[FIXED] Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

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CHM
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[FIXED] Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by CHM »

This is a recent change I've observed. It applies to aircraft firing SARH and ARH weapons. Despite setting the doctrine setting 'Ignore plotted course when attacking' to 'No', aircraft still ignore manual commands while engaging with these types of weapons, even when a weapon goes Blind.

I understand that this change, if deliberate, might have been made to stop aircraft RTBing during ARH shots - but there is a doctrine setting to disable this behaviour (Weapon State RTB).

I'd love to know if this has been experienced by anyone else.

Cheers
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templar42
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by templar42 »

I experienced exactly what you describe since the update. I found that once one of my aircraft had launched an AIM-120, it would ignore manual orders to turn away, even if I pressed Ctrl-E to disengage (I also tried Ctrl-U to no effect.).

Prior to the update, you could control this behaviour with a manual disengage order, which restored manual control of the aircraft's course. The update apparently removed this.

I think this is now a significant bug in the simulation - there is no justification for preventing the player from issuing manual commands during an engagement like this and there are plausible tactical scenarios in which a pilot might want to turn away after launch: for example, if the missile has the ability to use 3rd party targeting data or simply if the tactical picture has changed and the importance of evasion outweighs the importance of missile guidance.

In the attached save, the two fighters have been commanded to turn away to maintain separation from the target, but no amount of resetting doctrine to not ignore plotted course or disengage orders will make them obey the course command.
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AndrewJ
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by AndrewJ »

ORIGINAL: CHM

I'd love to know if this has been experienced by anyone else.

Cheers

Yes, this is happening for me also.
Zathred
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Zathred »

Conversely I am still seeing aircraft on patrol and intercept missions RTBing with missiles in the air despite the fix in the latest build so this area of functionality still seems to have significant issues.

Given the complex relationships between mission objectives, doctrine and manual instructions I'm not surprise though. I'm sure this is tricky to code and then probably impractical to test all possible combinations.
gabravo2005
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by gabravo2005 »

I am experiencing where aircraft are not launching BVR weapons. They will only engage WVR. This is even after enemy A/C have been identified by various sensors to include the engaging A/C.
Dimitris
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Dimitris »

ORIGINAL: gabravo2005
I am experiencing where aircraft are not launching BVR weapons. They will only engage WVR. This is even after enemy A/C have been identified by various sensors to include the engaging A/C.

This sounds like a separate issue; can you please open a new thread with a suitable save to look into. Thanks!
Dimitris
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Dimitris »

ORIGINAL: templar42

I experienced exactly what you describe since the update. I found that once one of my aircraft had launched an AIM-120, it would ignore manual orders to turn away, even if I pressed Ctrl-E to disengage (I also tried Ctrl-U to no effect.).

Prior to the update, you could control this behaviour with a manual disengage order, which restored manual control of the aircraft's course. The update apparently removed this.

I think this is now a significant bug in the simulation - there is no justification for preventing the player from issuing manual commands during an engagement like this and there are plausible tactical scenarios in which a pilot might want to turn away after launch: for example, if the missile has the ability to use 3rd party targeting data or simply if the tactical picture has changed and the importance of evasion outweighs the importance of missile guidance.

In the attached save, the two fighters have been commanded to turn away to maintain separation from the target, but no amount of resetting doctrine to not ignore plotted course or disengage orders will make them obey the course command.

Thanks for the very helpful save. Fixed for the next update.
Amnectrus
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Amnectrus »

Very glad to hear this will be fixed soon. I've also noticed it happening with A2G weapons, like the GBU-15, AGM-130, AGM-84, and AGM-62; here's a save file showing those just after launch with the planes stuck on "Engaged Offensive" mode. Will this patch also fix those?

Also, not sure if it's related, but when planes shoot AIM-120s and other active-radar missiles, it looks like the missile loses mid-course guidance unless the target is within the main radar cone of the launching plane. Whereas with semi-active radar missiles, the launching plane can "crank" way off to the maximum angle of the radar cone (usually 60 degrees or so off nose). Is that intentional? In real life, as far as I know, for AIM-120s the target has to stay locked in single-target-track (STT) mode or track-while-scan mode (TWS), so the launching plane can't generally search for other targets at the same time, but it can crank over as far as the radar will go. The MiG-31 with AA-9s is modeled that way I think.
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DMAN
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by DMAN »

ORIGINAL: Amnectrus

Very glad to hear this will be fixed soon. I've also noticed it happening with A2G weapons...

I had this happen with B-52s dropping nukes: they dropped on target, but as the retarded bomb was falling, they turned back to the target and got fried. [:D]
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Primarchx
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Primarchx »

Just ran into it. Ow!
Dimitris
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Dimitris »

ORIGINAL: Amnectrus
Very glad to hear this will be fixed soon. I've also noticed it happening with A2G weapons, like the GBU-15, AGM-130, AGM-84, and AGM-62; here's a save file showing those just after launch with the planes stuck on "Engaged Offensive" mode. Will this patch also fix those?
I just tested the scenario you provided with the above fix, and the behavior appears to be as desired (all planes turn away).
Also, not sure if it's related, but when planes shoot AIM-120s and other active-radar missiles, it looks like the missile loses mid-course guidance unless the target is within the main radar cone of the launching plane. Whereas with semi-active radar missiles, the launching plane can "crank" way off to the maximum angle of the radar cone (usually 60 degrees or so off nose). Is that intentional? In real life, as far as I know, for AIM-120s the target has to stay locked in single-target-track (STT) mode or track-while-scan mode (TWS), so the launching plane can't generally search for other targets at the same time, but it can crank over as far as the radar will go. The MiG-31 with AA-9s is modeled that way I think.
I think this is deliberate. Providing updates to AMRAAM-class weapons requires "tracking" detections, so the target must remain within the radar detect/track arcs. Guiding Sparrow-class weapons requires illumination hits, so the target only needs to remain within the illumination arcs of the radar, which are frequently a bit wider than the ones for detection.
Dimitris
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Dimitris »

ORIGINAL: DMAN
I had this happen with B-52s dropping nukes: they dropped on target, but as the retarded bomb was falling, they turned back to the target and got fried. [:D]

This sounds like an unrelated issue. Can you please open a new thread with a suitable save for investigation. Thanks!
BrianinMinnie
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by BrianinMinnie »

ORIGINAL: Dimitris
ORIGINAL: Amnectrus
Very glad to hear this will be fixed soon. I've also noticed it happening with A2G weapons, like the GBU-15, AGM-130, AGM-84, and AGM-62; here's a save file showing those just after launch with the planes stuck on "Engaged Offensive" mode. Will this patch also fix those?
I just tested the scenario you provided with the above fix, and the behavior appears to be as desired (all planes turn away).
Also, not sure if it's related, but when planes shoot AIM-120s and other active-radar missiles, it looks like the missile loses mid-course guidance unless the target is within the main radar cone of the launching plane. Whereas with semi-active radar missiles, the launching plane can "crank" way off to the maximum angle of the radar cone (usually 60 degrees or so off nose). Is that intentional? In real life, as far as I know, for AIM-120s the target has to stay locked in single-target-track (STT) mode or track-while-scan mode (TWS), so the launching plane can't generally search for other targets at the same time, but it can crank over as far as the radar will go. The MiG-31 with AA-9s is modeled that way I think.
I think this is deliberate. Providing updates to AMRAAM-class weapons requires "tracking" detections, so the target must remain within the radar detect/track arcs. Guiding Sparrow-class weapons requires illumination hits, so the target only needs to remain within the illumination arcs of the radar, which are frequently a bit wider than the ones for detection.



Does this mean it will be in a upcoming release(soon?) or is there a patch(for the fix)that I'm not seeing?

Thanks


Dimitris
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Dimitris »

ORIGINAL: BrianinMinnie
Does this mean it will be in a upcoming release(soon?) or is there a patch(for the fix)that I'm not seeing?

Thanks

There is a new update coming, which includes support for the new Command-LIVE release and also fixes a number of issues, including this one.
Kobu
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Kobu »


ORIGINAL: Amnectrus
Very glad to hear this will be fixed soon. I've also noticed it happening with A2G weapons, like the GBU-15, AGM-130, AGM-84, and AGM-62; here's a save file showing those just after launch with the planes stuck on "Engaged Offensive" mode. Will this patch also fix those?

Hello
Playing Hanukkah war i also noted this behavior. In the attached if you launch all AGM-142F from the Flight 7244 (F-15 in the border between Israel and Syria) when all weapons had been launched this fighters goes to "Engaged offensive" and no respond to anything (neither "unassign"). The only way for give them an order is RTB, so then return the base, but if you press "U" then come back to status: "engaged offensive". With the F-16 and weapon Delilah is the same.

Regards
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Amnectrus
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Amnectrus »

ORIGINAL: Dimitris

I think this is deliberate. Providing updates to AMRAAM-class weapons requires "tracking" detections, so the target must remain within the radar detect/track arcs. Guiding Sparrow-class weapons requires illumination hits, so the target only needs to remain within the illumination arcs of the radar, which are frequently a bit wider than the ones for detection.

For what it's worth, I looked in the manuals for DCS Flaming Cliffs F-15C, Jane's F-15E, Jane's F/A-18, and in the Falcon 4.0 binder edition manual (I still have my original), and found the following:

The APG-63(V)1 (F-15C), APG-70 (F-15E), and APG-68 (F-16) can point up to +/-60 degrees off the nose, and the APG-73 (F/A-18) can point up to +/-70 degrees. All of the radars have various elevation (bar) settings and radar modes, and although all of the manuals say the target should ideally be centered in the HUD when shooting an AMRAAM, none of them say the radar tracking arc is different from the illumination arc, or that there is any difference in allowable angle off the nose for AMRAAMs vs Sparrows. The Jane's F-15E manual specifically says a lock can be maintained out to 60 degrees off boresight (page 2.13), and that a special indicator appears when the target gets to 50 degrees, to let you know it's getting close to breaking the lock. And the Jane's F/A-18 manual says the TWS search area can be anywhere within the radar's gimbal limits.

All four radars allow launching multiple AMRAAMs against multiple targets using Track-While-Scan (TWS) mode. According to the manuals, the APG-68 TWS scans a rectangle either +/-10 deg 4-bar, or +/-25 deg 3-bar, and says a bar is 2.2 deg. The APG-70 has 3 TWS settings: +/-60 deg 2-bar, +/-30 deg 4-bar, or +/- 15 deg 6-bar, but exact bar angle isn't given. The APG-73 has 7 TWS settings: +/-20 deg 2/4/6-bar, +/-40 deg 2/4-bar, +/-60 deg 2-bar, and +/-80 deg 2-bar. The DCS F-15C unfortunately doesn't have details on the TWS scan sizes. In all cases, the TWS mode radar cone can point anywhere within the radar's field of view (up to +/-60 or 70 deg off the nose), but the cone is limited in width and elevation because it needs to physically point the radar dish at the targets more often to keep their tracks updated.

(Interestingly, none of the manuals seem to mention "cranking" after shooting to minimize closure, and "notching" is only mentioned in the DCS F-15C manual, though it does cover it in a fair amount of detail. It's also worth noting that Sparrows in each manual are listed as requiring single-target-track (STT) mode; they can't be guided in TWS mode at all.)

So if the information in the manuals is correct, I guess in my unsolicited layman's opinion I feel like a good way to model active-radar missiles would be as follows (assuming the engine supports this):

* Current radar search/detect behavior and arc when no missiles are in the air is unchanged.
* When a missile is launched against a target, allow the aircraft to maneuver similar to how SARH missiles are modeled: missile keeps datalink as long as the target doesn't go more than 60 deg off nose.
* While a missile is being guided, the launching airplane should also track other enemy targets that are within a 30 degree cone centered on the first target. Launching other missiles at those targets is allowed as long as other launch parameters are met.
* As missiles impact or miss, the center of the 30 deg cone should shift to the other targets in the order they were launched on. (Or maybe the cone could be centered on the average center position of all the targets.)
* Missiles with CEC would work as they currently do, with no limitations on radar arcs.
* AESA radars would be able to guide missiles on targets anywhere within their full field of view (usually +/-60 deg), as they can currently. (I'm not sure if that's actually the case IRL, but from what I know, AESA radars should be able to effectively track-while-scan all their targets all the time, since they can point their radar beam nearly instantly.)

All this would mean that SARH-armed planes would not be at quite as big a disadvantage against active-radar-armed planes as they are now, especially if they're spread out and not in close formation. Active-radar-armed planes would still be able to launch against multiple targets, but only if they're in clusters. However, they would be able to "crank" in the same way that SARH-armed planes do, and they would still have the advantage of being able to break contact if needed to evade and their missiles would still have a chance to guide on their own. This would also mean planes with AESA radars would have a significant advantage in being able to simultaneously engage widely separated targets.
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Primarchx
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RE: Engage Offensive - ignoring doctrine?

Post by Primarchx »

Still seeing this with Build 1.14 Build 998.18 (see autosave attached). Have some Super Hornets firing on a pair of MiG-29Ks and they're LOCKED to their course while the AMRAAMs are flying. Normally I veer off to one side or another keeping the target in the radar arc.

Edit - NEVERMIND - I updated from the download file link and it works now. Tested fine.
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