Forcing a SAM to "miss"

[Squiggs]

As part of a single player mission I am making the player is providing top cover while the AI wingman performs a low flyover of an enemy position (a show of force I think it's called). I have an enemy MANPADS nearby which I want to shoot at the AI wingman but I want it to miss - the idea being that the player must now reconsider doing a gun run for the close air support and consider more high altitude options.

 

What I am struggling with is figuring out a way to guarantee that the missile will miss. Is there a way to do this? I know you can turn off the unit AI via trigger, but can you do it for a missile? So far I have managed to make it "work" by having the same come in from a 90 degree angle and with an Ace level pilot he spoofs it everytime with flares, but I have a sneaking suspicion that 1 time out of 100 it might not work leading to a shoot down.

[diego999]

"Guardian angel" module from @cfrag's DML may accomplish what you're trying to do.

 

 

[Jenson]

maybe set a radar-tracking SAM, once the missile is in the zone, deactivate the SAM unit so it missile will lose radar-tracking support immediately. 

[sirrah]

On 5/28/2024 at 11:56 AM, Jenson said:

maybe set a radar-tracking SAM, once the missile is in the zone, deactivate the SAM unit so it missile will lose radar-tracking support immediately. 

This was also what I had in mind (would also work for SAM with optical tracking systems)

 

Perhaps the easiest solution though, would be to (briefly) make your wingman immortal and just let the missile hit him (you won't be able to see that while flying anyways) 

 

Edited May 29, 2024 by sirrah

[Squiggs]

Manpads are IR seekers aren't they?

 

I know "invisible" just makes a unit be ignored by the AI, but is it possible to create an optically invisible object that the AI can still "see". I used to use this trick back in the day in the ARMA 2 mission editor to have enemy units shoot at air units without directly targeting them and causing damage.

[razo+r]

15 minutes ago, Squiggs said:

Manpads are IR seekers aren't they?

 

I know "invisible" just makes a unit be ignored by the AI, but is it possible to create an optically invisible object that the AI can still "see". I used to use this trick back in the day in the ARMA 2 mission editor to have enemy units shoot at air units without directly targeting them and causing damage.

You can order AA units to fire at point in the air but this will not work for missiles. 

[cfrag]

On 5/10/2024 at 2:36 AM, Squiggs said:

What I am struggling with is figuring out a way to guarantee that the missile will miss.

As @diego999 kindly pointed out, the "Guardian Angel" module in DML makes this trivial. Below please see the demo. Note that "Guardian Angel" doesn't make missiles miss, it poofs them out of existence a few milliseconds before they can hit or proxi-fuse.

From the demo discussion that accompanies the miz:

Start the Mission in “GUARDED PLAYER” Frogfoot and as soon as you enter the cockpit, change to F10 Map view and zoom out. 
You’ll see a Falcon “Soon b ded” heading out to the east that, after a few seconds, is joined by another Falcon 
“Protected Falcon” heading the same way. Cycle through the F2 views until you are following “Soon b ded”. 
It won’t take long, and the first Falcon dies, so switch to “Protected Falcon” and follow that aircraft. This one 
should survive the barrage of three (!) S-300 SAM sites attacking it simultaneously (the S-300 is a SAM site that 
can re-target missiles in the air and beat the crap out of Guardian Angel 2.x). There is some residual risk that 
the protected falcon is killed by a missile that goes for a decoy that happens to be too close to it, but it usually 
survives.

Now, choose CommunicationF10 OtherGuardian AngelDISABLE Guardian Angel. It won’t take long, and the Falcon 
is dead. Yes, S-300 are that lethal. 

Turn Guardian angel back on using Communications->F10 Other->Guardian Angel and take off in your Frogfoot (you 
did choose the “GUARDED” slot, didn’t you? Time to find out. Fly due east, at 2500m (some 7500 ft) and you’ll 
see myriads of missiles being intercepted by GA. 

Now, using Communications, turn GA off. You’ll don’t have the ghost of a chance.

Turn GA on again and depart Senaki-Kolkhi in the “UNPROTECTED PLAYER” Frogfoot. You’ll find that even 
with GA turned on, you won’t get far. This aircraft, even though it’s a player aircraft and GA is on, is 
unprotected, and the S-300 are far too deadly.

The modules supports selectively enabling and disabling protection for aircraft at will.

Here are more details than you ever wanted to know  

demo - Guardian Angel Reloaded.miz

Edited June 1, 2024 by cfrag

[Squiggs]

The compromise I've gone for is to make the AI wingman invincible. Every time I tested this the SAM misses anyway due to the angle I set it up on and having an "ace" level pilot. But on the off chance it does hit I don't want the mission to break so I've made him invincible. Due to the short range the missile burner is still firing when it passes the aircraft so having it suddenly disappear would be a bit weird.

 

17 hours ago, razo+r said:

You can order AA units to fire at point in the air but this will not work for missiles. 

This is interesting for those barage AAA situations like you saw in Iraq. How do you make them shoot in the air?

[razo+r]

1 hour ago, Squiggs said:

This is interesting for those barage AAA situations like you saw in Iraq. How do you make them shoot in the air?

Place down an AAA, and in the advanced waypoint option, give it the task "fire at point". Put it somewhere in range of the unit and give it the altitude you want. 

[Squiggs]

3 hours ago, razo+r said:

Place down an AAA, and in the advanced waypoint option, give it the task "fire at point". Put it somewhere in range of the unit and give it the altitude you want. 

Don't know how I missed the altitude property

[Exorcet]

On 6/2/2024 at 12:25 AM, Squiggs said:

This is interesting for those barage AAA situations like you saw in Iraq. How do you make them shoot in the air?

To this I'll add to watch out for ammo. If set to fire continuously they will and run out of bullets. A lesser concern is that if you stare too long, you'll notice they shoot the same spot over and over, so I've tried to give multiple tasks and have the AI randomly switch between points. Lastly, it clogs the mission debrief, which isn't the worst thing, but be ready for that if you want to look at the post mission time line.

On the original topic, have you tried making the AI shoot at a dummy aircraft? You can spawn one over the SAM and then despawn the plane after the missile fires. This could let you create the illusion of an unguided missile. Some missiles self detonate on losing a target but I don't think MANPADS do.

[Squiggs]

18 hours ago, Exorcet said:

To this I'll add to watch out for ammo. If set to fire continuously they will and run out of bullets. A lesser concern is that if you stare too long, you'll notice they shoot the same spot over and over, so I've tried to give multiple tasks and have the AI randomly switch between points. Lastly, it clogs the mission debrief, which isn't the worst thing, but be ready for that if you want to look at the post mission time line.

On the original topic, have you tried making the AI shoot at a dummy aircraft? You can spawn one over the SAM and then despawn the plane after the missile fires. This could let you create the illusion of an unguided missile. Some missiles self detonate on losing a target but I don't think MANPADS do.

I know you can't directly edit ammo counts in the editor, but are you saying there is a way to make them fire more slowly/conserve ammo?

 

Good idea, but the timing for that would be near impossible because the idea is the player is looking at their wingman doing the show of force and sees them get shot at by the SAM. The timing/unit lineup would have to be way too perfect.

[Exorcet]

6 hours ago, Squiggs said:

I know you can't directly edit ammo counts in the editor, but are you saying there is a way to make them fire more slowly/conserve ammo?

The fire at point option has a round expended tickbox. You can check this and enter a number to limit the rounds fired and then setup a repeating trigger to repeat that number of rounds expended every so often, that would make the ammo last longer than full automatic fire.