SEAD by IA effectiveness problems

[chromium]

Hi everyone,

 

I need a support about SEAD mission when employing IA airplanes. Yesterday evening I took at least 2 hours to try some different solution to get a 4-ship F-16s with AGM-88 on board have success against a SA-11 battery (DannyV standard layout, if you want to know how it was)… no success.

 

 

NB: the group is flag-allowed to break an hold in safe position and direct on the SAM to engage.

 

 

I tried with (last waypoint tasking):

 

 

-SEAD task

-Search then engage in zone task

-Attack group task (visible) (with ARM or free weapons specified)

-Low altitude approach (100 or 200 mt AGL)

-Medium altitude approach (1000 mt AGL)

-High altitude approach (about 6000 mt AGL)

-Short distance from WP to target (10 km)

-Medium distance from WP to target (35 km)

-High distance from WP to target (50 km)

 

 

And all I got is those 2 possibilities:

 

 

- First: no find. The SEAD flight do not find the target, also if visible, and make a 180° to RTB. This happen mostly with high distance approach and/or with Search than engage

 

 

- Second: fail. Everytime as the SA-11 make the firs lock, the F-16 breaks and abort mission after 1 try. I can force them to re-try using the switch waypoint function, but they fail also the other times they try.

 

 

So the questions:

 

 

How can I have an efficient SEAD IA flight?

What is the best anti-SA11/SA-6/SA-10 SEAD approach?

Is the F-16 a correct choice for USA country (I can’t choose the tornado cause of coalition needings)?

 

Thanks in advance for the answer and suggestions.

[Grimes]

Ok, just tested it out.

 

First attempt. All skill settings are default. 4 SA-11 launchers, 1 SA-11 CP, and 1 SA-11 SR placed on flat terrain north of Krymsk.

 

4x F-16s armed with 1 Mav-D and 1 AGM-88 on attempt 1

4x F-16s armed with 2 AGM-88 on attempt 2

 

 

Both times F-16s engaged approx 24nm away from target. Two harms were fired quite quickly with a 3rd shortly afterward. All missiles hit. Wingmen 2-4 orbited outside of SA-11 missile range while the lead pressed in for the kill. SA-11 shot 2 missiles at lone F-16 at range, F-16 drops remaining A2G weapons and fuel tanks. Both SA-11 missiles missed. SA-11 fired two more missiles when F-16 was closer, missiles just barely missed the F-16. F-16 guns remaining SA-11 launcher as it had no missiles. F-16 leaves the SR and CP.

 

 

4x F-16 vs S-300. Placed a S-300 template in the same general location as SA-11.

Not a single AGM-88 was fired against the S-300. F-16s simply stayed near max range of SA-10 causing it to fire its missiles. Eventually all S-300 missiles were launched and Pilot 2 killed the Tracking Radars with guns. I say 'pilot 2' because the flight lead got to close to the S-300 and was killed.

 

 

See next post for info on behavior of AI flights against SAMS...

[MadTommy]

...lead pressed in for the kill. SA-11 shot 2 missiles at lone F-16 at range, F-16 drops remaining A2G weapons and fuel tanks. Both SA-11 missiles missed. SA-11 fired two more missiles when F-16 was closer, missiles just barely missed the F-16. F-16 guns remaining SA-11 launcher as it had no missiles. F-16 leaves the SR and CP.

 

Give that pilot a medal! :P

[chromium]

Can you please upload the miz, Grimes?

 

:)

 

In my tests SA-11 fires always to the F-16 before they shoot HARM, resulting same behaviour as S-300

[Grimes]

ಠ_ಠ

 

Funny story. It turns out that "CAS" is a better option at doing "SEAD" when compared to "SEAD" :music_whistling:

 

A SEAD mission prioritizes the missile launchers.

A CAS mission prioritizes the highest value target in a group first.

 

So when you have a Buk site that has radars on the launchers or standalone units like SA-15 TOR. SA-8 OSA, or SA-19 Tunguska a SEAD mission should do fairly well at taking out the target as long as the the SAM isn't already locking something else.

 

Practical example.

I outfitted 2 groups of a pair of F-16s with identical payloads. 2x AGM-88 and 6x AGM65D.

 

Group A has a SEAD task. Group B has a CAS task.

 

Group A actions Test 1.

At a range of approx 23 nm 3 HARMs are fired at different launchers. 2 from flightlead, 1 from wingman.

At a range of approx 20nm the wingman starts to orbit outside of the engagement zone of a Buk, while the flight lead presses in. (Interesting note 1: wingman maintains equal altitude with flight lead, even while flight lead attempts to evade SAMs and eventually go guns on target)

At a range between 15-13nm remaining Buk launcher fires 2 missiles at flight lead.

Shortly afterward lead jettisons his remaining A2G weapons, but keeps 2 Aim-120s and Aim9s.

Buk fires again at equidistant range once previous missiles go dead.

F-16 evades and goes in for guns on remaining Buk launcher. F-16 ignore Buk CP and SR.

F-16 wingman stops orbiting once the flight lead kills last buk launcher.

 

Test 2 and 3 with GroupA. Gave Flightlead 4x AGM-88.

Test 2. Flightlead fired 3 missiles, wingman 1.

Test 3 Flightlead and wingman each fired 2 missiles.

 

In both instances once the missiles were fired, both aircraft continued to press on targets.

In test 2 a single buk launcher wasn't destroyed. Wingman immediately retreated to previous orbit spot of test 1 until launcher was destroyed after it ran out of missiles

 

 

Test with group B.

Flight lead fires AGM-88 at approx 30nm at the Buk SR.

Flightlead and wingmen continue on course as normal.

Buk SR is destroyed, F-16s continue until at approx 8nm where they spam Mavericks at remaining targets. Upon firing their Mavs, the F-16s dive right and keep their distance until missiles hit targets, at which point they resume their previous flight path.

 

 

Test Against Kub

Basically the same thing happened with both groups with identical weapons. However I did try something else out. I sent both groups at the target at the same time.

 

Since the KUB locked group A first, group B could not fire a HARM at the radar of the Kub. So while Group A kept the Kub busy, Group B got within Mav range and destroyed the Kub.

 

I attempted a similar test within a single group. I gave group A flight lead 4 Harms, and his wingman 2 Mav-D and 2x AGM-154C. Same behavior as before occured, where the wingman orbited outside engagement zone of the sam until flight lead was dead, RTB, or killed the target. In this test the Kub knicked the flight lead and the wingman swooped in and missile'd all the launchers... leaving the radar alive.

 

3 Active sams at same time

I sent group A and B at the target area of a S-300, SA-11 and SA-6 all active at the same time. Group B fired its missiles at 30nm hitting the S-300 SR and TR, along with the radars of the Kub and Buk, disabling all 3 sam complexes.

 

So to recap, SEAD mission sucks against sam complexes. Use CAS as the flight task and give them SEAD weapons and to ignore everything but sams.

 

Attached mission is pretty straight forward. I have a S-300, SA6 and SA-11 in the same area, I just use a trigger to disable whichever sams I don't want to test.

1110 SEAD.miz

Edited December 6, 2011 by Grimes

[chromium]

Interesting tests! I will check this evening.

[Druid_]

...A SEAD mission prioritizes the missile launchers. ...

marvellous!

 

Nice bit of testing there Grimes and solution very welcome. Thanks.

 

Might be a good idea for the ED testers to download some of these AI test missions and use em when testing future patches. If they don't already that is.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Druid_

[Ranger79]

Nice, worked like a charm, thanks Grimes.

[Charlie_01]

I believe this is some kind of bug since patch 1.1.1.0.

I've downloaded users-made missions of "Thunder" series but after patch 1.0 I had to modding all them because SEAD flights have no more effectiveness.

I had to change WP task into "engage group" (the "search & engage" new introduced task was not enough) and rise flight's units to 4-ships to avoid all SEAD planes were shot down long before they could engage any SAMs or AAA.

Not every time all SAMs are hitted after mod, but also I've randomized SEAD units' ability to make the mission outcome a little bit unpredictable.

 

Instead in "Thunder" series' missions I flew before patch 1.0, the SEAD seemed working correctly by itself.

[Nate--IRL--]

I believe this is some kind of bug since patch 1.1.1.0.

.

 

It is - it stems from the Search Radar Spike being broken.

 

Nate

[Hekktor]

Any chance of a quick fix for that or redo mission design SEAD -> CAS?

[Grimes]

Hopefully a patch will fix the issue. But in the mean time, you can make the flight a CAS flight and limit the targets they engage to just SAM sites.

[Hekktor]

I do LOVE eagle!

Now THAT was fast:

1.1.1.1 patch released and:

...

- SEAD flights use anti-radiation missiles correctly again.

...