investigating With the new ability for SAM to evade ARM the SA-15 is now an easy target for HARMS

[Revor]

Hi,

with the new ability for SAM to evade ARM the SA-15 is now an easy target for HARMs. The SA-15 on excellent will detect the harm and shut down the radar but it will move to late and because of the short distance of the harm shot it will destroy the SA-15 every time even if it shuts down its radar. So it is actually much more useless now because it will not defend and just sit there with the radar offline until the HARM still hits it because of the short distance of the HARM shot. I hope this can get fixed.

kind regards

Revor

Edited July 11, 2024 by Revor

[YoloWingPixie]

I have noticed the exact same issue on my end. 

It also seems to be the HARM may be tracking the SA-15 even after the SA-15's radar stops rotating 

[Killshot0597]

31 minutes ago, Revor said:

Hi,

with the new ability for SAM to evade ARM the SA-15 is now an easy target for HARMs. The SA-15 on excellent will detect the harm and shut down the radar but it will move to late and because of the short distance of the harm shot it will destroy the SA-15 every time even if it shuts down its radar. So it is actually much more useless now because it will not defend and just sit there with the radar offline until the HARM still hits it because of the short distance of the HARM shot. I hope this can get fixed.

kind regards

Revor

 

The option is on by default but you can turn it off to make it engage the ARMs instead of attempting to flee/hide. It'd be nice if SHORAD had them off by default though

[GRY Money]

How did you even manage to make it turn off its radar? For me all sams are eating harms like before with arm evasion set to on... 

[Mad_Shell]

2 hours ago, GRY Money said:

How did you even manage to make it turn off its radar? For me all sams are eating harms like before with arm evasion set to on... 

same, pretty sure the thing is bugged right now. SAM radar continues to turn, HARM continues to track it down, and the SAM just eats the HARM without attempting to intercept it. Also, if you place 2 SAMs from different groups very close to eachothers, only the targeted SAM will "turn off" (without actually turning off, since it's bugged). The other SAM will magically know that he's not targetted and try to intercept the HARM.

Edited July 12, 2024 by Mad_Shell

[Flappie]

Hey @Mad_Shell. Can you please provide a track?

Edited July 12, 2024 by Flappie

[Mad_Shell]

1 minute ago, Flappie said:

Hey @Mad_Shell. Can you please provide a track?

 

will do in about 2 hours 

[Mad_Shell]

@Flappie Well after more testing than I thought I would do... I think the whole thing should be reviewed for more Q&A testing (please take more inspiration of the skynet script )

I can't get the Sa-10 nor the Patriot to stop their radar (didn't test other long/medium range SAMs). I tried different skills, ARM evasion on/off/defaut, RED/GREEN/DEFAUT STATE, more/less ARMs than SAM missiles... nothing. The Sa-10 and Patriot either intercept as many ARMs as possible then die if they fail or run out of missiles, radars remaining on, or just sit there, radars on, and eat the ARMs in the face  radars without trying to intercept them because of the infamous engagement logic bug making the radar have an existential crisis when there is a large number of targets very close to eachothers and coming towards the radar. It's like the radar can't choose a target, and ends up doing nothing (You can see the Sa-10 track radar turn towards the targets, and move a few degrees left/right every few seconds, as if it couldn't decide which target to choose).

For Tors it seems better. With default setting (not specifying the ARM evasion option in the mission editor), they don't react to ARMs. If I set the ARM evasion = on, they react accordingly. Which is fine in my book. By default, these should try to intercept ARMs as they are often tasked with protecting other radars (in DCS anyways, since we don't have the Pantsir that was announced in the january 2021 newsletter. Yes I'm salty). I haven't had the time to really test if the reaction depended on the number of ARMs for the TOR, maybe another day...

And yes SAMs know magically if they're the ones who are targeted too. Put a Tunguska and a Tor a few meters apart, set the Tor to ARM evasion = on, send ARMs on the tunguska, watch the Tor intercept the ARMs. 

Anyways as I said, I think there are quite a few different problems plaguing this feature and making it very non functionnal as of now.

ARM_evasion_engaged_anyways.trk ARM_evasion_intercept_low_number_ARM.trk ARM_evasion_intercept_low_number_ARM_then_dies.trk ARM_evasion_radars_remain_on.trk ARM_evasion_radars_remain_on_2.trk ARM_evasion_TOR_dont_works_if_defaut.trk ARM_evasion_TOR_works.trk

Edited July 12, 2024 by Mad_Shell

[Diverzant]

I tested with the SA-11 since its the meaenest mofo of the bunch because of all the tracking vehicles/launchers etc. Basically if you are out of the range of the track radar and launch a HARM, SR wont turn off and will eat AGM-88 every time. If you enter the zone of engagement and TR starts to ping you and you launch, SR goes off and NEVER comes back on. Also TRs have eaten A LOT of carrots and can detect you as soon as you enter the red circle and turn themselves on, as soon as you are out of the circle they go off.

[Neqva]

I've noticed the same issue as well. SA-10, SA-15 and Patriot all eat HARMS missiles like theres no tomorrow. They never try to intercept the missiles anymore and even though the SA-15 can move, it never moves out of the way quick enough to survive, nor does it fire back at the HARMS. 

 

This needs to an option so that you can choose if you want them to shut down and run or try to intercept the missiles, and you should be able to choose it from the F10 menu like you do the RED/GREEN/AUTO or FIRE/HOLD menus. As it is now, the SA-10, SA-15 and Patriot is just useless against HARMS and I suspect its the same issue with the C-RAM as well.

[Mad_Shell]

Issue still not fixed according to my tests this morning. The SAMs attempt to intercept incoming ARMs, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but they never turn off their radar, even when the number of incoming ARMs is overwhelming.

When I see how this 'new reaction to ARMs' hasn't worked correctly since day 1, I wonder if ED really tested this feature...

And even if it was working correctly, the Skynet script is so much more refined (ability to assign point defense SAMs, ratio of SAMs/incoming ARMs taken into account for the SAM behaviour, real calculation of ARMs trajectories instead of the SAMs just magically knowing they are the ones targetted...), I wonder why ED hasn't taken any inspiration of it.

[NineLine]

On 11/2/2024 at 3:15 AM, Mad_Shell said:

Issue still not fixed according to my tests this morning. The SAMs attempt to intercept incoming ARMs, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but they never turn off their radar, even when the number of incoming ARMs is overwhelming.

When I see how this 'new reaction to ARMs' hasn't worked correctly since day 1, I wonder if ED really tested this feature...

And even if it was working correctly, the Skynet script is so much more refined (ability to assign point defense SAMs, ratio of SAMs/incoming ARMs taken into account for the SAM behaviour, real calculation of ARMs trajectories instead of the SAMs just magically knowing they are the ones targetted...), I wonder why ED hasn't taken any inspiration of it.

Please include your test tracks. Thanks.

[Mad_Shell]

19 hours ago, NineLine said:

Please include your test tracks. Thanks.

I did a few messages above. You're free to see if the last update fixed the issue, but I seriously doubt it given what I observed. The only thing that was solved is that now SAMs will successfully launch against closely grouped targets.

Edited November 5, 2024 by Mad_Shell

[NineLine]

21 hours ago, Mad_Shell said:

I did a few messages above. You're free to see if the last update fixed the issue, but I seriously doubt it given what I observed. The only thing that was solved is that now SAMs will successfully launch against closely grouped targets.

 

Thank you, I watched the first track and I am assuming after reading this that you are wondering the same as I am, what evasion tactics are the SAM systems doing if any. I did try turning on the 'Evasion of ARMs' and not seeing much difference if any, so I am looking into it now. Thanks. If I am missing anything else let me know.

[Mad_Shell]

On 11/6/2024 at 5:48 PM, NineLine said:

Thank you, I watched the first track and I am assuming after reading this that you are wondering the same as I am, what evasion tactics are the SAM systems doing if any. I did try turning on the 'Evasion of ARMs' and not seeing much difference if any, so I am looking into it now. Thanks. If I am missing anything else let me know.

Thanks 9L. To me here are the main bugs/lack of features:

- bug: as you observed radars never turn their radar off when ARMs are incoming. They should turn radar off IF there are too many ARMs incoming compared to what they can intercept, and IF the ARMs are coming towards them (skynet script calculates ARMs trajectory and turns off the targetted SAMs if they can't intercept them).

- bug: SAMs magically know they are the ones targetted by the ARMs. If SAM 1 is targetted by an ARM, SAM 2 right next to it magically knows it has nothing to fear (once again, more realistically calculating ARM trajectory would solve that)

- lack of feature: inability to assign a point defense SAM to another SAM. If a Tor is put next to a SA-10, be able to link it as a 'point defense' and it will be taken into account by the main SAM to calculate its ability to defend against ARMs. Those point defense SAMs should not turn their radar off unless they are out of missiles.

Edited November 7, 2024 by Mad_Shell