[WAD+TWEAK] Missiles engaging bombs

[FoxZz]

I've noticed a sort of bug,

During a scenario, several bombs were dropped towards their targets but were destroyed while flying by various sort of missiles including SA-11, Crotale NG, R73 Archer, SA-10B, etc
I've also seen R77 killing Scalp cruise missiles.

The bomb destroyed were SBU-54 dropped at high altitude at stand-off range.

How is this possible ?

Those missiles are said to be able to engage missiles and bombs in the database, but a missile such as the one of the Buk being able to kill bombs, or even a R73, seems very unlikely to me, I've never heard of such a capability for those missiles.

[Dimitris]

WAD. It's possible, though not easy (especially for smaller weapons).

[FoxZz]

The POH was very high, above 70%.

PS : What does WAD mean ?

[Dimitris]

WAD = Working As Designed.

If you think an engagement is possibly skewed, please post the relevant message log and a pre-impact save.

Thanks!

[mikmykWS]

WAD: Works as designed


Most modern SAM and some older systems can engage munitions as well. Fact many Russian point defense systems are charged with defending the larger systems from attack.

Mike

[ComDev]

The plan is to add some limitations for older missiles like AA-2s to engage glide bombs in Command version 1.10, but moden weapons are quite capable against PGMs.

[FoxZz]

I've conducted more tests and to me, the ability of AA missiles to engage bomb and missiles is way too much overmodeled, at a point where the aircraft will evade better the missiles than its ammunitions.

I think this is due to the fact that the only fact that decrease the AA missiles probability of hit is the signature modifier of the targeted weapon, and it rarely exceed 25%.

But mainly, many weapons shoudln't be able to engage bombs and missiles. And also, there is no differencies between a basic cruise missile, a glide bomb, a smart cruise missile, a nuclear missile, etc.

When you see missiles as big as this

engaging and destroying on a very regular basis small bombs like that

arriving with such an angle


It doesn't seems very realistic to me.

Outside of the Naval missiles, Tunguska and Pantsir, which systems can reliably destroy modern missiles ? And which one can manage to destroy a bomb ?

Because ingame even old missiles like SA-2, SA-5, etc can engage and destroy both glide bombs and advanced cruise missiles.

I've even saw a 1960 SA-5c, designed to destroy strategic bombers (!), destroying a 2010, mach 3, stealth, smart and manoeuvrable ASMP-A nuclear missile. And all this while shooting only 2 missiles at it. It has been detected 145nm away. Screenshot of the PH probability, and save available.


I think all this stuff would need a rework and definitly isn't working as intended. In the current state air to ground ammuntions are way to easilly destroyable.

Maybe adding properties to the missiles that would add modifier to the PH calculations, as well as making a differance between the different kinds of missiles and bombs, and removing the ability of some of those system to engage such targets.

[Dimitris]

Check again with v1.10 RC1.

[cns180784]

I find this to be the case too. In an air raid on an amphibious group, i had 8 harpoons fired at 4 landing craft, and 5 frigates which were defending the landing craft shot all 8 harpoons down with SAMs, with relative ease. SAMs used were RIM66E6 and Aspides'.

[Dimitris]

Long ago, we introduced modifiers on the weapon endgame sequence that make it theoretically possible but statistically extremely unlikely that older AAW weapons can hit smaller and/or faster targets like PGMs.

[Blast33]

Lets look at Air-to-Air missiles vs. bombs

I did a small test.
2x Scenario's attached: - PGM hit test.scen is early-on (gives you the ability to tweak yourself).
- PGM hit test_engagement.scen (is at the moment of...engagement) as the name implies.

Normally the engagement head-on is at the last moment with the AA-11's according to the DB but quite some times it happends at larger distances than the DB says its possible.
I had MiG-29SMT engagements @ 3.4 Nm head-on.. and 2 Nm with the MiG-29A. What could be the reason?


Lets dive a bit deeper:

Radar guidance
I have a Fulcrum A with AA-10's and AA-11's head-on and a MiG-29 SMT with IR-guided AA-11 only sideways.
The MiG-29A guides a semi-active AA-10 on the bomb from the radar guidance of the MiG-29SMT Zhuk-M radar Yes CMO this is still hard to swallow... So I deleted the AA-10's to get to the IR part to show something similar.

And I must say, is a target signature modifier of only -20% for a '80 radar vs a -19dBsm target a bit...low...?

AA-10.jpg (8.69 KiB) Viewed 323 times

Lets switch IR:
Now the MiG-29A fires a AA-11 at a range of 2.4 Nm at a GBU-38 JDAM (V)5. The MiG-29SMT does not engage, probably because the other MiG-29A does the job already.

This image below is the DB description which states the IR detection range of the GBU-38 is 0.34 Nm. But because the MiG-29SMT guides the bomb, and that data is used in CMO, by the old MiG-29A to guide its AA-11 at a 7 times greater distance than is possible via the DB.
These kind of situations will make your eyebrows go
Untill CMO gets deeper on the real data connections and links this will occur every now and then, but gives you a nasty feeling.
In the .zip are e few more examples of hit ranges far greater than the DB states.

Clipboard01.jpg (27.24 KiB) Viewed 323 times

Clipboard02.jpg (27.9 KiB) Viewed 323 times

PGM hit test_engagement.zip

(81.18 KiB) Downloaded 12 times