Best missile/bomb for SAMS

[TheJournier]

So I've been trying to figure out what works best for sams.
I had to destroy a Sam but it has ("8" defense against all missiles, clusters work well but they require a close range attack... harm works well, once. Bombs in general suffer the same problem as AGM missiles).

[SirChaos77]

HARMs and other anti-radiation missiles work well for me - at least against radar-guided SAMs. They won´t destroy the entire SAM battery, just the parts that have radar- plus whatever is in the blast radius. You don´t have to entirely destroy the batter to render it harmless.

[LT.cole]

Use a combo of SDB glide bombs or cruse missles like TLAMs

[TheJournier]

Yeah in this scenario I only have SLAMs and Lazer/paveways (mk 82-84 warheads), clusters too but they mean I have to come in close. I can't ignore the SAM site even though it gives me no points, as it has "short range IR" missiles which tends to get my bombers/recon craft if I get too close to them. >>> according to the game even lazer guided bombs are designed for "low" release and not high release so was wondering if I could improve accuracy/damage that way.

SLAMs mostly do 1-2 damage sometimes 3 in a blue moon, HARMs seem to do the most damage for some reason (even though the warhead is about the same as a SLAM). I've used unguided 500lbs for about the same damage, even masive 2K guided bombs just seem to do 1 or 2 points of damage (so frustrating). The SA-2 has like 11 points of health, the most damage I've seen was from harms at 7 and cluster bombs for some reason.

[SirChaos77]

Originally posted by TheJournier:

Yeah in this scenario I only have SLAMs and Lazer/paveways (mk 82-84 warheads), clusters too but they mean I have to come in close. I can't ignore the SAM site even though it gives me no points, as it has "short range IR" missiles which tends to get my bombers/recon craft if I get too close to them. >>> according to the game even lazer guided bombs are designed for "low" release and not high release so was wondering if I could improve accuracy/damage that way.

SLAMs mostly do 1-2 damage sometimes 3 in a blue moon, HARMs seem to do the most damage for some reason (even though the warhead is about the same as a SLAM). I've used unguided 500lbs for about the same damage, even masive 2K guided bombs just seem to do 1 or 2 points of damage (so frustrating). The SA-2 has like 11 points of health, the most damage I've seen was from harms at 7 and cluster bombs for some reason.

Those aren´t health points. They´re the number of vehicles/buildings in the SAM unit. I assume they are more effective because they home in on the radar sources - the radar buildings/vehicles and the SAM launchers.

[TheJournier]

So that's probably why cluster bombs work so well... "dispersion".

[Dimitris]

Yes, this short post from the early dev days of Command explains it: http://www.warfaresims.com/?p=1159

[Cyber_Chupacabra]

CBU-105 with smart anti tank bomblets doeas a good job eliminating larger sam sites at once.

[SirChaos77]

IIRC a combination of ARMs and cluster bombs was how they hunted SAM sites back in the Vietnam war.

Also, if you check the database entry for SAM sites or SAM vehicle platoons, there´s a stat for dispersion - e.g. how far any two parts of the unit will be apart.

Which leads to another question: Is there a table or a formula for the relationship between damage point value and blast radius?

[TheJournier]

Originally posted by SirChaos77:

IIRC a combination of ARMs and cluster bombs was how they hunted SAM sites back in the Vietnam war.

Also, if you check the database entry for SAM sites or SAM vehicle platoons, there´s a stat for dispersion - e.g. how far any two parts of the unit will be apart.

Which leads to another question: Is there a table or a formula for the relationship between damage point value and blast radius?

No, there isn't for example. CBUs have horrid dp values but excellent area of effect. While the Mk 84 has tremendous dp values and mediocre area of effect, however there is a relationship with that sometimes in individual series/type i.e. mk 82 has less damage and area of effect.

What I wound up using was guided MK84 due to their high area effect (could be fired at 13k altitude which was the maximum range of their IR missiles). Clusters were fairly useless that scenario due to their low launch height.
Clusters dont exactly follow that rule I believe. I think it is a mixture differing warhead size and amount of bomblets. Obviously they both influence dispersion, but I think bomblet amount influences it more.