What to do with the MIM-14 Nike Hercules Anti-Air...

Post by **George Geczy** » Feb 02 2004

And other equipment like it.

The Nike Hercules (no relation to the shoe company, at least none that we can verify

) is an Anti-air missile system developed in the late 1950's. It went out of production in the mid-1970's, and today only South Korea, Turkey, and Italy still field batteries of them.

It is interesting since it is very long range (up to 140 km) and can attack high air targets (up to 45,000 metres, or about 150,000 feet). The only other thing in Western equipment to compete is the much more recent Patriot PAC-2 system.

This equipment raises an issue that many other equipment pieces in our list have - just because it is no longer being built today, should we 'expire' it and not allow it to be re-introduced?

Or should we allow players to still research the design and start building them if they want to?

There's also been discussion here about expiring unit designs as your tech level increases - so for instance with a tech level of 100 you could build Anti-Air unit XX or the newer YY, but at level 101 you can only choose YY (XX would be a much older design that 'expired'). Other examples would be the M60 Patton tank versus the M1 Abrams, etc. In most cases you wouldn't choose to build the older design, so we want to unclutter the lists and also remove units that haven't been built in decades.

However, some of the older units may have features certain players would like (cheaper, faster to build, maybe a special capability like longer range or amphibious etc).

So - should we expire ancient units?

-- George.

prime_642 · Post by **prime_642** » Feb 02 2004

Why was producion halted? Was it because the types of aircraft it was targeting didn't go as high as it's ceiling? The only reason it could have been retired is if it's usefulness was ended. So it could hit targets up to 140 miles out. Was the technology around to track aircraft accurately and guide missiles to that location back then?

About whether or not to build a unit, The reason units expire in the first place is because they go out of date... They no longer fill any useful function, like the battleships after WW2. After the wars when they reigned supreme, the aircraft carriers replaced them. Now, no battleship, if they were still in commission, could possibly go up against an aircraft carrier because it would be sunk in a few minutes by the power of the aircraft's bombs, every bit as powerful as the battleships' own 16/15/14 inch guns. Plus they can reach out much farther than the battleship. This was clearly demonstrated by the sinking of the HMS Prince of Whales and another battleship or cruiser. (HMS Repulse?) This is why carriers have replaced battleships as the mainstay of fleets at sea.

However, if the USA ever gets a weird and inexplainable urge to build a battleship, they can! Just go back, check the designs, hand the specs to Norfolk, and have them build. The designs are still there, they can copy and use them. However, whether the units are useful is another question. If you make t he game accurately, there should be no competition between an M1 Abrams and an M60 Patton. The M1 should be able to blow up the M60 before the M60 can load it's gun. Can an M60 even load a HEAT round?

My point is this, if a player wants to build an obsolete unit, let him! But it should be made so as to have no competition to newer units. In addition, i suggest that there should be a morale penalty in the units with obsolete equipment. If they see units witht the best stuff that hey don't have, they'll be jealous that they weren't good enough for the new stuff, and resentful at the fact that their country is sending them out to die in obsolete equipment that won't last long in a battle

Post by **George Geczy** » Feb 02 2004

Interesting comment about the Battleships, because even this isn't so 'cut and dried'... for example, check out:

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/milrev/downloa ... /ralph.pdf

The author of this military document basically states that Battleships should very seriously be considered for use as a modern unit - their armour makes them nearly impervious to the type of anti-ship missiles that kill lightly-armoured destroyers (ie Exocet's), and their big guns can put 'destruction on target' much faster (and cheaper) than land attack missiles for coastal targets.

So yes, one person's 'expired unit' is often another's 'we need one of those...'

chandrill · Post by **chandrill** » Feb 03 2004

I'd say leave put them in as an option. Many countries use equipment that we would consider outdated, but because of cost or other reasons thats what they use. However, would it be possible to maybe put a filter in place to only show the latest units if desired? This would help avoid cluttering up the build screen with too many old units.

Post by **Balthagor** » Feb 03 2004

Filters are already implimented. Units can be either tagged as favorite or as excluded. I'm not sure how many people used them but the lists still get very cluttered. George also left out another item that I have been asking for. I want a research expiry date added. Currently, a region with tech of 105 goes to look at units they could research and are shown units that are tech level anywhere from 45 to 105. I think that if they didn't research a tech 45 unit by sometime ~75 there's just no reason to leave it in the list.

Juergen · Post by **Juergen** » Feb 03 2004

From what I read about the Nike Hercules it might still be a usefull unit since it could provide large coverage for a low price.

But remember that this missile is quite old.
It was designed to attack old soviet bombers which are big and slow unlike moderm fighters or even cruise missiles.
The test conducted so far always pitted the Nike against aircraft drones not missiles.

I would assume the missile might do well against bombers (the older the better) or against transports.
Against moderm fighters and some stealth bombers the missle wouldnt do well and wouldnt have a good chance at shooting down missiles.

And there is another problem,
the Nike system is practically immobile because of the 1950s radar.

Always remember:
If equipment becomes phased out then there is likely a good reason for it

Hellfish6 · Post by **Hellfish6** » Feb 03 2004

Expire them. They're old and all of them still in existance are probably scheduled for replacement. I don't know why anyone would want to build more of them (and they should be pretty ineffective against modern aircraft and ECM systems) when much more potent missile systems are available.

I'd suggest including them in the order of battle in their respective countries, but don't allow new ones to be built.

And as for battleships, sure they can be built again, but it takes YEARS to build ships that large. It might be out of the scope of SR2010.

Obssesed Nuker · Post by **Obssesed Nuker** » Feb 03 2004

Id like too make a comment on that "battleship will take years to make" thing... remember this is the future... they might come up with technology that would build the battleships faster and cheaper.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Feb 03 2004

Older ,"obsolete tech" to some -is a dream to others.
Some nations would love to get some other nations "obsolete" tech.
I say leave them in and make them available in very low tech regions.

Post by **George Geczy** » Feb 04 2004

During wartime in WW-II, I seem to recall that battleships and carriers took just over a year to build from start to finish... this is about the build-time we've given them, so yes they wouldn't be all that wise for a long scenario....

Regarding the expired units and expired research, it's a tough call... if we choose to expire units, you can bet that someone will get confused because their 'favorite whatever' suddenly became unbuildable - possibly because they never bothered researching anything newer, or possibly because they liked the fact that the old one had better defensive values than the new one, etc etc.

Steelsky · Post by **Steelsky** » Feb 06 2004

And as for battleships, sure they can be built again, but it takes YEARS to build ships that large. It might be out of the scope of SR2010.

Can anyone remember how long it took to build a liberty ship? I seem to remember a propaganda build where they put it together too fast too really believe.

/Steelsky

ardem · Post by **ardem** » Feb 08 2004

Well perhaps old tech can be bought of the world market (underground) so the countries that don't have this tech and can't get there hands of the very new stuff straight away could fill a gap in there defences.

Also maybe you could get the old tech can be us bought and new certain tech could be researched on that couldn't before.

Hellfish6 · Post by **Hellfish6** » Feb 09 2004

Liberty ships took 30-60 days I think. But a 5000 ton freighter can't compare to a 20-40,000 ton battleship.

Post by **George Geczy** » Feb 16 2004

Well, we finally decided our answer to the 'how to deal with old equipment that is cluttering the lists' issue.

In the equipment list, most designs will be tagged with an 'obsolete tech level', which when reached will cause the design to be 'filtered out' from the build and research lists by default. However, players will be able to turn this filter off and see the full, cluttered list in all its glory, allowing them to research and build really old stuff if they really want to.

Another more significant change we're making is that we're restricting 'World' equipment to just those regions that do not have another 'major region' setting. For example, in the current beta we allow the US to research and build the SS-80 ASTROS rocket artillery (Brazilian) and the Rooikat Anti-Tank (South African), since those designs are marked 'World'. We now will not allow this; US, Russian, and European players will generally be more tightly restricted to designs in their own section. Players that do not have any 'major' region tag (US, etc) will then get the 'world' items instead.

-- George.

Steelsky · Post by **Steelsky** » Feb 17 2004

Good choice, will older tech start dropping in production cost as your tech level gets higher?

/Steelsky