Scrim

No, it's for the rockets, hence why it's on the rocket sight. The miniguns aren't even recommended for use beyond much more than 1km AFAIK.

No, flares are not implemented yet. I think the ranges are in feet and kilometers. If you pay close attention to the range chart above the sight, you'll see which ones are used. No. It's been mentioned somewhere and it was established that while possible IRL, and done, it's not a default feature of the Huey, but rather a jury rig made in the field. Still, would be nice of we could get that option in the armaments menu or something, along with choosing what door guns to bring, or if to bring any, etc.

Does anyone know if DCS from Steam runs more smoothly? I've had it up to *here* with DCS crashing to desktop 100% of the time I load in and not responding 50% of the time when I try to bring it back up, despite reinstalling everything from scratch, running as administrator, removing old saved files, etc. I'd seriously rather spend ridiculous amounts buying everything via Steam again than take one more day of that nonsense.

I don't know, seems like an awfully big difference between sending AHs on a broad scale against SAMs in hilly Germany (something might be relatively flat to be Germany there, but even the flattest is like Mt Everest compared to the Iraqi desert), and sending AHs out for a pin point strike on the Iraqi EWR to create a secure "blind" corridor into Iraq.

In the Gulf war, yes, Apaches fired the first shots during the offensive by taking out Iraqi radars. But those weren't SAM assets, they were part of the Iraqi strategic radar screen that prevented the Coalition fixed wing aircraft from crossing into Iraqi airspace undetected. Something completely different to attacking actual SAM weapon systems.

Well, if it's retrofitted I suppose it makes sense. I mean, why restructure a bunch of things if you've got a free space to stick it in. Assume they went of a real Huey when they added it.

Except that'd get old the first time they do it, and at best it wouldn't be interesting to anyone else than our lot, those who'll probably love the series anyway. The way I see it is, aside from the limits they'd face with one man planes, the bombers were up from day one to the end of the war, all the way from their bases in Britain to the cities of Germany. The fighters didn't even get past Belgium for several years, and couldn't do anything else than stop the Luftwaffe from intercepting them for a very short part of the journey to the target.

Except laser guided munitions don't really work when there's a cloud cover. At that point a JSF will have to RTB or go down below the clouds and take large risks. The A-10 is built to withstand damage and could still make do.

Exorcet: For MANPADs, stealth hardly helps. MANPADs are the last line of defense against planes, and by the time AA radars have gotten the word to the infantry about the incoming plane, it's RTB'ing. Yeah, planes dedicated to CAS will be needed for a long time. And wars involve a lot of shooting, you're bound to take a hit sooner or later. Saying you should avoid enemy AAA would effectively rule out using your air force beyond the territory that is under your control and not contested. No one weapons platform wins a war alone, it about how well they work within their designated areas. Re replacing the A-10 with the F22: Stealth for CAS planes isn't a bad idea, what is a bad idea is to expect a JSF to perform even 50% of what a dedicated CAS plane will when it comes to, you guessed it, CAS.

But F16s aren't built for that, which is why they, just like the F22 wouldn't do a good job at it. They carry less ordnance, have a shorter time on station IIRC, can't take as much of a beating, etc. Of all the planes used by the USAF, the A-10 is probably the one least kept in service with what essentially amounts to threats and bribes from politicians and the aircraft industry. So go figure that it's closer to being scrapped than the B52, which has been obsolete for decades but is scheduled to remain in service until it's almost 100 years old. Last time I checked, nukes didn't need super heavy bombers for transport any longer, and neither was carpet bombing something that any self respecting air force in the world would lower themselves to.

Can't recall it being highlighted as not working in the manual, though maybe that could be a matter of it not being very prioritized.

Bump. Still an issue 2-3 updates later.

+1 about headtracking, and 6DOF. If they don't have that, I'll wait until they do, because I don't see any point in it if you have to control where you look with the mouse. Putting a TrackIR onto it would be out of the question, since I wouldn't ever buy an OR if I'd have to rely on anything but 1:1 movements, which would be one of the great things about it, and which is where TrackIR lacks.

Yeah, the mission generator does that. But as long as you keep your distance from the BTRs and such, you shouldn't have any problems, and they always seem to be separated from the soft targets. If you do run out of targets, or feel like taking them on anyways, go sort of full realism, i.e. treat it as your life, and face the fact that you'll have to engage from a long distance taking full advantage of the pilot's rocket sight elevation chart, and compensate for the lack of accuracy by using many rockets. Don't really know about the Mi8 since it's not really my favourite, but yeah, I'd say treat it the same. They're both built, armed and armoured like transport helicopters, offensive tasks are really a second hand thing that wasn't really that considered in design.

What are you attacking? Basically, anything that's got something larger than what infantry could carry around and easily employ against you is too big to attack. Don't even consider going for IFVs or tanks. The AH-1 wasn't made for that, and the Huey certainly won't do a better job. You're pretty much limited to infantry, cars, trucks, and armoured vehicles that lack armaments in excess of 7.62mm. Also remember to go high as much as possible, since the lack of hitboxes or something means that the moment a round even glances of the side door, your flex mounts fail, cutting your M134 effectivity in more than half.

Two different Apaches, but no Kiowa? IMHO, there'd be no point in an AH-64D, just like there wouldn't be with planes like the F22 and F35. With so much of their abilities and characteristics classified, there's no way we'd end up with accurate DCS versions of them.

How do I know when they're turned on and off? The only jamming indicator I could find was for some tail IR jammer (how do I turn that on btw?), and I can't really say I feel very comfortable using MPSs if I can't even tell if they're on or off.

Quite late, but came across this when Googling for info about the KMGU. The RT is indeed for soft targets, but so is the KO actually. The difference between them is that the RT is HE, whilst the KO is HE-Frag, so I wouldn't recommend taking on armour with either. The RBKs is what you should look for when suiting up to go tank killing. They only contain PTAB in DCS, which is HEAT.

Definitely interesting, wasn't more than a few weeks ago that I googled for a Huey replica stick in vain. By all means, keep us up to date!

Nvm, found it out.

Yes, not the outer most, but the ones beyond the four inner ones. According to the manual, those must be released in pairs at least to maintain balance, and the thing is that I can't understand how to drop bombs in pairs.

Recently read the manual after having trouble dropping bombs, and I noticed that the problem was that they were beyond the four inner pylons, and thus couldn't be dropped independently. Now, I've read the manual and tried to make sense of it, but unfortunately I still don't understand exactly what I have to do in order to A, select the outer pylons, and B, drop them as a salvo. Thus, I'm asking the community for help, as there's bound to be plenty of people who'll know what to do. :)

Personally I'd say the handling is better. In the KA-50 you have systems that help you when moving the stick, so to a certain extent your stick movements are translated into the "best" response from the helo. In the Huey, it responds 100% naturally and honestly to what you do, so personally, I feel that I'm in better control and safer when I fly the Huey, because I know that my actions will cause the intended reactions, not what some computer or system thinks is the best. Of course though that means it takes longer to learn, but in the end it's better IMO.

Irrelevant since thread merger.

It's for rockets, since it's on the rocket panel, everything on that is for the rockets. The delayed explosion is probably just one of those super small delays of less than even a second, since the thought is for it to be able to penetrate armour before detonating when you turn on the delay.