SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread III

[PeZook]

Actually, Skimmer is probably right that Norseman could get some plane spotters in the CSR to watch strategic airfields: he has an embassy in Byzantium, so he can simply have "illegal" spies drive over to the CSR. With a bit of luck, good documents and knowledge of the language, he could gradually build up a network of plane spotters with relative ease.

On legality of Cascadia taking slaves off the Star Of Sweethaven:

PROHIBITION OF THE TRANSPORT OF SLAVES

Every State shall take effective measures to prevent and punish the
transport of slaves in ships authorized to fly its flag and to prevent the
unlawful use of its flag for that purpose. Any slave taking refuge on board
any ship, whatever its flag, shall ipso facto be free.

Of course, Astaria probably didn't sign the convention, or signed it without article 99. It's an interesting legal argument: obviously, Astarian ship commanders don't consider their cargo to be free ipso facto, but other countries most certainly do. One could argue both ways, coming from the rules that national sovereignty is sacred, or that it is the will of countries which makes international law, thus Astarian ships should release their slaves on demand from a foreign warship. Which, obviously, is not going to happen.

Last matter: Didn't Setzer just violate the Convention?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Actually, Skimmer is probably right that Norseman could get some plane spotters in the CSR to watch strategic airfields: he has an embassy in Byzantium, so he can simply have "illegal" spies drive over to the CSR. With a bit of luck, good documents and knowledge of the language, he could gradually build up a network of plane spotters with relative ease.

Technically, he has to get papers to cross into the CSR. You need a visa since Norseman is non-CSR. Short of taking a swim across the Black Sea (I hear it's getting cold), he can't just "drive over".

Also, Astarians coming in and out of Byzantium are closely monitored.

[K. A. Pital]

Actually, Skimmer is probably right that Norseman could get some plane spotters in the CSR to watch strategic airfields: he has an embassy in Byzantium, so he can simply have "illegal" spies drive over to the CSR. With a bit of luck, good documents and knowledge of the language, he could gradually build up a network of plane spotters with relative ease.

Yeah, but I never had any beef with Astaria in the past, and in fact was at tensions with Shroomania, their former colonial master. Making it in what, the one week it took for the Supreme Soviet to authorize action against Astaria after Star of Sweethaven? Doesn't sound too realistic.

And even if he did spot a part of the 37th Air Army rising or overflying the CSR, how would he know where they are heading? The regiments are broken up between several cities in various parts of the nation, and rendezvouz already away from the mainland.

[PeZook]

Papers aren't much of a problem: any country capable of printing its own currency can forge a travel visa.

And, of course, building up such a network would take years. What I think would kill it is communications: even if the plane spotter gets 2-3 hours head start (say, he's got a really good position and sees the bombers being prepared) he still needs to get a message out. One way to do it would be to send an e-mail to a pre-arranged contact in Byzantium, who would then deliver it to the embassy. Something like "How are you feeling? Weather here is great...". But it still has to get from the embassy to Astaria, which is cut off from the Internet...

[Sea Skimmer]

A plane spotter need not be an Astaria citizen. Both NATO and the USSR managed to riddle each other with agents, most of whom where motivated by profit, not ideology, and of course third parties. The idea that all these planes somehow managed to assemble from multiple remote bases in secret and then formed up all without generating a huge amount of radio traffic, and this after extensive preparations that would easily take 48 hours is just even more implausible.

This doesn’t even touch on the issue of shipping along the route, if you maintain radio silence then how do you order all the formations to change course, possibly by 200+ miles to avoid a Japanistani destroyer, and yet still remain coordinated for a transoceanic bombing mission?

[K. A. Pital]

A plane spotter need not be an Astaria citizen. Both NATO and the USSR managed to riddle each other with agents, most of whom where motivated by profit, not ideology, and of course third parties.

Skimmer, this is not USSR versus NATO. This is DPRK versus say Brazil. We're remote from each other and didn't have much in the way of relations. The USSR and NATO took years of Cold War to infiltrate each other and had a lot of motivation. Here, a mass SEAD bombing run is conducted on a week's decision against a nation which we don't even recognize and have no relations with. I had no agents in Astaria either; if we were engaged in spying against each other, the situation would look much different for me as well, you know. I would have recon drones overshoot and take photos of Astaria the possible enemy during many years.

The idea that all these planes somehow managed to assemble from multiple remote bases in secret and then formed up all without generating a huge amount of radio traffic, and this after extensive preparations that would easily take 48 hours is just even more implausible.

Preparations took 1 week, not 48 hours. The decision was secret, but of course the preparations were massive. However, how the fuck would Astarians know? Radio traffic was there - I just find it fucking implausible that some foreign bulker would give a fuck about some Russian chatter along the waves, and bother to do anything, much less warn Astaria of all places. I don't know if he'd even make it out as distinctly CSR Russian, as opposed to Byzantine Greek, Pezookian or whatever to clearly understand there's a massive CSR operation underway.

This doesn’t even touch on the issue of shipping along the route

As I said, ordinary bulkers will have to determine the chatter is Russian, and translate and understand that it's a bomber horde bound for Astaria to give a meaningful warning. That's rather implausible, don't you think? Military ships might be another matter, those could have translators and such. But how many Japanistani destroyers are in the area? And Norse said his naval assets were very far away from there. In fact he repeatedly declined to say where the hell they are.

[K. A. Pital]

Timeline for 20 MiG-31M Agressor Squadron combat initiation:
1st Astarian A-50 AEW plane with "Shmel" radar spots the group of MiG-31Ms: 0:00, distance: 400 km away from coastline, 380 km away from the AEW&C plane.
1st MiG-31M spots Astarian A-50, fires 2x KS-172 missiles: 0:01,5, distance: 320 km away from coast, 300 km away from AEW&C plane.
2nd MiG-31M spots Astarian MiG-31, fires 2x KS-172 missiles: 0:01,5, distance: 320 km away from coast, 300 km away from AEW&C plane.
2x KS-172 missiles reach forward MiG-31 escort plane: 0:03,5, distance: 200 km away from coast, 180 km away from AEW&C plane. Destroyed: 1x MiG-31.
2x KS-172 missile reaches AEW plane: 0:05, distance: 120 km away from coast, 100 km away from destroyed AEW&C plane. Destroyed: 1x MiG-31, 1x A-50.

At this point the destroyed forward Astarian MiG-31 would have been able to ping the MiG-31Ms with it's basic "Zaslon" radar (at 16 m RCS, they'd ping around 200 km from the MiG-31). It still cannot launch: it's stock weapon the R-33 (Amos) has a range of 120 km (160 km if Astarians managed to modernize it).

1x Astarian MiG-31 rear escort left detects MiG-31Ms at 200 km away with it's own PESA. It is already detected and a KS-172 missile is launched...

The situation is pretty simple:

MiG-31M has a Zaslon-M PESA. While not as good as the AESA radars I'm putting on my new planes like the MiG-31T, etc., it's range is almost double that of the basic Zaslon (duh, it's heavier): 320 km ping, 280 km track versus the basic Zaslon's ping 190 km, track 120-90 km depending on RCS. Distances are known for 16 m square RCS, which is pretty close to what the MiG-31 itself is (around 15 m square). Astaria could have up to 8 AEW planes and ~16 MiG-31 escorts on alert, though the number is probably fewer than that - and it would mean my agressors would have a more or less easy time dealing with them. Powerful radars and very long-range but very fast missiles are hard to dodge, especially for something like an AEW, and when so little reaction time is offered.

MiG-31s of Astaria could fire R-60s against the KS-172 missile, but it's unlikely to succeed: the R-60 has a 0,5 probability of hit against targets with maximal overload up to 8 gs - the KS-172 is right at 12 gs, and the R-60s ROE is 7,2 km. At 7,2 km there's 5,3 seconds left to engage the KS-172. If he had R-73s, he could reliably engage at oh-30 km, with up to 12 g target maneuvers allowed - and he would down all or most KS-172, but he doesn't have the R-73 or, yet better, R-74M missiles. Zaslon is a good radar and he would most likely be able to ping those missiles (0,1-0,4 RCS), but the tracking distance might be far too low to reliably hit them with R-40 or R-60. After all, the Zaslon is 30 years old.

KS-172 missile has a 400 km range which means at oh-320 I can safely launch it, and with a cruise speed of Mach 4 it will cover that in ~4 minutes. Opposing force has R-33 missile, which can be launched at 120-160 km range max, and it's cruise speed is Mach 3,5, top: Mach 4,5 (target speed must be below 3700 kph).

My attacking squadron is equipped with newer and better equipment, and better radars which allow me to engage Norsemans' MiG-31s faster than his MiGs can engage mine.

As for IADS, the Kh-31PD has a range of 150 km. The only S-300 family machines which can reliably engage my MiG-31s at this range are the "PMU" ones.

S-300V is actually more of an ABM system. It's ABM dedicated missile (9M82) has a range of 100 km - though you can still use it against aircraft, while it's anti-aircraft missile (9M83) has a worse range, 75 km. It's top speed (9M83) is around 1800 m/s, too, which means if I'm lucky I can engage it with countermissiles. However, I explicitly lost one very valued MiG-31M Agressor fighter to it (I thought it would be a PMU though).

An S-300V battery has one targeting radar and one detection radar, if any of those is down, game over unless you have backups somewhere.

Bomber entrance timeline

Supersonic bombers with escorts follow the 20 MiG-31Ms from Point Of Star (700 km away of coastline) but start falling behind. They would take ~20 minutes to get from Point A (Start Point) to Astarian coastline (700 km away). The whole formation proceeds at ~ Mach 2 (or 1800-2000 kph). It would mean that the point of engagement (around 100-0 km to coastline) would be reached at some 8 minutes after the MiG-31Ms breach Astarian coastline, and some 10 minutes after the destruction of AEW&C.

The formation consists of 37 Su-33 and 20 MiG-29K escorts, 9 Tu-160PP jammers, 1 Tu-160CP command and targeting post, 50 Tu-22M5 bombers

Tu-160s and fighters head the way, the Tu-22M5s stay a little behind (around 100 km behind).

At 300-400 k away from possible targets, around 100-200 km away from coastline, the Tu-22M5s would be already able to use 100 Kh-22MP SEAD missiles, which have a cruise speed of Mach 4 and terminal speed of Mach 6. It would mean 3-4 minutes to kill a radar.

At this point the Tu-160 formation and figthers already are on the coastline. They can strike at radars with their 960 Kh-15P SEAD missiles up to 150 km deep, and those Mach 5 missiles leave only around 80-90 seconds to react.

In around 2,5 minutes after that, Tu-22M5 will be in the same point where Tu-160s were and they now can use a total of 300 Kh-15P SEAD missiles in their rotary bays if some idiot turned on his radar after the Tu-160s passed.

In 20 minutes after this wave has passed, 30 Tu-95MS-16 with 16 Yak-141 as escorts arrive at ~100-0 km away from the coastline. They can use up to 180 Kh-15P SEAD missiles in their rotary launches. They already launched their 60 Meteorit-A ALCMs versus airfields around 20 minutes ago and they have already impacted, the same time as the Tu-160s overflying the region provided targeting for cruise missiles and launching their 480 Kh-101s at airfields below them.

The supersonic bombers will complete circle in one hour, and will not return. The Tu-95MS will turn away without penetrating deep into the territory.

The Su-33 and MiG-29K escorts are equipped with various weaponry, but most of all rear-launched R-74ME and R-77M1 (ramjet) countermissiles, some decoys and forward-launched R-77M1 and some KS-172. They are tasked with protecting the bombers from possible PVO installations going online in the rear, and rear attackers.

I've thought this raid through pretty meticulously. It's not meant to achieve a destruction of his IADS, or something. Instead, it's meant to paralyze his IADS for the time being, while I lob Kh-101 and Meteorit missiles not only at airfields, but also against naval yards and harbors, and drop several FOAB munitions carried by very few designated Tu-160s on his seaports. That's all.

It's more of a lesson in sudden strikes than a true long-term war.

[Setzer]

Last matter: Didn't Setzer just violate the Convention?

Why, is someone going to go lugging a battlefleet down my way? I've had way too many incidents in my backyard due to foreign dickwaving. I want to keep any future problems well away. And it seems warships are the only Law of the Sea that anyone will respect.

[Norseman]

Wait a second: Stas do I understand you right, from the drawing, that the attack will concentrate exclusively on Astaria proper, and not go near South Velaria? I'd like to make sure that I've got this straight.

[PeZook]

Why, is someone going to go lugging a battlefleet down my way? I've had way too many incidents in my backyard due to foreign dickwaving. I want to keep any future problems well away. And it seems warships are the only Law of the Sea that anyone will respect.

You have essentially claimed your territorial waters extend to 500 kilometers from your shores, and forbid pretty much anybody from innocent passage.

And what about foreign-flagged ships already in your ports?

[K. A. Pital]

Norseman, I might send some T-5s after they completed going round Astaria to South Veleria, but I prefer to do it one thing at a time.

I need to knock out your main IADS, airfields and naval facilities, even temporarily, to allow for smooth anti-naval operations. Astaria is the goal.

Of course, if you provide a good reason why I should not go beyond such a rapid assault into flying around and hunting down naval vessels, tell me. Also, doesn't South Veleria have an almost non-existentn IADS system? I could send my Naval planes on a new sortie to sink stuff over there once I'm done paralyzing your home AF.

P.S. I still want to understand where your Naval assets are. If you don't tell me, I might scrap the attack alltogether. What's the goal of doing something unclear with an unclear goal. Maybe we'd settle the dispute over in chit-chat? (208 665 336)

[Setzer]

Why, is someone going to go lugging a battlefleet down my way? I've had way too many incidents in my backyard due to foreign dickwaving. I want to keep any future problems well away. And it seems warships are the only Law of the Sea that anyone will respect.

You have essentially claimed your territorial waters extend to 500 kilometers from your shores, and forbid pretty much anybody from innocent passage.

And what about foreign-flagged ships already in your ports?

I said "military traffic from belligerent nations." Trade can go on normally, and the powers nearby can still redeploy their own forces by keeping close to their coastlines. I just want to keep warships and bombers away, since people have been a bit too shooty lately.

[PeZook]

Ah, so you did. Must've misread something.

EDIT: Still, you better be comitted to enforcing it. Since it still is illegal for you to declare such a large zone off-limits, somebody may try to test your resolve.

[Setzer]

Ah, so you did. Must've misread something.

EDIT: Still, you better be comitted to enforcing it. Since it still is illegal for you to declare such a large zone off-limits, somebody may try to test your resolve.

I wouldn't declare a zone off limits if I wasn't going to enforce it.

[RogueIce]

A plane spotter need not be an Astaria citizen. Both NATO and the USSR managed to riddle each other with agents, most of whom where motivated by profit, not ideology, and of course third parties. The idea that all these planes somehow managed to assemble from multiple remote bases in secret and then formed up all without generating a huge amount of radio traffic, and this after extensive preparations that would easily take 48 hours is just even more implausible.

How do they know it's bound for Astaria though? For all they know they're going to overfly the Goddamn F-ing Continent so Stas can scare the FTO just for shits and giggles. Or it's some exercise in mass bomber sorties to make sure they can do it themselves after the One Week War. I don't see how plane spotters will have their top secret orders in hand, and even if they somehow had a method to break the military encryption and translate, how do they know "proceed to point six to rendevous with flight bravo" or whatever means "fuck yeah we're gonna blow up Astaria!"?

If plane spotters seeing lots of bombers and fighters taking off are going to make people all jumpy, maybe I should start doing it to send Shep's and your air defenses in a panic every other week. Especially if I have cryptic radio chatter in the process.

[K. A. Pital]

If plane spotters seeing lots of bombers and fighters taking off are going to make people all jumpy, maybe I should start doing it to send Shep's and your air defenses in a panic every other week. Especially if I have cryptic radio chatter in the process.

Yeah, if that makes you get on 5-minute alert and keep 25% of your AF ready to liftoff in the first 10 minutes of attack, every time you spot someone's strategic bombers overflying his own nation... I guess I should increase intensity of flights to increase fatigue of thousands of people in Astarian and Japanistani IADS.

And the bunch of cargo bulkers roaming the seas across which Skimmer put his trust into, wouldn't have a clue what all that Russian chatter means, as I mentioned earlier. And would also have little incentive to warn Astaria even if one of them suddenly had a Russian captain who understood the chit-chat.

[Norseman]

As I said before I'll have my reply out later today, but as I have something resembling a job I can't really write whatever I want whenever I want it. Also I want to get this right, so I have to look at my notes, and consult people who know a bit more about this than I do.

[K. A. Pital]

Sure, if you want it that way. Hope myself being detailed about the type, nature and duration of assault was helpful.

[Norseman]

All I'm saying is that I can't write long posts when I'm at work. As I am right now. Indeed this week will be particularly hectic for me, for reasons not entirely relevant here.

[RogueIce]

Ah, so you did. Must've misread something.

EDIT: Still, you better be comitted to enforcing it. Since it still is illegal for you to declare such a large zone off-limits, somebody may try to test your resolve.

The only person likely to be greatly annoyed is Lonestar, since any ships he wants to transfer from any southern bases to northern ones have to take quite the detour now (technically the Florida country isn't his territorial waters...I think), or sail around Shepistan, which I don't think either of them would like too much (but of course Lonestar can point out he has little choice because of the Sirnoth declaration...which could attract Shepistan's ire). Of course if that Florida country has any kind of Navy they'll be annoyed at being boxed in like that as well. And then there's two islands to the south of Sirnoth. No idea who or what they are.

Other than that, unless somebody wants to test them on general principle it probably won't be an issue. The Old Dominion is the likely candidate, since like I said it intereferes with some of their transit, though as near as I can tell with the scale it doesn't actually bump into their own territorial waters.

Could somebody who's better at the image scaling thing maybe do a quick workup on that? It'll be useful to know exactly where his 500km limit is now.

Karmic Knight
Sure, send me a PM so we can work out some details. Since you're in the "we like you" category I could probably option you up to 5 or 6 if you want. Pricey, but we are leasing the Syl base from you and of course see you as our main diplomatic contact with the FTO, so we could probably bargain the price a bit. I'd just rather do it in PM than have it get lost in this traffic.

Speaking of the FTO, I did request an observer status at the Cascadian Conference. Did you guys ever decide on that?

[Siege]

Speaking of the FTO, I did request an observer status at the Cascadian Conference. Did you guys ever decide on that?

As far as I'm concerned you're quite welcome.

[Setzer]

Ah, so you did. Must've misread something.

EDIT: Still, you better be comitted to enforcing it. Since it still is illegal for you to declare such a large zone off-limits, somebody may try to test your resolve.

The only person likely to be greatly annoyed is Lonestar, since any ships he wants to transfer from any southern bases to northern ones have to take quite the detour now (technically the Florida country isn't his territorial waters...I think), or sail around Shepistan, which I don't think either of them would like too much (but of course Lonestar can point out he has little choice because of the Sirnoth declaration...which could attract Shepistan's ire). Of course if that Florida country has any kind of Navy they'll be annoyed at being boxed in like that as well. And then there's two islands to the south of Sirnoth. No idea who or what they are.

Other than that, unless somebody wants to test them on general principle it probably won't be an issue. The Old Dominion is the likely candidate, since like I said it intereferes with some of their transit, though as near as I can tell with the scale it doesn't actually bump into their own territorial waters.

Could somebody who's better at the image scaling thing maybe do a quick workup on that? It'll be useful to know exactly where his 500km limit is now.

I think Augustine has enough trouble with the fallout. If the OD transits along their coast, it's not technically Sirnothi territory. But I was pretty sure 500km didn't completely engulf the neighboring coastline. I wasn't really able to tell. I tried forming a crude ruler by bending the teeth of a comb and holding it up to my computer screen.

[RogueIce]

I think Augustine has enough trouble with the fallout. If the OD transits along their coast, it's not technically Sirnothi territory. But I was pretty sure 500km didn't completely engulf the neighboring coastline. I wasn't really able to tell. I tried forming a crude ruler by bending the teeth of a comb and holding it up to my computer screen.

On my rather crude attempt (I tried to guesstimate about half of the 1000km line and then copy/pasted it over to your area and moved it around) it does go up to the tip I believe. So he either has to take a large detour, violate your space, or violate Augistine's limit...I think.

That's why we need a good image scaler here.

Anyway, anyone know of a decent "heavy" air defense system that's vaugely US/NATO and modern enough? I assigned points to heavy ADA but never knew what to call it.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

SiegeTank, at the rate all these visits are going, it will take forever to finish writing them. In unreal time, I'm going to stage a visit to San Dorado, and of course, pray at the local Orthodox Basilica over the grave of the conquistador.

Anyway, anyone know of a decent "heavy" air defense system that's vaugely US/NATO and modern enough? I assigned points to heavy ADA but never knew what to call it.

Technically, on the US side, the Patriot system (PAC 2/3) and the THAAD system together form a heavy ADA.

That's about all the US has though, on the ground.

[Norseman]

I am back home and working on my answer to Stas. I'll be perfectly honest and admit that working all of this technical stuff out is like pulling teeth. I'll try to get it out this evening though, or tomorrow, it depends on how much technical feedback I get and when.

This mess also stops the various story posts (like Kasia) dead in their tracks. Which annoys me quite a bit. I had plans in that regard. Pezook you feeling better?

EDIT: I'll be honest and say I'd be happier without the whole Star of Sweethaven incident. I wish I had nixed that one right of the bat. Happier still without the CSR involvement, it's time consuming, and I think it's a bit over the top.