mavfin

That's only true if the formation is for an Installation. Submarine, ship and mobile land unit groups can have formations without any unit at the center. I think he was referring to the fact that there's always an *icon* at the center of the formation editor window, even if there's no unit actually in the main body area. That can be misleading if you're not used to it, and it wasn't that way pre-HCE, or at least pre-HC97, since I missed out on that.

Sometimes I *like* some randomness...will instant action pick from the CDB battlesets, too?

Play Dawn Patrol from either original GIUK, or the EC2003 version, both available on this site, and you'll pretty consistently get a visual detection on the Nanuchkas at 14 miles...

Actually, that brings me to a question: In HCE, do jammers set off ESM detection? i.e. can you detect/locate the jammer from its emissions? Or is that not modeled? Thanks for pointing that out. Its an error. Harrier DATA should be 15 across the board. I will fix this for the next iteration of the database. In most cases the Loadout DATA was already correct. Ah, I didn't look any deeper, but I guess that means DATA is modeled on a per-loadout basis, too? It does make sense; an F-16 with a pair of Mk 84s isn't going to be as nimble as one with just Slammers and 'winders, after all. Or did I misunderstand that comment? Last, but not least: I'm a troubleshooter by nature, so that's what keeps me coming back and asking questions. I'm the guy who can find the needle in the haystack. I'm not a coder, though. I can fix code, but I can't write it very well. I can tell you where the error is if I know the system, but writing a good and/or elegant fix isn't what I'm good at.

Thanks for pointing that out. Its an error. Harrier DATA should be 15 across the board. I will fix this for the next iteration of the database. In most cases the Loadout DATA was already correct. Thanks for the answer on the E-2B. The light bulb came on in my head when I launched the RA-5C and ESM came up from everywhere, while the E-2 didn't have it, so I started checking DB stuff. I noticed the Harrier stuff after what Tony posted about DATA and such.

Yeah, C-5 is DATA of 5, MiG-21 is DATA of 20, and MiG-17 is DATA of 25. Harrier II GR.7 and 9 have DATA's of 40, while most of the other Harriers are 20, for example. Rafale's defensive is 30, but offensive ATA is 55...don't dogfight one, even with a Flanker. If I had one wish for the older DBs, it would be the ability to see some of the 'flag' values in-game (in Platform Display, I guess) for the old DB aircraft, particularly NOE flags. Until then, with the old DB, I'll have to do the save/see if it crashes at vlow/reload if it does method. Edit: more interesting things on the E-2B. Besides having no ESM, it doesn't have the LDSD flag on the radar that the E-2C and others have, so this quote from the manual applies if the incoming fighter is at low or medium altitude while the E-2 is at high, so if a MiG came in at low or medium altitude, detection range would be halved. If this is accurate, that's fine, but I wonder if it is. Only Brad knows. This does mean that one of the things said in another thread, by Joe K, about putting E-2Bs in different altitude bands, actually has some merit in this case.

50% PK SM2ER Block I missiles at long range vs a highly maneuverable (high ATA rating) VSmall target? Yeah, very possible you'll have several misses. At that range on a VSmall plane target, it might miss more than with straight in (non-maneuvering) VSmall missiles. When you're on the other side of the equation, how does the player accomplish comparable jinking so as to avoid said missiles. It seems to me there is little parity from side to side in this regard. As far as I know, anything to do with the ATA rating is done automatically. In fact, I'm not sure if it's used in missile evasion. Tony, you have any insight? (i.e. I might be completely wrong, and the ATA rating makes no difference to missile PK vs aircraft.) Even if it's not, you're dealing with older radars in Thanh Hoa. See my last post for how much difference 20 years makes. Another issue, for Brad: is the E-2B supposed to be w/o ESM capability? The RA-5 is ESM-capable, but the E-2B is not. I verified in the DB, and the ESM flag is not set on the E-2B, but the E-2C has it.

Addendum to earlier post, still talking about the 'stealthy' MiGs in Thanh Hoa Bridge scenario: I did get somewhat of a 'sneaky' MiG in mine. I put my E-2 at about 30 miles inside SM-1 ER range, and fighters in pairs at 30, 90, and 150 miles. The first the F-4B at 150 miles knew of the Mig-21 coming in was when he was fired at by the Mig-21's cannon. The MiG was headed in for the E-2, though, so I intercepted with the F-4, and killed the 2 Fishbeds with 2 Sparrows apiece. So, yeah, they're VSmall radar targets, and the old E-2B doesn't see them very clearly at long range. Not surprising, considering the timeframe of the scenario. And the F-4 doesn't see them at all on radar unless it's pointed in the right direction and gets lucky or very close; first pickup was visual, but, again, the radar on the F-4B wasn't very good, and only operated in a small cone. Further checking says that the F-4B's radar is 25 miles vs big targets, so call it 8 miles vs VSmall targets, and there's still that cone issue on a loitering/circling fighter. i.e. if the F-4B is turned the wrong way, a MiG can close at 600 knots (10 miles/minute) and get from detection range to right on top of the F-4 w/o ever being detected fairly easily, since he can get from 10 miles (outside detection range) to 0 range in less than a minute. Also, don't forget (and this info comes directly from 'Full Report' on the relevant aircraft in-game) that the E-2's PD is only 60%, and the F-4B's is only 50%. Also, E-2B is only ~80 miles max vs VSmall targets. What's the cycle time on radar detection again? (For contrast, I checked an E-2C Group II Hawkeye, and it showed 120 miles max vs VSmall, and 75% PD)

50% PK SM2ER Block I missiles at long range vs a highly maneuverable (high ATA rating) VSmall target? Yeah, very possible you'll have several misses. At that range on a VSmall plane target, it might miss more than with straight in (non-maneuvering) VSmall missiles.

We've told you how to get "confirmation", by using the "show all" keystroke. The question now is whether you will actually do it to satisfy yourself, or keep posting about assumptions. Doesn't that seem like a rational, sensible course of action? Just go have a look see. I'm going to toss my hat in here: At scenario start of Thanh Hoa Bridge, the CVBG was only 329 miles from ZVa, one of the airfields with a Mig-17, and only 374 miles from ZZa (Hanoi). Seeing an E-2 that's radiating at that distance with ESM is not a stretch at all, even if it's directly over the carrier. If it's 40 miles out in front, it's even easier. A Mig-17F coming in at 400 knots from a patrol station wouldn't take very long at all, especially if you have time compression on, and are busy trying to kill AD sites. I don't see it as improbable at all.

Got a specific question here: if a defensive ECM shows a 20% hit rate, does that mean it will generally reduce incoming radar-guided missile PK by 20%, or at least some fraction of that, depending on conditions? If an offensive Jammer shows a 20 mile range, and a 50% hit rate, does that mean it reduces radar detection range by 50% for any aircraft within 20 miles of it? Or how does that work? Of course, if I've missed a link on exactly how that works, feel free to drop the link in here so I can go read about it.

Ok, here's a test scenario, with plenty of helicopters, plenty of detection assets (an E3, default patrol zone will detect Sverdlov, move it a little or launch another to find the missile boat), a Nanuchka to kill, and a Sverdlov (322 DP) to lob missiles at, too. The Sverdlov also has an SA-N-4 launcher and an AK-630, as does the Nanuchka, but you can hit (test) it with more missiles w/o having to restart the scenario. Created in the GIUK EC2003 battleset, so using commondb. In 2009.053, can't launch Sea Skua till 7 miles. I did get to 8 miles, and could not launch, SA said I was at 8 miles, but could only launch at 7 miles. DB says Sea Skua range is 8.2 miles. Target Sverdlov was not moving at the time. I'm currently lobbing missiles at the Sverdlov to see what I get. Ok, 4 missiles sunk the Nanuchka, 1 out of 4 hit, 1 shot down, 1 missed, so I guess PointDefense got one, too. Nanuchka had 20% defensive ECM. Sverdlov was usually killing 2 of each group fired with its Gecko launcher, but wasn't getting as many misses, because Sverdlov had no ECM. SSkua is base 75% PK in DB. It's late, so I'm not running a *bunch* of tests tonight, but, that's why I loaded the scenario here, so others can look at it, too. SSKUASCm.zip

Actually, HCE doesn't have USNI, as far as I know. HUCE and the demo do.

If i'm desperate for an early kill and have plenty of torpedoes, I'll launch them in twos or threes, (particularly if the sub has got into range of my standoff weapons, which makes me very nervous as I'm probably in range of all of his weapons). Sometimes the first torpedo goes close (you see it glide past the target in the hit animation) but the second or third slams in for damage points. Even without a kill, the damage may significantly slow the sub or damage it sensors (I assume) and make your escape to safer waters easier, from where you launch attacks at your leisure. If you are lucky (i've seen it maybe twice in three years of play) you sink the attacking sub, definitely worth while Don Thomas I've also seen it make the target sub speed up to evade, and then get a hard lock on it because I can hear it better, too. Then kill it with a followup shot, especially when I have SS-N-14s or VL ASRocs.

LOL, Gatekeeper and sonar logging, that'll fill up the old hard drive Truly it would be educational though. Yep, launcher still works fine with HUCE. Hehe, my machine has a pair of 640 GB drives, so while it creates a huge file, I can turn around and use grep to find any events I want, since I'm basically playing on a BSD machine with a custom GUI. LOL, and I wouldn't play the *whole* scenario with logging on. Just a few minutes while I'm working some contacts, till I get another contact or two. I used this to figure out how badly the game was 'cheating' on multi-sub group detection.

My comment to this is that, imo, the game/sim really isn't *designed* to be played without external knowledge. i.e. you're severely handicapped if you don't know what's a radar homer, what's an EO guided weapon, which missiles are heat-seekers, and which a/c have a high dogfight value. (Don't dogfight with F4s vs a Flanker OR a MiG-17, for example.) There are many other things it's good to know that could be classified as 'external knowledge', such as the fact that fighters are generally radar-blind in the rear, sort of like a submarine without a tail. What's helpful about coming here is that you can find out that particular *implementations* of those are a bit strange, like ARMs, for example. I don't launch ARMs w/o a hard lock. Sometimes, when I have trouble getting such a lock, I'll hit the '-' key to put the game back to '0 time/stopped' when I do get a target locked up, launch the missiles, then start game time again. Sure, it's a little 'gamey', but, the reason I do it is that the BOL implementation can be just plain weird on anything but a line-of-bearing uncertainty zone, and, as Brad has pointed out, ARMs don't work with it at all. I tend to only use BOL on single targets that I have a good line of bearing on, and that are not in the middle of a bunch of other ships, because I know that if I launch BOL into a bunch of other ships, I'm likely to kill something I've already got non-BOL missiles on the way to. Also, use Tony's Launcher, turn on some of the logging, once you're using the full version of the game (demo won't log, right?), and that can be very instructive as to how it all works.

Brad covered the 5 minute cycle (true) and also true on the layer (50% reduction in range right there). So, for the OP: If the last time you saw the torp was less than 10 minutes before your OHP blew up and sank, then it only takes 1 missed detection in that time, so, very possible. If it was less than 5 minutes, you don't have to miss *anything*. Turning on sonar logging can be very instructive. Turn it on and go play Gatekeeper. BTW, Tony, does the Launcher still work fine with the HUCE?

No, in fact you're okay there. As long as you have a solid fix at the moment of launch. If you lose the fix after launch, the ARM will still actually work as it is supposed to (in real life). Yeah, same as launching antiship missiles. If you have a good target lock on launch, they'll activate themselves at the right time and hit the right target just fine. I'm guessing the HARMS use the same game mechanism as any other homing missile in the GE? i.e. to the GE, a HARM = a Harpoon or a Tomahawk or a Sunburn, just hits radar targets rather than doing big damage to the whole thing.

A radar emitter is easily detectable by ESM far beyond its detection range. If you're still running the demo, you may not have seen enough scenarios to really know a lot of things instinctively. There is something to be said for playing some scenarios from both sides, like the old GIUK ones. If you play Fortress Keflavik (the old original one) a few times, you get a feel for just how far you can see a Kamov AEW helo with ESM, or from the RED side, you can see just how far away you can pick up an E-3 or E-2 from way out of detection range. I've picked up an E-3 at high altitude at 500 miles or more before. Sure, I didn't have a good fix on it, but I sure knew which direction to go if I wanted to go after it! (Hint: just like in Debt of Honor, a 'Blinder Flight' of F-14s can really help out. Send them after the AEW bird with Phoenixes!) Of course, a Ka-25 AEW bird with a ship-like speed, and a course is a dead giveaway of where to find the Soviet ships. Once you can 'see' them, it's just a simple matter for a Mig-17 or other fighter, even w/o radar, to run down the ESM bearing, and, an E-2 or E-3 is not hard to find visually, of course. And the AI *will* go after the AEW birds if it has anything with the range to get to it, or with range to where it *thinks* the AEW bird is. Also, fighter radars are directional. That F-15C can't see that fighter that's behind it, after all, no matter how wonderful the radar in the nose is, and the F-4's radars in the Thanh Hoa scenario, compared to newer ones, just plain suck. There's a reason the old Sidewinders work better than the old Sparrows. I'm not as patient as Victor, but I can beat the Thanh Hoa scenario with minimal losses, too. It's all about knowing how everything works together. Having said that, I've lost a lot of fleets, airbases, and air wings learning how, so don't expect to win immediately.

My comment on this: I play Red, and don't fire missiles on Keflavik. I think that I'm keeping those missiles for merchie and carrier-killing once I break out. If I get a hard fix on a CVH, though, all bets are off!

Hoo-rah. Warts and all, it still is, for me. I have ANW now, but, fact is, the community around it sometimes makes me not want to play it, while HCE just gets better.

Nothing particularly special about the RA-5C as far as HCE goes (sorry, Patrick), but it does have both ESM and FLIR, which most (if not all) other platforms would be lacking in the Thanh Hoa Bridge scenario where it appears. That's probably why it appears magical there. Yeah, a lot of the more modern platforms have FLIR, and the F14 has the camera system, etc. ESM is found on almost any EW aircraft. Prowlers are great for ESM. I think F18C has FLIR, for example? But yeah, in the 60s/early 70s, the -5C would have been magical.

If you insist. Here you are. Weapon allocation dialog at 8 nm (check it in the lower left corner). I am aware that the GE tells you that you need to close to 7 nm, but since when did you start listening to the Staff Assistant? Maybe I'm remembering a version of the GE that listened to him, too. I distinctly remember a time when I would check range/bearing to 8 miles, try to attack, and couldn't get weapon allocation till 7. In CommonDB, it doesn't matter, though. Clearly the SA-N-4 is outranged, and, much less likely for harpoons/sea skuas to be shot down by Nanuchkas, too. If I wasn't so bad at scenario design, I'd try to make more of the old great scenarios in commondb format. I know a few exist, like Dawn Patrol, etc, but there's so much of my Harpoon history in the old scenarios, and I still want to find a version of Three Days at Mannar that actually has ships resembling the orders in it...

Yeah, it does depend on the figures used in the database that governs the scenario, obviously. I was referring to the real life or best known figures that the most current database strives to emulate. (Btw, when I look at the GIUK values, I see a value of 8.0 nm for both the Sea Skua and the SA-N-4 Gecko). Yeah, it says 8, but see if the HUCE game engine will let you fire at that range.

Nah. Not suicidal, but certainly challenging. Sea Skua outranges SA-N-4 Gecko, so just take care to stand off outside Gecko range. The usual obstacle is having enough Sea Skuas to beat both Gecko and the Nanuchka's gun armament. Well, in the current commondb they outrange the SA-N-4. In the older ones, not so much. In old GIUK, for example, you have to get to 7 nm to fire Sea Skua, and the AI can fire at 8 sometimes.