Echo 2 Cool Stuff And One Mistake For Devs

[Lanzfeld]

I was playing around with an Echo II in a scenario and I always try to break the game. Now I know from Echo II sub brief that it had to remain on the surface to guide the missiles almost all the way to target. 4 at a time max. It is VERY cool because you can turn the missiles in the air with this guidance. You can bearing launch and turn the missile later to come in on different attack bearing. Not sure if it works like this IRL but fun.

So I said to myself time to break the game. I launch the missiles and immediately dive the sub and guess what? I lose the connection. I did not expect that kind of detail. The missiles still fly but have a hard time picking up targets and no more turning. I am not sure what they would do IRL after guidance loss. Would they just go dumb? I really don't know. But anyway, OUTSTANDING WORK DEVS.

The one mistake I found with the Echo II is the launch order for the missiles. In the game they all salvo from same side of sub which would cause serious balance issues for the sub. This is a LARGE missile. According to Jive Turkeys "Sub Brief" on the Echo II the missile launches alternate left and right. Also front to back. I figure since the Dev's like attention to detail they may want to fix this.

[supersound99ss]

IRL they would they would just keep flying until out of fuel. They relied on manual targeting input too.

Good catch on firing order.

[Lanzfeld]

UPDATE.

When you salvo 8 missiles they have the correct fire order. Alternate left to right and front to back.

When you salvo only 4 they do all one side of the sub, which is NOT correct.

[Lanzfeld]

So I wonder what would happen IRL if the sub cut the guidance after the launch? I mean, what exactly is the "Front Door" FCR doing to the missile? Does it correct the flight path and tell it to go more left or more right? It seems like that could be an onboard function of the missile with gyroscopes. Does the sub "guide" the missile to a point in space where the missile turns on its own radar and finds a target? Terminal active radar. Again, you would think that it would be an onboard function after launch.

I guess I just don't understand...

1. What is the FCR actually doing being connected to the missile? Steering it?

2. What would happen if the connection was cut? Does the missile self destruct or just go dumb like a AIM-7 Sparrow?

[supersound99ss]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Lanzfeld:

So I wonder what would happen IRL if the sub cut the guidance after the launch? I mean, what exactly is the "Front Door" FCR doing to the missile? Does it correct the flight path and tell it to go more left or more right? It seems like that could be an onboard function of the missile with gyroscopes. Does the sub "guide" the missile to a point in space where the missile turns on its own radar and finds a target? Terminal active radar. Again, you would think that it would be an onboard function after launch.

I guess I just don't understand...

1. What is the FCR actually doing being connected to the missile? Steering it?

2. What would happen if the connection was cut? Does the missile self destruct or just go dumb like a AIM-7 Sparrow?

It really isn't an FCR as much as it is a guidance radar. They didn't have an autopilot or inertial system good enough at the time (the nuclear strike version did but had a CEP of 1000s of meters). So the crew used that radar to track the missile's flight path and manually steer it to the target area. At that point it fed radar data from the missile's seeker back to the crew who picked a target to attack. More like a drone than a true cruise missile, but it was like 50's tech.

If cut, basically it will keep flying but would likely stray if not crash since nothing is keeping flying where it should. Not sure if it had any built-in flight stabilization.

[Lanzfeld]

Wow thank you sir for the great info.

With this information I think the Dev's should make the missile "wander" more if the link is cut. Right now they go straight as an arrow.