Better Naval combat and CA interface for it

[FalcoGer]

Currently naval combat is very limited. Combined arms controls are clunky and not functioning and even somewhat unintuitive.

I have the following suggestions to improve this.

 

1.)

Manual naval gun fire is single shot only and takes several dozen seconds to complete one shot while full auto capabilities are nearly 2 shots per second for some guns. However this is only done by the ai, not able to be done by a human and can't be commanded via the interface. In that regard I would like an updated interface to fire X rounds on target at the maximum fire rate (same interface could work for artillery)

 

- Set Target

- Set radius (optional)

- Set number of shots

- confirm fire mission

 

 

2.)

Currently countermeasures on ships are not modeled at all. Yet virtually all naval combatants have chaff, flare and ir blocking smoke launchers. some even have launched jammers. some ships also employ towed torpedo decoys. I would like these countermeasures to be modeled and employed by ships when fired upon.

 

 

3.)

Employing specific weapons on a target is impossible. The AI decides the weapon to be used. This should be changed. Manual launches of ASuW missiles should be possible, too. Provide harpoons and TASMs and others with waypoints, activation points and destruct points and launch a coordinated, pre planned attack at the press of a button.

 

4.)

Many naval guns are dual purpose and can fire both HE Frag and HE Airburst for AA. In DCS the latter is not modeled. Many ships don't use their guns at all against aircraft, and when they do they use the wrong ammo.

 

5.)

Many SAM systems on ships can be used in surface to surface mode, such as the SM1, SM2 or ESSM. In DCS this is not possible. It should be able to be commanded, however the AI should not be allowed to use it by default.

 

6.)

Submarines and torpedoes don't work at all. No air dropped (helicopter, aircraft or rocket) torpedos or depth charges exist, nor do ships or submarines use ASW weapons. Submarines can't dive. Sonar and sound propagation in water is not modeled at all. ASW is not a thing in DCS.

 

7.)

Ships have a damage model in that their model gets changed for a damaged one when damage has ocured. However ship equipment is rather sensitive. And while a ship may not sink, a missile hit will most certainly take out the gun, radar dishes or missile launchers or other systems. I would like to see that reflected. Hitting a ship with a harm or 3 and still it's radar system is working completely fine is ridiculous.

[Evoman]

I totally agree that the Naval operations needs improving. The main issue is that DCS already has most of their resources tided up in with what they do best which is aircraft. I recently saw the game play for a new Submarine simulator that is under development called Modern Navel Warfare that is light years ahead of what ED would be able to do. So that gave me the idea that they should collaborate together to bring a great submarine simulation to DCS while helping each other out. That way ED does not have to devote too much of their precious time and resources to add it to DCS.

 

[Northstar98]

 

1.)

Manual naval gun fire is single shot only and takes several dozen seconds to complete one shot while full auto capabilities are nearly 2 shots per second for some guns. However this is only done by the ai, not able to be done by a human and can't be commanded via the interface. In that regard I would like an updated interface to fire X rounds on target at the maximum fire rate (same interface could work for artillery)

 

- Set Target

- Set radius (optional)

- Set number of shots

- confirm fire mission

 

+1, but bear in mind that the rate of fire on most naval artillery in DCS is higher than real-world.

 

2.)

Currently countermeasures on ships are not modeled at all. Yet virtually all naval combatants have chaff, flare and ir blocking smoke launchers. some even have launched jammers. some ships also employ towed torpedo decoys. I would like these countermeasures to be modeled and employed by ships when fired upon.

 

Definitely agreed! Though it's probably going to mandate a model overhaul for some ships (the Russian Slava class (Pr.1164 "Atlant"), and the Admiral Kuznetsov have trainable launchers for firing countermeasures (PK-2))

 

3.)

Employing specific weapons on a target is impossible. The AI decides the weapon to be used. This should be changed. Manual launches of ASuW missiles should be possible, too. Provide harpoons and TASMs and others with waypoints, activation points and destruct points and launch a coordinated, pre planned attack at the press of a button.

 

Agreed, I'd definitely like to be able to define waypoints for weapons, so long as the weapon is capable.

 

4.)

Many naval guns are dual purpose and can fire both HE Frag and HE Airburst for AA. In DCS the latter is not modeled. Many ships don't use their guns at all against aircraft, and when they do they use the wrong ammo.

 

Again, very much agreed, Russian ships at least should have access to contact fuzed HE for anti-ship and shore bombardment as well as variable timed/remote(?) fuzed HE and proximity fuzed HE for anti-aircraft.

 

The Phalanx CIWS also uses the wrong ammunition (not sure which it uses currently as DCS doesn't tell me*) but it should use MK149 or MK244, both of which are untraced APDS rounds.

 

5.)

Many SAM systems on ships can be used in surface to surface mode, such as the SM1, SM2 or ESSM. In DCS this is not possible. It should be able to be commanded, however the AI should not be allowed to use it by default.

 

We don't have the ESSM at the moment (even though the Arleigh-Burke class DDG should have it, given that it's a Flt.IIA 5"/62 c. post 2000s), but one of the problems here is that the FCRs (AN/SPG-62), which provide CWI for the terminal SARH mode of the SM-2 aren't functional.

 

6.)

Submarines and torpedoes don't work at all. No air dropped (helicopter, aircraft or rocket) torpedos or depth charges exist, nor do ships or submarines use ASW weapons. Submarines can't dive. Sonar and sound propagation in water is not modeled at all. ASW is not a thing in DCS.

 

Actually, submarines can now dive, but submarines are in their absolute infancy at the moment (submarine dynamics modelling is basically absent and incredibly simplified), but yes, so far there's no ASW weapons, even though we have assets that have them. There's a whole myriad of things with the underwater environment/submarines that is missing, but I doubt we'll see improvements for a long time.

 

Torpedoes also work, but at the moment we only have WWII style gyroangle straight-running, fixed depth torpedoes. Torpedoes do produce a wake but currently that wake is essentially just a regular smoke trail, which doesn't look quite right (it should be a proper wake).

 

Otherwise +1 to the rest, though we probably won't see ASW weapons yet, not without some overhauling. As for SONAR, which is totally absent, it'll probably require an engine overhaul for it, although if you wanted to do a minimal approximation, you could approximate active SONAR with existing RADAR, just with a modified propagation speed.

 

7.)

Ships have a damage model in that their model gets changed for a damaged one when damage has ocured. However ship equipment is rather sensitive. And while a ship may not sink, a missile hit will most certainly take out the gun, radar dishes or missile launchers or other systems. I would like to see that reflected. Hitting a ship with a harm or 3 and still it's radar system is working completely fine is ridiculous.

 

Definitely agreed, though this one is again going to require a major overhaul to really get it right (not just in damage modelling, but also graphical damage) and I think ships are probably last on the list for any kind of new damage model.

 

Another thing I'd like to see is some form of flooding simulation, so that ships sink more realistically, instead of in the same exact way every single time.

 

 

In addition to the above I have some of my own, however I think it's going to be a very long time before any of these make it in.

• At the moment, ships blindly follow waypoints, never manoeuvring defensively to threats (you can for instance fire an AShM ±15° off of the bow of a Tarantul-III missile corvette, the MR-123 FCR will turn to face it, but the ship won't manoeuvre to bring the threat inside the firing arcs of its AK630s. To give ED credit, they have implemented offensive manoeuvring to the Type VII u-boat and S-130 Schnellboot.
  
• There's no control over the formation of ships, and how the formation may change when passing waypoints, unlike aircraft and ground vehicles.
  
• Ship wakes aren't quite there yet, while improved, there's still not enough white in my opinion, and they're much too short (especially at high speeds).
  
• While there's a seafloor (which is at the right depths in most newer maps), there's no 'underwater' to speak of, like this if you ignore the submarine (which would be absolutely perfect). There's no underwater effects either (such as cavitation). This would also allow for things like wrecks, instead of ships disappearing with a large splash.
  
• Ship dynamics isn't quite there yet, this isn't so much a problem for larger vessels, but it's definitely more noticeable for smaller vessels (concerning how they interact with the waves, and where forces are being applied to make turns), to give ED credit, they did implement ships rolling while turning (though in this case, at least the green speedboat with a DShK on the back does full, sometimes multiple, complete rolls when turning at high speed). Another thing that concerns this, is again, submarines, which can do the same speed surfaced as they can submerged, the Type VII u-boat for instance can do 20+ knots submerged, while in reality, it can only do that on the surface, submerged it could only 7 knots (at least on batteries).
  
• The 3M-54E and 3M-54E1 SL-AShMs aren't implemented on the Kilo class submarines (and the improved Kilo (Pr. 636) isn't present despite appearing in the files at the same time as the current Pr. 877V modified Kilo), the missiles are present in the modelviewer, though the 3M-54E is missing it's terminal stage, and both missiles don't have their capsules or animated control surfaces (besides unfolding).