TACAIR and other NATO-vs-Russian air operations

[Dietrich]

I've read a little about USAF/USN/USMC air operations (especially CAS) from 2001 on.  CMSF's (admittedly hypothetical) setting is basically the same as that of OIF in that the air force facing the NATO contingent is practically a non-factor, so the NATO air assets can concentrate on CAS, BAI, TST, SEAD, and other missions which are made much easier by the de facto absence of enemy fast-movers.  Such wouldn't, I infer, be the case in CMBS's setting.  So what I'm hoping to pick your various brains about is:

 

—To what extent would NATO air superiority fighters be able to keep Russian ones away from whatever NATO aircraft would be seeking to perform CAS, BAI, SEAD, and other air-to-ground missions?

 

—Would NATO SEAD operations be effective enough to significantly lessen the threat from Russian SAMs and such like, such that NATO air-to-ground sorties wouldn't be hindered much?

 

I'm seeking a better sense of these matters so as have more understanding about the likelihood that NATO or Russian fast-movers would factor into a given CMBS scenario. Given the (as far as I know, anyway) much greater size and capability and size of the Russian Air Force compared to the Iraqi Air Force (circa 2003) or the Syrian Air Force (hypothetically circa 2008), I surmise that NATO air assets generally wouldn't have as much freedom of action in CMBS as they (depending on the scenario designer) tended to have in CMSF. 

[whitehot78]

it's a rather complex matter, I guess that in BS it has been abstracted as to allow players to have a balanced situation, with a simmetry that wasn't the case in CMSF.

 

Being the game set in 2017, you would have to consider several factors which at the present are not very clear.

 

Basically, NATO would have an advantage in sheer Air Power, and the air to air war would probably go their way. This advantage could be in fact be frustrated by the state of the 2017 VVS, which is something not clearly predictable.

Some factors would be:

 

-the deployment in big numbers of the PAK-FA

-the deployment of advanced AA and AG ordnance on VVS aircraft

-the training state of the frontal aviation regiments

-the state of the organisms apt to maintain and keep operational the theatre air forces

 

Also much would be decided by the ability of the contenders to replace losses due to attrition, both human and material.

 

Imho, even if I may sound simplistic, the western air forces shoot down more planes than the russian, but Russia can deploy powerful ground to air systems which would negate much of the advantage the air superiority gives to the westerners, even in presence of large SEAD/ECM environments.

 

In a nutshell, West gets a slight air superiority (far from air supremacy or dominance), hence some more air support ops than Russia

[QuiGon]

The manual also says something about that:

 

 

Cursory research will show that many of the fixed wing aircraft and UAVs present in Black Sea are easily capable of exceeding the maximum engagement altitude for the AA platforms currently present
in the game, being able to essentially fly above their maximum range. For our simulation purposes we have assumed that the airspace is hotly contested on the frontlines, with the constant threat of fighter aircraft
combat patrols and long range / high altitude SAM systems making high altitude attacks on ground targets an untenable proposition. Aircraft in Black Sea are assumed to be operating at lower altitudes in order to avoid the above mentioned threats, thus bringing them within range of the AA systems in the game. However, aircraft are only vulnerable to AA fire at certain moments in their mission when they are closest to the battlefield, typically just before and after attacking a target.

(page 14)

[dan/california]

There is at least one 50 post + thread where this has been argued to exhaustion.  For the purposes of a given scenario the designer gets to decide who gets what, the rationale is irrelavent.

[nsKb]

I've read a little about USAF/USN/USMC air operations (especially CAS) from 2001 on.  CMSF's (admittedly hypothetical) setting is basically the same as that of OIF in that the air force facing the NATO contingent is practically a non-factor, so the NATO air assets can concentrate on CAS, BAI, TST, SEAD, and other missions which are made much easier by the de facto absence of enemy fast-movers.  Such wouldn't, I infer, be the case in CMBS's setting.  So what I'm hoping to pick your various brains about is:

 

—To what extent would NATO air superiority fighters be able to keep Russian ones away from whatever NATO aircraft would be seeking to perform CAS, BAI, SEAD, and other air-to-ground missions?

 

—Would NATO SEAD operations be effective enough to significantly lessen the threat from Russian SAMs and such like, such that NATO air-to-ground sorties wouldn't be hindered much?

 

I'm seeking a better sense of these matters so as have more understanding about the likelihood that NATO or Russian fast-movers would factor into a given CMBS scenario. Given the (as far as I know, anyway) much greater size and capability and size of the Russian Air Force compared to the Iraqi Air Force (circa 2003) or the Syrian Air Force (hypothetically circa 2008), I surmise that NATO air assets generally wouldn't have as much freedom of action in CMBS as they (depending on the scenario designer) tended to have in CMSF. 

 

NATO would be able to defeat the VVS but at the cost of having less strike missions while the air battle is raging. Pretty much every single advantage is with the NATO forces, superior training, superior weapons, superior aircraft, larger numbers. Russian pilots fly much less than NATO pilots and don't conduct realistic air combat training exercises on the scale NATO does. 

 

Russian SAMs and fighters would require NATO to dedicate large amount of aircraft to counter them and would mean less aircraft available for other missions, eventually NATO would secure the skies though. This doesn't mean that NATO pilots would collectively lose their minds and start making sub 10k feet attacks against areas where Tunguskas are know to be operating/emitting. A Tunguska would probably be the first thing that gets hit by a Paveway, Maverick, or SDB II. 

 

The PAK-FA will likely never be deployed in large numbers, last I checked the Russians were shooting for 60 aircraft by 2021. Not that it matters really, in it's current iteration the PAK-FA is still a 4.5th gen aircraft and no match for the F-22 or F-35. 

 

Anyone who thinks Russia has a chance of coming close to the US or NATO technologically needs to go look at their respective military and civilian R&D expenditures. 

 

CMBS is by and large a great game and lots of fun but the vulnerability of some air assets is unrealistic and seems a bit like"balancing" to me.

 

There is at least one 50 post + thread where this has been argued to exhaustion.  For the purposes of a given scenario the designer gets to decide who gets what, the rationale is irrelavent.

 

The effectiveness of AAA is hard coded so its all or nothing, so it is either shoot down everything or no AAA at all. Limits scenario design. I know that air power is significantly abstracted but right now the survivability of NATO fixed and rotary wing assets is pretty nerfed. 

Edited February 12, 2015 by nsKb

[Dietrich]

Russian SAMs and fighters would require NATO to dedicate large amount of aircraft to counter them and would mean less aircraft available for other missions, eventually NATO would secure the skies though. This doesn't mean that NATO pilots would collectively lose their minds and start making sub 10k feet attacks against areas where Tunguskas are know to be operating/emitting. A Tunguska would probably be the first thing that gets hit by a Paveway, Maverick, or SDB II.  

 

Would a NATO fast-mover on a SEAD sortie — say a USAF F-16CJ — use its ordinance on a mobile SAM/AAA asset like a Tunguska?  Or would such not-necessarily-as-dangerous-as-full-fledged-SAMs assets be left for non-SEAD aircraft to tackle (presuming that, given threat from Tunguskas et al., NATO aircraft performing air-to-ground sorties would maintain a "deck" above, say, 12,000 feet and wouldn't necessarily be dissuaded by Tunguskas from using their own ordinance to knock out said Tunguskas)?

[antaress73]

One word: asymetric spending. You spend big money in systems that are specifically designed for negating a potential and identified enemy's strentghs. So comparing expenditures is not really useful. Not to mention that a large part of that expenditure is for maintaining 350 bases around the world.

[Codename Duchess]

The developers debated this and said in the end NATO would win the air war, but not right away. It is entirely valid for Russia to gain moments of parity or superiority, hence the presence of Russian aircraft. I think any serious analysis will yield the same conclusion, as much as some people will want to counter. It wouldn't be an easy or cheap fight, but in the end it's true.

As for SEAD missions against local AD like Tunguska, they'd be doctrinally unlikely until there were no more major threats (S-400, etc) present, or used as an opportunity target on an egress. A maverick or a LGB from altitude would do the job just fine for those threats.

[tyrspawn]

CMBS has a very poor simulation of air defenses and SEAD.

 

In reality the platforms in CMBS would not pose a threat to fixed wing aviators in most circumstances. The tunguska's max engagement altitude is about 11k feet. Typically speaking fixed wing aircraft consider anything below 10k to be suicide and try to stay above 15k. The cruising altitude of most fighters is 20-30k. The standoff range of laser guided bombs, AGM-65 and JDAMs far surpass the max range of the SPAAs in CMBS. They do/would pose a huge threat to helicopters however. In reality there would be a lot of remote lazing with COLT/JTAC teams for the choppers to pop up. SA-8s and SA-11s/17s would have posed a different story.

 

Fixed wing aviation also rolls with SEAD in any major operation in the form of air launched anti-radiation missiles. The standard missile for this role at this time is the AGM-88, which can reliably target something like an SA-19 (tunguska) or SA-13 from 20+ miles away. A fixed wing aircraft can easily stay outside the engagement envelope of the SPAAs in CMBS.. and only in circumstances when forced to go low altitude would result in dangers. Obviously fixed wing aviators try to avoid this at all cost, and do not operate at combat altitudes below the max engagement envelopes involved in CMBS.

[Nerdwing]

I think alot of the issue is that there'd be S-300/S-400's going active sporadically, so operating at that altitude wouldnt be feasible for most strikes.  Their presence would force altitudes to go much lower, and into the envelope of the shorter range stuff.

 

Hell, in Falcon isnt the standard procedure versus S-300's to fly low-level strike popup strikes with HARM's?  If the Grumble (and now the Growler) perform anything IRL like they do in that sim, then I'd sure as hell not want to operate anywhere near where the "<10>" is on my RWR!

 

But without the assumed presence of those systems, I agree totally about the unrealistic vulnerability.  Maybe it'd be best to just have an option for the mission maker for "High/Low" ceiling for aircraft, with High being pretty much untouchable and Low being how they are here?

Edited February 13, 2015 by Nerdwing

[Apocal]

CMBS is by and large a great game and lots of fun but the vulnerability of some air assets is unrealistic and seems a bit like"balancing" to me.

 

Yeah, it is pretty much balancing to have aircraft actually overflying the battlefield at low-altitude in a high-threat environment.

 

 

Would a NATO fast-mover on a SEAD sortie — say a USAF F-16CJ — use its ordinance on a mobile SAM/AAA asset like a Tunguska?  Or would such not-necessarily-as-dangerous-as-full-fledged-SAMs assets be left for non-SEAD aircraft to tackle (presuming that, given threat from Tunguskas et al., NATO aircraft performing air-to-ground sorties would maintain a "deck" above, say, 12,000 feet and wouldn't necessarily be dissuaded by Tunguskas from using their own ordinance to knock out said Tunguskas)?

 

Dedicated SEAD? Probably not, those sorts of sorties go towards protecting specific strike packages against specific threats, generally by forcing the big money high-alt, long-range systems to either go silent or be silenced. I could see something like a self-escorting CAS flight of F-16s or F/A-18s having a harm to spare,, but realistically, HARM stocks would drop to critical levels after the first two weeks and thereby be restricted.

[Apocal]

I think alot of the issue is that there'd be S-300/S-400's going active sporadically, so operating at that altitude wouldnt be feasible for most strikes.  Their presence would force altitudes to go much lower, and into the envelope of the shorter range stuff.

 

Hell, in Falcon isnt the standard procedure versus S-300's to fly low-level strike popup strikes with HARM's?  If the Grumble (and now the Growler) perform anything IRL like they do in that sim, then I'd sure as hell not want to operate anywhere near where the "<10>" is on my RWR!

 

But without the assumed presence of those systems, I agree totally about the unrealistic vulnerability.  Maybe it'd be best to just have an option for the mission maker for "High/Low" ceiling for aircraft, with High being pretty much untouchable and Low being how they are here?

 

The doctrinal solution for big money systems like that is keeping a backfield Rivet Joint/Compass Call to monitor emissions (including radio communications), then plaster the area with long-range rockets to force them away from the front line or suffer attrition. Since there aren't that many actual systems, the Russian Army can't afford to habitually lose them to dumb **** like that.

[tyrspawn]

the s-300/s400 is a STRATEGIC-LEVEL SAM, not tactical. The brigades rolling around in CMBS would have SA-8s and SA-11s/17s for their top echelon defense and the SA-19s, SA-13s and MANPADS for battalion/regiment level.

 

There are clearly circumstances in which a long range SAM like an s-300 would deny medium or high altitude flying in an AO, but that would just mean that the aircraft would pop up still miles outside the engagement range to attack the targets and use AGM-65 or other standoff weapons rather than GBUs/JDAMs.

[BTR]

DCS called, it want's its discussion back. 

[Philipp]

It qas discussed in another thread that the conflict in BS is limited to Ukraine and NATO ROE might be that targets on Russian soil are off limits to avoid nuclear retaliation. That would allow Russia to operate long range SAMs without return fire essentially denying higher altitudes. Just one way to rationalize the limitations of the simulation.

[nsKb]

Would a NATO fast-mover on a SEAD sortie — say a USAF F-16CJ — use its ordinance on a mobile SAM/AAA asset like a Tunguska?  Or would such not-necessarily-as-dangerous-as-full-fledged-SAMs assets be left for non-SEAD aircraft to tackle (presuming that, given threat from Tunguskas et al., NATO aircraft performing air-to-ground sorties would maintain a "deck" above, say, 12,000 feet and wouldn't necessarily be dissuaded by Tunguskas from using their own ordinance to knock out said Tunguskas)?

 

I'm not saying it would use a AARGM on it but something like an AGM-65. These SHORADS are very dangerous to rotary wing and would be high on the hit list. Once your ESM detects a search radar (nessiary to find targets quickly, IR search is much too slow and often too short ranged) you can use your radar or IR pod (or both) to scan the area. 

 

 

The developers debated this and said in the end NATO would win the air war, but not right away. It is entirely valid for Russia to gain moments of parity or superiority, hence the presence of Russian aircraft. I think any serious analysis will yield the same conclusion, as much as some people will want to counter. It wouldn't be an easy or cheap fight, but in the end it's true.

As for SEAD missions against local AD like Tunguska, they'd be doctrinally unlikely until there were no more major threats (S-400, etc) present, or used as an opportunity target on an egress. A maverick or a LGB from altitude would do the job just fine for those threats.

 

SHORADS would be high on the hit list due to the danger the pose rotary wing.

 

I think alot of the issue is that there'd be S-300/S-400's going active sporadically, so operating at that altitude wouldnt be feasible for most strikes.  Their presence would force altitudes to go much lower, and into the envelope of the shorter range stuff.

 

Hell, in Falcon isnt the standard procedure versus S-300's to fly low-level strike popup strikes with HARM's?  If the Grumble (and now the Growler) perform anything IRL like they do in that sim, then I'd sure as hell not want to operate anywhere near where the "<10>" is on my RWR!

 

But without the assumed presence of those systems, I agree totally about the unrealistic vulnerability.  Maybe it'd be best to just have an option for the mission maker for "High/Low" ceiling for aircraft, with High being pretty much untouchable and Low being how they are here?

 

The S-300/400 are limited in number, each time one goes active it would be detected by various ESM assets, geolocated (with any combination of ESM, radar, and IR/Vis), then attacked. The US has a number of options to attack these from stand off ranges. F-22's or F-35's with SDB II will make short work of any SA-10/20/21 site, even ones with terminal defense can be saturated by the small and cheap SDB II. Pretty much any missile that is TVM or SARH is going to be useless attacking aircraft at standoff ranges anyways since they will just dive below the radar horizon.  

 

The "High/Low" idea is perfect. 

 

 

DCS called, it want's its discussion back. 

 

Don't get me started on their hilarious missile modeling, and who does't love a good argument about air combat. 

 

It qas discussed in another thread that the conflict in BS is limited to Ukraine and NATO ROE might be that targets on Russian soil are off limits to avoid nuclear retaliation. That would allow Russia to operate long range SAMs without return fire essentially denying higher altitudes. Just one way to rationalize the limitations of the simulation.

 

Pretty much Russia's only advantage here, even then a tenuous one. The FLOT is something like 160 km from the closest Russian soil, this is longer than the effective range of any of their missiles except the 40N6 which I'm not convinced even exists (no photos or video). Even if the 40N6 exists there are a number of problems with a 400 km ranged SAM, it might not be particularly effective against fighter aircraft, it is blood huge (probably a bit smaller than Iskander) and expensive, it would fly a ballistic trajectory for much if it's flight and look like an SRBM.

 

If any SAM site in Russia proper gets particularly annoying I'm sure an exception could be made and the USAF could send some ordinance "on vacation".

Edited February 15, 2015 by nsKb