Hyperlynx

Actually, I was starting to come to the conclusion that mavs are only any good for picking off tanks out in the open. This thread was to see if I was missing something The actual scenario is some of the Wild Weasels SEAD campaign missions, where they keep giving me two AGM-65Ds and two JDAMs/LGBUs. The bombs are just fine, but I'm having a hell of a time accurately picking off AAA or a Gecko or whatever that's been parked next to a building. I thought maybe the solution is "yes, you need to boresight the missiles, then you can accurately pick out the target with the TGP and do a handoff". The bus scenario was just to test that out. The distances are pretty similar to the Gecko being parked next to a building. The conclusion I was coming to was that yeah, Mavs really aren't suited for this sort of thing, and the TGP isn't going to help much. In the context of the SEAD campaign, I'm thinking only try to use the Mavericks on things I can clearly identify, and for cleaning up TELs after the radars are destroyed, and to use guided bombs for everything else. e: I wish we got the laser guided mavs, (ersatz Hellfires?) because they'd probably work a lot better. Or, even better, APKWS

Dude, "User error" nothing! You haven't understood what I'm getting at here. I deliberately locked a bus as my boresighting target for that range, boresighted the missile, UNLOCKED, put the TGP over the Gecko, attempted a lock, and it actually doesn't lock anything until I get closer, when it locks what's obviously the wrong target. The point I'm making is that boresighting and using the TGP is indeed imprecise and unreliable, and that if you're too far away to be able to distinguish the target in the WPN page then you're also too far away for the TGP to be able to hand it off properly. If I am close enough to correct the target on the WPN page then what's the point in using the TGP at all?

Here's a track file. Same result, I hit a bus instead of the target. boresighting mavericks.trk

Oof. And I came here to make a post asking about this, when I saw this thread... Yeah, same problem. As if Mavericks aren't enough of a pain in the backside already!...

About a year ago, I bought myself an IKEA chair, Monstertech mounts, and Winwing F-16 throttle and stick. No complaints whatsoever! I'd take a look at Winwing. I think they're higher quality than Thrustmaster. They're supposedly double the price too, but they always seem to be 50% off.

JDAMs feel way more reliable, or even LGBUs. They've got similar range. But then again, I'm used to uncontested environments or short-range SAMs. I'm starting to think that mavs just aren't good for standoff, and are for close-range, low altitude runs on SAMs or picking off tanks when you know there's nothing else in the kill box. But taking out a Gecko next to some civilian buildings? JDAM. (I had another go at the boresighting, to produce a track file for review, but it's actually bloody difficult to boresight a missile at something that's also trying to kill you! I'll keep at it, though...)

Yeah, will do. I'll give it another go next weekend or so. I do have a Tacview file, but that's probably not so helpful.

Surely this only works if your target is not near anything which you might target by accident, instead of the thing you actually want to blow up. Because at that kind of range the missile camera doesn't have very good zoom. It seems to me like you can only use a maverick when you're close enough to distinguish between objects or, like I said, if you're shooting at one object that's distinctive and all by itself. I realise there might be some confusion here, I'm talking about the small mavericks (like the D model) not the big ones.

But... How are you managing to boresight the missile so that the TGP points the missile at the right place? And what is TMS left twice for? You haven't answered any of my questions, you've just posted the same thing again but now with a video

Right, but how are you managing to lock on the black blob that is what you want to kill and not accidentally on the other black blobs right next to it that you don't want to kill? I don't mean one target by itself in a field at 30nm (!!) I mean one eg next to a building that I do not want to blow up Also Looking at Chuck's Guide that's... toggling to hot-on-cold and then back to cold-on-hot? Huh?

I just tried out a setup with an SA-8 surrounded by civilian buses, as an exercise in boresighting at the limits of the AGM-65's range, so I can use it for SEAD. I locked up one of the busses with the Maverick, used point-track on my TGP with the same bus, boresighted. Unlocked, put TGP in auto mode, pointed it right at the Gecko and hit TMS up. The TGP handed off to the Maverick, I fired, and the missile went right into the bus behind the Gecko. The boresighting and the shoot were both at around 7nm, which I believe is about the limit of the Maverick. Is this expected behaviour? I was really hoping to be able to precisely strike targets at standoff range, but it sure seems like the Mav isn't really usable unless you're close enough to determine what you're locking up on the WPN page, with its own sensor... Or am I missing something here, and it there is a reliable way to use it at standoff range when you do care about which of the black blobs gets blown up?

There is a manual flap switch, somewhere on the rear left panel iirc. I have never used it. The auto-flaps happens when you put your gear down, which is really nice.

It's worth getting, especially since there's a free version. The recordings it makes are waaaaaaay smaller than track files

Thanks, that's not a bad idea.

I see... Ideally what I'm after is scripting documentation so that I can just fix it myself, rather than needing to install other folks' large script libraries.

I tried that, with an SA-6. Nothing. Unless they take a really, really long time to reload? But, also, I see that it still had one of its missiles. Does it maybe mess things up because I respawned?

I'm setting up a Wild Weasel training map, with each different SAM at different waypoints. The problem is, once I've flown against one SAM site it expends all its missiles and that's the end of that. Is there any way I can script them to reload, or have unlimited ammunition, or something like that?

It turns out Tacview couldn't access Documents\Tacview any more. I changed where it saves to using the details at https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/rzip4n/change_tacview_save_location_on_server/, and everything worked fine.

Tacview isn't recording any more, for me. I just bought the Advanced version, too I went and used Process Monitor to see where it's trying to save the files. It is using the usual location, except it looks like the calls to create the file is failing! What's going on?

That makes a ton of sense! Thank you! It reminds me a lot of SEAD using HARMs with no HTS or actual DEAD, where you keep missiles in flight just to keep SAMs from being active while the strike aircraft are in the zone rather than because you're trying to kill the SAMs.

Thanks! I'm going to have to give that a few listens and study it. The rest of what you've been saying is very helpful too. So, in a skate or long skate you turn in again once you're sure it's safe, based on what you're up against, and the SA you've built up. Cool. But how do you decide (as a flight lead) whether to go out at that MOR and do the skate as normal, vs just continue on and short skate or whatever? I get why you go out and stay out in a short skate: because you're skirting the range at which the enemy can kill you. I'm not quite clear on the function of the out in a skate or long skate, especially if these are not necessarily coupled with launching a missile at the enemy. I mean, would you go out at the MOR regardless of what the enemy is doing? Regardless of whether you're spiked or launched on? That doesn't seem right, it seems like you'd make the decision based on different factors... edit: Or is the idea that the MOR is a decision point, where you go out if you're actively threatened, but otherwise do something else?

So it sounds like short/long/normal skate procedures don't actually have anything to do with when to launch missiles, they're totally separate things. Is that right? But that should affect the desired out range, though, for a normal ("medium"? lol) skate, though, right? You'd pick a distance so that when you turn back in you have enough range to launch with the MAR as the m-pole, crank, and then go out at MAR with the missile hopefully pitbull? Or is the MOR really supposed to be the distance at which you go out (always? only if spiked? only if fired on?) and when safe you turn back in and only have enough room to immediately yeet a missile before going out for the last time? Or is this all up to the flight lead to brief when they want shots taken, and what launch procedures to use for skate and long skate?

I've watched this video series on BVR combat a few times, and found it very informative, but I still have a few questions. From what I understand, a "short skate" is that once you reach the specified distance from the threat you launch your missile and then immediately perform an out (a full AB max performance turn to directly away from the threat). But in that case you'll break your lock on the target before your missile goes active. That can't be right, though. When is the correct time to fire my missile? Am I actually supposed to fire, crank, and go out? How do I tell when to launch? Related question: in my testing against a Su-27 at 20,000ft, the number on my HUD for what distance I'll be from the enemy when my missile goes pitbull if I were to fire now is always 14nm, even when I'm going Mach 1.5. That's within the (Falcon BMS) documented minimum abort range of 15. So I'd never be able to launch on the enemy and have the missile go active before I have to go out. Is that expected? It seems to me that the best I can reasonably expect, given a MAR of 15nm, is to convince the enemy to go away rather than kill them. A kill would simply be a bonus. Finally: if you're doing a skate or long skate, how do you know when to turn back in? You turn out to defeat any missile the threat may have fired at you, right? So how do you know when that's happened, and it's time to go in again?