Coota0

Real world I flew with just my wrist making minute movements, the Kiowa is so responsive that I rarely needed more.

Real world you could remove the MMS. The only time I ever saw the MMS removed was for transport on an aircraft or at flight school. Touch-down autos were done at flight school and taking off the MMS minimized the chances of aircraft damage. Once we moved past the "contact" phase we begin using the -58s that were MMS equipped. I flew Kiowas with doors exactly six times. Once in theater because the AMC was having a bad week with pilots losing things out the door...he was told to take the doors off for the next flight. The other 5 times were the 5 days it required us to fly to the boneyard.

There were D models that had the color MFD is was part of the L2MUMs package. The screen only had color when receiving a feed from a UAV and was also part of a weight reduction program.

I apologize if I ramble.. A Force on Force/ near Peer or Peer environment (typically thought of as a Cold War environment, but the 1st Gulf War fits as well and the first few weeks of Iraqi Freedom are a bit of a hybrid) has a lines that are mostly fixed (FEBA) and the enemy wears a uniform and has uniform equipment. In contrast the Global War on Terror does not have fixed lines, the FOB is surrounded by the enemy and telling the bad people from the locals may be impossible until they start shooting at you. With a Force on Force/ near Peer or Peer environment you know where the enemy IADs can hit you and where to suspect MANPADs, this allows you to fly in relative safety in rear areas and then bring the aircraft to NOE as you move toward the front. In the rear you are able to travel at cruising airspeed and a height of 200 AHO or less, then as you move in closer to the objective you reduce altitude to less than 80 feet AHO and slow further, as you move into the objective area you slow to a hover, using terrain features to hide. Each aircraft moves individually while the other provides overwatch. The aircrews can use their eyes, binoculars or the MMS depending on the threat. The scouts can then find and fix enemy elements, calling for fire to eliminate enemy reconnaissance or main elements and building an overall picture for the ground commander as to the disposition and positions of the enemy. The objectives follow doctrine much more closely. Reconnaissance assets move forward to perform zone or area reconnaissance over specific objectives. The same as true for screening or covering the main body and preventing the enemy from discovering your main force. Everything is done much slower. In a COIN fight the battlefield is far more fluid. You maintain your airspeed, your altitude varies from a few feet above the ground to several hundred or a thousand feet AGL. The threat is small arms DShks, maybe a ZSU or ZPU (although both were sought out and destroyed) or maybe a MANPAD (but not many)meaning that speed at low level saves you because you are hard to track and altitude puts you out of range of many threats. There are hills and mountains, but due to their elevation hiding behind them to hover is difficult due to aircraft limitations. There are trees in places, but not like Europe of the US, the terrain is much flatter in many places and there are not trees to fight in (I think fighting in West Texas or Nebraska might be difficult in the same way.) Do to the lack of concealment (and heat and elevation) you have to keep moving. Missions are different too. Reconnaissance at times was zone reconnaissance of an area, mostly looking for anything out of the ordinary or hoping to catch the insurgents moving equipment or personnel, and checking routes for anything out of the ordinary that we could send ground troops to check out. We flew in support of ground force that were checking out something we found, in convoys and on their objectives. Troops in Contact (TIC) is different in a COIN environment. In a Force on Force/ near Peer or Peer environment you may call in artillery to support a ground unit or lase for an attack jet, in the COIN environment you still do these things, but provide support with your weapons as well and sometimes your weapons may be all that is available. I think that's a pretty good overview. If you have specific questions I'll do my best to answer.

Having moved from Kiowas to Blackhawks I will verify this. This quote confuses me I knew almost no one that ever flew with the force trim on, if they did it was for cross county, straight and level stuff. I was taught in flight school not to use force trim. The SCAS didn't dampen the inputs so much as damped out external inputs (wind for instance) Force trim tries to hold the controls in a particular position. When I was in flight school we were taught that the only time you turned on the force trim was on the ground ( I was surprised to learn that I could not turn it off in the -60). The Air Assault element it the troop carrying element not an escort. The Kiowa would be the escorting unit. In reality the KWs usually moved out ahead of the assault force to ensure that the LZ was clear and to provide overwatch as the assault element made their landing. KWs didn't have escort, they covered each other working in two ship elements. At times KWs would work with a -64 that would either take the place of the second Kiowa in the team or ride shotgun for a two ship team and receive fire direction from the scouts. What is described in the paragraph above is a peer/near peer force on force/cold war scenario. GWOT uses different tactics to accomplish a different mission. The description of approaching downwind is correct. Due to the power margins of the aircraft and the ease of losing tail rotor authority you were always cognizant of were the winds were and never did anything with the wind at your back. Most of this is for a cold war (Europe scenario) Iraq and Afghanistan were a little different.

Do you have specific questions?

The Kiowa didn't really have an HMD, it's been discussed in the following threads... Page 2 of this one: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=280306&highlight=coota0&page=2 and this thread: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=274799 You may be thinking of Top Owl, the USMC worked with it for their Cobras and Hueys https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/aerospace/flight-deck-avionics-equipment-functions/topowl-helmet-mounted-sight-display

Is there a free for all server that simply allows you to take off and fly around at your own risk? If you find another aircraft you are free to bounce them with no warning and if someone finds you they are free to bounce you? Similar to the way I've heard pilots talk about the southwestern US or Europe during the Cold War.

As promised in my earlier post... Gunsight Rockets In the Rocket and Gun you can overlay the MMS feed in the background and there are multiple ways besides the laser to choose your firing/azimuth constraints. Hellfire Hellfire would typically have the MMS image overlayed in the background. There are multiple ways to determine where your missiles will look/ fly to then look for properly coded laser energy to home in on. As has already been stated these modes were intended for shooting from a hover while hiding in trees in Germany as the Soviets advanced. By the time of GWOT the idea of hovering fire was the equivalent of suicide' there are no trees to really hide in, staying still gets you killed and we didn't have the power in many of those places to execute hovering fire. I have seen and used hovering fire for a Hellfire engagement, but running Hellfire engagements were not uncommon and the -64 uses this as a technique as well. The only time I have ever seen or used hovering fire was in a training event because "we have to teach you this, but you won't use it." Running/ diving fire keeps you alive and helps your ballistics.

The site for the Hellfire is similar to the one posted above. There is a rocket and gun page that uses the MFD to shoot, but no one uses it. Either a grease pencil mark on the windscreen or your favorite bug splat and then adjust off of that. Ill see if I have any pictures.

I've never seen one or even a picture, thanks for sharing.

If your concern is realism, in the particular time period that Polychop is designing their Kiowa there wouldn't be a stinger option at all. By 2013 the wiring was removed. Quote from the -10 "4. Removed all Air-To-Air Stinger (ATAS) wiring."

I don't know if it was part of the crash, but I do know that inverting the display on the model above is very easy. There is a switch to identify if you have it on your left or right eye, if you have it on the left eye and the switch is on right, everything is inverted.

That's the older model of what we use on the Blackhawk. I like the newer one better, that long tube along the right side is gone. Might be? I did a google search and came up with this, it looks like the one we used. Maybe two versions of the same thing with different names? That happens a lot or maybe we just called it something different than the actual name. https://duotechservices.com/repairing-oh-58-sight-unit-of-helmet-mounted-display-hmd

It was tested successfully. 1/17 got to shoot it. We did the academics at 3/17 and expected to see it in Afghanistan in 2013, but the program was cancelled.

Two types of HUDs on a KW, kind of. The first was way before my time, apparently it could be hung from a bracket on the cross beam, in front of the each crew member. I have no idea what symbology was in it or anything. Every Kiowa I flew had the mounts ground off. Type two was the an attachment for the goggles, we called it an ODA, but I can't remember what ODA stood for. It would fix over the NVG tube and display flight data, pitch ladder, airspeed, altitude, etc. I wasn't a fan, I knew some pilots that liked it, some didn't. Oddly enough I really like the one on the Blackhawk. That's the only HUD like devices on a Kiowa. Edit: ODA is Optical Display Attachment

Wish they would release on Amazon. I would pay for it there.

We need a like or thumbs up function! :thumbup:

Hopefully in an update down the road, but I'm guessing at least a year or two away to avoid drawing sales from Super Carier.

Both LOBL and LOAL (LOAL, LOAL HI and LOAL LO) will loft. The Hellfire is built to hit the thinner armor on the top of a tank, however the degree to which that climb takes place is different in the different modes. LOBL has the most shallow.

I got a set of TPR pedals. They are great. I have the springs set to the the lower position, but both still on the pedals. The pedals have more feedback than a Kiowa, but feel a lot like the Blackhawk. The accuracy is amazing and I love flying with them.

While it is pronounced seamoss, it is spelled CMWS.

Turns out I have no pictures of the collective. I did find one on google. It's from a document on the FADEC system. https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1524&context=utk_gradthes

Netflix has a documentary called Apache Warrior that is about the Karbala mission.

The OH-58A/C (Basically a Bell 206) was used in Vietnam, the OH-58D did not come about until the late 80's. The A/C didn't have weapons (some units used a gun and all had an AO that carried a weapon and fired out the door) and the MMS was not available during the Vietnam period, the D has a different aircraft handling and 4 blades, so using the D as the A/C might be difficult.