Shrike : Missile or Fighter?

J

Jason_Ryock

Vice Admiral
Correct me if I'm wrong but in Vietnam (and after) there was a Missile called the Shrike that could be used on Wild Weasel type missions to blow away radar devices.

If I'm correct it was called an ARM missile for Anti-Radiation and could remember the location of the targeting radar even after it had been turned off.

You can see one in "Flight of the Intruder" I believe.

So that leads into my next few questions...was the Shrike designed to perform Wild Weasel missions? (I found a site somewhere once that listed alternate configurations [for missiles] for use on Wild Weasel strikes) And what does HARM stand for (there's a HARM missile that you can use to take out capital ship turrets)?

Also, is there anything like the Shrike (Missile) that can be used to destroy airbourne radar/Warfare and Control? And are there equivilent ships in the Kilrathi or Nephilim fleets?
 
The 'real life' missile you're thinking of is the AGM-45 Shrike. It's basically a missile which locks onto ground-based radar sources (meaning anti-aircraft sites and such). The Wing Commander equivalent is the one you mentioned -- the Ravager HARM variants (HARM, Long Range, Enhanced Long Range, etc.), introduced in Prophecy. The Nephilim equivalent is the Hades ELRAR.

In WC, HARM stands for Heavy Anti-Radiation Missile. In 'real life' there seems to be some question as to whether the 'H' means 'High speed' or 'Homing'... but you get the gist.

I don't think the Shrike (WC) was designed as a WildWeasel craft -- most of the Prophecy ships have alternate WW loadouts. The Shrike was more-likley designed as a bomber for use on escort carriers... think the modern equivalent of the Sabre-D.
 
That's not what the Shrike (missile) is for -- it's for targetting anti-aircraft emplacements... emplacements that use active radar to aim their missiles.

I'm not really sure what the point of a specially designed SWACS targetting missile would be, other than limiting your potential loudout in a firefight... SWACs are just big, undefended spacecraft that any normal missile could be used to blow up.
 
Well the Shrike could be used for dumping on other Radar sites as well, at least, radar sites that used targeting radar to paint their targets....but...in WC I assummed they would have something similar, sort of like a Friend-or-Foe that automatically homes on targets but instead homes only on radar. It could be use to knock out radar emplacements in orbit, on AWACs and on ships as well, leaving them less likely (or completly unable) to detect incoming attacks.
 
The ImRec locks onto an enemy according to its profile, structurally and electromagnetically. So an Imrec matches your definition of locking onto a radar source.
We never go after "radar installations" on the ground or in space in WC:P. Hell, we don;t even go after the Neph equivalent of the Seahawk (I think that the Confed AWACS craft), if they even had one. Who's to say the HARM's don't do this job (the one you're describing) as well, we just never do it in the game?

C-ya
 
It would be cool.

I would LOVE to take an "extra" mission to destroy a SWACS craft, to have less enemies in a strike mission.

Any otehr ideas?
 
If it bothers you so much, go write a fanfic of it, so it can please your inner self.
 
HARM at least in real life is the shrikes replacement and stands for high speed anti-radiation missile. Its basically used for sam and radar controlled gun supression. Its pretty much what the game's HARM does. They made it more like the real life harm which you dont shoot at an awacs.
 
What I was really looking for was what I said before:

Something that was like the friend or foe, (fire and forget) you drop it off and it latches onto the nearest radar source. It has rudimentary programming to remember the location, speed, and direction of travel the object was taking so that it can correct it's course and intercept or just impact the object if it shuts itself off, but you don't have to wait for a lock, and rather then seek out turrets it destroyed radar locations.

This kind of missile would be useful in many circumstances:
First it could be used to destroy AWACs craft. While you never actually fight any in WC it is not inconceivable that the Kilrathi, Nephilim, Border Worlds, etc. could develop one that needed to be taken out.
Second on ground supression runs where you attack bases and you do not desire high civilian or military casualties, you could use this missile to eliminate the radars that are tracking your craft, allowing a stealth approach by ships that lack decent stealth technologies, and for Landing craft to come in. Also, it could destroy the radars but not necessarily the weapons, leaving the defenses intact if you were going to take over the target.
Third it could be used to destroy capital ships radar/sensor arrays, allowing the same things that happened in our simulated ground attack, and also rendering the capital ship blind to other ships that could approach. This allows the added option of letting your carrier/task force operate undetected, without requiring the complete destruction of the enemy in question that your trying to avoid.

See that's why I've been thinking about this, I think it'd be cool to be able to do that in WC, and was wondering why the hadn't (or if they had and I just didn't know it).

The HARM missiles in WC clearly don't meet these requirements, though, and neither do the Image Rec.
 
Jason_Ryock said:
First it could be used to destroy AWACs craft . . .
Second on ground supression runs where you attack bases and you do not desire high civilian or military casualties, you could use this missile to eliminate the radars that are tracking your craft. . .
Third it could be used to destroy capital ships radar/sensor arrays . . .
Click to expand...

First, I've got to go with LOAF on this one. Most AWACS craft are just undefended, lumbering beasts with a big bulls-eye on its back. Once fighter cover is eliminated, why waste a missile on that thing? If you want to waste a missile, why not an Imrec, Heatseeker, or FoF that doesn't neccesarily depend on radar emissions to get the jo done? Why a whole new class of missile?
Second, I kindof assume that the HARM does the exact thing in atmosphere that it does in space, which is lock onto radar sources and destroy whatever is emitting them, be it a radar station, gun turret, or whatever. We all know what happens when you assume though ;)
Third, I don't think SOP for encountering a capship in a system you want to operate from involves stripping it of its "eyes" and then leaving it alone. I think blowing it to kingdom come is a much better way of dealing with hostiles in a system. I mean, why have a enemy capship strolling around "your" space, no matter how "blind" it is? I don't think I'd feel very comfortable until it was spinning debris, myself.

C-ya
 
Destroying something that a full drydock has to replace is much better then killing the carrier completely.

Let's say (for example) you've got an Escort Carrier working with a Marine Detatchment in a system that's defended by a CV. There's no way the Escort Carrier can defeat the CV. But there are reinforcements on the way for the Marine Detatchment, whose goal is to sieze a nearby planet. A surgical strike from the Escort Carrier renders the CV blind. Since it dosen't know what the Escort Carriers target is, and it can't detect them to intercept them or engage them, it withdraws to friendlier space to re-build it's radar. In the meantime, before it can return, the Marine detatchment secures the target and reinforcements arrive to hold the new target against the CV.

Also, in Secret Ops you fly multi-stage strikes where you eliminate turrets and shield emmitters. If you also eliminated the carriers Radar it wouldn't know when you were coming back with your force until you were in range.

Also, in our example of the CVE and the CV above, with some careful planning the CV could eliminate the Radar of the CV and if it remained in system, work it's fighters hard to pretend to be a full CV wing. Since the CV couldn't detect it, the CV wouldn't really know what it was up against, giving the CVE more time to operate and making the Cv more wary (if it's captain knew what he was doing).

Let's assume also that the new missile is a fast (or faster) then an image rec missile, with the long-range addition. You approach an awacs to find that it's escorted by two to four light fighters. Your part of a strike, in a bomber, and you don't want to engage because your configured for a Wild Weasel load out, but you carry the new missile, you dump it at extreme range, and turn and run. The missile homes in by itself, instead of being a FoF which might home on something else, or having to wait for a lock with an image rec, or instead of engaging two to four light fighters in a bomber, it homes straight in and blows the hell out of the AWACs craft, freeing up your strike force and not requiring anything more then a bomber.

Also, you assume that each gun turret and missile turret has it's own built in targeting radar (which must be the case, since the missile for eliminating those batteries is designated the HARM missile) but I don't think that would always be the case. In fact, I would stress that it is probably not the case. Most turrets and capship weapons would probably rely on the ships radar and sensor array for targeting data.

You see the same thing with Vietnam SAM sites (which is the closests example I can think of) where you have 3-5 launchers attatched to one or two radar devices. Also on modern US warships, the missile launchers do not have their own radar systems, the Missiles themselves do, but they do not activate until they fire. Aiming is accomplished by use of the ships main radar, which is more powerful and can detect targets at longer ranges.

Also, as in the US fleet today, I do not believe that an AWACs ship would ever be lumbering around un escorted. Carrier Captains in the US Navy always protect these craft as if their life depended on it. I don't think complete Air Superiority is possible without an AWACs craft, making them indispensible to whatever forces emply them. I wouldn't send one up without at least 2 fighters covering it, and I would feel better if it had 4, personally. But these are just my thoughts and opinions.
 
Comment on WC versions of anti-radiation missiles
in End Run, Bondarevsky uses a multi-warhead anti-radar missile/bomb on the strike on Vukar Tag

The missile opens up to fire several miniature missiles, each locking in a different radio emission. The kats turn off their ground radars, but the missiles dont loose its lock, and hit anyway, in several places

I made a version of that to my rpg named Wasp's nest, which actually can be used against any radar emission, and was once used by a player as an earlier version of a Starburst, as he fired it in the middle of a group of incoming fighters
 
I don't think you're understanding the term 'anti radar'. It's not a missile that destroys radar -- it's a missile that uses radar sources to destroy ground emplacements. You don't launch a Shrike (missile) to prevent the enemy from having any radar at all... you do it to destroy AA sites -- which is exactly the same thing as the WC version does.

And any situation that involves attacking an SWACS (not that the Nephilim seem to have specific SWACSses) could be accomplished with ordinary missiles, since they're just normal ships. You don't need a specially designed missile to blow up a Seahawk because a common IFF will do the exact same job with absolutely no downside.

The Ravager shows up in the bomber loadout of the Panther... I'm not sure which missions use that -- maybe Talos 2?
 
Shrike missiles are referred to as Anti-Radiation missiles because they home on the TTR, target tracking radar, that is being used to aim the AA sites (like SAM sites). You never see, for example, in Vietnam, a Shrike missile being used against a gun site.

The SAM sites Radar "paints" the fighter, the fighter detects this, the BN (Bombordair Navigator) in an EA-6 Prowler for example, toggles off the Shrike. The missile scans and detects the radar emmission, and files away the location the radar beam is coming from, and then homes in on that signal. If the radar is shut off, the missile remembers the location and continues to home.

That's how it wasin Vietnam at least. For the HARM missiles to be truly Anti-Radiation they would also have to home on the Radar Signals, which would mean that every turret would have to have it's own Target Tracking radar pulsing out Radar beams to detect incoming targets. I don't subscribe to this theory because whatever radar you could fit in a turret wouldn't have the same range as the Ships main Radar, and it would make for some serious maintenace work (which I suppose isn't really an issue with the Nephilim, but with the confed it would be).

Again, this missile could be used to blind a single ship or groups of ships, and to destroy AWACs craft.

If I was a carrier commander I would position my AWACs craft forward of my position to detect incoming craft. A strike leader could detail off a Wild Weasel bomber to destroy the AWACs, clearing the route for the rest of the strike, and then proceed on the know detectionless carrier, or destroy the AWACs and approach from another direction, throwing off the carrier's defensive forces. This prevents the carrier from discovering whats coming at it, if anything is, until later, allowing them less time to plan.
 
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