December 11th - "You'll have someone's eye out with that!"

Rapier FSC SHORAD System

The Rapier FSC (Field Standard C) air defence system developed by MBDA (formerly Matra BAe Dynamics, UK). The system is based on the Rapier mk2 missile and launcher, which is in service with the British Army.

The system is a SHOrt Range Air Defence (SHORAD) design providing defence against unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, and fixed and rotary-wing aircraft. And is capable of engaging supersonic, low-level, high-manoeuvrability aircraft and can be towed behind medium size vehicles and armoured personnel carriers. It is air-portable by transport aircraft or helicopters.

We started making the Rapiers for OFP many moons ago. Back then there was an abundance of "East" side SAM systems in the game but very little in the way of West SAM content. In the course of development we began to realise that we were going to face something of a problem with “missile spamming”.

In OFP and ArmA the AI have a habit of engaging the first/closest target they see. This means that if you were to place 2 SAM Launchers on the map and two planes attacking them. Both Launchers would engage the lead aircraft leaving the 2nd one free to destroy the target. This wasn’t especially realistic so we set off developing the Fire Control Script System.

While UNN set off with the FCSS development, I took to remaking the Rapier models. Making them more accurate and incoprorating some of the requirements for UNN’s ever expanding system. We decided that we wanted as realistic as possible system, something that mirrored the real world equivalent. What we ended up with was the entire Rapier kit list. The Full system comprises of four main components:

In the real world the FSC has several layers of detection capability. The “Dagger” Search Radar is the first line of defence. This unit finds and tracks airborne targets, classifies them and prioritises them for target allocation. The targets are then passed off onto the “Blindfire” Fire Control Radar (FCR). This unit controls the launchers and assigns targets to each missile battery. Once within Range the FCR passes the target to the Rapier Launchers which engage the targets. The Launchers themselves have both Optical and Radar tracking units, meaning that almost any target can be engaged day or night in all weathers.
All of this is controlled by two men sat in collapsible chairs in a nearby bunker or tent. Control is by Active Command to Line of Sight (ACLOS) but can be pretty much automated with the final decision to fire being with the operators.

What we have done is provide 2 layers of operating mode. The first layer is AI driven. It’s essentially fully autonomous and requires no human prompting. The second layer allows a player to get into the control units and manually track and engage air targets. Once the player leaves the control unit the system reverts to autonomous operation. This level of capability is driven by the Fire Control Script System (FCSS) system.

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