Take command of air and naval assets from post-WW2 to the near future in tactical and operational scale, complete with historical and hypothetical scenarios and an integrated scenario editor.
So, the question, do real life SEAD jockeys know WHAT TYPE of SAMs they are shooting at?
Yes. Emissions are quite distinct and aircraft have onboard databases which automatically classify threats according to their emission and provide that information to the pilot.
If so, are they ever told to shoot at this one (like a SA-10) and not at that one (like a SA-2)?
Sometimes. It depends. In a scenario where they might be attempting to control escalation, then perhaps they might only allow pilots to attack SAM sites which have fired at them. It might also depend on the mission. Very long ranged "strategic" SAMs that cover large portions of an important area might be targeted early on in a campaign while shorter ranged "point defense" or "area defense" SAMs might be bypassed in order to open up corridors through which aircraft can flow unmolested SAMs. Of course, they always have the right of self defense, which means that even if something isn't necessarily a target of the mission, if they get shot at they're allowed to shoot back. Another consideration is standoff. Truth be told, nobody wants to tangle with SAMs unless they have to. You could get killed doing that! The SEAD/DEAD mission exists because it's necessary to suppress or destroy the SAMs in order to attack other centers of gravity (we're getting into a little bit of air power theory now). That's what the bomb trucks are all about. That might be things like chemical weapons plants, C3 nodes, political targets, important bridges (if we strike this then the whole army has to go 100 miles out of its way!), nuclear sites, ballistic missile sites, basically anything that the enemy considers to be important.
If so, could the WRA be expanded to designate WHICH TYPE of SAM the HARMs should shoot out, and which ones they should leave alone?
Ooooo that's a complicated statement. There are ways to shape that decision without using WRA. You could, for example, put SEAD Patrol boxes only over the SAMs you want to target and thus narrowly control them. Typically, I use ARMs in conjuction with lots of other assets (e.g. Rivet Joint, EA-6 Prowler) to find, fix, track and targets (it's called F2T2) SAM sites so that when one pops up it doesn't stay unidentified and vaguely located for long. That lets me direct things appropriately without touching WRA that much.
My "vision" of this was to have a SEAD unit, riding as an ESCORT, along with strike air units that are attempting to destroy a HVT. Obviously, the SEAD unit(s) have a very limited amount of HARMs, etc. The situation is that the ground is covered with SAM units. Many are SA-2s and SA-3s. They aren't as big of a threat as the few SA-6s that are also present.
So, what I was hoping for was the ability to tell the SEAD units to give priority to the SA-6, instead of the SA-2 and SA-3. Those two have about a 1 percent chance of scoring a hit on my strikers, whereas the SA-6 (which fires lots of missiles) has about a 17 percent chance. Hence, the SA-6 is the bigger danger.
Is there any way to address that situation with our game?
I guess what is wanted is a way to prioritise targets, but if they're pop-up, there's nothing to stop the SEAD planes using their missiles on lower priority targets before the higher one is detected.
If the attackers have a reasonable idea of what the enemy has, then perhaps we need a mechanic to limit ARM shots to certain types of target or prohibit them from others. That can always be overridden by a deliberate attack instruction if desired.
I'm not sure where such a mechanic could be enacted - in the SEAD/Strike mission settings? Or some sort of loadout-based editable listbox?
Edit:
I'm starting to think that some sort of loadout usage qualifier might be a good idea in general. That would allow for ARMs pre-programmed for specific targets or prioritised for a hierarchy of targets.
It would also allow for other uses such as tankers pre-filled with non-standard fuel types or autonomous drones pre-programmed to behave in specific ways.
However That would mean the loadout database would have to change shape to allow for such flexible extra options, as well as extra game & interface logic to manage it, so it's not a trivial change.
One last issue on this topic. It would be nice if the SEAD unit could be told to go after SAMs instead of SEARCH RADAR (or vice versa). In situations where there are tons of search radars present, knocking out a couple won't really help to much. So, it would obviously be more advantageous to go after the SAMs instead.
If the game won't allow the player to single out individual SAM radar units, at least it would be nice if it let the player designate whether he wanted to search specifically for SAMs, or vice versa.
First, even though I absolutely agree with apache85 that there's a "gamification" aspect to this and SeaQueens comment about SEAD crew always suppressing any SAM system that fires on an friendly aircraft, one can certainly come up with realistic, but unusual, situations where SEAD escorts would be ordered to not engage older SAM systems even if they fire on a friendly aircraft in a strike force.
To illustrate this, let's say we have a the following situation:
A Greek strike force pulled from a squadron of 10 operational aircraft - F-16CM Blk 52+s with conformal fuel tanks that can carry four main air-to-ground weapons each (Consisting of two sections of bomb trucks ie F-16CMs with 4x GBU-10 Paveway IIs per aircraft, a SEAD section with 4x HARM Bs per aircraft and two counter-air sections with 4x AIM-120C-7/2x IRIS-T per aircraft) are being prepared for a interdiction mission against a large resupply convoy when a time critical very High Value Target is identified with the help of HUMINT sources and this squadron is the only one that will have any chance of striking the HVT due to time constraints, range and considering the loadouts on or being loaded on available aircraft within range.
An ATO is prepared that designates the squadron as the whole strike force. The weapons were just started to be loaded on the aircraft when the ATO was completed. The time critical target is the Chief of the Army of the adversary, a commander regarded as extremely competent and who has a background as a "soldier's commander" and thus his leadership is considered to be crucial for the morale of the adversaries ground forces. This chief of the Army is assessed to be visiting a known, easily identifiable building for 45-60 minutes for a short meeting with local higher army commanders starting in 1 hour in a city with a population of about 50.000 people.
Time will be very short and earliest possible take-off will be in little more than an hour and unfortunately, by necessity the strike force will have to fly through the firing envelope of one standard (Not modernized in any way) SA-3b system for about a minute on the way to the target to reach it in time. Furthermore they will have to spend at least some of the time attacking the HVT in the absolute outer envelope of another SA-3b system.
An electronic OoB from the night before also had a SA-11 Buk-M1 battery radiating in the area around the target building but it has not been observed since - but because the Buk battery has been observed as being in the area for the last week they are expected to just have gone silent, repositioned to new firing positions while remaining in the area. Five days ago a Buk-M1 TELAR was assessed as destroyed in this area by a AARGM fired by a USN Super Hornet so the battery probably is not up to full strength and lack at least one TELAR. Still, three functioning Buk-M1s in the area will make up a formidable foe.
Also, earlier low-level attacks in this area has always observed or been attacked by MANPAD teams and some aircraft have been hit and/or lost by SAMs assessed as SA-24s, a very dangerous weapon system for any fighter jet flying at low altitude. A nap-of-the earth approach and a lofting release is therefore out of the question.
Higher command has assessed the situation as this being the only realistic chance of taking out this HVT and the only way to do it is by flattening the quite large compound the HVT will be visiting with at least 6x of the 16x GBU-10s carried by the strike force and the dropping aircraft will therefore have to do a total of 4 to 6 passes over the target.
The squadron commander concurs with this assessment and quickly a mission briefing is performed where everybody agrees the correct way to complete the mission is to enter the area at 15 k ft AGL, do a total of 4-6 passes from the same altitude to drop and lase for the the LGBs on the large compound and most crucially, every available HARM must be spared for destroying or suppressing the Buk-M1 battery that is expected to be in the area, unless a SA-3b system manages to shoot down a bomb truck, to have a chance of success even though this absolutely sucks for the aircrews. But the orders from higher up are that the HVT is to be destroyed at all costs.
As the aircraft are all equipped with the very modern AN/ALQ-187 I-DIAS self-protection ECM suite and the path of the strike force will only cross the projected envelope of the first SA-3b battery for about a minute on the way to the target area the battery are not to be fired upon and HARMs are to be conserved for use in the HVT area unless one GBU-10 carrying aircraft is shot down by the SA-3b battery. The strike force will simply have to take their chances while crossing this bit of the path and trust in their ECM systems and dropped countermeasures since the HARMs will as assessed desperately be needed to suppress the SA-11 Buk-M1 battery, which will certainly reveal itself during the attack phase, to have a chance of striking the HVT successfully.
This of course in reality is a very unusual, but not unrealistic mission (Meaning it could never happen). However, it might very well be something that more advanced scenario designers would want to include in a scenario as a special event for increased tension and suddenly increasing complexity with a hard to solve problem but with a big reward in scoring with some luck.
Besides, in reality, many or most self-protection ECM suites do not only affect the chance of the missile hitting the aircraft in the endgame as modeled in CMANO/CMO but also has the ability of stopping semi-active missile illuminating radars locking on the aircraft and might also be able to break lock from the radar in case the missile will quickly veer off course.
In CMANO/CMO terms, they are a combination between OECM/DECM suites where the OECM suite have very low jamming power and an ability to only jam one emitter, so the risk of spending some time at the outer edges of the firing envelope of a SA-3c with low RCS platforms such as the F-16, equipped with a very effective self-protection ECM suite will mean a very low risk of a 1960s SAM system locking on and keeping lock-on until missile impact, so commanders might very well be willing to take their chances in a scenario as described above, even though the aircrew will probably not be so happy.
So I agree with DWReese on this one. This abovementioned mission will have to be micromanaged constantly in the attack phase which will last several minutes to have any chance of success as AI and mission mechanics currently is and that is sub-optimal when one probably has a lot of other forces to simultaneously control in the scenario. What exactly to do about it, I have no idea, but most of DWReese's suggestions sounds reasonable from a player's standpoint.
One other aspect of SEAD attacks is this: If you are manually directing the attack, then you can see what you are shooting at, such as how many vehicles, etc., are present, and then adjust your attack accordingly.
But, if you are allowing the AI to handle them for the opposition, then the most that you can do is assign a default amount of HARMs, etc., to attack a a generically mentioned SAM. So, you may, for example, assign the default at two HARM missiles per target. Well, two missiles is probably too many, for a HQ-2; just about right for a Hawk; way too few for a S-300 or a SA-22. So, shooting only two missiles only at these is probably a waste of time, but you are limited to what the default number will be.
I really do believe, for the sake of the scenario designers, that something could be added that would grant the designers more flexibility to more accurately assign missiles based on the expected threat.
