AA Can't Target Ballistic Missiles?

[Twan]

Hey everyone

I'd much rather test these things out in game to not waste people's time with simple questions like this but it's kind of impossible to set up an environment good for testing.

So I was reading up on missiles on the SR wiki and noticed that it says "Ballistic missiles can't be intercepted by AA". Is that true? Because ingame the biggest ICBMs have "defense" values and what type of target they are, leading me to believe they can be, for example, the ICBMs usually have a defense of 250 and are a high air target. I believe that at least in real life many SAMs are capable of destroying ballistic missiles. I read one being able to be used against ballistic targets traveling at 4,800 m/s, so it's certainly believable. Unless in this game missiles have countermeasures like course changes.

I know of missile defense satellites but I'm just curious about this.

Also a quick question about my air defenses, what does the combat time actually translate to? Is that days? I doubt it's days because my S-400s seem to fire rarely, or I'm just not paying attention. Do I need to babysit them with supply trucks if they are in territory with good supply (when you click on the show supply button on the minimap and it's all red)? I supplement them with faster firing shorter range ones anyway.

Thanks again everyone

EDIT: Oh, and one more thing, I'm at war with Denmark and nobody else, but Italian, British and West German aircraft are constantly attacking my forces without their countries having to declare war on me, but my units only seem to shoot back after they bomb us, allowing them to fly through all my defenses with no problem and do damage, which is pretty annoying, is there anything I can do about this short of declaring war on them?

[Qwerty 2316]

If you look at the stats of air defence units, they have 'low attack', 'mid attack', and 'high attack' values. If you look at the stats of both missiles and aircraft, you can see what category they fit into. In general, helicopters and attacking fighters are low flying, almost everything else including passive fighters are mid flying, and a few special units, such as the U-2 and SR-71 are high flying. The same categories should apply to missile, such that cruise missiles like the Tomahawk should generally be low flying, while ICBMs are high-flying.

To put it simply, you should be able to kill ballistic missiles as long as you have a SAM with a "high-attack" value. The Arleigh Burke, Ticonderoga, Patriot PAC-2, S-300, S-400, and plenty of other modern platforms should have this.

Combat time is the amount of 'rounds' a unit can go in a fight without supplies. If you notice two units fighting, they will usually 'fire' at the enemy, where a sound effect and graphic are played along with the enemy unit usually losing some health. This counts as 1 combat time. To compare the Patriot to Green Berets, the former will only be able to shoot at an enemy aircraft squadron twice before running out of ammo because it has a combat time of 2. The latter, however, have a combat time of 50, and thus are great for 'behind enemy lines' actions as they can enter into a sustained fight with and often exhast a better supplied enemy.
Now, a low combat time is not a death sentence, because when in a supplied area or near (at or adjacent to supply trucks), they will regain combat time. This can be very slow in areas with little supply, or really fast when in a long-held city surrounded by supply vehicles)

(a nice tip: transport helicopters and planes can also resupply units proportionally to how much cargo space they have)

SR:U has a 'proxy war' feature, that, among other things, allows a neutral country's military to help the military of a different country that is at war.
In your case, Italy, the UK, and West Germany have either alliances or mutual defence pacts with Denmark, and thus can attack your forces with aircraft stationed in Denmark (allied aircraft not stationed in denmark cannot attack you).
Your units may not be firing back for a few reasons:
1. You don't have your units set to fire on neutral aircraft in your airspace. I believe this can be changed in the same tab that allows use of nuclear weapons.
2. Your units can't react fast enough, which could easily be the case if your S-400s are near the front or you have inadequate visibility.
3. Your units are being mind controlled by the Space-Kraken, which can usually be fixed by telling them to patrol between two hexes. A very annoying problem to be sure, but this fix has worked for me in the past when i've had your same issue with artillery and SAMs. If they are firing on danish aircraft as normal, this isn't the problem.