How to Defeat the SA-10 Grumble?

[apoll]

Ok, I've got a single SA-10b Grumble to destroy before I can get to an airfield; it's in a valley with good approaches from either end. I have 6 Hinds with 80mm rockets and four Tornadoes armed with 8 HARMs. First go: I just charge the SA-10: the HARMS are swatted out of the sky as are my Tornadoes. Hmmmm. Ok, so I need to actually think about this. Second go: I carefully split my 4 Tornadoes and coordinate the attack to come in from each end of the valley: they launch their HARMS at roughly the same time from about 50km out. The SA-10 just turns one way and swats out the 4 HARMS from the south, and then casually turns around and swats the other 4 coming in from the other side. Ok. That's just rude! Third crack: I dispense with the SA-10 missile fodder and have the six Hinds go nap of the earth through the approach valleys; they manage to get within rocket range: and fire them all off. Nothing. Nothing at all. WTF???

Ok, I admit I suck at CMNAO. It ain't some attention deficit inducing, non real world click fest. You actually have to employ the little grey cells. I get that. But I still suck at it, even if I do employ the little grey cells.

So I bow down in front of you and beg of your wisdom: how the dickens do you take out this indestructible swatter of planes from the sky killing machine? With 4 HARM armed Tornadoes and a bunch of Cold War helicopters? What's the trick...the principles... with taking on a efficient modern SA system like the Grumble? Any and all advice much appreciated cause I'm sick of providing target practice for some pimple faced eastern block recuit. And my ego is sorely dented.

Yours aye,

Apoll

[Gunner98]

Apoll

An SA-10 is a tricky beast to beat. Use of terrain is the best bet and you seem to have that working, a true pimply faced eastern bloc Major would put a SA-22 Greyhound at each of those valley entrances. [:D]

The Tornados and HARMs are exactly what the Grumble was designed for, so it makes sense that they are having problems. Curious about the Hinds though, that should have worked. Have you tried with missiles, I think it’s the AT-6 Scallion, or it might be AT-5s that the Hind's carry? Actually you're probably within the SA-10's minimum range so you could go at it with guns (make sure strafing is enabled in your doctrine).

[amizaur]

Any covered approach lanes available ? Try to enable terrain elevation layer on map and look for any small hills close to SAM site that can shorten SA-10s radar horizon. I had some succeses plotting cruise missle attacks in a way thet they pop out from behind of small hill only few nms from the SAM site. Combined with SAM reaction time this can lead to SA-10 defeat with just 6-8 Tomahawks sometimes. Maybe this could work with Tornados firing HARMs from very close. It could work but Tornados can be shot down anyway... Another problem is that Tomahawks are expendable and fly really low - Tornados are not and may fly too high to use such cover....

[Cik]

you can't really rely on saturation because you don't have enough saturation.

you will have to try to sneak the tornadoes in low and then fire at the range where your HARMs will beat the grumble's OODA loop.

that is to say they need to get to the target in ~10 seconds or so if you want to have a hope of destroying it before they are all shot down.

if that's not possible, arm your MI-24 with AT-3/6/9 (ATGMs) and fire those as soon as you can get close enough. once you destroy the radar the battery goes dead so generally you will only need a few hits before it's incapacitated.

can you elaborate as to why the rockets didn't do anything? unless you are really unlucky a wall of S-8s should probably wreck the site. bad luck?

[Tailhook]

The Hinds should have worked, can you post a save?

My solution for any good SAM site: while close enough to not waste too much gas but comfortably out of range,descend your Tornadoes to the minimum launching altitude or 400' whichever is higher. Do NOT go to their absolute minimum altitude (it will make sense in a second). Have them fly at the target (terrain masking helps) down low, using the curvature of the Earth as cover. Once they are close enough to be launched on by the SAM, fire all your HARMs, then send the jets to absolute minimum altitude and have them run away, bravely. This usually gets you within 20-30 nm. Climb back up once out of range or the site is neutralized. The missiles should get through.

This will improve your odds for a couple reasons:
1 - the SAM site wasted missiles on your jets, which will go dumb as soon as your jets drop back below the horizon. Most SAM sites have enough ready missiles that this isn't a huge boost but every clogged datalink channel or missed missile is a plus.
2 - In a max range high altitude engagement, the SAM site will get 3-4 opportunities to fire on each missile as they re-engage those that survive each salvo. Doing it this way gives the SAM site one, MAYBE two salvos to fire at the missiles, almost always leading to at least one to two missiles getting through to the juicy radars.
3 - the FCR will be emitting, where applicable, meaning your HARMs will also target it. This is the real prize in most SAM sites because without a search radar they can still fire and guide with external cues, but without the FCR the site is useless.

This is my go to strategy for any SA-XX. You can play with it as it works for you, experiment with altitudes to find the best compromise.

[Cik]

ORIGINAL: Tailhook

The Hinds should have worked, can you post a save?

My solution for any good SAM site: while close enough to not waste too much gas but comfortably out of range,descend your Tornadoes to the minimum launching altitude or 400' whichever is higher. Do NOT go to their absolute minimum altitude (it will make sense in a second). Have them fly at the target (terrain masking helps) down low, using the curvature of the Earth as cover. Once they are close enough to be launched on by the SAM, fire all your HARMs, then send the jets to absolute minimum altitude and have them run away, bravely. This usually gets you within 20-30 nm. Climb back up once out of range or the site is neutralized. The missiles should get through.

This will improve your odds for a couple reasons:
1 - the SAM site wasted missiles on your jets, which will go dumb as soon as your jets drop back below the horizon. Most SAM sites have enough ready missiles that this isn't a huge boost but every clogged datalink channel or missed missile is a plus.
2 - In a max range high altitude engagement, the SAM site will get 3-4 opportunities to fire on each missile as they re-engage those that survive each salvo. Doing it this way gives the SAM site one, MAYBE two salvos to fire at the missiles, almost always leading to at least one to two missiles getting through to the juicy radars.
3 - the FCR will be emitting, where applicable, meaning your HARMs will also target it. This is the real prize in most SAM sites because without a search radar they can still fire and guide with external cues, but without the FCR the site is useless.

This is my go to strategy for any SA-XX. You can play with it as it works for you, experiment with altitudes to find the best compromise.

the caveat here is you have to scout the ingress area first for SA-9/13/15/19 and any AAA.

if you had more forces you could just drain the magazine of the SA-10 by launching a ton of HARMs and decoys but your only real option due to magazine / bandwidth limitations is the low ingress option, which is not safe but can be effective depending on how thick the defenses around the grumble are. generally (or, well, at least i always design it this way) there will be some outlying defenses- they defend the grumble, and the grumble defends them.

[apoll]

Ok thanks to all who replied. I will experiment and give it a go again and report back. Not sure why the Hinds did squat with those rockets? Just fired the whole lot but no hits. Will try that again and see if just bad luck. Pls stand by.

apoll