To kill the Moscow with AGM-84D

[evilnate]

Has anyone been able to hit or sink a Moscow with AGM-84D without bleeding it of ammunition first? If yes, please share how you did it.

[Harker]

I haven't, but I'm guessing that a large saturation attack from multiple directions would be your best bet. The AA systems on this thing are terrifying.

[Oceandar]

Probably need whole squadron to sink it lmao.

[Harlikwin]

Probably need whole squadron to sink it lmao.

 

That seems accurate... A single hornet shouldn't be much threat to anything other than an unarmed tanker IMO. The harpoon is a horribly outdated ASM, and its mostly garbage anyway. Lets fly really slow at modern naval threats at not really "low" altitude and hey lets pop up right before we hit so they can get a great shot at us, and then not actually have much of warhead to damage a ship just screams like a successful ASM to me... Now consider this versus soviet era (yah, that old, like they could be your dad old) ASM's like the sunburn that are designed to engage targets at wavetop height at supersonic speeds and pack massive, if not nuclear warheads to "get ir done"... And even those missiles were designed to be dumped by the "backfire" dump truck load against anything that looked like an actual threat.

 

So unless your hornet can magically carry a few dozen ASM's its not going to be real effective against ships that were specifically designed to shoot down dozens of those missiles at go. And really designed to shoot down way more effective missiles than a harpoon.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Harlikwin

[Oceandar]

There was an old Flanker 2.5 track made and demonstrated by Ironhand (he's still active on this forum btw) showing how he killed the Moscow cruiser with dumb bombs in Flanker. He started by flying NOE really low to avoid missiles and jinking when he got closer to avoid AAA fires. When getting closer he climbed up and dropped the bomb. Its impressive. I'm not sure if its doable in DCS now as I never tried it.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Oceandar

[falcon_120]

That seems accurate... A single hornet shouldn't be much threat to anything other than an unarmed tanker IMO. The harpoon is a horribly outdated ASM, and its mostly garbage anyway. Lets fly really slow at modern naval threats at not really "low" altitude and hey lets pop up right before we hit so they can get a great shot at us, and then not actually have much of warhead to damage a ship just screams like a successful ASM to me... Now consider this versus soviet era (yah, that old, like they could be your dad old) ASM's like the sunburn that are designed to engage targets at wavetop height at supersonic speeds and pack massive, if not nuclear warheads to "get ir done"... And even those missiles were designed to be dumped by the "backfire" dump truck load against anything that looked like an actual threat.

 

So unless your hornet can magically carry a few dozen ASM's its not going to be real effective against ships that were specifically designed to shoot down dozens of those missiles at go. And really designed to shoot down way more effective missiles than a harpoon.

 

I'm not so sure at all. If something teach us modern conflicts or even semi-moderns ones like the falklands is that self-defense air defences and AD in general are not so deadly as manufacturers and nations paint it to be.

Specially when dealing with a small RCS target like a missile, for which you only have some seconds to defense against, and probably with a fraction of those trying to IFF in order to avoid friendly fire. I wouldn't want to be inside a ship that is about to get hit by a harpoon.

[Eviscerador]

The main problem with DCS and has been said a lot is the damage model for most AI units. A single detonating hit with a harpoon will cripple any modern ship but the biggest ones like CV or battlecruisers (kirov)

 

It won't sink it for sure, but it will be out of combat and limping back to port for repairs for months. That's the point of the ASM, to remove a ship from battle. You don't need a K-kill to do so.

 

Here you need several AGM hits to even reduce the ship performance and shut down some of its systems. And of course most missions or MP servers only consider the mission done if you sink the ship.

 

If you want proper AI behaviour you need to set some triggers for that in the ME.

[falcon_120]

That is also true, not to mention that a single asm can hit the weapons bay and cause a disaster.

 

Enviado desde mi SM-G950F mediante Tapatalk

[Top Jockey]

Has anyone been able to hit or sink a Moscow with AGM-84D without bleeding it of ammunition first? If yes, please share how you did it.

 

Months ago I tried it against the "Moskva" Cruiser (and other smaller combat vessels) just for fun, as it is an horribly ungrateful task for just one single F/A-18.

 

- comming in VERY low above terrain & sea level - since the take-off, all the path until egress ;

- first two sorties with AGM-88 HARM, to first try incapacitate the ship's radars... otherwise the Harpoons will have no chances ;

- after that, return to base, re-arm with the Harpoon, but if I recall correctly, it takes a lot of them, and can't remember if I ever managed to sink it before I eventually got shot down.

 

Also tried AGM-154 JSOW, but I believe they were also shot down against Moskva and Pyotr Velikiy... now against ships like "Grisha" and the likes, the JSOW obliterated them.

 

But generally it is an interesting task for "educational" purposes in naval warfare.

[Boogieman]

Yeah... Harpoon probably isn't the weapon of choice against a vessel like that. You probably need LRASM or - better yet - several Mk48 torpedoes(!).

Edited December 17, 2019 by Boogieman

[Silver_Dragon]

Has some issues no added to ship damage model on DCS:

- fire / explosions / detonations.

Damaging systems, detonate ammo, degrade superstructure

- flooding

inundate compartements and make systems inusable.

 

Other points:

Damage control to counter that and making emergency repairs.

Structural damage, bulkheads penetrations and ship compartement (can help if ED build "realistic" WW2 balistic).

Underwater explosions (torpedoes has incoming, mines, etc)

 

That will by only applicable if ED build a realistic "Ship Damage Model" and can require a extensive study and "naval" enginiers to make them.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Silver_Dragon

[DLEGION]

well, its possible, just not with AGM84d, and the sad part is that just because HARPOONs are set to fly at an higher height than they should. if they would fly at 15 feet, they probably will hit over 50% without being destroyed. really sad ED gameplay choice on that.

 

here a video of how kill ships:

Edited December 17, 2019 by DLEGION

[DLEGION]

[DELETED]

problem posting YouTube videos… i updated previous post.

Edited December 17, 2019 by DLEGION

[Northstar98]

Has some issues no added to ship damage model on DCS:

• fire / explosions / detonations.
  
• Damaging systems, detonate ammo, degrade superstructure
  
• flooding
  
• inundate compartments and make systems unusable.
  

 

Absolutely freaking this

 

AShMs would be generally much more effective if the ship damage model was improved - even if an AShM doesn't 'kill' or sink a ship outright, the damage may be severe enough to mission kill a ship (though the ship could still be lost to fire etc). What happens to ships when they're hit is hugely dependent on where it hits.

 

Lets provide some examples:

• USS Stark (Oliver Hazzard Perry class - notoriously tough ship to kill at SINKEX) after taking 2 Exocets (similar missile to Harpoon though has a smaller warhead - 165kg compared to Harpoon's 221kg warhead) 1st one didn't explode but the resulting fire from unspent propellant took out the CIC, where the ship's weapons are controlled and the 2nd one exploded, this finished off the missile electronics.
   
  
   
   
  
• HMS Sheffield (Type 42 Batch 1 Destroyer - questionable survivability), struck by one Exocet, now confirmed that the warhead did indeed detonate. The impact and detonation caused a large fire and heavily damaged the water-main and electrical power generation - crippling the ship's ability to fight the fire. After 4 hours of burning, the ship was abandoned. HMS Sheffield sunk under tow 6 days later owing to heavy waves causing water to enter through the impact hole (located on the hole), eventually causing enough flooding for the ship to list and then sink.
   
  
   
   
  
• Here's another one (not a AShM hit) - HMS Coventry, another Type 42 Batch 1 destroyer, which capsized and sunk after being hit by 3 1000Ib bombs (Mk83 equivalent) of which 2 actually exploded. It only took 20 minutes for the Coventry to capsize and sink.
   
  
  

 

Now people always point to SINKEX and the IRS Sahand to prove that AShMs are ineffective. The IRS Sahand which was hit by a total of 3 Harpoons, 4 AGM-123s (Mk83 Equivalent) and 2 Rockeyes before sinking - but here's what that ship looked like after all that -

 

 

There's literally nothing left, as in there's no discernible features left, it's not like it was totally fine after the first few hits and it needed all that ordnance to destroy it. The ship was gone, afloat, but gone nonetheless, just because it wasn't on the bottom (probably by pure fluke, we've already seen much larger ships lost/sunk from much less) doesn't mean the ship isn't destroyed, it was.

 

HMS Glamorgan is another one, but here's the thing, that ship manoeuvred defensively, the first Exocet hit a deck coaming at an angle, skidded along the deck and exploded on the hangar deck, a Wessex helicopter inside exploded which caused a large fire in the hangar, and a smaller one in the space below

 

 

The missile impacted the superstructure, high above the waterline, and because the damage was isolated to these 2 locations that once the fire was taken care of the ship was fine.

 

 

Okay, so we've seen destroyers taking few hits and being lost, a frigate being hit and being mission killed, a smaller frigate taking a lot and being obliterated but still afloat and a destroyer being hit in an area that meant damage was localised to areas that wouldn't have caused the ship to be lost. And yet currently in DCS we have Corvettes taking 5x Harpoons, and these things are titchy, a hit to the superstructure is an almost guaranteed mission kill given how small they are. If it hits the hull it's probably dead either sinking outright or otherwise 'killed' you can bet that fires from either will destroy the ship.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Northstar98

[evilnate]

Sounds like i’m not alone, and right now the harpoon isn’t effective against the Moscow.

 

Seems strange that users need to use bombs for TASMO.

 

At this point I guess the harpoon is only good for learning how to configure and launch, but not very practical for actual use in naval combat?

[Northstar98]

Sounds like i’m not alone, and right now the harpoon isn’t effective against the Moscow.

 

Seems strange that users need to use bombs for TASMO.

 

At this point I guess the harpoon is only good for learning how to configure and launch, but not very practical for actual use in naval combat?

 

It's not really effective against a Grisha-V ASW Corvette with a displacement a tenth of the Slava class guided missile cruiser

[Exorcet]

On the subject of ASM's, has anyone else noticed a antiHarpoon force field around ships?

 

 

Not a single missile made it to the ship, all exploded at exactly the same distance from it.

[Northstar98]

On the subject of ASM's, has anyone else noticed a antiHarpoon force field around ships?

 

 

Not a single missile made it to the ship, all exploded at exactly the same distance from it.

 

:blink: That's a lot of Harpoons and not a single one? :surprise:

[Exorcet]

:blink: That's a lot of Harpoons and not a single one? :surprise:

That's right. Every missile self destructed at a fixed distance from the ship. That cloud in the second image is Harpoons hitting an invisible wall.

[Northstar98]

That's right. Every missile self destructed at a fixed distance from the ship. That cloud in the second image is Harpoons hitting an invisible wall.

 

Okay what? You don't happen to have a trackfile do you?

[Exorcet]

Okay what? You don't happen to have a trackfile do you?

I did save it.

Moscow Force Field.trk

[evilnate]

On the subject of ASM's, has anyone else noticed a antiHarpoon force field around ships?

 

 

Not a single missile made it to the ship, all exploded at exactly the same distance from it.

 

I’ve seen this. I can make it happen if I use anything other than BOL in multiplayer environment.

[Harker]

On the subject of ASM's, has anyone else noticed a antiHarpoon force field around ships?

 

 

Not a single missile made it to the ship, all exploded at exactly the same distance from it.

Yes, it occurs if you select R/BL mode.

[Harlikwin]

I'm not so sure at all. If something teach us modern conflicts or even semi-moderns ones like the falklands is that self-defense air defences and AD in general are not so deadly as manufacturers and nations paint it to be.

Specially when dealing with a small RCS target like a missile, for which you only have some seconds to defense against, and probably with a fraction of those trying to IFF in order to avoid friendly fire. I wouldn't want to be inside a ship that is about to get hit by a harpoon.

 

I mean, the Falkland's does get cited a lot, but its also a very poor example. During the Cold war, there was a lot of naval specialization within NATO. And the Brits were very good at ASW warfare, as that was their general role within the NATO fleet structure. Air to Air and anti-air was the American specialty. Had it been the USA, down in the falklands the results would have been rather different, even with an old carrier and an LHA or two.

 

The Brits basically chose really conservative locations for their carrier, which meant their Air cover over the islands was poor, which allowed the Argies a window of opportunity if you want to call flying on fumes into the combat area an "opportunity". But in general British naval SAMS of the era were antiques, because they had a budget and were counting on American support in any actual conflict (Which was in their mind WW3). And the Exocet is a bit faster than the harpoon, but has a slightly smaller warhead.

 

Your point about harpoon damage is well taken though and I think that is whole other can of worms for the DCS damage model, which in the naval regard is "poor" at best. But its on the list of things to get fixed.

[bfr]

I mean, the Falkland's does get cited a lot, but its also a very poor example. During the Cold war, there was a lot of naval specialization within NATO. And the Brits were very good at ASW warfare, as that was their general role within the NATO fleet structure. Air to Air and anti-air was the American specialty. Had it been the USA, down in the falklands the results would have been rather different, even with an old carrier and an LHA or two.

 

The Brits basically chose really conservative locations for their carrier, which meant their Air cover over the islands was poor, which allowed the Argies a window of opportunity if you want to call flying on fumes into the combat area an "opportunity". But in general British naval SAMS of the era were antiques, because they had a budget and were counting on American support in any actual conflict (Which was in their mind WW3). And the Exocet is a bit faster than the harpoon, but has a slightly smaller warhead.

 

Your point about harpoon damage is well taken though and I think that is whole other can of worms for the DCS damage model, which in the naval regard is "poor" at best. But its on the list of things to get fixed.

 

The report that followed also suggested that HMS Sheffield made the worst of a bad job regarding its response to the missiles fired upon it. There were operational issues regarding how the threat was dealt with, plus deficiencies in hardware to accurately detect the air threat and also the capability to deal with the incoming missiles was limited by modern standards (its missile system was very poor for that kind of threat and CIWS systems like Phalanx pretty much weren't a thing for the RN back then).