Brains

We should sell Canada and Oz some subs... I support nukes for US SSNs but we could make some money building conventional subs for our friends.

Sorry about the delay, folks. Island Clash is supposed to be a reward after I finish up classwork... And I'm a bit behind. It will return! Next up will be a start right outside max radar range...

Don't worry, reality is catching up to the model though... Offboard cueing for everything!

Wouldn't condemning the possibility of future home grown subs be demanding perfection on a first try? I mean, I can understand increased scrutiny and all that, but it isn't a simple thing to build a sub at home...

I thought I had found something last night, but, looking again this morning, it appears that, while the ESSM in use does have an X-band uplink capability, the Murasame doesn't have an X-band uplink to use. Back to the fallback ESSM mode of Home All the Way and only 2 missiles per fire phase, 4 total for the engagement turn.

Hmm... Doing some further looking (including google translated Japanese language pages which makes for interesting reading), it appears that ESSMs are actually I/M/TSARH and that, while the -162A model has S-band midcourse guidance, the -162B (and the C/D models which are variants of it) has X-Band midcourse guidance. Which suggests that you can do 2 missiles per director (5.3.5 4th para) per fire phase and so we might be back to 8 per engagement turn by using both fire phases.

Yep, you're right. I'd read that part before and managed to forget it when looking. One missile per director since it is SARH, so two per cycle. The tricky question is whether you can use the fact that it is flagged as 'auto' to get in a second salvo of ASuW-mode ESSMs... Which would bring it up to 4 per engagement turn (2 per fire phase, 2 fire phases).

Scenario #2 Engagement Turn 0900.00 1st Movement Phase: I'm going to ignore the 1st movement phase as we're close enough as it is... Trigger pulling time. 1st Fire Phase: Range is 1.62nm. It is the Japanese turn to be dastardly and they open up with everything they have... Which amusingly enough does not include the SSM-1 SSMs as they have a minimum range of 5.4nm. 8x ESSMs are fired in ASuW mode. The distance is small enough that they will impact in the next movement phase and we'll pause to give the Chinese a chance for the defensive fire. Compact 76mm/62 is fuzed for airburst and fired. Max range is 7.0nm so we are in the "near" range, making pH 0.65 and damage 8. Rolling... 0.46 which is a hit. Compact 76mm/62 inflicts d6 critical hits on the Jiangwei-II. Rolling... 1. (Wow, talk about your unlucky rolls.) Rolled weapon type critical hit, port aft Type 67A destroyed, no ammo explosion possible. Detection Phase: Pretty sure that the radars of everybody involved detect everything. The Chinese are aware of the inbounds. 2nd Movement Phase: ESSMs can cover up to 9.375nm in 15 seconds and easily cover the remaining distance. We pause them to allow Chinese defensive fire. 2nd Fire Phase: The Chinese act defensively first with both forward Type 67As firing at the ESSMs. The Type 79 100mm/56 is engaging... Base near pH is 0.25, -0.10 for speed > 1000, a modifier of 1/2 for a large caliber firing in the second fire phase, and has a final pH of 0.08. Rolling.. 0.16 which is miss. The two forward Type 67A 37mm/67 are engaging... Base near pH is 0.10, -0.10 for speed > 1000, and bottoms out at a final pH of 0.01. Rolling... 0.78, 0.14 which are two misses. The HQ-7 fires 2 FM-80 missiles as well. ESSM D-ATA is 0.5 (unmmaned) + 1.0 (>1000kts) + 1.0 (FM-80 is 2nd Gen against VSmall ESSM)= 2.5. FM-80 ATA is 3.0. pH is 0.35. Rolling... 0.64, 0.38 which is miss, miss. (Aside: Dude, this is not a good day for the Chinese...) 8 ESSMs now can move to impact. 3rd gen missile versus 2nd jammers & decoys gives pH 0.51. Rolling... 0.03,0.65,0.49,0.07,0.50,0.27,0.99,0.10. That is 6 hits and 2 misses. 6 ESSMs inflict 6d6 critical hits on the Jiangwei-II... Rolling... 23 critical hits. Critical hit types: SensorsX4, WeaponsX12, FlightDeckX2, BridgeX5 Sensor hits: Decca, Type 517, Type 363, ESM Weapon Hits: Port Yinjii-82 destroyed, no ammo explosion Starboard Yinjii-82 destroyed, no ammo explosion DRBC 32F Castor director destroyed PW Type 76A destroyed, no ammo explosion possible SW Type 76A destroyed, no ammo explosion possible PA Type 76A destroyed, no ammo explosion possible Helo destroyed, Minor Fire HQ-7 destroyed, no ammo explosion Type 87 destroyed, no ammo explosion Bridge hits: Must continue current movement orders for 6 Tactical turns. Okay, time to call this one as well... The lack of guns on the Murasame did give the Chinese a slim chance to minimize the damage but, even after going full "turtle", the Chinese didn't manage to attrit the inbounds much at all. They could have decided to strike back (and, seeing the outcome of the turtle, probably should have) which would have given them a good chance to strip the Murasame. This would leave two effectively ruined hulls at best and no winners. Again, let me know if there are any mistakes in the above... I spent a lot of time going back and forth trying to make sure I'd remembered things correctly.) Time to think about the next iteration...

Scenario #1 Engagement Turn 0900.00 1st Movement Phase: I'm going to ignore the 1st movement phase as we're close enough as it is... Trigger pulling time. 1st Fire Phase: Range is 1.62nm. It is the Chinese turn to be dastardly and they open up with everything they have... Which amusingly enough does not include the Yinjii-82 SSMs as they have a minimum range of 5.4nm. Type 79 100mm/56 is fuzed for impact and fired. Max range is 9.6nm so we are in "near" range, making pH 0.50 and damage 11. Rolling... 0.80 which is a miss. 4x Type 76A 37mm/67 is fuzed for airburst and fired. Max range is 3.0 so we are in "far" range, making pH 0.13 and damage 1. Rolling... 0.05 which is a hit. (Aside: I'm not sure I've ever realized that you roll gunfire pH for the director, not the mounts. If you hit, you hit with all the mounts. If you miss, you miss with all of them.) Each Type 76As hit inflicts d6 critical hits on the Murasame. Rolling... 5,4,3,6 which totals 18 critical hits. Rolling critical hit types... 6xSensor, 8xWeapon, 4xFlightDeck Sensor critical hits wipe the ESM and all radars from the Murasame. Weapon critical hits destroy the Compact 76mm, forward Mk15 Phalanx, port SSM-1 launcher, both Typ68 torpedo mounts, and both FCS 2-31 directors. The only luck rolls here are the lack of an ammo explosion and burning helo... (Aside: I'm assuming that non-aviation ships treat the flight deck crit as just being lucky nothings since their helipad is treated under weapon crits. It really doesn't matter for this case though...) At this point, I think I will call it for this run through of scenario #1 as the Chinese have effectively mission killed the Murasame who has no functional sensors or directors. If the Chinese fire first and are at all lucky, the Murasame seems doomed. In addition, I think I should have chosen to fire the Type 79 in airburst mode as well. The initial stage of the combat is all mission killing the other before letting in the water. EDIT: A stupid mistake on my part, only 2 of the 4 Type 76As bear on the target so that is about twice as many critical hits as it should have been. I think I will skip regaming it as the outcome will be slightly better but still very lopsided still. Next up is the Japanese getting to fire first and I'm hoping that is a bit more interesting...

Time to brush off the H4.1 rules and scrub some of the rust off the old brain cells... Dawn Patrol is fondly remembered as a simple scenario to play and learn, but I decided this was a bit too dated. Recasting it in the light of the whole shift into the Pacific and an existing/ongoing conflict, I call it Island Clash. (Yeah yeah, imaginative name...) I plan on running the setup a couple of different ways to see both how the situation might have ended differently and to re-familiarize myself with the rules. Please do advise if I manage to screw something up. Island Clash Setting On Jan 30, 2013, escalating tensions over the islands the Japanese call the Senkaku Islands sparked an incident that occurred between a Chinese Jiangwei-II (Type 053H3) FF and a Japanese Murasame DD. Competing patrols of the Japanese and Chinese met in close proximity near the islands and the Jiangwei-II locked fire control radars on the Murasame. In reality, the sides mutually backed away and the matter was handled diplomatically. But what if... Scenario #1 This reality... But the Chinese pull the trigger. The two vessels start ~3km / ~1.6nm apart, suicidal knife fighting range if there ever was one, and the Chinese have a firing solution and FC lock on the Murasame. Given that everything is happening quickly, I'll predetermine that the helicopters are not ready in time / down for maintenance / not stupid enough to try and take off while crazy defensive operations are underway. At this range, pretty much every radar has progressed beyond detection range and into microwave oven range and so we dispense with everything but engagement turns. Initial state is... Jiangwei-II: Position is 25°47′09″N 123°34′08″E, Course is 090, Speed is 13kts (0.0542 nm per engagement movement phase). Murasame: Position is 25°47′09″N 123°35′56″E, Course is 270, speed is 16kts (0.0667 nm per engagement movement phase). More tomorrow...

Didn't seem to do much penetration either... Which obviously doesn't matter for the size of the target there, but I wonder about some what more sturdy targets.

I was going to do a more indepth AAR but I managed to mess up my log and close the game before seeing my stats. From memory, I lost only my SR-71 Blackbird (inattention during my strike packages' ingress meant the poor Blackbird ate an Apex, IIRC). I chose the Pskov option as being the easier.. Not knowing what is spoiler-y, we'll just black band the rest to protect the eyes of the innocent. All told, I enjoyed the scenario. There was plenty of work to do juggling intercepts and planning the strikes while not having either an overwhelming or overwhelmed force. I do suspect that I ran some risks that a human player could have had a field day with... (A court martial would later show that I did knowingly risk forces under my command...)

"The Navy must redesign a capable follow-on ballistic-missile submarine that it can afford." Makes a lot of sense but the choice to drop torpedoes would be a hard one to swallow...

Second article seems to nail it. As for knowing your enemy, the second article did say that it didn't make sense to buy when you can borrow and I suspect that the lease of SSKs counts in that category. And the Virginia SSN *is* the cheap one... *grin* The price is down to $2B for the current boats and the USN signed contracts for 8 subs for $14B. The price is expected to continue to fall due to the use of COTS and the ability to piggy back on the civvie industry.

I have more sympathy for the Canadians than most of the rest of NATO... But I can't help thinking that the US should start quickly drawing down support for international work (that we don't have a large interest in) so that the rest of the folks don't feel they can cut budgets and free-ride on the fairly large (currently) shoulders of the US military. 'Course, the nihilist in me says yank it all back home (with appropriate and enforced promises that annoying us gets your country broken *but not rebuilt*) and watch the world burn... Figuratively, of course.

Er, seems like Cold War flashbacks to me... Step One: Make large outrageous / silly demands loudly Step Two-A: Play the wounded peaceful party when demands are rejected Step Two-B: Claim credit for making the warmongers listen to the peaceful demands of the world Step Three: Milk PR for every last drop Step Four: Do what you were going to do originally anyway They already had plans for an upgraded nuclear triad underway, after all.

I know it is unrealistic but I vote for going back to names that inspire and not politicians... At least this one is dead before he got a ship named after him.

It is only sensible when the contractor has control of the variables... Which they don't. There isn't much that they do have fine control over. So they price it accordingly... Well, actually, knowing that the requirements are absurd in the first place and failure is seldom punished harshly, they underbid and do the cost overrun route. Can't blame 'em, I'd not do business at that level with the USG if I could get away with it.

I'm still confused by the Army's approach to air defense... As far as I can tell, it boils down to "Let the USAF do it". Which is great until they don't... Then you're double frakked by the gaps in coverage caused by... I don't know, acquisiton of small numbers of high end fighters.

As the report says, there is "sucks" and "sucks"... I'm not sure there are many who would chuck it out the door so much as they just want it to do more.

I played the campaign with the Seahorse (died near the end of the last campaign). Not exactly the most interesting game necessarily (especially for those that like DW), but very illuminating on the "environment" and constraints the poor little robot will be operating under. I'll admit that I played the campaign pretty much without regard to the scoring, but even with something like the Seahorse, a pretty limited platform, I can see the utility very quickly.

I'll certainly take the shortcomings if you'll allow me the few thousand trained-human-equivalent AIs and the machine(s) necessary to run it real time. I suspect the DoD would make you a better offer though...

Heh, who didn't see that coming...

You are wrong. (You asked.) There is a reason why you have multiple levels of humans running things in the real world... Because it can't be reliably automated in the real world. As you already noted, the sim already does a good job of doing most things in the game for you and you have the added ability to stop time (and speed it up) to take care of the extra supervisory work. The real world is full of examples where many levels of humans and machine assistance still screwed the pooch so a few non-optimal (but seldom horrifically bad) SA/AI decisions are the least of the worries in a sim like this. An example... IMHO, Running a (charitably described) no-margin tanker setup for a strike plus no tankers in the air for contingencies counts as a choice if it was intentional or a failure if it wasn't. War is hell. More than one of my flights has died due to my mistakes and more than one has been sent to its certain death. The difference between a stupid mistake and a daring (or constrained) choice is not something easily determined by AI. The SA already rejects attempts to do obvious wrong things (complaints about lacking appropriate weapons, bingo warnings, radar warnings (which actually bug more me than help...)), but, as another example, attacking ships with iron bombs isn't necessarily a mistake. Yes, I've intentionally attacked ships with iron bombs IIRC. Didn't turn out terribly efficient, but it did the job. Again, you're wrong. Dismissing work as a "slight" extension this and an easy change that is trivial.... And horridly wrong. As the conversations on this thread and others have shown, sometimes it is hard for other people to understand what a player wanted or commanded or whatnot , much less an AI given a "slight" tweak. That doesn't mention having an AI constantly bugging you "Are you sure?" as a playability negative... Or even what should be questioned! (Iron bombs against ships? Not a question in my mind. Fuel constraints on a mission? How is the AI going to know that I've got tankers on a racetrack and prepositioned for the strike? etc etc etc) You mentioned that you considered going back to an earlier version of HCE because it behaved more "normally". Most of that is nostalgia in my opinion, since the view of the game is much less rosy when you sit down and start analyzing the actual behavior of the old versus new. The recent versions of the game aren't just bells and whistles, but actual improvement to the AI and modeling to the point that the older games just get annoying. (Blame the typos and such on the late night...)

Enable iterative saving at 1 sec intervals (command line options "-s -t 0.0166")... Takes a bit of space but gives you a pretty fine grained set of save games to work with. Heck, you can even back track a few save games and do a show-all to track the behavior of the "sneaky" planes...