[hachiman]

I can just about make sense of 1 think making broadband noise on the FFG's Sonar.
But how do you make sense of multiple targets .
How long does it take you on average to sort out the bad guy from the good amidst all this?

[Molon Labe]

[Kapitan]

*walks back out the door*

[LuftWolf]

whiz wheel=???

Yeah, the FFG TA is hard... real hard. :hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

That and the FFG TMA are the only two stations I have yet to make a serious effort at trying to conquer.

[Wildcat]

This thread is very old, but I am going to start creating a tutorial for usage of the TA and sonar stations on the FFG. I'm of the opinion that the TA on the FFG is nearly as good as those on the subs and in conjunction with a helicopter the FFG is a far better ASW platform overall than another sub.

In general, you want to take a look up and down that list of contacts. In the FFG, it automatically places contacts detected into that queing list. This saves you a lot of work.

The first contacts you want to look at are contacts with low SNR's. Low snr's obviously mean the signal strength is low, but it also means that the contact may be very far, or it may be very silent. Submarines tend to always be very low SNR contacts unless you're right on top of them or they're cavitating like crazy.

So let's say you get a contact with an SNR of 32. You check it out on the broadband waterfall. Now look at the whizwheel to see which beam is receiving the contact, or look at the contact list above the whizwheel to see what beam the contact is on. Now go to the LOFAR search page and select the corresponding beam, and set the time scale history to short. Now click the single beam button and take a look at the contact.

It's very common for a contact to be lost in a mess of other contacts in the single beam page. If you're lucky, you'll get a clean picture of all the frequency lines being generated by your contact and you'll be able to determine whether it's friend or foe.

More likely though is that the contact will be in a midst of other crud and you will need to maneuver in order to get a better idea of what it is.

So for example, if an enemy Oscar SSGN is 2km directly behind a trawler, but following the same course, you will need to maneuver at either 45 or 90 degrees off your target's course so you can get a clearer picture of where he is and also what he is.

If your target is directly underneath another vessel you're going do a few things a little differently. You still need to open up the angle so you can find out where he is, but you're probably not going to be able to determine if he's a submarine or not.

The next thing you need to do is take a look at this chart and compare the frequency lines you're looking at to see if it's actually a submarine.
http://www.orionwarrior.com/oneshot/SonarProfiles.pdf

Generally if you're in the FFG, interesting frequencies would be 50hz, 320hz and 340hz. I recommend setting those frequencies on your frequency alerts in the sonobuouy grams station.

Finally, you will want to determine whether the contact is to port or starboard. In some cases it is plainly obvious and you should use common sense. If your contact on the map screen is floating somewhere on a landmass that's obviously not the right one. In other cases you'll need to make a 20 or 30 degree turn and watch the contact to see if it moves. The one that doesn't move is the real contact. But the tutorial videos that come with Dangerous Waters explain this part better.

And there you have it.. You should have identified whether you're looking at something innocent or something sinister. It looks like a lot of work but once you get the hang of it, it takes less than 25 seconds to identify most contacts once you've gotten an uncluttered sonar reading on them. Some contacts are cluttered so heavily that it will take longer, but that's just the name of the game.

Don't forget the other tools in your arsenal. If your helicopter is airborne, send him out to investigate (but not too close if you're playing multiplayer..). With LWAMI 3.02 and patch 1.03 your helo will use dipping sonar if you set a waypoint for the helo and then just leave it there. It'll hover at 45 feet and 0 knots, you won't see the dipping sonar but it's using it, trust me.

Finally you can use active sonar to take a clearer picture. What I recommend is using the single beam active sonar on the bearing of your contact. This makes it much easier to determine the contact's exact position, rather than trying to blindly find it as you would be in omni rotational active mode.

Before I end this post, I should mention that in the LOFAR search page, each beam window will display a number to a corresponding frequency line. This can help you sort frequencies out if it is cluttered somewhat, but if it's REALLY busy in there you will still need to increase the angle between you and your target to get a good idea of the frequency.

Remember, when playing multiplayer, don't let submarine captains try to mess with you. Your detection range is much larger than most of those subbies think. Bubbleheads may think they're safe under a layer but you can get your towed array under the layer in a few minutes flat. Additionally you can make yourself nearly indetectable to a sub by slowing to 1/3rd engine speed or less. Add emcon to that and you may as well be a hole in the water.

In deep water conditions in an average sea state you can detect a sub with your TA out to about 15miles away. If the sub is trying to be very silent you may not hear him until within 10 miles. But you definately can hear them. If your helo is in the air you have an even bigger advantage, there is no real excuse for being sunk by a submarine if you have a helicopter out and about flying around. It's much faster than a sub and you can detect almost anything within a circle of 25miles very easily with your helo flying around dipping the sonar.

In shallow water conditions your detection range decreases and you will need to rely on all your sensors and linkages. Keep your helicopter in closer and just make sure you keep yourself safe within a 15mile circle.

Hope this helps a little bit.

[Phullbrick]

Very good post and as a frigate player I strongly agree with what Wildcat said.

Regarding the frigate discretion it is true that moving 1/3 is a good way to remain undetected from sub

If you want to check it by yourself and if you have 2 pc, the simplest way is to create a mp mission with a sub and a frigate and get in them with each pc and see the results

The main issue when it comes to a MP game is to stay undetected. Shut down your radar, lower your speed. Don't give a chance to an Akula to show you it can easily surpass your anti-missile defence

And if you get a tracking on the TA, quickly use your helo to triangulate the sub, you can do it quicker than its TMA will allow him to locate you

If you feel you have a good idea of his position, don't be afraid to use the active sonar to get the final information and as soon as possible ask your helo to fire at the sub while you can turn away quickly from a counter attack

[hachiman]