Let's Sail the Dangerous Waters! (Completed)

Hello internet friends.

Index:
Part 1: Boat Picture Taking Simulator
Part 2: I learnded Sumthing!
Part 3: Exit the Dragon
Part 4: Putin Strikes Back
Part 5: Putin versus Red October 2.0
Part 6: China Cannot Into Submarines
Part 7: FFG Is For Fucking Failure, Goddamnit
Part 8: More like Kim DONG Il
Part 9: GET TO THE CHOPPA (bet no one saw that coming)
Part 10: The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner...



Dangerous Waters is fucking amazing. It's described by Sonalysts, the developers, as a Tactical Antisubmarine Warfare Simulator. That's a pretty easy sell to me, since I enjoy all four of those words. It features the extremely detailed and high fidelity simulation of many stations and aspects of not ONLY various submarines, but also a frigate, helicopter and airplane. Now, I don't believe it doubles as a proper flight sim, and I'm fairly certain you don't control the aircraft with a joystick but instead sort of tell it where to go. The focus is more on the technical aspects of the detection and destruction of enemy submarines. And probably surface vessels as well. Still, you've got to admit, that's pretty damn impressive.

Still, none of that is the reason I was motivated to go out and buy the game, nor the reason I'm bothering to create this LP. I've known about it for some time. Sonalysts are the same dudes that made Jane's 688, so they've been around for a while. I was only motivated to buy and LP it a few days ago when I stumbled across a review.

http://www.subsim.com/ssr/dangerous_waters/dangwater_review_page1.htm

I realize most of you won't bother reading that, so allow me to quote the most relevant passage.

Whoever Wrote the Review said:

The campaign also features “shifting alliances,” meaning that the intentions of a faction may change as a result of your actions. When playing the game, I loved the dynamic alliances aspect, as it gave the campaign a strong sense of story. It felt more than just a hypothetical political scenario, since I knew that my decisions would affect my personal stakes later in the game. By the middle of the campaign, all of your previous decisions come full circle as the U.S. and two Russian factions bring their forces together for battle. The question of who sides with whom is decided by the player’s previous actions.

Previous games about modern warfare typically involved a concocted hypothetical scenario to give an excuse for the U.S. and Russia to go to war. Units declared as enemies were nothing more than hostile AI for me to destroy. This simplicity is gone with Dangerous Waters…player decisions now have political consequences! There were times I did not return fire against a hostile target because it was a political decision I was not ready to make. How's that for a realistic simulation.

Click to expand...

CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES, BITCH. Just wait now. Some proponent of Dwellerist ideology will be along to tell us that Dangerous Waters is the best RPG to hit the Codex in years.

But seriously, I'm usually a WW2 kind of guy, but having read that review, suddenly the prospect of commanding a Cold War nuke sub during some high tension political situations was completely irresistible and I bought it immediately. Featuring continuity and allowing player choice and performance to affect that continuity makes it ideal, in my opinion, for a LP. So here we are. But there's one problem...

Remember that hardcore simulationism I was talking about? Yeah, well, the manual is 558 pages long and I've just bought the game. Learning all there is to learn is going to take a long ass time, and it's not feasible for me to do so in a timely fashion, and I want to get the LP underway now. Furthermore, even if I was completely proficient in all of the ins and outs of the game, documenting my every use of the sonar for instance would be the height of tedium. While it would be interesting to show just how detailed the game is, it would take a great deal of screenshots and explanation for every single action, which would more than likely bore the average reader and would CERTAINLY take an unbelievable amount of time. These factors, when combined with the fact that the main reason for this LP is to prove that sub sims are in fact role-playing games, have lead me to use Autocrew for most functions. This simply means that AI will perform the menial tasks, such as sonar. To be honest, in the case of sonar, I may leave that autocrewed even after I learn the game. In any event, this will allow me to function more like the Captain, increasing IMMERSION by at least 200%. However, I do hope to have learned Target Motion Analysis by the time we have to shoot something, so I can at least be responsible for the killing of people.

Dangerous Waters also features the ability to switch between the various factions mission to mission. One does not simply start a Russian loyalist campaign, for instance. Every mission you choose what part you play in it. Sometimes this can even mean selecting different vehicles. During the same operation, you may be commanding a sub, or an aircraft, depending on what you did initially. I'll probably keep this LP confined to submarines, since I have enough to learn as it is and don't wish to burden myself further. Anyway, since you can change sides at will, if this gets anything resembling a following I'll probably allow votes to determine what side to play.

But to get things rolling, I went ahead and did an update. Last LP I made was done so as Communist scum. So we're going to be from God's favorite country. No, not Israel you fucking Zionist conspirators.



Part 1: Boat Picture Taking Simulator



The situation to date and our orders. These Russian rebels may have nukes and death gas. But they've yet to make any announcements regarding their political intentions. Worrying. Anyway, our mission seems fairly tame. Just need to go to a harbor, identify enemy warships and possibly any merchant shipping, and leave without being detected. We'll be using a 688.



This is the map screen. The one we'll be looking at most of the time. The upper right shows whatever object you have clicked on in the map screen. Currently, it's us. The line on the map leads to a yellow mark, indicating a sonar contact. Note that the sonar contact is placed on land. That's just my sonarman being fucking retarded. See, on initial detection, we have no idea what it's range is, so the contact is just put on the map seemingly at a random range. The boat isn't actually on land. Also note that unfortunately there isn't a huge ass map to sail around on. I probably would have preferred the Silent Hunter approach, that allows you to set sail from your home, do what you need to do, and return. Admittedly, this is not strictly necessary for the sort of game Dangerous Waters is, but it'd have been nice.



Sonar guy gets another contact, and a female voice tells me there's an objective completed. Scratching my head, I look at the Mission Status screen. Apparently, those two contacts are subs, and they're considered to be "detected" even though they're not actually identified, so objective complete. Shit's practically playing itself. It's like I'm really playing Brink!!!



Many more contacts detected. I've come up to Periscope depth to start getting some visual contacts so we can begin identifying them and completing the mission. I have no idea what in the fuck those purple lines are. Also, there's no waypoint setting as in Silent Hunter. To look where I'm headed, look at the course number in the lower right. 0 is north, 180 is south. Also note that detected ships also use this bearing system, rather than relative bearings. If we were, for instance, on a course of 90 degrees, and we saw a guy 90 degrees left of us, he wouldn't be considered to be bearing 90 degrees port. It'll list him as bearing 0 degrees. That confused me at first, and while I'm new and shouldn't be so presumptuous, I don't understand why it's done this way. Even the periscope is the same. To look ahead, you put it on the bearing of your course. I liked the relative system better, but maybe thinking like this helps in a calculation somewhere down the line.



That's odd. The contact I have clicked has been identified as a 688. This could mean one of three things: 1. The Russians have a 688! (so unlikely it's not worth considering) 2. There's another sub operating here that we weren't told about in the briefing, or 3. My crew has simply misidentified the target and it's really a Typhoon or Akula or something. 3 strikes me as the most likely, and to be honest it's frightening to know that I can't really rely on the AI to do its job right.



Alright, periscope time. After looking around for a bit, I find a ship not too far away. I hit both the photo and mark button, being somewhat unsure of what it is I need to do precisely to identify these ships and complete the mission. To be safe, I make use of the photo to use this game's completely fucking awesome stadimeter.



After you take a photo, it's sent to the stadimeter. You may then use it to determine it's angle on bow and range. The main advantage here is that, because it's a picture, there's no waves splashing into you, the boat isn't rocking up and down, messing up the lines and confusing you. Anyone that's played a Silent Hunter game will attest to how irritating that can be. Life is so much easier now. In any event, I determine that this ship is a Slava class. So that should be taken care of...I hope.



Oi, what's all this then? Back on the map the crew has identified another sub as a Harushio class. Initially I thought it was Chinese and became suspicious, but then it occurred to me that if it was Chinese it'd probably be named Om Xing Xao Xong or some shit. Harushio sounds more like anime faggotry. A quick google search confirms this. So I've got, supposedly, two friendly subs here that I wasn't told about. What the hell?

I vaguely recall, from the manual or a tutorial, that if you have your radio raised you'll receive any tactical information regarding the whereabouts and identifications of vessels from buddies if you have your radio extended. So I go about doing that. I don't receive any information about the ships, but I DO receive a bunch of messages all at once from HQ. Let's have a look.



The plot thickens....



I seem to recall Imperialist being a common thing for Soviet swine to call the only real country in the world. But since this is a Rebel intercept, it could be referring to the Russian government. The plot thickens some more...



The plot is now thick like clam chowder...



I've got another boat to identify, so I take this opportunity to alt+tab and consult the manual regarding the stadimeter. Apparently, you find range by taking the half of the picture that contains the target ship's highest mast, then dragging it down til the highest mast touches the waterline of the second half of the picture. That is so amazingly easy and handy. I hope to make use of this in the future, situation permitting. I don't think subs stay at periscope depth an awful lot these days.



I also notice a ship very, very close to us. I know we're not detected however, since getting detected means you lose the mission. Finding that out made me sad, because it means you can't COMPLETELY fuck up a mission and continue with the campaign, dealing with the consequences of your complete failure, like in say Hammer and Sickle. That game was hilarious like that. Someone ought to LP it and cause World War 3.



The green things are ships that have been identified. Green means that I've decided it's neutral. The blue thing in the southwest is that supposed 688. I set that to "assumed friendly," but I'm not sure what to believe.



Main objective is still incomplete. It's unclear whether or not I'm supposed to penetrate closer and view the submarine base. I suppose I'll give it a shot.



I as I get ever closer, I notice that I've taken some damage. What? How..oh lord. I wasn't paying attention, and I ran the fucking sub into the ground. It's not deep enough to go through completely submerged. And since I've hit the ground, I'm stuck. I order us up a few feet and give the order to turn around.



...which causes the bridge to poke above the water...



and for me to slam into the ground again, get flooded, and get detected. GAME OVER! Fortunately, I have a save not too long ago.



I'm back here. I decide that, in light of how incredibly shallow it is, it's not intended that I go to view the sub base. I begin to head south, in case I missed a ship or something, when I notice a new contact. I click on it and...it's a fucking torpedo. What? I have no idea who fired it or why. I'm assuming it's not aimed at us. Or maybe my sonarman is a COMPLETE fucktard and it's just another misidentification. I watch the torpedo in completely transfixed, with time acceleration blaring, waiting for it to hit something, when we get detected again. Turns out, I wasn't paying attention and we got waaay too close to a ship. Probably just detected us by looking in the damn water.



So I reload and head the same way, but see no torpedo this time. I do see a friendly aircraft however. I don't even know what he's doing honestly, since we're supposed to be remaining covert. It's pretty fucking obvious there's a US aircraft flying around up there. Anyway, in the beginning, there was an option to play as the aircraft instead of the 688. I'll have to go back and do that sometime.



Anyway, I waste some time trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do to get the mission to end. Eventually, I begin looking at things that are already identified with the periscope and clicking photo and mark. Turns out, mark is the trick. To make the mission end, I simply had to "mark" all of the ships with the periscope, even if my crew had previously identified them.



Since I just wasted so much of my time trying to get the main objective to complete, I wasn't about to bother going after something as ambiguous as Recon - Rebel Surface. Since it's non-critical, I'm able to end the mission. I'll be curious to see if failing to complete that bites me in the ass somehow.

Well, that was a fairly lame and uneventful intro, except for the torpedo that due to me getting detected like a fool, will have to remain a mystery FOR ALL TIME!

http://www.sonalystscombatsims.com/dangerous_waters/campaign.html

That's a more detailed analysis of the situation, and descriptions of the first mission from all points of view. Turns out, the Russian version is roughly 5 billion times more interesting than what we just did. You have to insert a special ops team, identify the ships, and if any of them try to leave the harbor, sink them.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and I took the fucking stupid one.

Hope the next mission involves more explosions so I can analyze important things, like how well the bloom from the fire lights up the water.

I'm really trying to get into this one, but it is not yet working.. maybe some of the following missions. Too bad, I did enjoy 688.

Could you please resize the images? Other than that, the game is quite interesting.

Alexandros said:

Could you please resize the images? Other than that, the game is quite interesting.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I asked about it the first LP I made and nobody said anything, so I just kept them at that size. They are sized down, but not enough apparently. I'll get them as small as I can while maintaining legible text.

So, I've taken a pause in playing the campaign to try to do some tutorials and actually learn how to fucking play. But I suck. Really bad. Target Motion Analysis is really screwing with me. DWARVENFOOD, bro amongst bros, do you have any good, player written tutorials for Sonalysts games? That'd help alot. Especially if they contain pictures and are well written. I've found a few but they're incapable of getting through my consoletard mind.

heh you do like submarine simulations arent you?.IRL I am working on a defense contract for a tactical submarine simulator , and some guys had this game for some references i think, although our simulator simulates only type 209 and type 214 submarines, it does it high fidelity. acoustics are generated on the fly, considering the salinity of sea water in the theater, ground loss,temperature, seabed maps, seabed terrain type etc, enemies use destroyer tactics with fuzzy logic thrown into it,(and even be controlled manually if you like it), vessels have scientific movement models,affected by environment conditions (fog ,currents,rain,sea harshness etc), radar and sonars are also modeled realistically (especially ones on the submarine),there are half a dozen scientists working on it beside the two dozen programmers...

Oh and It requires 6 computers with 24 processors..

I'll send you a CD when it goes gold, tell me when you set up your rig

golgepapaz said:

heh you do like submarine simulations arent you?.IRL I am working on a defense contract for a tactical submarine simulator , and some guys had this game for some references i think, although our simulator simulates only type 209 and type 214 submarines, it does it high fidelity. acoustics are generated on the fly, considering the salinity of sea water in the theater, ground loss,temperature, seabed maps, seabed terrain type etc, enemies use destroyer tactics with fuzzy logic thrown into it,(and even be controlled manually if you like it), vessels have scientific movement models,affected by environment conditions (fog ,currents,rain,sea harshness etc), radar and sonars are also modeled realistically (especially ones on the submarine),there are half a dozen scientists working on it beside the two dozen programmers...

Oh and It requires 6 computers with 24 processors..

I'll send you a CD when it goes gold, tell me when you set up your rig

Click to expand...

I almost came, but stopped because one would surely have you join the military to use that nifty shit. Would it be illegal to do a LP of it? Do iiit

Briefing screenshots are now 1024x768. Any lower and they can't be read. The rest of the screens are 800x600.

Part 2: I learnded Sumthing!



The second mission was very similar to the first one, so although I documented it I've decided to not even bother posting it. Summary: sneaked into another bay, took pictures of harbor, took pictures of boats, sneaked out while getting pinged and remained undetected miraculously. But I will post the briefing and intel updates for the purposes of exposition.



The only mid mission intel update was as follows:

"Subj: Intel Update
Akula class submarine detected vicinity Taipei in international waters. This is an unexpected out of area operation. Significance unknown. Be aware.
BT"

WHAT COULD IT MEAN!? Overall, it was pretty uneventful.



Oh those sneaky Rebels. They're trying to sell munitions to raise money to support their rebellion. Probably has to do with that foreign cooperation hinted at earlier. Sadly, the brief doesn't say that we'll be allowed to destroy the smuggling vessel once it's identified, so more than likely this will once again be periscope picture takin' gaems. But prior to playing this mission I went and read some tutorials and part of the manual, so I learned a few things.



Firstly, the towed sonar array. I had no idea this thing existed. Turns out that it is by far your most sensitive passive sonar, making it invaluable for the detection of submarines in particular. You deploy it by flipping the switch on the middle top of this screen to stream.



And there it is. Slightly hard to see because the screen shot is so scaled down.



You then select the left most button on the submarine in the lower right to use it, or in this case, order the crew to use it since I don't really feel like sitting around listening to the sonar forever at the moment. I'll take over the sonar manually when it comes time to kill something. Also, on the Narrowband Search display, you'll notice how around bearing 270 there's the line sinks. Notice that my course is currently 285. That means the dip is right in front of us. That's because the towed array can't see directly forward. These sonar blind spots are referred to as baffles, and every single one of the arrays has one. If I wanted to search right in front of me I could use the forward array, but it's weaker. To use the towed array, I would have to turn at least 30 degrees and wait for the towed array to turn as well. Also if you turn more than 90 degrees with the array out, it breaks.



Some contacts detected. Here's something that confused me at first. Notice how the contacts to the southwest and northwest form a nice angle when bounced off me? This is because the towed array can't tell precisely what bearing a contact is on. It gives two contacts, one 60 or 90 degrees away. You can determine which is the correct one by either identifying the contact with the bow sonar array, or by changing course. When you change course, the real contact remains on a constant bearing, while the fake one fluctuates.

Anyway, I go to periscope depth to get a better idea of what's going on. First thing I do is raise the ESM array. I love this thing.



ESM stands for Electronic Support Measures. It passively detects radar missions and in so doing gives you the bearing, and often times TYPE of the emitter. The computer identifies the ship automatically, so using this station requires really no thought or effort. Bearing 210, there's a P-3 Orion. That's an airplane. A friendly airplane. That's pretty good news. Here's why.



I raise the radio antenna next. The Orion transmits the location, course, speed and type of all the vessels it sees. That's quite handy. If we had to kill one of them, it'd be as simple as entering the coordinates given to us by the Orion into the solution and firing. Too bad. That one out front appears to be one of the ASW vessels the briefing spoke of. It's still at 40,000 yards and its course is 084. The green marker to the Northwest of the rest of the convoy is also a Nanuchka. The rest are merchants of various sorts. What we're going to do then is continue on our westward course, and once we pass west of the forward ASW boat, we'll turn south and increase speed, which should put us in front of all the merchant vessels.

Also, some news.



China's gettin involved then. We're on mission 3 out of 11 and so far we have absolutely no information regarding the aims of the Russian Rebellion or China. The legitimate Russian government's are pretty obvious: keep the country together.



That's interesting. China's probably in cahoots with one of the Russian factions. But which?!



We've now arrived north of the gap between the first ASW boat and the convoy, so we turn south. I tried to keep in constant contact with the Orion by streaming the radio wire rather than antenna. The antenna will break if you go too fast with it, so you can't keep it up. The wire won't, but when I went even 8 knots apparently it dipped below the water and stopped receiving. It began again when I slowed down. Not a big deal I suppose. The convoy didn't change course or anything.



Alright, we're pretty close now. 7597 yards from the first ship. Should be able to see it easily.





Some maneuvering and periscoping later, objective is complete. I don't even understand why. How would we tell, looking at a ship through a periscope, that it was smuggling something illegal? You'd think that the Orion would've had a better chance of figuring that out, considering it could look DOWN at the ships. Oh well.

Thinking back to the review I quoted in the first post, he did mention that the choices you make come full circle in the MIDDLE of the campaign. So apparently the beginning is just a bunch of meh. Though this was a short and once again uneventful update, it did allow me to painlessly demonstrate a few of the sub's systems so that I won't have to bother later. Also, potentially good news! The next mission is playable from either one of two American subs on slightly different missions, or a Russian sub...owned by the Chinese. I'll post the briefings.



That looks like more of the same, with one odd exception. Item C under Execution orders that any engagements must take place in International Waters. Hm...



American mission #2. Confirm or deny whether or not the Chinese are deploying an aircraft carrier, and detect any subs that may be with it. Sounds like BULLSHIT to me. Unlikely they'd tell us to sink it. Maybe I'll just go rogue and sink it anyway.



Speaking of Chinese carriers. This makes the second mission look more interesting as well. Apparently the slant eyes are worried that their carrier, the Chinluk, may be known to the United States and possibly even attacked. Why, precisely, the USA would bother attacking it at this point is completely beyond me but looking under execution it's noted that any confirmed United States sub may be engaged if it's decided that the Chinluk is in danger, even though it's preferred that a confrontation be avoided.

So vote time then. Which mission to take? If I do #2 and it turns out to be boring I may just sink the carrier and start World War 3. That is, if it lets me sink the carrier and carry on with the campaign. I suppose the question we must ask ourselves is thus:

Eagle vs Dragon - which is better and why?!?!?

DisCUSS!!!!!

Dragon!

Definitely dragon

overtenemy said:

So, I've taken a pause in playing the campaign to try to do some tutorials and actually learn how to fucking play. But I suck. Really bad. Target Motion Analysis is really screwing with me. DWARVENFOOD, bro amongst bros, do you have any good, player written tutorials for Sonalysts games? That'd help alot. Especially if they contain pictures and are well written. I've found a few but they're incapable of getting through my consoletard mind.

Click to expand...

Hey, :broFist: for my bro's , only one I had is one for Jane's 688, pretty well written, you would have known about the towed sonar array for example. Hope it helps in some way. Good to see the LP move ahead, didn;t have time to read it all through yet though.

EDIT:
I have read the rest, and it is inclining. Very interesting scenario! I would opt for the Amerikwans to keep the suspense going longer, but sinking the carrier will probably end the mission as epic fail. Going for Dragon is interesting and I cannot recall any game allowing you to do that, except for C&C Generals.

Situation:
It seems that the Chinese have not yet really picked a side to support yet, as the order says not to engage *any* kind of Russian forces. Hell, they would rather attack the Kwa's if needed. On that note, having foreign sub(s) in striking distance of your new carrier task force is reason for concern in peacetime, now compounded by the highly tense situation. Also consider the N. Koreans recently torpedoing a S.Korean boat with a lot less provocation and an easier diplomatic situation than in this game. Example of Chinese war doctrine and rules of engagement. The Kwans have not yet really sided with and faction but on paper they support the so called loyalists. If China is leaning towards supporting the rebels, such an order (sink Kwa sub if too close to carrier group) makes even more sense.

Post Scriptum:
I am trying to take you up on the challenge of LP'ing Hammer & Sickle. Learing the game a bit, but my own consoletarted mind does not let me return to the times of past where JA was heavan. If you have pointers, feel free. It will be a blind LP since I only have got the game removed from inv for like two days now. Wow this post is as long as all my previous ones put together.

Part 3: Exit the Dragon



So I've been forced to use inferior Communism technology. Submarines powered only by mice on wheels and the spirit of the proletariat. Let's review the orders.



We and a bunch of other boats will be escorting a carrier. Don't shoot Russians EVER. If the carrier is attacked by Americans, shoot back. Pretty simple.



The SET-53ME torpedoes are the standard anti-sub torpedo of the Kilo, the sub I'll be commanding. They're quite shit. Their range is particularly poor. 14 kilometers ain't much in this game. UUV stands for Unnamed Underwater Vehicle. Or maybe Underwater Unmanned Vehicle. Anyway, it has both passive and active sonar and travels around at 4 knots. You can control it remotely. The passive sonar is quite powerful I've noticed, and we'll be needing it because this retard Communist sub doesn't have a towed sonar array. Also, because the UUV can be away from your sub, it helps immensely in triangulating a target when you have said target on your sub's sonar as well. All in all pretty handy. And the TEST-71ME-NK is a much, much better anti-submarine torpedo that can be controlled remotely. It features better range and speed than the 53ME. The reason I only have one is because on this PIECE OF SHIT sub only tubes 5 and 6 can carry UUVs and 71MEs, because they're wire-guided and apparently the other tubes can't handle it.



Broadband sonar picks up a lot of contacts right off the bat, but I figure most of them are probably friendly. Wherever there's a spike in the circle larger than the others is a contact. I'm not going to bother marking them all and doing Target Motion Analysis and trying to identify them all. That'd SERIOUSLY TIME CONSUMING. Instead I'll just raise the radio and get some info.



There we go. The blue circle from which the one sonar contact line emanates is us. The line goes straight through a confirmed friendly, so it's almost certainly him. The circle I have selected in the middle is the carrier. Also, you'll notice they're all going 15 knots. The game only started me off going 7. I assume that I'm supposed to keep up with them, but I mean, going fast in a sub in shallow water is an easy way to get detected. But I guess it'll be okay, figure one of the guys in front will get picked off first. I increase speed to 14 knots. Also, the Kilo, unlike other subs we've used so far is Diesel/Electric rather than nuclear. Its max speed is only 20 knots.



Notice how the rings are now much bigger and farther out. This doesn't mean there's contacts everywhere. It means I'm running too goddamned loud and now it'll be just about impossible for me to actually detect anything. Hope my bros can take care of it.



Time passes, then suddenly the sonarman picks up two explosions bearing 182. What in the fuck? I check really quickly to ensure it wasn't the carrier. It wasn't. Also, torpedoes in the water and explosions are automatically reported, even if you've got sonar on manual, which I do right now. Everything's manual. Off the training wheels.



Turns out it's one of the forward ASW boats thankfully. But how in the hell? This really came out of nowhere. Nowhere in the American mission briefing does it say to engage the carrier. How could this have come about? Was it a Russian rebel? I'm tempted to play the American version to see just how this came about. Anyway, no torpedo was detected prior to the explosion. It could be I was running too loudly to hear it, or it could be a missile was used rather than a torpedo. Anyway, let's fuckin DO THIS!! I slow down to 4 knots for two reasons. First, I don't want anybody hearing me, and second you have to be going that slow to deploy the UUV.



Unfortunately, the UUV breaks for no reason. Herp.



Multiple torpedoes in the water, bearing 140. That means that the Kwan is roughly on that bearing, but I can't get a real fix. More than likely, I'm picking up the torpedoes rather than the sub. Also, the Kilo may be a piece of shit but Communism sonar rules Capitalism sonar. It's just way easier.



Sweating at the torpedoes potentially heading towards the carrier, I get desperate and begin using active sonar. Pinging, if you will. Basically, all those little dots swarm out to fill the screen. If there's an unusually large cluster of them, it's probably a contact. It's nice because it can detect a ship not making any noise, and because it'll give you a range. It's not nice because it will 100% give the enemy your bearing, every time. This means they can easily get a solution on you.



I get a contact! But wait. It's this guy, almost certainly. He's also bearing 130. He's probably about to eat those torpedoes.



Looking in the general area of the torpedo launch, even changing ranges in case he's really far away, bears no fruit. I guess American subs have some kick ass sonar absorbing coating, like the Alberich. I don't think many technical details are available about it, probably for security reasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_tile

So anyway, since I've discovered nothing at all with the active sonar, I've done nothing but give away my exact position a shitload of times for no gain. The Americans probably have a perfect firing solution for me.



One of the surface ships in the back gets hit. My allies haven't discovered the enemy location either. Things are looking grim.



More torpedoes are heard in the water. I made some preemptive course adjustments and launch countermeasures just to be safe. If I were the Americans I'd be gunning for me right about now.



Another one of us down, and we've yet to even get a fix on this cunt.



Or have we?! Looking on the bearing of the most recently fired torpedo, I've finally picked up the American sub. Clicking through the list of possible matches, there's only Los Angeles and Seawolf, so this is definitely the real deal. I decide it's a Los Angeles since the American briefing said as much. Also right around now, I start getting pinged. I doubt the Americans would bother giving themselves away with active sonar, so it's probably a torpedo USING active sonar. The one that was just recently fired. Oh dear.



This takes us to the DEMON screen to determine speed. Uh. I forget the technical details of how the fuck this works exactly. But basically, the lines are the number of...screws...or propellers. Yes. Propellers the ship has. You then have to look up a figure for the target ship called "turns per knot," abbreviated hereafter as TPK. You then position the cursor on the propeller farthest left and enter the appropriate TPK, which in this case is 7, and voila. Speed. Dude's going 4 knots apparently.



But the lines move to the right. Means he's accelerating. I scramble to try to get a solution as the pings from the torpedo become ever more insistent, but then...



NOOOOOOOO



It was difficult to convey effectively, but during that entire encounter I was pretty flustered. It was my first real combat situation in Dangerous Waters, and I was using an inferior piece of shit sub against what turns out to be TWO really good subs. I found it overwhelming to attempt to constantly try to filter out what sonar contacts are worth marking amidst all the friendlies and the torpedoes, then trying to perform Target Motion Analysis with the limited data...it didn't help that the UUV didn't work. All in all I definitely wasn't at my best, and this probably wasn't the best course of action to take for an amateur like me. You can see that in the last few screenshots, despite encroaching disaster in the form of a torpedo I didn't even change course. Very poor performance on my part.

So, the reason I haven't updated for a while is because I've been busy retrying this mission over and over. And over. and overandoverandoverandoverandoverandover. I was going to post pics, but there's an awful lot of them and it'd be a chore. I think I'll just summarize the various changes I made in tactics.

First thing I do is turn automatic sonar back on because I just can't deal with all this bullshit right now. I try to go to max speed to get ahead of the battle ground and use countermeasures and evasive maneuvers after I've provoked the subs into attacking me, sparing the ASW ships and allowing them to engage the enemy. That attempt ended VERY quickly.

Then I attempted to take snapshots on the bearing of a detected torpedo. So if a torpedo was heard on bearing 140, I'd just shoot one over there real quick. No dice. Uneventful and unfunny otherwise. Died.

So THEN, using a successful UUV launch, I got rather basic info of the enemy subs. Not enough for a good solution. But I basically just spammed the water with torpedoes. The intent was not to actually engage and destroy the enemy, but to frighten them into disengaging at least momentarily, so that the carrier group might get to the designated point. It actually worked. They sped up and disengaged. But it wasn't nearly enough. The ASW ships still didn't manage to engage them, and we didn't even get close to the objective area before they came back with a vengeance. The Kilo just doesn't carry that many torpedoes.

After that, after many attempts I started raging hard and using automatic Target Motion Analysis as well. Combined with the UUV and hull sonar, I managed to get a few solutions that I expect were reasonably accurate. But it didn't matter because Communism torpedoes are untersee propelled pieces of SHIT. They go only 29 knots and only 14 kilometers. I forget how fast a 688 goes exactly, buy a Seawolf has a top speed of 40 knots. Think about it. An American sub can flatly OUTRUN the Chinese main ASW torpedo. the 71ME goes 40 knots, but still only 19 kilometers. All the Americans have to do is survive long enough to get out of range, which isn't difficult with torpedoes this slow. All of this isn't even factoring in countermeasures, which I've found to be quite effective as a rule.

So then I changed my torpedoes over to 55KEs, which are a "wake homing" torpedo, for which exists no countermeasure. They also go 55 knots. Problem is, they're designed to be shot against surface ships. Again, no luck. Remember, our Sub only goes 20 knots max, and going that fast means we can't get updates on the bearing of the enemy because our sonar won't detect them, and it fucking screams "HEY KILL ME PLOX." And even THEN we wouldn't be able to keep up. To compare, the United States' main torpedo goes 55 knots and 50 kilometers. lolwat? How to compete? In summary, the Americans are faster, quieter, and shoot farther. The combination of faster and shoot farther alone pretty much makes this insanely difficult, but everything added up is just...GOD THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS FUCKING AMAZING PROVE ME WRONG

For those of you with consolitis, here's the TL:DR version:









Yeah, even if I survived, the carrier would go down, so what the hell? I GIVE UP

I'm defecting to a REAL country.



Notice how it says DO NOT ENGAGE? What the hell happened? God.



The Mark 48 is the torpedo I was talking about earlier. Wire guided, 55 knots, 50 kilometers. Pure win. The UUV is covered already. The Harpoons are relatively small payload, but low flying missiles intended to destroy smaller surface vessels. I know I'll be fighting surface vessels so I bring a few.



These are Tomahawk cruise missiles. They're higher payload than Harpoons, but are more likely to be intercepted. They're launched out of tubes on the top of the sub. They come in two versions - land attack, and boat attack. Guess which one we have.



As soon as the scenario loads, it says I'm counterdetected. Well, that's lovely. Not sure if it was a bug or not. Anyway, it doesn't cause me to fail the mission, so whatever.



The contacts to the north are the real ones. The ones to the West are mirror images from the towed array. This is easily confirmed because the ones to the north are also on the other sonar arrays.



ESM also confirms, and identifies a few ships.



Explosion bearing 041. Apparently my trigger happy buddy has taken out a ship. Nothing is said about it over the radio, and we still have no orders to engage. I don't get it. Also, the reason I can see all this dead shit is because I have "show dead shit" on. It's unrealistic, but it makes for nice screenshots.



Anyway, I drift a little closer and get visual on the battlegroup.



There's the big bitch.



We get a radio message confirming mission is accomplished. We can quit any time now. The briefing did mention something about reporting any Russian contacts however, and I do happen to know there's a Russian sub in the vicinity from earlier games as China. I really don't know what he's doing here though, to be honest. Saw him shoot a missile at the Kwans one time though.



Anyway, because my buddy feels the need to blow up some slant eyes, I see no reason I shouldn't follow suit. I perform TARGET MOTION ANALYSIS on the carrier with somewhat limited updates. But I do know his approximate range from using the stadimeter, and I know his speed because I was playing as the Chinese before. So it's not hard to work out.



GET SOME

That was a Tomahawk. Unfortunately, it gets shot down. Also, radio update.





At least, I don't THINK I hit the carrier. Must've been the other sub. I re-engage with both Harpoons.



One gets shot down and the other flies past the carrier without locking. This is my fault. I had fire control set to manual, and I should have set the distance to homing activation to a much closer range, considering how close the carrier was. As a result, the carrier was missed and the Harpoon flew past it, locking onto some other ship and hitting it. I didn't get a screenshot because I wasn't expecting it. But as soon as I nail the fucking thing, I get...



Just, god, WHY?!? WHY!!!! It's okay for Kwans to kill Chinks when I'm a Chink but as soon as I'm a Kwan shit's forbidden. Only it's not because I know damn well the other 688 took out that ASW ship. OR DID IT? DID THE PLOT THICKEN? God I don't know. I'm confused. I'm almost thinking it's a bug. I end the mission.



But even though it said I can't complete it, I'm allowed to progress to the next mission. Was attacking the Chinese CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES? Will it be reflected? Or was it just a bug? Should I continue? I don't know. I'll post the briefings.



Wow, that's pretty hardcore. Playing as a Loyalist Russian, you seek to preserve the ballistic missile subs stolen by the Rebels so that they may be captured and re-employed at a later date. To this end, you are given completely free reign to engage any US sub found in the vicinity, since the only reason they could be there is to sink the ballistic subs. And after we've been helping the Loyalists out. Sneaky Cossack fucks.



And here we have the United States equivalent. Sink the ballistic subs. It's interesting to note that it's labeled as pro-Loyalist, even though the Loyalist briefing says in no uncertain terms that the subs must be preserved. I wonder if the United States even knows what it's doing.



Hm. This appears to be some C&C right here. Playing as the United States, you must protect the Rebel ballistic subs from Loyalist attack subs. It's the same location and everything, just a different take on it as the United States. Rather than simply outright destroying the ballistic subs, the Rebels agree to hand them over in exchange for the United States supporting them against the legitimate Russian government. It also begs the question of whether or not this is somehow a completely different scenario. It's already been stated that the Russians want to preserve the ballistic subs. It's also stated in this briefing that the Loyalist Russian government has stopped communicating mostly, so it could simply be that the United States doesn't realize that the Loyalists won't attack. It could also be that the Loyalists got word that the Rebels are going to hand over the subs, and said fuck preservation, we must destroy them. Which is it? Who knows!! We'll also have to potentially deal with a great deal of Russian submarines. It may be hard telling which are hostile quickly enough to survive. Seems like a pretty ambiguous situation.

So, vote then. What should I do? Continue the last mission as Chinese or American and complete it more properly, or go ahead with the next one? If so, which side?

BEAR VS EAGLE VS EAGLE

DisCUSS!!!!!!!!!!!

Heh, sorry we made you go through that nightmare with the chinese sub . I vote to go ahead with the next mission!

I bet even Poland had better submarines than China in the year depicted by this game(and even today)

Also, I vote for:

Part 4: Putin Strikes Back



Due to lack of feedback, Cassidy assumes dictatorial control over this thread. He has commanded that we assume the role of a Russian attack sub bent on preserving ballistic missile subs captured by the Rebel Alliance so that they might be reclaimed in the future. This means destroying any US subs in the area. We already know that the United States feels that, due to the ambiguity of Rebel politics, the ballistic missiles subs are a danger and must be destroyed. So it looks like we're about to kick off World War Triple.



Anticipating mostly submarine on submarine action, I fit accordingly. The SS-N-27 ASW is a missile that's launched from the sub that travels a specified distance then dumps a torpedo into the water. How gnarly is that? There's also an anti-ship version, as well as one called the Stallion, but I don't have any loaded in this screenshot. In addition to the 8 tubes shown in this screenshot, this baby also features 6 external tubes that may not be reloaded as far as I know. The Akula-II is definitely the MANLIEST sub in this game, and probably the whole world. It's got a shitload of torpedoes and torpedo tubes and is just HUGE. The 688 is probably quieter, maybe even faster, but, just, goddamn, look at all these torpedoes and missiles. The United States also doesn't have missile dropped torpedoes for some reason, which is a damn shame because I believe they're extremely effective.



First thing's first, we deploy the towed sonar array and take a look around. The first thing I notice is what could possibly be a Delta-IV ballistic missile sub.



Guess it was. As soon as I mark the contact the objective to identify the ballistic subs is complete. Well, that was easy.



I see a few ships looking around with the periscope. They're Rebels, remember. This means that, although we're actually attempting to PREVENT the destruction of their subs, they're still hostile to us and will likely attack if we are detected. It also makes sonar difficult for me. I have a very hard time dealing with this game when there's a shitload of sonar contacts to identify.



Time passes. I don't bother marking all the surface boats as sonar contacts. Why bother? I just keep an eye out for anything that might be a US sub, when suddenly a torpedo is heard in the water bearing 017.



Yup, there's a torpedo over there. I'm GUESSING it's American, but I can't be sure.



I launch the UUV in response, which immediately bombards me with a veritable flood of sonar contacts to sort out.



Sonar contact on the torpedo, it's now bearing 330. That means it's probably not coming straight at US at least, and to the best of my knowledge, not towards the Delta-IV sub we identified earlier. That was bearing 90 or so.



More torpedoes are fired, but from a different direction. I take a look around with the sonar and bingo, got a contact on what is almost certainly a US sub.



Possibly another one East as well. Hrm. That doesn't add up with the bearing the first torpedo was fired on. Wasn't enough time for him to move that far. Confused. More torpedoes are being fired all the time. Shit's happening fast. Feeling VERY overwhelmed. Fuck this, time to take action!



I arm a 65 CM torpedo. They're wire-guided, so I can control it myself if I have to. I fire it as a "snapshot" on the exact bearing of the last torpedo fired, praying for results.



This is the menu for guiding it. Enable turns on the active sonar guidance as well as the search pattern selected. Pre-enable turns them both off and makes it run in a straight line on the heading you've chosen above. It doesn't look like I have fuck with it though, because it seems to have locked onto something. The search pattern has stopped and it's turning continually in the direction of what I assume is the American sub. If it were homing a decoy, it'd be moving in a straight line. I think I'm about to bag my first enemy sub, and with a snapshot no less!



Ha-ha! Victoly!!! Wait a sec, that doesn't look like a 688...



FUCK, it was a Rebel ballistic missile sub. You know, the things I'm supposed to be protecting. Isn't that some shit? My first sub kill EVER is my protect objective. Thus ends this pathetic attempt.

Unfortunately, I documented this next attempt rather poorly as I often do when I get too into it. It also should be noted that after being overwhelmed by the amount of crap in the area several times, I turned autocrew back on for sonar and target motion analysis. Hopefully one day I'll be good enough to play this game without resorting to that bullshit. Also, the locations of the enemy subs is a bit randomized, so I can't use any knowledge from previous attempts to help me out in the future.



Once again, the objective to identify the subs is completely very quickly. It's S02, due south of us. I hope the Americans are north or this is going be over very quickly.



Because we're currently heading north and the towed array can't hear anything in front of the sub, I have the course changed to East. Frequent course changes ensure that you can hear everywhere around you. Some time passes, then my suspicion that they're north is confirmed when a torpedo is heard bearing 24.



I launch the UUV in respnose. The autocrew TMA is beginning to get a solution on what is probably an enemy sub on that general bearing.



Also since the sub we're supposed to be protecting is south of us, that puts us sort of in the middle of them. Hopefully they either won't detect the Delta-IV, or any torpedoes fired will lock onto me instead and I can decoy them.

This is where my documentation starts becoming poor. I almost want to say my screen capture program wasn't working or something, because I'm pretty sure I at least TRIED to take more screenshots than this.

Basically, I manually set the identification of a sonar contact on the same bearing as some torpedoes that have been fired to a hostile sub. I fire three external tubes at it containing the ASW missile dropped torpedo. I set the distance to arm to 1 nautical mile since the enemy sub to the best of my knowledge was only about 19 kilometers away. Maybe my understanding of the arming setting was somewhat flawed, because the torpedoes didn't land very close to the enemy at all. They began homing as soon as they hit the water, and instead of heading north toward the enemy, they turn east, obviously locked onto something. I brace myself for another facepalm inducing failure when...



Lolwat? I hit, completely by accident, the only other enemy sub in the area. I thought for sure I was going to destroy a Rebel surface ship. They're all over the place. My first sub kill was a disaster, and my second an unexpected miracle. I don't believe it. I save the game now so I don't die and ruin my progress that I may never make again.



Around now I start getting pinged, probably by a torpedo fired by the jerk I just killed. I doubt it was fired at me, but i change course and launch countermeasures just to be safe. Also now looking through my screenshots I'm positive my capture program was malfunctioning. I know for a fact I screenshot a few more events that I'm not seeing in my screenshot collection. Around now, torpedoes fired by the Americans have sunk two Rebel surface ships, and a Rebel attack sub to the west. I also fired another salvo of torpedo dropping missiles at the surviving American sub, but they splash in pretty much the same place, turn East and hit the same sub AGAIN. Didn't realize that was possible but I suppose I should have known. The water is quite shallow here.



The pinning gets more insistent, and pow. What I get for getting complacent under enemy fire. I didn't think the torpedo was aimed at me, so I didn't do very prompt/extreme speed and course corrections. But like I said, I just saved, so let's fix this.



The first thing I do is speed up and turn while dropping decoys constantly to avoid the incoming torpedo. Then I re-engage the remaining American sub with three more missile/torpedoes, but I set the activation range to be higher this time. The three blue symbols north of my on the map are them. You can also see the torpedo flying through the air on the right. I took more full screen screenshots of the things flying around because they're pretty freakin sweet, but they were all lost somehow.



They've splashed into the water now, fairly close to the supposed position of the 688.



They don't head west however. They seem to have locked onto something north. Either the 688 changed course awhile back and I've had no updates on it, or I'm about to waste a Rebel.



Turns out it was the 688. That was satisfying, even though I admittedly didn't figure the solution out myself.



And with that, the mission objectives are completed. I really enjoy those missiles. Not looking forward to playing USA without them in the future. Normally if you fire a torpedo, they hear it and have a lot of time to maneuver and deploy decoys. But these things just drop a torpedo right next to them if your solution is right. And what's more, they go like 70 knots when they're in the water. Things are fucking killer.





Victoly at sea! For real this time. So what's next? World War 3? Or will the United States simply assume that the torpedoes that sunk their two subs were fired by Rebels?



In the bottom right corner, it says the mission bias is "dynamic." Normally, it either says neutral, pro-loyalist, pro-rebel, pro-China, pro-USA, whatever. I've got the feeling that this is where the choices and consequences kick into overdrive and alliances and enemies are based on what you've done in the first missions. There's three vehicles to choose from, and only one of them is a sub. It's Russian. I'm leaning towards that because I don't know how the fuck to play anything but subs, and Russians have gnarly weapons. But let's show everything for the sake of completion, and if anyone REALLY wants me in a frigate or helicopter, speak up I guess.

This is the chopper.



Shit's brewing in Taiwan. Interesting. I wonder what the Russian interest here is though, and how SAMs are going to protect oil rigs against torpedoes assuming Russia does have some sort of interest in the area.



Once again interesting. Have to identify subs operating in the path of the amphibious strike force, but don't engage unless they fire first. Taiwanese naval assets may help but they're probably just old Soviet tech anyway.



And this is the Russian sub. IT IS A MYSTERY!, but will probably involve blowing up enemy subs.

Once again we have a case of BEAR VS EAGLE VS EAGLE!

What to do?

Part 5: Putin versus Red October 2.0



I've gone with the submarine option because I have no idea how to use the others. We'll be using an Akula I instead of Akula II. It's more or less the same shit except the Akula I is noisier, so we're more likely to be detected and destroyed. We're told to outfit for ASW (anti-sub) and ASUW (anti-surface) so I take a mix of weapons, not knowing what to expect. Judging from the other two mission briefings in the last post, if there's any "anti-surface" it'll probably be against that joint Taiwanese and US fleet. Anti-sub, no idea. Dynamic mission. Choices and consequences at work!!

I found out what happened to my screenshots. When my computer crashes, my screenshot program ends up being set to start taking screenshots and ohfuck I don't feel like explaining, it just eats my screenshots. But it won't happen anymore. The first three for this update were destroyed, but they weren't anything terribly special. They show the oil rigs that were mentioned in the other mission briefings, then me being pinged one time by something to the north, presumably an ASW frigate, and that there's what appears to be a Russian sub to the west of me, Victor class I think. Meanwhile, I'm going to periscope depth to receive updated mission orders.





So we're tasked with destroying Rebels who are going to attack the US/Taiwanese fleet. That's a rather interesting turn since I only recently sent some Yanks to the bottom. How'd it happen?







Shit is going doooown. According to Putinese propaganda, the ghosts of Lenin and Stalin are leading a communist revolution! Really, I'm not sure how much I'd buy into that crap. It sounds very much like the legitimate Russian state is painting the Rebels as communists to drum up popular support, at home and abroad. The rest on the other hand is likely correct. The Rebels have teamed up with China for mutual protection, and it seems China intends to punch Taiwan in the face. Very probably, when we sunk the American subs as loyalist Russians, it was assumed by the USA that they were actually sunk by Rebels, since the USA was there to sink Rebel SSBNs anyway.

Thus did the two former arch enemies join forces to deal with the communist untermenschen.





I'm back off the training wheels once again, and so am left to find the firing solutions myself. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a Russian sub to the west, probably a Victor. I've noticed that the Rebels have a tendency to use the shittier attack subs instead of Akulas, so that's probably one of my targets. Got to be somewhat careful since there's usually a friendly sub around supporting you even though the briefing NEVER mentions it. So we've found its speed - 7 knots.



But sadly I had only detected it as I had already made a turn towards it. Soon after, the towed sonar array turned as well, putting the Victor squarely in its baffles. The other sonar systems aren't strong enough to detect it, and the result is the above - I don't have enough marks on it to perform target motion analysis and get a proper solution. Have to wait until I turn again, which can take a bit.



Torpedos in the water, roughly similar bearing to the enemy sub. Fuck's sake I hope he's not firing at the frigates I'm supposed to be protecting. The frigates are the contacts to the north, by the way.



I also briefly glimpse what is probably an Akula I or II. I'm somewhat inclined to believe that's a friendly, but I mark it just the same in case it turns out to be hostile and I have to kill it.



Not very long after the torpedoes were in the water, an explosion is heard. Turns out the Victor got wasted. He wasn't the one firing; he was being fired AT by the frigates, one of their helicopters, or a friendly sub. Presumably, they used missile delivered torpedoes and that's why I only detected them around the Victor's bearing. Damn those things are handy. One down, how many more to go? And will I actually have to do any work?



After the Victor is fried, I hear a bunch of torpedoes to the southeast. That's roughly where I spotted the Akula originally. I'm beginning to wonder if it was really friendly. Because there's so many torpedoes, the sonar is a mess and I can't tell what the hell is what. No idea who fired them, or who it's fired at.



I start getting a little nervous for myself. I'm traveling quite slowly so I'm sure I'm difficult to detect, but just the same I decide to take advantage of the deep waters that we're presented with on this mission. It's not like being in radio contact is doing me any good anyway. The Americans aren't sharing any targeting data. The above screen shows the thermal layer depth. Going below it makes you difficult to detect to anyone on the other side, and vice versa. If the enemy sub is below it, we'll hear each other more quickly, but I'm thinking (hoping) he's above and I can escape detection while this current torpedo storm blows over.



Before we go under I manage to get a speed on the Akula. Things going slow as shit. 2 knots. It's a miracle we can hear it at all.



For some reason, at least some of the torpedoes are automatically considered friendly, even though I have nothing set to automatic except active intercept. That makes me feel a little better.



Explosion southeast where all the torpedoes are. No sub corpse showing though, so it either survived, or the torpedo detonated on a decoy. I also keep having difficulties determining which Akula contact is the real one and which is the mirror, messing up my target motion analysis a little. Either way, because those torpedoes were friendly, I slacken my efforts in that field since the thing's probably friendly anyway. Thing is though, I start getting pinged...insistently. Must be a torpedo.



At first, figuring it's friendly and that it's probably homing on something other than me, I take no action. But eventually I begin pulling in the towed array and increasing speed while turning and deploying decoys. I don't give it much speed at first, but pretty soon it becomes goddamn clear it's coming straight for me and I pick up the pace. But the pinging just gets louder and more frequent, and it becomes clear it hasn't gone for the decoys. Prepare for rage...



Time to start ov...wha?



I LIVE!!! Looking in the upper left, you can see it's only damaged us "71%," whatever that quantifies exactly.



Now there's our damage report. The damaged shit is too much to list. Our towed sonar is down, for starters. Periscope's screwed up. But also the ventilation mast is fucked. That worries me because if there's a fire on board we'll all fucking suffocate, so I begin to climb just in case we have to surface.



More explosions to the southeast. Maybe if the torpedoes are all detonated, I'll finally be able to see something on sonar...



Oh wait. Notice how there's no lines at all on the broadband? Every single sonar subsystem is damaged and unusable. We're blind as SHIT.



But I have a plan. Sick of being denied enough info to make a proper solution and equally sick of not shooting anything, I begin arming some missile delivered torpedoes as well as the UUV. Since our sonar is down, the UUV will be able to provide us with sonar info. Enough info, I hope, to be successful with this plan I've got going.



The familiar sonar contact bombardment begins. Notably, the contact I have selected, s16, is northeast a bit of the torpedo cluster fuck that occurred a bit ago. Enough time has passed that, if that is in fact the enemy sub, and it cranked up its speed for evasive maneuvers, it could have gotten that far. Moreover, when I had my sonar still functioning there was nothing in that direction at all, but now the UUV has picked it up first thing. I'm very much willing to bet that is the enemy sub. So my plan is this...



I will fire all of my loaded missile delivered torpedoes roughly on its bearing, but at varying ranges. One of the beauties of the missiles is that an exact solution becomes somewhat less imperative because the torpedo gets to where it's going so quickly what the course and speed of the target become significantly less relevant. The range on the other hand is still very important. But I'm not about to sit here and let the UUV gather info for 20 minutes so I can make a solution. By firing a TON of missiles at varying ranges, I figure one of them is at least bound to catch this fool. And if not, well, hopefully he'll keep making a ton of noise and I'll be able to get enough hits on him for a real solution.



I have 7 loaded altogether, two of which are Stallions, which strangely I've found to be inferior to the type I usually use even though they use a larger tube caliber. In any event, I start the bombardment with 4, two Stallions and two SS-N-27ASWs. Sadly, I'm in very shallow water when I launch them. These missiles have a minimum and maximum launch depth. It seems I was below the minimum depth. Or over it? However you want to put it, the Stallions malfunctioned, which fucks up this whole thing because I won't be able to cover all the ranges I want. Goddamn it. I go to arm the other missiles...after I take a few screenshots of the ones currently in the air.







The torpedo on this one has now been launched. The smoke ahead is the other missile, which was set to go farther.





And that's that. Right, now to go arm the other ones and hope at least one is set correctly.



As I go to do that, soundman picks up an explosion...how'd he do that anyway? I guess the UUV heard it.



Glorious fucking day! That was fast. I admit I got lucky, but at least it was my plan, and I finally got through a mission without resorting to autocrew. Fuck year.



Yeah, my whole damn computer crashed after I finished the mission. I had to do it again, cept I cheated this time so I could just finish it really quickly. In this alternate cheat reality, I destroyed BOTH subs. I doubt it'll make a difference, but I thought I'd mention it. On to the next mission briefs.



Strange how the US briefing doesn't really mention the Russian/US pact against China/Rebels. In any event, looks like India's on the correct (American) side and China probably isn't going to be too happy about it. This mission is as the ASW frigate.



And indeed China is butthurt as fuck. They intend to attack the combined Indian/American battlegroup with subs, intent on destroying the Indians in particular to weaken their resolve in assisting the Americans in this conflict. I guess China really, really wants Taiwan, otherwise I can't imagine why they'd give a fuck about this whole thing. It's also interesting to note that this is the first mission that really feels like open confrontation to me. The others were somewhat more covert. Sinking Americans as loyalist Russians for instance was likely to have blame assigned to Rebels. But here, the intent is rather clear: China is telling India to fuck off and they're willing to use violence to get the point across, as well as having the US targets as a secondary objective. Lord is that some World War 3?



This is the last briefing. American helicopter. Basically the same crap as the first one, cept you're a helicopter tasked with flying forward and identifying sub threats AHEAD of the battle group. Again, I lean towards using the submarine, since they're the only platforms I'm familiar with, but I wouldn't mind learning something new at this point. Plus, it feels sort of weird being China now after I know they're the enemies of the only other two factions I've been playing, namely USA and loyalist Russia.

It's the Eagle versus Dragon once more. Who to play?

Go with the US, the heli sounds like fun.

Roflcopter FTW.

Part 6: China Cannot Into Submarines



Time to be the roflcopter. The MH-60 Seahawk helicopter takes off from the frigate that we were also offered to play and that's about all I know about the thing. Pretty much going to be learning as I go along since I didn't bother opening the manual. Basically, we're going to be scouting ahead of a mixed Indian/USA battlegroup and reporting the locations of Chinese subs as much as possible. We don't know that they're hostile, so we can't fire until they start shit. But of course, having seen the Chinese mission briefing, I am well aware that they are going to start shit. That's unfortunate because it gives them first shot, but fuck it really. Not much they can do to me.



This is the extent of our ordinance. There's two types of torpedoes, a land attack missile, and an anti-ship missile. We'll be loading all torpedoes since we're pretty much tasked with killing subs and nothing but.



And these are sonobuoys. You drop them into the water and they transmit sonar information to you. The DICASS (dickass hurrr) appears to have active sonar, used for getting ranges and accurate targeting info. The DIFAR is passive sonar for regular situations, and the VLAD is passive sonar for when there's a alot of noise screwing you up, or the water is too deep to use DIFARSs. BT I believe just tells you where the thermal layers are. So I drop two BTs since I doubt I'll need them and get something else.



And countermeasures. I leave them alone. I really don't expect to be getting attacked anyway.



It starts me at a height of 666 feet!! 666 \m/ black metal helicopter!! So I have to search the area to the southeast. I change coures and head towards it. Feels pretty cool being able to cruise around at high speeds and not give a fuck. Change of pace.



So according to the link info from the friendly US frigates to the north, that green sub contact south of us is a neutral Han. I know that's a China sub. It's funny, but as I was playing this mission it didn't actually occur to me to fly right over to it and drop sonobuoys so as to keep an eye on it for future reference. Instead I flew southeast. The other green contacts are just fishing boats.



I start to take a look around the various instruments. I have no idea what in the hell MAD/SAD is, but ESM we're already familiar with. I don't bother with it since it's unlikely that the subs will give away their position by using radar.



This is pretty cool. That screen on the left there is basically the same as the map screen. Can navigate from here, as well as launch torpedoes and sonobuoys, or set waypoints for sonobuoys and torpedoes to be launched. And since we're getting to the search area now, I'll go and drop one soon.



Think that was a BT, one of the thermal layer detector ones. I can't get it to work either way.



After dropping a real buoy, I go to the sonar screen to try to see what's what. But nothing happens. I don't get it.



This thing goes pretty quick. Goes up to like 140 knots. You can even fly it with a joystick, though I didn't bother at all while playing this mission.



I get a visual contact on one of the fishing boats. They get assigned automatically. Also handy.



When I click the deploy hydrophone button on the map/sonobuoy screen, this happens. Things are starting to make sense them. The sonar screen that previously did nothing when I dropped a buoy is probably related to this. I retract it though, since I'm moving fast. It'd probably snap if it hit the water or something.



Right, so, THIS screen is where you use the sonobuoys from. But uh. I appear to be fucking it up because nothing is happening.



So I click on autocrew to show me what the hell the deal is. Immediately, it gains contact with a buoy and starts listing sonar contacts. I didn't figure it out til later, but I might as well explain now. The Roman numeraled buttons in the upper right correspond to the Roman numeraled screens on the left. (duh) Then, when you have a number clicked, you select a frequency with a buoy on it. The first buoy you drop is 1, then 2, then so on and so forth. You can have any amount of buoys in the water, but only listen to 4 at once.



It's slightly difficult to see since the screenshot is so small, but those very small blue symbols are the sonobuoys. The ones with the red dot in the middle are activated. You can see how their only sonar contacts right now are on the same exact bearing as the fishing boats we already know about, so no useful info yet. That Han is still detected as well. What the hell was I thinking not hounding that thing?



Now our sonobuoys are detecting what appears to be a Kilo. It didn't occur to me at the time but it could actually be that Han, only misidentified by the buoys. Similar bearing. Anyway, it may be slightly confusing in this picture, but 1009 and 1008 are both in the same area and identified as Kilos, but by different buoys. You can see where the lines go back to said buoys. Where they intersect, I figure, is where the Kilo must be. At least that's probably how this works? Fuck if I know. This chopper doesn't have a TMA station, so you can't really get solutions on things. I'm thinking that what happens is the chopper sends back its acquired data to the frigate, and they take care of it. Anyway, I head northwest of me to where the lines intersect and prepare to drop an active sonar buoy. The DICKASS.



As I move over there though, they pick up another Kilo southeast. I have it selected on screen. That makes a Han and two Kilos now. But I find that unlikely. More probably these stupid fucking sonarbuoys just pick up mirror contacts, and I have no idea how to sort the reality from the bullshit in a chopper.



On the screen to the left you can see me approaching the intersection. On the right you can see I have a shallow DICKASS ready to fire.



And away!



After figuring out how to get the DICKASS onto one of these screens, I just need to figure out how the hell to make it use active sonar as advertised. But I don't manage it. I think it's because I didn't turn off autocrew. I looked it up in the manual, and really you're just supposed to hit the mode button, but nothing happened when I did it. I'll have to remember to turn off autocrew, because active sonar would've been pretty handy.



As a side note, it detects a 688 as well that isn't being reported by links. That's pretty handy. We've got a pretty sizable force here, unless the Chinks throw a lot of subs at us I don't think there's a chance we're going to lose.



And one of them has identified a Delta-IV now apparently. I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit. It's very probably a misidentification.



Because I couldn't make the DICKASS ping anything, I lower the hydrophone and do some active sonar myself. Anywhere you see a concentration of dots that makes a brighter green color is a contact of some kind. You click on it, and hit mark.



So I get a few of those, as well as a few passive contacts with the hydrophone, and the whole LINES GOING FUCKING EVERYWHERE situation gets a little out of hand right about now. But since I can't find the TMA situation (guess there isn't one) I don't know how to "merge" the contacts and we just sort of have to live with this shit. I hope the dicks back at the frigate are making some use of this info. Anyway the active contacts really don't tell me much since I'm so confused by all the damned lines at this point. Think I hit our frigate, maybe the friendly sub, and a fishing boat.



I go and deploy the MAD sensor as well, and once again I have no idea what it is or how it works. I notice that it's too short to go into the water at this height.



That's better.



Hit the power on aaand...nothing? Oh well, I'll read the manual first next time I guess. For now screw MAD.



Looking back on the map screen there's something different. If you care to notice, on the left and the top, there's two hostile marks now. One of the slant eye subs must have fired at us.



The one to the north closer to the battlegroup is the Kilo I was detecting earlier. No sign of a Delta-IV. Knew that was bullshit. Anyway, since the Kilo is closer to the FFG frigate and is probably going to get blown away, I change course for the Han to the west and kick it up to 140 knots.



I didn't wait for the hydrophone to finish retracting itself and it's broken. Oh well, fuck it.



I should've zoomed in on the relevant area for this pic since everything is so messy, but looking north where the Kilo is, several missile delivered torpedoes are en route. They actually fly past its supposed position, but oh well. Thinking it'll be dead soon.



Setting the presets for the torpedo on the right. Use active sonar because it's better, set the search pattern from snake to circle in case I put the torpedo too far ahead of the enemy sub, and the run to enable is already 0 since I figure they expect you to drop the torpedo right on top of the enemy anyway. Which I plan to. On the left you can clearly see I have the sub selected, but what you can't clearly see is where I am in that clusterfuck of shit. To be honest I don't even know either. I can't remember and it's hard seeing.



This is a poor screenshot but it looks like one of the Indian ships escorting the Indian carrier got wasted by the rice eaters. That's okay I suppose, since the carrier has to sink for us to lose. I also believe the Chinese briefing stated that the most of the Indian vessels had to be sunk for their aims to be accomplished. Not worried.



This is a friendly torpedo. It's traveling pretty straight according to the link, so it's probably locked onto something. Sweet dreams Kilo. Also, I made a pass at the Han during this time, but the torpedo didn't feel like launching. I come around for another pass and slow down in case that was the problem.



I'm flying over the Han's supposed position now. What you see there is not actually the submarine, but a representation of where the link says it is. I go to launch a torpedo aaand...



Weapon away!



I was following the torpedo the entire time expecting results, but I forgot to take many cool screenshots. In any event, boom.



Notice where I have the dead sub selected. Bit different from it's claimed position, but close enough for a homing torpedo. The inaccuracy was probably due to the incomplete data I was feeding our home frigate, but close appears to count in torpedoes as well as horse shoes and hand grenades.



That done I fly Northeast towards where the Kilo was and get visual contact with a part of the battle group. No Kilo is to be seen on link info however, so I'm guessing it was destroyed while we were attacking the Han. Good game. Unless that Delta-IV threat materializes, I'd say we're in the clear. I go back south again and dick around looking for shit, but nothing turns up. We don't actually complete the mission until the carrier reaches the escort point, so this is going to be a while...



Since the sonobuoys kept picking shit up, by the time we're close to the escort point my map looks like this. There's gotta be a way to deal with this crap, I just don't know it.



Hey, who let the dot heads have a carrier anyway?



Using the show truth function (a cheat basically), I take a look at the carrier to see if it took any hits. It did. 40% damaged and looking pretty rough. I wonder if that'll impact anything. Anyway the long trip went without incident, so the USA prevails over the bolshevik flood's threat to mankind once again, through superior genes, culture, religion, ideology and technology!



HEIL BUSH!

Now for the next briefings. All three of them are USA.



Anti-surface warfare as the US FFG frigate. Malayasia and Indonesia have been induced to attempt to oppose the Indian/US battle group from traveling the strait of Malacca and we're going to kick the shit out of them because that's what Americans do. This is probably the most obvious example of C&C so far in the campaign, because this mission couldn't exist had the Chinese won last round. The battle group would be destroyed. Wonder what would've happened then?



Same crap as above, except in a 688 instead of the frigate.



Now this is different. According to this briefing, the surface vessels aren't the real issue here. It's the surface to surface missiles based on the land. So, as a P-3 Orion airplane, I'd have to destroy any SAM sites that threaten me and then take out the surface to surface missiles in a timely enough manner that they do not destroy the carrier.

Biowarean complexity is forced upon us as we must decide the issue of Eagle versus Eagle versus Eagle.

Go with the frigate for the novelty of it.

Excellent LP. Has made me load DW up for another run. More, good sir.

Hey I regret only reading up on your thread now, excellent work.

Very dissapointed to see the Chinese sub mission being so hard, near impossible. I wonder if you hit a bug, but in retrying over and over with no success.. I dunno.. there must be a way to win it, but alas.

Scenario is so good I am loving it - I hope we can still steer it into a Chinese victory over Taiwan or whatever the endgame will be.

Do the frigate mission, I am curious as to what that will look like. Props for doing the heli run, I know subs are more your thing.

Looking forward to the next update !

EDIT: let's move to the next page, this is becoming silly.

Part 7: FFG Is for Fucking Failure, Goddamnit



The author apologizes in advance for this post's high content of failure. To recap, we are choosing the FFG-7 frigate and continuing the mission to escort the Indian carrier battle group, except now instead of Chinese subs we'll be encountering Malaysian and Indonesian surface contacts. Couple of bullshit countries full of bullshit people, much like every country that isn't the United States. I figure they won't be terribly threatening. Still, the frigate we'll be using is NOT designed for surface to surface combat. It's ASW primarily. That's not to say we're toothless, but we'll be out of our element and I've never once used this thing. To compensate, I have the manual open, as well as a player written guide specifically for the FFG-7, and a quick reference cheat sheet for various parameters and technical details for all of the boats in game. They helped. A little.



There's really not much adjustments to be done to this thing's armaments. SM-2s are anti-air missiles and Harpoons are anti-surface missiles. But no matter how many SM-2s I take off, I can't add more than 4 Harpoons so this screen is a tad pointless. Only 4 anti-surface missiles. Not cool.



Torpedoes. Doubt we'll be using them to be honest since I don't think their range is very good for surface to surface fighting, but just the same I take all MK50s which appear to be superior to the 46 in all ways.



Overview of stores. Lots of sonobuoys though I doubt we'll be needing them. The chaff and flares are countermeasures versus missiles of course. The MK 75 shells are for an automatic cannon used to blow up surface contacts, the 12.7mm ammo is for a deck mounted machine gun. More a last resort than anything, really not used. And the MK 15 Phalanx is a missile defense system. Fires a bunch of 3.7 cm rounds into the air.



And in we go. First thing I see is a helicopter to the southwest of me. Turns out it's one of our helicopters and the mission starts with it in the air, much like the last one. I'll probably get some more link information in a second.



And there we go. Northwest are two friendly US frigates and further still is the Orion aircraft that's tasked with destroying the land based surface-to-surface missiles. The green to the southeast are a few third world warships. Think a few are just fishing trawlers though. Thing is though, they're GREEN, indicating they're neutral. Or at the least, whoever is monitoring them thinks they're neutral. That's rather odd considering our orders and the situation, which flatly states that we're to destroy them. I don't feel like getting busted for blowing up a "neutral" vessel, so I let things go for now. In the meantime, let's look at ESM.



The only strong radar emissions are coming from our friendlies. There's one from the direction of the Third Worlders as well but it's too weak to identify the culprit. Doesn't seem like a huge deal though, considering the amount of info we have on them already without me having lifted a finger.



This is the ASTAC screen. Its purpose is to control the helicopter. The line going from me in the center represents my course. The thing I have selected is the helicopter we have deployed. It's given me a plan. Since I don't want to engage the surface contacts before they're unambiguously identified as hostile, I'm going to have the helicopter start emitting radar to provoke them into attacking. I'll lose a helicopter but at least I won't die! I switch the link mode from acoustic to radar, but I look at our ESM for another radar emission and it doesn't seem to have done anything. Hm.



In the meantime, I put the second helicopter on alert so when we need to launch it it'll be faster. I also change the load out from ASW to ASUW, which drops the useless MK 46 torpedo and gives it a Penguin air to surface missile.



Think I found out how to work this. The reaaaally long line is the radar I've just activated. Didn't really want to do that. But that REMRO button...



Aha. Now there's a similarly large line coming from the helicopter icon south of me. He's emanating now. Brilliant!



Can see the emissions strong on ESM. That ought to make those cunts nervous. Make them shoot first. Also I of course deactivate our own radar because I want the HELO to get shot, not me.



I also order the helicopter to drop an active sonar buoy, just for extra triangulation. But I fucked up anyway because I ordered it to drop the deep one, which probably wouldn't be very useful versus sonar contacts. On top of that, it turns out that uh...



That's ordering my own ship to drop a buoy. Can barely see it there. Oops. Didn't figure out how to make the helo drop one. Not terribly important though, when we're using so much radar with little fear of retribution from some weakling Asians countries.



This is how it looks now. The cluster of yellow to the northwest is our radar picking up the carrier battle group, which for whatever reason is not represented in link info. The other stuff is our radar just confirming what we already know from links. There were two Trawlers I believe, so right now that leaves us with 6 hostile contacts. All of the ones to the east, I believe, are hostile.



Some time passes and our helo now has visual on one of the enemy boats. They'd have fired long ago if they intended to, so it seems my plan didn't work. I am now bored. I save my game and prepare for shenanigans.



The lines zigzagging everywhere are waypoints that I've set for the helicopter. I erm, didn't grasp how to use them right away. Turns out it's point and click, and delete to delete one. Who'd have thought? Anyway, I've now taken over control of the helicopter. This, apparently, is how you drop buoys with it. Otherwise it sort of just does whatever it wants.



After mastering that difficult ordeal I've now ordered the helicopter to swing around and go back to the ship it's just passed. When it gets there, it's gonna drop a MK 50 torpedo.



It's gettin there. The extra crap next to the boat, remember, are representations of our radar contacts that we didn't bother to identify/merge. I don't think it's possible it merge with the link info, anyway.



Torpedo's in the water. It's got a mirror image too, great. Bit northwest of where I wanted it to go. Also great. Will have to take that into account next time. I'm hoping its search is set to circle, or it's going to miss, or possibly even kill ME instead.



It was set to circle, and is now steady heading south. Excellent. It's caught the scent.



Approaching the target now...



Thing actually skipped out of the water. That was sweet. I wait tensely, prepared to take the screenshot of the pretty bloom explosions...but nothing happens. What gives?



It managed to miss somehow. It's looping back around now for a second pass.



It closes in, but it runs out of juice before it makes the kill. Meh.



Re-engaging. This is the last anti-ship weapon this helo has because it was launched with the ASW loadout which includes a MK 46 torpedo for reasons I don't fully understand. The MK 46, I believe, cannot be used to engage surface contacts.



After the second torpedo was away, there was a brief red on the helo's map marker. I click on it, and apparently it was hit by something. Only 5% damage. Probably just a machine gun round or something. But this does mean they're fully hostile now, and I haven't gotten a message informing me of failure, so victory!



I failed to screenshot the gnarly explosion because of the amount of contacts on the map, which include two radar contacts for the boat, the link contact, and then the "truth" contact when it died. But yeah, the torpedo hit first try this time and that sucker is toast. I order the helo back to me because it no longer has any relevant armament left.



Other helo still not ready for launch. Shit takes forever.



It's difficult to see because of the yellow markers, but the formerly green marks are now RED. Action incoming.



This is the weapons coordinator, where you designate targets that are to be engaged as well as use the radar systems. I activate them both, since I figure they know where I am anyway. I also designate a target to shoot at. The jerk further southeast. But I notice a whole bunch of extra CRAP that wasn't there before. What the hell is that?



SHIT STORM INCOMING!!! They're all missiles! The ones to the northwest, of course, are friendlies. There's two coming from the guy I have targeted. They're not really identified, but given the speed they're moving at they can't be anything but missiles.



I set the CIWS to "auto." The CIWS is that phalanx thing I was talking about earlier. Shoots down missiles. Normally, you want it set to hold fire because I believe it emits its own radar signals that can give you away. I've now set it to auto, which'll begin shooting down any incoming missiles. There's another setting, full auto, but I was warned in one of the PDF files that full auto may shoot down friendly missiles as well. Can't have that can we?



This is our own boat. Friendly missiles flying over it now. Go get em. Speaking of friendly missiles, maybe we should oh hey I don't know, fire a few of our own?



As I get to this screen and realize that I'm not familiar whatsoever with how it works, it occurs to me that I probably should have worked out this bullshit BEFORE I ordered the torpedo launched. As soon as it detonated I could've had harpoons in the air as well as my cannon firing. As it stands, I'm a little behind. When I choose the deck gun, all those lines show up on the tactical display. I assumed initially that it was showing my field of fire. But then I hit fire and nothing happened. It THEN occurred to me that it can't be showing my field of fire because there's only one gun and there's no way it'd shoot forwards and backwards. The lines are showing me where I CAN'T fire. Fucking thing shoots sideways and I haven't turned. VERY UNPREPARED. Instead I switch to harpoons but as I try to figure out all the settings, I already begin to hear explosions.



Another one down. Anyway, these explosions are far away. I go back to messing with the harpoons when I'm interrupted by a MUCH closer one.



We just got nailed by those contemptible dog eating third world cunts. Surveying the damage, I notice a few things. First off, countermeasures! Yes! I fucking forgot about those. They don't launch automatically unless you have the station autocrewed, and I had nothing autocrewed this time around. Very brlliant captaining on my part. They're broken now anyway, so no need to go on worrying about it. Next, the MK 13 launcher is damaged. That's the thing that fires the Harpoons. So our only option left us the cannon. Then I begin wondering how it is we even got hit in the first place, and it occurred to me that, more than likely, the CIWS system is similar to the cannon in that it doesn't fire forward or backward. I needed to turn perpendicular to the missile more than likely. I don't know this for a fact but it seems likely.



I try to go prepare to shoot the cannon and pow, this happens right after. Now we're in for it. In that impressive list of damage is our radar, helo link, and the deck cannon. So we're pretty much just bullshit now. This is my fault, and something I've done before. In the heat of things, I didn't bother to do such trivial things as "speed up" and "maneuver." Was on the same course the whole damned time. Was very, very silly of me and I paid for it by getting slammed by a few missiles. Fortunately they're not of superior American make and did not destroy my vessel.



Also, on fire.



But onto good news instead, while I was busy lamenting the loss of my boat's functionality, the more competent members of this fleet have destroyed all of the frigates. But some smaller patrol boats remain.



Not for long though. They're taken care of shortly. Also one of my asshole pals nailed a trawler while he was at it. I'd probably have failed the mission if I hit it. Good thing I let the pros take care of it.



Anyway, all that remains now is to wait for the battle group to enter the escort zone. This may take a while. To pass the time, I do a little test.



The deck cannon's minor damage was repaired after a while. I target that contact, whatever it is. Doesn't matter. There's no solution for it, so if it's moving at all the shells will miss if they fire.



This test confirms that the gun fires right and left and that I am a huge fuck up.



Anyway, the mission ends when the carrier arrives. I'm not even credited for the first kill because I had my chopper do it. But though my part in it was limited, Indonesia and Malaysia were smacked down properly for their undeniable complicity in 9/11. On to the next briefings!



Now this is cool. Since the world is going to shit anyway, North Korea decides now would be a good time to finally unite their insignificant shithole of an island under the banner of communism! China is expected to assist. Combined US and South Korean forces are vastly outnumbered. As the Seawolf class submarine, we would have to sneak in and deploy land attack missiles to destroy key installations to disrupt air traffic and communications. You're also allowed to engage any sea targets you come across, but they're not objectives.



As the FFG-7, our role would be to destroy any enemy surface or sub contacts so that the Seawolf will not be impeded in its mission. The enemy apparently has racing boats loaded with explosives ready to ram into us and commit suicide. Looks like Islam has come to North Korea at last.



As the Orion, our objective is to identify the strike targets and transmit their locations so that the Seawolf, and presumably some other vessels and aircraft, may blow them up. You're allowed to engage of course, but it's not what the mission is, and it warns that doing so may be incredibly dangerous since the mission is dangerous enough already.

It seems that by siding with the Kwa back in that Helo mission, the rest of the campaign is turning in their favor. I hope we get to play some Russian faction at least once more before the campaign ends, but the way things are going I dunno.

Was a nice read, lucky the rest of the battle group could do the job for you.

I enjoyed it, too bad we Kwa again.

Bumping to next page in.. 3..

...2....

and 1... there yet ?

Also, I vote for the Sub this time, seems like you enjoy it the most and also, missile strike reminds me of a nice Jane's 688 mission.

Submarine mission.