Best ASW Ships in the 80s?

Hello,

My next Flash gaming project is going to be a lite-wargame involving Anti-Submarine warfare in the early to mid 1980s.  It will be a "cat-and-mouse" game with the player controlling a ASW ship and a single helo.  The goal will be to find and eliminate the enemy sub before it reaches it goal. 

I'm trying to keep the options simple and only have one ASW based ship that represents each of the three nations (US, UK and USSR).  The player will get to choose which nation they want to control.

United States: Spruance or Oliver Perry (not sure which one)

UK: Broadsword (were there others?)

USSR: Krivak III, Udaloy or Moskova (unable to decide here too)

Any advice on which ones to use per nation would be great. 

My initial pick is:

US: Oliver Perry
UK: Broadsword
USSR: Udaloy

Thanks for any advice,
Brent

I was on a Spruance; the USS David R. Ray DD-971 from 1980-84. She had a massive bow mounted sonar and later, in '81 was fitted with one of the first towed array sonar systems. She had one to two LAMPS ASW helos, and a system called prairie masker air that made her sound like a rain squall passing overhead to any sub. With torps and asroc, she was death to any sub radiating any kind of noise. She proved her worth with the new tass system when she picked up a yankee class soviet boat out of the malacca straights and held on to her for over 24 hours, an un-heard of feat back then for a surface ship. Spruance ships were very fast, manueverable, and fitted with the later Harpoon, ciws, and verticle launch system were pretty potent warfighters against air and surface targets too.
   Perry class boats were considered a joke when I was in. They were slow, underarmed, single screw, etc., etc. The only reason the USN still uses them is the manning required is pretty small and they need something to fill the "frigate gap".
   Guess you can tell were Im going with this...Spruance would be my choice any day.

Thank you.  Always good to hear from personal experience.

Brent, my own experience was in the 1970s.  There are a couple of unusual ships and configurations that might offer challenge and variety.
USS Farragut (DDG37) was fitted with an experimental sonar system, SQS-26 PAIR.  This was two sonar domes on the keel with a very advanced (for that time) computer system.  The computer  would take the input  from the two domes and using trigonometry could give very accurate ranges and bearings to sound sources.  We tested this against Nathaniel Green (a boomer) and Hammerhead (attack sub). 
The results on Hammerhead were absolutely breathtaking.  After one exercise the track overlays were only fractionally apart.  Scared the sub staff because this wasn't supposed to be possible.  They pulled the exercise from that point.  What killed the system was it was complicated and expensive.  Towed Array showed more promise, had less noise interference since it was not mounted on the hull, and while leaving Den Helder, Holland, a survey ship put down an underwater cable without notifying anyone.  The twin domes were quite large and were scraped out of action by the cable.  (Bill Moye, the conning officer, was sure his career was over as the two WHUMP - WHUMP reverberated through the hull.)
 
Another situation was the destroyer squadron homeported in Athens, Greece from 1972 -76.  There were five different ship classes there (even including a FRAM, the William Wood, which I think took a kamikaze off Okinawa.)
Desron 12 worked with NATO allies, so you could have a Greek or Italian helo working with an american DD.
The Manley and Barry both had the SQS-35 Variable Depth Sonar.  This was a pod attached to a chain and could be lowered below the thermal layers.  When we first used it, had great results, but scared the hell out of the NATo subs.  They were convinced there would be a collision, so I cannot recall using it after the first month there, and that included the Yom Kippur deployment.

"When I must choose an officer to perform an act that requires a good brain, everything else being equal, I choose the one with the biggest nose." - Napoleon
"If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything." - the Duke of Wellington

Thanks for the information.  On the Farragut class frigate I see a helo pad in pictures but no mention of the type of helo used... was an ASW helo normally assigned to this frigate?

While aboard, Farragut never had a helo.  There was no hangar, and I doubt that she ever had one.  The pad was vertical replenishment and personnel transfers.

"When I must choose an officer to perform an act that requires a good brain, everything else being equal, I choose the one with the biggest nose." - Napoleon
"If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything." - the Duke of Wellington

@1980-- USS Merril DD976 once detected a US Navy sub which had penetrated the task force and was shadowing the surface fleet as a sub FTX unknown to the surface vessels.  Standard protocol was to 'wake' enemy with @500 pounders or so.  No friendly fire arose from that event.  I don't know if the sub's crew started singing the Star Spangled Banner or not...  I could ask for more details.

Olde Tyme SPEARHEAD Soup ! Two (2) Diced Trunion Bearings, One (1) Minced O-Ring water obstacle crossing seal.  One (1) Chopped Loaders Hatch Gasket-- beat gasket with Bore Evacuator Spanner Wrench until tender...

DA 1775
 
I don't know if the sub's crew started singing the Star Spangled Banner or not...  I could ask for more details.

Please do, won't you?

 "I coulda' built a Thousand Year Reich ... but then I got high ... "  -HarleyRider (german version of)

 

No, they did not start singing.  That happened in Hunt for Red Oktober, but I thought it was funny.  The ASW Bluejacket on-duty that ID'd the sub was recognized by his skipper for his efforts.  He had a lot of pre-service training and was once able to tune-in the 11+ minute long version of Synard's Free Bird at a range of about 120 miles !  What exactly would you like to know ?

A Bluejacket Black Shoe of that era reported that 'waking' USSR surface vessels with bombs was a common Cold War practice of the 70's until at least mid-80's. 

Olde Tyme SPEARHEAD Soup ! Two (2) Diced Trunion Bearings, One (1) Minced O-Ring water obstacle crossing seal.  One (1) Chopped Loaders Hatch Gasket-- beat gasket with Bore Evacuator Spanner Wrench until tender...