50m minimum alt over sea

[Hurricane144]

Does this hard coded limitation on aircraft affect anything realism wise? (e.g., is it harder in the sim to avoid incoming missiles because you can't get below 50m?) Also do missiles (like cruise missiles) go down to 10m?

[Dimitris]

The minimum altitude varies with aircraft type & size, presence (or not) of terrain-following/avoidance radar (either built-in or as part of loadout, e.g. LANTIRN), whether it is overland or overwater, sea state if it is overwater, terrain slope if overland, and crew proficiency. Many SAMs do have a related minimum altitude limitation which greatly affects their ability to engage low-alt targets. And yes, some cruise missiles can fly very low, particularly over water.

[Hurricane144]

Very cool. I was playing the "Sea of Fire" scenario and remember hearing from documentaries (which may not be reliable) that the A-4's came in right over the waves, but I think they are limited to 50m in the sim. I lost all of them and wondered if I couldn't get historical results in the scenario because I couldn't get them low enough?

[Primarchx]

50m in most cases = right over the waves. That's very low, especially for sustained flight navigation.

[Hurricane144]

Any idea why they got through so easily historically? Were the ships not on alert or something? The sim shows the ships quite capable of defending themselves, even with the AI handling them. The other thing I thought of was that maybe they were much closer to shore and so had significantly less time to deal with the threat.

[Dimitris]

"Sea of Fire" is not an exact representation of the Coventry attack. For example in the scenario the Coventry's SAM launcher never malfunctions, and the Type 22 frigate is not mask-blocked from the Coventry so it has a clear shot with her Seawolves. Both these issues seriously handicapped the RN ships in RL.

That said, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances. Attack from land-side to delay detection, time your AC ingress to coincide with the Exocet attack, concentrate your attack on one ship at a time to overwhelm it etc. etc.

And you do need a bit of luck. Sometimes you'll do everything right and it just won't be your day. Other times you do a jaw-dropping gaffe or two and you get away with it. Happens.

[ComDev]

Your Argie A-4 Skyhawks should be able to approach their targets at an amazing 80 ft thanks to relatively calm seas and the fact that the skill level is 'Regular' and higher.

80ft is below the effective minimum altitude of the Sea Dart SAM system (100ft). Please re-check that your A-4s approach at 80ft and you should be doing quite well [:D]

With less experienced pilots, bad weather, etc, the minimum altitude will increase to 100ft and then 150ft.

[Hurricane144]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

"Sea of Fire" is not an exact representation of the Coventry attack. For example in the scenario the Coventry's SAM launcher never malfunctions, and the Type 22 frigate is not mask-blocked from the Coventry so it has a clear shot with her Seawolves. Both these issues seriously handicapped the RN ships in RL.

That said, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances. Attack from land-side to delay detection, time your AC ingress to coincide with the Exocet attack, concentrate your attack on one ship at a time to overwhelm it etc. etc.

And you do need a bit of luck. Sometimes you'll do everything right and it just won't be your day. Other times you do a jaw-dropping gaffe or two and you get away with it. Happens.

Really interesting info on the real attack. We could edit this scenario with a hold fire order on the Type 22 until a very close distance (or LUA this right?) and easily make one of the SAM launcher's unoperational. I can see it being much closer.

Really enjoying this

[Hurricane144]

ORIGINAL: emsoy

Your Argie A-4 Skyhawks should be able to approach their targets at an amazing 80 ft thanks to relatively calm seas and the fact that the skill level is 'Regular' and higher.

80ft is below the effective minimum altitude of the Sea Dart SAM system (100ft). Please re-check that your A-4s approach at 80ft and you should be doing quite well [:D]

With less experienced pilots, bad weather, etc, the minimum altitude will increase to 100ft and then 150ft.

Maybe I'm not patched up. So the Sea Darts are basically useless until the popup? Can they hit an Exocet?

[ComDev]

The initial version of the Sea Dart was pretty useless against Exocet. Later versions of the Sea Dart (Mod 1, with new guidance section and fuse, in 1984) could engage targets down to 30ft.