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

[Thewood]

"Being used by the military says nothing about being close to real life situations, just that it has a certain value in training.

What is important is decision making, not accurate depiction of performance."

I completely agree. But CMO is a heck of a lot closer than Sea Power in EA. CMO's decision-making is in the planning side, That's why a n umber of militaries use it. If CMO wasn't at least close to what a defense organization expected for performance and outcome, it would never get used. But its used a lot to train for planning and decision-making, as well as to simulate the impact in weapon system changes. But those orgs typically use their own database of non-public info.

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

Origineel geplaatst door Thewood:

But those orgs typically use their own database of non-public info.

Exactly. And that is why it makes zero sense to compare CMO to SP in terms of how systems should perform.

[Thewood]

Origineel geplaatst door whatdoesthisbuttondo?:

Origineel geplaatst door Thewood:

But those orgs typically use their own database of non-public info.

Exactly. And that is why it makes zero sense to compare CMO to SP in terms of how systems should perform.

It makes plenty of sense. They are simulating exactly the same thing. Its always interesting to see how two games represent the same situation. CMO is very well researched and vetted in its commercial form for professional. And it gets validated frequently by real world events. From Russian ships being sunk to missile attacks on US ships by Houthis. It shows that its at least possible to get close to what is happening in the world. Its not perfect, but close enough that I thinks very worth it to compare it to Sea Power now and then.

A good one to try to represent in both is Op Praying Mantis. I think the scenario already exists in CMO. How does Sea Power handle it. Does it force the same type of decision-making? In the same set up and decisions, do they get similar results?

I would think that the devs of both games could learn from each other's games.

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

Origineel geplaatst door Thewood:

Origineel geplaatst door whatdoesthisbuttondo?:

Exactly. And that is why it makes zero sense to compare CMO to SP in terms of how systems should perform.

It makes plenty of sense.

(...)

Its not perfect, but close enough that I thinks very worth it to compare it to Sea Power now and then.

It does make sense to compare the two in terms of UI, depicted procedures and such, but that does not in any way translate to depicted performance of weapon systems.

That makes zero sense, as to why we've already discussed at length.

There is a reason to capping the game in '85, going further realistically just means venturing further into sci-fi territory. Even '85 still involves a good bit of educated guessing to be honest.

[Thewood]

All you can really do is again, look at decision-making. There are a few incidents in the news that can point in the right direction. Even the military using CMO beyond training into actual simulation is still sketchy. The US DoD is known for skewing data for more favorable outcomes and there's nothing to say they don't use CMO the same way.

But CMO covers a broad enough spectrum of combat that it at least gives variety. I hope Sea Power gets there too.

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

Origineel geplaatst door Thewood:

But CMO covers a broad enough spectrum of combat that it at least gives variety. I hope Sea Power gets there too.

Honestly, coming from decades worth of Harpoon, the thing I do miss most in SP is a tad bit more refined flight ops, that is an area which is really lacking at the moment.

Not even carriers, even more so in terms of ASW where the current implementation really devalues resource management.

In terms of scenarios, what is needed the most is actually a more refined scenario editor.

The most interesting scenarios regarding decision-making in my opinion are things like the Vincennes incident, and that is where the deficiencies in the current scenario editor show the most, imho.

[supersound99ss]

Well I just had a single Perry shoot down 2 AS-4s and jammed/chaffed 4 more. So much for the myth of the unstoppable Kitchen.

[Mr.Gold]

Origineel geplaatst door whatdoesthisbuttondo?:

Origineel geplaatst door Mr.Gold:

Actually you have both in wargaming. But as a % of failure. Malfunctions and so forth. I think expecting a failure rate if the Soviet Union of 60% is as unrealistic as a pl=1 however. And failures should exist on both sides and unless probably documented, none of them should be systemic.

Malfunction rate is already in the game, but that isn't what is asked for here.

It is essence systemic malfunctions. Hence I said that they shouldn't be in unless properly documented at the time. For instance a modern report on the low interception rate of the S400 or S300 says nothing about the system in the 80s. I stress this point again that a modern ADN requires college educated people and a lot of training. We saw that in the Iran Iraq war where radar arrays would be left on until they literally burned out and weapons life the Bofors and 20mm cannon were preferred for air defence as they had a dual role and were good for point air defence which the ADNs of Iran and Iraq reverted to over the course of the war.

[Thewood]

"Vincennes incident"

You know how many times I shot down airliners in CMO. Improper mission orders and poor ROE for my AI captains. It took a while to figure out how to manage it properly so that you can avoid that.

[Probably Lime]

People crying about 'muh russian bias' = skill issue

[Mr.Gold]

Origineel geplaatst door Probably Lime:

People crying about 'muh russian bias' = skill issue

That is not helpful in this discussion.

[Thewood]

Origineel geplaatst door Lanzfeld:

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

Well, neither was this one.

[x1Heavy]

There is a simulation video game recently released into Steam CMO I believe and Tac Overview etc to go with it that has been used by the Pentagon to evaluate whats possible for quite some time for real world war gaming.

In the cold war time a Ticonderoga can be set to automatic and engage until all of its missile tubes are empty. One declassified secret from that era on those Aegis system was there was a limited amount of channels I think a little over a dozen of them. One channel per incoming missile that is assigned two SM's until dead. So if you had 36 coming in or Red Storm Rising hundreds of them coming in the Ticonderoga will engage until the missiles are deleted, spoofed by EW, Chaff etc, missed clean or hit or destroyed by Phalanx inboard etc. Or something else.

Today's Ticonderoga can network with it's carrier battlegroup and the carrier's airplanes in the air with the hawkeyes in support of the entire space and a attacker will need hundreds of missiles to saturate a proper 12 to 16 ship carrier battlegroup in hopes of a carrier kill today. China has that ability. Russia only possesses about 34 or so Attack Bombers able to go into the Atlantic with two or three missiles each. These are being hunted by UKR for reasons in the current war and disposed of slowly ones and twos over passage of time.

The Moscow Ship was a analog system and humans had it configured to examine several drones off it's starboard that was threatening it. So they focused completely on the starboard side with full attention while two Ukraine NEPTUNE Anti Ship missiles off trucks launched in Odessa flew a path to come in on it's PORT Side. Enough damage was done to result in it's sinking. And eventual destruction of the Russian Black Sea Fleet by drones on the water and in the air along with missiles etc.

This whole current time is historic in our lifetime which makes passions rise for one side or another with bias and so on which is why you see people post that stuff without being particularly helpful on topic. This happens to be a era now in my lifetime where computer games evolved over the last 40 years from PC Computers at home with diskettes to a internet based situation that is also being quietly used by the Pentagon in the real world today.

Thats quite a achievement.

I bought this game in early access knowing theres flaws and problems that hopefully will be fixed and played one scenario several times the outcomes improved. Essentially do not turn on anything on your ships and launch on the enemy first as soon you detect them and have enough to shoot on. Bombers, Subs first then the battlegroup missile herd inbound to them. Should resolve the situation before they have enough on your group to launch at all. So its total domination and sinking of the groups on the enemy side before a single missile vampire comes near yours.

We may have to in our lifetime endure a conventional war where actual missiles sink ships on both sides with losses in the real world. Such as happening now in the Red Sea and off Israel among other places within the past year. We have witnessed a launch of two RU big stuff one failed and the other reached its target without warheads on them. Its a first in history. What if you used them on warships? Thats where China comes into play. Aegis is already aware of this problem and there are not too many SM--6's to go around in current modern time with a limited peacetime slow rate production every year of SM missiles. Hundreds of which has been fired already in the past weeks and months against ballistics from Iran and against missiles from Yemen and all kinds of places.

A video game is a place to escape for a while to have fun. But it cannot for reasons of randomly resolving who shot at what killing or damage etc. be relied on to be a crystal ball for real world events now and into the future. All we can do is play the game and try to enjoy them.

[Wiz33]

For what it's worth. I have a friend who was the weapon system officer for the B-52G flying out of Loring AFB. That's the squadron tasked with Anti ship strike and their believe that their flight of 12 B-52G will totally wipe any Soviet SAG even carrying only 8 Harpoon each at extreme range engagements. SA-N-6 does not work against Harpoons as their claimed low ceiling is 25 meters (which meaning effective is probably somewhat higher than that since the soviet always hype their performance). Even with Harpoon 1A which does the pop-up, The engagement window is so small as the SA-N-6 go straight up for 25 meters before it can even maneuver for an intercept. The only SAM that the Soviet have that can work against the Harpoon is the SA-N-4/7/9. There's a reason why the Soviet pack so many SA-N-4/9 launcher on their later ships.

[Thewood]

Didn't we go over all of that already?