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Gamers have long known that patience is rewarded with cheaper, less-buggy games. But does that adage hold true for the inclusion of digital rights management as well? Not always, but history does show us that time makes even the strictest of DRM less sucky.

This could become especially important given the latest round of DRM implemented by both Ubisoft and EA, a system that requires players to have a constant connection to the Internet in order to play. Otherwise, they're simply kicked out to the main menu until a connection can be had again.......full story here

Finger Fire


Suppose you are in a combat where you know you are overmatched? The bad guys are old and jaded and you know they have all the little tricks up their sleeves. What can you do? One tactic that works well, especially in a team dive is a FINGER FIRE.


Here is how it works. Assume you have a rough direction of the bad guys but no real idea and no decent range. You can guess since it's early in the game (use this early in the game) they are at least 20,000 yards away. Point your ship on the bearing you want to set up the finger on for firing. Lets say in this example you want to fire east on 090. Turn your ship to 090 and adjust your depth till you are on the layer. Set your torpedoes for PASSIVE, 35 knots, 10,000 enable, enable depth at the layer or as close to it as you can. Now set the course so tubes 1 and 2 are going to fire at right angles to your ship (course 180 in this case) and set tubes 3 and 4 to fire at the opposite angle (course 000). Now get a stopwatch and fire starting the watch at the time of fire. At PRECISELY 1 minute and 42 seconds, turn weapons 1 and 3 to course 090. At PRECISELY 5 minutes and 8 seconds, turn weapons 2 and 4 to course 090. What you have now done is set up 4 weapons with 4,000 yards horizontal separation moving east. Now look at your right hand held flat. Note the fingers. The weapon geometry is exactly like your fingers. The center ones a bit further out than the outer ones and all pointed the same way. This is a Finger Fire. The weapon ranges were set so that the detection cones overlap at the edges. The entire frontage of the weapons is 16,000 yards. Anything inside that 16,000 yard band will get snapped up. Anything in that band that tries to evade one weapon is very likely going to get picked up by another to the side of it. If you have a partner who can work with you and tell time you can set up two fingers side by side, for a 32,000 yard frontage. Once you have fired and set up your weapons evade at right angles to the firing base line course (in this case evade on 000 or 180). If with a partner, have him or her evade in the opposite direction you are going and use about 16 knots to get out of there. That is just fast enough to move you and still maintain sonar.


Using a Finger, is the shotgun approach to weapon employment. You do not have a target but are looking for one. You are now evading and your weapons are slowly making their way out. Now comes judgment. If you think they are on the close side leave the finger alone. If you think they are far then pre-enable and wait to enable the finger until is in position (rounding an island for example). If you are looking to scare the snot out of the bad guys have one team member use passives for the finger and the other use actives. Evading the banging actives can drive the target into the passives.


This tactic is wasteful of weapons and can be dangerous as your tubes are empty now if a 688 and half empty if an Akula or Sea Wolf. If the bad guy is a good hunter and you are not giving him the finger will keep him busy while you reposition and listen. With a bit of luck you will pick him up maneuvering to avoid the finger and can steer your fish accordingly. With a bit more luck the finger will enable and take him out for you. Either way you retain the tactical advantage. This is a bit like using a sledgehammer to smash an egg but if you want the egg smashed and that is the tool you have, then you use it.





VARIATIONS:

1. Fire 4 weapons at right angles to the base fire course (000 in this example works well) at 35 knots and let them run for 12 minutes (putting them 14,000 yards from you). Then turn one weapon on course 090 every 3 minutes, 25 seconds (this puts them 4,000 yards apart). Now just sit quietly. You are clear of the counter fire zone by 14,000 yards. This will set up a sort of wedge shaped finger pattern


2. Fire weapons at right angles to the base course at 3 minute, 25 second intervals. (this puts them 4,000 yards apart). At some time of your choosing turn them all to base course. This sets up a flat frontage for the search pattern. The handy thing here is you can start at once while tubes 3 and 4 are reloading from harps in the tubes. By the time you need them it will be time to fire them.


3. Set tubes 1 and 3 as actives, 2 and 4 as passives. Actives scare folks and while they run from them the quiet passive can snap them up.

blue book... here