"Ah Ha! Proof they can make smoke!" Topic

I inquired about this some time ago, for Bulldogs Away! rules, since one of the modern missile boats in a game was damaged, and her captain wanted to make smoke to try to cover his escape.

Opinions varied, but some seemed to doubt that would be possible/necessary.

I countered at the time about a thread I'd read, where some navies had smoke that included components in it to try to help defeat radar and lasers.

As we know, most, if not all WWII vessels had a basic smoke-making capability, so why not modern ones?

So, as proof of my theory, here's a great photo of three Swedish Fast Attack Craft making heavy smoke for the locals, while on parade (I presume. Either that, or they're trying to spray to keep the local mosquito population down – either way it is a useful technique to defeat visual detection/observation):

So, feel free to use that as a legitimate tactic, in your next Bulldogs Away!, Shipwreck, or Harpoon game, using modern Fast Attack Craft. The life you save might be your own, and/or that of your crew.

Of course, the jury is still out on its effectiveness in defeating/degrading enemy radar, I/R, and anti-ship missile seekers, but we do know some people are working on that as well.

Smoke is an excellent visual obscurement.

You need something different for radar, which is what most anti-ship missiles use for tracking. I don't think there's a US ship that doesn't have the SRBOC chaff launchers installed!

Those are some good looking little ships. I like their lines.

Lion in the stars wrote:

Smoke is an excellent visual obscurement.

And multi-spectral smoke is an excellent multi-spectral obscurant.

Good luck persuading modern navies to tell you what wavebands their obscurants and decoys work against.

All the best,

John.

Nice photo!

That's proof that those *Swedish* ones can make smoke.

Remember that a lot of missile boats and fast attack craft are pretty old. Even though they know they will be targeted by radar guided weapons the smoke equipment is still there from the 1950s. Obviously I'm not talking about Swedish or US equipment, but Iranian and so on.

Here's an astounding picture of US and Korean amphibious assault vehicles throwing up smoke grenades to cover a landing in 2010.

I hadn't seen that pic before.

Quite impressive smoke rings those guys are creating!

For anyone interested in the vessels, the two closest ones are Norrkoping (sorry, no umlaut) class Swedish missile/torpedo boats, and the far one is an older, Spica class torpedo boat. The former carry a mix of RBS-15 SSMs, and torpedoes, while the latter carry 6 wire-guided, Type 613 torpedoes, in addition to their main forward 57mm gun. Fairly heavy armament for such a small package.

PT Dockyard makes the Norrkoping (called Spica II on his product list), in 1/700th scale.

Hopefully, Dave will agree to produce the Spica I torpedo boat, eventually. The hull is pretty much the same as the Spica II, appearance-wise, but is 1 meter shorter. The bridge is shaped a bit different, if you look closely.