Aircraft mis-identification

[AdmiralSteve]

Hello Everyone,

Anyone ever come across a way for the simulation of mis-identifying aircraft such as the Iran Air 655 In July 1988? I'm looking to put several civilian A/C into a scenario that may be mistaken for a fighter/attack/bomber.

Thanks,

Steve

[boogabooga]

What exactly do you mean? Some scenarios do include civil traffic, both ships and aircraft. (Try the air-to-air tutorials, the ones that start out at Ramat David).

If your side has a Normal "Awareness Level," then you will classify a contact as unknown until a more powerfu sensor can make a more detailed determination. There are different levels of classification depending on your sensor capability.

It should be fairly easy for a contact to stay unknown BVR, but once a camera or Mk1 eyeball makes a positive ID, I don't think that there is a way to get the positive ID wrong per se. But firing on unknows will be a risk.

[AdmiralSteve]

If your side has a Normal "Awareness Level," then you will classify a contact as unknown until a more powerfu sensor can make a more detailed determination. There are different levels of classification depending on your sensor capability.

It should be fairly easy for a contact to stay unknown BVR, but once a camera or Mk1 eyeball makes a positive ID, I don't think that there is a way to get the positive ID wrong per se. But firing on unknows will be a risk.

The USS Vincennes in 1988 was infamous for misidentifying a commercial airliner for an Iranian F-14. I can't seem to figure out how to put the human element into bogey identification. The sim and the sensors will get an exact type unless the radar is off. The awareness levels don't seem to fit that well for allowing for a "mistake".

[thewood1]

You can play around with proficiency a little and that might extend the time out for proper detection and ID. Also check what systems the Vincennes had active in real-life. I remember the main issue being IFF and transponder issues playing a role in mixing up IDs.

One way to do it is using hostile vs unfriendly changes regardless of full ID. Have any aircraft airborne as hostile in a certain area and work around that.

edit...A great book that includes quite a bit of detail on the entire engagement that led to the airliner shootdown is "America's First Clash with Iran". Lays out all the USN ships around the incident, the environment they were operating in, and the systems involved in detection. It wasn't just a simple mis-ID. It was a failure to pull all the information together and the valid excuse that the Vincennes was under extreme duress and in combat with Iranian boats. Its going to be really hard to replicate the mistakes made on the USN and Iranian side in a game/sim. Lua can most likely help you do it, but to what point? I can tell you that in my building out of scenarios in the gulf, I accidently cause the shootdown of civilian airliners a lot. I am a digital war criminal.

[HalfLifeExpert]

It's a tricky thing to simulate, since it so often comes from errors in human judgement, and the chaos of the real world.

In the case of the Vincennes Incident, there were so many factors in play that changing any one of them could change the outcome. For instance, I think the shootdown may very well not have happened if the USS Stark Incident had not occurred the year before. Fear of a surprise missile attack was a major contributing factor that day in 1988.

Additionally, regardless of computer/radio errors, there is the simple fact that the Airliner in question was operating out of an Airport that was also simultaneously operating Combat Aircraft. That alone significantly increased the chance of an accidental firing on civilian aircraft.

As for simulating mis-identification in Command, there are some things the scenario designer can do, like assigning real enemy aircraft similar patrol/travel routes as civilian aircraft for instance. They can replicate what I said in the previous paragraph and have OPFOR aircraft operate out of an active Civilian airport.

Ultimately though, from the player's perspective, most of the directly threatening air contacts are going to have significantly different flight characteristics than any Civilian aircraft, chiefly in cruising speed.

Mistakes can still happen on the player's part though. While it has to do with subsurface rather than air contacts, One experience I had comes to mind:

I was playing the Shifting Sands scenario "Rockstar Calling" which features a battle erupt between Israeli and US forces as a result of the USS Liberty incident. The player side is the US Sixth Fleet.

One of my CVBGs was steaming SE of Crete, and I got a sonar contact ahead of the formation.

After observing it for a minute or so, I decide to dispatch an ASW helo to investigate. Now since there are Soviet forces in the area, I am NOT supposed to be Weapons Free, especially since there's a couple Soviet Warships shadowing my carrier from a distance.

This was before an update added the 'Intercept' option for engaging contacts, so I used an old trick that I still sometimes use to "engage but don't shoot" i.e. close to identify, the contact:

1. Pause the sim
2. Order your unit in question to Auto-Engage the contact
3. Designate the contact from Hostile to Unfriendly
4. Un-Pause the Sim.

That was my methodology, but I blundered by skipping step #1. The contact was within ASROC range of my forward DDG, and before I could realize my error, the vessel fired an ASROC at the contact. The contact engaged in defensive maneuvers, so it was not a biologic.

The Contact was destroyed, but I hadn't identified it, and I was terrified that I had accidentally attacked a Soviet submarine, and had to prepare to fight them AND the Israelis. (Turned out it was an Israeli sub)

[thewood1]

"Ultimately though, from the player's perspective, most of the directly threatening air contacts are going to have significantly different flight characteristics than any Civilian aircraft, chiefly in cruising speed."

In the book I listed, there were discussions and recognition that the flight profile matched commercial and not military aircraft. But that part of the information chain got overshadowed by the mis-reading various IFFs and the airliner not monitoring a specific radio channel. All the ships around the Vincennes knew and positively IDed the airliner as what it was. A breakdown in comms procedures inside the CiC of the Vincennes ultimately led to all the evidence of it being a commercial airliner.

The Iranians also contributed significantly by attacking the Vincennes directly and not putting a "red" warning order for commercial aviation in the area. This was, in the end, caused by the IRG not communicating to Iranian military command what they were doing.