Anti-Aircraft Defences In Falcon 4.0 - By Stephen "HotDogOne" French
The IADS Network
The Air Defences in Falcon can be divided into three sections:
1) Other Aircraft, e.g Enemy Aircraft such as Su-27
2) Surface to Air Missiles (SAM)
3) Anti-Aircraft Artillery.(AAA)
Other Aircraft are the biggest threat to you in a combat situation. These Interceptors
are capable of firing ordinance at you from all ranges. They can fire Medium-Range
missiles at, Short Range IR guided missiles, and engage with you in a 'dogfight'
situation. This is something SAMS and AAA cannot do.
Surface to Air missiles can engage with you in only specific circumstances,
unlike aircraft they cannot manoeuvre at the speed required to place you in
the section of the highest Pk (Probability of Kill). This means that although
the SAMS are a big threat, Enemy Combat Aircraft should always take precedence
over them in your task prioritisation.
Anti-Aircraft Artillery in Falcon is deadly. This short range method of Air
Defence is the enemy's most lethal in my opinion. With the other methods of
Air Defence, you can manoeuvre to defeat the missiles fired at you, or jink
to evade the bullets fired by other aircraft. I hear you all say you can jink
against AAA as well, yes that's true, you can, but consider the rate of fire
of a ZSU-23-4, then compare it to that of an aircrafts gun. Not only that,
but the shells of the AAA are much bigger and use fragmentation rather than
the contact type of fusing.
Ok, before we look at missile evasion, lets take a whistle stop tour of how
the Integrated Air Defence Network operates.
IADS
There are many attributes to an effective air defence network. The most important
of these are Connectivity, Synchronisation, and Systems Redundancy. As most
of you will know, the modern battlefield is all connected via the C4 (Pronounced
C-Cubed plus) net (Command, Control, Communication and Computers). This system
is modelled in Falcon. (As far as i am aware, at the current moment there are
some actual objects missing from the link, like the Long Track radar. But the
link is still fully modelled and operational.)
Connectivity is simply that the whole of the IADS shares information with each
other in an organised way through the chain of command. Virtually all of the
air defence systems, both IR and Radar are included in the net. Although individual
units (Battalions) are capable of independent operation.
Synchronisation means that the IADS co-ordinates each of its assets to engage
the threat.
Redundancy has a two-fold meaning in the IADS. One meaning is that the various
systems back each other up, or for example the SA-3's are placed within the
lethal envelope of the larger High altitude SA-5 system. This means that no
matter where the threat aircraft is it can be engaged with maximum Pk.
Lets take a quick look at a typical scenario so you can see how this works.
A flight of Two high flying enemy aircraft are detected inbound by the early
warning radar station, but have not yet reached the engagement zone of the
forward Air Defences (MSAM) (See diagram). This information is passed to the
SOC (Sector Operations Control) in the C4 net (Connectivity in Operation).
The SOC decides that these aircraft will become a threat in the near future
and orders the EW radar to maintain a track on the flight. At the same time
the SOC sends the data it has received to the ADOC (Area Defence Operations
Control) which is the National or theatre Headquarters for all operations.
The enemy flight gets to the outer range of the MSAM defences, the EW radar
passes this info to SOC, the SOC organises and orders the relevant actions,
based upon the resources it has. The SOC decides that a Missile based engagement
is required, and passes the required information (speed, altitude, heading,
location) to the SAM Brigade HQ that will engage the bandit, (an example of
Synchronisation). The SAM Brigade HQ will track the target on its Long Track
radars. The SAM Brigade liases with the EW radar to build up a picture of what
the target is doing.
Also during this time, the SOC has kept the ADOC informed as well as the other
Air Defence units in the region that might be called up to engage the threat
aircraft.
When the enemy flight enters the WEZ of a SAM Battalion (5 of which usually
go up to make a Brigade) then the Brigade passes the information to the in-range
battalion and lets it take over with its own guidance radar. Lets take this
as an SA-5 Battalion. The Long track radar passes the info to the Battalions
BarLock-B radar, which then track the flight until missile launch, at which
point the Battalions Square Pair radar guides the missile to the target via
semi-active radar guidance (See chapter 7 in the Falcon manual for an explanation
of the various methods of Guidance).
At this point, two things could happen, the flight could be destroyed, or the
flight could evade. Lets say the flight has evaded the missiles, and has transferred
now to a low-level flight to evade the medium-high altitude, long range air
defences (MSAM). The flight has penetrated the outer 'belt' of defences. The
IADS SOC has already passed information to the other defences in the vicinity,
so they are prepared and are looking for the target. A group of Air Defence
Soldiers on their way to the FLOT engage the flight as a Target of Opportunity
using SA-7;s, the flight however survives. This engagement is reported to the
SOC, who have another fix on the targets heading and position.
This information is used to plot possible targets, and SHORADS (Short-Range
Air Defence Systems, See above diagram) at the possible targets are informed.
The flight was also identified by the SA-7 squad as a two Ship F-4G flight.
This means that the flight is most likely on a SEAD Strike. The SOC orders
the Long range radars to keep track, whilst the individual Brigade and battalion
systems keep their EMCON to a minimum.
The radar at an Airbase detects an incoming flight, and pass this information
through the net to the SOC, and the SHORADS at the airbase, the SA-3 at the
airbase picks the flight up on its tracking radar, but the F-4G's have already
launched a HARM, and the SA-3 site is shutdown, but due to the collocation
of the AAA at the Airbase, the IADS is still able to prosecute an attack on
the flight.(an example of redundancy). The Radar at the Airbase is also targeted
and shutdown.
The AAA at the base switch to their visual systems and inform the SOC they
have done so, the F-4G's don't get any indication of the AAA at the Airbase,
but the EW radar, that first picked them up, is still showing up, but is not
an immediate threat. The AAA at the base is kept up-to-date via the C4 net
from SOC. The aircraft are acquired visually, and when within engagement range,
the AAA turn on their aiming radar, which gives them a much larger Pk. The
two inbound F-4G's don't have time to react before they are destroyed by a
combination of older barrage fire from the ZSU-57's and aimed fire from the
ZSU-23-4's.
The threat is destroyed. During the whole of this time, from detection to destruction
could be a matter of 10-15 minutes.
Well that was an IADS engagement from start to finish, the flight here was
caught out by an Ambush tactic employed by the AAA. For more info on the tactics
that the SAMS and AAA use in Falcon, turn to chapter 26 in the manual.
Missile Evasion Techniques
Radar Guided missiles at BVR
ranges
The most effective way of defeating radar guided missiles at this range is
to 'jink to beam'. This simply means place the missile, and/or launcher on
you three, or nine o'clock. (See diagram)
This causes the missile to fly the longest path to you, causing it to loose
speed, and hopefully loose track of you. Virtually all the missiles in Falcon
fly a lead pursuit course to the target.
When you pull the aircraft to beam the missile, start to launch chaff at about
2 sec intervals and switch your jammer on.(there is a debate over the effectiveness
of the jammer, and when to switch it on, but I have found it is more successful
if you switch it on either if you are about to start a BVR engagement, or
if you are being attacked and have a BVR missile launched at you.)
Keep pressing 4 until the padlock shows you the missile, It should be in above
you (normally) and maintaining a constant position in your canopy.
If the missile is guiding it will maintain a constant position, if however,
it is going to miss, then the position in the canopy will be changing. If
it moving to the rear at a fast speed, then just ignore that missile, if it
is moving to the rear at a snails pace, punch out some more chaff, and plug
in that burner, and change direction slightly, to see if the missile has really
lost track of you.
If the missile is moving forwards at all, break in any direction, it is a bad
idea to have made the missile brake lock on your aircraft, to only fly into
it when it self destructs, or give it chance to go off by proximity fuse :)
If the missile is stationary in the canopy, the missile is still tracking you.
What you must do now requires practice.
By the time you can padlock the missile, it will be close to you, turn into
the missile, punching out that chaff as you turn, you are not looking for a
corner turn, but the maximum turn rate, which occurs at 350kts.
Keep weaving, but never face the missile head on, and never maintain the direction
for more than a few seconds. This tactic should defeat all BVR launched, and
other SAM launched radar guided missiles.
Remember, if the Missile is relying on Command Guidance, then beaming the SAM
site is also an effective technique of beating the missile. If it is guided
in any other way, the best way to defeat the missile is to beam the missile
itself.
Short Range Radar, and IR
Short-range radar guided missiles can be easily defeated by breaking HARD into
them whilst releasing Chaff. This break must be timed, and is something that
come with lots of practice.
IR missiles are another matter, you get no warning from your onboard systems,
(Other than the Mk1 eyeball). Your wingman should call a missile launch, usually,
IR missiles are launched at close range so the time to react is not much, padlock
the missile ( I have a button assigned to toggle me between the 2-D and 3-D
padlock and another button that goes instantly between the two without stopping
at the 2-D view, this is useful in a dogfight, as it immediately padlocks the
missile.)
Break to Beam, then immediately break into the missile, whilst doing this,
launch flares like your life depends on it, which it does. That's really the
only guidance I can give for Short-range missile shots. If you are lucky, then
the missile will miss, but be warned, get into that position and your life
expectancy drops very rapidly with each missile launched at you.
Conclusion
Overall, I hope that this article will at least improve missile evasion, if
you already knew all this stuff, then great, but this is really aimed at those
with little experience.
