isoul

? Bad joke from my side! No mood to offend someone here...

I think this idea has a dose of "racism" in it... Even if someone is capable to do that, even if he doesn't care of the enormous amount of resources needed... Imagine how many of the today's 40year old DCS funs will... die waiting! Isn't this racism? (...or a bad joke)

@Frederf : I doubt that maximum range, meaning the greatest possible distance of travel, of a rocket is ever mentioned. As in the case of russian RPG-18, for example, the maximum range is almost never mentioned (its 1000m) because the effective range is what it matters(its 200m). It would be reasonable to me that 4km range is the maximum range in which the S-8 rocket can achieve the desired concentration. Of course whats "desired" may vary! @ARM505 : Mate you are partially right! This conversations is moot but not because the limitations of DCS damage simulation. I think that people want the rockets to be something different than they truly are. Many people before me refer to rockets as "artillery". They are not wrong. Inaccuracy is expected from rocket type weapons, be it aircraft rockets or MLRS rockets. This doesn't mean they are ineffective. Its a necessary limitation in order to have an area covered with fire. The claim of "too short blast radius in DCS" is something I can't judge since, apart from claims, some kind of data aren't available About the simulation of explosion effects and usefulness of rockets in DCS... We can assess the effectiveness of rockets. By firing single shots at a truck, then taking screenshots of near-misses (taken directly above the truck) and calculating the distance of the crater to the truck using truck's(already known) dimensions. Of course this requires time!

Indeed they aren't! But accuracy was never expected from a rocket(one reason rockets are often delivered in salvos) as it isn't expected for typical artillery shells or MLRS rockets. The only thing you expect is the rocket to go off and kill or damage things around it. If you are lucky enough your HEAT rocket will hit armor and do its job but that will be a luck hit... usually the fragments will do the damage. Fuel-Air Explosive(FAE) rockets don't have such issues... they will go off and the blast will be enough to kill personnel. If pointed on a build the FAE effect will be greater. GGTharos... only 15m effective radius? Against what type of target? The offensive grenade I threw once was said to have 100% kill rate against personnel at 10m radius..! A whole rocket has 5m more?

Effective range of firearms, such as rifles, is a bit different of the effective range of rocket or missile systems. In the case of rockets and missiles we usually refer to maximum range while in the case of firearms we never mention their maximum range. Who cares, for example that M-16 rifle's range is approx 4km? At that range its doubtful that the 5.56 round can score a kill.

Even if ED manages to get info on Ka-52 for a DCS-fidelity sim I would still have some doubts about two-seaters in a pc-sim.

There is no best... only suitable!

S-8 range is stated to be 1.3-4km. When we talk about effective range of a weapon, according to my little military experience, we are meaning the maximum range a weapon is guaranteed to score a kill. A rocket launched even from 4km can score a kill... its just inaccurate The 1.5km is probably the range you can be effective for sniping kills. In DCS there is a whole discussion about the modeling of area damage(model each fragment separately is near to impossible in the game) of rockets. Many people have expressed the same opinion with you Fred, and I have to say that a 5m near-miss should result in the complete destruction(not necessarily an explosion) of a truck making it Swiss-Cheese. I don't have any arguments to prove that you wrong or right(I haven't ever seen a rocket explosion explosion or its effects from close enough, thank God!) on that. But that is another discussion I think.

WWII pilots had a saying : "The fighter you won't see is the fighter that will shoot you down" This goes for MANPADS also (thx Boberro for the correction!)... The foot soldier can be easily hidden almost everywhere (that's his strong point) so the risk is always there. That's why the pilot has to survey the battlefield, that's why there are countermeasures and that's why attack helicopters are being shot down. You can't attack everything with ATGMs the same way you can't attack everything with cruise missiles. Some time you have to get close to engage a target that can't be engaged with ATGMs! The S-8 has similar range to the cannon... the cannon is for hitting individual targets but the rocket has the area damage effect too. That effect can't be replicated by any other weapon of the Ka-50(and most helicopters I know) from that distance. Even in the case of S-8KOM(which releases fragments with enough mass to penetrate light armor), if a salvo of 10 S-8KOMs near-miss a light armored vehicle, the later will become Swiss-cheese!

Never but never consider a helicopter an air asset in the way you consider a jet..!

The criteria of using rockets instead of cannon isn't armor thickness but spread. As Ethereal posted earlier you can't snipe with rockets. Rockets aren't a precision weapon... its artillery. When artillery fires you know that every shot doesn't mean a kill! Single truck=Cannon, truck with soldiers around=Rockets, Encampment=rockets, Jeep that escaped the rocket attack=cannon. Cannon is good against individual targets while rockets are good for targets that are spread out in a small area. Don't forget that in RL even an indirect hit of an S-8KOM rocket produces 30gr(EDIT: initially I mentioned 3gr which is too light) fragments that are capable to penetrate light armor! Now there was a discussion about this fragmentation effect and how well it is modeled in DCS but that's another story and doesn't reduce the effectiveness of rockets in RL.

Nice finding Frederf...

THX Eddie for explaining this! You saved me from the effort!

Bob I have to disagree again in some points. :smartass: The ATGMs, as Eddie said, are used only for targets that are either armored (tanks) and hard to take out otherwise or posses a high threat and must be engaged at range. You don't use it for everything within their reach. When you attack a truck convoy for example a pilot would use ATGMs against their AA escort (against an Avenger for example) for sure, and they could use an ATGM against the first truck of the convoy. When the first truck is destroyed, and the rest are forced to stop, there is no need to continue the time consuming ATGM attack. Rocket salvos would do the work fine causing casualties and confusion among the convoy personnel. The cannon can be used next to take out individual targets. Even if there are soldiers with MANPADs dismounting from a truck or APC, a rocket salvo has such psychological effects that can suppress enemy fire and movement better than an ATGM. I also agree with Ethereal. You won't snipe with rockets... the only time I remember single rockets to be fired are when Hinds were hitting apartment buildings to hit infantry hiding inside! Salvos are the key most of the time. EDIT : Forgot to mention that in BS you may RTB to rearm and then go to target area and unload more Vikhrs. In RL however, in most cases, the attack helicopter won't leave just to return later. What is to be done must be done(thats why you send two or more helis) at once. If you return again in 30mins you 'll probably either see no target waiting or you 'll see that target invited some AA to the party. This tactic is viable in the game but not in RL.

No real pilot is going for a rocket run because it's fun! We, the virtual-pilots, shouldn't do that aswell if we are to re-live the real-pilot's acting. Real life pilots are trained for rocket runs and use them even in real combat environments. They use rockets when the situation and target requires it. What will you do if infantry is hiding in trees? What will you do if you want to strike a camp? Last...what this guy is doing? Who said that the MANPADS or SHORADS are always next to your target area? You may be mistaken that the area below you is safe when you are taking a firing position to launch a Vikhr. If you take into consideration that a Stinger may be "around the corner" next to your target then the cannon is risky too! Its a pilot's job to survey the battlefield carefully identifying and prioritizing threats, pick the correct firing position and engage targets with the right weapon and order! When you are to deploy a weapon, even a "fire & forget" Hellfire, there is a risk and that risk you have to minimize in-order to complete mission and return home safely. Of course this isn't possible all the time so casualties occur on both sides!

Keep dying when attempting to attack with rockets? Probably you do something wrong. Possibly you either getting too close to your target or you are using the wrong weapon for the task. OK Georgian Oil War campaing's most missions won't force you to use rockets but... Rockets in real life is a significant weapon of any attack helicopter. Of course Vikhrs, Hellfires and Atakas are the anti-tank ones that gives the lethality to any attack helicopter, the cannon is the precision weapon that even foot soldiers can't evade it but rockets is the weapon that can cause great casualties within fractions of a second. Rockets work magnificently against soft targets that are spread out... infantry for example. Have you ever tried to hit infantry hiding in forested area? Rockets (especially my favorite S-8OFP2) works like a charm. You set salvo to med or even long and launch... you will see less tracers this time!

Let me give you an example of typical real life behavior in case of a truck convoy attack. What the attacker usually do : In real life, in case of a truck convoy attack, the attacker would hit the first large vehicle of the convoy forcing the rest to stop. In case of a Ka-50, a Vikhr(launched from close range(3.5-4km) using a pop-up attack) on the first vehicle should suddenly cause the whole convoy to a complete stop. When at 3km away 1-2 salvos of S-8OFP2 would destroy some vehicles, kill much personnel and create confusion to the rest. The rest can be dealt with the cannon. This should take a few minutes and the "hunter" shouldn't get close enough to be hit by small arm's fire. How the defender should react : If the convoy is consisting of trucks carrying personne,l the foot soldiers should always dismount their vehicles and spread on the left and right sides of the road to find any possible cover(this is part of the basic training of any soldier). This way they would be less exposed and they would minimize human losses. Using MANPADS at that time would be ideal but I doubt it is possible(due to confusion most would try to "hit the ditch" rather than having the courage to return fire). The trucks doesn't provide any protection, is hard to move in such situations and it acts more as a trap rather than protection. Any effort to move them out of the line, while the attack continues, is more or less futile and exposes the personnel to danger. What may be a pain in the ass for a mission designer : If you try to simulate such action using the editor the procedure would become quite complex to create and difficult to process (and maybe inaccurate). How many triggers you have to use to simulate such behavior? On the other hand the result may not be even noticed by the attack helicopter if the pilot perform his attack right and fast. Is this something easy to create? Iif the convoy stopped for a few minutes and resume its course (if the attack stops) bypassing any destroyed vehicles would be enough. But still this sound complex to me. IMHO trying to simulate combat spread by dispersing vehicles and foot soldiers is way to complex to worth the effort.

Nice approach SFJackBauer and the high closure is Personally prefer to "replicate" SEAD tactics. Approach at low altitude behind cover, get a bit high just to launch missiles and go down again. Of course this requires to plan your route carefully and depend on terrain but when you are in the air you risk less. You need to launch at least 2 missiles (I found that Kh-25MP is a good solution cause SAM has less time to react). I 've position the SAM site on a plain, well away from mountains, where you have little cover for almost half the way to the radar and I succeed several times in destroying it without any remarkable effort.

GG the Dhahran incident occured in first Gulf War. I still remember the world (especially middle east countries) "frozen reaction" when they (falsely) realized that Sadam could hit targets accurately and Patriots could guarantee safety. They didn't realized that Iraq had an extremely lucky hit in Dhahran! SCUDs are inaccurate missiles and Iraqi improvements to range worsen the accuracy even further. Israel was about to enter war back then but hopefully it didn't... Actually, the Patriot's radar detected the missile and calculated where to look for it next correctly(given the data it had), but due to time drift (1/3 of a sec.) it "looked" at the wrong part of the sky. So no interception was ever tried.

OK! So the trajectory of the SCUD(being a ballistic missile) and its speed is such that it makes it a harder target to hit than an ARM. So we end up that Patriot can defend an area almost from all usual aerial attacks. * Actually the software patch is said to correct a clock slide or lag that occured after long operating hours and caused a failure to intercept a SCUD which ended hitting some US facility in Dhahran.

I have flown several SEAD against HAWK batteries. I have fired several ARMs against them and I can't remember HAWK to engage my ARMs. Usually 1 ARM missile is enough to take out the tracking radar and cast the battery useless. The above would seem unrealistic to me... For the Patriot now... As topol-m said before, I believe that Kh-25MP is a rather small target for every anti-aircraft missile system. But lets ignore this since its more or less our assumption. As first Gulf War ended studies revealed that MIM-104 Patriot missile system wasn't so successful against the old SCUD tactical missile as US and Raytheon claimed. At best 1 every 3 or even 4 missiles launched hit their SCUD targets. There are even studies that claim that confirmed hits(not kills) are even less.(I believe that we all understand now that a SCUD is an easier target to hit than an ARM) So, if Patriots weren't so successful against the old and large SCUDs why they have so good hit rate against such missiles? PS : Its not impossible to defeat Patriot missile system as long as you know from where and how to approach it(use terrain cover) and launch 2-3 missiles.

I think that the conversation is spiraling off topic. Any good suggestion of how someone can avoid being the prey of a fighter while flying the Shark?

I don't remember having any problems regarding fuel or any shortage of it. How come you had such an issue?

Recently I created a mission where I pitted my favorite Su-25T against a MIM-104 Patriot SAM system. What made me wonder was Patriot's exceptional anti-missile capabilities. The Patriot system I was after had 4 launchers and one radar and managed to shoot down many of my ARM missiles(Kh-29MP and Kh-25MP). I wonder if Patriot missile system is able to defeat such small and fast missiles. From what I 've found : 1) Kh-29 weights approx 700kg and, in general, reaches speeds no less that 900km/h 2) Kh-25MP weight no more than 400kg and travels at speeds approx. 1000-1600 km/h While I didn't found the maximum speed of a SCUD missile, its weight (varies from ~4.5-6.5 tons depending on the variant) , dimensions and range are such that I can't believe its faster than Kh-25/29 missiles. So... if the Patriot's success against SCUD missile, which is quite a large target, was revealed to be quite low (someone even claims to be 10%) how come the success rate against ARM missile is so good. Is this right??? For the history : I did managed to destroy the Patriot's radar several times with Kh-25MP missiles. No kill was scored with Kh-29MP were the Patriot seems to defeat them easily. All launches were near max range while I was at low altitude. I usually launched missiles in pairs. I suspect that the success rate of the Kh-25MP is because this missile is fired from closer distance so that Patriot doesn't have enough time to launch enough missiles to have a succeful result.

I always remembered night vision color to be green. So its more possible to have a green image through NVG, cause most are manufactured that way, rather than black/white.