Revetments, Missile Transporters, and other military infrastructure.

In DCS, SAM sites are often just clusters of vehicles on the ground, making them difficult to spot and identify, especially as mission makers often place them unrealistically or incorrectly.

In real life, SAM systems are laid out in specific ways with easily identifiable layouts and support infrastructure surrounding them unique to each type of SAM. In DCS, it's very difficult to recreate these setups without raised platforms for radars, revetments, and placeable roads. So basically I'm just adding these myriad objects and templates to the ever growing DCS wishlist.

Some picture examples of various SAM Sites:

S-300 Missile Site

SA-2 Guideline site

Patriot Missile Site

Hawk Missile Site

As you can see, each type of SAM has a unique and easily identifiable network of roads, revetments, and other support structure that make them readily visible from the air, as opposed to the random assortment of vehicles that make up most SAM sites in DCS.

P.S. It would also be nice to have a non-mobile early-warning radar, pictured below, instead of the ancient mobile EW models we have in game.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to listen :D

+1

Yes... & no.

All the systems you describe are often - and particularly in peacetime - ensconced in well prepared, fabricated and even plush set-ups as you have pictured, particularly when guarding a fixed position such as airbases, military, industrial or infrastructure complexes and the like.

However, the problem with these fixed emplacements is that if your enemy has his excrement together, he'll know where these fixed emplacements are and have them lined up for all sorts of high explosive gift baskets when the time comes.

These systems you list are all mobile to one degree or another because of this; ergo it isn't unreasonable to assume that if a shooting war does kick out these sites might disperse to less well prepared sites in order to avoid getting wasted early on.

That said, I don't disagree that some generic revetment/berm type objects would be very welcome to flesh out a mission designers palette. ME place-able roads might be going a bit too far...

Yes... & no.

 

All the systems you describe are often - and particularly in peacetime - ensconced in well prepared, fabricated and even plush set-ups as you have pictured, particularly when guarding a fixed position such as airbases, military, industrial or infrastructure complexes and the like.

Some of the pictures I posted here are from Syria, so not exactly peacetime setups. Also, if you look at SA-2 pictures from Vietnam they're also extremely visible from the air for the same reasons.

Either way, the vehicles driving around to setup and maintain the systems would quite quickly wear into the landscape and create a a visible site, as shown here.

That said, of course more mobile systems like the Tor, Buk, Rapier and the like could hide much more easily, but even then they still have visible support networks, they're just smaller and more temporary.

For example, here's a relatively hasty looking SA-6 site:

Definitely a lot less obvious, but still significantly more visible than 4 launchers, a radar, and a couple transports just sitting in a field.

No one really keep air defense there during wartime.

Yes and no. That patriot site would be used as-is in wartime as well. They would not relocate simply because hostilities break out. While the system is mobile-ish, jumping to another site would be a result of a change in protected assets the unit would have responsibility over, it wouldn't be moving simply to keep the guys with the bombs guessing

Even "mobile" patriot sites look remarkably similar. Ours is iraq had a berm surrounding the site, and the infrastructure is still set up in the same way, albeit a bit more austere.

Keep in mind there would also be plenty of empty sites for missiles to move to, and and decoy sites. Plus in a real IADS system, SAM traps would likely be an older site, and then protected with other launchers that would lite up a SEAD platforms went in to take care of the "known" site.

Keep in mind there would also be plenty of empty sites for missiles to move to, and and decoy sites. Plus in a real IADS system, SAM traps would likely be an older site, and then protected with other launchers that would lite up a SEAD platforms went in to take care of the "known" site.

Even more reason to add these units to the game, as it's basically impossible to create empty or disused SAM sites right now.

Here we go again...

Yeah, it would be nice!

I actually asked about this in context of Strait of Hormuz terrain when it was announced (map now called Persian Gulf). I was expecting to see at least entrenched positions for SAM systems.

Moving SAM battery such as SA-2 is not as simple as one may think.

There is a lot of upfront setup required and these stationary positions make sense in DCS.

However, apart from Normandy, current maps are focused on peace time of the region they represent, and military installations are limited to air bases and some storage dumps.

Unfortunately maps lack strategic targets pre populated on them.

It's not realistic for all SAM sites to stick out like that, but it's true that a few of them do, so this would be a good addition.

I think the Hormuz map does have a few (although very very basic) SAM emplacements around Bandar Abbas. They merely look like roads to nowhere, but it's enough to help you spot them if you know what to look for.

+1 things like revetments would be useful for more than just SAM sites, though you'd probably have to add multiple variants of different sizes.

And don't forget with combat engineering vehicles you could semi-quickly set-up these kind of sites and for things like the SA-2, SA-3 and SA-5 they're not all that mobile, especially not readily so (unlike the SA-6, SA-10, SA-11 where all units are mounted on a vehicle or trailer).

I think the Hormuz map does have a few (although very very basic) SAM emplacements around Bandar Abbas. They merely look like roads to nowhere, but it's enough to help you spot them if you know what to look for.

Yeah they do, and I've been trying to work with them but one of the things that prompted me to post was that a lot of the roads have powerlines or other totally unrealistic addons that kind of ruin the aesthetic (especially the Al Dhafra patriot site and the Bandar Abbas SA-2 site).

Also, of course, if we want SAMs to be mobile then it would be nice to be able to make semi-realistic infrastructure anywhere on the map.

The Patriot site we had in Afghanistan looked nothing like that. In fact, it was on top of the berm if I recall. Though that was about 12 years ago.

The Patriot site we had in Afghanistan looked nothing like that. In fact, it was on top of the berm if I recall. Though that was about 12 years ago.

i dont recall patriot being in afghanistan in 2007-2008, and IIRC the last patriot units were out of iraq by late 2004( i was there as a TCA in A/6-52). i know we were in kuwait and a handful of other countries, but never heard of any units rotating in&out of afghanistan. I was in 3-4 adar at the time, there was no air defense mission so the BN had been reconstituted in an MP unit structure, as we had air defenders being used as prison guards. unfortunately i missed that deployment as i got tagged for recruiter duty, and USAREC is at least one echelon above god, sometimes it seemed. returned to kuwait 2010 for a rotation as a PMG with B/4-5.

you sure it was patriot? its typically behind a berm, not on top of it. C-Ram or Avenger may have been, i believe JLENS was there, and while staffed with air defenders, cant be confused with any weapon system