Missile Defense Tests Part 3

After the recent post on NSM, I decided to take another look at missile defense in Command: Modern Operations. This is something I've done before, but Command has gotten updates since then, and there were some categories of missiles and ships that I didn't test back then.

To set the level, I re-ran the basic scenario, the 1991 (NTU) version of the missile cruiser California versus 16 P-20 Styx missiles fired from a bunker in Palos Verdes, Los Angeles.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	P-20 Styx
Speed	600 kts
Altitude	164 ft
Detection Range	29 nm
Engagement Range	28 nm
Ph	0.5
Missiles Launched	30
Shot Down	14
Sunk?	No

A few things to note as a matter of model analysis. First, hit probability is down from 0.55 to 0.5, which probably accounts for the leakers that got through. Second, CMO has changed from shooting 2v1 to 1v1 in this case, although that mattered less than you might expect given that California was shooting at full rate through the entire engagement.

Now, to clean up a couple of things that previously weren't clear. First, there's the matter of the Type 45. One of the things CMO added in the last few years was per-sensor heights, allowing different radars to have different horizons. This was likely to be an advantage for the mast-mounted SAMPSON on the British destroyer, which was specifically designed to have a longer range against sea-skimming missiles, but which seems to have been abstracted out in the previous model.

My first test was rather interesting. I deleted California and inserted Daring¹ in the same place, but then watched as she went sailing merrily along, undetected by the shore-based radar that had happily picked up all of my previous ships. I went and added a second radar on Catalina, then ran the test again.

Ship	Daring 2013
Attacking Weapon	P-20 Styx
Speed	600 kts
Altitude	164 ft
Detection Range	29 nm
Engagement Range	29 nm
Ph	0.95
Missiles Launched	16
Shot Down	16
Sunk?	No

Technically, this version did push out engagement range by a few nm, but the same happened to California, so I'm going to call this one "still broken". To double-check this and make sure it wasn't a high radar on California throwing things off, I threw Ticonderoga (1983 spec) onto the range.

Ship	Ticonderoga 1983
Attacking Weapon	P-20 Styx
Speed	600 kts
Altitude	164 ft
Detection Range	29 nm
Engagement Range	28 nm
Ph	0.5
Missiles Launched	33
Shot Down	15
Sunk?	No

This was also interesting, but in a way that said more about the limitations of CMO than what would happen in real life. Tico has twice the launch capacity of California, so there were definitely points at which it could have launched more missiles if it hadn't been shooting 1v1. There was also an illuminator issue at one point, as the first salvo against the last missiles seems to have reached its target at almost the same time as the second salvo against the survivors of the first missiles and CMO chose to prioritize the nearer threat. I suspect that in real life, Aegis takes that sort of thing into account and would have held the follow-up launch for a couple of seconds (which would have avoided wasting several missiles) and would have also gone to 2v1 as the last few missiles closed in, giving more chances to stop them.

To explore this more, I went back and ran California and Tico again with the rules set to 2v1 against the Styx.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	P-20 Styx
Speed	600 kts
Altitude	164 ft
Detection Range	29 nm
Engagement Range	28 nm
Ph	0.5
Missiles Launched	23
Shot Down	16
Sunk?	No

In this case, 2v1 worked significantly better than 1v1. Some of that was down to luck, but a lot of it was that if the second missile missed, it was able to retarget almost immediately and take out one of the later missiles if there were any. That said, this was still a close-run one, and the last missile was nailed while it was doing a pop-up maneuver, which took the Ph down to .37.

Ship	Ticonderoga 1983
Attacking Weapon	P-20 Styx
Speed	600 kts
Altitude	164 ft
Detection Range	29 nm
Engagement Range	28 nm
Ph	0.5
Missiles Launched	38
Shot Down	16
Sunk?	No

This was much more like what I've seen previously. The only thing of note was the high number of missiles fired, which I think was down to slightly bad luck with the dice rolls.

With that out of the way, let's turn to what prompted this in the first place. I set up the standard scenario, California vs NSM, and watched what happened.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	NSM
Speed	570 kts2
Altitude	30 ft
Detection Range	18 nm
Engagement Range	10 nm
Ph	0.2
Missiles Launched	10
Shot Down	0
Sunk?	Yes

This was a very impressive performance, and clearly demonstrated the benefits of stealth. Even though the relatively low-frequency search radar picked up the NSMs almost as far out as it would have seen something like Harpoon, their high-frequency stealth meant they were able to cover almost half the distance before the illuminators were able to get a lock. That said, California seems to have gotten unlucky, so I ran the test a second time.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	NSM
Speed	570 kts3
Altitude	30 ft
Detection Range	19 nm
Engagement Range	10 nm
Ph	0.2
Missiles Launched	8
Shot Down	3
Sunk?	Yes

This time around, California got quite lucky, despite a weird glitch where it didn't launch for a few seconds, but it still wasn't enough to save the ship. One thing I noticed while running this test is that a quirk of my previous tests has been somewhat skewing the results. Specifically, for everything except NSM, the missiles are picked up on launch, then disappear below the horizon as they drop to cruising altitude. This gives the game's OODA loop simulation time to run before they pop up over the horizon and means that detection and engagement are rarely separated by very much. NSM isn't picked up on launch (not sure if it's altitude or stealth, but it doesn't matter very much either way) and while I was able to verify that the stealth kept it safe longer than the OODA loop would have, the method I've been using does tend to overstate a ship's safety if it doesn't have a friend picking up the missiles over the horizon.

To test that out, I decided run a test where the launching platform would be concealed from the target, and see what happened. So of course I parked Iowa behind Catalina and told her to unleash all 16 Harpoons on California, which would be designated by the shore-based radar.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	Harpoon
Speed	570 kts
Altitude	30 ft
Detection Range	19 nm
Engagement Range	14 nm
Ph	0.3
Missiles Launched	12
Shot Down	3/4 Jam/1 Chaff/1 Malf
Sunk?	Yes

The jammers are doing better than usual (although some of that may have been the small warheads on the Harpoons allowing more chances before the process is interrupted by the ship sinking), but it wasn't enough to save her. Just to make sure I have a level playing field, here's the same test, but with the missiles launched in the usual place.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	Harpoon
Speed	570 kts
Altitude	30 ft
Detection Range	19 nm
Engagement Range	19 nm
Ph	0.3
Missiles Launched	174
Shot Down	4/1 CIWS/3 Jam/1 Chaff
Sunk?	Yes

California didn't do great that time, but this is broadly in line with earlier work. On the whole, previous tests have been somewhat compromised by the early detection of the missile, but since this was consistent across the tests, I'm not going to worry too much about it. The OODA loop is going to hit faster missiles harder, but the majority have been subsonic, so even that is of limited effect.

And with that out of the way, it's time to look at the current missiles in use in the Red Sea. We'll start with the C-802, which is the Chinese equivalent to something like Harpoon, and which Iran has been using for years.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	C-802
Speed	520 kts
Altitude	60 ft
Detection Range	22 nm
Engagement Range	21 nm
Ph	0.35
Missiles Launched	18
Shot Down	6
Sunk?	Yes

This is pretty much what we'd expect out of such a weapon. It's broadly equivalent to Harpoon, and performs about as well. But what about the Shahed drone?

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	Shahed 131
Speed	65 kts
Altitude	200 ft
Detection Range	22 nm
Engagement Range	5 nm
Ph	0.26
Missiles Launched	40
Shot Down	10
Sunk?	No

First, it's worth noting that a 65-kt drone is only about twice as fast as a 30-kt ship, so running away is a reasonable and useful countermeasure against a big attack. Second, CMO treated these as drones instead of missiles, so they weren't flagged as hostile instantly. Third, they turned the wrong way upon not seeing the target ship, and thus the 10 that survived⁵ weren't shot down and didn't get a chance to engage the ship.

As a result of all this, I decided to do a second run. This time, California would be stationary, to make sure the Shaheds could find it, while the drones would be manually marked hostile as soon as they were detected, on the grounds that a swarm of small things doing 65 kts towards you probably aren't a flight of sightseeing planes.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	Shahed 131
Speed	65 kts
Altitude	200 ft
Detection Range	22 nm
Engagement Range	8 nm
Ph	0.356
Missiles Launched	45
Shot Down	20
Sunk?	No

The gap between detection and engagement is a result of stealth, much as in the NSM case. The problem is that once the illuminators were able to get lock, the slow speed of the drones meant that they were toast. When it takes you over 10 minutes to cross engagement range, the only American asset likely to be damaged is the USN's missile stockpile.

To see how well it modeled attempts to avid such damage, I put in Preble, which has been equipped with the 150 kW HELIOS laser weapons system. Unfortunately, they don't appear to have actually fixed the problem with their laser modeling. Preble began engaging the drones at 10 nm, taking out one with each shot. My model shows that this HELIOS should be able to melt plastic at that range, but only barely, and at less than 2 mm/sec. I suspect that it will take more than 2 mm of melting to bring down a drone, so it looks like CMO remains useless for this purpose.

All of this has left me significantly more sympathetic to there being a distinction between drones and missiles. On a high conceptual level, the Shahed is still a cruise missile, but it's such a slow cruise missile that from an operational perspective, it makes sense to treat it as something entirely different from a more conventional ASM. Running away from those isn't really an option after they're over the horizon, while I had to try and maneuver the target ship into engagement with the Shaheds to avoid inadvertent misses that would spoil the test. Given a little bit of work, they should be easy to counter with guns, although I'm not sure that said work has been done just yet.

But there's one more weapon the Houthis have been using that deserves a test, the Khalij Fars ASBM. First, just for laughs, we'll use this against California, although I have no expectation that she will actually be able to shoot down any of them. Because this is an ASBM, I set up the TEL (4 missiles) out past Barstow, close to maximum range for the missiles.

Ship	California 1991
Attacking Weapon	Khalij Fars7
Detection Range	154 nm
Engagement Range	26 nm8
Ph	0.54-0.659
Missiles Launched	6
Shot Down	1 non-kill hits10
Sunk?	Yes

This was very interesting. The missiles were picked up immediately after launch, then disappeared off the screen as they climbed more. I picked the speed and altitude values for when it was reacquired by California's radar, which happened rather earlier than I expected. They were about 30 nm out (plan range), but they didn't firm up until they were about 20 nm out (plan again), and the system held the engagement for a while due to altitude concerns on the missile. The endgame looked somewhat weird, and the dice were clearly against them, but they managed to land a hit, although it was judged to be , one of which actually destroyed the RV, while the other two were judged to be a "minor deflection". Despite that, she seems to have done reasonably well for herself, particularly given her complete lack of any credited ABM capability.

But the real question is how a more modern ship would handle the threat. I used their version of Sterett (DDG-104),¹¹ which carries 16 SM-6s and 36 ESSMs.

Ship	Sterett 2018
Attacking Weapon	Khalij Fars
Detection Range	153 nm
Engagement Range	68 nm12
Ph	0.89 (SM-6), .53 (ESSM)
Missiles Launched	14 SM-6, 3 ESSM
Shot Down	3/9 non-kill hits (SM-6)
Sunk?	No

The one that slipped through was my fault. I manually did a third engagement with ESSM instead of SM-6, and for some reason, they never came close enough to engage, while the AI thought that that missile was handled and ignored it until later. Even then, the missile was pushed wide enough that Sterett took only minor fragmentation damage.

But the thing about ASBMs is that because they are ballistic, one trajectory might not be like another. So I moved the TEL to Lancaster, about 95 miles from the ship, and tried again.¹³

Ship	Sterett 2018
Attacking Weapon	Khalij Fars
Detection Range	92 nm
Engagement Range	42 nm14
Ph	0.88 (SM-6)
Missiles Launched	14 SM-6, 1 ESSM15
Shot Down	4/8 non-kill hits (SM-6)
Sunk?	No

This time, there was a significant difference between the two trajectories. The shorter-range trajectory meant that the incoming missiles were higher at a given range, and the SM-6 launch was held for quite a while because the target needs to be below 35 km for them to have a chance of hitting. But in the end, the system still handled them very well, thanks to better dice rolls and me not meddling with it. Still, it is worth keeping in mind that ABM work is more complicated than shooting at cruise missiles.

I think I'm going to end this sequence here. It's been illustrative of the value of stealth, and of the importance of low flight to the ability to respond to unexpected targets. If anyone has suggestions for scenarios to try, leave a comment, and I'll try to get to them (if practical) next time I do one of these.

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