We will soon be releasing the AGM-84D Harpoon anti-ship cruise missile into the DCS World Open Beta. This will be very much a work-in-progress but will still provide most of the fundamentals of using this weapon system. Later in early access we will add R/BL mode (once the SEA mode of the A/G radar is included) and the pop-up (POP) terminal attack mode.
You can read about the Harpoon in much greater detail in the DCS World Open Beta Hornet Guide that can be found in:
C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\FA-18C\Doc
There are known issues regarding the damage level the Harpoon can inflict and guidance of multiple Harpoons without re-setting launch parameters.
Eh… I don’t know about all that. I’m sure @Hangar200 will hop in when he’s taking a break from his new toy, but closing to bomb range seems to me like it would be an unnecessary risk, as the whole point of anti-ship missiles is the standoff attack capability they provide. Plus, there’s the whole thing of mission kill/ disabling versus sinking/ destroying.
Having said that, I definitely used the HARM + Harpoon attack method back in the Jane’s Superhornet days when I was flying the Resolute Fury campaign.
But then again it might actually be a requirement to sink a target to prevent it from being salvaged. And I can imagine that it would be very difficult to actually sink a major warhsip with even dozens of Harpoons. I think the hulks in SINKEX’ are usually finished off with demolition charges or a Mk-48 torpedo.
I once read somehwere that Intruder pilots expected to finish off the Kirov with Snakeyes
@Navynuke99 hit the nail on the head. A mission kill in normally sufficient. A maneuver kill is a close second. Depending on the size of the ship, a single Harpoon may not do it…would not do it against a Kirov CGN. Plus, even if you smother a ship with HARM you may not get its point defense systems so you are going to need to send a few Harpoons its way–preferably from several different bearing simultaneously.
That said, you may want to move in with an LGB to ensure the job is done. As @Navynuke99 says, this is risky and would only be attempted if necessary. During the Cold War we had a pub that provided graphics on where to hit various combatants with bombs in order to get the proper type of kill…i.e. for a mission kill hit the missile magazine; maneuver kill hit the fantail area…yeah, not really rocket science.
I found that it’s not a hard-hitting weapon but it works fairly well to stand off and disable some aspects of a ship. More often than not, my Harpoons dove right into the water during the terminal phase, so initial strategies should probably be planned to use multiple missiles for one target and expect a lot of misses.
I think there is a War At Sea thread that covers general tactics. In general we used a “KISS Wheel” (Keep It Simple Stupid" - a kneeboard card with a “pie chart” with about 6 “slices”,each slice numbered or lettered. Each pair of jets A-6Es at the time, would be assigned a slice/sector. The idea was to spread the Harpoon attack around the target ship so that missiles came at it simultaneously from multiple axis. This would (hopefully) overeat the target’s defenses and a few would get through.
A couple of points:
1 - You obviously didn’t fly through the target’s threat envelope to get to your sector, so the jets shooting from the far side of the KISS when had to fly a circuitous route to get to their launch points.
2 - The idea is to have a simultaneous TOT for the missiles. That often meant that launch times had to be adjusted with jets shooting from longer ranges firing first.
This sounds like it would be a fun MP mission…assigning KISS sectors, figuring out the routes and firing times…
If we could even get simple CA access to the boats to try and play Defence, this would be awesome.
You can play CA currently as a SAM with a top-down radar view and try to shoot down bombs (mk84 size), JSOW, etc. Works with SA15 and SA19 that I have tested so far.
Sea Story Alert: The sub-launched Harpoon as an anti-air weapon.
Back in 1980-something, we were down in the Porto Rican OPAREA (PROA). The sub in our battle group, I think it was the City of Corpus Christi, was scheduled to shoot a sub-launched Harpoon at an anchored hulk–and old merchant ship. One of our VF-32 jets was assigned as the chase aircraft. They were flying a racetrack pattern over the designated launch point at about 1500 ft AGL.
At the appropriate time the missile comes flying out of the water. Our jet is in the perfect position, almost right over the launch point but then something goes wrong…
The missile continues flying up…up…and over! The startled aircrew watches as the Harpoon flies up one side then over their jet - a wonderful unobstructed view through the bubble canopy – and then back down into the water on the other side…splash.
mini update
" In our march to added TWS on 18 December for the Hornet, we’ve now added SCAN RAID and EXP (Expand) sub-modes to TWS.
Expand (EXP). When there is an L&S target in TWS mode and EXP is pressed, the display will change to a 10 nm range with a 20-degree azimuth scan. The display range on the right side of the display will indicate the 10 nm scan area (for example: 30 at the top and 20 at the bottom). Despite the 20-degree azimuth scan, the legend will still indicate the previous setting and the b-sweep line will not freeze on the L&S.
This mode simply zooms in on that area, but the TWS scan operation, target rankings, etc. does not change.
Filed tracks that are outside of the display will be on the edge of the display and flash.
SCAN RAID Mode. This is selected from the SCAN RAID button on the throttle and it concentrates the TWS scan to a small area to break out closely spaced targets. When enabled, the scan is centered on the L&S target. It is displayed in a standard range and azimuth format in 10 nm zoomed in display at 22-degrees of azimuth, with a 2-bar elevation. The b-sweep line is frozen on the L&S target and SCAN RAID appears at the bottom of the display.
When in this mode, track files and raw hits are displayed. If a new L&S target is designated, the RAID SCAN will move to that location. Filed tracks that are outside of the display will be on the edge of the display and flash.
When selected, AUTO scan centering is automatically selected and cannot be unselected while in this mode.
We will continue de-bugging these and TWS as a whole, and we still need to add L&S HUD indications when in TWS.
