And let me guess, they can detect missile launches and direct their horde of F-16 towards the stealth planes?
Furthermore, with the Pk pointing towards 4 missiles needed on each F-16, a F-22 could only take down one F-16 at a time.
Command: Modern Air & Naval Operations: Let's Play and Expansions
Furthermore, with the Pk pointing towards 4 missiles needed on each F-16, a F-22 could only take down one F-16 at a time.
poaw
The opposite of Doja Cat
The SCALP EG/Storm Shadow's RCS is listed in scientific notion in the database.
I know the VLO/LO aircraft can't bet it in detection range, but the way Command determines probability of a hit makes aircraft better able to avoid being hit by missiles. That combined with being able to fly nearly twice as fast (950kts vs 570kts) and being able to shoot back makes them much desired.
I don't need them to shoot down F-16s, and if I did, the F-22 can missile truck 10 AMRAAMs at a time.
The problem is to strike the enemy radars, as they'll target your ammunition, launched by stealth planes or LO ones, and you cannot get into such a close range as to prevent any interception. For the air combat, yeah, you don't need F-22 or such.
My point was more into countering the posts I've seen here saying that you would have needed stealth planes to take out the IADS. From what I'm seeing of the answers from those who have the game, it looks like that VLO planes would have been a good thing to have, but not a "game-changer". Loads of cruise missiles to perform a saturation strike, OTOH... Dedicated jamming aircrafts would also have been a winner here.
A B-2 being detected 30 km out and its PGM being taken out by enemy defence is quite an interesting counter-point to the proponents of stealth as a silver bullet sending everything else into irrelevance. It gives an advantage, but a well-managed defensive grid flying F-16 and willing to take losses is clearly a tough opponent to consider, especially as they targeted your tankers.
This was a RAND Institute scenario offered to show how a numerically inferior force of F-22 could be annihilated by Su-27 willing to take losses, as even with Pk=1 for the AMRAAM and Pk=0 against the F-22, the tankers would end up being destroyed.
By the way, how is the MdCN RCS here? As the sea-launched version of the SCALP has a less stealthy shape, I expect it to be slightly bigger, but how much in the game?
More general question: how much of a game-changer would a stealthy tanker plane be? Or a stealthy AWACS, being able to be hard to detect and follow as it shuts down its radar? And I'm not talking about makeshift stuff like using the F-35 or so in these roles.
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Coiler
ROURKE
AEW vs. Storm Shadow, courtest of Coiler's Experiments, Ltd:
-When the launching aircraft was well within the AEW's sensor range and at high altitude, the latter actually saw the missiles briefly .
-When the launching aircraft was farther away and at low altitude, there was a "observed attacking" message (game mechanics), but the actual missile was never seen.
MdCN: .00076 square meters.
Air SCALP: .0005 square meters.
-When the launching aircraft was well within the AEW's sensor range and at high altitude, the latter actually saw the missiles briefly .
-When the launching aircraft was farther away and at low altitude, there was a "observed attacking" message (game mechanics), but the actual missile was never seen.
MdCN: .00076 square meters.
Air SCALP: .0005 square meters.
And this makes complete sense, confirming the stealth cruise missiles as incredibly dangerous weapons avoiding the problem VLO aircrafts try to deal with head-on. A plane with reduced signature like the Euroduckies will be able to strike without being detected at all.
Wow, still particularly impressive, despite the bad shaping...
poaw
The opposite of Doja Cat
I can't imagine either of those being much of a big deal, as those kinds of assets aren't usually near any sort of hostile radar coverage, and they're doing things that aren't stealthy, it'd be like a stealthy Saturn V rocket.
They are doing things that ain't stealthy for sure, but they are critical failure points of the entire combat system. In a sense, it could be more profitable to spend money to protect them rather than do the same with the fighters. All your F-22 and F-35 will die regardless of their RCS if some dumb idiot manages to turn the tanker into a massive fireball because the enemy team decided to not play according to the rules, rush you from the start and have enough planes surviving your missiles to fire some huge AAM at your big boys.
If you need four AMRAAM to reliably kill a Su-27 carrying heavy anti-air missiles and the Su-27 can detect your tanker fleet, a superiority of 3 or 4:1 could reliably get through your gauntlet, kill all your tankers and annihilate all your F-22 without ever seeing them. And the Su-27 costs eight to ten times less than the F-22.
I'm not saying that anyone should play by Picard's book of idiotic design, but having support assets with reduced RCS could do wonders for their survival. Not something like tanker B-2 and AEW B-2, but a shaping and all the stuff you can do to reduce the RCS, even if it costs some efficiency.
This whole fiasco of yours, both here and with the Frogs, leads to this conclusion. Remember how many Mirages you lost when you had to rush them over the Med in A/B because the tankers were in danger? Losing a few more Rafales and Mirage hurts. Losing a few tankers and AEW crafts... destroy you as a fighting force.
In a sense, a tanker craft with low RCS and optional stealth add-ons for highly-dangerous operations would be a better investment than a B-2.
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"If you wanted me to care about casualties you should have provisioned me with more dakka."
-Things a Velociteer says at their performance review.
Scenario: Texas suddenly secedes from the union, taking with it all local military assets and a carrier group. California is charged with bringing it back into the fold using any means necessary and has a carrier group of its own steaming into the gulf. Nuclear weapons are available to both sides, but California is only authorized to use them in response to a nuclear attack.
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BeRzErKeR
Perennially Perplexed Military Mind
- Location
- Virginia
Prediction: Brazil is a smoking, radioactive crater within six hours.
Doesn't change the end result: Brazil still finishes as a radioactive parking lot six hours later.
Doctor Mod
PRT Squaddie
- Location
- PRT Department ENE
They've had it too good...too long.
I don't know about you guys but I'd like a scenario with a bit more realism to it.
How about this?
Tomorrow, a twenty ship Royal Navy carrier battle group ISOTs from the grimdark future of 2020 to reveal that the French are secretly controlled by alien space lizardmen. The French lizardmen immediately put into motion their nefarious plans to conquer Britain.
Reinforced with the most advanced future warships including the future HMS Trafalgar (edited Zumwalt with 30 AGS, 10000 shipwrecks and carries a dozen F-35), your mission if you choose to accept it is to defend the free world against the lizardfrench menace. Your objectives include (i) hunt and destroy the lizardfrench stealthship firing mindcontrol rays into Scotland, (ii) purge the lizardfrench infestation in Europe, and finally (iii) a showdown on the secret lizardfrench spacebase in Lizardfrench Guiana. The RN will have little aid from any allies in this scenario as they are all too busy purging lizard infiltrators from their own ranks. Only Great Britain alone has the strength and clarity of vision to stand against the lizardfrench and save the free world.
Much more realistic, yes?
How about this?
Tomorrow, a twenty ship Royal Navy carrier battle group ISOTs from the grimdark future of 2020 to reveal that the French are secretly controlled by alien space lizardmen. The French lizardmen immediately put into motion their nefarious plans to conquer Britain.
Reinforced with the most advanced future warships including the future HMS Trafalgar (edited Zumwalt with 30 AGS, 10000 shipwrecks and carries a dozen F-35), your mission if you choose to accept it is to defend the free world against the lizardfrench menace. Your objectives include (i) hunt and destroy the lizardfrench stealthship firing mindcontrol rays into Scotland, (ii) purge the lizardfrench infestation in Europe, and finally (iii) a showdown on the secret lizardfrench spacebase in Lizardfrench Guiana. The RN will have little aid from any allies in this scenario as they are all too busy purging lizard infiltrators from their own ranks. Only Great Britain alone has the strength and clarity of vision to stand against the lizardfrench and save the free world.
Much more realistic, yes?
Doctor Mod
PRT Squaddie
- Location
- PRT Department ENE
Whoa whoa whoa...Whoa...Too real! Too real! dial it down.
poaw
The opposite of Doja Cat
lol That's like my easiest scenario.
Wait Ambalat Island Dispute is easier actually.
Where can I find that one?
Coiler
ROURKE
Right here.
If you haven't done so already, a ton of community scenarios, including some by me and poaw can be downloaded here.
Doctor Mod
PRT Squaddie
- Location
- PRT Department ENE
I can never make sense of the game screen shots. I rely on the text to explain what's happening
The scenario starts with the HMS Trafalgar having eighty Super Baguette hypersonic AShM in terminal approach. Too bad its 10,000 VLS cells were loaded with Shipwrecks instead of, you know, SAM.
All praise the lézards de l'espace !
I am very sad that this isn't a Free to Play game. 