Sinking Ships/Anti-Surface-Warfare discussion (with DCS World 2.5 examples)

OK…great tips! I have been ignoring the anti-ship -a task. (which is probably why they kept flying back at ships long after their missiles were all fired…but they still had their gun I guess. I “fixed” it by adding the Option RTB when a lot of ammo - set to Anti-ship missiles. However, I think the way you have it is better.

OK now I understand MAX ATTACK QTY. I thought it meant the maximum number of missiles to fire…which to me seemed redundant since I was setting REL QTY (I assume Release Quantity) to ALL. So I was shooting myself in the foot by using 16 (the number of Harpoon on a 4-plane section. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, Dooh!

I tried that but they never shot. I probably had them too far away from the SAG.

Overall I was trying to get the timing to go something like this:
1 - Harpoon shooters launch simultaneously (approximately) from three axis from just inside SA-N-6 range. Target = HVU CG Moskva
2 - HARM shooters ingress behind the Harpoons at an altitude where they can see the target radars.
3 - As the CG and escorts start shooting at the Harpoons, the HARM shooters have a FC radar to shoot at…so they shoot, then egress.

That said, per your recommendation I need the HARM shooters to ingress with the Harpoon strikers and then circle just at the edge of the SA-N-6 threat range.

Thanks for the recommendations - I shall give them a try.

I’m pretty sure theSkipper is o longer in the inventory. I know our airwing in 2004 never used/practiced with one.

Absolutely - while unfortunately we can’t break out damage to specific weapons (Mission Kill) or the ship’s engines/rudder (Mobility Kill) - I think something in the neighborhood of 50% damage should be sufficient.

I remember someone once saying the main difference between the classified and unclassified info is the addition of sources/reliability of info.

Both reports tell you the same general data, but the unclassified one just has it all lying there while the class one tells you which ones are WAGs and which are fairly certain to be accurate based on where the data came from.

I’ve no idea how true that may be as in my days with the 45th Space Wing I tried to avoid the classified stuff as much as I could. It wasn’t my job, it was just stuff I could run into, and I hated dealing with the hassle. :slight_smile: I didn’t need to know what frequencies were in use for this launch, or what payload was on that one, or any of that Chinese restaurant stuff.

For those who never had the irritation, there were these charts everywhere with a column A and a column B of categories. You could have as much as you wanted of column A or column B in a message, but as soon as you mixed just one from the other column you had a problem. So naturally we called it the Chinese restaurant problem thanks to their love of column A and B. :slight_smile:

When someone DID screw up and put them together, you had a CMI, and it was my job to clean it up. :sob:

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What? That’s not right.

The difference is that Secret means the press knew about it yesterday and Top Secret means the press knew about it today.

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Well, the real reason that things are classified its because [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED ] every other Tuesday.

So you see that when, [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED ] and [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED ] otherwise, [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED] monkey [REDACTED REDACTED ] unicycle or other [REDACTED REDACTED ] shaking hands with Abraham Lincoln.

Hopefully that makes things clear. :neutral_face:

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I’m pretty sure NAVSEA 08 and COMNAVAIRLANT would strongly disagree with what you were suggesting.

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FA-18C…eeeh…IMHO, not so much. The A-6E had a much larger payload. The FA-18E? I would agree.

I also agree 100% that DCS now has (will have once they get Harpoon going) two aircraft that have a strong and unique ASUW role…was part of their real world design. So ramping up on ships would be a priority for this old salt.

In my perfect DCS World I would see…

  • More classes of combatants
  • A few Auxiliary ships (AORs, T AKEs, etc)
  • A damage model that includes separate mobility kill, mission kill and radar kills
  • At least one maritime focused theater (Taiwan Strait or Vestfjord to the Kola Peninsula).

Subs would be nice but I think that is a bridge too far…plus, until they model the S-3B, P-C or P-8, there would be n point

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Not to mention [REDACTED]

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So hear me out. The A-6E and the F/A-18C have the same theoretical load out for the role, four hardpoints wired to carry the good stuff. Of course practically speaking a Legacy Bug is never going to carry four harpoons because it won’t get out of sight of the boat without having to tank again. You can have your max dakka, but you’re going to place unreasonable strain on your available tanking assets.

Through the dark mysterious power known only as “a fuel tank”, the A-6 doesn’t have this problem.

Sidestepping into an angry tanget: I feel like I burned a number of bridges by taking Razbam into the woodshed and wailing on them for their Las Malvinas announcement, but this is essentially why I did it. I make missions, from that perspective I like it when I’m able to make a cohesive scenario appropriate for that map. If by some magical opportunity I were allowed to pick maps, I’d prioritize those that could best capitalize on assets we currently have.

We don’t have anything for Las Malvinas. On the other hand for the Nordkapp or Vestjord, we have an increasing number of appropriate or near enough units for the Soviets, the Norwegians, the US, and if HB ever figures out how to model again, the Swedes. If either map were to come out today, you could make convincing, plausible scenarios for it.

To add insult to injury, Razbam seems to be course correcting to make up for this deficiency in UK and Argentine assets. Their Facebook has been alive with posts of UK surface combatants and FRAM Gearings.

However

Before the Harrier dropped, it used to be full of DDs, DDGs, LSTs and AOEs for both the US and Soviet Navies. I don’t know what the time table for those were, I can’t imagine they’re top priority now given their silly, silly map. I’m also rather pessimistic given how slowly work has progressed on their Tarawa.

Tl;dr

Razbam is literally Hayden Christenson

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(Remember the one with the dude pointing the Type 56 AK at the viewer? “Our enemies are listening” or some bull like that. I always looked at that one and went “Hey, that AK is backwards!” because the charging handle was on the wrong side.)

Per naval assets… with the Persian Gulf, is there any chance we might be seeing some vessels from that region? The Iranians still have a pretty wide assortment of ships and if we’re going to recreate anything from the late 80s, that’d be where it’s at. With all the naval aircraft we’re getting, it seems amiss to have those and not enough associated naval assets to roll with them. Even ArmA3 is getting a destroyer, and that’s about as far from a naval sim as you can get.

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Per ED, they plan to do Iranian naval assets, as well as an American DDG-51 class guided missile destroyer. Depending on the alignment of the moon and Saturn, the direction of the wind, and whether or not you ate Italian last night, statements Heatblur have made could be interpreted as meaning they might also do some surface ships to complement their Forrestal class CV.

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I fully agree. Other than the additional assets that would be desirable, I think there are some fundamental improvements that should be made in regards to ships to make ASuW fun and engaging from a pilots point of view:

  • Ships should be able to provide radar early warning and direct fighters. The mechanic already exists in the game with the two Russian EWR units, which provide radio directions to players and cue AI to targets. This functionality should be extended ships (in fact to any other ground unit as well). This would have a pretty big impact on tactics against ships with fighter cover, especially fighters without a suitable long-range look down radar on their own. This would result in low level approaches below the radar horizon being of advantage, while a careless approach that is detected by the ship’s radar would result in early interception by the defending fighters. No scripting required, the behavior works out of the box in DCS right now, it’s just limited to the two Russian EWR.

  • Ships need proper air search radars (reason: see above). Right now the Krivak and Grisha have a detection range of just 30 km, the Kuznetsov even merely 25 km, just enough to support their own SAMs.

  • All those dual-purpose naval guns on the ships should actually be dual-purpose and engage air targets. I want to see the 76 mm, 100 mm, 127 mm and 130 mm guns engage aircraft and missiles with radar directed, proximity-fuzed shells. While the effectiveness of these guns against fast targets is debatable, they should be used none the less (the guns are clearly designed with that dual-purpose in mind). From a gameplay perspective I want to see defensive weapons that put up a spectacle and force you to jink.

  • Chaff for ships.

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A good point. Since the 2008 Russia-Georgia War and Russia’s 2014 Annexation of the Crimea there is not much left to do with the Caucus theater.

The Arabian Gulf (a.k.a. Persian Gulf) was an interesting choice. Yes it gives you some carrier action and I assume the intended adversary is Iran. However, as far as “convincing, plausible scenarios”, Iran is basically it. There is only so much you can do with that except run the gauntlet of the SOH, especially since it appears that the map stops short of Bushehr and Kharg island. To me, the lack of Navy assets (at this time), the lack of coastal defense cruise missiles (CDCM) and absence of naval improvements that @MBot described, makes for a rather unconvincing theater at this time .

Right now, I think that there is enough platforms to do a pretty convincing Strait of Taiwan theater. We have a couple PLAN combatants; and OFPs for the Taiwan side. The rest is “repainting airplanes” Even the Mig-21bis could be makeover as the PLAF’s J-7. On the land side, enough equipment os the same (SA-10’s etc) or near enough. Scenarios run a gamut of PRC-Taiwan issues. In addition to the obvious, an invasion of Taiwan, there are numerous possibilities for lesser actions involving Taiwan’s “Off Shore Islands”-the Penghu archipelago, and closer to the coast of the PRC (very close in fact) Quemoy…and a few other minor islands in the Strait of Taiwan.

The same might be said for a North-South Korea theater if it is kept to the western part of Korea (for size) centered around the DMZ, including both capitals, and the disputed areas off shore around the Northern Limit Line. Definitely “scalable” scenarios puled from the pages of history. This would be “tuned” to more land-based scenarios since tanks and such wouldn’t need to get on a ship to get to the fighting. Again, all the aircraft on both sides are essentially accounted for-just need new paint and one could probably make do with existing naval, air defense and ground units “close enough for government work”.

Just some thoughts.

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That did the trick. Thanks! Now my task is to make the scenario more realistic as I just kept ramping up the number of Harpoon shooter in the hope that a few would actually shoot.

I’m pretty sure there are some marked differences between the current/recent J-7s and the MiG-21bis that can’t really be easily held up to ED’s standards with a repaint. ED is very obsessed with a high level of detail and they aren’t likely to make a minor fudge here or there to have something in a pinch. Same goes for a lot of PLA equipment as well as Taiwan (though Taiwan’s equipment would be way easier to piece together from what DCS currently has).

I think it’d work in a pinch, but most people wouldn’t tolerate the acceptable break from reality.

There is…the ability to shoot more advanced AAMs is just one. OK, so strike that. The various flyable Flankers would work.

As far as Taiwan…I just looked and there is a boat load of skins for the Taiwan AF F-5Es.

Most of the AI exists in some form…maybe add a few PLA armor units. IMHO, a few skins and a map from a few miles in from the PRC coast to a couple dozen miles east of Taiwan (with a bit of room north and south of the island) is essentially all that is needed.

Plenty of scenario/mission/campaign possibilities for both sides-from little things to an all-out war. Keep it real or add what ifs–what if Sweden decided to side with the PRC? (OK, maybe not that…just looking a use for my Viggen) :sunglasses:

EDIT: Speaking of more ground units, Also IMHO, what we really need in DCS World as a whole are mobile ballistic missiles - opens a lot more mission scenario possibilities.

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I’m more thinking of the F-16A/Bs along with the Mirage 2000-5s that Taiwan has. I’m not sure what major differences the 2000C has from the 2000-5, but I’m pretty sure the -5 is a more capable airframe.

In the past, ED has been extremely leery about making educated guesses or doing things without a full set of data. So while quite a few of us would accept a best guess, die-hard DCS fans would scream bloody murder if every rivet wasn’t precisely where it should be.

Not to mention that a lot of current political hotspots are anathema for ED to do, just due to where they’re located.

I’m going to refer you to this: Razbam Announcement

Many people talk a big talk about rivet counting in DCS, but my distinct impression having watched community for years is the majority of folks will happily make broad compromises for something they want if offered. The current best example is the Falklands, Vietnam or 50’s Korea will probably be the next. There’s a vocal minority that wants everything as close to correct as possible (myself included), or just like to throw wrenches at things, no doubt, we’re not the majority.

The Caucuses are always going to be an implausible map for anything other than Russia wailing on Georgia. No NATO aircraft except maybe A-10s and Harriers would operate from bases that close to the Russian mainland unless we had pushed in to the hilt, and none of the NATO bases in Turkey are there. Also there is, as you have pointed out, the Montreux Convention which prevents anything bigger than a cruiser going through (and the minor issue that shoving a CVBG in the Black Sea is criminal amounts of stupid). Still, it’s what we have.

I’m more lenient towards the Persian Gulf map. We can definitely use more naval vessels, and a deeper simulation of them, but between what is there, and what we are getting, you can make convincing enough scenarios about contesting control of the strait, or an aggressive air war aimed at crippling Iranian infrastructure. (For we should be getting CDCMs, Wags promised me in the form of youtube video!).

At the end of the day, any map that has sufficient size and enough stuff to bomb can inspire missions with enough application of hand wavium. I’d love a Taiwan Straits, I want Norway or Iceland. I would unironically take a Venezuela.

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