SAM problems fixed?

[Ike99]

Just wondering if the problems with the SAMs have been worked on. Haven't seen a thread on it so I thought I might ask.

In the older versions they are completely useless.

For example...just to refresh my memory I conducted a test a few minutes ago.

I took twenty B-25 mitchells and attacked 20 improved Patriot SAMs.

Result... 1 Patriot SAM destroyed. [:D]

I hope everyone can agree there was aproblem with SAMs. [:D]


Anyway, has this been addressed in the new Matrix addition?

Please tell me yes. [&o]

[golden delicious]

The problem was twofold IIRC;
a) all AA fire was subject to a divider in the code which meant that losses were lower than intended
b) for some reason, high altitude AA fire (as in your example) didn't work at all.

My understanding is that this has been dealt with in the Matrix edition and AA should work as advertised.

In any case, in practice the effect of AA was more to reduce the effectiveness of air attack (by making bombers fly higher and faster, etc.) than to actual kill aircraft. At least, in the kind of warfare I'm interested in.

[Ike99]

My understanding is that this has been dealt with in the Matrix edition and AA should work as advertised.

Well if thats true, this is worth the purchase of the new edition right there for me. There are countries with not much of an airforce but with some serious SAM's, SA-10s and the like.

Really hard to model that correctly in the older additions when SAM's are useless against high altitude bombers.

I won't even venture to say how effective the SAM's should be because I'm far from an engineer. But they at least should be a bit better than useless I think.

What happens when B-52's crosses over airspace guarded by an SA10 site? I'm guessing the B52's would have some trouble here. Or B2's crosses over an SA10 area, what would happen here?

I really have no idea in either case and won't venture to guess. Some of the info is probably classified anyways. [:D]

The only thing I can base an opinion on is a F117 was tracked and shot down by an SA-6 SAM over Yugoslavia according to the US Pentagon.

But anyway, it's good to hear the SAM problem from the originals was looked at because there was a problem. [:)]

@Ralphtrick... I know you can't talk about new features and the like so I won't press about it, but [:D]it would be nice if you could make a small comment on this issue. So it could be straight from the horses mouth.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Ike99
Well if thats true, this is worth the purchase of the new edition right there for me.

Or you could use the modified .exe created by JMS which fixes this by mutliplying the strength of SAMs.

http://www.warfarehq.com/archives/showthread.php?t=723

The only thing I can base an opinion on is a F117 was tracked and shot down by an SA-6 SAM over Yugoslavia according to the US Pentagon.

Yeah? Do you have a link? As far as I recall, these aircraft are supposed to look no larger than a wild bird to radar, so if it was tracked by radar then I would guess it was a maintenance problem.

[Ike99]

Hey Golden, thanks for that SAM link fix. I'm definately going to download it and give it a try. [:)]

On the SA-6 shooting down a F117... here is a Russian Aerospace website with a story in english. I'm sure they were very proud it was their equiptment that did it. [:D]

http://www.aeronautics.ru/f117down.htm

You can always do a search on it...."F117 shot down" Something like that. Lots of pictures and video of it.

You didn't know that happened?

Rumor is that the SA6 was modified with a chinese radar set. If thats true no doubt the chinese were testing new equiptment behind the scenes.

If the chinese radar part is true or not....who knows.

[YankeeAirRat]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Ike99
Well if thats true, this is worth the purchase of the new edition right there for me.

Or you could use the modified .exe created by JMS which fixes this by mutliplying the strength of SAMs.

http://www.warfarehq.com/archives/showthread.php?t=723

The only thing I can base an opinion on is a F117 was tracked and shot down by an SA-6 SAM over Yugoslavia according to the US Pentagon.

Yeah? Do you have a link? As far as I recall, these aircraft are supposed to look no larger than a wild bird to radar, so if it was tracked by radar then I would guess it was a maintenance problem.

A USA Today article form 2005 about the incident. The long of the short the USAF got very stupid sending thier F-117's into Serbia during the operations in support of the Kosovo rebellion. They went through the same lane at the same time and always opened up with offensive jamming from EA-6B's from either USMC or USN units based off either the carriers or out of Aviano Italy. So the general assumption is that the serbs started to do a time comparasion of when the jamming would start and when they would loose the faint track off thier search radars and then when the plane flew through the box use the "magic bb" theory with thier SA-6's to tag and bag themselves an F-117. The other belief is that the serbs used what is called a Bi-static radar system to detect and track the aircraft. A bi-static system used one antenna to send the beam out and multiple antennas on a known bearing from the transmitter to pick up the return. Basic triangluation.
The F-117 and the B-2 aren't completely invisiable to radar systems either. That is a mis-nomer that is passed on by the media. The F-117 was designed to lessen the ability of tracking radars to get a return and achieve a firing solution. It can still be seen by a radar designed for search, though not very far still well enough againt to have an educated guess. Where as the B-2 was designed to lessen the ability of a search radar to find it. Both Lockheed and Northrup/Grumman went about the task in two different ideas. If they can put a weapon on you they can't shoot at you (Lockheed/F-117), if they can see you coming until it is too late then they can't shoot you accurately (Northrup/B-2).

[Rob322]

ORIGINAL: YankeeAirRat


A USA Today article form 2005 about the incident. The long of the short the USAF got very stupid sending thier F-117's into Serbia during the operations in support of the Kosovo rebellion. They went through the same lane at the same time and always opened up with offensive jamming from EA-6B's from either USMC or USN units based off either the carriers or out of Aviano Italy. So the general assumption is that the serbs started to do a time comparasion of when the jamming would start and when they would loose the faint track off thier search radars and then when the plane flew through the box use the "magic bb" theory with thier SA-6's to tag and bag themselves an F-117.

Just goes to show that in war you have to be careful becoming complacement or taking your opponents (even when you do over match them) for granted.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: YankeeAirRat

The F-117 and the B-2 aren't completely invisiable to radar systems either.

Naturally not- that would be more or less impossible. However, my understanding was that the radar 'signature' was made to be so small that tracking equipment would either miss it or take it to be a bird.

[Ike99]

The F-117 and the B-2 aren't completely invisiable to radar systems either. That is a mis-nomer that is passed on by the media. The F-117 was designed to lessen the ability of tracking radars to get a return and achieve a firing solution.

There definately not invisible to radar. Otherwise they wouldn't bother sending jamming aircraft along with them.

I'm guessing the Latest & Greatest SAM radar sets can track and hit them. But this is my wild guess. I wouldn't feel comfortable flying over Beijing or Moscow in a stealth for sure. [:D]

Still though I'm sure there effective against older SAMs and radar systems and thats 90% of whats out there anyway.

@Delicious-I tried that SAM mod and still came up with same results with the B25's vs Patriots. [&:]

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

@Delicious-I tried that SAM mod and still came up with same results with the B25's vs Patriots. [&:]

Well, they did always say the patriot is overrated....

High-altitude AA can't be fixed in COW. But low altitude AA should work fine, and since the vast majority of combat aircraft in the modern era seem to be low altitude in TOAW terms, that's good enough.