SEAD a/c continue attacking dead radars

[Gainful]

V1.06 1328.12

In the attached scenario, 4 F-16s with HARMs at Ankara are assigned to a SEAD patrol mission to take out an SA-2 and SA-5. The planes engage the SA-2 first, successfully take out both search and FC radars, and... continue pummeling it until they are out of ammo. Even unassigned planes can be told to manually target a dead radar (comes up green in the manual targeting dialog) even though the radar is clearly no longer radiating (can be checked by switching to the other side). This also means that HARMs are somehow able to home in on dead radars.

I haven't tested it enough to know if this is specific to the HARM, or this particular SAM, or if it affects all radars. Feel free to change things around and check.

[blu3s]

This is WAD as noted here: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1#p5138871

[Gainful]

I don't understand. This is WAD? So HARMs are able to attack targets that are no longer radiating?

If that really is the case, then is there a way to make a SEAD patrol so that a/c do not waste missiles on targets whose radars have been destroyed? Because as it is, SEAD missions are useless if there are multiple SAMs to deal with.

[Swant]

If that really is the case, then is there a way to make a SEAD patrol so that a/c do not waste missiles on targets whose radars have been destroyed? Because as it is, SEAD missions are useless if there are multiple SAMs to deal with.

That's my experience as well

[thewood1]

ARMs have been able to attack non-radiating radars since late in the Vietnam war. The last batch of ARMs (not sure if Shrikes or not) had upgraded electronics that remembered a radar's location and could continue its attack run. But the firing aircraft had to "see" the radar and lock in the location into the missile. Into the Gulf War, a datalink allowed post-firing and retargeting from the firing aircraft. Today, they not only remember and manually retask, they are smart enough to switch targets on their own.

Of course that is all in a perfect world.

btw, deconflicting ARMs and their targets is still an issue today. Its why automatic retasking is such a hot topic in ARMs today.

Sources are generally Osprey books on Wild Weasel combat in Vietnam, Serbia, and The Gulf War. (F-4s, EA-6s, F/A-a8s, and a few others.)

[thewood1]

Just tracked down Helion's "OPERATION ALLIED FORCE" from the Europe@war series. One of the comments was that post-engagement analysis showed that a large number of HARMs were fired at each Serbian radar that came on longer than a few seconds. The main conclusion seems to be that a lot of HARMs most likely hit already damaged radars. Another thing that was pointed out is you had multiple NATO countries and service branches all flying SEAD in unison and there was limited coordination on ad hoc targeting Serbian SAMs.

[blu3s]

So HARMs are able to attack targets that are no longer radiating?

Some HARMS have BOL launching capability and also can attack targets that are not longer radiating

If that really is the case, then is there a way to make a SEAD patrol so that a/c do not waste missiles on targets whose radars have been destroyed? Because as it is, SEAD missions are useless if there are multiple SAMs to deal with.

I'm afraid the best way is deactivating the mission once the radars are destroyed.

[boogabooga]

So HARMs are able to attack targets that are no longer radiating?

Some HARMS have BOL launching capability and also can attack targets that are not longer radiating

It's not a matter of weapon capability, it's a matter of AI behavior not matching the mission.

When I setup a SEAD mission with a SEAD loadout, I just want to attack emitting radars. Because that is where the HARM is most effective. If I want to blind-fire HARMs (which yes, should be possible and can be useful), I'll use BOL.

But what the AI is trying to do there- plastering the entire site over and over again until it disappears, launchers and all- is DEAD, not SEAD. And for DEAD, there are much better loadouts that AGM-88Bs

[blu3s]

In my opinion this is not a matter of AI, but a matter of Radars and SAMs have the same WRA classification and having the radars on the same unit as the launchers.

In SEAD missions there are BOL launched HARMs against the "pre planned" possition of SAM sites. SEAD means supression, and for supression you'll need to fire HARMS to prevent radars to emit. In a SEAD mission as state you don't want to kill the radar, you want to supress it in order to open a time window for the strike package not be engaged for the enemy, and for that you need HARMS on air.

Other issue is that the scenario designer don't use Lua to Turn Off the emitters when HARMs are on air, or have the radars in the same unit as the launchers. That makes the SEAD units fire against this targets until they are kill.

[thewood1]

There are, theoretically and practically, ways to shut off AI radars by putting SAMs on missions and swapping out missions, loading ROEs, intermittent emissions, events, and zones. Its actually relatively straight forward. Before intermittent emissions, I used mission swapping and ROE templates a lot to do that for SAMs and ships. Since intermittent emissions came about, I used them a lot more without the need for missions with different ROEs. IRL in Serbia, they cycled their radars off and on in a known sequence to either fool HARMs of force NATO SEAD units to fire off a lot of HARMs to kill a single radar.

But but behavior to mimic real life requires the designer to have the knowledge, motivation, and time to do that. Its the age-old problem of a lack of focus on AI operations in the design of the scenario.

[Gainful]

Okay, so ARMs are capable of attacking non-radiating targets. Thats great. But I'm not here to debate the HARM's capability. If I want to attack a dead SAM, I'd prefer to do it manually. I don't need the AI deciding that on its own. It doesn't solve the issue that a/c will waste like 50 HARMs for one SAM even when they know the radars are gone and there are other sites to deal with. Its still an issue that renders SEAD missions useless, breaks gameplay and needs to be fixed. Maybe you guys could add an option to the WRA or doctrine so that a/c only fire at radiating targets or something.

[thewood1]

Well...it actually seemed like part of your question was exactly about HARM capabilities. I assume we agree that firing at non-radiating radars is mostly WAD. As to the other game mechanic issue, I'll take a quick run through later.

[thewood1]

So I made a couple changes to the SEAD mission. I changed WRA to one HARM from one unit. I also changed mission setting to one flight per mission attacking a SAM site. I'm not sure how much that impacted the results, but felt better adding it. A big point here is that SA-2 site has two radars and the SA-5 battalion has six, including two FC radars. This is how I saw it play out:

• One flight fires a HARM at the SA-2.

• Just as the HARM hits, another HARM is fired and it hits the search radar.

• No more HARMs at the SA-2

• While this is going on, the other flight fires a HARM at the SA-5.

• The first SA-5 FC radar is killed.

• Another HARM is fired and kills the other FC radar.

• HARMs from both flights are then fired one at a time until no more radars of any type are emitting.

• Thats all the HARMs fired.

I tried something different after. Once the FC radars are killed, I went in and manually destroyed all other radars. No more HARMS than the three fired to kill the FC radars are fired. Both flights go back on patrol. To me the issue is that the HARMs kill any emitting radar it can, regardless if a threat. It leaves the planner with limited options if they only want to kill the FC radar. I know the devs have recently talked about plans to add radar version-specific targeting options. Not sure how close that is.

But other than one run through where an extra HARM was fired, I have not seen a barrage of HARMs targeting dead radars. So I wouldn't call SEAD missions useless.

edit: Just remembered...I turned the autodetects off on the SAM sites. I find autodetect is a little unpredictable when doing any type of testing. Flipping it back on didn't seem to change anything. Just wanted to be complete.

[Tcao]

I would say this is a bug, I have never seen this before.
if you look at the AGM-88B's targeting information, every missile is targeting the search radar P-12

[thewood1]

One HARM already destroyed the P-12 on the SA-2. This is the follow up shot for the second HARM.

Screenshot 2024-01-12 152415.jpg (474.24 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

Note the second flight is already heading for the SA-5 to the left.

[Gainful]

So I made a couple changes to the SEAD mission. I changed WRA to one HARM from one unit. I also changed mission setting to one flight per mission attacking a SAM site. I'm not sure how much that impacted the results, but felt better adding it. A big point here is that SA-2 site has two radars and the SA-5 battalion has six, including two FC radars. This is how I saw it play out:

• One flight fires a HARM at the SA-2.

• Just as the HARM hits, another HARM is fired and it hits the search radar.

• No more HARMs at the SA-2

• While this is going on, the other flight fires a HARM at the SA-5.

• The first SA-5 FC radar is killed.

• Another HARM is fired and kills the other FC radar.

• HARMs from both flights are then fired one at a time until no more radars of any type are emitting.

• Thats all the HARMs fired.

I tried something different after. Once the FC radars are killed, I went in and manually destroyed all other radars. No more HARMS than the three fired to kill the FC radars are fired. Both flights go back on patrol. To me the issue is that the HARMs kill any emitting radar it can, regardless if a threat. It leaves the planner with limited options if they only want to kill the FC radar. I know the devs have recently talked about plans to add radar version-specific targeting options. Not sure how close that is.

But other than one run through where an extra HARM was fired, I have not seen a barrage of HARMs targeting dead radars. So I wouldn't call SEAD missions useless.

edit: Just remembered...I turned the autodetects off on the SAM sites. I find autodetect is a little unpredictable when doing any type of testing. Flipping it back on didn't seem to change anything. Just wanted to be complete.

No there is definitely something wonky going on here. Not sure if your results were a fluke or something. I tried the test again, this time using your settings, as well as removing the SA-5 just to simplify things. Changing the WRA/doctrine doesn't really make any difference. They follow it, but the end result is the same: they destroy both SA-2 radars, then continue firing at the dead radars until they are out of ammo. This didn't happen in previous versions. Definitely a bug in the AI engagement logic where the AI feels compelled to obliterate the SAM site completely but unable to do so since the launchers still remain, resulting in endless ARM flinging.

[thewood1]

I have run it at least 12 times with my settings. The only wonky thing I saw was one run where the FC radar on the SA-2 not being able to be hit after eight HARMs. All kinds of other things got killed, but that radar had a lucky day.

edit: Did you turn off Autodetect? It was one of the things I changed. I turned Autodetect back on and through six more runs I saw twice three HARMs fired at the dead Fan Song.

[thewood1]

So thinking about this more, I'm fairly sure its the autodetect causing an issue. I have found that autodetect works very weirdly as contacts are developed and I think what you are seeing in the original playthrough is a symptom. I suspect that once autodetect is executed, the game never goes back and resets the detection. So even after the radar is destroyed, the contact is stuck in the contact table. They main counter to that is that it doesn't happen every run through.

But this type of weirdness is the main reason I avoid autodetect on combat units.

[Gainful]

Okay so I repeated the test with autodetect off, and indeed that seems to be causing the issue. The a/c only waste one extra HARM, but at least don't barrage it like before. I first encountered this in another scenario, so I'm guessing the scenario author must have turned autodetect on on all the SAM sites.

Oddly though, the a/c on SEAD patrol don't fire unless they have a precise location on the site (even though firing parameters show green in the manual engagement dialog) but I guess thats another issue. Looks like the only workaround for now is to open missions in editor and remove autodetect from every SAM site until this issue can be fixed.

[thewood1]

Some of the firing issues on precise location I think might be related to RoE.

It also forces a little recon to be done. Whether satellite or other means. In scenarios I build for myself, I never use autodetect for combat units. There are a lot of unintended consequences that can happen.