Matrix Games Forums

Do you need Shifting Sands to lay chaff corridors?

I'm messing about in the editor with a Badger with the chaff loadout, but can't find Attack Options –> Lay Chaff.

Edit:

Found it - it's not under the menu bar items, you have to right-click on the unit.

Should I report that as a bug or is that deliberate?

If you think it's worth changing, it's worth a report [:)]

In the feature request thread, not tech support, that is.

Okidokes, I'll report it as a very minor issue (I never use the right-click so it took me a while to find, hah!)

That is not a bug, that is how you lay chaff.

It is pretty effective, I used a Tu-95 to bait for my Tu-16 launched ARMs over the North Atlantic, and the giant MPA survived thanks to chaff bursts.

I have never played with it. I thought that it was something new, but it came out with Sands. Then I started checking and found out that only a handful of planes ever used this method in real life. I don't know how effective it is, but it was later discontinued in real life. Since I don't really play with any scenarios from that time period, I haven't had an occasion to use it. It is likely restricted to only those specific units, but I don't know that for sure.

Doug

You can do it with pretty much any aircraft that has chaff, for example it works with F/A-18s. DWReese is right in that it was used IRL by only a few fairly niche platforms, and really you need a lot of it to be effective; so while you can do it with an F/A-18, it might not be worth your time.

Chaff laying is most effective against very old 2D radar sets. A modern (late 70s onwards) 3D set will have very little trouble picking out an aircraft through chaff. Phased arrays will basically be unaffected. And this is, in a nutshell, why chaff laying is no longer used.

Game wise it definitely has a place in scenarios from WW2 through to the 70’s, with rapidly declining utility after that era [:)]