GBU-57 research analysis for the game

[DWReese]

If you are interested, here is some data for the GBU-57 as it relates to game:

If you intend on dropping a GBU-57 on an Underground Hardened Bunker, the bunker's unit number is 2926.

That unit has a SPECIAL ARMOR rating of 201-500 mm RHA. That is the largest armor rating in the game.

I don't know how it is actually applied, but I'm sure that the greater the armor rating, then more difficult it is to kill.

This unit represents all of the Underground Hardened Bunkers (other than piers), regardless of whether they are 20 feet below the surface of the earth or 220 feet. They all have the same Armor rating.

The GBU-57 has a 95 percent reliability rating, and a 10m CEP rating. Again, I don't know how these are actually applied in the game.

With the real life attack on Fordow, I wanted to see how difficult it would be to destroy the unit.

First off, we don't know exactly how successful the real attack was at this point, so we have to take them at their word that it was completely destroyed.

Second, we don't really know how large or deep the facility is, so we will have to work backwards.

It is reported that Fordow was hit with 12 GBU-57 missiles. According to them, that was enough to destroy it.

So, using their figures, meaning 12 was good enough to get the job done, that would mean 6 B-2 bombers.

My targets, to keep it simple, were six independent #2926 structures.

No other units were involved, it was simply a straight bombing attack, with each B-2 launching two missiles at its own specific target.

From practice before, I do know that ANY DIRECT IMPACT HITS completely destroys the target.

The results: Only 3 out of 12 achieved DIRECT IMPACT HITS. All of those completely destroyed the target.

Of the 9 misses, one malfunctioned, and one missed due to the fact that the first missile being fired by that plane struck and killed the target, leaving the second with nothing to hit.

The other 7 that missed, were off by a range of 30 feet to 72 feet.

Three of those that MISSED were close enough to score a very low percentage of damage, ranging from 5 to 7 percent.

So, depending on how you look at it, the missile has a 3 out of 12 chance of destroying the target; or a 3 out of 11 chance of destroying the target, if you eliminate the one that no longer had a target.

That would mean that the target is destroyed 25 to 27 percent of the time, so you would need 4 missiles per target, instead of 2.

Therefore, at this point and knowing what we have been told, if 6 B-2s were involved (12 missiles), and it consistently took 4 missiles to destroy the target, then that would suggest that Fordow should be represented by 3 Underground Hardened Bunkers (#2926), to replicate what the US claims to be the result. (We may learn the actual success at a later time.)

But, for now, 2 planes, armed with a total of 4 GBU-57s would be needed to reasonably expect the destruction of Underground Hardened Bunker (2926).

Again, let me say, I don't know how the armor rating plays into this. Obviously it does so heavily because the missile's success was at 95 percent to start with.

In any case, it's just something to consider, if you plan on making a scenario based on the most current analysis available to us, as it is applied to this game.

Use the info as you see fit.

[caelunshun]

I would guess the real-life CEP is a little better than 10m, based on the below video of a MOP nearly hitting a traffic cone target as well as the fact that a second wave of MOPs appeared to have entered the holes created by the first wave. Reducing the CEP would improve the reliability a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-B2LrQZgLY

[DWReese]

Yes, that's a good point.

I've found that whenever there is some action in the real world that some changes are usually applied to the database in our game.

While we can't "see" he damage inside of the mountain, it would appear that the targeting was excellent, as you pointed out.

[SunlitZelkova]

I don't think it is worth trying to figure out how to model things in CMO that occurred in real life to that level. Some things are just so circumstantial they can't be reproduced in game.

One of the bonus scenarios in Chains of War is a good example of this. It features a historical battle between Vietnamese and Chinese naval forces. The Vietnamese had a number of ex-US, WWII-era ships, including a destroyer escort. But the Chinese, just with subchasers armed with 57mm anti-aircraft guns, were able to defeat the Vietnamese with their 76mm and 127mm guns.

An AAR I've read of that scenario from the Chinese side was totally unable to reproduce the historical results, but that doesn't mean those US/Vietnamese ships are somehow overperforming, or that the Chinese vessels are underperforming.

Adjusting the performance of units in the game to align with one real life engagement is not a great idea. Just like how nerfing the Slava-class to align with the sinking of the Moskva would have put big constraints on possible scenarios.

[thewood1]

Also keep in mind that doctrine settings, weather, orders, and proficiency-like settings have a huge impact on results. Even if you could guarantee exact game and real world performance of hardware, those settings can completely alter the result. The Moskva is a great example. It was completely unprepared and training seems like it was subpar. You have to try to account for all of that.

And on top of that, some players micromanage units with a god-like and all-seeing perspective that plays a significant role in results.

[Blast33]

Maybe of interest:

One interesting fact about the MOP: The US appears to have tested it against a real underground facility just 30 kilometers south of the site of the world’s first nuclear weapons test. Thread from a recent OSINT side quest. 1/10
The US military has been understandably reluctant to share detailed information about live tests of the MOP. However, several press releases do mention that MOP tests took place at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico

Athread of 10
@ https://x.com/fab_hinz/status/1938001458655269357

GuUj8cpWkAAsase.jpg (143.14 KiB) Viewed 776 times

[DWReese]

I don't think it is worth trying to figure out how to model things in CMO that occurred in real life to that level.

I understand your point. But, the truth is, when data is finally released, there may be some adjustments made to the units in the database to reflect those changes. That's only natural.

That said, one of the main points of this was to determine how to accurately represent the targets, for game purposes. For example, in game play and under perfect conditions, it CONSISTENTLY took an average of four GBU-57s to kill one underground bunker, and four GBU-57s translate to two B-2s. So, for example, if a scenario was created with the complex being represented with five underground bunkers, then you would need ten B-2s to destroy them. That data is important for scenario creation purposes. Obviously, the scenario designer could provide the US side with ten, or 20, or more B-2s, if they so desire. But, and this is where reality comes into play, at some point it becomes unrealistic.

Everyone here tries to play the game (or test the game) using units that accurately represent the units that we are playing with. Therefore, as I said in the first paragraph, real life events will ultimately (and likely) result in changes (or tweaks) to the capabilities of the units represented in the game.

For example, the game designers could alter the data for some of these stealth planes and make them completely invisible, if they desired. But, would that be realistic? Of course not. So, as real life data comes in, the ratings will constantly be tweaked to represent their "expected" real life capabilities because those of us who play the game desire the game to be as accurate as possible. I believe that as units/weapons are created in real life, and the game includes their "estimated" capabilities before the unit has ever actually been in battle. So, after the unit has actually been used in real life, those rating will obviously be adjusted, if necessary. Again, that's only natural.

[BDukes]

Hi All

I can't seem to find the post at the moment, but SeaQueen was stacking units on top of each other to model the process of having to go through one thing to get to another. Example- HQ and then an underground bunker below it. I haven't tried it lately, but it might help people model things a little differently or add layers of armor to get through if the sim still works like it did.

M

[blu3s]

Hi All

I can't seem to find the post at the moment, but SeaQueen was stacking units on top of each other to model the process of having to go through one thing to get to another. Example- HQ and then an underground bunker below it. I haven't tried it lately, but it might help people model things a little differently or add layers of armor to get through if the sim still works like it did.

M

It was using lua,

When the unit on top is killed, you catch it with the event of unit killed, and then in the exact location you create the new "underground", it's easy and can bring some interesting posibilities.

[SeaQueen]

Yeah... striking hardened deeply buried targets (HDBTs) is a little bit of voodoo. That script essentially functions to jack up the ordnance requirement to strike a given target. You might use it to do something with it like strike the blast doors on a tunnel (dbid #915) then chuck a bomb in the tunnel entrance right behind it (dbid #1310 or #605). Notice the two tunnel types have different DP values, so you can make them more or less hardened. Maybe you could also make a script where if you drop a bomb down the ventilation shaft, represented by a marker (dbid #3166) and if you hit that, it damages something else too? There's lots of cool possibilities for imagining.

This kind of advanced weaponeering is one of my favorite topics to study in real life because it is very dependent on a lot of different variables. Get the angle of impact wrong? The bomb ricochets off the HDBT and blows up harmlessly somewhere else. This recent strike with against the Iranians, and the other strikes recently against the Houthis were exciting for me in that respect. Striking really complex HDBTs tends to be a very intelligence driven process. It's interesting stuff. There's definitely a bit of an art to it. It's one thing to hit a hardened aircraft shelter with a single BLU-109 warhead, a guidance kit of your choice, and kill the airplane inside (don't care if I collapse the whole bunker). It's quite another to incapacitate a whole underground industrial and scientific complex, that likely has multiple levels, several entrances and ventilation shafts. Throw in a bunch of blast doors, multiple levels, emergency generators, several entrances and other countermeasures and you can make these kinds of underground complexes extremely survivable, injecting a great deal of uncertainty into the weaponeering process. Sometimes the best thing to do is just hit the powerplant supplying electricity. Of course if they have a generator that doesn't work either.

I think the thing that sometimes gets missed in the context of CMO, is that the objective of striking an HDBT isn't necessarily to collapse the entire bunker. That might not even be possible with the munitions you have available. You don't care about the bunker itself. You care about the things it does. That might be providing C2, manufacturing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or protecting a weapons cache, for example. Use your imagination. Often collapsing the whole thing requires a ridiculous amount of effort. It's enough that you destroy or damage the stuff inside it, thus achieving a functional kill (f-kill). That opens the possibility in CMO for creative use of various scripts in LUA to reflect the denial of functionality.

So... here's a fun LUA project... the target is a bunker complex with various underground facilities, ventilation shafts, multiple entrances, multiple levels, etc. Build it out so you have to strike some things to get to other things, which might have various probabilities of destroying the mission systems contained within the bunkers themselves. Maybe there's multiple ways to skin the cat? Maybe some of the ventilation shafts or entrances are decoys and lead to nowhere? Maybe that changes each time you load the scenario? I think coming up with complex and interesting targets is an under-developed and fun aspect of the game.

Now you've gone from a scenario which might require a some number of penetrators to destroy the entire bunker, to a scenario in which you might use some other munition to just kill the communications systems inside and achieve the desired effect (isolating he C2 bunker). One of the best applications for LUA in my opinion is making the targeteering and weaponeering in a scenario more interesting, so you can go beyond the "1 weapon, 1 target" mentality of combat flight simulators and so some sophisticated stuff. Use LUA to reflect the enemy as a system, that you can take apart by a shrewd application of precision strike.

Of course... it shouldn't always work either.

Hi All

I can't seem to find the post at the moment, but SeaQueen was stacking units on top of each other to model the process of having to go through one thing to get to another. Example- HQ and then an underground bunker below it. I haven't tried it lately, but it might help people model things a little differently or add layers of armor to get through if the sim still works like it did.

M

It was using lua,

When the unit on top is killed, you catch it with the event of unit killed, and then in the exact location you create the new "underground", it's easy and can bring some interesting posibilities.

[Kushan04]

So... here's a fun LUA project... the target is a bunker complex with various underground facilities, ventilation shafts, multiple entrances, multiple levels, etc. Build it out so you have to strike some things to get to other things, which might have various probabilities of destroying the mission systems contained within the bunkers themselves. Maybe there's multiple ways to skin the cat? Maybe some of the ventilation shafts or entrances are decoys and lead to nowhere? Maybe that changes each time you load the scenario? I think coming up with complex and interesting targets is an under-developed and fun aspect of the game.

Now you've gone from a scenario which might require a some number of penetrators to destroy the entire bunker, to a scenario in which you might use some other munition to just kill the communications systems inside and achieve the desired effect (isolating he C2 bunker). One of the best applications for LUA in my opinion is making the targeteering and weaponeering in a scenario more interesting, so you can go beyond the "1 weapon, 1 target" mentality of combat flight simulators and so some sophisticated stuff. Use LUA to reflect the enemy as a system, that you can take apart by a shrewd application of precision strike.

I've been thinking about something similar. One problem that was pointed out to me is that the player wouldn't be able to setup a ToT strike against the revealed facility units.

One solution I might explore is adding the revealed facilities to any strike mission(s) that the top cover facility was assigned to. However, not sure that would be a good idea. I can think of a few issues that might occur doing that.

Any thoughts?

[SeaQueen]

Yes, the problem is that they make lot of assumptions in the various planning tools they have available. I have mixed thoughts about that. What I don't like is very large scenarios. If you're forced to run it "hands off" in order to coordinate forces, it's probably time to scope things down. You probably hit the "too many hats" problem a long time ago. Bigger scenarios end up forcing abstraction. In this case they might underrepresent the weapons expenditures for complex targets. One thing I do think would be an improvement would be more structures and buildings intended to represent more varieties of fixed targets, that could be used as components in more complex targets linked together by LUA code. I also think it's probably a mistake to assume that any particular in game tool is the "correct" or even best way to approach all problems. The ATO tools and what not are there to help us. They are not substitutes for intelligent play.

That being said, all is not lost. You just need to make sure that the WRA forces the expenditure of more weapons than is strictly necessary for the original target. At least when I last tested the code, so long as the revealed unit was co-located with the original one, if I dropped 4 GBU-31s, for example, and only 2 were needed to destroy the first floor of the bunker, the remaining 2 would strike the second floor of the bunker. Laser guided ordnance might be more hairy, but I suspect this kind of delivery would be less likely with those because the first weapons would kick up so much dust, smoke and debris that the weapons to destroy the second part of the target would likely just lose guidance and explode. In that case, you'd need to manually target the second, revealed unit with a flight in trail, maybe? That actually is a good thing maybe, because it demands different tactics for the delivery of different weapons against different targets. It's not just a matter of how many DP the bomb inflicts versus how much damage the target can absorb.

I'm of the opinion that the optimal CMO air centric scenario is no longer than 24 hours of game time long (ideally more like 8-12) and involves roughly 40 - 100 aircraft, and running the whole thing on in a completely automated fashion is as unrealistic as it is unwise. Human intervention is necessary in some cases to get things, "right." This might be one of those cases. It's not a big lift to say, the time on target for the initial target is X and the time on target for the revealed target is X+5 min, considering 480 kts (the default speed for most combat aircraft) = 8 NM / min so 5 min spacing = 40NM. You could set the automatic TOT for the first target and have the manually controlled strike roll in 40 NM behind with a little attention to detail, and easily come within a few seconds of X + 5 min.

[BDukes]

A new Lua Set contact function with an adjustable contact droptime and unit association might be handy in creating a target(s) that can be designated as a strike target repeatedly. If this exists already let me know! My mind is in the hands of toddlers these days.

Aimpoint units could probably be used and stacked on top in the meantime (as long as the targets they are overlapping are harmed).

Intelligence on going to the next step in the kill list is a little suspect for obvious reasons. I think* the game is provide the gamer with whatever currency (intel points, satellite allocations, prayers to Joe Boo) to determine (without going into detail as to how,) and then expose units to be added to the target list based on the result.

The obscurity of all this is a hand for the political game as well. I mean, the USAF hit the holiest of hollies in the hole twice right? Lets dust off our hands and call it a war.

Mike

[SeaQueen]

I guess. I'm always cautious about using LUA to influence player units. It's fine when it's in line with the player's desires, but weird things happen when it's not, leading to frustrating gameplay. Because of that, it's usually best to just not do it. The golden rule of scenario design, in my mind, is to leave it to the player to win or lose the game. You can give them tools (e.g. special actions) but they need to understand exactly what their effect is, and they can decide how to use them.

Aimpoint units are super useful for this kind of stuff. That and some embedded high res satellite imagery and you're winning.

I'm also of the opinion that war/peace decisions are WAY beyond the scope of CMO. CMO is about hitting targets and sinking ships. While politics shapes the scenario, it is not the subject of the scenario. The subject of CMO is the interaction of technology and tactics. That's what it does exceptionally well. I do think it would be interesting to be able to maneuver satellites, potentially. Of course, then it would turn into a militarized version of Kerbal Space Program...

-Sarah

A new Lua Set contact function with an adjustable contact droptime and unit association might be handy in creating a target(s) that can be designated as a strike target repeatedly. If this exists already let me know! My mind is in the hands of toddlers these days.

Aimpoint units could probably be used and stacked on top in the meantime (as long as the targets they are overlapping are harmed).

Intelligence on going to the next step in the kill list is a little suspect for obvious reasons. I think* the game is provide the gamer with whatever currency (intel points, satellite allocations, prayers to Joe Boo) to determine (without going into detail as to how,) and then expose units to be added to the target list based on the result.

The obscurity of all this is a hand for the political game as well. I mean, the USAF hit the holiest of hollies in the hole twice right? Lets dust off our hands and call it a war.

Mike

[thewood1]

"The subject of CMO is the interaction of technology and tactics."

I like that.

[BDukes]

I guess. I'm always cautious about using LUA to influence player units. It's fine when it's in line with the player's desires, but weird things happen when it's not, leading to frustrating gameplay. Because of that, it's usually best to just not do it. The golden rule of scenario design, in my mind, is to leave it to the player to win or lose the game. You can give them tools (e.g. special actions) but they need to understand exactly what their effect is, and they can decide how to use them.

Aimpoint units are super useful for this kind of stuff. That and some embedded high res satellite imagery and you're winning.

I will keep all this mind. Thanks!

I'm also of the opinion that war/peace decisions are WAY beyond the scope of CMO. CMO is about hitting targets and sinking ships. While politics shapes the scenario, it is not the subject of the scenario. The subject of CMO is the interaction of technology and tactics. That's what it does exceptionally well. I do think it would be interesting to be able to maneuver satellites, potentially. Of course, then it would turn into a militarized version of Kerbal Space Program...

-Sarah

Honestly, I hate the satellite implementation for anything but anti-satellite scenarios and maybe launch detection. I've been using Lua to periodically expose units (flipping the autodetection on and off). I feel it's just wasting CPU cycles for largely the same outcome(s) until the persistent systems are in orbit or exposed to the public sphere.

For long-duration scenarios (yes, I know-you're not a fan), I want to have some sort of high-level intelligence currency for the player to allocate and a few logistics things. As you know, you can do little games in Lua that don't really have to be about CMO. You're giving them a bunch of things to choose from with only so much to spend (there's your player agency!).

I've also been experimenting with deploying units to terrain they can better hide in (jury is out on this as the sensor model --probably at db side-- is very optimistic). I'm also getting back on trying to host units in buildings etc. as CMO's performance is so much better than it was.

So little time and so much I want to still do! Family comes first, though!

Mike

[SeaQueen]

What do you dislike about the way satellites are represented?

My biggest issue with satellites is the lack of an adequate representation of the processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) process. That sometimes leads to unrealistically fast availability of the data. Unfortunately, when it comes to putting a specific number of now long the PED process should take, it tends to develop into an exercise in, "well... it depends," with lots of nuance and complication, but no numbers really settled on.

I've found that the best way to handle that, is to be very specific in one's thinking about which satellites to include, and why. Throwing in the entire US satellite constellation, for example, is probably not a wise decision, but if you're doing a scenario oriented towards ballistic missile defense, adding SBIRs satellites probably is. That sort of thing is much more realistic, because the satellites relevant to the task at hand are available. Once again, this tends to suggest smaller scenarios, mission oriented scenarios, not longer, large unit count, open-ended, mega-scenarios.

[thewood1]

"My biggest issue with satellites is the lack of an adequate representation of the processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) process"

I have for some time now made satellites a neutral side that can only send data at very specific times and to very specific allied units. I have played around with comms isolation too. But it does change the ability to "cheat" off satellite info.

[Kushan04]

My biggest issue with satellites is the lack of an adequate representation of the processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) process. That sometimes leads to unrealistically fast availability of the data. Unfortunately, when it comes to putting a specific number of now long the PED process should take, it tends to develop into an exercise in, "well... it depends," with lots of nuance and complication, but no numbers really settled on.

I put together a small demo a few years ago at our pro user event for a representative of US agency interested in satellites. They wanted to see delayed satellite communications. What I did was set all the satellites I loaded in to no comms. I also placed ground stations around the globe, roughly where they would be expected. Each ground station had a zone around it that represented it's LOS. When a satellite entered one of these zones, they changed to being in comms and would update the operating picture with what they detected. Once they left the zone they would get set back to no comms. It's not perfect, no sim ever is, but it delays the information being presented to the operator that may be good enough.

I've found that the best way to handle that, is to be very specific in one's thinking about which satellites to include, and why. Throwing in the entire US satellite constellation, for example, is probably not a wise decision, but if you're doing a scenario oriented towards ballistic missile defense, adding SBIRs satellites probably is. That sort of thing is much more realistic, because the satellites relevant to the task at hand are available. Once again, this tends to suggest smaller scenarios, mission oriented scenarios, not longer, large unit count, open-ended, mega-scenarios.

Given that one satellite uses the same system resources as a decently sized multi-unit air base, limiting the number present is advisable, along with all the other reasons you mentioned.

[Blast33]

Nice idea Kushan04