Sonar devices for AE

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el cid again
Posts: 16980
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:40 pm

Sonar devices for AE

Post by el cid again »

I am not yet done implementing electronic warfare and radar equipment, and new maneuverability ratings for ships and submarines, and insuring that multiple AAA devices have replaced the original system (whichrates a twin, triple, quad or even octal mount as a simple multiple of a single mount in hit probability - whenthat is never true).  [Separate aimed single mounts each have someone else aiming them.  As well, they have a different rate of elevation and traverse than a multiple mount does. Both factors make a single gun in a multiple mount less likely to be on target than a stand alone mount is.  The multiple mount, however, does throw more shells down range - and dispersal means there is a slightly better chance some of them will hit when aim is not perfect - which indeed is most of the time.  RHS multiple mounts use the function of effect times the square root of the number of tubes in the mounting to crudely simulate these effects.] 

WHEN this total review of ship classes is finished, I propose to introduce sonar devices.I have some exposure to sonar and sonar simulation.  I got bogged down in too much detail:  there is no sonar in AE or its ancestor games.  I could not do the kind of detail sim I want.  But working on countermeasures (which, shockingly, I found was introduced in stock - for aircraft at least) - I figured out we CAN crudely simulate sonar.First - the device function to use is surface search radar.  It will detect either a submarine or a surface ship, and sonar really does that.Second - the device must be omnidirectional. Although both hydrophones and active sonars are set up to determine bearing, they can do that on any bearing.  Third - we have to work with three parameters.  Range - which is always low - accuracy - which is low to moderate, but never high - and dud rate.  This is a feature I introduced to deal with prototype radars that fail a lot, and with ECM which fails when the enemy isn't cooperatively transmitting.  Sonar has a similar problem - particularly passive hydrophones:  if you don't move, they can't hear the noise you are not making. So a hydrophone has a high dud rate.  We can model the statistical averages well - just not the details of how these things work in any ordinary sense of simulation.  We just have to be content that a patrol boat with a hydrophone is better off than one without one - slightly.Hard code makes ASW more effective according to type of ship. DE is the most effective.  DD is second most effective.  Maybe the third category is "everything else."  [There is a theory there is a third category below DD, above everything else.  Difficult to prove by testing.]  I attribute this difference to TRAINING and PRACTICE - a DE SHOULD BE better - given equal equipment.  So no need to worry about how giving sonar to ships will contradict this hard code.  They are complimentary ideas.
Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

RE: Sonar devices for AE

Post by Dili »

I have sonar in my Med mod- still not testable- but it is just DC/ASW with better odds. But hydrophones were already in WW1, what changed the odds in WW2 was active sonar not passive sonar. Standing still didn't helped much unless bottom echos, whales or salinity got in way.
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