Futuristic Sub Warfare Project

[Mammoth miniatures]

Perhaps push it into really sci fi territory and have things like cuttlefish inspired LED skins on the subs that allow for formation communication - each unit could have its own pattern language with encrypted levels of colour and pattern.

Or perhaps you could include a more roleplay style element to the game where commanders each have a disposition through which orders must be filtered with certain commanders being a bonus or a detriment to the units ability to work together.

[Easy E]

That second one is something you see often in Horse and Musket style games, so why not a future subgame?  Individual commander preferences could make a difference in such a game.

[CookAndrewB]

Like one commander's proclivity to pull a "Crazy Ivan?"



Ok, having served the better part of a decade on a submarine, and having seen all this sonar detection stuff played out over and over in real life, I'll say that detection is VERY hard. Diesel electric sounds sexy, but it isn't magic and frankly all the junk in a nuclear submarine that makes noise (water pumps, primarily) is really cold war era stuff. I lived on a nuclear submarine that was as impossible to find as anything in the ocean. All those shrimp and whale farts were easier to find than that old "built in the 90's" submarine. Every "we can find a submarine" brag I've ever heard was just garbage. ISAR radars, towed array hydrophones, underwater cables laid out with the purpose of finding sneaky subs... nothing. Sub hunter planes, even when we were at periscope depth and snorkeling with the diesel engine, needed to be guided in (by us) like a boy trying to get laid the first time. "Am I there?" No... not yet, and quit getting so excited. Move to the left. There... no, wait, you flew right by it. Try again. 

Because of this, when we played war games with other subs we are assigned layers of water to stay in, and only have unrestricted access to the surface in particular zones because it is far too likely that two sneaky subs in the same area will simply just run into each other if there isn't some precaution taken. I get the vision for the future, but keep in mind that every step towards "seeing" is well met with a step towards "staying unseen." Radar is met with stealth planes, etc. The best detection capabilities come from satellites, but those give you "where it was" info, and not where it is. Strategic decision making, not tactical.

Aircraft carriers get sunk in war games because they are stupidly loud, surrounded by stupidly loud escorts trying to pick out a whisper in the middle of a sound environment the equivalent of a Rolling Stones concert.

You know what gets submarines detected? No kidding? Slamming toilet lids. Toilets aren't sound isolated. Big clunk, lots of detectable noise. Dropping a wrench in the bilge would also be a bad thing. Detection is probably more about crew discipline than anything mechanical about a submarine.

[Macrossmartin]

Thanks for the insights, Andrew B!

It's great to gain some views from someone who has actually lived beneath the waves. Trying to gain a 'feel' for what it must be like, I've consulted with another submariner at my club, and my father who spent his professional life designing things to hear you and your underwater brethren, slamming toilet lids or otherwise. 

One of his better insights is that the rear tubes on RAN Oberons were re-tasked to carry beer, rather than fire torps.

But, like Star Trek doesn't reflect real space travel, we're not trying to recreate the technological reality of modern sub combat here; I think most of us would agree that what we're exploring is as much fiction as it is science. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea without the rivets. Or maybe X-Wing, but wet! 

A question if I might: Just how tough was it for a sub to find another sub with the same or similar qualities? Is it really possible for modern subs to collide when they're sneaking around, trying to find each other, or is there a range at which detection becomes almost certain? Has Hollywood and writers like Clancy misled us for dramatic license? In short: Was Ivan really that crazy??? 

[Macrossmartin]

Biomimetic Underwater Vehicles seem to be a style of submarine that could have a real role in the future of undersea warfare, if only in the recon and intel roles. But who knows where this might lead... A real Titanian Mechanical Fish??



From the Covert Shores website:

"A Chinese project to develop a military AUV with high speed and high payload. It claims to have low flow noise and a sonar-absorbing coating. It can be used for ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), particularly bottom survey, search and communications."







I think I want one of these... isn't it cute? 

[Easy E]

I guess my big question is still, what makes a submarine game different than a space fighter game?

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I guess my big question is still, what makes a submarine game different than a space fighter game?

Distance (and associated communication delay) plus a top speed limit.

Oh, and only self powered weapons - no energy weapons or non powered rounds.

[CookAndrewB]

A question if I might: Just how tough was it for a sub to find another sub with the same or similar qualities? Is it really possible for modern subs to collide when they're sneaking around, trying to find each other, or is there a range at which detection becomes almost certain? Has Hollywood and writers like Clancy misled us for dramatic license? In short: Was Ivan really that crazy??? 

Truthfully, it is much more difficult than you might think to detect most submarines that are engaged in operations to keep them undetected, and yes... collision is not unheard of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vanguard_and_Le_Triomphant_submarine_collision

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/nuclear-submarine-crash-us-and-russian-submarine-smashed-each-other-72121

The best reason that collisions aren't more prevalent may be because the ocean is a big darned space and despite the incidents above there are typically lots of intelligence reports that keep subs away from each other. We got regular reports about underwater hydrophones, ships towing sonar arrays (friendly and foreign), satellites that posed a detection risk, etc. Being undetected means just that. NOBODY knows where you are, and it is an outright mission failure (for ballistic missile submarines) to be detected by any source. We got grades based on this. Essentially when we returned from patrol we told "the big brains" where we had been (subs are often prescribed water space, but have no mandate to travel on a particular course, speed, heading, etc) and then they compared our tippy-toeing around the ocean to possible submarine detection. If we were near the location when they thought they heard a sub, we were caught and that was bad news. In seven patrols, a total time of about 490 days submerged, our submarine was never detected. This wasn't "amazing performance" it was the standard, and I know of only one incident that I can remember where this wasn't the case. It was like the choir director farted in church. All across the waterfront people whispered and pointed at the shameful behavior as if the crew screwed something up 

Probably better not to play too realistic. Wet X-wing would be far more fun. 

[Macrossmartin]

I guess my big question is still, what makes a submarine game different than a space fighter game?

Hide and seek.

Even with the subfighter theme I'm developing for Glory Deep, there must be the uncertainty that comes from reaching blindly into the abyssal darkness, hoping you find the other guy before he finds you.

Even though there are good grounds to predict that technological developments will tip the scales towards the seeker, over the hider, in the near future, as Andrew B points out every step towards detection is met with one towards remaining unseen. A bit like the unending battle between penetration versus armour since the days of spear and shield.

With my vision of future sub combat, I am working to the idea that once things get noisy, a game quickly resembles a jet-fighter furball. But there must first be a certain cat-and-mouse aspect as forces close, silently seeking each other, carefully laying decoys and setting up mines, UUV's and other surprises. This stealthy approach is almost always missing from space games.

At present, I think this model requires a game of Glory Deep to be split into two, separate games: The Hide and Seek game, and then the actual fight.

You could of course 'cut to the chase' and just play the fight, but doing so takes away much of the flavour of the setting, in my opinion.

I'm also working on a mechanic which simulates a torpedo searching for its target over multiple turns, without the need to place or track a physical model or chit upon the table. I've found this increases the sense of anxiety of a player as they know they are being hunted, and must judge if it is better to go all-out to elude their relentless pursuer, or risk taking their shots while death closes in, the pinging of its sonar getting louder by the second...!

Andrew B - That's a pretty amazing achievement to a noisy landlubber like me, and gives a great insight into the actuality of SSBN operations. The fact such a performance was considered SOP is even more amazing! Hollywood really does have a lot to answer for!

And you're right - if that's the reality, then soggy Skywalker would make a more fun game. 

[Mammoth miniatures]

Possible idea - how about you make your force list before the game, and have a generic token for each sub alongside its actual miniature. at the start of the game only the tokens are on the table and when they come within a certain distance of another players tokens, both are revealed and the relevant models placed down? so you don't know which subs are going to be facing you until you're right on them - it encourages cautious play and tactical thinking.

You could even add a rule that once a sub fires or does certain things the opponent player may roll to detect the sub, allowing them to identify it prior to coming into range. Maybe you don't replace the token at that point, so the impetus is on each player to remember which token is an identified sub and which isn't. 

you could have subs slipping in and out of detection as the game progresses - going from miniature to token after leaving range.