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Post by larcrivereagle on Apr 15, 2024 17:04:53 GMT -6
Currently, per testing of multiple members on the discord, the current most efficient strategies for handling of carriers into the 60s and 70s is. 1: CAP carriers, this means cutting carrier forces down to the essentials needed for protecting the fleet with HJF on cap, the saved funds for additional missile destroyers, of which an entire division (6 ships) can be cheaper in maintenance than 20 night capable HJF (for comparison my 6 1949 carriers with 2 squadrons of LJF on them have a maintenance cost of 9 million, assuming these were jet capable the maintenance cost would be twice as high, even higher if night capable which they need to be otherwise you get striked at night) This is definitely what you meant, right? Louisiana Class CVSG.sdf (19.06 KB) Behold, Behold, a CV guided missile surface combatant Intended to carry a wing of 20 all weather capable heavy jet fighters (plus necessary support, AWACS, etc. I'm still trying to figure out the exact number of spot factor slots to fit 20 HJF + 6 Special) to provide CAP for a surface action battle group, resist HSSM missile hits, 8" autoloaded AP, any caliber of HE (its very weak in RTW3 rn), and also fight in the battle line of said action group without needing to be detached.
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Post by christian on Apr 16, 2024 12:49:28 GMT -6
Currently, per testing of multiple members on the discord, the current most efficient strategies for handling of carriers into the 60s and 70s is. 1: CAP carriers, this means cutting carrier forces down to the essentials needed for protecting the fleet with HJF on cap, the saved funds for additional missile destroyers, of which an entire division (6 ships) can be cheaper in maintenance than 20 night capable HJF (for comparison my 6 1949 carriers with 2 squadrons of LJF on them have a maintenance cost of 9 million, assuming these were jet capable the maintenance cost would be twice as high, even higher if night capable which they need to be otherwise you get striked at night) This is definitely what you meant, right? View AttachmentView AttachmentBehold, Behold, a CV guided missile surface combatant Intended to carry a wing of 20 all weather capable heavy jet fighters (plus necessary support, AWACS, etc. I'm still trying to figure out the exact number of spot factor slots to fit 20 HJF + 6 Special) to provide CAP for a surface action battle group, resist HSSM missile hits, 8" autoloaded AP, any caliber of HE (its very weak in RTW3 rn), and also fight in the battle line of said action group without needing to be detached. to be fair im not a fan of using CVs for frontline combat, im just too scared of them burning down, so i tend to build them as cheap as possible to reduce maintenance costs, and just try to keep them out of the way. though it is an interesting design
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Post by larcrivereagle on Apr 16, 2024 13:58:07 GMT -6
This is definitely what you meant, right? View AttachmentView AttachmentBehold, Behold, a CV guided missile surface combatant Intended to carry a wing of 20 all weather capable heavy jet fighters (plus necessary support, AWACS, etc. I'm still trying to figure out the exact number of spot factor slots to fit 20 HJF + 6 Special) to provide CAP for a surface action battle group, resist HSSM missile hits, 8" autoloaded AP, any caliber of HE (its very weak in RTW3 rn), and also fight in the battle line of said action group without needing to be detached. to be fair im not a fan of using CVs for frontline combat, im just too scared of them burning down, so i tend to build them as cheap as possible to reduce maintenance costs, and just try to keep them out of the way. though it is an interesting design Oh same, but I keep getting my CVs set to support roles and following my battle line's charge in. If I tell them to go away, then the battle line doesn't have CAP. And because main gun turrets improve survivability, clearly I should add 5-6 heavily armored turrets.
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Post by larcrivereagle on Apr 17, 2024 19:37:02 GMT -6
Tested it in battle for the first time, it went surprisingly well, they kept the battle line clear and even landed a hit with the 16"s. I have improved upon the design since then.
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Post by christian on Apr 18, 2024 11:01:28 GMT -6
With the new open beta late game jets can now carry 2 missiles, i highly recommend to try it out.
Aircraft • Later Jet Attack and Heavy Jet Fighters can now carry 2 ASM. • Slightly raised the production rate for jet aircraft.
I dont expect production to have increased enough to make only having HJF/JA on a carrier, its probably still best to also have LJF for cap purposes and splitting production, but it should help.
These changes are really nice having tried them out, and make carriers in the 60-70s much more friendly to use.
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 2:54:37 GMT -6
I have two comments to add. Firstly, I think it's obvious that the whole system for aircraft production is inadequate and should be replaced. In all likelihood, production should simply be based on authorized strength, with the production of a given model increasing and the unit cost decreasing over time until the unit cost reaches a certain minimum. If you really wanted to have an absolute maximum aircraft production capacity, it should be something you can increase with investment, just the same as dock size. And obviously, there should be a shared production pool for all aircraft; because the fact that producing more types of aircraft increases overall production is the exact opposite of how it works in real life. Secondly, as for the survivability of aircraft; as I understand it, ASMs such as the Bullpup were intended for attacks on bridges and were not well suited for attacks on large ships - certainly not from the point of view of survivability. Their range was too short and their release altitude much too high to keep out of the engagement envelopes of heavy-duty naval SAMs. They were well suited for attacking smaller, less well - armed ships, since a single aircraft could attack two or more ships in a single sortie using ASMs. Against large surface combatants, pop-up attacks with iron bombs were used; and in 1967, the Snakeye greatly reduced the release height and thus improved survivability. Using these tactics in Command against various period Soviet vessels produces relatively low loss rates and very high kill rates; an aircraft that reaches the target will almost always hit with one or more bombs, and usually, two or three aircraft will produce a guaranteed kill on any surface vessel in a pop-up attack, losing on average one of their number at most. Furthermore, aircraft attacking with Snakeyes will suffer virtually no losses, so that a single aircraft will produce pretty much a guaranteed kill on any surface ship. digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2265&context=nwc-reviewThis source bears out the results in Command for the period between the introduction of Snakeyes in 1967 and the introduction of very low altitude naval SAMs in the late 1970s - early 1980s; the Chief of Staff of the 5th Eskardra during the Mediterranean Crisis reportedly said of his surface ships, '...it is unlikely anything will remain afloat after an air strike. We are kamikazes.' (p42) Obviously there are some qualifiers: as we all know, Command is far from perfect. Firstly, the target seemingly almost always instantly disappears in Command after reaching some arbitrary damage threshold, without the game waiting for it to actually sink. This raises the question of what exactly Command considers to be a 'kill.' Furthermore, I have always thought that CMO might seriously under - rate the effectiveness of AAA; but even if so, I do not expect the loss rates would be much different, given that SAMs accounted for more kills even in the Falklands War, when the Argentine pilots famously flew too low to arm their bombs for fear of SAMs. Whether or not the hit rate of iron bombs against surface vessels is also too high may be debatable - almost certainly not for advanced aircraft like the A-6, (which reportedly could hit the head of a pin on land at night in a thick fog,) but maybe for more primitive types like the A-4. Unfortunately I can't comment on effectiveness of jets against ships in RTW3, because I haven't yet had a save continue long enough to get there without corrupting itself. However, if effectiveness of carrier aircraft is too low, it should probably be the iron bombs and not the ASMs that are improved. High loss rates and / or low accuracy for aircraft attacking large enemy ships such as destroyers and above using ASMs seems pretty accurate to me.
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Post by christian on May 2, 2024 12:47:59 GMT -6
I have two comments to add. Firstly, I think it's obvious that the whole system for aircraft production is inadequate and should be replaced. In all likelihood, production should simply be based on authorized strength, with the production of a given model increasing and the unit cost decreasing over time until the unit cost reaches a certain minimum. If you really wanted to have an absolute maximum aircraft production capacity, it should be something you can increase with investment, just the same as dock size. And obviously, there should be a shared production pool for all aircraft; because the fact that producing more types of aircraft increases overall production is the exact opposite of how it works in real life. Secondly, as for the survivability of aircraft; as I understand it, ASMs such as the Bullpup were intended for attacks on bridges and were not well suited for attacks on large ships - certainly not from the point of view of survivability. Their range was too short and their release altitude much too high to keep out of the engagement envelopes of heavy-duty naval SAMs. They were well suited for attacking smaller, less well - armed ships, since a single aircraft could attack two or more ships in a single sortie using ASMs. Against large surface combatants, pop-up attacks with iron bombs were used; and in 1967, the Snakeye greatly reduced the release height and thus improved survivability. Using these tactics in Command against various period Soviet vessels produces relatively low loss rates and very high kill rates; an aircraft that reaches the target will almost always hit with one or more bombs, and usually, two or three aircraft will produce a guaranteed kill on any surface vessel in a pop-up attack, losing on average one of their number at most. Furthermore, aircraft attacking with Snakeyes will suffer virtually no losses, so that a single aircraft will produce pretty much a guaranteed kill on any surface ship. digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2265&context=nwc-reviewThis source bears out the results in Command for the period between the introduction of Snakeyes in 1967 and the introduction of very low altitude naval SAMs in the late 1970s - early 1980s; the Chief of Staff of the 5th Eskardra during the Mediterranean Crisis reportedly said of his surface ships, '...it is unlikely anything will remain afloat after an air strike. We are kamikazes.' (p42) Obviously there are some qualifiers: as we all know, Command is far from perfect. Firstly, the target seemingly almost always instantly disappears in Command after reaching some arbitrary damage threshold, without the game waiting for it to actually sink. This raises the question of what exactly Command considers to be a 'kill.' Furthermore, I have always thought that CMO might seriously under - rate the effectiveness of AAA; but even if so, I do not expect the loss rates would be much different, given that SAMs accounted for more kills even in the Falklands War, when the Argentine pilots famously flew too low to arm their bombs for fear of SAMs. Whether or not the hit rate of iron bombs against surface vessels is also too high may be debatable - almost certainly not for advanced aircraft like the A-6, (which reportedly could hit the head of a pin on land at night in a thick fog,) but maybe for more primitive types like the A-4. Unfortunately I can't comment on effectiveness of jets against ships in RTW3, because I haven't yet had a save continue long enough to get there without corrupting itself. However, if effectiveness of carrier aircraft is too low, it should probably be the iron bombs and not the ASMs that are improved. High loss rates and / or low accuracy for aircraft attacking large enemy ships such as destroyers and above using ASMs seems pretty accurate to me. The recent beta changes help this alot, i just finished a save to 1970 and the new production numbers + being able to mount double missiles makes them much more viable still playing through a new save, it seems that alot of others changes are also coming so il be able to see then. Overall very quick changes from the devs which improved the feel of carriers alot, atleast in my experience. On the IRL topic i think its important to remember that missiles like bullpups can effectively be fired during a pop up, at longer range, and fly to the target while the pilot descends to low altitude, combined with giving enough stand off range to effectively launch outside of Sam range at altitude. Its worth keeping in mind before the schtorm missile in 1969, the S-125 was the soviets only SAM system in widespread use, and it has rather limited range and capability. Its worth noting that the bullpups can glide quite far, and go quite far under rocket power on their own. It is also rail launched, which means when launched at high speed at low altitude the missile will loose very little altitude when being fired, so can effectively be used at low altitude. A good way of thinking about it is that its a stick guided rocket powered bomb, essentially what you can do is pitch up slightly, launch, descend and level off, then guide the missile onto the target. More experienced pilots who were experienced enough could also initiate a left/right bank to "turn away" from the target at a long range, while they guided the missile in, though this was exceedingly difficult as the plane had to be kept in the bank at low altitude without crashing, and while the pilot guided the missile on target and kept visual, if this was done it was usually at high altitude. but it is true that low level "dumb" strikes remained very effective, as seen in the Falkland's war, although the argentines experienced a high rate of duds due to improperly fused bombs, and lacking high drag bombs.
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Post by khorne8 on May 2, 2024 13:04:05 GMT -6
I have two comments to add. Firstly, I think it's obvious that the whole system for aircraft production is inadequate and should be replaced. In all likelihood, production should simply be based on authorized strength, with the production of a given model increasing and the unit cost decreasing over time until the unit cost reaches a certain minimum. If you really wanted to have an absolute maximum aircraft production capacity, it should be something you can increase with investment, just the same as dock size. And obviously, there should be a shared production pool for all aircraft; because the fact that producing more types of aircraft increases overall production is the exact opposite of how it works in real life. Secondly, as for the survivability of aircraft; as I understand it, ASMs such as the Bullpup were intended for attacks on bridges and were not well suited for attacks on large ships - certainly not from the point of view of survivability. Their range was too short and their release altitude much too high to keep out of the engagement envelopes of heavy-duty naval SAMs. They were well suited for attacking smaller, less well - armed ships, since a single aircraft could attack two or more ships in a single sortie using ASMs. Against large surface combatants, pop-up attacks with iron bombs were used; and in 1967, the Snakeye greatly reduced the release height and thus improved survivability. Using these tactics in Command against various period Soviet vessels produces relatively low loss rates and very high kill rates; an aircraft that reaches the target will almost always hit with one or more bombs, and usually, two or three aircraft will produce a guaranteed kill on any surface vessel in a pop-up attack, losing on average one of their number at most. Furthermore, aircraft attacking with Snakeyes will suffer virtually no losses, so that a single aircraft will produce pretty much a guaranteed kill on any surface ship. digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2265&context=nwc-reviewThis source bears out the results in Command for the period between the introduction of Snakeyes in 1967 and the introduction of very low altitude naval SAMs in the late 1970s - early 1980s; the Chief of Staff of the 5th Eskardra during the Mediterranean Crisis reportedly said of his surface ships, '...it is unlikely anything will remain afloat after an air strike. We are kamikazes.' (p42) Obviously there are some qualifiers: as we all know, Command is far from perfect. Firstly, the target seemingly almost always instantly disappears in Command after reaching some arbitrary damage threshold, without the game waiting for it to actually sink. This raises the question of what exactly Command considers to be a 'kill.' Furthermore, I have always thought that CMO might seriously under - rate the effectiveness of AAA; but even if so, I do not expect the loss rates would be much different, given that SAMs accounted for more kills even in the Falklands War, when the Argentine pilots famously flew too low to arm their bombs for fear of SAMs. Whether or not the hit rate of iron bombs against surface vessels is also too high may be debatable - almost certainly not for advanced aircraft like the A-6, (which reportedly could hit the head of a pin on land at night in a thick fog,) but maybe for more primitive types like the A-4. Unfortunately I can't comment on effectiveness of jets against ships in RTW3, because I haven't yet had a save continue long enough to get there without corrupting itself. However, if effectiveness of carrier aircraft is too low, it should probably be the iron bombs and not the ASMs that are improved. High loss rates and / or low accuracy for aircraft attacking large enemy ships such as destroyers and above using ASMs seems pretty accurate to me. As noted by larcrivereagle in the parent post, in game, JAs using bombs will indeed nuke surface ships, as you suggest they should. However, I think there are some problems with your examples on ASMs. First, as noted in this thread and elsewhere, the real life USN in the 60s was not really using the ASMs available to the player in game, but rather focusing on iron bombs with some use of marginal ASMs like Bullpup. If the player focuses on missiles and JAs, the player is doing something that the USN did not do in real life. In that case, the game seems to be modeling the use of much longer ranged, more survivable missiles: the Soviets had ASMs with 100km range in the 50s. So I do not believe the relatively low in game loss rates for missile focused JAs are inappropriate, because it's simulating them firing Kelts from over the horizon. Second, perhaps we should be skeptical of the Falklands example. The problem for the loss rates you cite showing more SAM than AAA losses in 1982 is that in RTW3 terms, the Royal Navy in the Falklands basically wasn't using AAA at all! I would translate the 1982 anti-air suite of poor HMS Antelope for example into RTW3 terms as 1x quad LSAM (and a bad LSAM at that), 1x 4" autoloaded DP, and a couple of LAA. That's it: no radar guided MAA at all. If the British had been using copious radar directed 57mm as the Soviets did IRL in the RTW3 late game period, I'd bet a lot more Argentine A-4s would have gone down to AAA than to SAMs.
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Post by khorne8 on May 2, 2024 13:14:00 GMT -6
The recent beta changes help this alot, i just finished a save to 1970 and the new production numbers + being able to mount double missiles makes them much more viable still playing through a new save, it seems that alot of others changes are also coming so il be able to see then. Overall very quick changes from the devs which improved the feel of carriers alot, atleast in my experience. Agree. I'm taking a Hochseeflotte campaign through the 60s now, on enormous fleet sizes, and I just fought a 29 month war with lots of SAMs, SSMs, and ASM armed JAs slugging it out in the North Sea. I'm using the latest beta branch, and in pure game terms, I'd say it feels pretty good. The balance between SSMs and ASMs seems right in that in complete all-up weapon system terms, ASMs cost far more per warhead and have a much longer range, but are no longer tragically overcosted to the point of uselessness. And I was able to keep eight carrier wings topped up with airframes as long as I wasn't reckless. Good changes, well done devs. I would still like to be able to invest in doctrinally higher airframe reserves and production, like we can do with missiles now. EDIT: I would also appreciate a more granular explanation of what the changes are to aircraft replenishment. At one point I had 188 airframes of one model of MB in the reinforce pool, which I suspect is because I was phasing them out and so the old airframes were being pushed into the pool. But, it'd be nice to know for sure.
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 16:54:51 GMT -6
On the IRL topic i think its important to remember that missiles like bullpups can effectively be fired during a pop up, at longer range, and fly to the target while the pilot descends to low altitude, combined with giving enough stand off range to effectively launch outside of Sam range at altitude. Its worth keeping in mind before the schtorm missile in 1969, the S-125 was the soviets only SAM system in widespread use, and it has rather limited range and capability. Its worth noting that the bullpups can glide quite far, and go quite far under rocket power on their own. It is also rail launched, which means when launched at high speed at low altitude the missile will loose very little altitude when being fired, so can effectively be used at low altitude. A good way of thinking about it is that its a stick guided rocket powered bomb, essentially what you can do is pitch up slightly, launch, descend and level off, then guide the missile onto the target. More experienced pilots who were experienced enough could also initiate a left/right bank to "turn away" from the target at a long range, while they guided the missile in, though this was exceedingly difficult as the plane had to be kept in the bank at low altitude without crashing, and while the pilot guided the missile on target and kept visual, if this was done it was usually at high altitude. but it is true that low level "dumb" strikes remained very effective, as seen in the Falkland's war, although the argentines experienced a high rate of duds due to improperly fused bombs, and lacking high drag bombs. Very interesting. Do you have a source on the use of these and other novel tactics for anti - ship attacks? I'd love to read about it.
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 17:08:35 GMT -6
As noted by larcrivereagle in the parent post, in game, JAs using bombs will indeed nuke surface ships, as you suggest they should. However, I think there are some problems with your examples on ASMs. First, as noted in this thread and elsewhere, the real life USN in the 60s was not really using the ASMs available to the player in game, but rather focusing on iron bombs with some use of marginal ASMs like Bullpup. If the player focuses on missiles and JAs, the player is doing something that the USN did not do in real life. In that case, the game seems to be modeling the use of much longer ranged, more survivable missiles: the Soviets had ASMs with 100km range in the 50s. So I do not believe the relatively low in game loss rates for missile focused JAs are inappropriate, because it's simulating them firing Kelts from over the horizon. Second, perhaps we should be skeptical of the Falklands example. The problem for the loss rates you cite showing more SAM than AAA losses in 1982 is that in RTW3 terms, the Royal Navy in the Falklands basically wasn't using AAA at all! I would translate the 1982 anti-air suite of poor HMS Antelope for example into RTW3 terms as 1x quad LSAM (and a bad LSAM at that), 1x 4" autoloaded DP, and a couple of LAA. That's it: no radar guided MAA at all. If the British had been using copious radar directed 57mm as the Soviets did IRL in the RTW3 late game period, I'd bet a lot more Argentine A-4s would have gone down to AAA than to SAMs. Fair point about the Falklands. As for ASMs - of course there were heavy, long ranged ASMs from the 1950s onwards, but these were carried by medium and heavy bombers, not carrier based aircraft. An A-6 obviously could not carry an AS-1 or AS-4 or AS-5. Were there any Soviet anti - ship missiles designed for use by small tactical aircraft? I can't think of any. It stands to reason that the USN did not put dedicated ASMs on CV based aircraft for anti - ship duties because they would have been less effective than iron bombs, which had a far higher hit rate and lethality, and an acceptable risk to the attacking aircraft. Also, I believe I read somewhere that LABS bombing was to be used against ships, although I'm somewhat skeptical, because nuclear magazines on CVAs were not very deep; and warships, unlike ground targets, are very susceptible to HE. Does anyone have any sources on this?
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Post by wlbjork on May 2, 2024 21:50:13 GMT -6
Second, perhaps we should be skeptical of the Falklands example. The problem for the loss rates you cite showing more SAM than AAA losses in 1982 is that in RTW3 terms, the Royal Navy in the Falklands basically wasn't using AAA at all! I would translate the 1982 anti-air suite of poor HMS Antelope for example into RTW3 terms as 1x quad LSAM (and a bad LSAM at that), 1x 4" autoloaded DP, and a couple of LAA. That's it: no radar guided MAA at all. If the British had been using copious radar directed 57mm as the Soviets did IRL in the RTW3 late game period, I'd bet a lot more Argentine A-4s would have gone down to AAA than to SAMs. The RN was using the SeaCat as they could fit the quad launcher for less tonnage than the previous Mk5 Twin Bofors or STAAG mounts. Not only that, but despite the missile being obsolete (developed in the 1950s and fielded in the 1960s), HMS Antelope scored a damage and a near miss on their attackers with the SeaCats. The Bofors might have scored a hit, but most likely would have missed as they couldn't train fast enough to keep up with first generation jets...which is why the RN had switched to missiles in the first place.
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 22:14:59 GMT -6
Regarding my comment on the likelihood of LABS bombing being used as an anti - ship weapon; it's occurred to me that such a tactic would impose a dilemma on the enemy, as surface formations of the early Cold War era would, presumably, otherwise be very tight to maximise AAA firepower, and such tight formations would be more profitable targets for LABS attacks.
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Post by abclark on May 3, 2024 7:46:41 GMT -6
The recent beta changes help this alot, i just finished a save to 1970 and the new production numbers + being able to mount double missiles makes them much more viable still playing through a new save, it seems that alot of others changes are also coming so il be able to see then. Overall very quick changes from the devs which improved the feel of carriers alot, atleast in my experience. On the IRL topic i think its important to remember that missiles like bullpups can effectively be fired during a pop up, at longer range, and fly to the target while the pilot descends to low altitude, combined with giving enough stand off range to effectively launch outside of Sam range at altitude. Its worth keeping in mind before the schtorm missile in 1969, the S-125 was the soviets only SAM system in widespread use, and it has rather limited range and capability. Its worth noting that the bullpups can glide quite far, and go quite far under rocket power on their own. It is also rail launched, which means when launched at high speed at low altitude the missile will loose very little altitude when being fired, so can effectively be used at low altitude. A good way of thinking about it is that its a stick guided rocket powered bomb, essentially what you can do is pitch up slightly, launch, descend and level off, then guide the missile onto the target. More experienced pilots who were experienced enough could also initiate a left/right bank to "turn away" from the target at a long range, while they guided the missile in, though this was exceedingly difficult as the plane had to be kept in the bank at low altitude without crashing, and while the pilot guided the missile on target and kept visual, if this was done it was usually at high altitude. but it is true that low level "dumb" strikes remained very effective, as seen in the Falkland's war, although the argentines experienced a high rate of duds due to improperly fused bombs, and lacking high drag bombs. Straying too far from the line of sight of a visually guided bomb will lower the hit percentage dramatically. Some maneuvering to be less vulnerable to AAA is one thing, but launching a Bullpup from high altitude and then descending to low altitude means the pilot isn't going to provide any effective guidance. Especially when launching from long range, hit rates will be abysmally low.
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Post by generalvikus on May 3, 2024 7:57:23 GMT -6
Straying too far from the line of sight of a visually guided bomb will lower the hit percentage dramatically. Some maneuvering to be less vulnerable to AAA is one thing, but launching a Bullpup from high altitude and then descending to low altitude means the pilot isn't going to provide any effective guidance. Especially when launching from long range, hit rates will be abysmally low. That is how I understood Bullpup usage as well. I thought it was a high altitude only weapon.
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