Flying planes, and Killing tanks

[starstreams 0]

Hi

Just wondering, firstly; I've set the enemy stuff to easy because it seems that the tanks are extremely accurate, almost to the point where it's fake. I mean I can't even get past a tank running at full speed without it annihilating me. sometimes I'll run past small opining, and it still gets me. Is this normal for this game? Is this more real?

The other thing is; I use to be able to fly the helicopters in OFP resistance very well, but something is totally different with the choppers in ArmA. Not to mention you can't even fly into an aria with enemy tanks below without getting shot down in 3 seconds. I don't even have a chance if there are more then 1 tank below.

Is there something I need to setup differently in ArmA to make fly the choppers like in the past.

Thanks

[Daniel 0]

Mah mate, the choppers in ArmA now have a much better grasp of the laws of physics, so i'm afraid you're going to have to get used to it.

It's worth it though, once you get good at flying in ArmA it's much more fun than OFP.

About tanks, yeah, they do seem very effective at taking down planes. Guess all you can do is try and engage from standoff distance or make sure you get some support on the ground.

[gsleighter 0]

Use actual helicopter attack techniques, like the pop up maneuver - Hide behind a hill or treeline, then pop up just long enough to acquire a target, fire a guided missile or cannon burst, and descend back into cover. You can use whatever's big enough for this, buildings, hills, trees, ships, whatever.

Helicopters are pretty fragile IRL, you don't want to fly something that flies that low and slow over enemy armor, they're expensive, loaded with sensitive equipment, and unlike OFP or Arma, you can't eject from one.

You'll find they're a lot more survivable when you change the way they fly. As for enemy accuracy, you can change that in the arma configs in your my documents folder so that the enemy and friendly units fire their weapons with a lot more spread, which does a lot to extend the life of a firefight (And your life, too).

[walker 0]

Hi all

I wonder how many times this will have to be repeated.

Excluding the pop up attack listed above and fixed wing standoff weapons such as hellfire and LGB etc.

The major cause of casualties to air to ground attack vehicles in their ground attack roll is the same in ArmA as it is in real life.

Too shallow an attack angle.

This applies to FFAR attacks, unguided bombs excluding computed lobs and gun runs in both fixed and rotary wings.

The proper way to ground attack is to come in from high up in a diving attack and break off high enough up so you do not hit the ground. This means minimum time close up over target maximum time lining up on target (instead of dodging trees and houses) and fast egress out of the hot zone.

Ingress and egress routes need to be planned, final attack line to and from target should be parallel to any front lines to prevent blue on blue. The attack run should be rehearsed once. Ideally ingress, target and egress should be suppressed prior to and after the attack run.

In other words for fixed wing though diving attack applies to rottary wing using unguided weapons too.

1) Establish the enemy location by intel

2) Using the map, establish navigation points in your proposed attack line eg. roads in parallel with your attack run as reference for direction, points such as road junctions or bends and hills and buildings at your attack point and as reference points.

3) Confirm your navigation points and enemy location and therefore your true attack point by flying over the target high up, fast and upside down; so you can look down out of your cockpit with maximum view, preferably along the same line as your proposed attack run.

4) Move away from your target at maximum speed and circle to the beginning of your attack route again at maximum speed.

5) Pull up into a steep climb till you are almost at stall point

6) Dive at the attack point

7) Choose your target early

8) Diving will give you maximum time over target to line up on it and hit it.

9) Diving is the hardest angle for the enemy to hit you few guns can elevate to 90 degrees and rotating them to get a bead is harder.

10) Diving means your smallest profile is presented to the enemy.

11) You will have gained a lot of speed in the dive, use it when you pull out to put the maximum distance between you and the enemy, fly low, hard and fast, at max throttle jink if you have to but you best defense is speed and turns kill speed.

12) Once clear pull up into max throttle climb again.

13) Once high enough up pull over and loop to look at the target and do a Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) while in inverted flight (look for smoke and secondaries)

14) Or alternately do a reverse loop to do a return attack run.

15) It is useful if ground units suppress the enemy before and after an attack run. If they are ducking your supporting troops fire or returning it then they are not firing at expensive you or your expensive aircraft.

PS I do not find it hard to kill AI tanks.

Kind regards walker

[starstreams 0]

Wow, thanks guys

@walker

I'm printing that out. Thanks that should help

But as far as controlling the chopper, Maybe I need to hook up a joy stick. it always wants to drop to the ground unless I pull up on the mouse.

In OFP-R you could raise your altitude by holding the Q key if I remember. but in ArmA; what raises the altitude other then pulling up on the mouse? You should be able to life the chopper vertically without pulling the nose up, you can in real life. That is not what is happing with my altitude key.

[Alex72 1]

@starstreams

And to make the air operations even better, use Myke's Dynamic View Distance addon.

Link: DynVD

[l mandrake 9]

Tank machine-gunners are certainly overly accurate - it's not helped by the fact that M2 and DSHKM have no, zero, nil recoil so they are effectively laser-pointers - once they are locked on you will have to leave the area FAST if you want to survive (and go and repair your aircraft).

You might want to lower your AI precision settings in mydocs/arma/playername (text file) to compensate - loads of threads about how to do this elsewhere.

Mandrake

[gsleighter 0]

When my unit went to gunnery in Germany, I always noticed that the MGs on tanks were extremely accurate out to long ranges. They have no recoil because you've got them bolted down tight to a 70 ton firing platform. So they're not "laser pointers," just very effective at what they do.

[frederf 0]

That assumes there's absolutely no flex in the metal mounting hardware. Bolt an M2 to a 1,000,000 tons of concrete with a swiveling mount and it's still going to jitter when it fires.

Firstly I would suggest a joystick. They are ~$25 for a basic one and it's going to make flying really possible. Mouse and keyboard don't cut it for anything more than transport helos.

Walker makes a good point about flying aircraft. The biggest danger to a CAS aircraft is the pilot's attitude who is flying it. Feelings of invulnerability and lack of planning are the worst dangers out there. The really good pilots make it look easy because they absolutely minimize their exposure to the enemy in both space and time. It takes a lot of hard work and careful prep to make it seem effortless.

Realize that real pilots are shooting at 10-20 times the range that we are in visibility much better and have radar systems that work better. Default ArmA planes and engine make a hard job harder before you even get off the ground, so make sure that you play conservatively.

That being said the tank 50 cal machine guns seem like they are being radar controlled. The coaxial machine gun on a real tank would likely be pretty accurate but not the commander turned out type on these T-72s. It's a problem with the maxLead speeds in the config and the fact that if it's over that amount they won't fire at all but if it's under that they will fire super accurately. A nice improvement would be for the gunners' accuracy to decline linearly from lead speed = 0 to very poor at max lead speed. As the target approaches max lead speed their accuracy goes to heck and at max lead they stop trying altogether.

Also the pilot's best friend is the commander on the ground that can recon, suppress, distract, mark, etc the enemy before the plan is even in the combat area.

[gsleighter 0]

A nice improvement would be for the gunners' accuracy to decline linearly from lead speed = 0 to very poor at max lead speed. As the target approaches max lead speed their accuracy goes to heck and at max lead they stop trying altogether.

Maybe if a dev read this, it could happen? Here's hoping, sounds like a good idea.

[kremator 1065]

Firstly I would suggest a joystick. They are ~$25 for a basic one and it's going to make flying really possible. Mouse and keyboard don't cut it for anything more than transport helos.

In your opinion ...... I find that mouse and keyboard are absolutely fine. In fact I can fly better using them that other poeple that I KNOW are using joysticks.

[TAO] Kremator

[subs17 9]

That assumes there's absolutely no flex in the metal mounting hardware. Bolt an M2 to a 1,000,000 tons of concrete with a swiveling mount and it's still going to jitter when it fires.

Firstly I would suggest a joystick. They are ~$25 for a basic one and it's going to make flying really possible. Mouse and keyboard don't cut it for anything more than transport helos.

Walker makes a good point about flying aircraft. The biggest danger to a CAS aircraft is the pilot's attitude who is flying it. Feelings of invulnerability and lack of planning are the worst dangers out there. The really good pilots make it look easy because they absolutely minimize their exposure to the enemy in both space and time. It takes a lot of hard work and careful prep to make it seem effortless.

Realize that real pilots are shooting at 10-20 times the range that we are in visibility much better and have radar systems that work  better. Default ArmA planes and engine make a hard job harder before you even get off the ground, so make sure that you play conservatively.

That being said the tank 50 cal machine guns seem like they are being radar controlled. The coaxial machine gun on a real tank would likely be pretty accurate but not the commander turned out type on these T-72s. It's a problem with the maxLead speeds in the config and the fact that if it's over that amount they won't fire at all but if it's under that they will fire super accurately. A nice improvement would be for the gunners' accuracy to decline linearly from lead speed = 0 to very poor at max lead speed. As the target approaches max lead speed their accuracy goes to heck and at max lead they stop trying altogether.

Also the pilot's best friend is the commander on the ground that can recon, suppress, distract, mark, etc the enemy before the plan is even in the combat area.

Its not only the hit probability thats a problem its also the damage model which gives too much damage from AAA when an A-10 can still fly with 1 engine, 1/2 a wing, 1/2 a tail 1 rudder and still land with wheels up in an emergency. Plus the armour around the pilot and engines etc also needs to be taken into account. As for dive angles etc on the ingress to tgt that is sort of not as relevant as you might expect because it depends on the height of release.(BA/AD and weapon you are using) You can safely do a low level popup attack with an A-10 so long as you have countermeasures and a safe ingress/egress path. Most of this stuff simply won't work in Arma due to the draw distance you really need better visual id from much further away to do it successfully. Lockon again is a good example of where you can realistically use these tactics(and with vehicle AAA as well) as it models the damage and the countermeasures when facing rear aspect manpads etc. Arma also needs the right information displayed on the HUD Feet/Knots airspeed plus the straffing/gun/rocket reticle also needs a range display as the radar altimeter takes a slice and displays the distance above the reticle. And thats how you know that at 2.2Miles I can straff a Shilka without getting stung.

[frederf 0]

The A-10 doesn't seem nearly as survivable in-game as you'd think I know. There's some aircraft config edits you can do so that the enemy targets the aircraft instead of the pilot which prevents a lot of these instances of being sniped out of the cockpit.

There are also flare countermeasure addons out there that reduce the pK of MANPAADs against the CAS aircraft. However a "low-level pop up attack" is pretty much what walker was describing. Also the high angle ingress mentioned by walker is designed to make the enemy not be able to hit you; it has nothing to do with successful weapons release. What you said gave the impression that you misinterpreted his point.

[subs17 9]

A shallow ingress is prefered over a steep one since you have more time to recover also CCIP allows more shallow dive bombing. If you were using manual bombing mode then you would have to use the right dive angle for the preset distance to the tgt and release height. A steep dive angle for straffing leaves you exposed to SAMs and simply won't work against a shilka with guns as you are closing with the tgt too rapidly to break away in time to avoid the 23mm cannons range. With CBUs you can take out a Tungska with a shallow dive angle with a high altitude release. Of course this sort of flying requires an increase in the draw distance of the ground objects. BTW I understood Walkers post regarding a dive bomb not actually a popup attack. If you have air cover and no SAM threat its a good technique. Popup attacks are for cases where the enemy has good air defences and CAP and you have no choice but to get low as far as A-10s are concerned. Another way is to have an FAC mark the tgt with smoke a possibility in Arma with a mod. I find you really need good situational awareness for this type of flying so you can run in hit the tgt and then bug out but still we need a greater distance for the objects to be visible, proper readings and sights in the HUD and realistic weapons loadouts.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Yes SUBS17 I was talking about the specific question the original poster asked.

In other words attacking a lone T72 or T72 Platoon. Perhaps with UAZ with non radar aimed HMG AA.

Obviously availability of Hellfire and laser guided bombs would make all this moot.

So here once again we are talking about:

No ATGM threat

No MANPADS

No Radar guided AA Guns.

No Enemy air threat.

Using unguided munitions.

With no CCIP

Exactly as I stated in the post.

The weapon used is either.

Dumb bomb(s)

FFAR

Main gun

It is primarily dealing with fixed wing platfoms. Though some aspects can be transfered to rotary wing such as AH6 or FFAR fire on other rotary platforms.

Essentially as you correctly assessed the method used is an old fashioned dive bomb attack. Though I believe properly prepared by planning and with a usable SOP. It certainly works in ArmA and other sims.

The key problem with CCIP lobbed bombs is your release distance has to be sufficient that either your loop back, Immelman turn, or tangential turn away all lead to speed loss at the point closest to the enemy. Therefor that distance has to be outside the effective range of the AA threat. Narowly in this case I mean the T72s commanders DSHK or AA MG NSVT, gunners coaxial and posibly main gun. We are talking around 2000m plus as release point for a computed bomb drop. Thus the time of flight for the bomb is quite long.

Using CCIP one could use a low level pop up and lob with unguided bombs at a distance sufficient to stay out of MANPAD and radar guided gun threat but against a mobile enemy asset like a tank I doubt its efficacy. Depending on the apogee point of the bomb plus any glide ability it has you are talking a flight time of perhaps 10s of seconds for the bomb. In that amount of time the tank would be 100s of yards from the computed impact point. Even a bomb flight time of 3 seconds would be sufficent to be out of effective range of bomb blast in a T72.

In the case of main gun or FFAR a Dive Bomb attack is often the least risk solution.

In the case of the Dive bomb attack where the enemy has MANPADS supporting unit suppression can help as can counter measures but I agree, egress would be your riskiest moment with old fashioned rear aspect MANPADS and counter measures would be helpful but speed is more important. Hence I would still choose a dive bomb attack as the best option as it gives you the fastest egress speed.

If we are talking more advanced MANPADS then first of all IRCCM comes into play as it defeats flare counter measures. If we are talking even more modern MANPADS and multiple aspect systems everything goes out the window.

In those cases the only solutions are distance weapons and we are outside the narrowly defined case of the original question.

I express no expertise in this matter only what I have learned from others on the web and playing around in simulations, I have never flown such an aircraft in such a roll.

Kind Regards walker

[subs17 9]

In the case of modern manpads and low level airdefences such as Tungaska I tend to use either AGM65 Mavericks or CBUs. With 65s you can easily pickout the SAM launchers and AAA in a convoy and just surgically remove them followed by a med altitude drop of CBUs on the convoy. But you need to work between 8-10000ft to keep away from the SAMs.

This is too low.

[subs17 9]

Heres one of the methods I use in LO

1/ Locate the tgt on the map.

2/ Pinpoint the location

3/ Locate them visually using the road as a reference point.

[subs17 9]

On the map intel points to a SAM protecting the tgts so hes our 1st tgt.

Now once the maverick is launched we turn back and pop some Chaff/flares to distract any missiles that do get launched.

Once threats are taken care of the rest are fish in the barrel.

Notice the altitude and the distance from which I'm hitting the tgts which is what Arma needs plus a decent MFD for the 65s instead of the arcade method. You really need to ground stabilise then slew the TDC onto the specific tgt (SAM or AAA ) 1st.

[subs17 9]

Heres a good video showing tank busting in Lo with mavericks, bombs and the gun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unlCjohJVjk&feature=related

And heres another good one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNck8eUH2cQ

[Olisla03 0]

Ok who was driving the bus?

http://www.freewebs.com/olisla08/Bus%20Crash.JPG

- How do you get the pics to display on the forum like you guys do?

- Sorry its abit of a crap quality and pic

- Great pics thou guys  

[L33t-krew 0]

wow, I thought there were no planes in aRma. Damn.....

Great tactics everyone. My only gripe is the way the helicopter seems to love to blow up when it touches the ground a bit hard.

Take the armoury section. Im flying that heli with mingun @ 2000 & 4000rpm and some unguided missles.

When I attack the base there are 3 armoured car/tanks sort of things. Basically as soon as they see me, im falling . I can limit my fall but the plane invaribly crashes and blows up >_<

[Col. Faulkner 0]

Incidentally, what is/was Russian/Soviet doctrine on anti air?

Would the tankers try firing with their turret mounted

machine guns or would it be left to dedicated anti-air assets

(ZSUs, footsloggers with shoulder-fired missiles, Ack-ack gun

emplacements)? I recall in the 1980s that it was opined that

even with its legendary tougness the A-10 would in practice

have low expectations for survival in a hot war in Europe (this

may well have been sour grapes from the fast-mover crowd,

however).

In WW2 certainly it was Soviet doctrine for everyone to open

up with everything at aircraft. Ack-ack guns, machine guns

rifles, even pistols. One WW2 Luftwaffe pilot is on record as

saying  "if they'd been able to get the shoes off the horses

they'd have thrown them at us too".

I always smile when I hear of the attempt of 3 PARA in the

Falklands war to use an 84mm Carl Gustav RCL in the surface-

to-air role. I'd have liked to have seen that!

[subs17 9]

On Russian tanks during the 80s carried heavy machine guns on the turret specifically to help defend against air attack. The Russian SAM networks are usually linked together in a modern battlefield the SAM operators can work together to shoot down aircraft they can even use Search radars to lure pilots into a SAMbush or set the pilot up for a intercept with GCI.