pmaidhof

SA-6 and SA-3 - Will do. Iran having SA-6's - don't know but the scenario that this is based on, from HNR03, has the Iranians in possession of quite a few. I have the H4.1 data annex and they, SA-11 and SA-17, are both in Annex S. If you have something more timely, please send it off line. Should have the first run through soon.

In addition, I will also swap out the long-in-tooth SA-6b for either SA-11 Gadfly or SA-17 Grizzly. I read on fas.org that Gadfly replaced Gainful (but apparently still uses Straight Flush) and Grizzly replaced Gadfly, with a Snow Drift radar. I'll have to check the Annex S to see if it includes Grizzly and Snow Drift data. Should be an interesting exercise.

Will do, as long as you want to see basically from IP inbound. Mission planning, crunching fuel costs etc would tak all the fun out of it. I travel tomorrow so unless I bring my books, I pack tonight and unfortunately it has a low priority, it will be early next week.

In case you are thinking man, pmaidhof is all screwed up - the map terrain feature(s) and ground weapon's positions were incorrectly scaled at basically 1:50,000 while the narrative was correctly written in nm. Also the original was on one inch square grapha paper so the movement of the aircraft and missiles were correctly measured - the graph did not appear on the image. I'll need to pay more attention to the "simple" things going forward. Thanks for the chat and constructive discussion.

How about now, ZU's should have been pushed farther forward. I believe that I wanted to keep within 800-1000m of the Straight Flush.

5.3.5 Semi Active Radar Homing (SARH) ...If the radar line of sight is lost or is the illuminator is destroyed, the missile(s) will miss the target...

Brad, This was the replayed to ensure that the sequencing within the H4.1 Sequence of playwas correct. I therefore replayed it with all new die rolls etc. Any questions or comments regarding the SAM's inability to engage due to guidance radar detruction, the easing off of the throttle as not to overfly the target before engagement, or any other procedure or tactics would be appreciated because I believe that I may finally have the basics down. If so, I will finally be able to begin in earnest the take down of this scenario. Thanks in advance. Pete

Here is the blow by blow of the above described airstrike replayed last night. General Situation remained the same. Comment please. 0800 Tactical Turn Begins turn 70nm out, at 460kts and 5,000’ Plotting Phase: Increase speed to 580kts and descend to 400’ (Low). Movement Phase: 41nm out, at 580kts and 400’ (Low) Planned Fire Phase: None Detection Phase: US – No, Iran – No Reaction fire Phase – None 0803 Tactical Turn Begins turn 41nm out, at 580kts and 400’ (Low) Plotting Phase: Maintain speed of 580kts and descend to 90’ (VLow) no closer than 23nm. Movement Phase: NOE DR, 12nm out, at 580kts and 90’ (VLow) Planned Fire Phase: None Detection Phase: US – No, Iran – No Reaction fire Phase – None 0806 Engagement Turn Begins 12nm out, at 580kts and 90’ (VLow) (2.4nm/phase) 1st Movement Phase: NOE DR, 9.6nm out, 580kts, 90’ (Vlow) 1st Fire Phase: none 1st Air Attack Resolution Phase: none Detection Phase: US Visual – 14nmx50%x75%=5.25nm Sigma 2, D10, =6.25nm – No. Iran - No 2nd Movement Phase: NOE DR, 7.2nm out, 580kts, 90’ (Vlow) 2nd Fire Phase: none 2nd Air Attack Resolution Phase: none 0806.5 Engagement Turn Begins 7.2nm out, 464kts, 90’ (Vlow) (1.9nm/phase) speed per 3.3.2.1 Speed Change. 1st Movement Phase: NOE DR, 5.3nm out, 464kts, 90’ (Vlow) 1st Fire Phase: none 1st Air Attack Resolution Phase: none Detection Phase: US Visual – 14nmx50%x75%=5.25nm Sigma 2, D10, =6.25nm – Yes. Litening II Pod (3rd Generation) detects “blobs” representing sites 1,4,5,6,7. Iran - No 2nd Movement Phase: 3.8nm out, decelerate to 348kts (1.5nm/phase) climb to 400’ (Low) 2nd Fire Phase: none 2nd Air Attack Resolution Phase: none 0807 Engagement Turn Begins 3.8 out, at 348kts and 400’ (VLow) (2.4nm/phase) 1st Movement Phase: Decelerate to 232kts, (1.0nm/phase) 2.8nm out, 400’ (Low) 1st Fire Phase: none 1st Air Attack Resolution Phase: none Detection Phase: US IR defines field of view to 3 degrees, classifies Straght Flush Radar – No. Iran – Visually detects the attacking aircraft. 2nd Movement Phase: 1.8nm out, 232kts, 400’ (Low) 2nd Fire Phase: 2x AGM-65E, Dash-2 is designating the target / cannot launch SA-6b due to minimum range of 2nm, 1x ZU-23 fires on 51-100% column (5%). 2nd Air Attack Resolution Phase: ZU-23 misses 0807.5 Engagement Turn Begins 1.8 out, at 232kts and 400’ (Low) 1st Movement Phase: accelerate maximum allowable to 464kts, Turn Left 120 degrees move 1.9nm (Low), Missiles reach Straight Flush 1st Fire Phase: 4x SA-6b’s are firec 1st Air Attack Resolution Phase: Both AGM-65E’s strike the target with 54DP’s obliterating the 5DP vehicle. Since the SAM's were not to move until the 0807.5 2nd movement Phase I presumed that the SAM’s go stupid due to loss of radar guidance, and probably don’t even leave the rails?

I realize that it was the Navy today, but pirates/drug running comes to mind.

The following is half walk through, introductory moves of a scenario being tested. A pair of AV-8B II+'s (section) were patrolling 75nm west of Larak Island@ Medium Altitude, around 5,000', when it's 3rd Generation RWR detects a radar emitting from the island. While the section leader reports in to the Expeditionary Strike Group, they have detected the radar by ESM as well. The section is vectored into conduct a SEAD mission with the 2x AGM-65E Mavericks carried by each Harrier along with Litening II pods. The section descends to Low altitude about 70nm out. The Harriers accelerate to 580kts and at 23nm descend further to VLow. These pilots are veterans and pass their NOE Crash Rolls throughout the mission. At 14nm the harriers begin sighting attempts. The scenario dictates 75% visibility. Spotting a small targets, the launchers and the radar, can begin at 14nm...but...the fact that they are considered moving less than 5kts and camouflaged, the range is halved, then the 75% visibility is applied dropping the sighting range beginning at 5.25nm (a Sigma of 2 was rolled each detection turn) effective putting off a realistic chance for a couple more turns. Just a note, the Opfor can begin to spot small aircraftat 3nm, the fact that the Harriers are flying VLow, the Straight Flush cannot detect them until 2.7nm. At 8nm the 3rd Generation Litening II pod can begin IR detection. I assumed that IR ignores visibility, etc (but not some types of precipitation). In actually it is at 7.2nm that 5 IR Blobs appear (they will be classified at 4nm and must be tracked within a 3 degree FOV). At 4.8nm visual spotting occurs. QUESTION: 4.5.8 Identifying Visual Contacts does not discuss identifying at VLOW, I can understand it being more difficult - opinions? At 4nm the Litening II restricts its FOV and identifies the Straight Flush and one ZU-23 while climbing to Low Altitude. Lead launches 2x AGM-65E's at the Straight Flush while Dash-2 designates the target. After the fact I understand now that only one PGM launches per Engagement Turn Fire Phase. Immediately after launch the section breaks left 20 degrees to avoid flying into the AAA Engagement Envelope and keeping the designated targets within the 135 degrees of the designator's heading. The AGM-65E's have a 70% pH, one miss, one hit delivering 27DP's to destroy the 5DP APC (Straight Flush) One last QUESTION is the action of the SAM's in the 15 second pulse which includes: the Harriers ascending into the Low altitude Band thus being detected by the Straight Flush; and the PGM destroying the radar. I would think that they would have been getting their targeting guidance when suddenly there would have been a tremendous explosion followed by static as the two attackers winged away. Comment please.

More from Yahoo Groups Admiralty Trilogy Here are some thoughts on your question. First off let me point out that while the APR-39A is 2nd generation, it is still only a RWR for the helicopter and is not considered an ESM system. So, following the description of a RWR in section 4.3, the RWR will only tell the helicopter that it is being attacked by a radar guided weapon, which would basically be when the ZSU-23(4) actually locks onto the helicopter (after reading some references on the APR-39A(V1) that it does have some capabilities to pick up search radars, but I can't say that it would act as an ESM for the AH-1W). Also, I think the section of the rules Phillipe meant to refer to is 5.3.11, but I think that his suggestion of using the basic hit chance for antiship missiles is a good one, since (for the most part) the game system assumes that weapons are fired at ships. Alternately, you could assume that an ARM will automatically hit the target radar, unless the radar is turned off; in which case there would be a 50% chance of a hit, unless the target moved from the location where it was radiating. When (if) the AGM-122A hits the target, the damage would be resolved per section 7.3.1.2 Airbursts (since the warhead is a fragmentation type, even though that isn't stated in the annex). Although since the warhead on the missile is so small, I probably would allow it to do more than 1 critical hit and DP. I explained in a reply that the AH-1W buddy confirmed what the APR-39 can do per what I listed in the message above this one. I also agree that the 1DP SIDEARM will destroy the radar per 7.3.1.2

One more real world bit of goodness I found out from my AH-1W long time buddy is that while the APR-39 will detect active radar, the pilot has no idea of its range, thus having to visually identify the target if it was not in an already known position thereby the pilot being in a SEAD type mission.

From a responder on Yahoo's Admiral Trilogy Group: H4 is designed mainly to portray naval engagements so it is sometimes lacking when ground operations are to be taken into account. I suggest you read 5.3.10 and then if radar emission is still on after launch simply roll the die related to the missile gen seeker (here 2nd) without any modifier (on the antiship missile attack table). This would give 0.8 in your case, however if emission stops this is reduced to 0.4 (per 5.3.10 note about memory feature of second-generation ARMs). Hope his helps, just my interpretation. We thought this for a while before vainly trying to find the answer within the Precision guided Munitions Table on 6-12.

I am stepping through an engagement between an AH-1W vs a ZSU-23-4. The AH-1W, with a 2nd Generation APR-39A(V)1 RWR and AGM-122A SIDEARM at low altitude can detect the radiating ZSU-23-4's Gun Dish Radar at 69nm (ZSU is on terrain <100 feet high)and engage it with the SIDEARM after conducting a pop-up to Medium Altitude undetected between 4nm (Gun dish detection of a Small Target) and 6nm (max range of the AGM-122A). The SIDEARM inflicts 1DP. How would this attack be resolved? 6.3.4.2 Guided Weapons appears to be where I should find the instructions, but it only addresses Command Guided and Semi Active Radar (SARH) Weapons, Semiactive Laser Homing (SALH) Weapons, Electro-0ptical/Infrared Homing Weapons, and GPS-Guided Munitions.

I plan on going to the library of the US Merchant Marine Academy here on Long Island hopefully before a biz trip next week in order to pull their recent/current copy of Jane's Land-Based Air Defence and see what information can be gleaned regarding other-than-radar capabilities on some common systems during a lunch hour (no, they are not open weekends).

If my earlier "SA-9" and "Back-Up Optical Sighting" posts were not clear, how about the questions/assumptions posed a different way. Is it safe to assume that in H4.1 all of the land-based SAM's found in Annex S without inherent radar systems are intended to be part of an overall air defense coordination network which will facilitate targeting information from radar systems – to C2 nodes - to those firing units? That a radar set or anti-air system with an inherent radar should be part of the scenario T/O. That those systems with an inherent radar capability (SA-6b with Straight Flush or SA-8 ) may have an optical sighting back-up only if duly noted in Annex S and in the event that their radar is destroyed or is not radiating. That those without inherent radar (SA-9 for example) and whose network has been degraded/destroyed, i.e. the Straight Flush being used for the network or a BTR-60 PU Air Defense C2 vehicle takes a critical hit on the Ground Attack Table, are now limited to optical sighting only. Are there any radar-less systems out there that rely on some other type of infra- red/FLIR/thermal target acquisition (not missile guidance) capability? Thanks

From reliable sources even though the SA-9 is tied into the air defense coordination net, it just gets an ingress direction so it can orient on it, but still needs to visually detect. Changes the pH result somewhat. Also investigating the use of JSOW, but not in H4.1 Annex B as a weapon for the AV-8B, and the AGM-122 Sidearm anti-radiation missile on the AH-1W to take out the Straight Flush. AGM-122 has a range between 1-6nm (11km+). Will keep someone posted, Pete

Thanks to Brad for listening and commenting on my walk through of a night helo insert into what I now realize is a high anti-air threat environment and now must come up with a new way to insert my "eyes" onto the island. As it turned out unless I can use intervening terrain against the Straight Flush radar of the SA-6b battery, I risk being shot down by a tied-in SA-9b at a pH of 50%, even while flying VLow/NOE. The trick is locating the radar set, especially if it moves frequently. Small Boat insert may be the next option...

I guess the answer that I am truely looking for is; Are those land-based SAM systems, without an inherent acquisition radar found in Annex S, considered to be restricted to visual sighting rules unless tied into an air defense network that contains at least one unit with such radar? An game example of such an air defense unit would consist of 4xKub M2 SA-6b TEL's, with their inherent Straight Flush, 4x9K31M Strela-1M SA-9b TEL's, and 4xZSU-23-4 Shilka's. Each system would be fed target designation from the Straight Flush. A PU-12 or PU-12M miniature would be used to denote this C3 vehicle/capability. Does this sound about correct?

I agree about the redundancy, but hope to provoke an FC Column for Annex S. See for example the Annex C's where there is an FC column with RA (Radar) EO (Electro-Optic) and OP (Optical), which in my humble opinion would have gone a long way to clearing up the SA-9 fiasco over the past week.

In Annex "S" Surface-to-Air Missiles, as examples, both the 9k31M Strela-1M (SA-9b) and 9K35M3 Strela-10M3 (SA-13) have "Y" in their respective "Optical Back-Up" column, but what is it back up to? There are no associated radars with these two systems. Is there some other IR or similar sighting capability not referenced in Annex "S"?

FINAL WORD If not tied into a network with radar capabilities, the SA-9 is limited to the visual sighting of its crew or other pickets.

Correction: The IR rules would apply on to vehicle-mounted systems, not MANPADS. Shoulder-launched SAM's should still be restricted to visual sighting rules.

One wrinkle to all of this, but not a show stopper is that it has been pointed out to me that most all IRH SAM's have an IR channel for their optical sight. That being said, nighttime sighting would be overwritten by the IR Rules which start on Page 4-17. Brad, I believe that the IR channel would hold true for IRH MANPADS as well.

After conversing with the friendly people on the harpgamer IRC channel and re-re-reading the rules, H4.1 Rule 4.5.6 applies here. With the conditions as explained in the original post, visual detection should occur between 0 and 0.65nm. The Sigma this turn is 0.5. The SA-9 player would consult the Visibility Variation Table, roll a D10, and cross reference the die roll and the sigma. For example, in this case if a D10 roll results in a "3" cross referencing 3 and 0.5 on the Visibility Variation Table results in -0.5. The result is added or subtracted, in this case subtracted, from the 0.65 maximum detection range. As a result, the detection range for this turn is 0.65 - 0.5 = 0.60. With the UH-1N at a range of 0.65nm, the helo is not detected. Note that per the rule, the sigma is re-rolled each turn.