Re: [GZG] [DSII] Precision Strike

[Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ryan Gill wrote:

> >They look OK-ish as long as you only intend to fight battles set in 1991 
> or earlier, but they're >far too tied to DS2's ADS rules - which 
> themselves only really represent SPAAGs from the >1970s and earlier, ie. 
> the kind of AAA available during the Vietnam war - to model even 
> the >later 1990s very well.
>
> Yeah...well, I wrote them to go along with the flow...

Trouble is, with DS2 "written obsolete" as John so diplomatically put it, 
going with the flow automatically makes the additions "written obsolete" 
too :-(

> >Today's "MADS equivalents" have a *maximum* altitude as well - typcially 
> around 15,000'. >In order to engage targets flying higher than that, you 
> need the theater-level stuff.
>
> Should the altitude limit apply in DSII/III terms?

I think so, yes. Aircraft should be able to attack from above the 
"less-than-theater" AA's range, but at greatly reduced accuracy. Exactly 
what altitude would be "safe" from the MADS and lesser systems will vary 
with time - today it is around 15,000', tomorrow it will no doubt be 
higher; but if the MADS can only reach 120mu *horisontally* it won't be 
able to reach much further *vertically*... so there will always be an 
altitude above which you need even bigger AA weapons than MADS to hit the 
high-flying aircraft.

> >No, they don't (not if you're serious about the "120mu range" bit, 
> anyway). There are >several "MADS equivalent" systems today which have 
> all systems collected on a single >vehicle. They *can* be split up into 
> multiple units, but they don't *have* to be.
>
> They tend to require multiple units, however aren't those more in the 
> range of being covered
> by the ZAD systems?

When they have weapon ranges of 10-15 kilometers, they are most definitely 
*not* covered by DS2's "ZAD" (aka "ADS") system (which only has a range of 
2.4 km). These 10-15 km ranges do however very nicely bracket the very 
range you specified for your "MADS" system...

> >>A MADS's search and tracking radars emit radiation just like an ADS. 
> Thus each elements' signatures are effectively 1 larger and Stealth/ECM 
> systems are ineffective.
> >
> >This is one of the most 1970s bits of the entire DS2 rules set. While 
> this was true during >the 'Nam and Yom Kippur wars, it wasn't true for 
> Serb AA units during the NATO bombings >of Kosovo, it isn't true today, 
> and I kinda doubt that it'll become much truer in the future. >Modern 
> radars can play quite a few interesting tricks on incoming ARMs, and all 
> those >tricks definitely fall in the "ECM" category.
>
> Well, sure, but don't systems like AALARM have some of their own sneaky 
> things?

Sure, but in DS terms all that means is that you get an opposed die roll 
between the missile's Guidance Quality and the radar's ECM level. It 
doesn't say squat about what die size the radar's ECM has to use - it could 
still range from "None" (D4) all the way up to "Superior" (D10) :-)

>  I'd expect that with faster ARMs and better sensor resolution, that once 
> you emit and stay in the same place, you're more likely to be toasted?

Nope. Nowadays emitting *doesn't* necessarily reveal your position, at 
least not if your ECM capabilities are better than the enemy's. Modern 
radars can also be *very* low-powered and still get astonishingly good 
returns; cf. eg. the claimed detection ranges for the F-22's radar system 
compared to the ranges where said radar's emissions can be detected by 
older aircraft.

In the future it can get even more interesting: the next generation of AA 
tracking systems will most likely be passive ones which don't need to emit 
*anything* towards the enemy aircraft. (No, I'm not kidding: similar 
passive tracking systems are already entering service on combat aircraft.) 
Their launch units will still need to emit guidance signals to the 
missiles, but those signals can be very tight-beam and only need to 
intersect with the target aircraft just before the missile hits... leaving 
very for ARMs to lock on to even if they aren't spoofed by anything.

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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