I found a situation today (B486, Battle of the First Salvo) where ships will break EMCON in response to non-threat missiles (SAMs, in this case), allowing them to be detected by ESM and engaged.
At the start I have two groups of American ships to the SE of a Soviet group. The American radars are off, EMCON is passive, and the Soviets do not have any detection of the American ships. Then a pair of F14s flying past to the south of the Soviets get a little too close, and trigger a SAM launch.
A few seconds later the hidden American ship groups turn their radars on, broadcasting their presence to the world despite their EMCON rules.
However, the American ESM and radar picture is good enough that they know the missile is not directed at them, and it is far beyond the range of any of their own SAMs. They wouldn't have any way to attack the Soviet missile yet even if it really was directed at them.
A minute later the SAM runs out of fuel and the ships turn their radars off again, so it's pretty clear that it's the SAM which is prompting the radar behaviour.
Then, depending on the situation (position of ships, duration of SAM engagement), the Soviets may have a good enough ESM picture for a bearing only attack, and the skies fill with incoming Shipwrecks.
A large part of this behaviour is quite good - if a real incoming missile threat were to pop up I would definitely want my ships to illuminate and engage in self defense, even if they had previously been radar silent, and then to run silent again after the threat is gone. My concern is that the behaviour is being triggered by missiles which are known not to be threatening - far away, not travelling on an intercept course, and not within range to be engaged by my defences. Perhaps the threat recognition algorithm could be refined to take those factors into consideration before deciding to break EMCON?
Has anyone else run across similar situations, where it became a matter of concern?
Running this a few times gives slightly different results - sometimes one group illuminates, sometimes both, and a Soviet missile attack may or may not happen. (It probably won't in this save - I think in the original situation the F14s loitered while I wasn't looking, drawing multiple shots over a longer period, giving the Soviets more time for an ESM fix.)
EDIT: Forgot the save.
