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

Hangar200 · July 17, 2018, 6:16pm

OK…I can respect that…but even back in LOMAC days, the Caucus region wasn’t exactly all peace and tranquility. In fact in many ways, it was more a hot spot than it is now.

I would argue to ED that both the Taiwan situation and the Korea situation have been simmering for years. I guess that somebody could develop a Korean War theater for the F-86 & Mig-15…and then we could “modernize it” as has been done with WWII Normandy…plausible deniability for ED and fun for us.

In FSX-TACPAC I was working on a scenario that would make use of ORBX’s Paccific Northwest, Pacific Fjords and South Alaska scenery. It was “The Great Back Bacon War” between the US and Canada, started over a dispute concerning what to call Back Bacon / Canadian Bacon. (Seriously, I was…because the scenery is pretty cool)

Perhaps I could sell that idea to ED…I believe they already have Canadian C-18s…

Navynuke99 · July 17, 2018, 6:23pm

I love that movie!

near_blind · July 17, 2018, 6:40pm

I believe you mean CF-188Ehs

Also if we’re doing Hypothetical PNW maps…

Navynuke99 · July 17, 2018, 6:55pm

WOLVERINES!!!

Bogusheadbox · July 17, 2018, 7:51pm

Hangar200 · July 17, 2018, 9:04pm

Just to show that I was seriously entertaining a Back Bacon War based campaign, here is my draft treatment for the first two chapters.

Did I mention that I’m retired and have a lot of free time…

Back Bacon War.zip (47.8 KB)

komemiute · July 17, 2018, 9:08pm

YES!

near_blind · July 17, 2018, 9:15pm

crap, I know what I’m playin this weekend.

Hangar200 · July 17, 2018, 10:07pm

The one true version Red Dawn! Although I was a bit confused as to how a Yak-38 ended up in Colorado…

near_blind · July 17, 2018, 10:15pm

Yak-38s got expeditionarily deployed in Afghanistan. It’s strange and unlikely, but not unheard of. I’m more concerned they decided to co-locate their forward air base with a political prisoner concentration camp. That’s not a security liability.

Hangar200 · July 17, 2018, 10:31pm

And here I thought the Ruskies had found a way to get a Kiev-class up the Colorado river.

In all seriousness…Yak-38s in Afghanistan? What were they thinking?

I guess you can make some sort of a case for field deploying VTOL aircraft like we might with the AV-8B but…it is such a crappy little airplane…I’d go for more Hinds…just say’n.

near_blind · July 17, 2018, 10:40pm

Essentially it was operational testing. How does glorious design #38 from bureau of Yakovlev perform in a deployed setting? in hot and high environment?

The answer is terribly, just like every other thing about the Yak-38 is terrible, and always will be.

Just about every whizbang new toy in the Soviet arsenal got at least one rotation through the sandbox in the 80s.

Franze · July 17, 2018, 10:55pm

Sure provided a lot of info for them to use for the 141 though. Which in turn the good ol’ folks at Lockheed were able to purchase and use for the F-35B.

Navynuke99 · July 17, 2018, 11:20pm

By rail, like the tanks and APC’s that were driven up through Mexico, or by ship from Cuba or Nicaragua?

I remember reading somewhere that the writers really did their homework setting up the scenario as described in the opening scenes.

Navynuke99 · July 18, 2018, 1:25am

I enjoyed that sample way more than I should. I think you may be onto something here…

One small request: can you find a way to work in a fistfight or melee between Texans and North Carolinians over what REAL barbecue is?

near_blind · July 18, 2018, 2:17am

Peaches · July 18, 2018, 3:34am

Nice run in, MBot. I am thinking about how to pull this off myself. Did you have super accurate coords that you entered into the UFC and then made your designated target or did you start off high enough to visually designate the ship with the HUD cursor before going low?

near_blind · July 18, 2018, 5:22am

Something to bare in mind: the range rings that appear in the editor are completely arbitrary. For some reason they’re oriented around the weapon / fcr set. For stuff and giggles I set up a mission to test this. Basic mission in Fog of War mode as a REDFOR tactical commander. In theory I should only see what the ship can see.

Mission set up (Western aircraft is NOE to test distance/terrain masking). Each aircraft is an F/A-18 at 26000 MSL and 550 Knots GS.

What the Kuz sees (interestingly enough the further three contacts to the east fade out every few seconds, simulating rotation of the radar?)

Moscow

Peter the Great

Weirdly the Kuznetsov is able to pick up contacts the furthest out. The Kirov and Moscow can only see contacts out to 75NM

Stranger still, the Krivak and Neutrashimy conform to basically to the editor rings.

Krivak

Neutrashimy

Another tangent. Because I hate myself, I went digging through the database. I’m intrigued and in need of a drink. If I’m reading it right, search radars are defined separately from FCR sets and surface search sensors.

Here are excerpts from the Kuznetsov.

These lines are the distance the circles are drawn in the editor.

This seems to be a definition of the generic qualities of the unit’s weapons systems. That detection range jives with the detection ranges. If you dive further into the wsTypes.lua 104 is a generic Missile/Gun radar

These are references to sensors defined in the sensors.lua. The search radar is surface search radar, the Tor and Tunguska are what you would expect, but none of them have a range of >35KM

This requires further research. Weirdly trolling through the one for the Moscow, there seems to be a lot of work tying the different radars to specific model parts…

MBot · July 18, 2018, 8:11am

I simply put the waypoint right on top of the stationary ship in the Mission Editor. For a more practical application, we will need the air-ground radar to designate targets.

Hangar200 · July 18, 2018, 4:08pm

I’m confused…I thought the lua looked more like this…
hawaii-luaus-ca

Oh…that’s luau…my bad.

That would make sense. A combatant will have a surface search radar and an air search radar or a combined surface/air search radar. (Kuznetsov is combined) From what you have shown in the data base, they only describe a “carrier search radar” in the sensors.lua. So, I would assume they are using the Kuznet’s combined surface/air search radar.

All radars are limited by Pulse repetition frequency (PRF) which dictates their maximum range or the radar horizon (plus thermal ducting) which determines the distance/range a radar can see a target given the height / altitude of that target above sea level.

(For those playing at home the formula is D≈3.57 x (√hr + √ht) where D is the distance the radar can detect a target in km; hr is the height of the radar in m; ht is the aircraft’s altitude, also in m; 3.57 is the metric constant for the earth…Pythagoras was a smart dude.)

The max range for Air search radars is mostly limited by their PRF for aircraft at medium to high altitude. The radar horizon formula comes in for aircraft flying at lower altitudes. You work the formula above, plugging in the aircraft altitude for ht. So an aircraft at 500m may not seen on radar if it is far enough away.

Just from the range rings shown, it looks to me like they may have correct max range correct for Kuznetsov. (PRF limited - we will assume the ring is correct because we will not get the PRF from an unclassified source.) The aircraft are at 26,000 ft and the Kuznetsov’s radar is situated pretty high. So the limiting factor is likely PRF not radar horizon. Just eyeballing it, I’d say it looks fairly correct for Kuznetsov. The Kirov and Slava? Need to take a look at the height of their radars and run the math.

Probably. Pretty cool if they are simulating that.

Now that @near_blind has me thinking…I’d be interested if they take radar horizon detection ranges into account against other ships…

While ships sail around at 0 ft AGL/MSL, their superstructure and masts can be several/many meters from sea level. We use mast height for ht, and run the formula to see the max-radar horizon limited range that ship can be seen on radar from another ship (call it the source ship), using hr for the source ship’s radar height.

Bigger target ships typically have higher ht values. Smaller target ships-lower ht values. The “armed speed boat” in DCS should have a fairly short detection range.

The range will remain constant for any given target-source ship pair, so it gives you a standard detection range for mission development.