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We were helped out by the lack of anything other than our subs and your subs in the ocean. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure our passive sonar buoys would be slightly more effective.
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Jan 17, 2019 03:30
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Realistically, I imagine MAD would be giving plenty of false positives especially in the shallow waters near the coast, and wouldn't be anywhere near as useful, since you can't just drop a torpedo on every sunken wreck that dings the MAD. One of the things that I don't see mentioned in the thread is the torpedo range problem; while many Russian torpedoes are faster than their Japanese counterparts, they have a much smaller engagement envelope. This was a critical issue in our submarine strategy, especially in the loss of the Yasen. I only fired 1 torpedo because I hoped it would scare the SSK off before it got a good solution, at which point iIcould drop RPKs on it from range. I wasn't expecting the enemy to Volley literally every single one of his torps at me, and the torpedo going stupid during the wire break was a drat shame - the Japanese SSK broke all its wires too, but its torpedoes still tracked. In the end, it didn't matter, as the kill was avenged quickly, but it certainly stung for a turn. The Akula's blindness led to us using them in crazy ways - Kashalot surfaced near the end to act as a SAM battery with its small complement of MANPADS, and I had standing orders to use active sonar - unthinkable in real warfare, since you can be detected much more easily than you can detect. However, our testing revealed that such an engagement might actually end in our favor due to the instant targeting solution and the poor quality of the acoustic intercept sensor of the Japanese submarines. Unfortunately (fortunately?), the Bears did such a good job sweeping the sea that we were never close enough for a sub-on-sub engagement that wasn't preempted by RPKs. The one remaining interesting thing is that I was not detected on my last high speed dash with Kashalot, despite the fact that I was traveling at flank speed and came within 15 nmi of Kobold's SSK. While I was too deep to cavitate, the Akula is not at all a quiet boat at that speed. Perhaps it had something to do with the layout of the continental shelf around that area, since I was well over the edge and Kobold was in relatively shallow waters.
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Jan 17, 2019 03:31
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Triggerhappypilot posted:Realistically, I imagine MAD would be giving plenty of false positives especially in the shallow waters near the coast, and wouldn't be anywhere near as useful, since you can't just drop a torpedo on every sunken wreck that dings the MAD. Russian submarine tactics tend towards going active, loud and fast rather than the stealthy approach of the US, but the Bear coverage was solid. I’ve been playing a bunch of hot Barents sea engagements with a akula wolfpack, and it’s a lot different to the US game, partially because it’s depressingly loud and a P3 magnet over 10 knots, but i also suck. Quite the ‘harpoons are poo poo’ demonstration though. I’ve put four of them into a supertanker and it’s limped away.
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Jan 17, 2019 04:32
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Yooper, you legend. What a way to go out!
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Jan 17, 2019 09:13
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habeasdorkus posted:A huge amount of credit goes to FrangibleCover and TheDemon for the Russian strategy. I'd follow those two, happily, in any future engagement. Absolutely same. And thanks again Yooper for running this!
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Jan 17, 2019 22:41
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Thanks Yooper, great job running this.
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Jan 17, 2019 22:56
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I think a Bear shooting down an F-15 about sums things up nicely.
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Jan 17, 2019 22:57
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a bear stomping on an eagle's cockpit, forever
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Jan 18, 2019 00:05
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Yeah the bears were straight up bullshit. RFK should have been literally indistinguishable as close to the seafloor as he was. I mean unless the Russians have mapped magnetic layout of the seafloor. Which is possible since the US has done it, but I'm having a hard time believing that the survey is accurate enough to use like that. But then again I've no idea how sensitive military gear is... but then you run into more noise problems. Either way, it seems like sub's just aren't an option if MAD is being used.
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Jan 18, 2019 11:29
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Hardly bullshit. Uncontested as they were for, what, 16-20 hours, them finding and picking off our subs was only a matter of time. Fear of that (and the Mainstay) was why I ordered the initial attack early on, around turn 10-12. Of course, what I SHOULD have done was be proactive, order everyone to assume the heavy SAMs were 75 mi beasts instead of 175 mi beasts, and push the CAP forward on turn 1. But that's hindsight for you.
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Jan 18, 2019 17:01
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After the first MAD hit I did some digging in regards to the MAD and asked a handful of people. I came up with mixed answers and, in the end, decided to stick with what the system modeled. It seemed to work too well, and had the scenario included bogus MAD signatures, or even better, neutral submarines, this all would have been significantly different. In the future if I do one of these rounds again the subs will all be NOCOMM (so the AI can't share info) and players will have to come to radio depth to either share a hit, and hence direct a Bear, or remain submerged and duke it out. Same with launching RPK's, yah, if that other sub had orders to remain at radio depth he'd be able to fire, otherwise we'll not bring him to depth. At a basic level yah, you can micro-manage unrealistically, but we can do better in that regard next time.
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Jan 18, 2019 17:07
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All said and done, I had a pretty good time. If you wind up running another scenario I'd definitely like to participate.
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Jan 18, 2019 17:13
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Oh, and lest anyone think I'm pulling a German high command and covering my own rear regarding my motivations for the initial attack...Davin Valkri posted:
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Jan 18, 2019 17:16
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Plek posted:Yeah the bears were straight up bullshit. RFK should have been literally indistinguishable as close to the seafloor as he was. I mean unless the Russians have mapped magnetic layout of the seafloor. Which is possible since the US has done it, but I'm having a hard time believing that the survey is accurate enough to use like that. But then again I've no idea how sensitive military gear is... but then you run into more noise problems. Either way, it seems like sub's just aren't an option if MAD is being used. If Japan had been in a position to contest airspace control over their submarines then MAD sweeps would be at the very least disrupted if indeed they didn't have to stop altogether, and it's possible that with sufficient air superiority the P-3s could have used their own MAD and their considerably superior sonobuoys to hunt and kill Russian submarines around Urup. I'm going to do a brief breakdown of the events around RFK's sinking to demonstrate how it happened. This is not a criticism of his captaining, in his place I'd have made exact the same decisions and died exactly the same way. Turn 27 Orders: Radio Free Kobold posted:
Kobold speeds up, quite rightly, to intercept the convoy. He also issues a sensible order to fire Harpoons if he's about to be killed. Turn 27 Resolution: Yooper posted:Russia 27 Yooper posted:Japan 27 Habeas' Akula, travelling at only 5 knots, picks up Kobold passing through his sonar convergence zone at 10 knots and passes the information to all other units using his ansible. A Bear is detached to try to locate Kobold from this information using MAD and takes 20 minutes to get a MAD hit. In this time an RPK was fired by Triggerhappypilot at the uncertainty zone, which landed so far away that Kobold didn't even hear it. Kobold slows to 5 knots and Habeas loses him, and at the same time his sonar performance improves and he gets some IDs on the surface task force. Finally the Bear does get the MAD hit and attempts an engagement, which took another six minutes of active prosecution to drop the fatal torpedo. Had Japanese CAP been present they would have had more than enough time to sweep the Bear from the sky and then Kobold's prosecution would be a case of the blind leading the blind as Habeas and Trigger attempt to work the target using their crappy sonars and noisy submarines. Davin Valkri posted:Oh, and lest anyone think I'm pulling a German high command and covering my own rear regarding my motivations for the initial attack...
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Jan 18, 2019 17:31
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That all matches with my conclusions as well. Naval air patrols are a hard counter to submarines; they inevitably gently caress up a sub and there's nothing a sub can do about it, requiring outside assets (ie friendly air) to shoo them away. This was true back in the moustache war, this was true in the cold war, and CMANO has just demonstrated it's even truer today. If I was doing that again, I'd be much more conservative with my sub and try not to operate outside our radar coverage, and really push for allied air to harass any loitering ASW aircraft.
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Jan 18, 2019 18:11
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I think the biggest problem facing us was the limited air turn around. Our F-15s were basically one shots, so I think everyone was hesitant to waste them chasing off bears.
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Jan 18, 2019 18:41
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I didn't mean to disparage anyone's decisions or imply that success was undeserved. Positioning is important; but the bears effectively mean a hint of sub is a dead sub. And that might be the point, as was said they're kind of a hard counter. I'm actually a little curious about the MAD itself now. Generally that kind of sensor would only resolve a hit close to directly above a target unless working in tandem with another, but it may be a kind of SAR or maybe its picking up the magnetic 'noise' generated by the sub's systems. Which is again kind of what I meant by bullshit - BS the same way those Indian pilots were probably thinking the Chinese late gen fighters were as they basically tore apart India's air force in Yooper's other game.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:17
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Plek posted:I didn't mean to disparage anyone's decisions or imply that success was undeserved. Positioning is important; but the bears effectively mean a hint of sub is a dead sub. And that might be the point, as was said they're kind of a hard counter. I'm actually a little curious about the MAD itself now. Generally that kind of sensor would only resolve a hit close to directly above a target unless working in tandem with another, but it may be a kind of SAR or maybe its picking up the magnetic 'noise' generated by the sub's systems. Which is again kind of what I meant by bullshit - BS the same way those Indian pilots were probably thinking the Chinese late gen fighters were as they basically tore apart India's air force in Yooper's other game. I think this is more down to the balance of forces. Bears can be countered, but not by subs. Different units have different strengths and weaknesses, and they need to be used together for best effect. As an observer who was reading both threads, I thought the Russians integrated their air and naval operations much better than the Japanese. They had a coordinated plan for what they were doing, and used all of their assets towards that end bar some blatant mistakes with their subs early on. They also seemed to be a lot more willing to adapt and change things up depending on what worked and what didn't. The Japanese side, from what I read, was just plowing ahead with their plan and idea of how things would go. I think that's what made the difference more than planes or subs, the Russians were just plain better lead - and still almost lost it because of how vulnerable their objective was.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:22
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Oh yes, the Russians definitely seemed to have a more, uh, measured approach after their initial gun run. It looks like Japan needed to rely on it's navy to really stop the convoy judging by how many of its missiles were intercepted. Torpedos still seem to be civil shipping's bane. I'm kind of surprised there isn't a low flying torpedo drone or something in anyone's arsenal.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:29
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Plek posted:Oh yes, the Russians definitely seemed to have a more, uh, measured approach after their initial gun run. It looks like Japan needed to rely on it's navy to really stop the convoy judging by how many of its missiles were intercepted. Torpedos still seem to be civil shipping's bane. I'm kind of surprised there isn't a low flying torpedo drone or something in anyone's arsenal. Torpedoes are big, heavy, complicated weapons that are hard to arm and use. They're a lot more difficult to use, especially from a drone. The best bet for torpedo-armed drones are submarine drones, not aerial.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:34
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If I may ask why didn't all Japanese boats just immediately point themselves at the destination at turn 1 and go on creep speed?
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Jan 18, 2019 20:47
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I'd add that the way this turned out is somewhat off due to all subs using ansibles to coordinate with aircraft and other subs. In reality, the Vepr would have had to surface and ping its information on RFK to the Bear, which then would have gone hunting. That probably would have taken at least a few more minutes. Likewise, unless THP was coming to antennae depth to get an update, it'd have never even known RFK was so close and thus not taken a shot because he was tooling along at 35 knots. IIRC there was another time where we first spotted a sub from a sub and then used that to direct the Bears. So that's probably part of why the Bears were so fearsome, they were essentially getting real time information from the submarines and thus able to know roughly where to look for the enemy. Likewise, when Aphid was making his mad dash, each sub skipper would have had to decide whether they should fire on him or not without being able to talk over the chance that he was bait.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:50
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aphid_licker posted:If I may ask why didn't all Japanese boats just immediately point themselves at the destination at turn 1 and go on creep speed? I was concerned that had we done so, your subs would have turned things into a stern chase, and since SSNs are faster than SSKs, this would result in our subs getting run down and shot in the baffles. There's also lesser concerns like letting the Yasen have free play to bombard Chitose's runways. EDIT: Also the Bears, but see above for what we should have done about that.
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Jan 18, 2019 21:04
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It's hard not to gamify things, really. As cool as a bunch of distinct sub commanders trying to coordinate with limited info would be, it sounds like it'd be a giant pain for Yooper to handle. I kind of wonder what the expected outcome of this scenario is, or how players are expected to go about it anyway. Cythereal posted:Torpedoes are big, heavy, complicated weapons that are hard to arm and use. They're a lot more difficult to use, especially from a drone. Yeah I'm not really up to par on modern weapon systems knowledge. I had assumed that torpedoes were relatively 'smart' since they had a fairly robust active sensor system and, you know, modern computers but watching them go haywire after their controlling sub was downed in this was interesting.
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Jan 18, 2019 21:10
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I might be at a point where I'd consider trying a nocomm submarine LP scenario now but getting into this we literally didn't know what even. We would've splattered if we had had to navigate an even steeper learning curve. The beer and pretzles difficulty worked. It was so absurdly close in the end that you can't really say that the scenario was unbalanced imo.Davin Valkri posted:I was concerned that had we done so, your subs would have turned things into a stern chase, and since SSNs are faster than SSKs, this would result in our subs getting run down and shot in the baffles. There's also lesser concerns like letting the Yasen have free play to bombard Chitose's runways. Okay! Worry over the idea of having to poke my face into the destination approach and somehow locate four stationary invisible SSKs that beat me there was the major driver of my decisionmaking in the second half of the game, that's why I ask.
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Jan 18, 2019 21:17
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I agree entirely that this scenario worked out as close to perfectly as possible, and came right down to the end, but I would love to take part in a more developed scenario where we change things up a bit. There's no real easy way to do it for sub commanders, since it'd suck to only be able to check in on orders every couple turns and not be a regular part of the strategizing with their team, but having civilian and 3rd party traffic plus some more flexibility to do goon-y stunts would be awesome. This was a blast, and what complaints I have are essentially quibbles.
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Jan 18, 2019 21:36
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habeasdorkus posted:I agree entirely that this scenario worked out as close to perfectly as possible, and came right down to the end, but I would love to take part in a more developed scenario where we change things up a bit. There's no real easy way to do it for sub commanders, since it'd suck to only be able to check in on orders every couple turns and not be a regular part of the strategizing with their team, but having civilian and 3rd party traffic plus some more flexibility to do goon-y stunts would be awesome. Agreed on all counts.
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Jan 18, 2019 21:41
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Partly because I was in command of the Japanese surface fleet and they did absolutely nothing, but I felt like they were particularly pointless in this scenario. I'm not sure what else I could have done with them beside let them sit back and hope to make a mad dash to intercept the convoy and not get Granit'd to death like they did. But their Harpoon range isn't stellar and they would have needed to come out into the open eventually to make a shot and they had effectively nothing for fleet defense.
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Jan 18, 2019 22:17
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yeah, the japanese surface fleet is this bad combination of loving slow, defenseless, and starts way out of position. it'd be good if they had a few modern DDGs that started, say, a hundred nm behind the sub cordon. that's well within range of naval helicopters and potentially in range of naval SAMs too, to help with the ASW/anti-ASW side of things.
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Jan 18, 2019 22:44
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Popete posted:Partly because I was in command of the Japanese surface fleet and they did absolutely nothing, but I felt like they were particularly pointless in this scenario. I'm not sure what else I could have done with them beside let them sit back and hope to make a mad dash to intercept the convoy and not get Granit'd to death like they did. But their Harpoon range isn't stellar and they would have needed to come out into the open eventually to make a shot and they had effectively nothing for fleet defense. As I say, if you remove the Oscar and replace it with SSM batteries around the islands you refocus the Japanese SAG as an anti-shipping task force and give it at least a hair of a chance of making it into range of the convoy, or barring that forcing the Russian player to react to it with assets they'd rather not use like the Yasen's missiles or rearmed MiG-29s. In the current scenario the Oscar is purpose designed for killing the Japanese SAG and the only other things it can do are act like a worse Akula or gamily throw missiles into the Eagleswarm to draw out their shots.
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Jan 18, 2019 22:45
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Radio Free Kobold posted:yeah, the japanese surface fleet is this bad combination of loving slow, defenseless, and starts way out of position. it'd be good if they had a few modern DDGs that started, say, a hundred nm behind the sub cordon. that's well within range of naval helicopters and potentially in range of naval SAMs too, to help with the ASW/anti-ASW side of things. Missile tag is a bitch.
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Jan 18, 2019 22:48
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 e: poo poo I meant to add a cherry blossom or something e: there we go aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Jan 19, 2019 |
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Jan 19, 2019 12:51
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For the NOCOMM idea, 3rd side the submarines and ban them from the thread unless they're at radio depth, in which case they can catch up and post until they submerge again. Take their orders by private message / discord, and have the only way to reach them surface requests by ELF (again, private message from the GM on behalf of the team's commander). Side commanders would have to track positions by whatever the sub guys said their intent was last time they were in communication. That itself could be an interesting goon game, maybe for a different scenario.
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Jan 20, 2019 20:18
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TheDemon posted:For the NOCOMM idea, 3rd side the submarines and ban them from the thread unless they're at radio depth, in which case they can catch up and post until they submerge again. Take their orders by private message / discord, and have the only way to reach them surface requests by ELF (again, private message from the GM on behalf of the team's commander). I think that's a good way of doing it, but I agree with Aphid that for this scenario where our submariners were mostly stumbling around in the dark the ansibles were the right decision. Additionally this scenario relies very heavily on submarines from both sides, they're Japan's best shot of stopping the convoy and Russia's best shot of stopping Japanese subs, so having them semi-cut off isn't necessarily the best idea. I think something more like one of the myriad North Cape scenarios where both sides get only a couple of submarines that are mostly secondary to the Airsea battle would be a better test for something like this. Having said that, I think this scenario also showed that surface operations in CMANO aren't very interesting on the timescales we play so maybe North Cape wouldn't be so great.
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Jan 20, 2019 23:01
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aphid_licker posted:
 
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Jan 20, 2019 23:28
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TheDemon posted:For the NOCOMM idea, 3rd side the submarines and ban them from the thread unless they're at radio depth, in which case they can catch up and post until they submerge again. Take their orders by private message / discord, and have the only way to reach them surface requests by ELF (again, private message from the GM on behalf of the team's commander). That's a very large amount of extra workload. I'm running an LP where I have a side that received individual, PM/Discord updates, and what you're doing amounts to preparing entire whole extra updates. This slows your update pace by a lot.
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Jan 21, 2019 00:59
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Tevery Best posted:That's a very large amount of extra workload. I'm running an LP where I have a side that received individual, PM/Discord updates, and what you're doing amounts to preparing entire whole extra updates. This slows your update pace by a lot. For a unit or two it'd be ok, but I agree, for much more than that it'd become a huge pain in the rear end. There is a way to export-import a mission using Lua, so it's possible you could share a snapshot of a scenario (sans hostiles) and let the players create there own missions, and load it back in. Great for things like patrol missions, probably not so great with pathing instructions. That could be done with lua, but requires a whole different level of skill.
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Jan 21, 2019 01:50
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The other way of doing it, I suppose, is to have one player act as Submarine Commander who gives orders to all of the nocomm submarines and also gives them times/orders on when to surface and report. They then wait and hope and I guess can maybe send out ELF signals requesting that subs come to the surface and receive orders. The role itself might end up feeling a bit helpless for the player but from a GM's perspective it's much easier to run and it allows some level of combined arms coordination because the sub player can actually talk to everyone else in the interludes between submarines reporting in.
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Jan 21, 2019 02:43
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