Commo Traffic and Direction Finding...

On Fri, 24 Sep 1999, Los wrote:

> Actually speaking from experience as a Special Operations
Communications
> Sergeant, it is ridiculously easy to defeat DF if you know what you
are doing
> EVEN with todays technology.

For every measure....

Most of the battle field tactical stuff is pretty broad range. Its hard 
to have a wide commo net that isn't DF able somehow. 

> DF success assumes the broadcaster is using either omindirectional or
> bidirectional transmission (and bi directional requires DF stations to
be
> within the broadcast arc_. Narrow beam directed transmissions exits
both with
> HF (used in conjunction with terrain masking) SATCOM, as well as more

Ahh, but Narrow beam works fine for a point site that isn't bouncing 
across the battlefield at 50 mph and maneuvering all over the place. 
Given the speed with which DF gear works now, all it takes is sweeping 
the DF antenna once and you give the other guy a positive fix. (now
days, 
all it takes is keying a mic with the antenna side lobes projecting 
towards a DF unit. )

You mention sat comms. In the case of a SF unit operating on a planet
and 
transmitting to their buddies in orbit, its not so hard. If the SF guys 
are red force and defending the planet, screw any Sat Comms. They are 
probably comprimised or most likely a dumb piece of metal and composites

swirling in orbit. 

Laser will require line of site. If its a set emplacement, I'd say 
that buried fiber would be the thing. But then those can be tapped if 
they can be found. 

The thing about DSII is that it glosses over most Commo/Jamming issues 
quite highly. One has to wonder given the general rule that commos are 
very directional and hard to jam bears out truely. Perhaps it would 
overly complicate the rules too much...

Still it would be fun to have a track that rolls every turn and sees if 
it can DF a particular target. If it does, he gets to pass a firemission

to the Med Artillery unit its attached to. Of course that would make it 
really advisable to move that HQ track around all the time...Perhaps
only 
units that would have lots of traffic through them would be vulnerable
to 
DF. Platoon commanders, and Company commanders on the table, as well as 
the lead track for Artillery bty's, and naturally the Btn command track 
on the table. The Air defense and Counter Battery Radar units would be 
asking for a DFed fire mission. 

Of course it would suck to be on the receiving end...But I guess you 
could layer bogey targets out there along with jammer teams too. 

More layers for fun...

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- Ryan Montieth Gill		DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
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