Eddie

In a "typical" DCS scenario perhaps, in a well constructed mission following realistic orders of battle, no. All weapon systems have a reaction time, the idea of a pop-up attack is to expose yourself for less than that reaction time and re-mask before you can be engaged. This is why a high degree of proficiency with the weapon system is necessary. Besides, depending on the situation, being shot at is part of life. It's going to happen, it doesn't mean you don't engage your target. Your wingman is there to call out any SAM/AAA fire to enable you to defend, and it's perfectly possible to defeat the GOPHER from within 2 nautical miles. Part of your mission planning is choreographing your ingress and attack to minimise threat exposure, if you're down low it's because MERAD/LORAD or the hostile air is pushing you down there. Indeed, which is why understanding the full capabilities of your platform are important, so you can choose the most appropriate tactics to deal with the situation. Your target priorities as an attack aircraft are Armour/Artillery first and foremost, not air defences. The air defences are there to stop you hitting your target, if you spend all your ToT hunting them rather than doing your job, they have accomplished their objective of preventing you hitting the areas/formations they are defending. Not to mention that while you're flying in circles looking through your TGP, the enemy IADS is tracking you and the SAMs are just waiting for you to attack so they can blow you out of the sky, that is if they don't vector fighters to you first. And you won't have any TARCAP/Escort or SEAD cover as their playtime has long gone while you've been flying in circles. Not to mention all the packages following you have been unable to enter the airspace that you've been occupying all this time. There is a time and a place for different tactics and techniques, knowing the right one to use at the right time matters. There's no such thing as one method for all situations. In low intensity conflicts flying on altitude hold while working the TGP is necessary to find that one insurgent in a tree line. In a conventional war you're going up against formations of tens or even hundreds of tanks, and a truly terrifying amount of very effective air defences. Spending all your playtime trying to plink a GRISON or GAUNTLET when there are another 3 in the battery and perhaps two or more batteries within a 10 miles of your objective isn't going to stop the armour rolling over friendly ground forces, or the artillery turning them to pink mist from afar. In short, time is often critical, especially when it comes to CAS, you're usually dealing in minutes or even seconds, not hours. You can do it without using the markpoint crutch much more effectively. Hint, the method you're encouraging isn't described in any real world TTP manual. What I and others are, is.

As Hansolo has quite rightly pointed out, in situations where you know the location of your target (as in the group/area/killbox not each individual unit), the most effective technique is to engage the maximum number of targets possible in a single pass. You cannot do that if the only way you are able to employ Maverick is with the help of the TGP. Using the TGP to cue the Maverick on to a single specific position/vehicle is an incredibly valuable capabilities when flying CAS in low intensity conflicts close to civilians and/or friendlies where you'll only be delivering a single weapon anyway. However for Air Interdiction or CAS in a high intensity conflict minimising threat exposure and maximising weapon effects in a short time window are critical. For example, if you're tasked against an armoured battalion with your 4 or 6 mavericks on LAU-88s, it's far more effective to make use of the quick draw function to get all the weapons off in a single pass and then get the hell out of there. Forget looking for individual vehicles, you simply fire on the formation, splitting the formation between wingmen (eg. lead engages the northern half of the formation, and wing the southern). It's not poor technique to use the TGP, when it's appropriate at all, however once you learn to use the weapon system effectively standalone it gives you more options when it comes to weaponeering and also a better understanding of the limitations/capabilities of the weapon and the aircraft weapon system as a whole.

Still correct, overflying friendlies during the attack is really not a good idea.

It isn't, it's a RADAR based MAWS, similar to that installed on Typhoon and some other aircraft. UV based systems like on the A-10C are just one of three types of MAWS (the other being IR based).

The SPI is not a designated point, it is a constantly generated point. You do not make a SPI or designate a SPI, you simply select which sensor is generating your SPI at any given moment, if and when that selected SPI generator changes to another position the SPI will move along with it. As has been suggested, if the TGP is your selected SPI generator slewing the TGP to steerpoint with china aft long will naturally move your SPI to the steerpoint location as well, as that is where your SPI generator is now "looking". To avoid this you need to select an alternative SPI generator, possible options are a markpoint or using the slew all (china forward long) to put the HUD TDC over in the same location as the TGP and the selecting HUD as the SPI generator, amongst others. At no point does the TGP need to be used, or even loaded to effectively employ Mavericks, while the TGP can be used to queue the Maverick seeker on to a target location it is certainly not required, and in some cases doing so is counterproductive and tactically unsound. Using point track at all times is also something of a bad habit, the only time point track is required is when you want the TGP to track a moving object. In addition there is no such thing as "a locked SPI". The TGP shouldn't be used as a crutch for poor familiarity with the Maverick, it's how bad habits are created and reinforced. Learning to use the Maverick without the TGP first makes you far more effective with the weapon system, and only serves to further increase lethality when you do carry/use the TGP.

All, On behalf of the 476th vFG, I'd like to announce that we have made a version of our 3-1.Threat Guide publication available to the community. A great deal of test and evaluation has been conducted in DCS in order to obtain the data it contains, with every system featured being tested in-sim against a variety of human and AI controlled targets, combined with Tacview analysis of threat system performance. We hope it will prove useful. The publication can be downloaded on the 476th website at the link below. http://www.476vfightergroup.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=486

Why would setting 1688, the last possible code, be less arbitrary than 1111, the first?

You still use the CDU keyboard, it’s the CDU repeater not a separate system. You can use either the CDU keyboard or the UFC to enter data in the scratchpad fir any display format. Many of us in the 476th just map the CDU keys directly to the keyboard without modifiers.

How many/what type of batteries do you typically put in a scenario? I assume you plan it such that you’re taking down just one LORAD/MERAD battery and work your way around the others? I’d be curious to see an ACMI of such a mission to see how you guys handle it, looking for some IADS layout inspiration for my next scenario. Have you tried using Grimes’ IADS script?

Try it with all the supporting AAA/MANPADS/SHORAD units to the main MERAD/LORAD battery that should also be present. And with the system MEZ overlap that would also exist. That’ll bring the fear back. ;)

As has already been mentioned, your starting assumptions are entirely incorrect. The A-10 wasn't designed for a low threat environment at all, in fact the exact opposite is true. The original design role of the aircraft, Air Interdiction against Warsaw Pact forces in Cold War Europe, was the highest threat environment ever envisaged in aerial warfare. The expected loss rate was so high that almost every aircraft based in Western Europe was expected to be shot down within the first few days of any full scale conflict breaking out. In fact the whole plan hinged on that being the case, otherwise the stream of aircraft and Squadrons coming in to Europe from the US would have nowhere to operate from. Throughout the Cold War, A-10 crews trained to operate at extreme low altitude, only climbing above 300 feet for the few seconds it would take to employ weapons against their target. And even then most were not expected to return from missions. The A-10s trained to fly at 300 feet AGL or below and 300 KIAS. This wasn't unique for the A-10 either, aside from the extreme low level profile, all aircraft types were expected to have very high losses from the outset. I think there is an assumption amongst many that military pilots will avoid threats at all costs, however this is also untrue. In reality there is a system called "Acceptable Mission Risk Level". This determines how crews will operate based on the importance of the mission they are flying. An AMRL of low, would indeed see crews avoiding any threat and considering any losses unacceptable, therefore the mission would be aborted due to presence of threats. However at the other end of the scale, an AMRL of "Extreme" quite simply says "potential aircraft losses are not to preclude execution of the mission". In other words, even if there is no way to attack the target without being shot down, you will still attack the target. Of course an extreme AMRL would only be in place in time of a major conflict where winning or losing is at stake. But medium and high AMRLs also allow for aircraft losses to varying degrees. In short, a flight of A-10s facing MERAD and LORAD systems in order to attack their target is not at all unrealistic in itself.

Yes it can. However it’s via a shifted mode, so you have to switch between TPOD control and the normal HOTAS options. All the commands are described in the TPOD chapter of the tactical manual. EDIT: Commands shown below

Either from the DTS elevation data or the HOT elevation set by the pilot, just the same as any weapon solution.

BATA is just a simulated indication of bullet impact based on target altitude and computed time of flight/average bullet dispersion. It’s a visual indication of bullet impact time and the impact pattern. That’s all there is to it.

Both a markpoint and waypoint would be one click, so depending on your desired result either would work. A waypoint has the advantage of being more editable and not being overwritten by the system. It's basically the same actions you'd take for transferring a shared SPI to the system (if following real world procedures of course).

I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.

It doesn't transmit elevation (bug that's been there since the beginning). A workaround is to hook the target in the TAD and copy it to a mission waypoint.

IFFCC continuously adjusts for wind (even the A-10A had the capability). Manually adding wind data simply isn’t necessary outside of some very specific, and unlikely, circumstances. It uses current wind at altitude and then applies adjustment algorithms to predict the wind down to the ground. Combined with good weapon delivery techniques there is no need at all to manually enter wind data.

DCS doesn’t support HDR (HDR lighting isn’t the same thing) so upgrading to a display that has it at the moment would be of no benefit.

You can’t “burn” the LASER(s), the pod could overheat (most likely on the ground or at high speed and/or low altitude), but such things aren’t modelled. Even if overheat conditions were modelled, the pod provides warnings of the issue and it can be resolved by slowing down or climbing. There are no LASER firing time limits.

The first reason is that the Maverick types carried by the Harrier (AGM-65E and F) cannot be loaded on LAU-88s. Even if the aircraft used AGM-65D and H, LAU-88s (they are launchers, not ejector racks) are huge, heavy, and produce a lot of drag. The Harrier just isn't big enough. It's role and typical mission profile also necessitates light loadouts. LAU-88s are very rarely used these days by any aircraft type.

Hmmm, don’t remember that detail. So if that was the case then it’s likely something in the electrical systems not tied together yet.

Looks like he knocked off all the primary aircraft power. This in turn caused the INS to power down and loose its alignment. Such an issue would be cause to abort the takeoff. Entirely expected behaviour for pretty much any aircraft in the case of total power failure, and could have been solved by performing another ground alignment or an in flight alignment (assuming they are implemented at this point). But you’re right in that it shouldn’t have triggered a total power failure in the first place, so something must not be functional yet.

Setting none will be more likely to give an early abort cue as they are there primarily to avoid weapon frag patterns. The SEM is performed primarily to keep you out of the frag pattern. If you’re getting abort cues it’s generally for a reason. Normally low altitude and/or slant range.

RT, UP, EJECT, RACK are maintenance setting and not applicable to DCS. SEM is the safe escape manoeuvre and is used as one of the parameters driving the abort cues, so setting to wrong one may give you abort cues earlier than needed depending on your delivery type. DES TOF is the desired weapon time of flight in seconds and is used to drive the desired release cue (DRC). This is the small horizontal line shown on the ASL when using CCIP aiming. It is placed over the desired mean point of impact during a delivery in order to ensure the weapons are released at the planned altitude, assuming the initial delivery parameters and dive angle are also correct. You can see the DRC in action in the videos shown in this thread: http://www.476vfightergroup.com/showthread.php?3131-Air-to-Surface-Weapon-Delivery-Methods