SAM trajectories, revisited

[JambalayaSauce]

Hello, a while back (1307-era) both myself and others posted about strange SAM lofting trajectories that were resulting in anomalously low terminal engagement velocities and probability of kills (like 30-35% for an SM-2 at only 40 miles distance). The issue was actually wonderfully addressed and fixed for 1328.11, and SAMs have worked great ever since. With the new crop of beta releases, it appears the poorly-optimized trajectories have made a reappearance again, though not as extensively as they were during the 1307 days. In fact, so far I've only noticed it for SM-6s.

Here are reference links to this issue from earlier versions of the game:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0&t=394534

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0&t=398263

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0&t=398932

I have also attached a test scenario to highlight the stark contrast in performance between SM-2s, which appear to still be working properly, and the afflicted SM-6s, which struggle to hit even large, non maneuvering targets once they leave powered flight.

Missile Loft Issue 1468 CIV.rar

(20.27 KiB) Downloaded 4 times

On another note, I wanted to give thanks to the dev team for fixing the whole "projected intercept point is below weapon engagement altitude" bug. It was quite distressing watching my fleet of AEGIS ships get absolutely smoked by a small handful of subsonic Chinese anti ship missiles.

[thewood1]

"It was quite distressing watching my fleet of AEGIS ships get absolutely smoked by a small handful of subsonic Chinese anti ship missiles."

Either it was a huge number of missiles of you are definitely doing something wrong. I see a single Aegis ship with SM-2s and ESSMs easily defeat dozens of Chinese and Russian AshMs. It has been like that for years.

[JambalayaSauce]

Nope, it was just a recurring issue in 1328 that I narrowed down to the incoming missiles being subsonic and flying at 60 feet. YJ-81s were the usual culprit. The destroyers would smack down all other missiles as usual, but trying to engage the -81s would instead spit out this firing block:

estimated impact point is outside of weapons valid altitude envelope.png (294.42 KiB) Viewed 417 times

It wouldn't matter if the inbound missiles numbered one or two, or twenty. The DDG would never get a firing solution on them from the moment they were detected until the moment they hit. The only thing that seemed capable of engaging was the CIWS. Regardless, the issue appears to have been fixed as of 1468.

I too have been playing Command for years, by the way.

[thewood1]

"I too have been playing Command for years, by the way."

Why did you feel the need to say that in particular?

[thewood1]

Well, it seems the SM-6 does well against C-802/YJ-83 ASuMs. Subsonic at 60 ft. is where you think its having issues. I used these units because they happened to be in my baseline test scenario. I'll adjust to YJ-81s and different versions of the SM-6.

Screenshot 2024-10-14 190129.jpg (762.85 KiB) Viewed 377 times

[thewood1]

Here is the SM-6 Mk I. The above test was with the Mk IA. Same result.

Screenshot 2024-10-14 191822.jpg (1.05 MiB) Viewed 373 times

If I let the scenario play on, the ships fires dozens of missiles until the C-802 battery is exhausted. There were two misses that the CIWS took care of. I have one more test to run to see if I can reproduce.

[thewood1]

This is with SM-6 Mk I against air-launched YJ-81s coming in subsonic and at 30 ft. The SM-6s had no issues with either manual or auto launch. In fact, I let the missiles get fairly close before I turned on auto launch. the SM-6s had no issues. I have no idea what I am doing differently.

Screenshot 2024-10-14 194125.jpg (1 MiB) Viewed 369 times

btw, in the OP's attached scenario, it averages four SM-6s to kill the three PLAN aircraft. I ran it six times. Three times it took three SAMs, twice it took four, and once it took five.

[JambalayaSauce]

Well, it seems the SM-6 does well against C-802/YJ-83 ASuMs. Subsonic at 60 ft. is where you think its having issues. I used these units because they happened to be in my baseline test scenario. I'll adjust to YJ-81s and different versions of the SM-6.

Dude...I know. Please re-read what I said in both posts. In fact, this thread has nothing to do with shooting down incoming ASMs, I straight up said they fixed it and was passing along my thanks for that. You running those tests in 1468 CIV confirms what I said lol.

This is entirely about the fact that SM-6s are running on extremely un-optimized trajectories, running themselves out of kinetic energy way before even "inferior" missiles such as the SM-2s that are also in the scenario. As in, PKs of ~35% vs 85%. Terminal velocities of ~500 knots vs Mach 3. In 1328.11 (or maybe .18, can't remember), they tweaked the trajectories of lofted SAMs in a way that fixed the issue. The issue appears to have now returned as of 1468, but so far only for the SM-6. I haven't tested other weapons that aren't SM-2s, ESSMs, or SM-6s, but something is definitely up with them.

[blu3s]

Thanks for the reports and the link to old threads. We know that for certain missiles are some issues with the range and energy.

Logged 0016105

[thewood1]

This was the main point of my test...

"I have also attached a test scenario to highlight the stark contrast in performance between SM-2s, which appear to still be working properly, and the afflicted SM-6s, which struggle to hit even large, non maneuvering targets once they leave powered flight."

I ran the scenario that you posted and you can see my results. While the way it got there might not be perfect, the SM-6 seems to be having no issues against large non-maneuvering targets.