Lethality of SAMs

[PanzerBob]

Well like real-time Wild Weasel Missions only pay off if the enemy cooperates and flashes up his systems. It does well to check what his AD choices are. Some rather fancy stuff is only IR guided and SEAD is a waste of funds there. Of course the EN may only buy AAA and IR stuff. Now mind you if you get his AD assets to engage a RPV let's say, then yes an artillery strike is in order, like mentioned. If you have a SEAD and no HOT targets, they still are excellent follow-ups to your arty mission. I still find though if you want to bring in an A10 strike against a foe that has any radar guided systems a SEAD mission increases your chances for success. My other thought is if you have access to MRLS is to plaster all known and likely LOCs timed to rain down before your airstrike, it works as well, but like real-time NOT always.

Last opinion, major BUFF strike mopped up with A10's not much action but the game usually ends at turn 3 or 4. LOL and not too realistic either.

Look Mummy there's an airplane in the sky

[Lampshade111]

On my own OOB I increased the damage of the FIM-92 Stinger to 8 or so it has a bit more of a punch. The Stinger has a heavier explosive charge than the Strela and Ilga series anyway.

Oddly on the Russian OOB the SA-16 does 8 HE damage while their other MANPADs including the SA-18 only do 2 or 3.

[DRG]

Lampshade111 said:
Oddly on the Russian OOB the SA-16 does 8 HE damage while their other MANPADs including the SA-18 only do 2 or 3.

Really?? that is odd ...maybe you best go back and have another look and tell me what weapon you're looking at because the "SA-16" in the master game has an HEK of 2 not 8

Don

[Urban]

An air defense system is like "Russian pupets" :

AA gun are use as close defense point for bigger sam unit (area sam). This weapons are really deadly for aircraft, even the mighty A10, SU25 could not really fly with big holes in the wings. On the other hand you need a really good LOS and enough time for aiming even with radar.

Shoulder sam's are not really powerful, of course a direct hit is devastating. They are used as 'mosquitos" for incoming aircraft, disturbing the pilot, force him to make evasive maneuvers (and miss the target) or worst climbing and become a prey for AA guns and area SAMs. It's a unpredictable danger for aircraft.

[Wdll]

I don't know, the stingers in Afghanistan used to bite a lot on soviet aircraft.

I always thought that manpads were good mainly against helicopters, but there have been several cases where they hit other targets too. (I am not talking about the game)

[Shan]

In the current West-German OOB, a Roland I SAM (Weapon # 135) has warhead size 8 but HE penetration & kill of *only* 4 each. This is a warhead twice as large as of a MANPADS but pen&kill on MANPADS level - comparable systems like Rapier (UK OOB) (WH size only 6!) have HE pen&kill ratings of 10, SA-9 has 5 (well it's a MANPADS-derived missile AFAIK), SA-13 Strela-10 (WH size only 5) already has 10, Tunguska (WH 9) has 9, SA-8 (WH 10) has 18 (!) (data from Russian OOB) --- well, apparently there are some inconsistencies, but please don't ask me for comparisons & data (Is Roland somewhat weaker armed that other missiles?), all I got is what anybody can find on the web and those sources say no ;-).

I modded them for my German OOB as usual, as well as including newer Roland-II and III versions but I would hope that this will be included in the next patch as for PBEMs, mostly standard OOBs are used...