DarkNite

I managed to destroy the Spratley port facility and Guangzhou East in the first day. Had a few losses from surprise Flanker patrols but have kept my airfields intact. Lost a Japanese frigate to grounding and the Tico CG Chosin to what I think was a mine. Killed 5 subs thus far as well with no losses to them. Spoiler The Guangzhou East attack was a coup de main using a pair of P-8s and EP-3s and the 4 B-1Bs out of Anderson. The EP-3s gathered an electronic OOB of the Guangzhou East air base and determined their defenses were weak to the south and west - just a couple of isolated SA-2 batteries and radar facilities. The P-8s managed to make a hole in this weak coverage with SLAM-ERs and were followed up by the B-1's massive JASSM strike. The JASSMs made it to within 7 miles of the airfield before they started taking losses. Even then, less than 40 of 96 hit but it was enough to destroy the place!

That's true, but given current data I'd put our passive sonar's ability to locate a PLAN SSK significantly beyond their passive sonar's ability to locate our SSN. Not that it would be easy... BTW, anybody else thinking we should bring the S-3s back? DN

Point taken. I think it's time we start tailing their SSKs with our SSNs and at some point during the tailing cook them a bit with active sonar to remind them we have hunters, too. DN

That PLAN CV is going to make a nice periscope pic as it goes down someday.

File Name: Northern Forge File Submitter: DarkNite File Submitted: 16 Oct 2008 File Category: GIUK DB Used: HCDB080824 Authors: Christopher Stoner Battleset-GIUK: .scm - EC2003 - EC2003 A large scale NATO naval exercise being held in the Norweigian & North Seas. Click here to download this file

* HMS Albion (L14) * HMS Bulwark (L15)

Tricky! I assume I could get away with a two-color black/white .tif for land and sea at present? DN

I assume the pic has to be the same dimensions to maintain scale? I tried to open it in GIMP and it said it had 16 layers. Is there more than just land and sea colors in that pic? DN

Can I use a different elevation.tif file to achieve different land masses or resolution? DN

Tony - Does the coastline 'resolution' differ depending on the size of battleset created with the Battleset Builder? IE, will the coastline be more 'jagged' at finer zoom values for a larger map area than a smaller one? DN

A little more on the LRLAP rounds. You can fire them BOL as well. They'll adopt guidance and home on intervening targets. I looked at her a bit in the platform editor and she's got a RCS of 75. That compares to 80 for the LCS, 95 for the F-117, 73 for the B-2 and 85 for the F-22. One thing that puzzles me is that other modern LO ships like the Swedish Visby (RCS=180), Israeli Sa'ar 5 (RCS = 188) and French La Fayette (RCS=186) are significantly less stealthy than the US designs. In fact they don't seem significantly less in RCS than other vessels of similar size - at least to the degree the Zumwalt and LCS are. Any thoughts there? Thanks! DN

I put the Zumwalt through a few tests to check her sea legs using HCDB-080326 which generated a few observations: o Why a max cruise speed of 18 kts instead of 19 kts? Is this associated with her drive-type? o Why are the 155mm/62 AGS LRLAP rounds modeled as missiles? o Why does the 57mm/70 Mk110 ppq mount have 16 bursts but the 57mm/70 M110 ssq mount have 255 bursts? o The game allows me to use gunfire against a target for which I had a bearing-only, area detection (using sonar). I did not hit while the detection box was big but did when it became near-exact. o She's very stealthy. Thanks, Brad! DN

Whoops! I used the wrong conversion on the Strategy Page figure - 25km = 13.5nm. DN

I share your pain, Brad. I'm a long-time Harpoon gamer (paper and computer) and had to extrapolate and modify many a time. Thanks for you hard work!

One more thing - according to Army Technology Raytheon announced an SLAMRAAM-ER (probably based on the AIM-120D) with a range of 40km. DN

I agree, we want to keep the DB as accurate as possible and in line with what the community knows from open-source material - especially Harpoon canon materials. My point here is that the current version is already flawed so a change to a more reasonable figure. This article: http://www.defense-update.com/products/s/slamraam.htm - states it is essentially equivalent to NASAMS This one: http://www.raytheon.com/technology/stellen...ms01_048569.pdf - from Raytheon, also states NASAMS equivalence. It also states a '30 x increase in battle space over line of sight weapons'. Most low level LOS SAMs have a range in the 2-3nm region. Let's be generous and say 3nm radius. That yields a battle space of pi*r*r of 28.27 sq nm. Apply that to 30 x that and you get 848.1 sq nm or about 16.4 nm radius. The Strategy Page: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/art...s/20060731.aspx - lists a range of 25km or about 15.6 nm. Somewhere in there lies the answer. However it's not 60 nm! ;> DN

Yes, I'm well aware its already there. What I'm saying is do you know of more precise (and credible) specs for the SL-AMRAAM ? That's a prerequisite to me changing what's there now. Well, no, I don't. But I would think a good compromise might be to scale it similarly to NASAMs is to the AIM-120A/B until more data is known. DN

It's in the DB for HCE already but with the C7's full range. I was going to use it for a scenario but not as it is now. DN

Checking out the SL-AMRAAM in the DB (Humvee-based AMRAAM SAM) and saw that it has the same range as the AIM-120C7. All the discussions I've seen on this system indicates that it has a much smaller range than the air-launched version and is inferior to Patriot range. DN

I posted a similar situation with Indian Mig-27s over at Matrix's web site. Target definitely had radiating unit (was shooting down my a/c!). However this is not a consistent bug as I had the same loadout work successfully versus another, identical target in the previous mission. DN

Not to minimize the import of this situation but an old saying comes to mind: "Even a blind pig finds a truffle every once in a while." He may well of been in just the right place at just the right time.

Wow, sounds exactly like me! I, too, am waiting with baited breath for the Commander's Edition. The betas I played were awesome.

Thanks, Brad. It's one of the first things I checked and gave you an 'atta-boy' in absentia for the good work! DN

Just a great job on the DB, Brad! My request this time is for a USAF F-15C with AAW weaponry upgraded to AIM-120C and AIM-9x. It's just embarrassing to put the Eagle in the backseat to F-16s when it comes to considering intercept missions! Perhaps call it an F-15C MSIP?