Did the tomcat ever carry 6 phoenixes as a standard loadout?

[Harlikwin]

2 hours ago, Uxi said:

The logistics issue never really comes up and no way to track in game,  but how many Phoenix would a carrier have?  Could they equip both Tomcat squadrons with 6 Phoenix and still have any reload capacity?

 

Bio's book said they crossdecked new AIM-54C in the turnover from Constellation to Ranger for Earnest Will in May 1987, but that was a new missile then... or did they always do that?

 

I recall reading that the exact number was kept secret, but that it was basically believed to be at least 1 full 6/plane load per squadron and maybe a bit more (1.5x/plane). I mean the Navy budgets for the phoenix were always tight given the really relative cost to other missiles. It kinda makes sense in the context of the doomsday scenario too, you are pretty much gonna get one chance to do it, and maybe some of the planes don't make it back if there is need for re-arm so ~100 missiles per sqdrn seems reasonable. 

In the context of most DCS MP servers, some sort of logistics systems would be great IMO, but lots of people would be mad when the server ran out fancy muntions in the first 20 minutes of play. regardless of how realistic that might be.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Harlikwin

[Uxi]

4 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

 

In the context of most DCS MP servers, some sort of logistics systems would be great IMO, but lots of people would be mad when the server ran out fancy muntions in the first 20 minutes of play. regardless of how realistic that might be.

 

No problem with a checkbox in the ME or settings to have a slider and/or "unlimited" check box in server settings maybe for those who like Air Quake, though at least a budget counter in ME/Campaign would be nice for those who care about more realism. Cold War gone hot would be limited by production ability as much as anything...

[MBot]

I'd assume that carrier magazine Phoenix loads depended a lot on theater threat level. Carriers sent into the North Pacific or Norwegian Sea probably stocked more Phoenixes than in the Indian Ocean.

 

The more interesting question about the 6-Phoenix loadout is in my oppionion, whether it included removing the Sidewinders or even the gun ammo to improve the weight margin. Both weapons were of limited or no use at all against bombers and missiles, but downloading gun ammo might be more trouble than it is worth.

Edited December 1, 2020 by MBot

[Harlikwin]

6 hours ago, MBot said:

I'd assume that carrier magazine Phoenix loads depended a lot on theater threat level. Carriers sent into the North Pacific or Norwegian Sea probably stocked more Phoenixes than in the Indian Ocean.

 

The more interesting question about the 6-Phoenix loadout is in my oppionion, whether it included removing the Sidewinders or even the gun ammo to improve the weight margin. Both weapons were of limited or no use at all against bombers and missiles, but downloading gun ammo might be more trouble than it is worth.

Yeah no idea on any of that. And yeah I'm sure it varied by theatre and time period. But just like number of nukes on a boat, well, it was sekrit AFAIK, maybe not quite as sekrit, but still, they were stupidly expensive missiles, and for the same reason got fired alot less in training.

Plus the whole conversation on the attack the carrier topic is largely missing all those missiles from elsewhere (subs), plus subs doing sub things. An actual strike on a CVBG would have been extremely well coordinated with multiple assets and really they would be nuke armed, so one gets through and its game over. The soviets weren't fucking around. 

Also, DCS today unfortunately sucks at modeling anything naval combat wise. (Hey, multiple radars,  hey missiles, hey 4 different damage levels for each ASM, damage control, mission kills, etc). Not really sorry ED, you need to do alot better in that regard. 

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Harlikwin

[Harlikwin]

7 hours ago, Uxi said:

 

No problem with a checkbox in the ME or settings to have a slider and/or "unlimited" check box in server settings maybe for those who like Air Quake, though at least a budget counter in ME/Campaign would be nice for those who care about more realism. Cold War gone hot would be limited by production ability as much as anything...

IDK if there is a setting, I just recall the one time a MP server did it and the salt was epic with constant complaints that "some doofus" took MY precious Fox3 Jdam etc. And then the aggrieved "super pilot" logs off cuz he can't actually use anything else on his jet. It is my fond hope that once the dynamic campaign gets implemented stuff like stocks of weapons used/assigned is a big part of that.

Realistically "cold war gone hot" would have lasted 15 minutes. The soviet war plans that are known are 100% full on tac nuke strikes from 0 hour, followed up by more nuclear strikes 15 min later etc. NATO retaliates with their canned sunshine OFC, and it goes happily up the escalation sheet from that. Most conventional "cold war" scenarios I've heard are  mostly western masturbatory fantasies meant to fill some "check box" on some guys "surely our doctrine is better" promotion sheet.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Harlikwin

[near_blind]

11 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

Plus the whole conversation on the attack the carrier topic is largely missing all those missiles from elsewhere (subs), plus subs doing sub things. An actual strike on a CVBG would have been extremely well coordinated with multiple assets and really they would be nuke armed, so one gets through and its game over. The soviets weren't fucking around. 

 

The "coordinated air/surface/subsurface wargasm" was soviet doctrine on paper, the reality was a little more nuanced than that. Political divisions existed between the surface fleet and the naval air forces, there were never enough nukes to completely outfit a regimental strike, and the technology and doctrine to tightly coordinate didn't exist stealthily and quickly. 

 

Quote

This semi-separation of the SNAF from the navy created, without doubt, neglect on the part of the “true” naval officer communities, surface and submarine. Given the rule that no naval aviator or navigator could attain flag rank in any of the fleet staffs and that the admirals and deck-grade officers of the Soviet Navy only occasionally flew on board naval aircraft, and then as passengers only, there was no serious trust in the SNAF in general or its anticarrier role in particular.22 The SNAF, though its actions were coordinated with surface and submarine units in war plans and staff training, would attack on its own, whereas missile-firing surface units and submarines had to complement each other, depending on overall results. The actual training of SNAF units had no significant connection with surface or submarine units below the level of “type” staffs of the fleet. Communications between SNAF aircraft aloft and guided-missile cruisers at sea or even with shore radio stations maintaining submarine circuits often failed because of mistakes in frequencies or call signs. So the “real” admirals’ common attitude toward the MRA was essentially the same as that toward shore-based missiles: order them to take off, heading for the current target position, and forget them. No wonder that the kamikaze spirit was often remembered in the ready rooms of MRA units ashore.

Quote

Moreover, in plans, three to five planes in each regimental strike had to carry missiles with nuclear warheads. It was calculated that up to twelve hits by missiles with regular warheads would be needed to sink a carrier; by contrast, a single nuclear-armed missile hit could produce the same result. In any case, almost all Soviet anticarrier submarine assets had nuclear-armed anticarrier missiles and torpedoes on board for routine patrols.

Quote

A detailed description of the tactics and technologies of all those various assets is beyond the aim of this article, but one needs an idea of how it worked as a whole. The core of national anticarrier doctrine was cooperative usage of all those reconnaissance and launch platforms. While they understood this fact, the staffs of the Soviet Navy had no definite order, manual, or handbook for planning anticarrier actions except the “Tactical Guidance for Task Forces” (known as TR OS-79), issued in 1979 and devoted mainly to operational questions of surface actions, until 1993, when “Tactical Guidance for Joint Multitype Forces” entered staff service. The latter document was the first and ultimate guidance for the combined efforts of the MRA, surface task forces, and submerged PADs, stating as the overall goal the sinking of the designated target carriers at sea with a probability of 85 percent.

 

It is no secret that the officers of the surface community who served on the guided-missile ships counted on surviving a battle against a U.S. Navy carrier air wing for twenty or thirty minutes and no more.

[...]

SSGNs were evidently considered in the West to be the safest asset of the Soviet Navy during an attack, but it was not the case. The problem was hiding in the radio communications required: two hours prior to the launch, all the submarines of the PAD were forced to hold periscope depth and lift their highfrequency-radio and satellite communication antennas up into the air, just to get the detailed targeting data from reconnaissance assets directly (not via the staffs ashore or afloat); targeting via low- or very-low-frequency cable antennas took too much time and necessarily involved shore transmitting installations, which could be destroyed at any moment.

 

Fascinating article, I highly recommend
https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol67/iss1/7/

Edited December 2, 2020 by near_blind

[sublime]

12 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

IDK if there is a setting, I just recall the one time a MP server did it and the salt was epic with constant complaints that "some doofus" took MY precious Fox3 Jdam etc. And then the aggrieved "super pilot" logs off cuz he can't actually use anything else on his jet. It is my fond hope that once the dynamic campaign gets implemented stuff like stocks of weapons used/assigned is a big part of that.

Realistically "cold war gone hot" would have lasted 15 minutes. The soviet war plans that are known are 100% full on tac nuke strikes from 0 hour, followed up by more nuclear strikes 15 min later etc. NATO retaliates with their canned sunshine OFC, and it goes happily up the escalation sheet from that. Most conventional "cold war" scenarios I've heard are  mostly western masturbatory fantasies meant to fill some "check box" on some guys "surely our doctrine is better" promotion sheet.

 

 

There ARE stocks on carriers and airfields in the ME. I dont know much about it besides its there. u may not be able to eveen modify it.

However, then agian, Ive been at fields that didnt have Aim54s, and later landed on a carrier and voila they had them.... FWIW

[Harlikwin]

7 hours ago, near_blind said:

 

The "coordinated air/surface/subsurface wargasm" was soviet doctrine on paper, the reality was a little more nuanced than that. Political divisions existed between the surface fleet and the naval air forces, there were never enough nukes to completely outfit a regimental strike, and the technology and doctrine to tightly coordinate didn't exist stealthily and quickly. 

 

 

Fascinating article, I highly recommend
https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol67/iss1/7/

 

Its interesting, but at the same time DCS doesn't model all the nuance "problems" in NATO or US service branches either. I mean the argument you seem to make is that the soviets couldn't have coordinated, but that NATO/US would have been great at it, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary during the cold war era. There are reasons that these days you have lots of "joint doctrine" that didn't exist then.

 

One thing I think DCS overall could do better is model "limitations" as well as "capabilities", HB tends to do that a bit better than ED or any of the other 3rd party devs at least in a few areas, but I think overall everyone could do better.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Harlikwin

[Harlikwin]

6 hours ago, sublime said:

There ARE stocks on carriers and airfields in the ME. I dont know much about it besides its there. u may not be able to eveen modify it.

However, then agian, Ive been at fields that didnt have Aim54s, and later landed on a carrier and voila they had them.... FWIW

 

I don't doubt its possible in the ME. Like I said I flew on a few servers at times that did limit "fancy weapons". I'm just pointing out it was hugely unpopular with certain players in MP servers for better or worse. I've heard various solutions like "personal stores" and commander dictated stores as solutions to this MP specific issue. But the generally accepted solution is 6 phoenix per flight each and every flight and reality be damned. And IMO thats not really on ED or HB, but as a community I like to think we can do better, and I HOPE the dynamic campaign does do that.

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Harlikwin

[near_blind]

40 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

 

Its interesting, but at the same time DCS doesn't model all the nuance "problems" in NATO or US service branches either. I mean the argument you seem to make is that the soviets couldn't have coordinated, but that NATO/US would have been great at it, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary during the cold war era. There are reasons that these days you have lots of "joint doctrine" that didn't exist then.

 

 

I don't seem to recall making an argument other than providing an interesting source from the Soviet perspective to add context to your point. If we want to argue, yes, I tend to believe USN Officers flying USN aircraft off USN decks guided by USN AWACS supported by USN tankers and buddy tankers, trained as an organic unit under a single command structure backstopped by USN ships operating with a coherent data exchange architecture will have an easier time communicating than air force officers with less flight time attempting to coordinate with a separate and distrustful service without coherent tactics.

 

Put another way:
 

Quote

Generally, detailed data concerning the U.S. air-defense organization were not available to Soviet naval planners. What they knew was that F-4, and later F-14, planes could be directed from three kinds of control points: the Carrier Air Traffic Control Center on the carrier itself, an E-2 aloft, or the Air Defense Combat Center of one of the Aegis cruisers in formation. Eavesdropping on the fighterdirection VHF and ultrahigh-frequency radio circuits by reconnaissance vessels and planes gave Soviet analysts in 1973–74 roughly the same results as were subsequently noted by late Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski: “Exercise data indicated that sometimes a squadron of F-14s operating without a central air controller was more effective in intercepting and destroying attackers than what the algorithms said centralized control could provide.”

Clear friction points would be liaising with USAF or NATO partner Air Force tanker and control assets, and dissemination of national intelligence assets, that I will grant you. However the joint issues you're alluding to arose when the Navy, which had spent the previous three decades preparing for the fight we're discussing was forced to operate in an environment with stricture IFF procedures and close coordination with forces that, simply put, don't exist 1,000 miles from shore in the North Atlantic or Pacific. You don't have to concern yourself with accidentally Phoenixing an F-117 off the Kuriles or north of Iceland.