john688
Posts: 34
Joined: 11/30/2007 Status: offline
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Found this little gem on the net, its about version 1.32 so I don’t know how much is relevant. Employment of ARM missiles Some users have expressed confusion about the proper use of missiles with anti-radiation seekers. ARMs may be employed against non-radiating targets in the expectation that they will turn on their sensors at some time during the flight of the weapon. This is why you can fire ARMs against targets that have no active radars. If an ARM missile hits a base or a ship while the target is radiating (eg. has it's radars on), the active radar(s) will be destroyed and the missile will cause airburst damage, which may destroy non-hardened items like aircraft or the ship's bridge, etc. It can also start a fire. If an ARM missile arrives at a base or ship, but no radar is on, ***little or no damage will be done at all by the missile!*** Tactics: ARM strikes are used to blind your enemy to incoming strikes and should be followed up as soon as possible by a conventional attack that will do more permanent damage to the target (while the enemy is trying to repair the radars).. Advanced Tactics: Please note that ESM detection occurs every 30 seconds. If you try and stimulate the enemy target into turning on their radars (perhaps by turning on your radars) just before an ARM arrives, be advised that the enemy might not react for up to 30 seconds. You should time such sneaky tricks so the ARM has at least 30 seconds of flight time remaining to the target. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Surface/Submarine launched homing torpedoes Some confusion about how torpedoes behave has been expressed by our testers, in particular with homing vs. wire guided torpedoes. Homing torpedoes head toward the last known intercept position of the target, as calculated at launch. If they encounter a target along this path, they will attack it. When they reach the interception point, they will enter a search pattern centered around the original intercept path. If the target has changed course during the torpedo run, the torpedo has no way of knowing the target isn't where it's supposed to be. A good chance exists (especially on long range shots) that a maneuvering target won't be anywhere near the torpedoes path if this happens and the shot might be wasted. This is why the computer will turn away from incoming torpedoes. The torpedo will still roam about, trying to find a target until it's fuel runs out. In contrast, wire-guided torpedoes will be launched along an intercept course to a target, but as long as the launching platform still has an exact fix on the target the torpedo will steer to a continually updated interception point. Wire-guided torpedoes will ignore any other targets that might happen to be in the way while they are being guided to a target whose location is exactly known. If the launching platform loses the fix on the target, the torpedo will continue towards the last known interception point, but will engage any target it hears along the way. Tactics: Always change course when torpedoes are incoming! This will wreck the intercept geometry of the torpedo launch, and if you have time, put enough distance between the targeted ships and the torpedo's path so they are not heard by the weapon's seeker. Advanced Tactics: Jump all over the launching sub! Wire-guided torps are extremely dangerous only if the launcher has a good fix on you. Put some torpedoes in the water around him and fire back along the bearing if given the chance. If the sub decides to run for it, he will lose his exact fix on you, and the torps will go for the last known intercept point (which you should immediately invalidate by changing course and speed). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SAM and Aircraft behavior Surface groups defending themselves against SSMs now optimize their targeting decisions to avoid duplicate engagements. Ships will contribute to the overall area defense based on their range and rates of fire. Ships will choose to engage missiles targeted on themselves over contributing to area defense when the range begins to get critical. SAMs now fly to the predicted intercept point, rather than the simpler stern-chase methods previously employed. Rates of Fire and number of fire-control channels on each platform is a prime limitation on the number of targets you will see engaged. There is unfortunately no way for the user to see the number of director channels each ship possesses from within Harpoon. Any number of reference materials exist (check your local library) that show this type of information about various platforms. Our recommendation is "Jane's Fighting Ships" or "Combat Fleets of the World". (Shameless plug---> ) The original Harpoon boardgame from GDW is probably your best bet though, and the price is really great compared to a copy of "Jane's". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Air-to-Air Missile Combat The guidance restrictions imposed on SAMs also apply to the air-to-air missiles as well. Semi-Active Radar Homing (SARH) missiles require radar guidance to their targets, while Terminal Active Radar Homing (TARH) missiles have their own radar seekers and can find target on their own. Some missiles have Snap-up/Snap-down capability and suffer no penalties for being launched at an altitude different from that of their targets (AMRAAM, AA-10, MICA, Sparrows, SkyFlash, etc). Missiles without snap-up/down will have a reduced chance to hit if fired from a different altitude band than their targets. Tactics: At medium ranges, getting off the first good shot becomes even more important, as SARH missiles will miss if they are not being radar guided. This means if your outgoing missile destroys the enemy aircraft before his SARH missiles get to you, the incoming missiles will be destroyed when his planes are destroyed. As TARH missiles can acquire targets on their own, you should *not* fire them into a dogfight from long ranges. An even chance exists that the aircraft they decide to engage will be friendly. Medium range shots against isolated incoming enemy units present the best geometry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aircraft endurance We have fixed several problems with aircraft endurance that make the version 1.30 changes much more accurate and meaningful. Patrol aircraft should no longer drop from the skies with no warning. Now aircraft have a more consistant and realistic model of endurance. This table shows fuel consumption coefficients for the various altitude bands and throttle settings. (Note: 1.0 = normal fuel consumption rate) ------------------------------------ Helo Turbo prop Jets Loiter L 1.0 .75 .75 M 1.0 .75 .75 H 1.0 .75 .75 ------------------------------------ Cruise L 1.0 1.0 1.5 M 1.0 1.0 1.0 H --- 1.5 1.0 ------------------------------------ Military L 1.1 1.5 2.5 M 1.1 1.5 2.5 H --- 1.5 2.5 ------------------------------------ Re heat L --- --- 12.5 M --- --- 12.5 H --- --- 12.5 ------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Air-to-Ground Jettisons Aircraft which are attacked by a sufficient number of fighters in air-to-air combat will jettison all air-to-ground ordnance and abort their mission! If you find your attack aircraft suddenly have no more air-to-ground ordnance, chances are good that you let enemy fighters get too close. Tactics: It is now *much* more important to establish at least temporary air superiority over strike routes. Send fighters ahead of strike packages to keep the enemy fighters busy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Weapons Allocation and Rate-of-Fire Mount Empty - This message appears next to weapons mount selections that are either empty or are unable to engage due to rate-of-fire or director limitations. In either case, the mount is effectively empty and may not be employed until reloaded. A F[ull Report] for the unit in question will usually reveal whether or not that unit still has remaining ammunition. Rate-of-Fire times tend to cycle every 15 or 30 seconds. This means you will not be able to use the ordnance mount until it either reloads or finishes whatever mounts do between firings. For aircraft, this means you may be prompted by the Staff Assistant to close to a nearer range so you may engage your target with other weapons. If you wish to wait until the longer ranged weapons come back online, simply choose <NO> and try to re-attack in a few moments. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SAM/AAM Auto-Fire Logic When your SAM launchers or Aircraft automatically attack incoming enemy aircraft (not missiles), they will attempt to fire only when the incoming aircraft are close enough so they cannot escape by merely turning around for a few seconds. This holdoff prevents the enemy aircraft from suckering your defenses out of missiles by using 'Turn-and-burn' tactics. This logic is used *only* for aircraft targets when your SAM range gate setting is at "Optimum Range". All other settings will engage aircraft targets at the appropriate range for that setting. Missile targets are always engaged at maximum interception range. Enemy aircraft *will* attempt to avoid incoming missile fire by dropping to lower altitudes and/or running away for a while. All aircraft attempting to close against surface targets will endeavor to avoid radar illumination for as long as possible (usually by dropping under the radar horizon). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aircraft Intercept Geometry The aircraft intercept routines have been substantially rewritten. Aircraft given an intercept order will now try to intercept at the fastest speed allowed by their fuel status, giving much shorter intercepts than the earlier algorithm, which used the slowest possible intercept speed. As a result, much less micro-management of intercepts is needed as maneuvering targets are less likely to escape. Some of the logic is still (necessarily) conservative and most players will be able to get the best performance by hand controlling some of the trickier intercepts. Be aware that manually adjusting the speed or altitude of an intercepting group will now remove the intercept order. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Radar Target Enhancers (Blip Enhancers) The following helicopters carry radar blip enhancers. NATO LAMPS-II SH-60 Seahawks/Oceanhawks NATO LAMPS-I Sea Sprite ALL Sea King ALL Lynx ALL AEW Helix Note that some missiles may have more than one method of finding a target, (for example; InfraRed ) and will not be as easily fooled by such tricks... The player has no control over whether blip enhancers are on or off. Remember that the 20% chance is cumulative, so the more helos are in the air, the better the chance that some missiles will be decoyed. Helicopters are *not* at risk from the SSM missiles, although some proximity fused Air-to-Air missiles fired at surface targets could conceivably attack the decoying helos if they pass close enough. http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games/msg/8e455b527b6e1174?hl=en&&q=harpoon+sonobuoy+depth
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