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.

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.

Thank you for relaying Pete, good stuff! It will be interesting to hear what you do for the actual insertion of your team.

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.

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

The warhead is a 11 kg WDU-31/B blast-fragmentation type, which I expect would be more than sufficient to shred the Gun Dish radar, which you can see here