Troubles Deep - Helicopter Anti-Submarine (Single/Multiplayer)

[cfrag]

Troubles Deep - v20230227k

Download: please click here

SUMMARY 
Protect your naval group from attacking Submarines!
In this mission, your (and your friends', should you play in a group) job is to protect your naval group from an unseen enemy: submarines. At your disposal you have ASW Buoys and Torpedoes. 

Caveat emptor: This is a more casual approach to ASW in DCS; it prioritizes pilot skills and co-operation when dropping buoys and torpedoes over technical accuracy. In other words: fun over realism. Therefore - rivet counters beware!

DURATION
45-90 minutes

DIFFICULTY
Moderate (single-player), Easy - Moderate (multi-player)

DESCRIPTION
You are tasked with protecting your group from submerged threats until it arrives at its destination. It's unclear how many submarines are in the area, or from with direction they will attack (randomized for mission replay value). There is at least one, and should any get past your defenses, they will kill the first ship they get close enough to (4 kilometers, 2.2 nm), at which point the mission is a failure.

Depending on which helicopter you are flying, you will have to devise your strategy to best detect and defend against threats from the deep. In general, you'll drop sonobuoys (which can detect submarines) until enough buoys detect the same contact and allow for a fix. You will then drop an ASW torpedo close to the fix location to try and attack the submarine. As always, timing is everything.

You (and your friends) can fly up to two each of the following helicopters

• UH-1H Huey 
• MI-8 MTV Hip
• Mi-24 Hind 

(Can the mission be adapted for other helicopters? Yes, easily so - it's made with DML and requires adding/changing a trigger zone)

 

HOW TO PLAY
You load up your helicopter (Huey, Hip or Hind) with your choice of ASW munitions: Buoys to locate subs, and Torpedoes to attack them. You have limited stores and your helicopter has weight restrictions, so choose wisely (loading and dropping ASW munitions changes your helicopters weight dynamically)
After taking off, you drop ASW buoys that autonomously (and automatically) search for submerged contacts. Active buoys emit smoke to help you visualize their position from the cockpit, and they are also marked on the F10 map.

When buoys detect submarines, they transmit their data, and fleet command marks that data on your F10 map in real-time.
Fleet will then try to correlate the data from multiple buoys to get a fix on the contact. Once a fix is established, it is marked on your F10 map. 
Helicopters can drop ASW torpedoes near the fix in an attempt to kill the contact.  

Should your helicopter run out of ASW munitions, return to one of the supply three ships and re-stock / refuel. 

 
PLAYER AIDS
Three ships in your group can re-stock your ASW supplies: 

•     Tarawa-class Amphibious Assault ship
•     A 045A Frigate
•     A 052C Destroyer 

In order to load up on ASW munitions, you must first land on these ships. You can then contact the chief via Communication-->Other->ASW to stock up or change your current ASW munitions (sonar buoys and torpedoes, see below).

TIPS

• In the beginning, prioritize buoys over torpedoes. The area you have to protect is wide, and the enemy can come from all directions
• Since the fleet is moving and buoys last up to 30 minutes, drop your initial buoys close to your naval group, they will become your rear guard for the next 30 minutes
• Use the F10 map! It shows all active buoys, all contacts, and all fixes. 
• This mission requires landing on moving ships, and flying long stretches over open water; it's not for helicopter beginners but should be fun once you learn to reliably land on moving vessels.

GAME MECHANICS
This mission utilizes a (fictional, for entertainment only) ASW method that works as follows:

• Your aircraft (Huey, Hip or Hind) can carry ASW Buoys and ASW Torpedos
• You drop ASW buoys which will then try and locate submarines automatically. Buoys are marked with smoke for their entire life time (30 minutes)
• If enough buoys can locate a submarine, a fix can be calculated and is marked on the F10 map. A fix has a life time of 3 minutes unless renewed from enough buoys (calculated automatically) 
• Once a fix has been established, a torpedo can be dropped close to the fix to try and destroy the submarine. Torpedoes are more effective the closer they are dropped to the sub

But it's not quite that simple:

• buoys have a maximum detection range of 12 km
• a buoy's precision and detection ability drops drastically with range 
• a buoy lasts 30 minutes before its batteries run out 
• the precision and duration of a fix is much greater if the angle of detection between two buoys is close to 90 degrees (meanin that simply dropping a bunch of buoys at the same location will not help much)
• a sub fix is accurate only for 3 minutes after the last (automatic) confirmation
• a torpedo has a range of 12km but is only effective at about half that range; a guaranteed kill is only within 1 km (3300 feet) of the fix
• an asw torpedo runs at 55 knots for at maximum 8 minutes 

And on top of that, your helicopter's stores are limited:

• 4 torpedoes max or (in two slots of 2)
• 20 asw buoys (in two slots of 10)

or some combination (e.g. 10 buoys and 2 torpedoes)

Each buoy weighs 50kg (some 104 lbs), and each torpedo weighs in at 700kg (1410 lbs), so make sure that you don't overload your helicopter (obviously, a Huey won't fly far loaded up with 4 torpedoes - but the Hip will).

So you want some ASW training?
This mission allows you to change into ASW training mode: 
Go to communications-->Mission-->Switch To TRAINING. The mission ends immediately, and an attack submarine spawns to the northwest of your group. Hunt it down and destroy it before it can get clone enough to attack your group.

Weather

• Broken at 8000
• Wind 10 kts at 55
• The group is moving at 12kts, heading 320

NOTES
I built this mission while I developed DML's (forthcoming) "ASW" modules to test out the idea. My group deemed just too much darn fun to discard, and so I polished off some rough edges to create what you see here.
 

Edited February 9, 2023 by cfrag

[cfrag]

Version 20230213 - Maintenance Update

• Removed a potentially freezing bug when drawing wedges
• Added proper pilot greet & goodbye

Enjoy,

-ch

[42jeff]

This looks fantastic.  I can't wait to try it.

 

[42jeff]

Downloaded the mission.  Can't get the Huey to load sonobueys or torpedoes. The only weapons available in the load out screen are the traditional huey stuff. 

 

 

[cfrag]

3 hours ago, 42jeff said:

Can't get the Huey to load sonobueys or torpedoes.

Thank you for the heads-up. Have tried the update from yesterday that I hope fixes the issue?

Kind regards,
-ch

[42jeff]

Will be a few days till I can try it but I'll let you know.