Ships don't pop chaff?

[PoorOldSpike]

I know they pop it in the real world and in other naval sims, but I've yet to see them do it in DCS, or is there a special option or something we need to select to make them do it?

[RichardG]

No. They should jam too, but don't.

[Northstar98]

No, there aren't any countermeasures implemented for DCS ships. I also can't find any arguments for countermeasure dispensers in the modelviewer.

 

I know for a fact that the PK-2 dispensers on the Slava and Adm. Kuznetsov (including the new one) aren't animated either...

[Shadow KT]

Half their missiles and cannon defenses don't work fully at all either....

[Northstar98]

To be honest there's lots of things absent from the naval environment...

[PoorOldSpike]

I suppose we just have to assume ships are popping chaff and doing jamming "abstractedly" (ie invisibly)..:)

I've been testing DCS AI ships to find out which types of incoming missiles they'll fire their SAMs and CIWS against, and they do it pretty good most of the time.

Also AI ships are usually pretty good at firing their Anti-ship missiles on their own initiative.

[Northstar98]

Among all military orientated flight simulators, DCS has stuff fairly fleshed out (bear in mind that bar is very low). Though there are a fair few things it doesn't have, in some cases things that at least one other title (SF2) has, but I won't delve into that here.

Among the things that are implemented there are still some issues.

• Many of the anti-ship missiles are able to use in-flight waypoints and multiple flight profiles, in DCS, missiles are fired the same way (best way to have this done is probably via user defined weapon waypoints either through the ME, or CA, I don't expect the AI to automatically assign waypoints).
• The Phalanx CIWS fires the wrong ammunition, and has the wrong dispersion. (I've no idea what ammunition the DCS Phalanx is using, because DCS doesn't actually tell you the actual round designation in the vast majority of cases). In DCS the ammunition is traced so it's definitely not the ammunition naval Phalanx IRL uses.
• Some ships don't have access to weapons they are equipped with IRL, this is true particularly for the ships equipped with the Mk41 VLS. For instance on the Arleigh Burke-class DDG (post 2000s), it should have access to the SM-6/RIM-174A Standard ERAM and the RIM-162 ESSM.
• The Arleigh Burke-class DDG represents the later Flt.IIA 5"/62 variant (at least based on the liveries available) these ships only have the rear Phalanx CIWS installed (DDGs -85 to -115), yet in DCS, both the front and rear are present, which for Flt.IIA 5"/62 ships (which the DCS version is) are DDGs -81 to -84.
• The Ticonderoga-class and Arleigh Burke-class use the AN/SPG-62 to provide to provide terminal CWI for the RIM-66/67 SM-2s (SM-2s are SARH missiles), but these illuminators aren't implemented (or in the case of the Ticonderoga-class even animated in ModelViewer). Another thing to consider is that using the SPG-62 and SARH, Standards can be fired against ships, using CWI illumination from the SPG-62. This is particularly important for the Arleigh Burke class we have, as from the Flt.II onwards Arleigh Burkes aren't fitted with the Harpoon, so it doesn't have any anti-ship capability excluding the guns.
• This one is more of a nitpick, but the RIM-7M reuses the AIM-7M model, the real difference is that the front wings fold to fit in the Mk29 launcher as used on all the Nimitz-class CVNs. See here and here (note the hinges on the front wings, 2nd image has an inert warhead(?)).

Edited January 12, 2022 by Northstar98
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