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theobviousgcashman@theobviousindiana.edu (Geoff Cashman) writes:
> In article <F9vrd.6803$1z5.4361@trnddc06>,
> Bungholio <empire_bungholioNOSAPM@verizon.net> wrote:
>>I never heard that argument. Oh, wait, let me guess... too much
>>micromanagement? LOL!
>
>
>
> Surprisingly, no
There's a number of things wrong with
> subs. Much of what's wrong has been wrong for a long time.
Realism arguments follow.
Wargames have to balance realism and playability. `Unrealistic' may
be bad, but `not fun' is deadly.
> o Passive sonar is a farce in submarines in Empire.
> Passive sonar is the dominant sensor onboard subs.
> It outranges any other sensor by a significant amount.
> Yet, the amount of data from passive sonars on subs in
> Empire is postively paltry. See RFE 858272.
Same for sonar on surface ships, of course.
> o In Empire, subs exist either on the surface, or submerged.
> There's no accounting for differences in near shore (littoral)
> conditions and blue water (deep ocean) conditions. Subs near
> shore have signficantly degraded passive and active sonar
> performance. Also, in the littorals there's a different set
> of detection probabilities (some lower, some higher). In Empire,
> water is water...and has infinite depth the moment you stick your
> big toe in the water off the beach.
Empire needs to simplify. But less simplistic simplifications are
conceivable. We could define the littorals as sea sectors next to
land, then define rules for the littorals.
The code needs some serious reengineering to make such rule extensions
relatively painless.
> o Mobility is required for subs to torp, but no mob is required
> for ships to fire. I think this is inconsistent. Subs are
> already limited in the number of torps they can fire due to
> limited magazines of shells.
Doesn't make much sense, in particular when you compare torpedo (uses
mobility) to depth charge (doesn't). Maybe it's for game balance.
There's one way to find out: run games.
> o Detection chances against subs are terrifying. A single DD
> can cause havoc. This doesn't track with reality, and affects
> playability. Subs are a pain in the ass in the real world.
> They are very effective for denying sea control. It takes an
> asymmetric amount of force to combat submarines. In Empire,
> this really isn't the case. Result; subs aren't very good at
> denying control of the seas.
In my experience, ASW takes an asymmetric effort, but in player time,
not materiel.
Empire's sub detection is unrealistic, but playable (except for
detection by aerial sub interdiction; see below).
Empire subs are not very good at cutting sea communications. Ships
can often run harbor to harbor, and interdiction is almost worthless.
> o ASW planes on interdiction gladly run off to where a sub
> is moving within its range and will attempt to detect the
> sub once it gets to the sub's operating sector. This is a
> free, 100% detection. If I'm online, and have some assets
> available, that sub is dead, even if the ASW plane did not
> officially detect the sub, it told me exactly where that sub
> is. This greatly reduces the effectiveness of submarines. In
> essence, so long as you have ASW planes on interdiction and
> a few assets to prosecute contacts, subs are powerless within
> the umbrella of your ASW planes. This is silly.
Current aerial sub interdiction is plain evil. Disabling it improves
the game.
> o Subs are relatively fragile things, especially when submerged.
> You've got a ship that sinks *on purpose*. It's a delicate
> enough thing to keep it submerged and stable, much less take
> significant damage and not have horrible things happen. Surface
> ships are inherently boyant. You've got to poke enough holes in
> them to allow enough water in to sink them, which can take a
> lot of work. Subs on the other hand, have essentially zero
> reserve buoyancy when they are submerged. Yet, in Empire, a
> sub can go all the way down to 20% efficiency and happily
> submerge and surface at will. I personally think that subs in
> Empire should be forced to the surface if their efficiency
> drops below say 80%. We don't allow planes to contribute to
> some missions when they're below 40%. We shouldn't allow subs
> to operate normally when they're at 20% efficiency. Submarines
> usually have 7-10 watertight compartments. Vent one, and you
> might be ok...might. Vent two, you're in serious trouble. Vent
> anything, and you'd better be thinking about getting to the
> surface. With surface ships, there are literally dozens of
> watertight compartments. There's so much reserve buoyancy that
> venting several of them doesn't cause the ship to sink. Also,
> a surface ship has a decent chance of remaining operational
> after having one or more compartments vented. Not so with a
> submarine. Vent one, and it's operationally killed. Compare
> what happened to KURSK as opposed to what happened to PRINCETON:
>
>
> In 2000, KURSK suffered the explosions of two of her 650mm torps.
> She sank rapidly, and eventually all hands were lots. In 1991, while
> operating as Anti Air Warface on scene commander for a flotilla of
> ships including a number of minesweepers, PRINCETON suffered two
> mine blasts, one direct contact and the other nearby via sympathetic
> explosion. PRINCETON suffered severe deck buckling, cracked
> superstructure, fires and flooding. Yet, within two hours she
> resumed her duties as local Anti-Air Warfare commander until
> relieved by VALLEY FORGE 30 hours later.
>
> For one measure of comparison of the ships; PRINCETON displaces
> approx 10,000 tons fully loaded. KURSK displaced approx 19,400
> tons...a ship nearly twice the size. The respective ships suffered
> drmatically different events, but the outcome of the damage to each
> ship and their relative capability after the fact is telling. KURSK
> died. PRINCETON was still mission capable and went home for repairs.
>
> In Empire, a submerged sub with in essense 8 of 10 compartments vented
> to the sea can limp home, and isn't forced to surface.
>
> o The above treads into the area of determining whether a sub is
> on the surface or not. A diesel electric (DE) sub operates primarily
> on the surface. In Empire, DE subs act as always submerged just the
> same as nuke attack boats (SSNs) do. I think we need to model
> submerged/surfaced in Empire better. This is something that would
> add to micromanagement unfortunately. If a DE sub is submerged, it
> should use more mobility than when surfaced per sector moved through.
> For an SSN, it's the other way around. They're more efficient when
> submerged. If a sub is surfaced, it's chance of being detected is
> far greater, say on the scale of a PT boat, and the type of sensors
> that can detect it are greater (radar). When submerged, detection is
> harder, with only sonar (passive and active) available. To model this,
> we'd need a state command of some kind. One command rather than two
> would be preferred, like:
> [35:640] Command : sub 546 surface
> sb submarine (#546) now surfaced
>
> [35:639] Command : sub 546 submerge
> sb submarine (#546) now submerged
>
> [35:638] Command : sub 546 query
> sb submarine (#546) is submerged
>
> [35:638] Command : nav 546
> sb submarine (#546) is submerged. Mob use is greater.
> Flagship is sb submarine (#546)
>
> Also, expanding on the previous point:
> [35:638] Command : sub 762 submerge
> sb submarine (#762) is too damaged to dive (80% required).
At low tech, there's another parameter: day vs. night.
WW2 active sonar couldn't detect surfaced subs. Lookouts had a hard
time spotting surfaced subs at night. Submerged subs were too slow to
reach attack positions (except for the latest German designs, which
never reached the front), and had a hard time finding anything.
Consequently, u-boats attacked mostly on the surface and at night.
The key question is how to balance realism and playability. I
seriously doubt manual surface/submerge control would be playable. I
figure we better simplify.
> o In a similar vein, DE subs that have been submerged for some specified
> # of ETUs should be forced to surface for a small # of ETUs, then
> dive again. This would be automatic, and wouldn't add micromanagement,
> but might be a pain to code. DE subs in the real world are powerful
> things, but SSNs are an order of magnitude more potent because they
> are *true* submarines. DE subs can not operate like SSNs, but Empire
> models them as if they were SSNs. I'd suggest that for every 60
> ETUs a DE is submerged, it needs to spend 2 ETUs on the surface.
> Using the above command:
> [35:640] Command : sub 546 query
> sb submarine (#546) is submerged. 58 ETUs until it must surface.
>
> [35:640] Command : sub 1076 query
> na nuclear submarine (#1076) is submerged. It does not need to surface.
>
> o There's even more complex problems here as well that would require
> implementation thought; a DE sub doesn't gain mobility when submerged.
> Thus, it has to be on the surface for some specified # of ETUs for it
> to gain mob. This is probably a micromanagement nightmare.
Simplify.
Here's another absurdity: depth charges. Surface shell fire code was
shanghaied for depth charging, and unsurprisingly it doesn't work too
well.
Destroyers can throw depth charges up to the limit of their gun range.
I'd like to see the gadget that can throw 300kg depth charges out to
10nm! To get such a range, you need ASROC, but that's tipped with a
torpedo or maybe a nuclear depth charge.
Now, I have no problem with abstracting all ASW weapons into one and
call it `depth charge'. But that's not what we have. We have depth
charges and sub-torps. In this framework, ASROC should be modelled as
sub-torp, I think.
> In the real world, submarines are very unique. There's no other ship
> like them. Their operating requirements and abilities are dramatically
> different than other ship types. In Empire, submarines are merely ships
> that have a lesser detection chance.
>
> -Geoff
> aka Mithrilien
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