[R-DEV]​Rhino PR:BF2 Developer



Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 46,948 United Kingdom United Kingdom Location: Somerset - UK Blog Entries: 44

CLOS SAM Systems C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight Guidance for S urface-to- A ir M issiles, or CLOS SAMs for short.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mW-a6vstsQ

The Definition of C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (CLOS) is a type of Missile (or Bomb) Guidance where a ground station (or aircraft) relay signals to a guided missile via radio control (or possibly through a wire connecting the missile to the launcher) and tells the missile where to steer in order to intercept its target.



C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (CLOS) Guidance is the oldest and original form of precision guidance for a weapon, first developed and used (with successes) during World War II on the



Many of you will be familiar with the C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (CLOS) Guidance Concept on many of our Guided Anti-Tank Missiles ingame such as the TOW, MILAN, HJ-8, ERYX, etc. But as of yet, none of our S urface-to- A ir M issiles (SAMs) have had CLOS Guidance ingame, and instead have only used the standard Infrared/Radar Homing Guidance, where you lock onto the target, fire, and the missile does the rest, as best it can.



While C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (CLOS) Guidance for S urface-to- A ir M issiles (SAMs) on the face of it may sound like a really bad idea, there are quite a few advantages to it, as well as some of the obvious disadvantages.



CLOS Advantages No "Lock-On" Delay until you can fire the missile at the target. No Missile Tracking/Locked Warning given to the aircraft, the only sign that you're being engaged is of the possible sighting of the missile being launched and/or it flying towards you. Flares and most other countermeasures have no affect on the missiles guidance. However in reality their are special radio wave jammers that can jam the signal to some CLOS weapons, but there is nothing ingame that can affect them. You can potentially use the weapon against ground targets as an AT weapon with veritable damage rates depending on the missile. CLOS Disadvantages Battlefield obscurants, such as smoke, can degrade the ability of the missile operator to see the target and as such, engage it. The "skill level" of the operator is critical since, unlike infra-red guided missiles, the operator has to track the target exactly with the sighting unit. If the aircraft detects or predicts the missile launch, it has the whole period of the missile flight time to engage in avoidance manoeuvres, which adds additional challenge to the missile operator's target-tracking task.

One of the main reasons why CLOS Guidance for SAMs hasn't been seen in PR yet, is largely because only a few Modern SAM Systems still use it. This is mainly down to it being out of favour for years with most countries, but stubbornly a few European Countries have stuck with CLOS SAM Systems, mainly the British, despite their pretty poor combat record. As such we only actually have had two SAM Systems ingame that use CLOS Guidance in real life (the Alvis Stormer HVM and the 2K22 Tunguska), till now that is!



One of the main conflicts CLOS SAM Systems were used was in the 1982 Falklands (/Malvinas) War, where they were largely fielded by both sides throughout the conflict on a number of different platforms. With the upcoming v1.4 update, including the full integration of PR:Falklands we have managed to create three (3) of these CLOS SAM Systems used during the war, complete with ingame CLOS Guidance! These include the Tigercat SAM, the GWS-24 Sea Cat SAM and the Blowpipe M an- P ortable A ir- D efense S ystems (MANPADS). Although we are only going to be showing you the Tigercat and Blowpipe Systems today (along with the Stormer and Tunguska being updated with CLOS), the GWS-24 Sea Cat we will be showing off in a few days time so keep your eyes open for that!







Tigercat SAM













(Click to Enlarge) Design & Info

The Tigercat SAM System is a land-based, mobile version of the Sea Cat (the original Naval version used on ships), developed by Shorts in the mid 1960's. Based on a three-round, trailer-mounted launcher towed by a Land Rover, and a second trailer carrying the fire control equipment. Once in position, the launcher and director are set up, levelled on jacks and connected to each other by cable links. The director consists of a control officers console and a pedestal director, which has a powerful binocular sight. Once a target has been acquired and identified, the operator launches a missile and guides it along the line of site to the target by means of a joystick, command inputs being passed by radio link.



The Tigercat Missile is identical with the Sea Cat Missile with only the firing platforms being unique. The Tigercat (/ Sea Cat) missile, is a stumpy, sub-sonic missile powered by a two-stage solid fuel rocket motor. It is steered in flight by four swept, cruciformly arranged wings and is stabilised by four small tail fins.



Highly successful firing trials by the RAF Regiment began on November 16, 1967. Tigercat was used exclusively within the British Armed Forces by the 48th Squadron RAF Regiment between 1967 and 1978 with 12 Launcher Units. But by the 1980's the Tigercat was seen as obsolete due to increasing speed of high flying, supersonic aircraft. In these cases, the manually guided subsonic missile was totally unsuited to all but head-on interceptions and then only with adequate warning and all were eventually replaced in British service by the new Rapier SAM.



Tigercat SAM Systems were (and some still are), also operated by India, Iran, Jordan, South Africa, Qatar and Argentina.



Argentina deployed the Tigercat operationally during the Falklands conflict. No kills or any kind of success were initially believed to have been achieved by the marine-manned Tigercats, but according to a more recent report, a Tigercat missile scored a near-miss on the 12th of June, which scored substantial damage to RAF Harrier GR.3 (XW 919), and spraying the local powerhouse roof with shrapnel, leaving the aircraft with category 4 damage while attacking Argentinian artillery positions on Sapper Hill. But nevertheless, with the plane's aft fuselage on fire, the pilot succeeded in landing her safely back on the deck of HMS Hermes. A Tigercat missile is also somewhat believed to have defeated the first British attempt to use laser-guided Paveway II bombs on 31 May 1982, apparently destroying one of the recently delivered 'smart bombs' launched, while in mid-flight. But there is no solid evidence for this claim has been found and it is also thought that the ground based designator, turned on his laser designator too soon, making the bomb fall short of its target instead. A total of 7 launchers were captured by the British by the end of the conflict, some being ex-RAF units bought by Argentina only a few years before the conflict began. In-Game

This weapons system will be used by both the Argentina and British, 1980's era Factions. Although the British didn't deploy the Tigercat in the 1982 Falklands (/Malvinas) War, they did deploy the Rapier FSA/B SAM system, which was pretty similar to the Tigercat in many ways with both using CLOS Guidance etc, and they had only recently replaced the Tigercat with it with-in the British Armed Forces. So since we don't have a Rapier SAM yet, the Tigercat will be serving as a place holder for it for the time being. You may also see it being used in small numbers by the Modern MEC Faction, since a few Middle Eastern countries still have a few of these systems in service.



While the Tigercat SAM during the Falklands (/Malvinas) War was seriously obsolete and too slow to engage supersonic aircraft other than with head-on interceptions, in-game its combat performance will not be anything like as bad as it was in real life. This is down to a few factors.

Firstly, when engaging the jets flying at low-level, they are not at their top speed, and the missile can, although very slowly, catch up to a Mirage or Dagger flying away. Although if they really floor it, they can sometimes escape out of the view distance before the missile has fully caught up but this all depends on how far away the jet was from the launcher when the missile was launched and what speed they are going. This also makes for awesome moments where the pilot watches this missile slowly creeping up on him from behind as he tries to accelerate away as fast as he can from this swirling terror just behind him!

Secondly, technically speaking in-game this weapon will be using S emi- A utomatic C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (SACLOS) Guidance, where in real life, this weapon only had the most basic M anual C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (MCLOS) Guidance. The big difference being MCLOS means you have to both visually track, and manually steer the missile with a separate controller onto the target, where SACLOS means you just visually track the target and a computer calculates what moves the missile needs to make to get to where you are aiming it to go. This is party for gameplay reasons, but also because the BF2 Engine has no decent method of simulating MCLOS Guidance.

Thirdly, you will also not have to compensate for things like wind or other factors in-game like you would need to in real life to keep the missile on course, especially for a MCLOS weapon like this.

All in all While this missile system is hard to use, with a bit of practice you can find that in some cases, its easier to score a kill with this than normal IR Missiles due to the advantages listed above. Not to mention you get three missiles to fire off in one go before having to reload Credits

Model: [R-CON]lucky.BOY & [R-DEV]Rhino

Texture: [R-DEV]CTRifle & [R-DEV]Rhino

Export: [R-DEV]Rhino

Coding: [R-DEV]Rhino , [R-DEV]Mats391 & [R-CON]Arab

Public Development Topic: [Model] Tigercat SAM (PR:F) [WIP]



Blowpipe MANPADS





(Click to Enlarge) We actually showed off our Shorts Blowpipe MANPADS almost two years ago now here:

[Weapon] Shooting Pheasants with a Drainpipe - Project Reality Forums



Spoiler for Shooting Pheasants with a Drainpipe - Highlight Post:





Based off this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M78gadYbQNs





















Design & Info

The Shorts Blowpipe is a Manual Command to Line Of Sight (MCLOS), man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) developed in 1975 for the British Army and Royal Marines.



The missile is shipped as a single round in a storage cylinder/firing tube. The aiming unit is clipped to the launch tube and fired from the operator's shoulder. To reduce the overall size of the container, the rear fins of the missile are stored in the larger diameter cylinder at the front of the tube (this also contains the Yagi antenna for transmitting guidance signals); during firing the fins slip onto the rear of the missile as it flies through and are held there by heat-activated adhesive tapes. This gives the launch container a unique shape, seemingly oversized at the front and extremely thin at the rear. The missile is powered by a short duration solid rocket for launch, then by a main sustainer rocket once it is well clear of the launch tube.



Guidance of the Blowpipe is initially semi-automatic with the missile gathered to the centre of the sight's crosshairs by the infrared optic atop the aiming unit. Two to three seconds after launch, missile guidance is switched to fully MCLOS mode, and the operator regains full control of the missile. The operator has to steer the missile all the way to its target manually via a small thumb joystick.



Detonation is either by proximity or contact fuse. In emergencies, the operator can end an engagement by the operator shutting off the power to the transmitter with the system switch, after which the missile will immediately self-destruct. The aiming unit can then be removed from the empty missile container and fitted to a new round.



Blowpipe was also developed as a SAM for submarines, fitted as a cluster of four missiles into a mast that could be raised from the submarine's conning tower under the name Submarine Launched Airflight Missile (SLAM) trialled on HMS Aeneas (P427) in 1972. These were for a time installed on Israeli Gal class submarines.

Combat performance

Blowpipe was used by both the British and Argentina during the Falklands War in 1982. With the targets being mostly fast, low flying aircraft using the terrain to hide their approach the Blowpipe operator had about 20 seconds to spot the target, align the unit and fire. Brigadier Julian Thompson, initial British land commander during the Falklands War, compared using the weapon to "trying to shoot pheasants with a drainpipe."



The official report stated that of the 95 missiles fired by the British, only 9 managed to destroy their targets and all of these were slow flying planes and helicopters. A later report determined that only two kills could be attributed to Blowpipe: A British Harrier GR3 (XZ972) attacked by Argentine Army special forces (Commandos Company), and an Argentine Aermacchi MB-339 (0766 (4-A-114)) during the Battle of Goose Green.



Blowpipe was found to be particularly ineffective when used to engage a crossing target or to chase a target moving rapidly away from the operator. The poor performance led to it being withdrawn from UK service and replaced by its updated design designated "Javelin" (Not to be confused with the FGM-148 Javelin) in-between 1983 and 1985.



In 1986 some of the mothballed units were sent clandestinely to equip the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. The system again proved ineffective at engaging air targets and ended up mainly being used against ground targets. It was eventually supplanted by the US Stinger missile. Blowpipe missile systems are still being found in weapon caches as recently as May 2012 in Afghanistan.



The Canadian military took Blowpipe from storage to give some protection to their naval contribution to the 1991 Gulf war, although sheer age had degraded the weapons, and nine out of 27 missiles tested misfired in some way.



Blowpipe saw more effective use in the Cenepa War of 1995 between Ecuador and Peru, where it was deployed mainly against Mil Mi-17 and Mil Mi-18 Peruvian helicopters.

Ingame

The Blowpipe will be Project Reality's first Command to Line Of Sight (CLOS), Surface to Air Missile (SAM) weapon. Although technically we do have one SAM ingame that should be CLOS, the Stormer HVM, its currently coded with the normal heat seeking missile code.



Command to Line Of Sight (CLOS) basically means that the missiles goes where you visually tell it to go, much like many of our Guided Anti-Tank Missiles such as the SRAW, ERYX, TOW Missile, etc, by aiming towards the target while the missile is in flight. The biggest difference however between the Blowpipe and our Guided Anti-Tank Missiles, is that the Blowpipe missile has a proximity fuse like our other Anti-Aircraft Missiles, so it doesn't have to hit the target directly to destroy it.



While CLOS on the face of it may sound like a really bad way to go, there are quite a few advantages to it, as well as some of the obvious disadvantages.

CLOS Advantages No "Lock-On" Delay until you can fire the missile at the target. No Missile Tracking/Locked Warning given to the aircraft, the only sign that your being engaged is of the possible sighting of the missile being launched and/or, it flying towards you. Flares or other countermeasures have no affect on the missile, other than possibly confuse/distracting the missile operator at best. You can potentially use the weapon against ground targets as an AT weapon with veritable damage rates depending on the missile.

CLOS Disadvantages Battlefield obscurants, such as smoke, can degrade the ability of the missile operator to see the target and as such, engage it. The "skill level" of the operator is critical since, unlike infra-red guided missiles, the operator has to track the target exactly with the sighting unit. If the aircraft detects or predicts the missile launch, it has the whole period of the missile flight time to engage in avoidance manoeuvres, which adds additional challenge to the missile operator's target-tracking task.

While the Blowpipe was arguably one of the worst performing SAM weapons ever to be created, ingame its combat performance will not be anything like as bad as it was in real life. Technically speaking ingame the weapon will be using Semi-Automatic CLOS, where in r/l this weapon was Manual CLOS. The big difference being MCLOS means you have to both visually track, and manually steer the missile with a separate controller onto the target, where SACLOS means you just visually track the target and a computer dose the rest. You will also not have to compensate for things like wind or other factors ingame and while this missile system is hard to use, with a bit of practice you can find that in many cases, especially against helicopters, its easier to score a kill with this than normal IR Missiles.



The Blowpipe wasn't the only MANPAD used during the Falklands War however. The British SAS did deploy the FIM-92 Stinger and the Argentinians the SA-7 Grail, but both in very small numbers and they weren't used much during the war. However because of this and to also give the aircraft a bit more of a hard time each team will be getting a pickup kit of each on all the layers of the Falklands with jets on, to go on top of the normal AA, Blowpipe kits





Its also worth noting that while unrealistic and for the time being at least, the Deployable AAs will stay the same from previous versions with the Brits using the Deployable Stinger and the Argies the Deployable 9K38 Igla so aircraft still have lots of normal, heat seeking AA weapons still to fear from the ground as well as the air.





CLOS Guidance may be applied to other SAM Systems ingame in the future, with some like the Tigercat SAM still in development for PR:F but for the time being the Blowpipe will be the test bed for this new SAM guidance system, although initial testing has shown it to be a pretty decent weapon but we will have to see how it performance under battle conditions and under the stress of 100 player servers.



Cheers for reading and hope you guys like this new weapon as we feel it brings a bit more skill into SAMs and is very fun and rewarding when you hit your target







Credits



Model: [R-DEV]Rhino

UVs: [R-DEV]Rhino

Texture: [R-DEV]Rhino

Export: [R-DEV]Rhino

Coding: [R-DEV]Rhino & [R-CON]Mats391

Video: [R-DEV]Rhino & [R-DEV]Dr Rank + Actors: Spyker, [R-CON]Mats391, DonDOOM, [R-DEV]Jafar Ironclad, [R-COM]Hulabi, Wicca & MaxBoZ[NL]. As a little special Easter gift from us here at Project Reality:BF2, here's a little something I've been working on for PR:Falklands; the Shorts Blowpipe - Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS).Cheers for reading and hope you guys like this new weapon as we feel it brings a bit more skill into SAMs and is very fun and rewarding when you hit your target[R-DEV]Rhino[R-DEV]Rhino[R-DEV]Rhino[R-DEV]Rhino[R-DEV]Rhino & [R-CON]Mats391[R-DEV]Rhino & [R-DEV]Dr Rank + Actors: Spyker, [R-CON]Mats391, DonDOOM, [R-DEV]Jafar Ironclad, [R-COM]Hulabi, Wicca & MaxBoZ[NL].

Nothing much has changed with the weapon itself since then, other than [R-DEV]KaB has done some amazing new animations for this weapon, where before in the video from two years ago, we were having to use the Stinger animations as a place holder. [R-DEV]M42 Zwilling also made a bunch of nice new sounds to fit the new animations.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOJT8pV7uyI

Credits

Model: [R-DEV]Rhino

Texture: [R-DEV]Rhino

Export: [R-DEV]Rhino

Coding: [R-DEV]Rhino & [R-DEV]Mats391

Animations: [R-DEV]KaB

Sounds [R-DEV]M42 Zwilling & [R-DEV]-=anders=-



Alvis Stormer HVM





(Click to Enlarge) Many of you will be familiar with the Alvis Stormer HVM (High Velocity Missile) which has been in PR since v0.8 released in 2008. But since its introduction into PR it has had the standard PR/BF2 Inferred Missile Guidance which was common to all Surface-to-Air Missiles. However in real life, the Starstreak Missile which this fires, uses S emi- A utomatic C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (SACLOS) Guidance. Although unlike most CLOS weapons which receive their commands over either radio or though a connecting wire, the Starstreak is a "Laser Beam Riding" weapon, also known as Semi-Active Laser Homing (SALH), which means the missile is directed by laser beams from the launcher unit, aimed at the target it's engaging.



However the biggest advantage the Starstreak Missile has over any other missile in PR, is its speed. Most Surface-to-Air Missiles, of similar size, have a top speed of around Mach 2 (~700m/s / ~1,500mph). The Starstreak on the other hand has a top speed of "over" Match 4 (1,360m/s / 3,042mph), twice that of most other Surface-to-Air Missiles, also with "Rapid Acceleration", making the job of intercepting fast moving targets far easier. Although unlike real life, where this missile has an "Impact Delay Detonation Mechanism", meaning that at least one of the missile's sub munitions has to hit the target directly for it to cause it any damage, we will instead be giving it a Proximity Fuse. This is for a couple of reasons. Firstly because we simply can't simulate the type of Fire Control Systems the Stormer has in reality to help it get its missiles directly on target and secondly because "server latency" (lag), with fast moving aircraft, makes it incredibly hard to hit them directly since you may see the aircraft in a slightly different location on your screen, to where it actually is on the server. The proximity detonation is also, one of the only ways we can simulate the missile firing off its three sub munition darts at the target, in reality increasing the chances of the missile hitting three fold, which we can't properly simulate.



Another advantage of the weapons massive velocity, means that each sub munition of the missile has enough kinetic energy to penetrate the frontal armour of an IFV, making it a pretty effective weapon against ground vehicles as well as aircraft, although it lacks the armour penetration capabilities of a purpose-built anti-tank guided missile, so it is going to hardly scratch a main battle tank. But this allows the Stormer HVM to double up as both an Anti-Vehicle and Anti-Air, Platform, making it a pretty valuable and versatile asset on the battlefield.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbS_y7LltDo Quote: Originally Posted by Note Please note that only two of the four missiles launched actually hit the target and we will be removing the recoil of the missile launch which lead to one of the missiles missing, the other was just aimed just in front of the target. Credits

Model: [R-DEV]Stigger

Texture: [R-DEV]Stigger

Export: [R-DEV]Guedoe

Coding: [R-DEV]Mats391



2K22 Tunguska





(Click to Enlarge) The main firing mode on the 2K22 Tunguska for its 9M311 Missiles is a version of CLOS, known as A utomatic C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (ACLOS), which vastly differs from other CLOS guidance systems, since instead of a person directing the missile, the missile is instead directed by a radar and guidance is totally "automatic", with the computer sending commands to the missile by radio, on where it needs to turn to intercept its radar lock and all the actual gunner has to do is require the lock with the radar and fire the missile. As such we will be still simulating this mode with the standard "lock target and fire" system you are all familiar with in PR and what most other SAM Systems use, which has the disadvantages of still being susceptible to counter measures the aircraft may deploy.



However the Tunguska also has a S emi- A utomatic C ommand to L ine- O f- S ight (SACLOS) Guidance Mode, normally used as a backup to the ACLOS Guidance Mode, where the gunner can track the target manually and the commands for the missile calculated by the computer and sent over the radio link to the missile.



As such, the Tunguska will have the option to either fire its 9M311 Missiles in either ACLOS, or SACLOS modes, as well as using its dual 2A38 30mm cannons, making it an extremely formidable adversary.



Credits

Model: DiCE

Texture: [R-DEV]Spush & DiCE

Export: DiCE

Coding: [R-DEV]Mats391



GWS-24 Sea Cat

Keep your eyes peeled over the next few days for a dedicated update on this weapon and this segment of this update will be updated when it comes! Today we would like to introduce you to a brand new gameplay feature coming in v1.4,Guidance for, ors for short.The Definition ofis a type of MissileGuidance where a ground stationrelay signals to a guided missile via radio controland tells the missile where to steer in order to intercept its target.Guidance is the oldest and original form of precision guidance for a weapon, first developed and usedduring World War II on the Fritz X Guided Anti-Ship Glide Bomb and forms of this guidance are still used widely today.Many of you will be familiar with theGuidance Concept on many of our Guided Anti-Tank Missiles ingame such as the TOW, MILAN, HJ-8, ERYX, etc. But as of yet, none of ourhave had CLOS Guidance ingame, and instead have only used the standard Infrared/Radar Homing Guidance, where you lock onto the target, fire, and the missile does the rest, as best it can.WhileGuidance foron the face of it may sound like a really bad idea, there are quite a few advantages to it, as well as some of the obvious disadvantages.One of the main reasons why CLOS Guidance for SAMs hasn't been seen in PR yet, is largely because only a few Modern SAM Systems still use it. This is mainly down to it being out of favour for years with most countries, but stubbornly a few European Countries have stuck with CLOS SAM Systems, mainly the British, despite their pretty poor combat record. As such we only actually have had two SAM Systems ingame that use CLOS Guidance in real life, till now that is!One of the main conflicts CLOS SAM Systems were used was in the 1982 FalklandsWar, where they were largely fielded by both sides throughout the conflict on a number of different platforms. With the upcoming v1.4 update, including the full integration of PR:Falklands we have managed to create threeof these CLOS SAM Systems used during the war, complete with ingame CLOS Guidance! These include the Tigercat SAM, the GWS-24 Sea Cat SAM and the Blowpipean-ortableir-efenseystems (MANPADS). Although we are only going to be showing you the Tigercat and Blowpipe Systems today, the GWS-24 Sea Cat we will be showing off in a few days time so keep your eyes open for that!