Fire at a grid location?

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Fire at a grid location? - 12/15/2019 9:15:34 PM

sekullbe

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Is there a way to launch appropriately-guided weapons at a grid location? I was playing the "Boston Guards the Denmark Strait" scenario where you have nuclear release and four TLAM-Ns on board. I knew where the bad guy convoy was so I wanted to just fire at that location trusting 200kT of nuclear kablooey to make up for any fuzz in my targeting. But I couldn't find the necessary command to launch that way.

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/15/2019 9:57:29 PM

kevinkins

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I think this is the capability you are looking for ...

From the Manual:

"Bearing-Only Attack: The bearing only attack allows players to fire guided weapons without designating a target but instead designating a point which their guiding sensor(s) will activate to hunt targets. It otherwise functions identically to the �engage target(s)-manual� function."

Haven't used this in a while. If I recall, systems capable of BOL are so mentioned in the DB. I have used it for MALD and OECM systems and it works well.

Kevin

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�The study of history lies at the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practice.�
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(in reply to sekullbe)

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/15/2019 10:40:41 PM

sekullbe

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The TLAM-N doesn't have BOL capability. It does have "TERCOM Navigation" but I presume that just means that I can assign waypoints to its flight path but can't necessarily specify a target by coordinates.

It also only lists land contacts and structures, runways, and mobile targets under WRA in the DB viewer and doctrine page. It doesn't even show up as an assignable weapon if I have a located surface ship targeted.

I guess this is a game engine limitation but no big deal; using TLAM-Ns against a convoy is a pretty gamey tactic anyway :)

(in reply to kevinkins)

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/16/2019 2:44:20 AM

Fido81

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quote:

I guess this is a game engine limitation but no big deal; using TLAM-Ns against a convoy is a pretty gamey tactic anyway :)

On some level I agree with your assessment, but on another level I very much do not. In the scenarios Wargasm and The V-Bombers, targets for nuclear payloads are given by DGZ (designated ground zero) in latitude/longitude format with bombing encyclopedia data (such as name and remarks). But in order to attack a target, the bomber/missile generally needs to be attacking a database object (notably with respect to Wargasm, the nuclear-tipped AGM-28B Hound Dog and the ADM-20B Quail both have BOL capability, though the B28 bomb does not). I think an analogous scenario to these that was set in the 1980s, or that used cruise missiles like Regulus, Mace, or Matador, would really rely on the ability to attack locations identified by lat/lon locations via BOL as opposed to database objects.

I suppose we cannot ask what the war plans that would have seen the TLAM-N used would have provided launching units in terms of targeting information, but Wikipedia indicates that Block III TLAMs had GPS receivers, and I imagine that should be sufficient to attack GPS coordinates (+/- the CEP).

Having said that, I certainly don�t want to be read as demanding something of the devs (who work hard on a great product). I�m just not sure that I think that using BOL for a nuclear cruise missile against a convoy is an intrinsically gamey tactic.

(in reply to sekullbe)

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/16/2019 1:30:54 PM

sekullbe

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Agreed, I think it's legit and probably realistic to be able to fire on coordinates- I was also more thinking of the priority for the devs to address it.

I also looked up TLAM and GPS; this scenario is in 1985 so all you get is INS. Later on, for what it's worth I found another source claiming the US doesn't use GPS for nuclear weapons due to jamming and spoofing concerns. But in game I don't think this would make a significant difference- maybe just increasing CEP without GPS but that's not terribly relevant for nuclear warheads.

I doubt very much if we could get real information out of the military about doctrine on this though, however old. That would involve asking a) a submariner about b) nuclear weapons and that's not a recipe for candor.

(in reply to Fido81)

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/16/2019 3:28:45 PM

Randomizer

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There is actually information out there regarding nuclear weapons targeting during the Cold War and one constant is the need for precise target locations, at least for surface targets. If you are prepared to sift through the thousands of pages of heavily redacted primary source documentations at web sites like the Nuclear Vault there is useful information to be found.

Fido81 is correct, doctrine required every nuclear weapon be directed against a specific target and it is really difficult to see any real-world command authority just firing one or more into the blue while hoping for the best.

In 1946, OPERATION CROSSROADS shot Able demonstrated that a nuclear airburst was actually comparatively ineffective against surface ships although it did leave many badly contaminated and some with extensive fire damage. The shallow underwater shot Baker was much more effective at actually sinking ships of all types but this required special warheads never fitted to the nuclear TASM and certainly not available for the nuclear TLAM. Even ASROC required a localized submerged target before being launched and it seems to have epitomized the ASW area weapon ideal.

The Nuclear Vault can be found here, The National Security Archives. I spent many, many hours there researching Wargasm 62 and Peeling the Onion for CMANO.

-C

< Message edited by Randomizer -- 12/16/2019 3:30:50 PM >

(in reply to sekullbe)

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/16/2019 8:29:00 PM

Rory Noonan

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From: Brooklyn, NY
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This is a relatively simple addition, can you post this on the DB threads?

No guarantees on inclusion, that will be up to other people but it's definitely worth posting the DB threads.

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/16/2019 8:35:57 PM

sekullbe

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Thanks for the info. I'll need to try your more realistic scenarios.

I was able to use nuclear SUBROCs against surface targets which is not really an on-label use, but I suppose the game doesn't make fine distinctions between a surface ship and a surfaced sub. They worked in the game; it just told me the contact "disappeared" with none of the usual hit/pen/damage notifications. The scenario is pretty unrealistic in having nuclear release in the first place, but as a tutorial scenario it's not unreasonable to just open up the toybox. It has about as many targets as your SSN has weapons in the first place, so I was scraping the bottom of the magazines just to see how things worked.

(in reply to Randomizer)

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/16/2019 9:33:19 PM

Randomizer

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Having qualified nuclear weapons targeting, area weapons such as iron bombs and artillery having the ability to fire at coordinates alone would not be unreasonable.

-C

Edit, I posted a request for this with an explanation in the Features Request thread as it applies to both databases.

< Message edited by Randomizer -- 12/16/2019 9:42:37 PM >

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/17/2019 8:47:42 AM

Tookatee

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This topic is covered in this thread as well, TLDR all the weapons (except for ballistic missiles) that use coordinates as guidance such as any artillery, the JDAM, the TLAM Tomahawks, and SDB weapons lack the ability to use the BOL feature to manually fire the weapons at a specific set of coordinates. Dimitris indicated that he'd have it looked into, but evidently other things came up (at the time they were probably working on developing and testing CMO before its release in November.)

< Message edited by Tookatee -- 12/17/2019 9:03:46 AM >

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RE: Fire at a grid location? - 12/17/2019 3:42:38 PM

Whicker

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I made a special action to allow adding a target anywhere, worked pretty well:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4694813

(in reply to Tookatee)

Post #: 11