2 x Harpoon vs Russian frigate.

[Holbeach]

There actually is a subsystem damage model in the ships, at least in the russian warships I can tell for sure. If they get enough hits (but not enough to sink them), they stop firing SAMs and CIWS. They are usually burning at this point but that subsides after a while.

 

 

They also slow down by halves e.g. 25/13/7/0/sink. and have visual damage in the later ones.

 

 

..

Edited August 31, 2019 by Holbeach

[ChezDaJez]

Agree, had the design flaws the type 42 damage control system not been in place she would probably survived( although would have been forced to with withdraw from the conflict)

 

 

 

 

 

HMS Glamorgan was hit by an Exocet that definitely exploded and the damage control parties were able to bring the fire under control.

 

 

 

Anti ship missiles are not very good at sinking ships,

 

In 1987, USS Stark (FFG-31) was hit by 2 Exocets in the Persian Gulf and survived thanks in large part to excellent damage control. One Exocet detonated, the other did not but caused extensive fires as happened on Sheffield. 37 sailors killed.

 

I was a P-3 Orion aircrewman for 26 years and observed my share of Harpoon launches during RIMPAC exercises. Most were inert but 2 had warheads. One hit an LPD causing moderate damage, the second hit a FFG-7 and put a pretty good hole in her side.

 

"Bombs let in air, torpedoes let in water"

[pacastro]

Doubtful that it's the ships, as the RB15 from a Viggen can happily sink a Russian frigate, and IIRC, both carry a similar weight in warhead.

 

As stated above, it's early days for the updated Harpoon, just another case of having a little patience.

 

 

I tried some ship bombing in the F-14 using mk-84 bombs.... it took me 5 hits (hits confirmed and counted in tacview) to sink a russian frigate, the mk-84 is supposed to have a 428 kg warhead, vs the 200 kg of the RB15 and 225 kg for the Harpoon.

 

Fuze set to N/T, but as I understand fuze setting right now has no impact in DCS on how bomb damage targets. This was in a multiplayer online server, don't know if this has something to do with it.

Edited September 1, 2019 by pacastro

[Fri13]

All the units, ground as sea, needs a simulation of different sub systems. Like engine room/engine, turret/tower, crew compartment/bridge etc etc. And then just having them positioned as hit blocks in corresponding area. So when damage is there, it will reflect correctly.

 

In ships it means there is requirements for crew positions/allocation so that one impact somewhere means 100% damage control capability. Two hits means 75% capacity and so on. If you hit to radio tower, you can knock communications, if on radar then kill that capability to use for target search at long range or guide missiles etc.

[whiteladder]

In 1987, USS Stark (FFG-31) was hit by 2 Exocets in the Persian Gulf and survived thanks in large part to excellent damage control. One Exocet detonated, the other did not but caused extensive fires as happened on Sheffield. 37 sailors killed.

 

I was a P-3 Orion aircrewman for 26 years and observed my share of Harpoon launches during RIMPAC exercises. Most were inert but 2 had warheads. One hit an LPD causing moderate damage, the second hit a FFG-7 and put a pretty good hole in her side.

 

"Bombs let in air, torpedoes let in water"

 

 

The Falklands War was a huge wake up call for the Royal Navy, and although the lives lost were tragic, the lessons relearned have kept the generations of British sailors safer since.

 

 

The type 42 along with design flaws that effected most RN ship of its era (no smoke curtains, electrical cable insulation that gave off toxic gases when burned, poorly design respirators etc), also had a major problem with its fire fighting water main.

 

 

The impact (or explosion) of the Exocet fractured the single main that ran the length of the ship. This single point of failure was made worse by the fact that there was no way to isolate the damaged section and get pressure in the undamaged portions. The crew had no way to effectively fight the fire. The ships that came to help could only pour water on the outside of the hull, there weren`t enough standalone water pumps to bring onboard to tackle the blaze.

 

 

The type 23 frigate incorporated all the lessons learned, and anyone who has been through damage control school at HMS Raleigh and spent any time in HMS Havoc (the damage control simulator) will testify how important damage control is taken now.

 

 

I did my basic course way back in 1989, I don`t think anyone forgets the point when the instructors tip a truck load of water on a oil fire and the heat from the resulting fireball, flash gear not withstanding.

[Northstar98]

There actually is a subsystem damage model in the ships, at least in the russian warships I can tell for sure. If they get enough hits (but not enough to sink them), they stop firing SAMs and CIWS. They are usually burning at this point but that subsides after a while.

 

To clarify, what I mean by subsystem damage modelling is disabling/destroying a subsystem by hitting said subsystem. I've seen the AK-630 mounts on the Slava class cruiser in DCS take multiple Harpoons almost directly (off by maybe 0.5m) and still remain operational. However after the first Harpoon hit, things like hydraulics and electronics would've been damaged to the point that they're non-operational, if not destroy the system outright.

 

DCS does this with a high degree of complexity for pretty much all of its aircraft, hitting a wing will damage the wing, hitting an engine will damage the engine etc. Damaging a component sufficiently will destroy that component which may/may not lead to the loss of the whole thing (think aircraft having a wing blown off) In everything else, but more so for ships its a purely health bar system AFAIK, sustaining damage will remove HP from a vehicle, after much of the HP has been depleted vehicles slow down and don't fire their weapons and more HP loss results in destruction.

 

What we should see is a similar damage model we get with near enough all aircraft (player or otherwise) but applied to ships. Which is basically what Fri13 said, have hitboxes that correspond to components and subsystems and when sufficiently damaged said components/subsystems are inoperative, you could maybe have intermediate stages if a system was say partially inoperative. A good one here would be for hull damage and listing, so that ships actually sink in a way that corresponds to where damage was taken and to what extent (think what happens in Silent Hunter or Cold Waters, for the former it even goes as far as a hit causing graphical damage in the exact spot, unlike DCS).

 

An example of hitbox regions could be individual weapons mounts, individual antennae (for RADARs), bridge, CIC/ops, and engine/machinery spaces. For the superstructure maybe a hitbox for each major element (which graphically speaking is kinda already there, just not very complex (only 1 damage state)) and for the hull say 3+ hitboxes per side with 1 aft hitbox. Then allow for things like listing that correspond with the damage location and severity, something like a variant similar to the damage modelling in say SH4 would probably be the best implementation.

 

I think once that happens weapons like the Harpoon that may not pack a large enough punch to sink larger vessels on their own will be more effective, but against smaller vessels like the Tarantul-III I can't imagine them being able to take multiple Harpoons and still remain operational.

Edited September 7, 2019 by Northstar98

[Hog_No32]

Thanks for the clarification. I fully agree with what you‘ve said. The overall damage model of ships could indeed need some love. The localization of damage depending on where hits occurred would very be a great improvement.

 

On the other hand though no anti-ship missile that I know of can be programmed to hit a particular part of a ship. And in DCS all anti-ship missiles that I‘ve seen (western types: Harpoon, Rb-04, Rb-15F, Sea Eagle, Exocet, Penguin) all hit a ship in the very same spot (probably the center of the ship and just above the waterline. So without any variation of that, we would always just damage the same subsystem(s) over and over again... Unless you would use weapons where you can define the impact point by your own means of course (LGBs with a TGP or soon the Walleye).

[Eviscerador]

It takes two 2000 lbs LGB and 2 Foxtrot Mavs to sink a Neustrashimy.

 

I didn't expect to sink it with a single Exocet to be honest.

 

If you want a mission kill or something like that with a single hit, I guess you need to fiddle with triggers or scripts.

[pacastro]

It takes two 2000 lbs LGB and 2 Foxtrot Mavs to sink a Neustrashimy.

 

I didn't expect to sink it with a single Exocet to be honest.

 

If you want a mission kill or something like that with a single hit, I guess you need to fiddle with triggers or scripts.

 

 

Agreed, but shouldn't it also take more than just the single RB15 that now takes to sink a Neustrashimy?

[atazar]

I continue to sink ships with MK-84 in CCIP. In this training, he shot down four different Russian ships in four attacks and four evasive ones. For this exercise I have used (unlimited weaponry) so that the training does not last three hours.

 

 

[SFJackBauer]

I continue to sink ships with MK-84 in CCIP. In this training, he shot down four different Russian ships in four attacks and four evasive ones. For this exercise I have used (unlimited weaponry) so that the training does not last three hours.

 

 

 

I heard these are scenes from the next TopGun movie

[Northstar98]

Agreed, but shouldn't it also take more than just the single RB15 that now takes to sink a Neustrashimy?

 

It's a frigate, RB-15F has a 200kg warhead, slightly below that of a Harpoon, but larger than an Exocet. A single hit could sink it but the problem lies with ship damage modelling and with DCS' god-awful implementation

of sinking. But again, this is dependent on where it hits.

 

I'm not familiar with Neutrashimy class frigates at all so anything I say from now on should be looked at very critically, with heaps of salt.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

We'll split the ship up into 2 main areas, the hull and the superstructure and then subdivide those. When I use the word hit I'm referring to a warhead detonation in the 200kg region

(Mk83/Harpoon/RB-15F warhead class)

 

 

Firstly the superstructure, there are 2 main areas.

 

Forward section:

 

This contains the bridge, command centre/CIC/ops room(?), the gun-laying 'Kite Screech' RADAR for the 100mm naval gun, the 'Cross Sword' fire control RADAR for the SA-N-9 'Gauntlet' SAM system; there's also an RBU-6000

ASW rocket launcher forward and a funnel to rear.

 

A hit in this location is probably going damage/destroy most if not all of these subsystems depending on exactly there. Assuming a hit in the centre of this section from abeam, you can bet that the bridge is out of action, both

RADARs will be rendered inoperative, in turn rendering the SA-N-9 inoperative and the 100mm gun at least partially inoperative, you can also bet that communications will be taken out and most of the command

infrastructure is inoperative/destroyed (compromising the ability for the ship to steer, or use it's systems/weapons/sensors).

 

Rear section:

 

This section contains the hangar & flyco, 2 Kortik mounts, the 'Top Plate' 3D search RADAR, the 'Cross Dome' air & surface search RADAR, there's also an air intake(?).

 

As with before a hit here is going to cause major damage to this section, I imagine taking out pretty much everything listed above (even though the RADAR antenna for Top Plate is mounted on a tall mast, it's electronics will

probably be destroyed by the warhead detonating), there's also the risks of fire from aviation fuel as well as secondary explosions.

 

 

Now for the hull, we'll split this up into 3 sections; bow, midships and stern:

 

For the bow, this contains much of the weaponry of the frigate, there's something like 350 100mm shells in a magazine, 32 9M330 missiles for the SA-N-9 and numerous RGB-60 rocket propelled depth charges. This section will

also contain ammunition lifts/hoists for the 100mm naval gun and the RBU-6000 system as well as their associated hydraulics(?).

 

A hit here is probably going to destroy much if not everything above unless there's some sort of additional protection (which I doubt will take a ~200kg warhead exploding in a relatively small confined space). You're also looking

at major flooding, this might not sink the ship if sufficient action is taken by DC parties, but at the very least you're looking at the ship pitching partially into the water, and depending on which side the warhead exploded a

fairly major port or starboard list. Bare in mind that the damage won't just blow a hole in the hull, it will most likely buckle and crack other areas of the hull and potentially breach/buckle bulkheads. Of course this all depends

on exactly where the warhead detonates and the amount of water the ship takes on (which will depend on the size of the breached compartments, which I imagine will be small in this area). Also bear in mind you'll not only get

flooding from breaches but burst water pipes too.

 

For the midships section, this will contain I imagine the main engine room(s) and machinery spaces, a hit here is probably at least going to disable that, rendering the ships propulsion system at least temporarily inoperative, if not

destroyed. It's also likely that this could take out key electronics and command systems from secondary effects like fires etc. In terms of flooding, you're once again going to probably get a lot of it, we're looking at considerable

listing, again, this might not sink the ship outright (think USS Stark) but I imagine it would be close to loosing the ship.

 

Finally the aft section, here we've probably got more machinery spaces, probably a magazine for the helicopter as well as torpedoes for the ship's torpedo launcher. Again we're looking at heavy damage, the aviation facilities will

probably be inoperative, as probably will be the propulsion system and steering gear as well as the towed array SONAR (which doesn't (yet) have a use in DCS).

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

TL:DR A single RB-15F probably could sink a Neutrashimy though I'd imagine to sink it outright you're probably looking at 2 hits. A single hit though is most likely going to mission kill the frigate.

 

Just food for thought this is the USS Stark an Oliver Hazard Perry Class frigate (a ship famous for being a notoriously tough ship to kill at SINKEX) after taking 2 Exocets (which have a smaller warhead than the RB-15F and the

Harpoon), the first didn't explode but started a large fire which took out the CIC (where the ship is commanded), the second one exploded taking out missile electronics and starting a flood.

 

 

And here is the HMS Coventry a Type 42 Destroyer, after taking 3x 1000lb bombs (Mk83 equivalent) though 1 failed to detonate (I think), the bombs caused substantial amounts of damage, including taking out the ops room

(where the ship is commanded, so even if it had survived, would've been a mission kill), breaching critical bulkheads resulting in heavy uncontrolled flooding in a large open space (engine rooms). It took just over 20 minutes for

the Coventry to capsize and sink.

 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Northstar98
resizing

[DeathAngel1]

I think there is a bug with Harpoon`s warhead damage. Last night I fired 4 x Harpoons vs Chinese frigate, all of them hit the target, but frigate was not sunk.

[Oceandar]

I think there is a bug with Harpoon`s warhead damage. Last night I fired 4 x Harpoons vs Chinese frigate, all of them hit the target, but frigate was not sunk.

Its known issue as stated in Hornet mini update. Its WIP and they're still tuning it.