How to use Syrian SAM-aamissiles

[fossiili]

I have played two times WinSPMBT beeing Syrian. I bought SAM-aamissiles in 1967 and 1973. In neither of the games I had any use of them. Helicopters and airplanes appeared but I could not get SAMs pointed to them What are they use for?

[Double_Deuce]

Some SAM's have a minimum enagagement range. Not sure that is the reason why they wouldn't engage the aircraft BUT it might be the case.

What ones were you using?

[Mobhack]

1) LR sams have a very long minimum engagement range, usually. So they are usually ineffective against helos (unless you had a very wide map!). If so, then they will only be of use against bombers and fighter bombers etc.

2) If they have low skill chance (and Syrians are not very high experience), chances are they managed to fail thier skill rolls to fire on incoming planes, several times in a row, assuming you had several chances to fire.

3) If the EW difference roll between the incoming planes is high enough to reduce the shot to a very low probability, they may also not fire as it is not worth wasting a missile.

4) If supressed, they also may decide not to fire - but I'll assume they were not being bombarded?.

Cheers
Andy

[Mobhack]

a quick 5 minute test scenario.

Syrians in 73, bought SA-2 guidelines. Placed near the back of of a 100 wide map. 50 visibility - but irrelevant as radar SAM. Bought 4 trucks as bait for the israeli planes. deployed in the middle of the map.

Bought the israelis 2 neshers. Plotted to arrive turn 1 and strafe the trucks.

In about 6-8 test runs, only once did the Syrians fail to fire a SAM. When they did fire, percentages were about 12-18% (before any avoidance action).

The occasion when no SAM were let off was probably a combination of low skill (low hit%) and all 4 SAM sites failing to-fire skill rolls, or the percentages to hit were too low to make the shot worthwhile (probably, israieli plane rolled high on EW and the SAM rolled low, for 2 planes and 4 possible firers = 8 opportunities).

Moral - buy more SAM if Syrian, as with 8 launchers, there is less chance of all of them to fail a skill or electronic warfare roll simultaneously

cheers
Andy

[fossiili]

Thank you for the adwise!

[Marek_Tucan]

on a similar topic... I was very glad to see that in WinSPMBT the SAM's fired from off-board (artillery) units have same hit %'s as onboard, so I've quickly created off-board LR SAM's, usually with 93 code in Heavy Arty... Works well for me.

[Mobhack]

The problems with off-map SAM are that you cannot reload them. Also - as planes only attack on-map targets, you probably will not be able to attack them (antir radar missiles may allow this, and possibly missiles?).

The ability to fire SAM from off map is a bug - and will be fixed later.

Cheers
Andy