Naval units do not obey release quantity, group attack or attack quantity settings when firing AShMs

[Northstar98]

Hi everyone,

A fairly long standing bug - AI naval units do not respect attack quantity, group attack or release quantity as set in the mission editor, when firing anti-ship missiles.

In the first attached track, I have 3 Tarantul IIIs in line abreast, with a single Ticonderoga 60 nmi to the south-south-west. I have an attack group task for the Tarantul IIIs, set to attack the CG 47, the settings I've used are as follows:

• Weapon Type: Antiship missile (though the same is true if set to guided or missiles)
• Release Quantity: All
• Max Attack Quantity: 1 (i.e. fire one salvo)
• Group Attack: True

The objective being to get all 3 Tarantul IIIs to each fire their 4 SS-N-22s at the single Ticonderoga, firing as one large salvo.

However, in the track, the AI will only fire salvos of 4 missiles (which use a single shooter, or multiple shooters) and instead of firing one salvo, the AI follows up with subsequent salvos of 4 missiles, once the preceding 4 have been destroyed). This presents a tactical problem that's fairly easy for a CG 47 to solve, certainly easier than 12 missiles, split across 3 axis. 

 

In the second track, I have 2 Tiger-class FACs and I want it to fire 2 missiles (which should be MM38 Exocet Block 1, not RGM-84D Harpoon Block 1C) at the single Krivak II to the north. I only want one shooter per salvo and one salvo. Following the above, the settings I've used is as follows:

• Weapon Type: Antiship missile (though the same is true if set to guided or missiles)
• Release Quantity: Two
• Max Attack Quantity: 1 (i.e. fire one salvo)
• Group Attack: False

However, again, a salvo of 4 missiles is fired, with both ships shooting, instead of 2 missiles being fired by one ship. This was then followed up by a second salvo (though this time with one missile, as the Krivak had sank).

While 3 missiles are required to sink the Krivak II with the current damage model, I only wanted 2 missiles to be fired (and this problem arises regardless of the target - 5 missiles being fired against say a Grisha-V or a Tarantul III would be excessive, given the limited self-defence capabilities these ships possess).

Another thing that can be seen at the end this track, is the 5th missile appearing to track a ship that was fully submerged, indicating that missile seekers aren't properly implemented. This was reported to the forums 2 years ago by another user and presumably affects all anti-ship missiles not using the new API (and at time of writing, only the AGM-84D Harpoon Block 1C, exclusively fired by the F/A-18C Lot 20 (it should also feature on the AI B-52H, F/A-18C, and S-3B at least) has a higher fidelity seeker model).

In both cases, it can be seen that:

• The AI does not respect release quantity - the AI will only fire 4 missiles per salvo (excluding cases where less than 4 missiles remain or the target is destroyed before the AI can complete its salvo). This is unlike AI aircraft where the AI will fire as many weapons as set, regardless of whether they're singletons or groups.
• The AI does not respect attack quantity settings - the AI will continue firing salvos of missiles until the target is destroyed or the task is cancelled.
• The AI does not respect group attack settings - the AI will either have multiple shooters per salvo or a single shooter per salvo.

All 3 of these are respected by aircraft, where they behave as expected for what is set.

Spoiler

If anybody is wondering why I've called the La Combattante IIa the Tiger-class (Type 148), that's because the Type 148 Tiger is what the unit actually is in-game, not a La Combattante IIa (which are ex Tiger-classes sold to the Hellenic Navy, upgraded with a different ESM system which isn't present on our ships).

 

AI_attack_qty_group_rel_qty1.trk AI_attack_qty_group_rel_qty2.trk

Edited July 18 by Northstar98
grammar

[MantaMax]

New to DCS, skratched my head pretty hard yesterday trying to get the AI to fire more then 4 AShMs in a salvo. 

I guess this explains why that didnt worked out like it should. 

[Northstar98]

On 7/18/2024 at 8:17 PM, MantaMax said:

New to DCS, skratched my head pretty hard yesterday trying to get the AI to fire more then 4 AShMs in a salvo. 

I guess this explains why that didnt worked out like it should. 

The only way I know is to use multiple ships, each being their own group as opposed to having 1 group consisting of multiple ships, if that makes sense.

The 4 missiles per salvo is on a group basis, so if you have multiple groups, you can increase the number of missiles in a "single" salvo.

I've attached an example below (if you rename the file extension to .miz you'll get the mission file).

Taruntul_III_vs_OHP_separated.trk

Edited July 21 by Northstar98
Removed redundant parentheses

[MantaMax]

Thank you very much @Northstar98, that solves my problem :).