[MUST TWEAK DBs] ALARMs/airburst weapons ineffectual vs. SAMs?

[ussdefiant]

Yello gents, i think i found another bug while toying around in my sandbox.

Today it involves me trying to send ALARMs at some target radars to see how many it takes to put down a SAM, and then me being very surprised at what happened when some of the ALARMs actually got through and did precisely zero damage to the SAM.

I repeated a test by sending 10 ALARMs at an empty Crotale battery and the results from the test from the OPFOR perceptive are shown below:

Code: Select all

 6:53:23 AM - 6:53:23 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #64 has been lost.
 6:53:23 AM - 6:53:23 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 43ft
 6:53:23 AM - 6:53:23 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 #130 airbursted directly on top of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)
 6:52:46 AM - 6:52:46 AM - Contact: VAMPIRE #64 has been type-classified as: GuidedWeapon (Classification by: SAM Plt/2 (Roland 3 CAROLE) [Sensor: Generic TV Camera] at 7.9 nm)
 6:51:40 AM - 6:51:40 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #63 has been lost.
 6:51:40 AM - 6:51:40 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 45ft
 6:51:40 AM - 6:51:40 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 #126 airbursted directly on top of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)
 6:51:38 AM - 6:51:38 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #62 has been lost.
 6:51:38 AM - 6:51:38 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 53ft
 6:51:36 AM - 6:51:36 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #61 has been lost.
 6:51:36 AM - 6:51:36 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 169ft
 6:51:36 AM - 6:51:36 AM - New contact! Designated VAMPIRE #64 - Detected by P 960 Skjold [Sensors: EOS 500 [IR Camera]] at 274deg - 71.1nm
 6:51:34 AM - 6:51:34 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #58 has been lost.
 6:51:34 AM - 6:51:34 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 #122 has malfunctioned.
 6:51:33 AM - 6:51:33 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #55 has been lost.
 6:51:33 AM - 6:51:33 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 80ft
 6:51:30 AM - 6:51:30 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #59 has been lost.
 6:51:30 AM - 6:51:30 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 #121 has malfunctioned.
 6:51:30 AM - 6:51:30 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #56 has been lost.
 6:51:30 AM - 6:51:30 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 82ft
 6:51:28 AM - 6:51:28 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #60 has been lost.
 6:51:28 AM - 6:51:28 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 43ft
 6:51:28 AM - 6:51:28 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 #119 airbursted directly on top of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)
 6:51:28 AM - 6:51:28 AM - Contact GuidedWeapon #57 has been lost.
 6:51:28 AM - 6:51:28 AM - Weapon: ALARM Blk 1 airbursted off R.440 Crotale NG (of SAM Plt (Crotale-NG)) by 47ft
 

2 direct hits, 6 near missiles, and precisely zero damage to either the launchers or the radars on them, even with them being listed with no armor in the DB. I expanded the target set to another test, and it seems like the ALARM will kill radar sites just fine but for some reason refuses to kill SAMs.

Attached is a scen showing 15 ALARMs inbound to two different Crotale sites, a Roland site, two variants of the Ground Master radar, and a Master-T radar. Whenever i run it,the radars will happily die off, but the SAMs refuse to take any damage. Also, i occasionally see one ALARM going and floating in space at zero knots speed for some reason after its target radar goes and die, so you might watch for that.

[Gneckes]

ORIGINAL: HMSImperator
Also, i occasionally see one ALARM going and floating in space at zero knots speed for some reason after its target radar goes and die, so you might watch for that.

Can't comment on the lack of damaging effects, but this is Working As Intended. The ALARM has a loiter capability: It'll deploy a parachute, wait for an emitter to start doing its thing, then cut the parachute and come at it from the top.

[Dimitris]

Thanks the heads up. We're looking into this.

[mikmykWS]

Added to our list.

Thanks!

Mike

[Dimitris]

Investigated this...

The real problem is that the SAM vehicles are marked as having "Light (40mm RHA)" armor, which is excessive (and stops the ARM warhead fragments cold). Such vehicles are typically armored against .50 cal gunfire at best.

We need to modify the DBs to reflect these lower armor values.

On the plus side, radars and associated systems are damaged/destroyed just fine. So even though the vehicles themselves survive, they are effectively knocked out just as well.

Thanks.

[ussdefiant]

umm, i'm not certain that matches what i'm seeing? The nearby search radars are getting killed fine, but the sensors on the SAM vehicles are completely unaffected by all the airbursting going on.

For a more clear example, if i drop in a SA-2 battery and put an independent Spoon Rest somewhere else, that indy Spoon Rest gets killed by the first ALARM airbursting 123 ft away, while the one in the SA-2 battery takes nothing from three ALARMs blowing at 50 feet or less, nor does any of the other unarmoured targets in the battery take damage. It all seems very odd.

Speaking of odd, the RWR in a Tornado seems to be unable to pick up a Spoon Rest C at all? Had to spawn in a Tornado to spot that radar.

[Dimitris]

Hi, I should clarify that I am seeing this behavior (sensors getting knocked out as expected) on the current development branch (ie. the next major release); the behavior on the v1.12 may be slightly different.

Speaking of odd, the RWR in a Tornado seems to be unable to pick up a Spoon Rest C at all? Had to spawn in a Tornado to spot that radar.

I assume the second "Tornado" reference meant another aircraft type? Also it is not unusual for RWR systems to not cover the low frequencies of older EW/GCI radars.

[Dimitris]

Just to confirm, I shot two HARMs at a typical SA-2 site (using the current dev branch) and this was the result:

[ussdefiant]

i'm speaking specifically of ALARMs and their frag warheads here. HARMs and other ARMs that don't do airbursts seems to do damage about as i'd expect them too. Can't recall any other not-nuke airburst weapons in the DB i could try to see if theres a general airburst problem or its just the ALARM having a really puny warhead, though.

And yes, its meant to be Prowler instead of a second Tornado. I suppose i'm just surprised that a 80s vintage RWR can't pick up a Guideline's search radar when Europe was still lousy with the things in all the WP states.

[JPFisher55]

Sunburn, try the same thing using the Chinese Krypton ARM's which only air burst over the target. I recently played the Taiwan scenario in the Chain of War campaign and the Chinese ARM's did not seem to do much damage when they air burst over a SAM.