Tipsi

"of course shooting from BVR is preferable if you can, but if you think that preference means that dogfighting missiles are unimportant, you are IMO very very much mistaken. For a start, smaller, shorter ranged missiles tend to be more agile than the larger longer ranged ones. Longer ranged missiles tend to have longer *minimum* engagement envelopes too." I never said dogfighting missiles are unimportant. I know that ALL fighter jets ALWAYS carry some form of A2A protection, and they always seem to go for the IR missles, i.e AIM-9M/X But yes, I completely agree. "Historically there has been more chance of jamming radar guidance than sophisticated IR guidance." Well not these days. The general US airforce BVR missles (AIM-120B,C) have the ability to "Home On Jam". The Russians also have a BVR missle with this technology called the R-77 Adder. Therefore rendering jammers useless for BVR combat with modern weapon systems. "If your mission is to engage and shoot down enemy aircraft, you won't necessarily be running away just because you have expended all your BVR missiles" I would!! But -> "On the contrary, even if the enemy still has BVR misiles and you don't, depending on the precise tactical situation you might still be best served by coming in closer to even things up rather than trying to run away and still risk getting shot down without chance of reply." Indeed. It totally depends on the current situation. If I'm within 20nm from the enemy, theres no chance I'm going to be outrunning any Radar missles at this close range and running away would only get myself killed. So engaging in risky missle dodging manuvers and a dogfight may be the only option. I'm sure though, if a pilot was out of BVR missles, and knew that the enemy did have BVR missles and there was a high chance of running away to friendly SAM sites, he would do it. Better to kill 1 and live than to kill 4 and die no? Theres all sorts of determining factors such as numbers of enemies, how many friendly wing man etc etc. "Also remember that something like a Harrier is intended for close air support right at the front line in major combat zones - so short ranged IR SAMs are more of a threat than for an aircraft expected to make deep penetrations and attack targets well behind enemy lines - where they are arguably more likely to encounter fewer but individually longer ranged and more powerful SAMs." Completely agree with you there. CAS dedicated aircraft would definately benefit a proper incoming missle. Its all about coming up with the technology which is: not too heavy, doesnt effect aerodynamics too much and not too expensive. As for deep strike missions, having a radar which detected missles would work against you (since your a lightbulb on enemy radars). Of course if it was impleneted, you would be able to turn it off. "It's also harder to be sure a distant launch is targetted at you and not somebody miles away, in which case you personally don't have to worry about it." I agree but, in BVR combat you NEED to lock onto a target before firing, so someone locking you up (RWR going mental) would be a decent indication that you've got a missle on you. But yeh, doesnt mean that they are actually firing... just locking. "Neither is any other form of countermeasure. But still, if a missile is 5 seconds from going up my jetpipe, I would choose to drop flares if I had them. Even a 1% chance of them confusing the missile is better than nothing. And there are, as has been mentioned, other forms of countermeasures that are increasingly coming into use against IR homers, none of which can be used if you don't know the missile is there." Indeed. "Detecting a small target at long range with a wide beam requires more radar power. Detecting targets at very short ranges requires a lot less power. Narrowing the search beam concentrates the radar power so also reduces the total power required to detect a target of a given size. But that last point does make it harder to achieve 360 degree coverage. But there may still be value in a small rearward pointing radar that detects IR missiles at very close range behind - precisely where the main aircraft radar can the pilot has the least visibility, and also the area in which IR missiles are the greatest threat." Well if researchers manage to come up with technology for this then fair enough. At the moment I imagine they are struggling to do so. But yeh, rearward radar would be great. "Yes - but you can only carry limited amounts of these in a small aircraft. An AC130 can chuck them out all day long. Something like a Harrier might carry 20 flares and 20 chaff pods." Well I'm not saying you dispence ALL of your chaff and flares, I meant you drop one or two. Since in these times incoming IR missle detection is not available, it would be safer to drop a few flares during and after CAS bombing strikes than to chance it and drop none. All in all, I agree with what you have said.

He was only joking

Some more footage of a zeus community night. http://www.vimeo.com/967490 Vimeo is a really excellent site. Good quality vids. I think its better than YouTube.

Yeh, I was about to say that IR Warning Recievers arent fielded for jet fighters in my previous post (edit), but i don't have any evidence to support my argument :P. However there is no evidence to support they are fielded. At least F-16's don't have them. My only explaination would be: 1. Jet fighters these days are VERY RARELY in situations where IR missles are used against them. (mainly because of the now-heavy use of LGB bombs which allow their deployment well away from range of IR SAM missles.) In Air to Air combat, IR missles are rarely used since this would invoke dogfighting, which is extremely dangerous and it would be better to run and live than to stay and fight. 2. I wouldnt understand how it could distinguish between friendly IR missles being fired from behind you and enemy missles being fired from behind... Therefore giving false warnings. "It is possible to detect an in-flight missile by a variety of means, even if that missile uses passive guidance? It's just another aircraft after all, albeit a small, fast one." Its not that simple though is it? Yes we can spot aircraft but by using very powerful and large radar. If you want a radar to give 360degree coverage of the aircraft to detect an approaching missle (which, like you said, is very very small). Then your going to need an even more powerful radar and a bigger one to give you the 360degree coverage range arent you?: Very very pricey and unpractical. "Detecting a luanch would be useful knowledge, but more important is detecting that an missile is likely to impact your aircraft in the next 5 seconds, and that if you have not already spotted it and deployed countermeasures you should do so right now." Yes detecting a launch is useful, but detecting a missle that is going to impact in the next 5 seconds is less useful. Countermeasures such as chaffs and flares are not magic missle spoofing technology. You could dispence your whole chaff and flare ordinance and still get hit when the missle is 5 seconds away. Especially since latest missle technology is improving. Wouldnt it be better to find out incoming missles as soon as they are launched? This will give you extra priceless seconds to deal with the incoming missles. This is why its so much safer to engage targets BVR: 1. You know where the enemy is (in front of you). 2. You know if the enemy is "pinging you" (detecting you) 3. You know if the enemy is locking on to you (so missle launch is very very likely). 4. Since its BVR (long range) you have longer time to deal with the missles that may be incoming (because the RWR might not have picked it up, which is most likely the case) 5. Since its BVR (long range) you have longer time to make an evaluated judgement to either attack or run away. "Re. launch detection: Even if the missile itself uses totally passive guidance, you may be able to infer a launch by detecting the changing mode of the aircraft or SAM radar. If it's a MANPAD...well you can't do that. But maybe you can identify a new heat source from the ground as the missile launches." Well whether a manpad is firing or not, if your conducting dangerous bombing runs where you are as close to the enemy for them to be able to launch MANPADS, it is standard procedure to drop chaff and flares.

Franco: 1. Very Very Very hard to do. 2. YES 3. YES I've been following this thread for quite a while now and I think that BIS's idea to introduce the Vikhr as an AA weapon is ridiculous. Yes, in real life they can take air targets down... but they dont take air targets down by pressing a magical tab button to lock onto it and then fire, with 90% chance of hitting fast moving harriers/A-10's at an ArmA BVR... Because ArmA's locking and missle ballistics is so simplistic, it would be better to make the Vikhr as an air to ground ONLY weapon. Only when BIS put time and effort (and I bet it needs alot of it) to create a realistic model of missle ballistics which is comparable to Falcon 4, should we consider to make the Vikhr A2A capable. If ArmA had missle ballistics which were more accurate/realistic and the Vikhr was A2A capable, then the missle ballistics would allow the Vikhr to deal with slow moving choppers, but struggle with or not hit fast aircraft. At the moment, the tab locking of aircraft and lack of any countermeasures for planes/heli's does not reflect realistic gameplay. It seems to me BIS just saw "Can be used against Aircraft" attached to the Vikhr and without any real thought, popped it in ArmA and made it A2A. Frank-O's suggestions 2 & 3 seem the best thing to do. OR: Instead of alternating loadouts, just add poper A2A missles to every chopper loadout. (but of course then you'll have choppers taking out Su-34's and Harriers, which may be realistic, but choppers would never really face situations where they had a chance against enemy jets).

Just a collection of vids from the zeus community some may find interesting. http://www.vimeo.com/ArmaZeus

New vid is up, hd quality this time.

Into the breach once more

http://panik.magsairsoft.com/Rpg.wmv A compilation of RPG shots and the infamous "FACK MEE FACK MEEE", Celery, I also have your legendary RPG kill which basically won us the game and music spam, thanks to scorpy and bn880

I have to disagree with you there Ryan. It does have to do with the Ai being so shit. They are very shit. The reason why me and Og resort to these tactics is because the AI count for the most of the casualty rate, and since their absolutely stupid and CANNOT think for themselves and therefore getting raped by one human (with or without an AI squad), its a necessary strategy to hide the AI (so they dont get raped by humans) to have a better chance at becoming victorious. I do condone it, since its really unfair for people who DO use AI, and it does indeed ruin the OFP experience as Celery explained. Since we never officially agree between the OC's, NOT to use the Human Poonzor tactics, its most likely that the enemy is going to use it, so I will use it too. (Fighting fire with fire) Maybe if we both agreed before hand, not to use human poonzor, then it wont happen. Zeus admins can referee each team, making sure that human poonzor will not happen. The new system Jinef and Looz are making sounds interesting and will hopefully quell Human Poonzor, as well as ramboing. Have a nice time in Turkey.

http://panik.magsairsoft.com/SatNight.wmv Good night last night, heres a vid of what went on...

Hey guys. Sorry I havn't replied from the defenders point point of view, but anyway, heres my AAR. Ok so we won :P :P but that was hugely thanks to having a truely wonderful and cooperative team. In the briefing screen we were tasked to defend two towns. Fair enough. Our overall intention was to defend the towns, as we were tasked, but I was not going to commit to allowing all my guys sit on their arse in, or around the town, waiting for that AGS or mortar to start bombing the shit out of us, so I decided to minimise the amount of defenders actually in/ around the town to one squad and an MG each. The rest would lie low in the center so that they could move where the situation needed them. We also lost 3 humans, including two full squads, so I had to improvise. Since I had no clue what I was up against and neither did anyone else, I thought it would be best to send in two scouts to the opposing towns (that being me and mamoo). Mamoo reported contacts and soon came under fire, so he fell back while I decided to have a look at the enemy movement positions. I met a poor soul who decided to stroll into my forest, next to the ruins, and shot his head a few times and ran the hell out of there. Luckily, it seems east decided to ignore? that their team mate just got raped since no one was looking for me. They instead decided to continue with their HUGE infantry mass onward to the SE town. Carefully pursuing about 200m behind, I carefully strateigically placed more or less all my team surrounding the last known enemy location, just north of the town in a sort of cresent shape, waiting for them to advance. I think gene and bravo were hopping around the map, making sure no one went to the other town. Since there was a huge hill blocking my view of the town, and due to my slow but steady pursuit, they managed to mass on the far flank of the town un-noticed. Meanwhile, my teamates are underfire elsewhere, so i decided to go behind jinefs unfortunate team and wipe them out, to which jinef shouts "FCK THIS SHT" . Not knowing the rest of east massed on the flank of the town, they luckily (for us) were shooting ai (souls's mates, disconnected squad) and therefore revealing their position. Since thats where i thought the whole of east was, aswell as hearing AGS fire into the town. I managed to cause some havok, killing a smurf and some other men with rpg's rpks. After putting an estimate of the AGS position on the map, I ordered all my squads, bar MG's, to surround that AGS and attack it from all directions. I wasnt there to see it but apparently the battle for the AGS was bloody. I think our good communication won through in the end :P. Soon after the dismissal of the AGS, the opposite town reports enemy contacts, to Bravo and I rush to engage them, again, attacking from different flanks, while the rest of the team was ordered to set a defence around the AGS. Bravo was on the coastline and I mnaged to seak behind them (again) and rape them all. I think this was the moment where Igor only remained, who came to the death of Bravo's AI. Very good game, I really like the mission Looz. But don't expect people to abide by the "stay in town" rule. If I followed that, I would have got raped.

Smashing night on Saturday. A night of A&D, E&E... and Warpie... I'm proud to annouce that the mission is now officially completed As the squad leader i managed to get my team to Neklov(sp?) only to find myself nading my feet mistaking i had a unit selected to come to my position I didnt have the fraps cam for that one thank god... Walker led the remains of the squad to the outskirts of Petrovice where he stumpled upon an MG while eliminating patrols circling the city and took some casualties. His squad of 2 men (Jack oneil and the excellent sniper freshman) they managed to get into petrovice and eliminate the whole threat in the city as the three musketeers they are... Hats off to them for finally completing warpie! Here are some clips of the ownage. http://panik.magsairsoft.com/warpie.wmv

On the same night, after the A&D, we thought we'll try completing Warpie. But the mission seems to be cursed Theres always ONE person who manages to screw up http://panik.magsairsoft.com/SatchelRape.wmv enjoy