SM-3 missiles

[DWReese]

blu,

I've uploaded this so many times that I feel that it should be given a top scenario award. <lol>

Okay, Red has fired its 4 missiles, and the Tico is autodetected.

I left the Howard LORENZEN (which functions like the SBX) in. (That was the last test that I did.)

You can swap it with the SBX, or delete it for your second or third test.

Without the LORENZEN or SBX present, the Tico detects the DF-21s on its own, and defeats them almost every time.

With the LORENZEN or SBX present, the Tico fires a little earlier, based on teh presence of the radar ship, and the SM-3s miss every time, as they NEVER engage. They fly right on by.

Air Strike and ABM Attack (SBX).zip

(121.54 KiB) Downloaded 26 times

The scenarios have altered the LORENZEN and the SBX. The scenario that I sent has the LORENZEN. Here is a picture where I just swapped the SBX in. You can see it highlighted as the unit .

Another complete miss.JPG (218.61 KiB) Viewed 639 times

[thewood1]

I don't remember seeing that uploaded scenario before. I ran a search as far back as April of last year and it isn't listed.

btw, if you are trying to report a current issue, a good practice is make sure the database is somewhat current.

I thought the Cobra King was only an EW radar. Can it do fire control quality tracking?

[Nikel]

blu,

I've uploaded this so many times that I feel that it should be given a top scenario award. <lol>

Okay, Red has fired its 4 missiles, and the Tico is autodetected.

I left the Howard LORENZEN (which functions like the SBX) in. (That was the last test that I did.)

You can swap it with the SBX, or delete it for your second or third test.

Without the LORENZEN or SBX present, the Tico detects the DF-21s on its own, and defeats them almost every time.

With the LORENZEN or SBX present, the Tico fires a little earlier, based on teh presence of the radar ship, and the SM-3s miss every time, as they NEVER engage. They fly right on by.

Air Strike and ABM Attack (SBX).zip

The scenarios have altered the LORENZEN and the SBX. The scenario that I sent has the LORENZEN. Here is a picture where I just swapped the SBX in. You can see it highlighted as the unit .

Another complete miss.JPG

I see "impacts and missed" in build 15.

15.png (75.39 KiB) Viewed 620 times

And "petered out" in build 14.

14.png (58.62 KiB) Viewed 620 times

Run the scenario 2 times with each build.

[thewood1]

With Cobra King on. Only change is I brought the recon aircraft in closer to get a firing track on the DDG.

Note that the Cora King only picked up the launch and lost them immediately in higher atmosphere. The DDG eventually picked them up and fired eight SM-3s.

Screenshot 2024-02-27 155910.jpg (1.14 MiB) Viewed 616 times

6/8 hit taking out all the AShBMs.

Screenshot 2024-02-27 155939.jpg (1.04 MiB) Viewed 616 times

[DWReese]

thewood1,

Yes, the Cobra King is land-based radar that you added and it works fine, as long as the SBX or the LORENZEN ships weren't present.

I agree with you. But, what blu asked about was SBX. Did you run it with that? It doesn't work for me.

I believe the other poster indicated that with version 14 they missed and peetered out, just as mine had done. He also indicated that they worked with 15. I have not seen that.

Doug

[thewood1]

Cobra king is the radar on the Lorenzo. Check out the property differences between the SBX's radar and the Cobra King. The Cobra King has limited in what it can do.

Anyway, I added in the SBX and same result...all AShBMs hit.

[thewood1]

"He also indicated that they worked with 15. I have not seen that."

I'm confused. Are you using .15?

[blu3s]

Thanks, tomorrow I'll run a series of tests with that scenario and I'll check the SBX impact on performance.

I'm sorry but it's usually worth to upload always an scenario when showing something to the devs, because if I'd have to search in all BMD user scenarios of the last month...

[DWReese]

thewood1,

I reverted back to 14 as per your suggestion. I initially tried 15, and it did not work. After you indicated that you were having trouble with 15, I abandoned 15 and went back to 14. You obviously influence people.

I use variants of the scenario and databases. Generally, I will only try the old db as a last resort. When something worked a long time ago, and stopped working recently, often the db is the problem. It wasn't in this case as neither that one or the newer one worked. The scenario was initially was made a long time ago, hence the old data base. I have obviously also tried it using the latest database, and the results are the same. Notice the date of the scenario. It's been around a while. It's just a test platform. There are airstrikes on there as well. It's the same one that I have been using for years. Since it used to work prior to the invention of the aiming and crosshairs, it was important to see the scenario with the new update. When aiming entered the picture, the SM-3 started having problems.

As you can see through the images that I have sent, the SM-3s fly past the DF-21s regardless of whether the radar is the SBX or the LORENZEN. I don't know what else to say. If everything works well for you then you are blessed. Obviously many people have experienced this "fly by behavior" before because it has been written about. I experienced it before, and I continue to experience it now. I was going to give you credit for alerting everyone about the presence of the SBX causing problems, but I guess that that wasn't you after all. So, whoever mentioned that, kudos to them.

While those radars may work fine by themselves, the problem is how the SM-3 firing ship processes the data. In ay case, the firing procedure doesn't work well for me, as indicated in my images.

[DWReese]

blu,

Thanks for your help. These have got to be troubling situations when they work well for some, and not for others.

Good luck tomorrow.

FYI:
I have tried it on old and new databases
I have tried it with the SBX, with the LORENZEN, and without either. Without either present, and using the ship's own radar, it works fine
I have tried it with 14 and 15 and the results seem to be the same

[Zanthra]

I have some suspicion that this has something to do with the weapon maneuvering calculations against high altitude targets. I saw some strange lags in maneuvering during the scenario I tried.

Possibly if the intercept is calculated assuming the full target speed is ground speed, it may also consider it to have 0 vertical speed, and will be at several 100km+ altitude when it gets there. If the calculated intercept results in an intercept location at altitudes too great for the SM-3 to reach, I think it may refuse to maneuver towards that intercept location (it already thinks it overshot the target). Large powerful space tracking radars find the target at very high altitude but still in the SM-3 engagement DLZ then once launched, the erroneous intercept calculation causes it to not maneuver until the missile has descended to the max intercept altitude for the SM-3 then it may think it can’t make the intercept because it calculates the target is moving faster than the SM-3 can go over the ground when in reality they are still going mostly towards each other in a vertical direction. So it just peters out.

This is just speculation on my part, but would explain the behavior with different radars, and perhaps the sensitivity to exact conditions (including possibly sim speed if detections and identifications happen at different times at different speeds).

[thewood1]

This is all for naught as far as I am concerned. They fixed a lot of this in .15. I don't see the point of continuing to point out issues to the devs on stuff they have fixed.

[Zanthra]

Well, even in that case there is still objectively an issue with the intercept ETA when selecting a SM-3 missile against a ballistic target. The ETA is way too short. I reported missile intercepting targets using their airspeed as ground speed for the intercept location back in 2019 so it’s not a new issue either. Just easiest to see with ballistic missiles and a nice ingame ETA to work with.

[thewood1]

I'm talking specifically about reporting issues on older versions after being told that specific issue is at least partially addressed.

[caelunshun]

If the issue had nothing to do with the SBX, then why did the performance improve with every scenario when that platform was removed? So, I don't find the first part of your statement to be valid at least as far as I can tell. There was definitely some component to the presence of the SBX and LORENZEN.

You are conflating the effect of the SBX (i.e. that it enables SM-3 to enable at longer ranges) with the SBX platform itself. The bug is that SM-3s failed to engage when launched at long ranges. They can only launch at longer ranges when a sufficiently large radar is available. So yes, while it appears that SBX is "causing" the bug, the problem lies in the interception logic, not the radar platform. Correlation is not causation.

[DWReese]

So yes, while it appears that SBX is "causing" the bug, the problem lies in the interception logic, not the radar platform. Correlation is not causation.

You are correct. The SBX allows the unit to shoot earlier, and at greater distance, but as it turns out, that isn't a good thing given the interception logic.

I used WRA to establish various distances at which the SM-3 could routinely and consistently engage the DF-21s. The distance that I came up with is approximately 71 miles. Surprisingly, that is the same distance that the Tico fired from when it was using its own radar and the SBX wasn't present. Shooting at anything greater than that causes the SM-3s to fly right on by.

That was also the reason that the -e version of the SM-3 was really missing badly when it was shooting from even greater distance.

So, the interception logic needs to be tweaked. In the mean time, you might as well use your own radar because there is no benefit in detecting them from any greater distance, because you wouldn't be able to shoot and kill them anyway. It still works better when the SBX is not present. That's probably because it yields mixed signals with the interception logic.

[thewood1]

I'll point out, once again, it has been tweaked and works in .15. It doesn't need to be tweaked.

[DWReese]

thewood1,

You know, for someone who doesn't think that this topic merits discussion, and for someone who doesn't want to discuss it, you sure spend a lot of time discussing it. Just sayin'.

[Zanthra]

This is what I am seeing with the DF-26 test scenario from the OP. The SM-3 won't maneuver when the DF-26 does, and stays on it's original course until it is nearly too far past the target to catch them. Any more off axis of an attack and it likely would never catch them. It begins maneuvering to catch the DF-26 shortly after the target crosses under the 304.8km max altitude for the SM-3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9au-we2lKE

[blu3s]

This is what I am seeing with the DF-26 test scenario from the OP. The SM-3 won't maneuver when the DF-26 does, and stays on it's original course until it is nearly too far past the target to catch them. Any more off axis of an attack and it likely would never catch them. It begins maneuvering to catch the DF-26 shortly after the target crosses under the 304.8km max altitude for the SM-3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9au-we2lKE

That's interesting, could you share the scenario?