One important feature of Command is the ability to import preset arrangements of units and facilities. For example here is a map of static Ukrainian Air Defense sites! Zoom in and click on their markers, its pretty cool!
Plus a map of static Ukrainian air defence radars
I also have a my Ukraine map index, Russian map index as well as my index of all maps. Of special interest might be the Russian Western Military District air defence as well.
I’ve been asked a few times about EMCON, specifically how it ties into modern naval tactics.
Almost never turn your radars on your ships. They will turn their radars/jammers on automatically if they think they are under attack.
Your aircraft are your eyes (radars) and ears (ELINT).
If you don’t have any cool aircraft use a
sacrificialscout ship, and take it out of your formation (go into unit mode with 9 on the keypad, press D to detach them from the formation) have this ship take a different course, at a different speed. Turn on its radars, and ideally it should have powerful jammers too.An LCS is a good candidate for a
sacrificescout. Can make 45 kts, relatively good radar.Not only do you give away your position if you turn on your radars, but you also give away your fleet’s composition, the different ships in your fleet can now be identified. All it takes is 2 hostile helos a bit away from each other to triangulate your location if you turn on your radar.
Don’t ‘blink’ your radars either. As the USN you want helos to provide surface search radar and hawkeyes to do air search. A large part of Command is managing your ship’s emissions.
One important exception is if you are expecting a ballistic missile attack you should turn your ballistic missile defense ships space search radars on. Nothing else can even spot a ballistic missile at altitude.
Modern naval warfare is a game of smoke and mirrors.
Aircraft in Air to Air warfare should automatically beam missiles, if they have the doctrine to evade defensively enabled. Stealth is really hard to employ currently; its not just the technology but its a whole doctrine of needing standoff jammers and needing to attack when visibility is low: on nights with bad weather. If you fly a B2 at 12kft over north korea at noon on a clear day you will be spotted.
I’ve also been asked “Is there anything I can do about the enemy jamming my missiles and radars? I’m having a ton of trouble in the Duelists scenario because when my 24 Sea Eagles go in for a target, they’re all jammed!”
Sea Eagles have the capability to home on jammer. That means if they can’t find a target with their radar they will seek on a jammer, usually the strongest one from its perspective. Then as it closes the radar eventually gets close enough to see the ship and it then locks on and engages.
There is nothing you can really do about jammers, aside from destroying them. Any modern naval surface engagement with modern platforms engaging modern platforms will involve extensive jamming.
Airborne jammers are really quite effective in this regard, you can jam ASM but the ASM can’t hit your aircraft jammers. Should fly your jammers low to exploit this.
Also manage your jammers, if you spot a long range ASM strike you can arrange your formation tactically to steer anti ship missiles away from high value targets.If the jamming is preventing you from achieving a solid solution for an ASM strike you can exploit other sensor technologies than radar to develop a solution. Localize with radar, track with passive sonar, and if you are really desperate send someone in to take a look by air, or get a sub to periscope depth to get a visual identification on important high value targets you want to sink.
Increase your ‘baseline’, try to always triangulate targets by having two aircraft with RWR or ELINT sensors fly on very different tracks, even if you can’t ever directly ‘see’ your targets having two RWR sensors far away from each other will allow your staff to develop a shooting solution based on the two bearings provided by the RWR.
Another option is to time your attack for a optical/IR satellite overpass. Optical sats can’t really spot ships out in the middle of the sea without any support, but if they have a general idea of the location of the ship they can pinpoint that sucker. Radar sats are just as susceptible to jamming as earthbound radars.