Platform stats

What the numbers on an aircraft, ship, submarine or ground unit entry mean.

Every platform entry lists characteristics. The parameters differ by platform type. This page provides more detail about each type of parameter.

Aircraft#

Combat radius#

Combat radius is a round trip distance on internal fuel vs. a one-way range. An aircraft with a radius of 500 km can reach a target 500 km from its base and return with useful time on station. Send it further and it will get there, but run out of fuel on the way home.

The numbers come from the game's own flight model, so it is the same estimate the loadout screen shows. Database aircraft that use the aerodynamic table are modeled assuming a high-altitude cruise, carrying 75% of their maximum weapon load, which is why the radius is less than what a clean platform could achieve. Helicopters and aircraft using the simpler air model estimate range assuming cruise speed, max internal fuel, and a 30 minute fuel reserve. The note under the figure tells you which one produced it.

Weight matters for aerodynamic model aircraft, and the radius depends on what you actually carry for payload. Using external fuel tanks will also increase radius. The coarser (simpleair model) estimate has no weight term at all, and radius does not vary with payload.

Treat the number as a planning figure rather than an exact value. Realized radius decreases with low-level flight, extra time spent on station, afterburner use, and increased payload weight.

Aerial refueling#

The row appears on aircraft that can take fuel in flight, and many of them can. If it is absent, the aircraft cannot refuel in flight, and the combat radius above is the whole story.

For everything else, radius stops being a hard limit and becomes a planning factor. A refueled package can reach targets beyond the listed radius figure, or hold a patrol station for longer. For air-to-air refueling the scenario must include a tanker and that tanker has to be in position for refueling. Tankers are large and slow, which makes them a target worth defending and hunting.

Payload and takeoff weight#

Payload assumes a full fuel load. The two figures trade against each other. Carry less fuel and you can carry more ordnance at the cost of radius. Using drop tanks increases radius at the cost of other payload.

Payload rarely limits a CAP fighter carrying only air-to-air missiles. It is a factor for strike aircraft with heavy weapons and for helicopters, which typically have lower payload capacity.

Ceiling and climb#

Altitude can increase weapons range. A missile launched high and fast flies farther than the same missile launched low and slow, because it loses less energy fighting dense air. An aircraft that operates at 15,000 m launches its missiles from a better position than an aircraft at 5,000 m altitude.

Climb rate is related to excess thrust, the power left over after holding level flight. High climb indicates an aircraft with high acceleration.

G limit and runway#

The g limit and speed set the aircrafts's turn capability, which is a factor in missile evasion and how fast a unit can circle back onto a threat. You are commanding rather than flying, so the number works through the simulation. Transport and patrol aircraft typically have low g limits compared with fighters.

Minimum runway decides which airfields a type can use. Helicopters can take off and land vertically, which lets them work from destroyer flight decks.

Radar cross-section (RCS)#

How strongly the aircraft reflects radar energy in decibels relative to one square meter. The listed number is nominal. The note beneath it gives the range the aircraft presents because the simulation models the change in RCS with viewing angle (target aspect) and radar frequency.

Lower is better, and the scale is logarithmic. A conventional fighter sits near 0 dBsm, a bomber or airliner well above it, and a stealth aircraft far below.

Compare it against a sensor's reference range, which is quoted for a 0 dBsm target. Detection range scales with the fourth root of cross-section, which means 10 dB of reduction cuts detection range to almost half of the reference figure, and 20 dB cuts it to a third.

The spread matters as much as the nominal number. Most aircraft are more visible from the beam than head-on, making an aircraft flying straight at a radar harder to see than the same aircraft crossing it.

For stealth aircraft the variation with radar band is also important. Stealth shaping is tuned against the fire-control bands that guide missiles. Long-wave search radars can see stealth aircraft considerably better other radars, though these radars may have reduced accuracy and slower track update rates.

Ships#

Speed and propulsion#

Most modern combatants have maximum speeds between 28 and 32 knots. Speed alone rarely decides an engagement; however, it matters in some cases. An escort has to match the unit it screens, and a group moves at the pace of its slowest ship. Against a submarine, a fast transit is very hard to intercept. And high speed raises self noise, which degrades your own sonar.

Installed power compared with displacement relates to propulsion type. Gas-turbine warships have high power for their size. Diesel auxiliaries carry much less. That difference can be audible: a high-power plant that runs hard is a loud plant, and passive sonar can detect the machinery at longer range.

Displacement, length and draft#

Displacement is a rough measure of size, and it tracks loosely with how much damage a hull absorbs. It does not measure firepower. A 9,200 ton destroyer with 96 vertical launch cells has more offensive capability than many larger ships.

Length often correlates with radar cross-section. Long ships get detected farther out and are easier for a missile seeker to find.

Draft affects how deep the water must be for a ship to travel. Carriers, large amphibious ships, and loaded tankers cannot work in shallow water or use some straits. Small combatants can go close to shore where nothing larger follows. In a scenario built around a chokepoint or a coastal approach, draft can constrain options.

Aviation#

Aviation capacity reads as hangar capacity followed by deck capacity. Hangar is the number that governs sustained operations, because aircraft on deck cannot be maintained (if this realism option is enabled in the game).

Two helicopters in a hangar allow near continuous anti-submarine coverage: one airborne, one being turned around. A single helicopter ship gives you intermittent coverage.

Radar cross-section#

Ships are large radar targets. Where a fighter sits near 0 dBsm, a destroyer sits above 40 dBsm and a carrier even higher, so a warship can be detected at many times the range an aircraft is, limited by radar horizon.

The figure varies with aspect, and for ships the beam is the worst case because a hull presents more area side-on than bow-on. Angling a formation relative to a threat axis can have some effect, though against a 10 dB spread it buys less than emissions control does.

Modern designs with sloped superstructures have lower numbers than older hulls of the same displacement.

Submarines#

Undersea warfare is a contest of who hears whom first, and acoustic and sonar performance is critical.

Max speed and depth#

A submarine's top speed comes with a caveat that you rarely use it. A nuclear boat running at 32 knots announces itself to every passive sensor in the area. High speed is for repositioning when nobody is listening or evasive manuevers. Or for a sprint-and-drift search where you accept being loud briefly and then go quiet.

Speed does decide one thing. A diesel boat traveling at 15 kts cannot intercept a 30-knot task group unless it is already ahead of them. That positioning problem is the largest practical difference between nuclear and conventional submarines.

Depth is a resource rather than a limit. Sound bends at thermal boundaries in the ocean, so a boat below the layer is much harder to detect from above it. Depth changes complicate a torpedo's search. Deep water gives room to hide behind terrain. Shallow littoral water removes the vertical dimension and makes battle harder for all sides.

Battery endurance#

Diesel-electric boats only. Nuclear boats have no battery limit and the row disappears.

This is submerged endurance at economical speed, and it is the defining constraint on conventional submarine operations. Endurance collapses with speed: a boat that can creep for nine hours may exhaust its battery in a fraction of that while sprinting. Every extra knot spent chasing reduces the time to hide.

When the battery runs down the boat must snorkel, coming shallow, running noisy machinery and exposing a mast to radar. That is when a conventional submarine is most vulnerable, and waiting out an opponent is a legitimate way to hunt one.

Radiated noise#

Shown as a range. The lower figure is how loud the boat is creeping, the upper figure how loud at full speed.

Passive detection is a contest between radiated noise and the ambient noise a target hides in, so this figure drives it directly. The scale is logarithmic and a 10 dB difference is large.

Read the span rather than either end alone. A narrow span means the boat does not get much worse at speed, and may not be quiet when it creeps. A wide span means speed discipline is everything: very hard to find slow, much easier fast. Compare the low ends to judge who wins a quiet stalking contest, and the high ends to judge who can afford to move.

Modern diesel boats on batteries are often quieter at low speed than nuclear boats, whose coolant plant never fully stops. A conventional submarine in its own coastal waters is a stealthy target.

Cavitation speed#

The speed at which the propeller starts forming and collapsing vapor bubbles, producing a loud broadband noise that any passive sensor recognizes.

Cavitation is a threshold, not a gradual decline. Below it you are quiet. Above it you are broadcasting your presence, your rough position and the fact that you are moving.

The figure is a range because water pressure suppresses cavitation. The lower number is the threshold near the surface, the upper number the threshold deep, often capped by the boat's own top speed. That gives the central rule of submarine movement:

It also tells you how to hunt one. Force an opponent shallow, into a strait or up to snorkel depth, and their usable silent speed collapses.

Ground units#

Ground entries have a short characteristics block. A fixed air defense site has no meaningful speed. Its capability is entirely in what it shoots and what it sees, so the Armament and Sensors sections are more important.

For an air defense site, three questions are important to consider:

1. How far can it shoot? Open the missile from the Armament list and read its maximum range.
2. How high can it reach? The same missile's launch altitude band tells you whether it was built against low-level attack or high-altitude aircraft.
3. How far can it see? A site cannot engage what it has not detected.

The relationship between those numbers is the tactical picture. A long-range missile paired with a short-ranged radar is less dangerous than its missile suggests. A site whose radar reaches well beyond its missiles is a warning system that will hand you to something else.

Satellites#

Satellites use a similar short layout. What a reconnaissance satellite provides is mainly based on its orbit type and sensor entry. Satellite capabilities and models will be expanded in future updates.