A little note for the Dev team

[Moos_tachu]

With a massive cruisse missiles atack you can only destroy or dismantle partially the FIXED comms center, biggest fixed EWR systems and maybe a little portion of the long range SAM network.

 

Sorry I don't agree with you. Based on NATO doctrine in recent conflicts, the first wave of long range strikes will destroy a LARGE portion of the SAM network.

 

SAM mobility is on paper. In real life you can't move all your SAM's every day, one of the factors being that the more you move, the more you are visible, and the more chances you have to get killed.

 

Don't forget that a conflict zone is watched 24/7 by satellites and drones. Any military unit moving away from its camouflaged position will get detected within hours. And an S-400 regiment moving on a road is VERY detectable.

That's intel job, and it proved very efficient in recent conflicts. And that's also radar denial, because remaining SAM units will know that if they move or turn their radar on, they have a significant chance to get detected and killed.

 

For example in the 2011 Libyan war, the Tomahawk strikes of the first 48 hours destroyed a vast majority of enemy radar capacities.

After that, the conflict zone was overflown 24/7 by Predators and other surveillance assets. The SA-6 and SA-8 units that survived the first hours (and they were many) did not dare going radar on more than a few minutes from time to time, and they were suppressed one by one when they tried to move.

Most of them were killed by LGB's, not by ARM, for a very good reason: when you detect a radar, by the time you send a SEAD strike the chances are high that it will be turned off, and your ARM's will be useless. Your chances to destroy it are far better with LGB's.

 

I read reports from the French warships that ensured surveillance missions by the Libyan coast. Interestingly, they were able to detect every enemy radar being turned on. And every time the enemy insisted, it got destroyed... sometimes by air launched LGB's, sometimes by the ships themselves.

 

Wild Weasel is fun, they did a great job in Vietnam, but now they are history. Too risky.

The capability will remain, but only to deal with a small portion of the SAM threat.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Moos_tachu

[Esac_mirmidon]

I will repeat it.

 

Modern professional well trained IADS network deployed over his own territory.

 

Lybia its not.

 

How Predators are going to fly over enemy controlled air space both by SAM and fighters? Even the USA with satellites, EC-130, U2 and all the best recon-intel assest at his disposal had a very hard job finding a relative little IADS force in Kosovo that were on the move all the time using the terrain at his own advantage to hide.

 

And only a very small part of this SAM systems were localized and destroyed.

 

Wild Weasel tactics have evolved a lot from vietnam era. They are not anymore like 1965. The SEAD game its very important in any Air Force and its impossible to defeat a modern IADS network with cruisse missiles. They are important. A factor to be taked in count but without SEAD-ECM planes over the territory you will never going to gain air superiority and free of operations in the air. ( obviously with a fighter force to defend it ).

 

Serbia could held a relative strong thread to Allied air operations through all the campaign because his IADS net remained working despite allied best efforts to engage it. If a tomahawk attack could destroy it dont you think USA would do it?

 

It wasnt so easy with a modest and weak SAM defense over Kosovo. Imagine a well trained, modern IADS net in Russia with modern equipment. No more Sa-3 , Sa-6 Sa-8. But modern Tor, Buk, S-400, Pantsyr plus EWR radars and long range Sam radar search systems. Not to mention an air space covered with a fighter force.

 

Cruisse missiles without Sead. No chance at all.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Esac_mirmidon