Re:Commo Traffic and Direction Finding...

At 9:01 PM -0400 9/24/99, Ryan M Gill wrote:
>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. )

a narrowbeam unit could provide motion data (from the stabilization 
gear) on a subchannel. I expect this to be de regeur for RPV sensor 
drones; this would help a unit to maintain a chain of drones to get 
sensor data on areas way out of LOS of the controlling 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.

I expect it'd take a while to sweep every last tiny commo relay sat 
out of orbit, it can be done but it may require a lot of expensive 
sensor platforms (minesweepers would probbaly be perfect) to take 
care of hundreds of small, cheap satellites. Assuming the defender 
has time and resources to put a sizeable network up. I'd consider a 
cloud of these to be an essential part of  adefense in depth.

It would also be possible to bounce commo beams off of the natural 
(and much harder to destroy) satellites if they're in the sky.

>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...

but it'd jazz up a campaign engagement to no end, I can see it being
worthwhile

>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...
>

I'd like to see this in DSII terms !
Michael Carter Llaneza
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1991-1950
Devolution is very real to me.
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Overkill: A Sufficient Preponderance of Firepower
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