JSOWs vulnerable to SAMs

[SharpeXB]

Since the AGM-154 is supposed to be a stand-off weapon meant to attack from outside the range of air defenses, does it make sense that the bomb itself can be targeted and destroyed by enemy SAMs?

[WarbossPetross]

4 часа назад, SharpeXB сказал:

Since the AGM-154 is supposed to be a stand-off weapon meant to attack from outside the range of air defenses, does it make sense that the bomb itself can be targeted and destroyed by enemy SAMs?

Why wouldn't it? It is a flying material object that has some RCS and velocity towards the target, so it can be tracked by radars and destroyed by munitions that are up to the task. It's not some magic trump card. In fact, one of my brightest memories from Lock-On Flaming Cliffs is Su-34 engaging an SA-15 in pretty close range, it was launching missiles and SA-15 was shooting these missiles with its own, and at some point I thought "my God, this is better than Matrix" Although I have read once at this forum that in DCS bombs are treated differently than missiles by the game engine and therefore SAMs don't shoot them, don't know if that's the case now.

[Tippis]

5 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Since the AGM-154 is supposed to be a stand-off weapon meant to attack from outside the range of air defenses, does it make sense that the bomb itself can be targeted and destroyed by enemy SAMs?

Yes.

That's why they are used in conjunction with SEAD weaponry, ewar, and decoys.

 

There is no bug here other than how some bombs can't be targeted and destroyed by SAMs.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

According to the ever authoritative Wikipedia “The AGM-154A is usually used for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses missions”

What good would a weapon be in this role if it gets shot down by the SAMs it’s trying to suppress?

[falcon_120]

7 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

According to the ever authoritative Wikipedia “The AGM-154A is usually used for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses missions”

What good would a weapon be in this role if it gets shot down by the SAMs it’s trying to suppress?

 I mean, it sure is a weapon able to SEAD enemy air defenses. But as long as it is a flying weapon with RCS and not a lot of speed, it can be shot down by enemy air defenses design to take out incoming missiles, ICBM, etc...

 

Just as an example, most air defenses in combat ships are designed to take out, or at least try to take out missiles coming at sea level at high Mach numbers. This is how good modern Air defenses are. As stated below, taking out a modern SAM is a coordinated task.

[RodBorza]

13 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Since the AGM-154 is supposed to be a stand-off weapon meant to attack from outside the range of air defenses, does it make sense that the bomb itself can be targeted and destroyed by enemy SAMs?

 

Well, don't know in real life (I believe no one without a secret clearance knows) but in game it works as follows: old systems like SA-2 and SA-6 can be fooled by it, and won't engage, newer systems like SA-10 will engage. And of course, those pesky SA-15 will engage anything and everything in range. Wanna ruin a SEAD flight day? Setup a mission with one SA-10, two SA-15 and two Tunguskas defending an airport. Set them up all RED condition and Free to Fire. They are ready to go at any moment. (in DCS if you leave them in Default State they will take some time to wake up and engage, thus giving some leeway to the attacker).

The only way, in game, to defeat such a configuration is to come real low, behind some terrain or trees, release some Snake-Eyes or Mk-20 and hope for the best. Good luck!

Edited August 9, 2021 by RodBorza

[Lace]

15 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

According to the ever authoritative Wikipedia “The AGM-154A is usually used for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses missions”

What good would a weapon be in this role if it gets shot down by the SAMs it’s trying to suppress?

 

AGM-145 is for DEAD, not SEAD.  IRL a DEAD package will not be a single aircraft firing a single weapon, there will be multiple coordinated flights, combined with EW aircraft & HARM shooters to supress, while other aircraft destroy with JSOWs or CBU.  You might be able to kill older SAM systems alone, but any of the modern stuff can target even the low-observable standoff weapons.

[Northstar98]

How it works in DCS (to my knowledge) is that anything under 'AG missiles' can be engaged by air defences, anything that isn't in that category SAMs won't engage (such as bombs or rockets).

 

It gets even sillier when things like the SA-15 will try and engage individual APKWS rockets but won't engage unguided rockets (including rocket artillery, which are a lot larger).

 

I'm not sure SAM systems take RCS into account, though with the state of sensors as is, I wouldn't be surprised. Though I do remember there being a "reflection limit" defined for weapons, but not sure.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Northstar98

[kseremak]

13 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Since the AGM-154 is supposed to be a stand-off weapon meant to attack from outside the range of air defenses, does it make sense that the bomb itself can be targeted and destroyed by enemy SAMs?

 

Before this stand-off weapons there were dedicated low level strike aircrafts like A-6 Intruder, Tornado GR.1, F-111, Su-24 for the same mission. Ground strike deep into the enemy territory, at all weather and at night. They fly at minimum altitude using terrain following radars and inertial navigation, there were hard to detect and attack during the late cold war, but it were not impossible to target with systems of the era in right circumstances.

 

They have been replaced by stand-off weapon using very similar flight profile having smaller RCS but they were still possible to detect and attack in right circumstances due to the technological progress.

 

Another thing is JSOW, SLAM-ER and similar are quite modern systems and we will never know if radars of that era were able to reliably detect them, from what distance, angle and so on. It's simplified. Developers have chosen to make them possible to detect from some distance and we should accept that because we will never find the real data.

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

According to the ever authoritative Wikipedia “The AGM-154A is usually used for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses missions”

What good would a weapon be in this role if it gets shot down by the SAMs it’s trying to suppress?

It is not trying to suppress anything, and there is nothing remotely strange about SAMs being able to shoot and defeat weapons that are trying to kill or suppress them. In fact, that's the entire point of both sides of the equation. SAMs are among the most complex and dangerous targets you can go after, and have been pretty much since their inception. You don't go after them with just one thing because that's not how a systemic arms race works. The instant a wonder-weapon comes online that will handily defeat its target, the target will change so as to (relatively) handily defeat the no-longer-wonder-weapon, so the weapon must adapt to defeat the thing that defeated it, at which point the defeated thing must adapt to defeat… etc etc etc. It's how we got SAMs and DEAD/SEAD weapons to begin with.

 

That's why there is never a single weapon that can do what you're asking for. It's why it is done using multiple weapon and information systems, to the point where, the last time they were actually used in combat, SEAD tactics often didn't entail any weapon release at all. It was all information and mind games, where just yelling over the radio suppressed a system. Maybe. Hopefully.

 

Also…

56 minutes ago, Lace said:

AGM-145 is for DEAD, not SEAD.  IRL a DEAD package will not be a single aircraft firing a single weapon, there will be multiple coordinated flights, combined with EW aircraft & HARM shooters to supress, while other aircraft destroy with JSOWs or CBU.  You might be able to kill older SAM systems alone, but any of the modern stuff can target even the low-observable standoff weapons.

…this. The fact that it's low-observable means that JSOW is even less of a suppression weapon — you can't really make the enemy duck if they don't know they're fired on. It's great for a DEAD weapon though, since it reduces the chances of it being intercepted, but that reduction means nothing if the targeted system is allowed to fully focus on that incoming threat. Waves of overlapping engagement types are needed to distract them or make them turn off completely, exactly because they could otherwise trivially engage or evade the attack.

 

So, OP: this is not a bug. You've just not done your research, as usual.

 

50 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

I'm not sure SAM systems take RCS into account, though with the state of sensors as is, I wouldn't be surprised. Though I do remember there being a "reflection limit" defined for weapons, but not sure

They do. And the actual bug with how they can't engage free-fall weapons is because those don't have a defined RCS, so SAMs can't detect them.

 

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, falcon_120 said:

But as long as it is a flying weapon with RCS and not a lot of speed, it can be shot down by enemy air defenses design to take out incoming missiles

Certainly makes sense. It doesn’t make the JSOW a very effective weapon to carry though. 

1 hour ago, Lace said:

AGM-145 is for DEAD, not SEAD.  IRL a DEAD package will not be a single aircraft firing a single weapon, there will be multiple coordinated flights, combined with EW aircraft & HARM shooters to supress, while other aircraft destroy with JSOWs or CBU

Sure. I guess the point is if somebody is going to design a campaign mission with these (Serpents Head 2…) maybe put it into a realistic scenario. 

[Northstar98]

1 hour ago, Tippis said:

They do. And the actual bug with how they can't engage free-fall weapons is because those don't have a defined RCS, so SAMs can't detect them.

 

Thanks for clarifying

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Certainly makes sense. It doesn’t make the JSOW a very effective weapon to carry though. 

The only reason the JSOW isn't very effective is due to the lacklustre damage model and poor performance of cluster weapons. It has nothing to do with it being able to be shot down, because that's a universal characteristic. Anti-radiation missiles can be shot down, and they're still very effective weapons to carry.

 

In actuality, as far as cluster weapons in DCS go, the JSOW is one of the most effective of the lot because of how its dispersal pattern looks, and how that somewhat ameliorates (at a huge waste) the shortcomings of the damage modelling.

 

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Sure. I guess the point is if somebody is going to design a campaign mission with these (Serpents Head 2…) maybe put it into a realistic scenario. 

How can that be the point of a bug thread?

Edited August 9, 2021 by Tippis

[Shadow KT]

Name of the game is overwhelming. 

Put enough in the air and you will get it. There is a reason why in real life there complex packages of aircraft doing SEAD and Strike at the same time. Overwhelm with SEAD, overwhelm even more with strike.

Don't expect to defeat a complex IADS by firing one weapon from one aircraft.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Shadow KT

[Killshot0597]

On 8/10/2021 at 12:46 AM, Tippis said:

They do. And the actual bug with how they can't engage free-fall weapons is because those don't have a defined RCS, so SAMs can't detect them.

I don't know about this, at the moment it just seems like AI aren't programmed to engage anything under the "bomb" category. I get a GBU-38 being hard to detect but an AGM-62 Walleye? That hefting chonker is somehow able to sneak past a ship's defenses unhindered while APKWS can be engaged by SA-15s. All because AGM-62 is under the bomb category while APKWS is under the AG Missile category.

[Shadow KT]

1 hour ago, KIllshot0597 said:

I don't know about this, at the moment it just seems like AI aren't programmed to engage anything under the "bomb" category. I get a GBU-38 being hard to detect but an AGM-62 Walleye? That hefting chonker is somehow able to sneak past a ship's defenses unhindered while APKWS can be engaged by SA-15s. All because AGM-62 is under the bomb category while APKWS is under the AG Missile category.

If you had read through the thread, you would have seen that your question was already answered.

Anything that is classified as a bomb in DCS (Including the Walleye) has no RCS value and thus cannot be tracked.

Everything which is classified like a missile in DCS (JSOW included) has RCS, meaning that if there is a good enough radar that can track it, it will be engaged.

It is not that bombs cannot be engaged, they can, they are quite chonky, they just currently have no RCS value to be tracked off. 

It has been mentioned on the russian section that they do plan to give bombs RCS, but when will it happen is ... a different story.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Shadow KT

[Frederf]

Which is silly. A JSOW is low-observable. A MK-84 is not. Being able to do MPPRE would also help JSOW survivability.

[Northstar98]

On 8/13/2021 at 9:06 PM, Frederf said:

Which is silly. A JSOW is low-observable. A MK-84 is not. Being able to do MPPRE would also help JSOW survivability.

 

Oh don't worry it get's worse.

 

For instance the SA-15 will try and intercept APKWS rockets because they're classed as a missile, but won't try and intercept rocket artillery because they're classified as a rocket, despite them being the size of cruise missiles (just minus the wings).

 

I'm not sure what the RCS of the JSOW is, but if you have a decent enough RADAR they should be able to be intercepted, but having JSOWs be able to be intercepted but not the Walleye, because the Walleye is classified as a bomb and the JSOW a missile, despite the 2 being the same type of weapon - a glide bomb (though obviously the JSOW is much better at gliding) and despite the Walleye almost certainly having a larger RCS than the JSOW is pretty ridiculous.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Northstar98

[Tippis]

10 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

I'm not sure what the RCS of the JSOW is, but if you have a decent enough RADAR they should be able to be intercepted, but having JSOWs be able to be intercepted but not the Walleye, because the Walleye is classified as a bomb and the JSOW a missile, despite the 2 being the same type of weapon - a glide bomb (though obviously the JSOW is much better at gliding) and despite the Walleye almost certainly having a larger RCS than the JSOW.  

JSOW sits at 0.05–0.06m², depending on which aircraft it's launched from (yes… don't ask). That puts it in the same league as the HARM, LD-10, Kh-23/25/66 and Mav.

[Northstar98]

12 minutes ago, Tippis said:

JSOW sits at 0.05–0.06m² That puts it in the same league as the HARM, LD-10, Kh-23/25/66 and Mav.

 

Doesn't seem particularly low observable then, if it's comparable to other weapons which weren't designed for low-observability.

 

12 minutes ago, Tippis said:

depending on which aircraft it's launched from (yes… don't ask).

 

Oh for...

 

I mean what? What? Why the heck would...? Y'know what? I guess you're right, best not to ask about it.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Northstar98

[Frederf]

I don't believe a JSOW is the same RCS as a Maverick.

[Tippis]

3 hours ago, Frederf said:

I don't believe a JSOW is the same RCS as a Maverick.

It is in the game.

Well… it is, depending on which aircraft is carrying it (and also depending on exactly which model of Maverick).

For some, it's larger than some Mavs; for others, it's smaller.

[Frederf]

Right but size isn't everything. One's an F-22 and the other is a Cessna 172. Yeah the F-22 is bigger but it's stealth. The Maverick couldn't have been made with too much concern about an air defense system shooting it down. The latest/upcoming SAMs of the time would be SA-8 or SA-11.

[Tippis]

7 hours ago, Frederf said:

Right but size isn't everything.

If then size in question is RCS, then it sort of is everything. Everything that matters, at least. And in DCS, that size determines (radar) SAM response and is distributed… oddly… let's say, among missiles that might be employed against those SAMs. Now, granted, Mavs in particular come in a whole bunch of variants, and those differ by a fair amount too, so it's not quite as clear-cut as that. Still the same general ballpark, though:

 

AGM-65			AGM-154	0.0618
-A	0.08		-A	0.05
-B	0.08		-B	0.05
-D	0.063		AGM-45	0.05
-E	0.063		-A	0.05
-F	0.08		AGM-88	0.05
-G	0.063		Kh-25 (all)	0.06
-H	0.063		GB-6 (all)	0.10
-K	0.063		C-701	0.05
-L	0.08		LD-10	0.07

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by Tippis

[Frederf]

It's not like Raytheon is just going to publish the RCS of their classified stealth glide weapon. It would be good of DCS to guess though.