Find Moving Ships With Sonar and Wake Clues

What a sonar report actually tells you

Sonar scans a 5 × 5 square centered on the coordinate you choose. It costs 2 of your three action points, so one scan is a major commitment. Because sonar resolves after movement, the result describes the positions that survived the Turn and Move phases of the current round.

The report counts contacts by size category: small ships occupy one or two cells, medium ships occupy three, and large ships occupy four or five. Wrecks are reported separately. Sonar does not expose an exact coordinate, class name, heading or remaining health. It says that a hull from a category intersects the scan area; the captain still has to turn that fact into a useful firing prediction.

A wake marks history, not a current ship

Movement and rotation can mark cells that a hull vacated. Those marks are wakes: temporary evidence left behind by maneuver. Carriers and Battleships can leave wakes for two turns; Cruisers and Destroyers leave them for one. The one-cell Patrol Boat leaves no wake. Different profiles let you estimate which classes may have passed through an area, but a wake never guarantees that the vessel continued in a straight line.

Trace the visible cells in the order they could have been abandoned, then test the legal exit routes against the board edge, nearby wrecks and each class's speed. A wake beside a boundary can be more useful than one in open water because fewer destinations remain possible. Review the movement guide to understand forward, reverse and rotation paths.

Do not automatically fire at the newest wake. That cell is evidence precisely because the hull has left it. Fire is more effective when aimed at a legal next position or when another clue limits the enemy's escape.

Turn weak clues into a firing solution

Start with a candidate area rather than a single favorite cell. Use misses to remove coordinates, wakes to infer recent direction and sonar to count the categories still inside a chosen square. Then compare that picture with the authoritative fleet class table: a large contact cannot be a Destroyer, and a Patrol Boat cannot explain a wake.

The resolution order creates a useful timing pattern. Queue sonar and fire in the same turn, and both commands still resolve in their fixed phases rather than waiting for you to react between them. You must choose the shot before seeing that scan result. Often the stronger plan is to scan, preserve the report, and attack on a later turn while accounting for one more enemy move.

Sonar is also defensive. Scanning a corridor can reveal whether a pursuing class remains close enough to threaten your damaged ship. The best use is not simply “find something”; it is to ask a question whose possible answers change your next command. Build those questions into the opening and endgame plans in the strategy guide.