StrongHarm

My TTP for engaging high threat vehicles is to turn in at 5000ft and 2nm. They have a hard time tracking you quick enough to get off a shot if you do it right. On egress I bank out at 45deg so I'm between the axis and watch for tracers. When I see a stream that will most likely be in my vector, I just apply a touch of rudder. It's all in Tank Busting 101 if you're interested in my procedures. They are most likely not accurate to RL, but they work very well for me.

Once you get your TTP (tactics techniques procedures) together on the cannon, it can be very effective against tanks, even T90s. As previously stated, your distance and angle from the tank when you fire has a big impact on penetration due to simulated ablative armor. I created the tutorial mission Tank Busting 101, to provide cannon TTP as well as a reliably repeatable practice environment. It includes checklists and voice acting. Be aware of the F10 menu. When I first started using this mission I could take out maybe 2 tanks (if I was lucky) before going for a reload. Now I can take out all 16 in a single load. The first 8 tanks are non-aggressive so you can work on your TTP without worrying about getting shot. The 2nd wave are aggressive and will light you up if you're not careful. Once you learn how to avoid their HMGs it's pretty easy though. Sometimes I'll orbit them close just to practice avoiding fire. I now only get hit if I take my eyes off them. Concerning cluster bombs; apparently they are used indiscriminately in some cases.. I was surprised (see vid below). I favor CBU-105s at 800m HOF, though they seem to be much less effective than they were in earlier versions. [ame=http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=86e_1455565360]LiveLeak.com - SU-34 attacks Haritan with two cluster bomb strikes[/ame]

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That reminds me.. another practice that helped my funnel maneuvers was to turn heading and alt autopilot off. I keep pitch and bank AP on.. but turn heading and alt off. The bird is still perfectly stable, but you don't have to fight the AP. I've bound AP channels to my TM Warthog as follows: CMS FWD - HDG CMS LFT - BANK CMS RGT - PITCH CMS DWN - ALT CMS PUSH - Emergency off The only time I use emergency AP off is when I'm evading a missile or something extreme like that. After turning off my AP HDG and ALT, I felt like a real fool for holding my Trim for literally hundreds of hours previously. Particularly because when you turn HDG AP back on, your AP locks the new heading (just as trim does)

FeistyLemur, practicing the funnel is when I truly started to understand the airframe. Before that I would 'transition' the flight controls smoothly like I was flying fixed wing. I practiced the funnel by orbiting various objects at the airbase while keeping my nose pointed at the object. I tried it at various speeds and altitudes, then entering and exiting funnel after a fixed amount of orbits. Eventually I found that rotor and fixed are vastly different where flight controls are concerned. Now, the only time collective/cyclic/rudders aren't all in constant motion is when I'm in straight and level flight. in my opinion, fixed wing is like playing the cello, rotor wing is like playing the drums.

I should have mentioned; pumping the collective works on level decel too. Drop the collective out then pump 1 or 2 second bursts of collective pull. Pumping the collective does not increase your altitude but rather acts like a brake. The alternative is to find the sweet spot in the collective to maintain altitude while still decelerating. Pumping gives you finer control, whether it's faster pumps or precision pump cycles.

Yeah I'll make a vid when I can. Not a bad idea to link it on the mission page. I too engage .7 to .4. The trick to not getting shot is to roll in when close so they can't track you in time, then use a little rudder on egress. You're also a much harder target if you aren't on a horizontal or vertical axis (pull out at 45deg for instance). Sometimes when I fly the mission I'll orbit the hostile tanks closely for a while before killing them just to practice avoiding their fire. Keep your eye on the tracers and touch a little rudder.

When I want to stop immediately I'll get the right side of the bird facing my direction of flight, roll the bird left(rotor facing away from direction of flight), then pump the collective. Kind of like sliding into homebase. You can stop pretty rapidly using this maneuver.

Tell me how it goes. When I first started flying that mission I couldn't make it through the 8 "inactive" tanks with a single loadout. Now I can make it through those plus the 8 active hostile tanks without getting hit. It really didn't take that long once I got my head around it.

Outstanding! That's good to hear Belisarius. FYI; I keep several gb of family photos and documents on OneDrive for archiving purposes. It's good to have an external backup drive to safeguard your data, but unless you put that in a firesafe after every time you backup, your data is still in danger. Also, be aware that the files that you put on the OneDrive cloud are available not only through Windows Explorer, but also on the internet. Just go to http://onedrive.live.com and sign in. You'll see all the files in your browser. Now the interesting thing is, if you want to share those files with someone (or everyone), you can click on a file or folder on the webpage and choose 'share'. You then have the option to share with one person and send them an email, or to generate a small URL you can send to anyone and everyone who will be able to access it... but only if they access it through the small URL you give them. Microsoft has done a superb job of securing their cloud. Your OneDrive files are on the same infrastructure that's holding sensitive financial data for some of the biggest banks and companies in the world. File example (F-35 pic): http://1drv.ms/1p7FRcB

+1 Sabre! That would be the easiest method. I would still recommend setting up OneDrive if you have the time and inclination. It allows for more filetypes, stays in auto-sync, and is easier to organize.

I prefer OneDrive. I have it on all of my devices. If I can access a file in My Documents on my computer, I can access that file on my phone, Surface, iPad, or xbox one... or on someone else's device if it's connects to the internet and I can log in to OneDrive. I have two terabytes of space, so I'm not concerned with running out. Here's how you go about it: Check to see if you have OneDrive on your system Hit WindowsKey+E on your keyboard to open Windows Explorer. If you see OneDrive on the left side of the screen, you're already good to go, skip #2 Computer: If you don't have OneDrive, goto: https://onedrive.live.com/about/download/ Click download and follow the instructions. Pretty easy evolution. iPad: Download OneDrive onto your iPad by going to: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onedrive-cloud-storage-for/id477537958?mt=8 (note: easier if you click this link from your iPad) Once you have OneDrive on both your Computer and iPad: Hit WindowsKey+E to open Windows Explorer Copy and Paste the following line into the address bar at the top of Windows Explorer: C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World 2 OpenAlpha\Mods\campaigns\DCS NTTR A-10C Red Flag Campaign Right click on the folder called Docs and select Copy On the left side of your Windows Explorer screen click on OneDrive (the right side of the screen should change) Right click on the right side of the screen and select Paste Rename the folder from Docs to something more appropriate On your iPad open OneDrive and sign in to your Microsoft Account. You should see the folder you renamed on your computer. If you don't see it on your iPad right away, wait for a few minutes for your computer to sync the files to OneDrive on the cloud You should see the folder you renamed in OneDrive which contains all of the campaign PDFs in subfolders named by the mission number Fair winds, strongharm

Interesting history bradleyjs! You're lucky you were in the cockpit in the 'old military'. I got plenty of stick time with pilot friends but was never allowed to solo, or even land the plane. I didn't finish my degree in CS either as the professors were still just reading out of the manual in those days (late 90s) but I'd been working with higher tech in the military for years. I was basically teaching two of my classes when I left for an engineering position with Gateway (which was a decent company at the time). I wouldn't mind going back to school to close the gaps since they actually somewhat understand the tech these days. You mentioned something else we have in common; spaceX offered me a position to lead one of their teams but I had to turn it down since I couldn't move my wife to Texas. It's not Space Command or Rockwell, but it's amazing how closely our paths intersect. Congrats on your new Alienware. I hope it serves you well.

Phantom, my post wasn't directed at you exclusively, I don't doubt your abilities. The post branched into discussions about the abilities of the GAU-8 against tanks. I was responding to that subdiscussion within your post. I hope the training mission link I posted was helpful to someone.. I still use it at least once a month to stay sharp with the cannon. Sorry for getting somewhat off topic. Glad your issue is resolved.

bradleyjs, I was aviation as a mech my last 4 of8 years in the Navy. I deployed mostly out of Bahrain and Turkey and went everywhere. Was never stationed on a ship. Did you fly for the USAF? I got my private license in 98'. It's interesting to hear that you like developing admin tools.. that's how I got started in Business Intelligence.. I created a monitoring environment for Citi back in 2002 that predicted data flow and transaction issues across 300+ MSSQL servers. BI was a natural progression. It's always interesting and pays really well. Looking forward to your Alienware AAR. Cheers blackshoe.

The lack of A2A capability was a falsification started by a media outlet that slanders military spending at every opportunity. For more info (specifically on the trials involving the F-16) see: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=2429493&postcount=2504 Also:

It's a matter of TTP and practice. I can take out 16 T-90s with a single load due to repeated practice. There are a lot of posts about procedure on these boards, also check out my 'Tank Busting 101' training mission which provides procedural analysis and a good practice environment. Before I started using that mission I was reluctant to use guns against anything but unprotected soft targets. The A-10 was built specifically to bust tanks with the GAU-8.. granted, they had older tanks in mind.. but it's still effective (in game at least) if you go about it correctly. Don't forget, you're putting out 70 of these per second:

Refueling mishaps clips: http://i.imgur.com/JDnCZ5i.gif http://i.imgur.com/zyTtW8y.gif

Bradleyjs, I too am an engineer (Business Intelligence Architect), pilot, ODS Vet, and I also just purchased an Alienware Area 51 R2. I started my career in desktops after the military, moved to sysadmin, then DBA, then dev, then BI. I've beta tested every Microsoft OS since Win95, mostly so I could preemptively understand the OS, but also because I like to contribute functionality. First of all let me congratulate you on your Alienware purchase, it was a smart one. Ignore the outdated opinions of anyone who tells you "all manufactured systems are slower and more expensive". I've built all of my own systems since the 90s until this one. The price point and performance points are excellent on the 'higher end' Alienware. With the lower end components you are indeed paying too much as you're paying for brand, but as you get into the expensive builds (i7 5960x, 2x980ti, etc) you're making up some of the difference due to the price they pay in bulk for these components. I couldn't have put the same parts together myself for less money (I did check), and the Alienware no longer has the 'vaporware apps' on it that slow down so many manufacturer systems. I'm getting frame rates beyond my wildest dreams with this system, it's rock solid, and I in no way regret my purchase in December. I hope your experience will be as good. As to Win10; this is easily the biggest leap in feature/performance/reliability I've seen in any new Windows OS. The people who are complaining about crashes and bad performance are those who use antiquated hardware and apps. MS did away with a lot of the legacy code they kept up to Win7 to support deprecation and backward compatibility. With Win10 they were more focused on cleaning it up than on deprecation. I think this was a wonderful idea, but it has been painful for users of legacy hw/sw. Microsoft new it would be, but they 'ripped the bandage off' anyway and I applaud them for it. In short; you purchased a great system and Win10 will run great on it. and also.. thank you for your service, and happy 25th anniversary of a war that was harder than anyone can understand unless they were there. Did you see the full page 'thank you note' advertisement that Kuwait purchased in the Washington Post?

Sims are the definitive system resource hog, but you're probably aware. Not updating is a valid choice, but I can tell you that I recently performed an update and I'm getting avg. 100+ FPS in 4k.. rarely dropping down to 80 in extreme cases. I don't regret it one bit. I'm not sure there will be another DCS 'engine rebuild' in the next two years, so I think I made a smart purchase. Best of luck.

Bing and Google maps both have some great close in imagery of the Saylor Creek Range. Switch to satellite view and look to the South East of MHAFB, about 130 for 20. Looks like they paint the tanks bright blue. It would be cool if we could toggle that color on all vehicles in DCS.. for those times when that last T-90 decided to hide half way through the side of a building...

Found an inert 30mm cannon round that had been fired from an A-10 on Amazon.com and thought I'd share. I also purchased a 25mm and 20mm. They look great on my desk and the 30mm really puts the power of the GAU-8 into perspective. Pic attached shows each of the rounds with a 40cal pistol round in front of the 25mm to indicate scale. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I34CU6M

Try this one out yet Mower? As to Blackshark being used for SEAD, it occured to me that the first U.S. aircraft to cross over the Iraqi border to SEAD the area for other sorties was.... AH-64 Apache

I just remember my time in the U.S. Military where there was frustration over having to strike with expensive precision bombs multiple times, rather than heavy ordnance, in an effort to prevent collateral damage. If there was a mosque, hospital, or school within 5klicks forget about it. I guess it's a product of war weariness and unreasonable political oversight. Cluster bombs are definitely the way to get the job done... unless you're a civie in the wrong place at the wrong time.. but then again I personally would make sure my family was waaay behind the line at all times. This isn't the place to talk about the horrors of war though.. we're more interested in the technology of it. Which is good. :)

Never thought I'd see cluster bombs dropped on a city in modern times. ROE seems to be as loose as this dispersal pattern. I wonder if the city was evacuated and confirmed to be combatants only. [ame=http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=86e_1455565360]LiveLeak.com - SU-34 attacks Haritan with two cluster bomb strikes[/ame]