kcdusk

Heres another site you might like to bookmark. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Admira...yguid=260487734

I found the actual aircraft v aircraft rules pretty simple. It was just the ... engagement between being at a distance to moving into a dog fight. It was just that transition that i found a bit hard. But the actual dogfight rules i found pretty easy. I still need to do some more combat in this area, but its seemed ok so far. But i'm always up for "new" rules.

Hey welcome. I'm new around here also. Plotting boards? How about graph paper? Or a white board?? Or butchers paper???

F-15E strike mission An F-15E is approaching enemy air space. A Mirage 2000 is scrambled to intercept. Initial range is 80nm and the Mirage picks the F-15 up on radar. Its not until the planes reach 60nm the F-15 picks up the Mirage. Both planes are at medium altitude. The planes close quickly, and engagement turns (30 second turns) ensure. The F-15 is armed with a Sidewinder AtA missile which has a range of 9.5nm, giving it more reach than the Magic the Mirage is carrying (6nm). The F-15 fires both its Sidewinders at 9nm. 6.3.3.2.2 says that 1 in 5 AtA missiles clear the rails but fail to function. Die rolls of 6 and 8 mean both of these AtA missiles have gone live. I didn’t do the math, but I assumed the Sidewinders engaged the Mirage before the Mirage was able to fire at the F-15. The sidewinder has an AtA of 6.5 less 4.5 (Mirage AtA) less 1.5 for 3G ECM vs 3G missle and another – 1.5 for 3G decoys vs 3G missle gives a final result of –1.0 and a 20% chance of each missile finding its target on the Air-to-Air combat table. Die rolls of … (you wont believe this) 16 and 17 mean both hit home. Hmmm I know I read somewhere that a missile hit kills a plane but I cannot find the paragraph any more. So I’m not sure if theres a chance of damaging an aircraft or if its an outright kill. But I’ll assume two hits kill off the Mirage. The F-15E continues into enemy territory now, where it is engaged by the enemys Boffers 40mm/60 anti air guns. There are two guns, each with one barrel. The Boffers system surprises the F-15E (which is also above the Vlow band and slower than 1000kts) so it is non-manouvering and the hit chance is doubled. A hefty penalty, I guess this shows why aircraft go into afterburner or increase there approach speed when over hostile ground, oh, and go Vlow (which I think has flight penalties to avoid crashing). There are no other modifiers that I can see so the Boffers to hit chance is .15 x 2 (non-manouver) = 30% chance of the F-15E being hit (and he notes the position of the previously hidden gun for future reference :-) Die roll is … 05, so the F-15 is hit. But for sake of argument I will rule this an “exercise” and allow the F-15 to continue to target so I can use some more rules for the first time. The F-15 approaches its intended target. I was going to run through a lob-toss bombing run but the F-15 has guided missiles (AGM-65). Sooooooo ….. Aircraft bombing tables on page 6-12 are used. Our target is a known Crotale Missle battery (Yes, the “enemy” in this AAR has a decidedly French flavour). The F-15’s AGM-65 is fired from a range of 13nm, and flies off at 791kts, it is IIR. 5.3.10 says LOS must be maintained during flight. I’m not sure how to work out if LOS is maintained or not. The F-15 fires from 13nm away, and radar LOS from a medium height to a small ship (or Crotale missle launcher???) is 106nm so I figure that even after firing the missile and the F-15 peels away, there is LOS. To work out the chance of hitting I use Table 6-12 under precision guided munitions. AGM-65 is 3rd generation infrared but there is no option for that on the table. There is only 2nd Gen EO/IR. I’m not sure which stats to use. Can anyone tell me what the “guidance type” is I should use on table 6-12 for AGM-65? The Crotale missile has a maximum range of 5.5nm and is a 2nd Generation missile. Can it shoot down the incoming AGM-65? I thought maybe 6.4.1.2 SAMs might cover it. But it talks about the missles AtA rating and I don’t think the Crotale has one??? Its getting late so maybe I am missing something obvious.

1) A Mirage 2000 and F-15 are approaching one another. The Mirage is armed with Magic AtA missile which has a range of 6.0nm while the F-15 is armed with a Sidewinder with a range of 9.6nm. Does this mean the F-15 gets to fire its AtA missile first since it will be in range first (using engagement turns)? And depending on the missile and planes speeds, the sidewinder may shoot down the Mirage before it gets within range to fire its Magic (within 6.0nm)? (Maybe i have answered my own question, rule 6.3.3.2.1 says in the engagment turn a missile reaches a plane the plane must evade and therefore cant fire). If the sidewinder does not reach the mirage before the mirage gets within 6.0nm then its possible both planes have fired AtA missiles and there results are determined seperatley. So both planes may shoot each other down? Assuming both planes survive long range missile engagement, 6.3.3.3 says aircraft ending movement within 5.0nm of each other are in "dog fight". So if both survive then they enter dog fight rules, is this right? 2) Page 6-8 Dog fight example extending to page 6-9. Is the example right? "the combatants fire in order of successful die rolls". So wouldnt F-14#1 which rolled 02 fire before anything else? It looks like the example has the planes with highest successful die roll shooting first rather than the plane which rolled lowest (succeeding by the most). 3) A plane has 3rd generation J&D (jam and decoy?), and is up against a 3rd generation missile. Using Air-to-Air Combat table on page 6-6 does the defending plane add both +1.5 to its AtA rating for 3G ECM (the Jam portion) and also add a further +1.5 for using decoys to its AtA???? ta .

Modern (1980+) era. Interesting point re the tomohawk ... i'll have to do some reading.

Whats the major differences, or roles, of battleships, cruisers and destroyers?

Under what conditions do subs use their towed array? Is it only when they are slowly trawling for contacts, then they retract it during combat?

Whats the attraction of the Tu-22?

I got H4.1 mainly due to sub v sub rules. So i like sub units. My favourite specific unit before getting H4.1 was the Tornado aeroplane. Now that i have data annexs to pour over, my preference might change.

This might be a bit munchkiny, but ... whats your favourite type of unit (air, land or sea)? And whats your favourite specific unit?

Just watched the movie "Hunt for Red October". Is the Red October Typhon in the data annex (dont have my copy here to quote page number) meant to represent the sub from the movie? Is it a real type, or a work of fiction? (sorry for dumb questions).

Can anyone comment on South Atlantic War - the Falklands module? Is it any good? Anyone playing it?

Yeah, I dont know anything about the equipment, but the Perry has a MF-LF sonar and according to the rules it cannot classify very quiet contacts. Not sure if anyone else wants to chime in. Glad you like the write ups. Just doing what i can.

Where in the rules does it tell you how fast (or slow) you need to be going to be able to use a fast or slow towed array? I have read about the differences, but i havent seen anything that says what the speed cut off is. Is it a hard and fast speed given, or a % of a crafts top speed? 4.4.2.3 talks about towed arrays. And low or high speed. It also talks about 15, 25 and 30kt limits applying to towed arrays but gives no distinction between fast and slow.

Somewhere in the greenland-iceland-UK gap. For whatever the reason, NATO and Russian have the safeties off. For ease of the game, I have placed a Perry class, then an Arligh Burke, Bunker Hill cruiser and then the Nimitz all in a straight line ahead of the Akula. In effect, the Akula will drive (swim?) straight underneath each vessel intil it gets into the inner ring. This just helps me with keeping track of vessels as I learn the H4.1 rules. The Russian Akula cruises along at (random D10 roll for speed) 6kts. Depth is intermediate II. 7.0nm out is a Perry class ship, which forms the Picket. She is steaming along at 20kts, normal ocean speed movement. Sea state (random roll) is 5. The Akula was able to check for detection against the Perry straight away, and it took a couple of tactical turns before she was picked up. The Akula was eventually able to classify the Perry as a “US Ship”. And since the fleet was expected to be in the area, the Akula assumed this was part of the picket. The Perry on the other hand was essentially blind to the Akula, needing to be within a mile to have any chance of picking her up even using active sonar. This was mainly due to the Perrys speed working against her. I immediately thought this same problem is going to affect the other ships as well (similar sonar characteristics and ship speeds). So when the sub gets within sonar range of a ship and we start using tactical turns, in the plotting phase I will roll D6 and on a roll of “1” I will have the ship slow to 5kts to simulate it doing sprint/slow type searches. I will plot the akulas movement before the roll, so I don’t know the outcome beforehand. This should give the ships a better chance of detecting the sub. I got a few of the rules wrong during this little encounter, and decided since the Perry failed to pick up the Soviet Sub I would move on to the next line in the Nimitz defence. There was little to no point in the Akula firing on the Perry. It’s a small and relatively unimportant ship. If bigger game is detected next time, I might fire on them if only to run me through the target detection, classification and firing torpedoes sequence. You cant get enough practice at this! In future I will roll a D10 and half it. This will represent the closest the Sub will pass to a ship. For example if a 5 is rolled, instead of the Akula having to go directly underneath a ship, she will approach the ship and then when the distance gets to 2.5nm, she will start to pull away out the other side. This simulates the ships moving in the open sea and passing each other, but never being side by side (like on a highway). Thoughts so far Ships have to be very close (and moving slowly or in slight seas) to detect a sub. When I play through this scenario again, having the sub chase down the fleet (but having to negotiate the same obstacles) will be much different. Because the sub will be easier to pick up and the Akula will have a hard time hearing anything itself I suspect. I need a better way of simulating ships on the high seas rather than having the linear examples I have used so far. How are other people moving ships around? I hope to keep things to pen and paper. How are others determining random ship movement??? I had a quick look at Helicopters, and they would detect subs by dropping sonar buoys. My quick scan of the rules shows that is a hard way to initially pick up a sub also. I needed to remind myself that sonar only gives direction, not distance when it detects a contact. So the sub doesn’t know (until the ship passes overhead) how close they are until the direction of contact changes (from 90 degrees to 270 for instance). I wonder if 2 subs detecting the same contact could work out distance (triangulation?). Maybe they couldn’t, since subs are not normally in sub to sub contact to share info …? Is it realistic for a sub to surface and use its periscope to check for distance to a contact? And confirm contact type? Maybe I should have a sub try this next time to see what happens. I will point people to 6.5.2.2 in H4.1. It might answer a thread question re when to arm torpedoes because you don’t know how far away a contact is if your just using sonar (you know direction but distance to contact). Here it says a player must log torpedo course, depth and enable point. The question is “how do you set your enable point?”. Well, it says in this paragraph that if the torpedo acquires its target passively, it automatically switches to active and homes in. Does this raise another question though? Do you need to be rolling for the passive torpedo to detect a target, and if it picks it up then it goes active and homes in? A table at the bottom of page 6-28 gives some info re types of torpedoes and some stats. Second line of Defence The Arligh Burke has been made aware a Russian submarine is operating in the area. As such, she is being much more careful that the Perry. On a roll or “1 or 2” in the plotting phase of the tactical turn, she slows to 5kts. In each next plotting phase, she will speed up to 20kts on a roll of 1-3. The Akula is moving at intermediate depth II at (random D20 this time to also even things up) and a 19 is rolled, so its 19kts. The Akula forges through the water at 19kts. The AB is at a similar 20kts. If nothing changes the Akula has a chance to detect the AB beginning at 5.1nm. Tactical turn1 Range 7.0nm. Akula intermeadiate II and 19kts. AB at 20kts. Units will pass at (D10 = 5 / 2 = 2.5nm before distance starts to extend). Due to the combined closing speed, the distance closes to 5.1nm, right on the edge of the Akula being able to detect. Die roll is 59 > 25 therefore no detection. Tactical turn 2 Range is 5.1nm. Akula maintains 19kts and AB (D6 roll is a 2!) slows to 5kts. Now it gets interesting. After the movement phase the distance is 4.0nm. Using passive sonar the AB could start to detect at 3.9nm, so she just misses out on a detection roll. The Akula could start to detect the AB at 1.9nm so she doesn’t get a chance to detect either. Tactical turn 3 Range 4.0nm. AB rolls D6 in plotting phase and gets a 5, so she stays at 5kts. After movement phase the distance is 2.8nm. The AB has a 50% chance of detecting the Akula and rolls 33, we have a contact! Classification is not possible (cross reference very quiet contact with LF-MF sonar type on page 4-11). Hmm, so it could be a whale? The Akula is not within sonar detection range and so keeps same course and speed. Tactical turn 4 Akula maintains 19kts. AB is searching at 5kts. Start range is 2.8 with closing speed of 1.2nm. So after moving 0.3nm they “pass” at 2.5nm and range starts to extend again to 3.4nm. AB has a 50% chance to maintain the sub, plus 15% so needs 65 or less and rolls 79. The Burke has lost contact! Tactical turn 5. Starting range is 3.4nm. The Arligh Burke was alert for a sub and had an unclassified contact, so she maintains 5kts and continues to search. Instead of moving ships around etc … I decided there is a 50% chance of the burke turning onto a course to intercept the unknown contact, and she rolled a 95. I ruled the Burke failed to move in the direction of the Akula. The Akula continued on at 19kts and moved 0.95nm. I rolled D100 again and got 93, so 93% of 0.95nm = 0.88nm moved away (this is me gaming the Akula being able to move 93% of its movement away from the Burke rather than plotting movement). New range is 4.3nm. Tactical turn 6 Starting range is 4.3nm. Random D100 roll for Burkes heading towards unknown Akula is … 87. Combined speed of units is 1.1nm apart x 87% is 0.96 + 4.3 = 5.3 nm. Detection phase and the AB has a 25% chance +15% to regain contact for a total of 40%, she rolls a 95 (really? This is my random die roller results in an excel spreadsheet? 79, 95, 86 and 95. Theres some pretty high rolls. Any more results like this and NATO can claim to be diced in this one). The AB is out of the Akulas sonar range so no chance to detect. Tactical turn 7 Starting range is 5.3. And its just occurred to me that on a roll of 01 and the Burke should move closer to the Akula, and on 100 the distance should climb. On a roll of 50 maybe the distance stays the same? Something to try. Random movement generator (I just made this name and concept up) is 79. Its 29 higher than 50 so combined speed of 1.1nm x 1.29 = 1.4 + starting range of 5.3 gives a new range distance of 6.7nm. Neither side is within contact range. Tactical turn 8 Opening range is 6.7nm. Random movement generator is … 30. So the gap will close. 1.1nm * .8 = 0.88 to be taken off 6.7 = 5.8nm is the new range. The AB gets another chance to regain contact (rule 4.4.3 this is the 4th and last time the Burke qualifies for the 15% to maintain contact). So its 25% + 15% for a 40% chance and the roll is 35 – contact is regained! The Burke has a new direction to the contact (but will never be able to classify it. How can the Burke ever classify the sub and therefore fire on it? Enough for today.

OK, i've placed a soviet Akula class submarine in front of a USA "fleet". I've given the fleet 4 layers if you like, and i'm ignoring air support at this stage. Can the Akula penetrate the layers and get a shot off at the Nimitz??? 1st layer is the picket, where our Akula has to try and stealth past a Perry class warship. She is a small and quiet ship but will be running at speed ahead of our fleet. While the Perry can carry a Sea Hawk helecopter, it wont be in this encounter. 2nd layer is Arleigh Burke, i believed the AB is a good ASW type of ship. But looking at her sonar stats she is not much different to the Perry class. Oh well. 3rd layer is Bunker Hill cruiser. Her sonar gear is better than the first or second layers. 4th layer, the big prize (should he make it this far) is the Nimitz. My plan for the Akula is to quietly cruise past each layer until she can line up a shot on the Nimitz. Even if she cant sink her, politically it would be a winner, and the USA would have itself an embarrasing bloody nose. To give the Akula a fighting chance i have placed her in front of the fleet. After this encounter, i will try the same thing with her behind the fleet so she has to run at speed and penetrate the defensive layers to see what effect that has. Interestingly the Akulas submerged speed is faster than any of these ships surface speeds. I toyed with the idea of having a roaming LA class sub for the Akula to deal with but this is already the biggest encounter i have put together in my short H4.1 life. So i chose to leave it out. Anyway ... i have a picket to overcome ...

Not to take anything away from those longstanding mailing lists, but we're certainly glad you like it here! Yeah, i wasnt having a shot at other forums/lists. Just talking this one up.

I've been on admiraltytrilogy at yahoo and had a few good responses. But i hate yahoo as a forum, its just so .... user-unfriendly i think. I got a few replies to questions, but never felt like people were really buying in, just providing the bare minimum necessary. Maybe its because i was new, or asking questions that had been asked many times before, or i dont know. It just didnt feel right. What about here then? Well, i think its a better format. It looks better and when you reply you don get all the >>>>>> stuff in posts like on yahoo! My posts dont come up straight away here either (allow me this small grumble!). Everyone whose answered seems like they care about their responses and being understood, and try to understand someone elses POV which means hte discussions are constructive. And most topics get a response. I hope i'm adding to it all myself as well, either with new threads or answering someone elses questions. So, this is my current log on page!

i'm still checking in daily while i put my NATO convoy together, then i'll be looking to pit it against a couple of russian subs ... Anyone else up to much, have any AAR or questions to discuss??? :-)

With passive sonar, you know a contacts direction but not distance. Also with passive, you can attempt to classify the target. So now you have a known direction and type of contact. The original question was along hte lines of "how do you fix the enable point of a torpedo?". Good question, one i didnt know the answer to when i did my first sub v sub write up. But maybe now i can add something. If we know direction but not distance, we can fire a torpedo (using whatever our TMA is). You'd have a rough estimate of distance to target because passive detection ranges are pretty short. So we know the distance is between "0.1nm and maybe 7nm" for example. Why wouldnt you fix the enable point at say 1.0nm, which in my mind means the trop switches from passive to "active" and starts looking for a target. SO as long as the contact is more than 1.0nm away, the torp goes active and tracks it down. I'd have to get my books out to quote rules that might apply, but is my thinking correct? The only way this doenst work is if the contact is closer than 1.0 nm. And if you register a miss, you dont know if the torpedo missed or the contact was closer than 1.0 nm and the torp went active too late. thoughts?

hehe. From the altitude table at 3.3.4 you used a climb rate of 500m, which looks to be correct. Making my climb rate of 1000m that i used wrong. Oh well, thats why i'm here. Wow, good write up. Nothing like getting into mission planning by-the-second! Myself, if i do this again i might cheat a bit and do my calcs in 3 min turns to save time. I wouldnt feel too bad tony about rounding your altitude up by 1m just to get a more favourable calculation :-) Some good info there too CV32. I'm definatley not a gear head, so much of the equipment is still a mystery to me. Just numbers and performance on a page rather than knowing the gears "personality".

I've been surpised by how difficutl subs are to detect, especially when moving slowly. Its a big sea out there, and as you point out sometimes you need to be within a few miles to have any chance of detecting a sub. I guess not all subs are creeping around at under 10 kts, which makes them more detectable.

Yea, 100kts isnt fast. But its what i worked out its "acceleration" to be. So it went 100kts to 200kts to 300 kts each 15 seconds i think. I was essentially playing it "from take off" and accelerating up to 493kts which was its cruise speed from memory. I should have used its "full mil" or even "afterburn" speed to work its acceleration out, but didnt have those details with me at the time. Maybe post up how you go tony ... :-) thanks noxious.

OK, a bit more time to respond. I "ruled" the boat didnt hear the F-15 coming because it was too far away (5 miles) when it fired, and the missile would have hit soon after that. I dont know how realistic this is, but it made it easier for me. GBU-28 (Deep throat) only does 61 points of damage, whereas the smaller GBU-10 does 72. Odd. What is the "GCS Rating" in Annex G4 guided air ordinance used for?