CV32

The Battleset Builder lets you create HCE compatible maps for just about any spot on the globe. (And, on a further note, I've located my copy of SAW II ... hehe).

Thanks a bunch, Pete. Just what I needed. And, yeah, you can play already create and play Falklands war scenarios with HCE, the Battleset Builder and my HCDA database.

Yes, more here: http://www.hmsalacrity.co.uk/may.html "10 MAY: ALACRITY was tasked with sweeping through the Falkland Sound in the first circumnavigation of East Falkland, gathering intelligence and generally making a nuisance of ourselves. ALACRITY detached from the Taskforce on the morning of 10 May and after sweeping well to the south of Argentine radars based at Stanley sailed west at high speed in a welcome fog. The ship's helicopter was launched to recce the southern entrance to the Falkland Sound and with nothing seen that would require a change to the plan, ALACRITY entered the southern entrance at 2300. We were now on our own and well over 100 miles from friendly support should we run into trouble. Thankfully it was a very dark night. The Lynx was later sent off to harry the garrison in Fox Bay. With ALACRITY less than halfway through the Sound, the Lynx crew turned back to 'Mother' when over the radio came the news that ALACRITY had identified a suspected enemy vessel a few miles ahead. ALACRITY engaged the vessel with the 4.5 gun. Images of 15 rounds of high explosive are seen to converge on the radar target and a lookout reports a large orange flash on the bearing of the target. On the radar the target fades. There were only four survivors of the Argentine Navy supply ship , ISLAS DE LOS ESTADOS though we didn't know details of the ship or losses until much later. Though excitement ran through the ship at having scored a major hit on the enemy, there was a great deal of concern for those lost in the explosion and for those we couldn't stop to rescue (small lights were reported in the water by the Lynx). Surely the Argentines were now wide awake and it was time to head for home. The Lynx was recovered and best speed made to complete the transit, We exited the Sound just before 0200 to be met by ARROW who was standing by to render assistance should we need it. and together headed back towards the relative safety of the Taskforce. What we were to learn much later was that an Argentine submarine, SAN LUIS, observed our exit from the sound and fired a torpedo at the rapidly moving ship. Our luck held and the torpedo didn't find us and the presence of ARROW made it too risky for the submarine commander to try again. Our high speed rendered our own sonar useless and we were blissfully unaware of the close shave we had." (I wonder why I don't have SAW II ... hmm).

I'm looking for technical info (for HCE database) on the Argentine supply ship/freighter ARA Isla de los Estados, which was sunk by HMS Alacrity during the 1982 Falklands war. Anyone know of a source, please let me know. Thanks.

Ask and ye shall receive. From the Admiralty Trilogy mailing list: re Sonar 2087 "Sonar 2087, Type: T, Function: Search, Active Range: 12.0, Passive Range: 10.2, Freq Band: LF for active/VLF for passive, Platform: Surface. Remarks: Bistatic sonar for Type 23 FF and Common New Generation FF. Will use active LF towed body and passive VLF towed array. Replaces Sonar 2057, which was postponed indefinitely." re CAPTAS for Fremm "... There are several versions of the CAPTAS sonar; TSM 2651, TSM 2652, UMS 4229, and UMS 4249 ... not sure which version the FREMM will use ... expect it will be one of the UMS versions ... The UMS versions are newer and it looks like the UMS 4249 version would be pretty much the same as Sonar 2087. So, you could just use that for the FREMM until more data becomes available." re PTA "... best guess for the Finnyard Sonac PTA ... PTA, Type: T (VDS), Function: Search, Active Range: -, Passive Range: 4.3, Freq Band: VLF, Platform: Surface. Remarks: Short low speed towed array. The source I have says that operational towing speed is 3-12 kts."

From Aviation Week's Ares Blog Parliament Hunts Nimrod Posted by Bill Sweetman at 3/27/2008 8:19 AM CDT Seven and a half years late and GBP787 million ($1.6 billion) over budget, the BAE Systems Nimrod MRA.4 program should be considered for cancellation, according to the latest report from the UK Parliament's Defence Committee. When the project was launched in late 1996, it was expected in service in April 2003, but the latest predicted in-service date (ISD) is September 2010. Some of the sad story is given here. Msasively delayed projects are not unique to the UK - the V-22 was originally expected in service when? - but the UK committee singles Nimrod MRA4 out for a direct threat: "The new Minister for Defence Equipment and Support needs to look closely at this programme to assess whether it is ever likely to deliver the capability that our Armed Forces require within the timescale needed. If it does not, the MoD should withdraw from this programme." The committee's report does not say why the Nimrod is a particular concern, but a few reasons spring to mind. One is the loss of Nimrod XV230 in Afghanistan in September 2006, along with its 14-member crew, following an inflight fire. It was not directly related to the age of the aircraft but the incident led to reviews of maintenance procedures that reflected the fleet's age. Another is that there is now a substitute aircraft available in the shape of Boeing's P-8A (see DTI for January) which is due to enter service in late 2013 and - so far - seems to be going well. A third reason could be that the P-8A might also be the basis for a replacement for the Nimrod R.1 signals intelligence aircraft. Junking Nimrod at this stage might seem extravagant, but there's another factor to be considered. Maritime patrol aircraft fly a lot, even in peacetime, so airframe-related operating costs are a big chunk of life-cycle costs: and there is not the slightest doubt that a brand-new twin-engine airplane, basically similar to several thousand commercial 737s, is going to be cheaper to fly than a four-engine custom military airplane, based on a 30-plus-year-old airframe derived from a 1940s design.

No problem. Thats why this website is here. It will do so against player controlled ships and mobile land units, but not against installations. They won't use them at all, unless they are scripted into an air group. It doesn't cause any functional problems, but it does look odd and is less than ideal from a scenario play point of view. You can use place them using the formation, and through trial and error it is easy enough to make sure none are in the water. The "tools" I am referring to come mostly through experience in writing scenarios. For example, you can write a challenging scenario by learning to give the AI side more and/or better weaponry, positioning the AI units to give some added advantage, giving the AI some reconnaissance and ELINT (electronic intelligence) assets so he can find (and attack) the player with greater coordination, etc, etc.

Yes, it does make a difference. Every increment up/down in speed makes a difference in acoustic signature up/down. So, 17 kts is quieter than 19 kts, for example.

A new version of the official Harpoon Commander's Edition (HCE) Database (HCDB-080326) is now available. This is a small update, released now because it incorporates fixes to the torpedo acquisition ranges. Get the new DB in the Download section. New additions (or overhauls of existing entries) include: Aircraft: A-50E - India ScanEagle Block D - USA Ships: L'Audacieuse (P400) OPV - France Type 352 Ensdorf MCM - Germany Seehund MCM - Germany

A new version of the HCDA database, the Harpoon Commander's Edition (HCE) 'Americas' Database (HCDA-080327), is now available. It is available in the Downloads section of this website. New additions (or overhauls of existing entries) include: Aircraft: Bell 412EP - Intl CH-47C Chinook - Argentina Chinook HC.1 - UK Sea Harrier FRS.1 - UK Sea King HAS.2 - UK Sea King HAR.3 - UK Vulcan B.2 - UK Victor K.2 - UK Wessex HAS.3 - UK Wessex HC.2 - UK Wessex HU.5 - UK Ships: Cordella MCM - UK Endurance AGB - UK SAM Defender Bty - Intl Type 42/1 Sheffield (82) DDG - UK Type 42/1 (1982) DDG - UK Type 42/2 (1982) DDG - UK Type 42/3 (1982) DDG - UK Type 82 Bristol (82) DDG - UK Wild Duck ATF - UK Submarines: Drugrunner semi-sub - Intl Valiant (1982) SSN - UK

Thanks, pboiler. I've also posted to the Admiralty Trilogy mailing list, so we should have some sort of answer soon.

From DefenseNews U.S. Navy Ends ERGM Funding By william matthews Published: 24 Mar 17:25 EDT (13:25 GMT) The U.S. Navy has stopped funding Raytheon's extended range guided munition (ERGM), effectively killing the 12-year-old program. The end comes after the Navy spent more than $600 million on unsuccessful efforts by Raytheon to produced a precision munition that could be fired from a ship's 5-inch gun and then fly, guided by satellites, to a target about 50 miles away. ERGM failed a series of test firings in February, according to industry sources. Navy spokeswoman Pat Dolan said the Navy notified Raytheon March 19 it would no longer fund the program. The Navy cited a contract technicality for cutting off funds. Raytheon failed to notify the Navy "in a timely fashion" that it had spent almost all of the money in the ERGM program budget. But Dolan said the Navy also "made a decision that continued investment in ERGM was imprudent." A Raytheon spokesman said he did not know why the Navy decided to stop funding ERGM. Dolan said the Navy plans to study a variety of "technological solutions" to take the place of the ERGM, which was intended to provide long-range fire from the sea to support Marines ashore. One alternative is Alliant Techsystems' ballistic trajectory extended range munition, which is similar to ERGM. But it, too, has experienced serious problems in testing.

From Defense Aerospace New Milestone for France’s Fourth New-Generation Nuclear-Powered Ballistic Missile Submarine: DCNS Rolls Out SSBN Le Terrible (Source: DCNS; issued March 21, 2008) CHERBOURG, France --- Today, DCNS rolled out SSBN Le Terrible, the fourth and last Le Triomphant-class new-generation nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine at a ceremony attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Over 3,000 people witnessed the roll-out at DCNS’s Cherbourg shipyard, the home of excellence in French submarine construction for over 100 years. SSBN Le Terrible is the fourth and last boat of the Le Triomphant class which is progressively replacing the earlier Le Redoutable class. Like its predecessors, the Le Terrible will be assigned to the French Navy’s Strategic Ocean Force (FOST). SSBN Le Terrible, the construction of which began in 2000, is the first to be equipped with the SAD M51 weapon deterrent system. The other three Le Triomphant-class boats will be upgraded to carry M51 missiles as they come up for refit. The French defence procurement agency (DGA) appointed DCNS as prime contractor for the SNLE-NG or new-generation SSBN programme back in 1986. The development and construction of these cutting-edge naval assets has mobilised the resources not only of DCNS, the DGA and the French Navy but also those of the French atomic energy commission (CEA) and a host of industrial firms, laboratories and university departments. “Thousands of French companies, big and small, worked under DCNS leadership to build this submarine. Together they marshalled exceptional expertise in advanced technologies ranging from special steels, nuclear power and underwater acoustics to ballistic missiles and navigation and communication systems, to name but a few. For sophistication and complexity, little compares with a nuclear-powered submarine. SSBN Le Terrible is the fruit of a collective effort not only of those who directly contributed their best skills, but also those who preceded us in building the Le Redoutable class. Maintaining the expertise and skills accumulated over the years is one of our highest priorities,” said Jean-Marie Poimbœuf, Chairman and CEO of DCNS. Following a design phase calling for 100,000 technical drawings, the construction involved laying some 300 kilometres of electrical cable and almost 100 kilometres of piping for steam, air, water and oil. The boat’s 75,000 items of equipment, representing several million individual components, where integrated along with support for a village of 111 souls, a nuclear powerplant, a strategic missile base and a self-defence system similar to that of an attack submarine. Everything, moreover, is designed for continuous availability during patrols lasting several weeks at a time. The programme also required 14 million person-hours’ work, without counting hundreds of meetings with the DGA and the Navy to specify, refine, tailor, check and accept new systems and interfaces. SSBN Le Terrible will be fully fitted out and ready to serve with the Strategic Ocean Force in 2010. Technical data for SSBN Le Terrible -- Length overall: 138 metres -- Diameter: 12.5 metres -- Displacement, surfaced: 12,640 tonnes -- Displacement, submerged: 14,300 tonnes -- Speed, submerged: >25 knots -- Complement: 111 -- Strategic weapons: 16 type M51 SLBMs -- Tactical weapons for self-defence: torpedoes and type SM39 missiles The DCNS group is one of Europe’s leading players on the world market for naval defence systems. To meet customer demands for more comprehensive and integrated systems, DCNS acts as prime contractor for naval shipbuilding, integration and support by combining its own development, marketing and production capabilities with those of selected partners. To manage the complexity of such projects, DCNS draws on in-house expertise in naval architecture, systems engineering, ship assembly and integration and equipment design and production as well as through-life support. The DCNS group employs some 13,000 people and generates annual revenues of around EUR 2.8 billion.

Sounds like a slug fest to me. AI attacks against land targets must be scripted. Ship/sub attacks do not, but you do need to give the AI the proper tools. For the most part, scripting is necessary. That is considerably more than you will see in most scenarios, so I'm gonna say "probably", hehe. Could be, if you have the total numbers on base to back up the rotating patrols (and losses). Yes. Good question. I don't think there are many scens with it at all. And its Ed Ladner, btw, a pillar of the Harpoon community (even got a ship named after him, hehe). Adding more SAM units to the DB is something I work on steadily, but people always clamor for more. Right now I would suggest you fill the gaps with SA-10 variants. There are a LOT of those in the DB. I don't think you'll hear much heckling of your efforts around here.

No problem. I trust it worked out for you.

Maybe. I'll take a look at it. The R-77M1 will appear in the next version of the HCDB. I was lacking H4.1 data on both these sonars when they were created in the HCDB. If anyone has H4.1 data or suggested provisional data, I'd be glad to receive it.

Notice as well the steadily shrinking fighter/attack capability of USN carrier air wings: "... the over-arching goal for the USN will be to have 44 strike aircraft allocated to each of its carrier air wings by 2030, with these to be composed of F-35Cs and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets." [emphasis mine] Compared with: circa early 1980's -> 58 aircraft, incl 24x F-14, 24x F/A-18, 10x A-6E (i.e. when Tony was happy) circa late 1980's > 50 aircraft, incl 14x F-14, 36x F/A-18 circa 2003 (when the Tomcat and Superbug shared the deck) -> 48 aircraft, incl 12x F-14, 24x F/A-18C, 12x F/A-18E Sorry, this probably doesn't make you feel any better, Tony. I'll shut up now.

From Flight International DATE: 24/03/08 SOURCE: Flightglobal.com Longer-life F/A-18 Hornet needed to fill US Navy's strike fighter gap By John Croft The US Navy is exploring the feasibility of extending the Boeing F/A-18's 6,000h service life to as much as 10,000h to deliver continued combat duty in the light of potential delays to the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. "We will keep them structurally safe and sound through the next decade," says Rear Adm Mark Skinner, programme executive officer for the navy's tactical aircraft programmes, who adds that parallel improvements will also be made to the aircraft's systems and components. Speaking at the Navy League conference in Washington DC, Skinner said the over-arching goal for the USN will be to have 44 strike aircraft allocated to each of its carrier air wings by 2030, with these to be composed of F-35Cs and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. The navy expects the JSF's carrier variant to achieve initial operating capability in 2015, although the Government Accountability Office in an 11 March audit reported that three independent defence officials "separately concluded that programme cost estimates are understated by as much as $38 billion and that the development schedule is likely to slip from 12 to 27 months". Under current plans, the navy will receive its last F/A-18s in 2013, bringing to 1,000 the total number of Hornets owned by the navy, US Marine Corps and seven foreign services. Skinner says keeping the Super Hornet production line operating past 2011 is "an option we will look at more closely" if the JSF is further delayed.

From Aviation Week's ARES Blog There's Life In The Old Girl Yet Posted by Bill Sweetman at 3/23/2008 11:24 AM CDT Via the invaluable Secret Projects site comes a brochure on Lockheed Martin's F-16IN proposal to India. The options list is a mixture of features from the United Arab Emirates' F-16E/F and the Advanced Block 50 that is standard for other export customers. The active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar is the Northrop Grumman APG-80 from the F-16E/F; the company's newly announced Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) is optimized for retrofits, and unlike the APG-80 does not need added power and cooling. Also from the E/F are the big-screen glass cockpit and the General Electric F110-GE-132 engine. However, the F-16IN does not have the E/F's integrated electro-optical system, presumably relying instead on a chin-station targeting pod. The Indian AF can pick the market-leading Rafael Litening - the UAE, for obvious reasons, won't. The F-16IN brochure depicts the VSI Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, likewise taboo in the UAE. The EW system looks like the ITT ALQ-211(V)4 AIDEWS, selected by Chile and - according to a local press report - Turkey, where it beat a BAE Systems/Aselsan system that the Turkish MoD had invested heavily in. Lockheed Martin has to overcome the "F-104S" syndrome in order to win the Indian Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contract: it's a reference to the Italian AF, who bought the last and greatest version of the elegant F-104 back in the mid-1960s and found themselves the sole operator of the type in the 1980s. Like the Gripen crew, they struggle against the Indian operator's perception that single-engine jets are lawn darts. Lockheed Martin also argues that they have unparalleled experience in license production - F-16s have been license-built in four countries - and that a simple, low-cost fighter makes sense as a complement to the Su-30MKI.

Well, there ya go, you learn something new everyday. (Well, I was probably told that sometime previously, but I didn't learn it too well, huh).

Good suggestion, Tony. I always put something akin to "This scenario is for play by BLUE (or Red) only" so as to provide a reminder to the player.

The base range figure shown in the Aircraft annex is the range (not combat radius) with full internal fuel, and clean (no armaments). Tony might be better to explain the intricacies of the code's fuel consumption calculations, but the fuel load (in kg) certainly does play a part in determining range, and not just the above mentioned range figure. For example, increases in speed (military speed or afterburner) will burn up your fuel load and decrease your range dramatically.

Show me where the numbers have changed in H4.1/HT data, and then I'll change it in the DB. While "Combat Fleets" is an authoritative unclassified source, it doesn't trump H4.1/HT as far as the DB is concerned.

Welcome aboard.

Afaik, there is no plan to fit the SDB aboard the B-1B, but Wikipedia ... ... says: "96× or 144× GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb GPS guided bombs (96 if using four-packs, 144 if using six-packs) (this capability has not yet been fielded on the B-1)"