USSR and US ASM and missile defense effectiveness question.

[Magnus]

I was fiddling around with the editor. On one end, I pitted a USSR SAG against 8 B-52, each with 12 Harpoons, so 96 missiles.

The SAG was the Kirov, a Kiev, a Kara 2, a Slava, a Sovremenny and an Udaloy.

Get between 3-10 hits out of 96 missiles, depending on my attack tactic.
If the doctrine said 1 hit out 8 missiles fired I guess it's fairly reasonable to get the results I get. Especially given that I am not a trained naval officer :)

Now when I turn the tables and let the USSR attack a US CVBG (the stock one in the editor) with a flight of 12 TU-22s, each carrying 3 AS-4 (36 missiles), it's a massacre. Every single ship is hit and sunk, I tried it 6-7 times and it ends the same way.

I first added 2 more Ticonderogas to the CVBG, no change. Then added another 2, still mayhem.
I then proceeded to add a separate screening group of 4 Ticonderogas. End result is the same, wholesale slaughter.

Is this the norm or am I making some mistakes due to my own ignorance. I am not really trying to design a scenario. Just, like I said, fiddling around.

In the old Harpoon computer games and in the Command games you could and can use F-14s on CAP to help intercepting the Soviet missiles. In Sea Power the F-14s on CAP will not accept them as valid targets and will happily loiter around the TF letting the missiles speed past. This does give me a nice panoramic view of the ensuing mayhem below but does nothing to help prevent it :)

I am feeling that a mere 12 TU-22s should be something a US CVBG should have been equipped to handle as land airpower was a cornerstone is Soviet anti-CV doctrine.

Is it a matter of Early access or more a matter of me not knowing just what the heck I am doing?

incerely,
Magnus

[Lanzfeld]

Yes I noticed the same. Russian bias. Heavy sigh.

[Thewood]

Just tried it in Command and 5 of 6 Soviet ships sunk. 96 Harpoons fired. They got about half of them.

btw...its the SA-6 on the Kirov thats the key. If a couple of those get damaged before all missiles are done, its a bad situation.

[Lanzfeld]

Originally posted by Thewood:

Just tried it in Command and 5 of 6 Soviet ships sunk. 96 Harpoons fired. They got about half of them.

He is talking about how the US side cannot stop the Russian missiles.

[Thewood]

Yes, I know thats part of it. But I am doing both sides...just like he did. No patience.

[Andy]

Moskva incident, and Ukraine war in general seem to indicate Russias equipment isn't as effective or reliable as was made out.

[Lanzfeld]

Originally posted by Andy:

Moskva incident, and Ukraine war in general seem to indicate Russias equipment isn't as effective or reliable as was made out.

Yeah true but now the Fanbois will come back to say the Russian stuff WAS better in the 80's

[Wenatchee Willie]

No mention of jammers being used? I'm fairly certain the results would have been significantly different.

[Thewood]

In my test on the CBG, all 36 AS-4s were knocked down with room to spare. The Tico did the best of the group.

I'll also point out this is an EXTREMELY contrived test. No AEW, ECM, CAP, etc. I also would note that there is a big difference between 36 missiles and 96, almost no matter the type of antiship missile. At 96, even an Aegis ship would be hard-pressed to have enough channels to handle a ToT attack.

btw, in Command, there is no three AS-4 loadout. Had to use 18 Tu-22s.

[godfather]

with out jammers your going to get your *** kicked.

[Magnus]

Like I said, I was just fiddling about, nothing too serious about it. So no ECM or anthing fancy, just a lot of missiles vs a single battlegroup :)

Just found the discrepancy in effectiveness a bit odd. Soviet ASM missiles are fast, large inert objects once the lock on and I suppose it's not easy to disrupt them.

Interesting that Thewood managed to handily knock down all the AS-4s. This tells me that it's more depth to the game then I realised. I did have AEW and CAP and all ships were blasting their radars, the missiles were detected immediately upon launch by the US TF but still it gets shredded.

Anyho, thanks for your opinions but since this was in no way a realistic situation I examined I think I'll leave it at that.

I didn't give all the exact parameters of my test, just the ones I felt were important to my question so it's not a properly designed experiment that any of you can replicate and thus, wildy different result is to be expected.

Also, since Thewood acheived the exact opposite result than I did, I'll chalk it up to me not knowing what the heck I am doing, like I originally assumed :)

[Lanzfeld]

I thought Thewood was testing in CMO though?

[Magnus]

Oh, I thought he tried it both there and here, maybe I misunderstood?

[Thewood]

No...summary from my Command tests...

All Soviet ships sunk. No USN ships even damaged. That is the exact opposite of your tests.

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

It's almost as if soviet doctrine was to destroy US CVBGs with massive ASM strikes and US doctrine was to destroy soviet battlegroups with massive air wings without ever getting in range of soviet ASMs...

[Thewood]

The issue with my test is, again, 36 vs 92. That's a huge difference.