SAM shootdowns of HARM missiles

Multiplayer mission design is a little different from fighting a realworld war.

Where in the latter it is totally fine to win in as short as possible amount of time with as little resources used as possible, the former's main design goal has to be entertainment and attraction. Without focus on those two, you will not fill your server with returning clients.

Now that there will be a severe imbalance between HARM's capabilities and annoying lack of air defence systems' AI capabilities/tactics, mission designers will have to find a design compromise to enable the ideally unrestricted use of the new toy on the one hand, and on the other hand try to strengthen the air defence systems by e.g. placement, numbers, redundancy, triggers, scripted behaviour, spawns, selective invulnerability, etc.

AFAIK, at least with the KH-58U most radar operated SAM systems can engage it, its more a case that the older systems will be less accurate so less likely to shoot a HARM out of the sky

Why ban the use of 1760 weapons? Folks are shouting and clambering for their inclusion into the sim only to ban them when they arrive? Makes no sense to me. If that’s the case, just fly the warbirds. These weapons were developed for their standoff capabilities, why not use them.

I don’t think our RL counterparts are saying “hey, these weapons are too powerful, let’s NOT use them.” Just a thought.....

Because airquake! ;)

I’m sure those flying any kind of realistic scenario will make heavy use of them, and every other weapon system.

Why ban the use of 1760 weapons? Folks are shouting and clambering for their inclusion into the sim only to ban them when they arrive? Makes no sense to me. If that’s the case, just fly the warbirds. These weapons were developed for their standoff capabilities, why not use them.

I don’t think our RL counterparts are saying “hey, these weapons are too powerful, let’s NOT use them.” Just a thought.....

Because the majority of multiplayer servers are of air-quake variety, and that needs balance.

However, the sim is not mainly those, and for people who like to play scenarios offline, or play more realistic (and unfortunately rare) online event type games, they should exist.

Neither party is necessarily wrong. My preference is latter. But I appreciate others like competitive quick fun in former more. I also appreciate that it requires balance if played that way, even if it's a hardcore sim. Even the freefall dumb bomb nukes of MiG-21 are banned in those types of servers, and understandably so. Therefore some of Hornet's more advanced toys may also need to be cut off from those servers.

Yes will be interesting to see whether DCS SA-11 Ai can shoot down HARMs, as it's not even shooting down Kh-25MPU currently...

Because this a game, not a war. If mission is not balanced it loses its competitive value. That means weaker side on competitive server is underpopulated, and your server turns into coop. Mission creators tend to fight that by banning weapons that doesn't fit timeframe of mission they build. Because DCS F-18 has significant timeframe advantage (15ish years), it's usually first candidate for weapons ban.

This is not a game. This is a software that is trying to simulate a real vehicles and weapon systems. If you want a competitive game, play balanced games such as war thunder, DOTA etc... You can't balance things if you are trying to simulate things as in real life because these systems are created to counter each other as much as possible.

Because this a game, not a war. If mission is not balanced it loses its competitive value. That means weaker side on competitive server is underpopulated, and your server turns into coop. Mission creators tend to fight that by banning weapons that doesn't fit timeframe of mission they build. Because DCS F-18 has significant timeframe advantage (15ish years), it's usually first candidate for weapons ban.

Pretty sure 104th server will NOT be banning their use, infact we can't wait to use them :)

Grimes has already written an IADS script. It would be great to see some improvement of it.

Now that there will be a severe imbalance between HARM's capabilities and annoying lack of air defence systems' AI capabilities/tactics, mission designers will have to find a design compromise to enable the ideally unrestricted use of the new toy on the one hand, and on the other hand try to strengthen the air defence systems by e.g. placement, numbers, redundancy, triggers, scripted behaviour, spawns, selective invulnerability, etc.

you CAN balance things, but it sometimes requires vehicles of different doctrine (or what it's called, for example a SAM to counter a bomber or so)

Just set a couple of SA-15s (or more)to guard search and designation radars and you're done. If someone can saturate an SA-10 site and the SA-15s and take out the radars they have earned it. No need for artificial "balance" and crap like that.

All heavy SAM radars are assigned terminal defences IRL anyway. Type and number may vary but they're the rule not the exception.

This is not a game. This is a software that is trying to simulate a real vehicles and weapon systems. If you want a competitive game, play balanced games such as war thunder, DOTA etc... You can't balance things if you are trying to simulate things as in real life because these systems are created to counter each other as much as possible.

"Digital Combat Simulator World (DCS World) 2.5 is a free-to-play digital battlefield game."

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/products/world/

So as a RL example, Iran's Nuclear development facility in Natanz:

5x SA-15

1x SA6

3x Hawk

1x HQ2 (SA-2)

2x EWR

The full scale of layered point defence, medium and long range circles of protection.

I'd suggest the way DCS has often been setup since the A-10C era is of a very basic type of AD network, because it's not something human's could get into. Which may lead to some false expectations on basic public servers about the role.

For many years some of us have been doing nasty things with scripting to surprise players, but I't's been in vain because the only things impacted are AI, elsewise it's a bit silly to try to cram unsuitable airframes into roles they weren't designed for. Until HARM release that is. I would suggest you see a paradigm shift away from single SAM types, more use of scripting and more carefully and evily crafted missions. Please try to enjoy your games! You could always join some of mine to have that pleasant feeling of, "Nothing nothing, oh wait, Mud Spike, defending SAM!"

If you watch Spudknocker's HARM video, he only scored two kills firing four missiles...

It's not all that "God Like"

Real harm missile have ECCM, so all soviet old and "backward" AA radar systems will be deceived.

I doubt that the S-300 (or other early systems) can target a small target flying towards it and its covered with ECCM.

 

It does not matter how the system has a precise and powerful radar system when it is disturbed by an ECCM source

 

Maybe only any optical/ IR guidance system can save target AA system (for example aegis) before destroy in last two seconds before hit.

But chance is small ..

 

And the last thing, harm can be immune to enemy interference and the target can hit on the basis of GPS data.

Except that's not how that works. The more powerful a radar the less susceptible it is to electronic warfare by definition. The EW suite installed on a HARM would have minimal, if any, effect on any of the S-300's radars and the missile could be engaged at its launch point if need be. The EW package on board the HARM is for self defense purposes and has the effect of decreasing the range at which a SAM with a weak radar could engage it. It would be effective against maybe an Osa radar, but nothing much else. HARMs aren't particularly effective against S-300s, Tors, or BUKs in general. Real life strategy is to swarm them with cruise missiles, decoys, and JASSMs...completely different weapons systems.

S-300 has always hit my HARMs. Just cant deal with that SAM....:mad:

Wait before you find out that you can do high off boresight shots and cold aspect shots on SAMs like this one

https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/external/y_x6wWQhHlojeT8BzuW7iGq0y33HmZ4uxJJZSmrpsh8/%3Fcid%3D73b8f7b15c3f5e6734736158637b3164/https/media2.giphy.com/media/C9xpJSxESaHvG1GG7p/giphy.mp4

Just tried, and such setup is completely useless against 4 harm missiles. Most of them doing absolutely nothing.

 

Even tried to expand to ridiculous level, adding whole russian air defense arsenal ingame. No luck.

 

Seems harm is some sort of gods weapon.

Make sure all units are set to "Engage air weapons=True" in the ME, otherwise they won't engage incoming missiles. Put them all on excellent as well.

S-300 has always hit my HARMs. Just cant deal with that SAM....:mad:

You need to concentrate a lot of fire power to get it down, I was capable of downing full proper S-300 site (per template) assisted by Tunguska, using 2xSEAD flights + 8-16 Tomahawks from cruiser + a lot of cruise missiles from B-1B + me (4x LMAVs) from behind (180 angle) supported by invisible JTAC :joystick: ... and yes it still got most of the missiles :thumbup:

As you know, SAMs in game don't do anything to help themselves like emitting only when required. Hopefully that aspect of the AI is going to be revised, and then SAM nets might become challenging.

Just tried, and such setup is completely useless against 4 harm missiles. Most of them doing absolutely nothing.

 

Even tried to expand to ridiculous level, adding whole russian air defense arsenal ingame. No luck.

 

Seems harm is some sort of gods weapon.

As you know, SAMs in game don't do anything to help themselves like emitting only when required. Hopefully that aspect of the AI is going to be revised, and then SAM nets might become challenging.

One can try this to help the case: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3761127&postcount=120

in case of errors disable LUA sanitize: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2742336&postcount=77

Grimes has written there he is improving the system, so maybe one day it is going to be delivered with DCS by default.

The lot 20 is from the 90s i think, but can Sams shoot down 88s in the 90s?

Or can this only the actual Samsystems?

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The lot 20 is from the 90s i think, but can Sams shoot down 88s in the 90s?

Or can this only the actual Samsystems?

 

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SA-15 for example entered service in 1986.

When S-300 shoot down so easy our HARMs I cant imagine what will do S-400 or S-500 which are much more advanced SAMs....:(

When S-300 shoot down so easy our HARMs I cant imagine what will do S-400 or S-500 which are much more advanced SAMs....:(

Hitting any of reasonably advanced SAM systems would certainly make up a good test of tactics. I doubt a pair of Hornets with HARMs would knowingly be launched to the task unsupported, an S-300 site could easily make up into list of targets on very, very high level maps. And not only one could find more advanced SAMs but think about if the AI SAM crews were professionals, playing their tactical game of chess on their side....

This is not a game. This is a software that is trying to simulate a real vehicles and weapon systems. If you want a competitive game, play balanced games such as war thunder, DOTA etc... You can't balance things if you are trying to simulate things as in real life because these systems are created to counter each other as much as possible.

No Hunter this is a game. While ED strives to achieve as much accuracy as possible, they are not building a military grade simulation and giving it away for free on the internet. That being said, The capabilities of each weapon are an approximation of their capabilities based on the opinions of the testers and programmers.