proper AH64 support

[Rhodesy77 11]

G'day, first off sorry if this has been discussed, did a quick search but no luck, plus its late here so ill make it quick.

in short what i am trying to do is have a AH64 fly in when called or when something happens at say 500 - 600 alt, and provide support via its main cannon, without diving down to 60m...

currently ive tried the this flyinheight 600 which works really well up untill they get fired upon or begin to attack, in which case they will dive down to their normal flying height and continue the attack there.

anyway to combat this effect?

what im after is from what ive seen of a dutch ah64 providing support to australian troops in afghanistan, theres a vid on youtube as an example.

also the odd rocket run wouldnt be bad either :P just aslong as they keep a realistic height and not become some crazy dive bomber..

Cheers in advance.

Rhodesy.

[Beagle 684]

Anywhere over 35m altitude is a very unrealistic flight profile for a AH-64.

[dm 9]

Anywhere over 35m altitude is a very unrealistic flight profile for a AH-64.

Care to clarify that?

[manzilla 1]

Care to clarify that?

No doubt. The capabilities of these little ditties is nuts. Cruising along at 30m isn't all that uncommon in certain scenarios. (Terrain and other factors permitting of course.)

EDIT:

Oops! I guess I'm not too sure what he's getting at here. I just noticed it says "over 35m altitude" not "under". My apologies.

---------- Post added at 09:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 AM ----------

G'day, first off sorry if this has been discussed, did a quick search but no luck, plus its late here so ill make it quick.

in short what i am trying to do is have a AH64 fly in when called or when something happens at say 500 - 600 alt, and provide support via its main cannon, without diving down to 60m...

currently ive tried the this flyinheight 600 which works really well up untill they get fired upon or begin to attack, in which case they will dive down to their normal flying height and continue the attack there.

anyway to combat this effect?

what im after is from what ive seen of a dutch ah64 providing support to australian troops in afghanistan, theres a vid on youtube as an example.

also the odd rocket run wouldnt be bad either :P just aslong as they keep a realistic height and not become some crazy dive bomber..

Cheers in advance.

Rhodesy.

Can't say I know the exact answer to this but I'm wondering if Mando Heli could help with that. I know it works great with following wp's not sure about height though. I'm interesting in finding out an answer though. It would be useful for a new mission I'm gathering ideas for.

Edited February 23, 2010 by Manzilla

[Beagle 684]

What happened to treetop line level flying to avoid that heavy AAA fire and SAMS that might be there? Is that no longer a doctrine?

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Is that no longer a doctrine?

I'd really like to see someone program AI capable of doing that... while also running the rest of ArmA2 on a typical PC gaming rig. Can you?

[tj72 0]

I would think an AH could stand off at a good distance and send in CAS from a good height.

If AA is detected then mission aborted or unavailable.

If chopper destroyed then chopper is destroyed, mission failed.

If possible AH could do pop up stand off attack and pop down if receiving AA fire or missle lock.

Flying low for HK mode but standoff mode with FFAR and LASER strike works great! I know because I scripted it.

[mcvittees 0]

What happened to treetop line level flying to avoid that heavy AAA fire and SAMS that might be there? Is that no longer a doctrine?

I think tactical doctrine will depend on the threat, mission and terrain your operating in. In Afghanistan flights are routinely made at higher altitude to avoid machine gun fire and gain a better stand off LOS. Obviously, if you're fighting an enemy with a more sophisticated AAA threat in less open terrain then you might chose to fly nap of the earth as the risk of exposure to MG fire may less than the risk of getting a manpad up the jacksie.

Edited February 23, 2010 by mcvittees

[dm 9]

I think tactical doctrine will depend on the threat, mission and terrain your operating in. In Afghanistan flights are routinely made at higher altitude to avoid machine gun fire and gain a better stand off LOS. Obviously, if you're fighting an enemy with a more sophisticated AAA threat in less open terrain then you might chose to fly nap of the earth as the risk of exposure to MG fire may less than the risk of getting a manpad up the jacksie.

Exactly, hence my earlier post ;)

Its ALL dependant on threat. In Afghanistan the threat is greater from sporadic heavy ground fire than it is from RPGs and manpads (at the moment, who knows what the future will bring)

[manzilla 1]

I think tactical doctrine will depend on the threat, mission and terrain your operating in. In Afghanistan flights are routinely made at higher altitude to avoid machine gun fire and gain a better stand off LOS. Obviously, if you're fighting an enemy with a more sophisticated AAA threat in less open terrain then you might chose to fly nap of the earth as the risk of exposure to MG fire may less than the risk of getting a manpad up the jacksie.

Exactly, hence my earlier post ;)

Its ALL dependant on threat. In Afghanistan the threat is greater from sporadic heavy ground fire than it is from RPGs and manpads (at the moment, who knows what the future will bring)

Bingo. What does he think there is only one doctrine for all situations? Flight profile is obviously tied to doctrine but there is no "one doctrine fits all".

Well put fellas. That pretty much explains it.

[Rhodesy77 11]

yer probaly should have explained. this is for a insurgency type mission, enemy has very little AAA ponly in the form of RPG's and pkm's and a couple of HMG's. what i want really is for the chopper to be high above, so its noise dosnt drown out everything else but can still hear it in the back ground, and it can provide deadly support when and if needed.

and please not disscussion of the tactics here, im just looking for a solution.

[tj72 0]

Understanding the tactics gives a clearer picture of what you want in a general sense but I understand your desire to stick to the topic at hand.

You need to define alot more things before you even get close to an explanation you can find useful however.

Its not hard to place a chopper in the editor and rotate it set to flying and init flyinheight x (where x is the desired altitude) and give it a waypoint right in front of its position to get it to fly up and just hover there for the whole mission.

Problem is making it fire on what you want and how you want that to work.

A trigger could start a script that could tell the chopper to try to target an object or lookat a position and fire a rocket. There is a mapclick feature that can be run to start a request for the heli to try to target and fire on the position. This stuff is complicated to setup though.

Another problem is that is just a dumb one trick pony chopper and not dynamic like an air support script. Im not sure how dynamic you want it to be.

There are scripts out there that can do CAS missions. Just not sure if theres one that does standoff because everyone does the attack run strikes where the chopper flies over the target. Could be wrong though. But you could try some CAS scripts from this forum or from armaholic.com sections to see if they fit what you need. Generally the scripts should have example missions that show you how everything works so you can easily make missions that use it.

Edited February 24, 2010 by TJ72

[Rhodesy77 11]

yer i want it to be fairly dynamic, firing on any seen hostiles from high up, pretty much to act the way they do but at a constant height of 500m to 600m

[mcvittees 0]

Rhodsey, did you find a way to keep the AI up high? I wouldn't mind knowing how to do it it you did.

[wickedstigma 10]

Wow, this is pretty tough, but Im sure it can be done. And btw the books Apache from Ed Macy can give you the info on how Apaches operate in war. Im finishing the book and I still havent read they were below 35 meters as someone here said. Although I saw a video on youtube of a apache protecting a convoy, the apache come behind the convoy about 2 meters from the road or less, the he banks and stays side by side with the convoy, that was pretty insane!

[Militant1006 11]

Rhodsey, did you find a way to keep the AI up high? I wouldn't mind knowing how to do it it you did.

He used "this flyInHeight 600;"

In one of the missions I did I had a Mi-17 doing a patrol at 200 metres, with a big circle of waypoints with a cycle one at the end, each of the waypoints were set to "open fire", not engage at will, and "careless", and it stay at 200 metres and did not dive down.