[wombat778]

Hi all,

Now that DW has hit beta, I was wondering if a little niggle from SC has been fixed...

In SC, the player can see the location on the map of all ownship launced weapons, with or without "show truth" on. This cannot be realistic. You can get launched weapons to disappear from the map, but only by filtering out ALL allied units from the map. The other problem with this approach is that when using the 688, you must click on the torpedo on the map in order to wire guide it, which you cannot do if its location is invisible.

If this has not already been fixed in DW, my suggestion for a very simple fix would be to add an option, which when enabled, would make ownship launched weapons disappear on the map UNLESS the torpedo was still on the wire. I would guess that such an option would be a very simple code change, and would add a whole new level of challenge and realism to the sim.

Just a thought...

-Wombat778

[Looney11]

Well, most modern warships are very capable of tracking missles, even high speed ones. Take the new Netherlands frigate, its SMART-L (Signaals MultibeAm Radar for Targetting) was upgraded with bird filters for months, each time they switched it on, the radar would still see birds as a target and assign a track to every single one of them. It tracks a tennisball towed by an aircraft to almost 60nm......... go figure....

It took them some time to get the "bug" out

However, even in EMCON restricted, warships are able to deadreckon the position of their weapons, though not highly accurate, a missle flies in a direction with a set speed, making it quite possible to track it using deadreckoning. Torpedos, on the other hand, usually get a nice box on your CiC screen which lets you know that in that area a torpedo in active and when it expires, it doesn't show where it is since it finds its own way...

[wombat778]

Good call. I wasnt precise enough. I was really only thinking about the implications to the submarine side of DW.

But, presumably even if the missiles don't automatically show up on the map, one could still use the radar to track them just like an enemy missile. At least I have had success in SC using the sonar and TMA to track my own torpedoes manually when I have allied units filtered. I guess what I meant was not that ownship weapons are "invisible", but rather that they wouldnt appear on the map automatically without being properly detected and tracked...

-Wombat778

[Looney11]

Just one question, why do you wish to not see your weapons on the map? I can hardly imagine they clutter up the map so bad unless you've got your whole arsenal in the water/flying around you?

I for one, always wish to see where my missiles are, so that should they miss, i can launch another salvo or bring my next layer to bear on the threat.

[wombat778]

Nothing to do with clutter. It is my understanding, at least when in a submarine, that you will not know the location of your torpedoes. I think that in real life, you would need to listen for pings/explosions/sounds of the dying sub before you know that your torp successfully tracked and hit the target. In the game, you can just look at the map to see if the torp is tracking.

As you say, in the game you can just look at the map to figure out if you need to launch another salvo of missiles. In real life, you would presumably have to use your sonar or periscope to figure it out. By getting rid of the automatic weapons icons on the map, you would have to work it out realistically.

I am a realism nut, so I want the challenge

-Wombat778

[Molon Labe]

I think it would make sense to leave an automatic dead reckon of the weapon track after it leaves, otherwise not show the track on the map...unless it's a torp on the wire or there is another valid means of tracking it (e.g. E-2 datalink to the FFG).

I had issues with this in SC, especially when rocket-dropped torpedoes had their exact locations shown automatically on the map--indicating which torps had acquired the target, and helping to revise the TMA solution. It would be better if there was just a mark put on the map where the torp should have entered the water. For non-wire guided torps there should simply be a dead-reckon track. We could do that ourselves, but it's just busy work that the crew (computer) can/should handle for us while we work the sonar and TMA.