Naval Gaming Introduction

Purpose. A search turn is a maneuver used to change the direction of a line abreast while allowing the ships to hold a constant speed and maintaining a continuous search frontage. Description. When the turn is executed, the outermost ship (i.e., the ship away from the direction of the turn) turns to the new course. The remaining ships continue forward. When the remaining ships have covered a distance equal to the distance between the ships, the current outermost ship executes its turn. This is repeated until all ships have turned and a new line abreast has been formed. When the maneuver begins, if the outermost vessel is not the guide, then the guide automatically shifts to the outermost vessel. The search turn is used to get very accurate turns. It was typically used to allow a group of anti-submarine vessels to turn while keeping continuous sonar coverage over the path of the formation. Today this maneuver is used to change the direction of a search line during operations which need to very carefully cover an area, such as a search for a man lost overboard. Limitations. The maximum course change by a search turn is 120°. Problems. While it looks relatively simple in a diagram, this is not a maneuver which ships like to execute. It requires that each ship turn toward and close on the next ship in the line. If any type of steering or engineering problem occurs on either ship, a collision is a distinct possibility. Obviously, this is not a maneuver to be executed during a battle.