The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. - Frédéric Bastiat

Simple Class for a more intelligent Air Defense System

MANTIS

Moose derived Modular, Automatic and Network capable Targeting and Interception System.

Controls a network of SAM sites. Use detection to switch on the AA site closest to the enemy. Leverage evasiveness from Functional.Sead#SEAD. Leverage attack range setup added by DCS in 11/20.

Set up your SAM sites in the mission editor. Name the groups with common prefix like "Red SAM". Set up your EWR system in the mission editor. Name the groups with common prefix like "Red EWR". Can be e.g. AWACS or a combination of AWACS and Search Radars like e.g. EWR 1L13 etc. [optional] Set up your HQ. Can be any group, e.g. a command vehicle.

1. Basic tactical considerations when setting up your SAM sites

1.1 Radar systems and AWACS

Typically, your setup should consist of EWR (early warning) radars to detect and track targets, accompanied by AWACS if your scenario forsees that. Ensure that your EWR radars have a good coverage of the area you want to track. Location is of highest importantance here. Whilst AWACS in DCS has almost the "all seeing eye", EWR don't have that. Choose your location wisely, against a mountain backdrop or inside a valley even the best EWR system doesn't work well. Prefer higher-up locations with a good view; use F7 in-game to check where you actually placed your EWR and have a look around. Apart from the obvious choice, do also consider other radar units for this role, most have "SR" (search radar) or "STR" (search and track radar) in their names, use the encyclopedia to see what they actually do.

1.2 SAM sites

Typically your SAM should cover all attack ranges. The closer the enemy gets, the more systems you will need to deploy to defend your location. Use a combination of long-range systems like the SA-10/11, midrange like SA-6 and short-range like SA-2 for defense (Patriot, Hawk, Gepard, Blindfire for the blue side). For close-up defense and defense against HARMs or low-flying aircraft, helicopters it is also advisable to deploy SA-15 TOR systems, Shilka, Strela and Tunguska units, as well as manpads (Think Gepard, Avenger, Chaparral, Linebacker, Roland systems for the blue side). If possible, overlap ranges for mutual coverage.

1.3 Typical problems

Often times, people complain because the detection cannot "see" oncoming targets and/or Mantis switches on too late. Three typial problems here are

• bad placement of radar units,
• overestimation how far units can "see" and
• not taking into account that a SAM site will take (e.g for a SA-6) 30-40 seconds between switching to RED, acquiring the target and firing.

An attacker doing 350knots will cover ca 180meters/second or thus more than 6km until the SA-6 fires. Use triggers zones and the ruler in the missione editor to understand distances and zones. Take into account that the ranges given by the circles in the mission editor are absolute maximum ranges; in-game this is rather 50-75% of that depending on the system. Fiddle with placement and options to see what works best for your scenario, and remember everything in here is in meters.

2. Start up your MANTIS with a basic setting

myredmantis = MANTIS:New("myredmantis","Red SAM","Red EWR",nil,"red",false)
myredmantis:Start()

[optional] Use

• MANTIS:SetEWRGrouping(radius)
• MANTIS:SetEWRRange(radius)
• MANTIS:SetSAMRadius(radius)
• MANTIS:SetDetectInterval(interval)
• MANTIS:SetAutoRelocate(hq, ewr)

before starting #MANTIS to fine-tune your setup.

If you want to use a separate AWACS unit (default detection range: 250km) to support your EWR system, use e.g. the following setup:

mybluemantis = MANTIS:New("bluemantis","Blue SAM","Blue EWR",nil,"blue",false,"Blue Awacs")
mybluemantis:Start()

3. Default settings

By default, the following settings are active:

• SAM_Templates_Prefix = "Red SAM" - SAM site group names in the mission editor begin with "Red SAM"
• EWR_Templates_Prefix = "Red EWR" - EWR group names in the mission editor begin with "Red EWR" - can also be combined with an AWACS unit
• checkradius = 25000 (meters) - SAMs will engage enemy flights, if they are within a 25km around each SAM site - MANTIS:SetSAMRadius(radius)
• grouping = 5000 (meters) - Detection (EWR) will group enemy flights to areas of 5km for tracking - MANTIS:SetEWRGrouping(radius)
• acceptrange = 80000 (meters) - Detection (EWR) will on consider flights inside a 80km radius - MANTIS:SetEWRRange(radius)
• detectinterval = 30 (seconds) - MANTIS will decide every 30 seconds which SAM to activate - MANTIS:SetDetectInterval(interval)
• engagerange = 75 (percent) - SAMs will only fire if flights are inside of a 75% radius of their max firerange - MANTIS:SetSAMRange(range)
• dynamic = false - Group filtering is set to once, i.e. newly added groups will not be part of the setup by default - MANTIS:New(name,samprefix,ewrprefix,hq,coaltion,dynamic)
• autorelocate = false - HQ and (mobile) EWR system will not relocate in random intervals between 30mins and 1 hour - MANTIS:SetAutoRelocate(hq, ewr)
• debug = false - Debugging reports on screen are set to off - MANTIS:Debug(onoff)

4. Advanced Mode

Advanced mode will decrease reactivity of MANTIS, if HQ and/or EWR network dies. Awacs is counted as one EWR unit. It will set SAMs to RED state if both are dead. Requires usage of an HQ object and the dynamic option.
E.g. mymantis:SetAdvancedMode( true, 90 )
Use this option if you want to make use of or allow advanced SEAD tactics.

[internal] Grouping detected objects to 5000m zones

[internal] Grouping detected objects to 5000m zones