Air defence battalions' orders in campaign
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Right so there are numerous enemy air defence battalions on the map which have orders, rather bizarrely, to defend a SAM site. For example i click on an enemy air defence battalion which has SA-3s and its orders are to defend an SA-5 site. What i want to know is, why are they defending it, and why cant i see the SA-5 site on the map? if i should be bale to see it then i guess i’m not looking hard enough but i cant find it.
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First of all, don’t mistake an SA5 site for an SA5 battalion. The first is a geographical location, indicated by a symbol (2 ‘floors’ with 3 upright bars) that you can see when you right click and activate Installations - Air Defenses. The second is a unit, which can be seen when activating Ground Units - Battalions / Air Defense. As such, it could easily be the case that the SA3 battalion is located on the SA5 site and that’s why it is ordered to defend it. (default BMS behaviour to defend the location it’s at)
If that is not the case, it’s not unlikely that many long range Air Defences are generally less lethal for fast-moving threats (big missile -> more inertia thus less manoeuvrability) and might be completely ineffective against such aircraft at close ranges. That would mean that a flight that manages to sneak up on the SAM site would have a walk in the park as soon as they’re close enough.
To illustrate, create a TE where you put an SA10 (a very high threat in a normal BMS scenario) in a valley and then use the terrain to get close to it. Once you’re within a certain radius (1 to 3NM, iirc) it is entirely unable to engage you, and you can easily position yourself to kill it with your cannon.To avoid that from happening, it wouldn’t be too illogical to have close to medium range SAMs around the long range ADS, e.g. several SA3’s battalions in a (semi-)circle, covering the airspace before and above a single SA5 battalion.
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First of all, don’t mistake an SA5 site for an SA5 battalion. The first is a geographical location, indicated by a symbol (2 ‘floors’ with 3 upright bars) that you can see when you right click and activate Installations - Air Defenses. The second is a unit, which can be seen when activating Ground Units - Battalions / Air Defense. As such, it could easily be the case that the SA3 battalion is located on the SA5 site and that’s why it is ordered to defend it. (default BMS behaviour to defend the location it’s at)
If that is not the case, it’s not unlikely that many long range Air Defences are generally less lethal for fast-moving threats (big missile -> more inertia thus less manoeuvrability) and might be completely ineffective against such aircraft at close ranges. That would mean that a flight that manages to sneak up on the SAM site would have a walk in the park as soon as they’re close enough.
To illustrate, create a TE where you put an SA10 (a very high threat in a normal BMS scenario) in a valley and then use the terrain to get close to it. Once you’re within a certain radius (1 to 3NM, iirc) it is entirely unable to engage you, and you can easily position yourself to kill it with your cannon.To avoid that from happening, it wouldn’t be too illogical to have close to medium range SAMs around the long range ADS, e.g. several SA3’s battalions in a (semi-)circle, covering the airspace before and above a single SA5 battalion.
Yea i see two SA-3 battalions defending SA-5 sites and they’re right on top of each other, and the SA-5 range is huge, they both easily cover my flightplan and could engage me (the SA-5s i mean).
I can see when looking at the status or in recon at a SAM or AAA battalion what assets they have, like the 9th air defence battalion has 6 SA-2 launchers, fan song radar, 2 ZPU-2 guns etc…but what do these sites consist of? right clicking on an sa-5 site and clicking status just shows SA-5 site, to the right of it, 100% operational. No other info, and in the recon picture nothing appears. -
I get the impression there are only the two SA3 battalions at that location, and not an SA5. As to why they’re protecting the SA5 site, I guess that’s just the BMS default behaviour I talked about above. Could you upload your campaign files and tell where the units you’re speaking about are, to make sure?
Either way:
Right clicking on an installation and not seeing anything in recon means that, according to the latest information your side has available, there’s nobody of interest there. Doesn’t matter if it’s the Capital or the middle of the ocean. Do note that campaigns have a so-called Fog Of War, which means you never have a 100% certainty of number of enemy units and their locations. As such, not seeing anything does NOT necessarily mean there isn’t a ground unit (= soldiers, tanks, SAMs, …) there. It just means that if there is, your intelligence officers don’t know about it (yet).AFAIK, non-mobile units (SA2, SA3, SA5 and soldiers or tanks in defensive positions) are generally known pretty quickly, while mobile units (SA4, SA6, SA8, SA10, … and moving soldiers or vehicles) are usually hard to track. They’re not on the map, which is why they are called pop-up threats (or targets of opportunity, depending on your mission and capabilities ).
That the SA-5 Site is at 100% doesn’t mean anything in this case. It just says that a SAM unit would be able to stand there. (I don’t think you can actually destroy SAM sites in BMS?)
On most installations, however, operation percentage does matter. An airbase at 100%, for example, is fully functional and can operate aircraft. If you take out the control tower, fuel tanks and/or ammo dump, the percentage will drop a bit because operations are restricted in some way, but not halted entirely. If you take out the runway, however, its operations will drop to 0% as it can obviously no longer launch or receive aircraft. (not sure about helicopters?)But that a location is at 0%, does not mean that the unit at that location is also taken out. You can level every structure of an army base and thus bring it down to 0%, if you don’t hit any tank of a battalion stationed there, the ground unit will remain at 100% functionality and live to fight another day. Unfortunately, BMS does not simulate “assumed kills”. When you bomb aircraft shelters or garages, no aircraft or vehicles will be subtracted from the squadron/unit inventory, even though they would normally be out of service.
About the huge range of the SA5:
The default BMS Threat Circles show RADAR range, which for an SA5 is indeed huge (165NM if I remember correctly). The weapon engagement zone (WEZ) of the BMS SA5 missile, however, is “only” 54NM, or nearly 1/3th of the original value. There’s less difference between RADAR and WEZ for SA2, SA3, … but there still is some. (iirc, SA3 RADAR is 14NM, while WEZ is only 7NM, so that’s also 1/2 the original value)
If not already done so, I suggest you change the PPT.ini (which can easily be done using WeaponDeliveryPlanner) to show you Engagement Zone instead, as it will help you assess how much of a threat a SAM actually is to your mission. -
I get the impression there are only the two SA3 battalions at that location, and not an SA5. As to why they’re protecting the SA5 site, I guess that’s just the BMS default behaviour I talked about above. Could you upload your campaign files and tell where the units you’re speaking about are, to make sure?
Either way:
Right clicking on an installation and not seeing anything in recon means that, according to the latest information your side has available, there’s nobody of interest there. Doesn’t matter if it’s the Capital or the middle of the ocean. Do note that campaigns have a so-called Fog Of War, which means you never have a 100% certainty of number of enemy units and their locations. As such, not seeing anything does NOT necessarily mean there isn’t a ground unit (= soldiers, tanks, SAMs, …) there. It just means that if there is, your intelligence officers don’t know about it (yet).AFAIK, non-mobile units (SA2, SA3, SA5 and soldiers or tanks in defensive positions) are generally known pretty quickly, while mobile units (SA4, SA6, SA8, SA10, … and moving soldiers or vehicles) are usually hard to track. They’re not on the map, which is why they are called pop-up threats (or targets of opportunity, depending on your mission and capabilities ).
That the SA-5 Site is at 100% doesn’t mean anything in this case. It just says that a SAM unit would be able to stand there. (I don’t think you can actually destroy SAM sites in BMS?)
On most installations, however, operation percentage does matter. An airbase at 100%, for example, is fully functional and can operate aircraft. If you take out the control tower, fuel tanks and/or ammo dump, the percentage will drop a bit because operations are restricted in some way, but not halted entirely. If you take out the runway, however, its operations will drop to 0% as it can obviously no longer launch or receive aircraft. (not sure about helicopters?)But that a location is at 0%, does not mean that the unit at that location is also taken out. You can level every structure of an army base and thus bring it down to 0%, if you don’t hit any tank of a battalion stationed there, the ground unit will remain at 100% functionality and live to fight another day. Unfortunately, BMS does not simulate “assumed kills”. When you bomb aircraft shelters or garages, no aircraft or vehicles will be subtracted from the squadron/unit inventory, even though they would normally be out of service.
About the huge range of the SA5:
The default BMS Threat Circles show RADAR range, which for an SA5 is indeed huge (165NM if I remember correctly). The weapon engagement zone (WEZ) of the BMS SA5 missile, however, is “only” 54NM, or nearly 1/3th of the original value. There’s less difference between RADAR and WEZ for SA2, SA3, … but there still is some. (iirc, SA3 RADAR is 14NM, while WEZ is only 7NM, so that’s also 1/2 the original value)
If not already done so, I suggest you change the PPT.ini (which can easily be done using WeaponDeliveryPlanner) to show you Engagement Zone instead, as it will help you assess how much of a threat a SAM actually is to your mission.Oh so the circle shown around PPTs for whatever it is, is just its search radar range?
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