water. It's a defensive move if potentially being fired at.
Amateur radio operators have all sorts of fun "playing games" with atmospheric effects like ducting (probably the cloest analogue to a thermocline). Among other things, while theh can interfere with reception "across layers", it can also channel signal (thus "ducting") to let you get past the horizon, because it can bend to follow the curvature of the earth. Also, anything that would show up on a weather radar _may_ interfere with other types, although I would expext that to depend heavily on frequency interactions. But something like a sandstorm seems like it would be fairly "opaque" to almost everything, given that the ground is rather infamously difficult to see through with anything that will reflect from metal...
18:33 poor whales. Imagine yourself hearing something unusual , high as hell.
I was chuckling at first about how silly it would be to launch a sonobuoy from a ship… if there is a sub within range, you’re already dead. But it could be interesting if you were in a setting where you were concerned there was a sub trailing you. Of course you’d want to delay the activation of the buoy in such a case.
I used it effectively on a number of occasions. LOFAR bouys could be monitored from 2-12 miles away and would see what the ship could not because of water conditions. Ocean temperature gradients create blind zones in very interesting patterns. Especially in the 80s subs were not the wonder weapons civilians think they are.
4:22: It's worth mentioning there are a handful of subs with air-independent propulsion around, which carry some sort of oxidizer (usually liquid oxygen, but some early models used hydrogen peroxide) to use instead of air in a combustion engine when they're completely submerged.
This is still finite, so they can't run forever like a nuclear sub, but they can generally last days to weeks without surfacing.
Exceptionally well done, Pony! Thanks for sharing all that. Enjoyable and informative ... who could ask for better?! Thanks for organizing this Cap.
I really enjoyed this presentation by Pony!
Something I use quite a lot in Cold Waters, when I'm sneaking into a position, is something that's called the "Sonar Dead Zone", this is ~50ft above or below the Layer where return pings get scattered and bounced off the Layer, scrambling your Sonar Return for the enemy, of course, this works both ways and makes you effectively blind. However, I have no idea if this is modeled in Sea Power.
Also, with active, remember the ping has to return to you also, so there is a range where the Enemy can hear your ping and get a bearing to fire down, but your sensors can't pick up the return, this is what usually gives up Enemy subs in Cold Waters as they love banging away on Active Sonar.
Excellent video
Con, Sonar - Crazy Ivan!
Great show, I'm very excited about this sim, it might be cheap enough for me to afford as a disabled old man. Thanks for all the info, better than all the movies put together. Keep em coming Supercap we love your show.
Thank you for this class.
Question for Pony, What is your take on the Gotland Class (Swedish Submarin) ?
29:55 shouldn't cavitation also destroy your propeller slowly?
The US and UK p8 posidons dont carry MAD probably for the reasons pony mentioned
In ww2 they had a version which automatically triggered weaponnrelease, the bombs being fired backwards so as to fall at the point of detection rather than the normal bomb descent path.
Holding down the Alt key while dropping sonobuoys, you get a more widely spaced pattern, I think.
thx
As i understand it subs in this era also might have towed arrays that were clip on, so they would have it attached by a tender as they left port. Not sure if they could cut it when underway.
There are also fuel cell powered subs, using Hydrogen. Fairly sure, Germany has some and quite a few others. Pretty sure they are a quieter (no moving parts apart from pumps, certainly less than Diesel) and can stay under water longer.
I think fuel cellls have come a long way since Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle.
I seem to have hear that Germany keeps them mostly for itself and exported Subs are mostly classical Diesel.
One more key difference between a nuke boat and a Diesel boat: Diesels are even more quiet. Even the USN needs a lot of luck to catch western Diesel boats.
Prairie Masker is the worst for hiding surface ships lol
Does Sea Power have anything related to SONUS, or is that out of scope / not relevant / still classified enough that no useful information is available?
44:00 How in the world did you launch a torpedo while the sub was moving at flank speed? Attempting that action should cause serious problems for the launching submarine. Guess it's not modeled in the game yet. I've heard the game launched, but features are still at the beta level. Seeing the flank torp launch reinforces the beta reports. Great episode, BTW. Loved it!
Great stuff guys! I have had better success in the game by laying lines of bouys ahead of the group. I have also had a MAD contact but it was off a faint bouy contact. Flew a pair of helos over, the lead with MAD and the other to drop 46's on the sub.
I hope they introduce the concept of false sonar contacts , like biologicals etc.
I'm no expert by any means, but don't modern diesel subs have AIP systems? Air Independant Propulsion?
The Gotland class has a Sterling engine, and the 212 has a hydrogen fuel cell. And those are 30 years old.
So the electric propulsion system has come a long way since it was just a bunch of acid batteries.
And the HNLMS Zeehond (Dolfijn class in service from 1960 to 1992) was converted into a technology trials demonstrator in 1990, equiped with a closed cycle diesel air-independant propulsion system until 1994.
So even the diesels aren't fully dependant on snorkels anymore.
I'm probably wrong about half of it. But I'm pretty sure diesels have come a long way since WWII. Of course they still pale in comparison to nuclear subs, when it comes to endurance and power output.
I just wanted to let you know they have a new mod for soviets ships that bring them up to 1990s standards .which gets them balanced against ntu American ships
Hopefully there will be pvp for this game eventually
I am amazed by CAPTAS
CAPTAS 4 can detect subs at up to 150 KM.
CAPTAS 2 about 60 KM
CAPTAS 1 around 30-40 KM.
This is from a interview with the maker.
The in game sound - the sonar pings just cut through everything.
What sim is this please Cap ?
“Sea Power” beta is available on Steam
Also, the game name is always written at the end of the video name.
Oh, Sea Power definitely can be enjoyable in player vs player multiplayer, the problem is people don't understand how to develop the proper scenarios for it.
I've played a lot of such scenarios back in early 2000s and it did work just fine.
Just don't expect to be doing a scenario crammed with large CVBG vs CVBG with +100 missiles in the air at the time and all other crap going on at the same time. The game has issues handling that now in single player.
Does a phone battery vibrate your brain?
You couldn’t find Swedish Gotland class subs.
No, but they can't circumnavigate the globe submerged at 30+ kts either.
@@stephennelmes4557 Never meant to have that ability.
More a matter of the task force commander arrogantly dismissing a threat he actually could counter quite effectively. I've worked as part of a carrier screen on many occasions.
Isnt that cute. this "ASW" fella thinks he can sink a submarine. poor fella will never even get close.
First......this still a thing?
Not since 2006. Stop.