Realistic SAM Sites

[upyr1]

38 minutes ago, GrafRotz said:

What i am really missing is the DEAD component. Jamming is also a thing which is not simulated in a way, a jamming flight would make sense.

I'm asking Heatblur about an F-4G 

[Mr_sukebe]

2 hours ago, GrafRotz said:

IADS with Skynet is pretty active, at least on their Discord.

Love these features but to be honest, is struggle sometimes or do not understand, why things happen the way they happen and should not.

Aside that, Skynet - if properly set up - turns off their systems and relys on EWR radars.
If you are in engagement range they turn on and angage you.
The impact is so far, that you don't know where they are - if hidden by the mission creator - unless it is too late.
Also you cannot engage by harm unless they turn on, thus allows wild weasle tactics. Aside the existing Harm tactics like shoot on known position and trigger them to turn on.

So yes, there is a lot of possibilities and many more if you are eager to dive into lua scripting.

What i am really missing is the DEAD component. Jamming is also a thing which is not simulated in a way, a jamming flight would make sense.
I know, there are some nice scripts, but the do not satisfy the way we all need. e.g. ELINT pods. Really done by the viggen only, but the evaluation is not implemented. The old ELINT map is not working anymore. I dug into some git pages where people seems to do nice things but never found a online place, or mod which supports our needs.

I totally understand, that a company needs to make money by selling stuff, but there is still a huge amount of possibilities which are not addressed yet which needs to go to the core features. 

 

Edit:

A revisit on Hound seems to be a good idea!
Still, those things really should be core features.

 

Quick question on Skynet.  Is the logic applied "perfect" or "good".  

What I mean by that is that in real life, you'd have anywhere between newly trained operators who might be tired, and absolute experts manning SAM sites.  Is their a degree of variance in the settings for Skynet that can apply different skill levels or accidents/coincidences into the mix?

[GrafRotz]

4 hours ago, Mr_sukebe said:

Is the logic applied "perfect" or "good".  

to be hones, i dont know, BUT:

- in the ME you can change their skills. What ED does in the background, i dont know. Best guess: longer and later aquisition and therefore later engagement. They may roll the dice if they got a lock or not.
- within skynet you can change the range when they engage, which is not exactly what you want, but you can...

 

from the documentation:

Quote

The skill level you set on a SAM group is retained by Skynet.

Just read this:

https://github.com/walder/Skynet-IADS?tab=readme-ov-file#warm-up-the-sam-sites-of-an-iads

dont get scared by the code, it comes together snippet by snippet.

[Kang]

16 hours ago, draconus said:

There are a few things that already work in DCS:

• targets are found by radar, IR or optically when close enough, not by "magic"
• SAM radars do emit constantly unless you turn them off in ME, so you have control some over it with triggers, scipts, etc.
• afaik you can have more radars in the group and that makes them sort of simple local IADS

If you found a bug or feel it doesn't work this way make a report, because "magic" is disproven in reports every day.

I strongly disagree with that last sentence, because it is literally contrary to the vast majority of my personal user experience, but I'll gladly admit I do not feel like conducting an extensive trial on it.

I was decidedly not referencing situations in which it is reasonable to expect air defences to acquire otherwise, but a singular, isolated air defence system lying dormant and just so happening to start a search as soon as a player is inside its range is, frankly, game magic to me. Or bull<profanity>, if you prefer. If said range remained constant and was coherent with a visual acquisition range it would be a different story, but at least in my experience it is not.

Perhaps I manage to report back here once I do produce some actual data on it, until then, I won't distract the skynet discussion any further.

[draconus]

6 hours ago, Kang said:

frankly, game magic to me

OK, there is some magic going on in DCS but at least we know it is done on purpose, meaning working as intended, namely AI always defending against Fox 3 TWS shots or repair times as a few examples that come to mind. I just never heard of those regarding SAMs unless those are some bugs or wrong implementations. Do report when you have a chance.

[Jself]

the problem we've ran into with various scripting solutions (skynet, hound, etc) is they do an amazing job and a server can handle it up until you start pushing 20 connected clients, then it becomes a slide show for everyone and tanking is near impossible.  we had to stop using scrip[ting all together in our missions.   Some core logic upgrades/intelligence would be nice.  The problem is its a fine line without true EW units,  F-18/F-16s without supporting EW are no match for semi-modern intelligent IADS

 

Edited May 28 by Jself

[smoking_ace420]

An easy stop gap solution would be for ED to place the IADS and GCI scripts into the triggers for us by default so we can make missions with them without having to spend time learning how to code. Even better would be pre-made missions and campaigns just like in video games.  

[ShuRugal]

On 5/21/2025 at 6:50 PM, Kang said:

I think a major issue here is that DCS Sams already go both ways, without players or mission creators or anyone having reasonable control of them.

You got the system that are constantly emitting against any rhyme or reason and you also get the systems that only turn on when they have a shot, but not by any reasonable logic but the rather common method of 'magically knowing there is a target in range right now'. Both are infuriating for different reasons and both make any separate search radar and control units like the Sborka which has been in the sim forever, utterly pointless.

There's also an additional problem on top of this: player's don't WANT realistic SAM deployments.

 

A few years ago, i sat down and made a mission on the premise of an unnamed PMC (wagner, duh) snatching up a Russian AD brigade and doing a terrorism on the island of Cyprus with it.  After thoroughly researching publicly available data, i settled on:

• 1 S200 battery - this unit was using it's long-range capability to shut down civil aviation around the island
  • 2 tracking radar, 1 search radar, 10 TELARs, kamaz trucks with reloads
• 1 S300 battery - this unit was providing medium-range protection for the S200 battery
  • 1 trailer-mounted search radar, 1 mast-mounted search radar, 2 mast-mounted tracking radars, kamaz trucks with reloads
• 1 2S6 company - this unit was broken up and mixed in with the S200 and S300 batteries to provide SHORAD
  • 6 2S6 Tunguska + kamaz trucks
• 1 infantry air-defense company - this unit was broken up and mixed in with everything to provide SHORAD backup for the 2S6 units
  • 2 platoons of regular infantry
  • 2 platoons of IGLA manpads (40 total tubes)
• 1 light armor company - puling perimeter security against a ground attack
  • 20 BTRs set up in prepared positions providing overwatch of approaches to the SAM site

people HATED this mission. 

I spent a <profanity>LOAD of time carefully positioning the units to provide mutual support, but to also allow gaps which players could exploit.  I selected a siting which gave players an option to approach with terrain masking providing a safe low-altitude loiter area near the target site.  I created detailed briefing plates showing approximate unit positions, threat envelopes for each unit type, and safe routes of approach.  I made sure that it was possible for a single player to clear the mission with careful planning and execution (and a willingness to go back for reloads).  I added a trigger for deploying an AFAC drone after killing the S200 and S300 targeting radars, to make spotting ground units easier.

none of that mattered.  players universally fired off a couple HARMs, then proceeded to overfly the target at treetop level and get plastered by the SHORAD units.  Rotary players either tried to fly in at 1,000 feet (and got plastered by the S300) or tried to sneak into gun range (and got plastered by the 2S6).

Edited June 3 by ShuRugal

[draconus]

15 minutes ago, ShuRugal said:

A few years ago, i sat down and made a mission...

Can I download it somewhere so I can build my own hatred for it?

[Ironhand]

45 minutes ago, ShuRugal said:

There's also an additional problem on top of this: player's don't WANT realistic SAM deployments.

 

A few years ago, i sat down and made a mission on the premise of an unnamed PMC (wagner, duh) snatching up a Russian AD brigade and doing a terrorism on the island of Cyprus with it.  After thoroughly researching publicly available data, i settled on:

• 1 S200 battery - this unit was using it's long-range capability to shut down civil aviation around the island
  • 2 tracking radar, 1 search radar, 10 TELARs, kamaz trucks with reloads
• 1 S300 battery - this unit was providing medium-range protection for the S200 battery
  • 1 trailer-mounted search radar, 1 mast-mounted search radar, 2 mast-mounted tracking radars, kamaz trucks with reloads
• 1 2S6 company - this unit was broken up and mixed in with the S200 and S300 batteries to provide SHORAD
  • 6 2S6 Tunguska + kamaz trucks
• 1 infantry air-defense company - this unit was broken up and mixed in with everything to provide SHORAD backup for the 2S6 units
  • 2 platoons of regular infantry
  • 2 platoons of IGLA manpads (40 total tubes)
• 1 light armor company - puling perimeter security against a ground attack
  • 20 BTRs set up in prepared positions providing overwatch of approaches to the SAM site

people HATED this mission. 

I spent a <profanity>LOAD of time carefully positioning the units to provide mutual support, but to also allow gaps which players could exploit.  I selected a siting which gave players an option to approach with terrain masking providing a safe low-altitude loiter area near the target site.  I created detailed briefing plates showing approximate unit positions, threat envelopes for each unit type, and safe routes of approach.  I made sure that it was possible for a single player to clear the mission with careful planning and execution (and a willingness to go back for reloads).  I added a trigger for deploying an AFAC drone after killing the S200 and S300 targeting radars, to make spotting ground units easier.

none of that mattered.  players universally fired off a couple HARMs, then proceeded to overfly the target at treetop level and get plastered by the SHORAD units.  Rotary players either tried to fly in at 1,000 feet (and got plastered by the S300) or tried to sneak into gun range (and got plastered by the 2S6).

Sounds like fun. Too bad it was so underappreciated. Unfortunately, I get the impression that a lot (most?) folk who get online just want to jump into their aircraft of choice and go kill something. Don’t make me waste time reading briefings and thinking seriously about how to best do it.

[ShuRugal]

41 minutes ago, draconus said:

Can I download it somewhere so I can build my own hatred for it?

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/upload/userfiles/c9d/o5cvb59ynp0q1jbyf6buqhcdvqmg2rjz/167th_Liberation_of_Gecitkale_SEAD-DEAD-CAS.miz

 

here ya go.  if you want to fly it with someone, gimme a yell, i can spin my server up for it.

[dmatsch]

On 2/15/2024 at 7:05 AM, razo+r said:

Thats... what a plan means... A plan does not necessarily mean they are activly working on it. Their plan could be that they finish feature X before they start working on feature Y.

I have a plan to make 3.2 million dollars in the next three months.  I'll start actively working on it when I receive that last 3.2 million that I planned to make.

[pabletesoy]

I hope ED give this a good review before the dynamic layer comes out, or it will be very lackluster considering that half of the missions may be SEAD (at least at the beginning).

[upyr1]

On 6/3/2025 at 9:04 AM, ShuRugal said:

There's also an additional problem on top of this: player's don't WANT realistic SAM deployments.

 

A few years ago, i sat down and made a mission on the premise of an unnamed PMC (wagner, duh) snatching up a Russian AD brigade and doing a terrorism on the island of Cyprus with it.  After thoroughly researching publicly available data, i settled on:

• 1 S200 battery - this unit was using it's long-range capability to shut down civil aviation around the island
  • 2 tracking radar, 1 search radar, 10 TELARs, kamaz trucks with reloads
• 1 S300 battery - this unit was providing medium-range protection for the S200 battery
  • 1 trailer-mounted search radar, 1 mast-mounted search radar, 2 mast-mounted tracking radars, kamaz trucks with reloads
• 1 2S6 company - this unit was broken up and mixed in with the S200 and S300 batteries to provide SHORAD
  • 6 2S6 Tunguska + kamaz trucks
• 1 infantry air-defense company - this unit was broken up and mixed in with everything to provide SHORAD backup for the 2S6 units
  • 2 platoons of regular infantry
  • 2 platoons of IGLA manpads (40 total tubes)
• 1 light armor company - puling perimeter security against a ground attack
  • 20 BTRs set up in prepared positions providing overwatch of approaches to the SAM site

people HATED this mission. 

I spent a <profanity>LOAD of time carefully positioning the units to provide mutual support, but to also allow gaps which players could exploit.  I selected a siting which gave players an option to approach with terrain masking providing a safe low-altitude loiter area near the target site.  I created detailed briefing plates showing approximate unit positions, threat envelopes for each unit type, and safe routes of approach.  I made sure that it was possible for a single player to clear the mission with careful planning and execution (and a willingness to go back for reloads).  I added a trigger for deploying an AFAC drone after killing the S200 and S300 targeting radars, to make spotting ground units easier.

none of that mattered.  players universally fired off a couple HARMs, then proceeded to overfly the target at treetop level and get plastered by the SHORAD units.  Rotary players either tried to fly in at 1,000 feet (and got plastered by the S300) or tried to sneak into gun range (and got plastered by the 2S6).

I'd love to see the mission. I think this is a good question, which is how realistic do people want the air defenses they are going up against? I know some people are going to scream when I say it but DCS is a simulator game. We play DCS for fun and we want realism too otherwise we would be playing snail leaks. However, at the end of the day people want to fly a fun mission.  A realistic SAM network system will require two things: improved artificial intelligence and natural stupidity.  The AI would need to simulate a sam system and of course we as players would have to figure out how to go up against the enemy air defenses