Target speed limits for SAMs

[frosen]

I'm wondering how "hard" the target speed limit for a SAM missile really are. I was experimenting with the Umkhonto SAM (used by SA and Finland) and realized that, in the game, it's useless for high speed SSMs like Shipburn (1450 kt) whereas the Umkhonto in the DB is set to only engage targets up to 1200 kt although its maximum speed is 2250 kt.

I don't know but I suppose (or like to believe) that it's theoretically possible to engage a SSM travelling towards you even though your missile isn't designed to "chase" targets at that speed. So I see the logic that you can't intercept a target that travels away from you because the missile just don't have the energy to catch up. But in this case, when the missile travels towards you, shouldn't that be possible? It's also a question about last resort where I guess the Air officer would fire away everything he got if a Shipburn is aimed at him...

I hope some of you with better knowledge of this can answer and maybe then (if I'm right) the game logic can be tweaked a bit.

Cheers!

[Schr75]

Hi Frosen

It is not a matter of being able to chase the target, but a matter of closing speed.
The higher the closing speed, the higher speed the missiles homing head, guidance computer and control surfaces/thrust vectoring has to work. At a curtain point, the missile simply can´t react fast enough to hit a target. Therefore the maximum target speed.

There would always be the chance of a lucky hit, but the probability of a hit would probably not be much higher than that of a cannon shell.

Søren

[frosen]

Thanks Sören.

Taking the Umkhonto example again, it still has a rather high hit rate (final PH ~60%) for non maneuvering targets (I tried it against straight flying Mig-25s at 1000 kt). Although I assume the PH drops logarithmically, it looks like it would still have a decent PH at 1200 kt.

I guess what I'm driving at is that maybe it would be better to have the logic of firing the weapons anyway if another weapon is inbound straight at you (as in the SSM example) than just do nothing and wait for the impact?

[severe7]

frosen, are you by any chance trying to give the glorious HMS Visby its intended loadout? [:)]
I've been having the same thought regarding the Umkhonto.

[frosen]

ORIGINAL: severe7

frosen, are you by any chance trying to give the glorious HMS Visby its intended loadout? [:)]
I've been having the same thought regarding the Umkhonto.

Hehe how could you think that? [:D]

Yes, I guess if Sweden did look at something more potent like ESSM or something instead, I wouldn't have raised this topic [:'(]

Would be interesting to hear the devs on this one.

[severe7]

In my test scenario the Swedish navy just bought the RIM-116B RAM instead [:D].

[ComDev]

Thanks for you feedback guys [8D]

Do you have any reliable sources that suggest the weapon can engage these ASMs? If so we'd like to update the db accordingly. Thanks!