Blue Water Development Diary

[AzureSkies]

Hello again, everyone.

A day late, but not a dollar short... hopefully. Recent work has continued with more back-end code and implementing radar directors for SAMs. These are pretty important, placing somewhat significant limitations on the engagement and performance abilities of a system (such as some serious performance limitations when engaging enemies from multiple directions), as well as being the vulnerable target of Anti-Radiation Missiles such as the AGM-78 Standard ARM (the predecessor of the AGM-88 HARM, which wouldn't enter service until '85). Knock out a radar director, and the armament of missiles is useless - unless there's another the enemies could use.



The guidance simulation also has some interesting realistic effects - like for example, the effective range against a maneuvering target is going to be significantly lower than the effective range against a slower or less maneuvering target. So although the range of the Grumble may only be listed as 75 km, a helicopter may not be safe from even 100 km, and a fast and maneuverable jet will probably be relatively safe at 70 km (if it responds appropriately).

And when it comes time to simulate decoys and jamming, it's already halfway written and should work very realistically as well.

That's all for now. Thanks for joining us. Until next time, clear sailing.

[Herman]

Originally Posted by AzureSkies

Recent work has continued with more back-end code and implementing radar directors for SAMs. These are pretty important, placing somewhat significant limitations on the engagement and performance abilities of a system (such as some serious performance limitations when engaging enemies from multiple directions)

Once a target has been destroyed, will there be any delay in engagement of subsequent targets? Most games seem to make subsequent target engagement cycles virtually instantaneous.

Originally Posted by AzureSkies

So although the range of the Grumble may only be listed as 75 km, a helicopter may not be safe from even 100 km, and a fast and maneuverable jet will probably be relatively safe - if it responds appropriately - at 70 km.

Is an evasive manoeuvre by the target while the inbound SAM is still 70km distant a realistic tactic? I always thought that SAMs were more easily defeated if the target performed a sudden manoeuvre at a shorter distance so that the tiny fins on the SAM could not adjust quickly enough to follow the target. A distance of 70km would allow a SAM to follow the evasive manouevre and make corrections with relative ease. I do not know at what distance the 'sweet spot' might be, but it does not sound reasonable for it to be 70 kilometres.

[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by Herman

Once a target has been destroyed, will there be any delay in engagement of subsequent targets? Most games seem to make subsequent target engagement cycles virtually instantaneous.

There will be a slight delay, the length of which depends on a few factors and how you've issued the orders.

Originally Posted by Herman

Is an evasive manoeuvre by the target while the inbound SAM is still 70km distant a realistic tactic? I always thought that SAMs were more easily defeated if the target performed a sudden manoeuvre at a shorter distance so that the tiny fins on the SAM could not adjust quickly enough to follow the target. A distance of 70km would allow a SAM to follow the evasive manouevre and make corrections with relative ease. I do not know at what distance the 'sweet spot' might be, but it does not sound reasonable for it to be 70 kilometres.

I edited the punctuation and ordering to make the intent a bit more clear.

Originally Posted by AzureSkies

So although the range of the Grumble may only be listed as 75 km, a helicopter may not be safe from even 100 km, and a fast and maneuverable jet will probably be relatively safe at 70 km (if it responds appropriately).

Though maneuvering even at long range can have rather detrimental effects on the missiles' performance, since any maneuvers the missile makes will take energy/cause drag. But the most effective maneuvers will be the ones that maximize the maneuvering of the missile. With the S-300F in particular (what this has been tested with) the missile receives midcourse guidance updates from the launch ship even before it's acquired the target with its own semiactive seeker, meaning maneuvering even at long range will cause it to lose energy by maneuvering in response.

[Raptor_341]

Following the project closely - Looks great. If you need any resources on NATO MPA, let me know and I'll see what I can find for you.

Off topic, any chance of seeing the Lun-class ekranoplan modelled, even as a single unit for later campaigns? I believe that would be a first.



Cheers!

[AzureSkies]

Hello again, everyone.

The best time of year is upon us. Nothing new is ready to show off as of the moment, and with next Tuesday being Christmas Eve, there won't be an update for then, and with the following Tuesday being New Year's Eve, the next update may not be until January 7th, or it may come a day early on December 30th to avoid coming on New Year's Eve - TBD.

But I look forward to showing off something real nice, whenever it comes. It should be ready, then, and she's a real beauty, too, and a bit surprisingly unusual for naval sims.

That's all for now. Thanks for joining us. Until next time, clear sailing.

[AzureSkies]

Excepting the text, of course, this was entirely generated with in-game graphics.

[AzureSkies]

Hello again, everyone!

Apologies for the late update. Tuesday night was rather eventful in terms of global geopolitics. But we're here now.

Today's gonna be something of a mini-highlight, with the first civilian ship to enter the roster: The Maria Yermolova-class passenger ship. Without weapon or aviation facilities, though, there's not as much to go over, hence the "mini" part of the "mini-highlight".

These ships really got around, being used for regional, arctic, and even antarctic cruises. They were used for both Soviet and foreign tourists. Eight of these were produced between 1974-78 as Project 1454, and about half remain in operation today.

Some sources claim they had a top speed of 12 knots, but more claim their top speed was 17-17.2 knots, depending on the ship. For Blue Water, they will be modeled with a top speed of 17 knots.



The ship could provide quarters for 206 souls, with all passenger spaces being air conditioned and ten cabins even having folding children's beds. The upper aft deck had a restaurant that could seat 100, and the ship had an additional bar, cafe-cinema, music room with a bar, dance floor and bandstand.



In addition to the deck space for lounging, there were indoor spaces with large windows to serve the function of deck space when sailing in very cold weather.



One of these ships, the MV Lyubov Orlova was being towed to be scrapped in 2012, when the tow line broke sending it adrift. It became subject to some rumors of becoming infested with cannibal rats, but those were ultimately debunked.



There are photos of them sporting different paint schemes, though with the lack of (correctly) dated photographs it's hard to ascertain exactly which ships sported what paint jobs when.



Civilian traffic poses complications - a radar contact may be a hostile ship or a cruise liner. Even for leadership who disregard the appalling collateral damage, sending an antiship missile salvo at a civilian ship would prove catastrophic, as the number of antiship missiles your task force carries will be limited compared to the enemy's interception, point-defense and decoy capabilities, meaning that not only for moral but also for tactical reasons, getting a VID on the target is absolutely essential.

That's all for now. Thanks for joining us, please feel free to discuss and comment below. We'll hope to be on-time and have more to show off next week. Until then, clear sailing.