PoorOldSpike

I like external views (also called 3rd-person views) in 3D wargames because it's more realistic. Games without them are like first-person shooters.

Forget the training missions and simply plonk your SU-25 on any runway in the editor with zero wind and see how you go, it takes less than 5 minutes to create editor missions they're so easy. Personally I rarely use training missions for anything because they're all pre-set and i feel like I'm being railroaded.

Yeah there are lots of ways to play CA, whatever floats your boat, personally I rarely go inside tanks or vehicles or use isometric view because I prefer floating like a god above the battlefield ordering my groups to go here / go there on the F10 map, then sit munching my popcorn while watching them shoot up the enemy on their own initiative like in the pics below..:)-

I just created this small test scen in the editor, see if you can pick up any clues- 1- The setup, my Abrams vs a line of BTR's- 2- I start the game and my AI gunner begins automatically shooting- 3- I hit Rt-Alt-J to enter the tank and take over the gun, which now must be fired manually, this is the gunsight- 4- I hit F7 to go to external view but the gun WON'T fire because my soul is still inside the tank in the gunners seat- 5- So I hit Rt-Alt-J to get out of the gunners seat, and he begins firing again on his own initiative..:)

And if you're inside a tank or APC etc, hit Rt-Alt-J to get out, that'll hand over control of the gun to the AI gunner.

We can also juggle our monitors brightness/contrast/color density settings to suit us and I think there's even a 'sharpen' button. I do mine via my Nvidia card sliders. PS- there are also a row of "settings" buttons on the edge of monitors which we can use to customise the image contrast/brightness/sharpness etc.

Thanks guys..:)

I haven't got the Channel map yet, but why don't you simply place a plane on it in the editor then start the mission, because you don't need an airfield to just fly around..:) i do it all the time on the Caucasus/Persian/Syrian maps, and I don't know what you mean by "nodes".

My experience is that the devs of all wargames give AI units a little extra help to stop us walking all over them. Tactically it all depends on what sort of DCS scenario we're playing, and whether we're attacking or defending, and what sort of units we and the enemy have got in our toyboxes. I find being the defender is easiest because we can set up lines of fire to form killing grounds to toast any AI units that enter them. Attacking is a little more risky, but I find concentration of force is best because if an enemy zaps one of my units there will always be friendly units close at hand to exact terrible revenge. WW2 doctrine still holds true today- Gen. Guderian- "Punch with your fist and not with spread fingers" Rommel- "Concentrate strength at one point, force a breakthrough.." PoorOldSpike- "Make war like you make love, quickly, brutally, decisively"

Yeah the Commands listings are all over the place and hard to find and need tidying up, for example there seems to be different Comb Arms and General listings, some assignments are in one list but not in the other, etc.

I've probably misunderstood what you're asking, but here are some isometric views (INS key) at different zoom settings by rolling the mousewheel-

It's a small world, I'm an old fart too (72), and half-blind in my right eye since birth but it's absolutely no problem, I use a nice 27" monitor (I'd never use anything smaller in a zillion years) and my glasses are focused to about 28" which is the distance I sit from the screen (I call them my computer glasses). I've also got a pair of reading glasses (focus about 10"), and a pair for generally swaggering around town or visiting the grocers to ogle the shopwomen (focus about 5 feet to infinity) PS- Although my monitors native resolution is 1920 x 1080 I never use that because everything is shrunk like looking down the wrong end of a telescope and it gives me a headache, so I use 1600 x 1024 which is very easy on the eyeballs..:)

I've only had Comb Arms for a few months and a lot of it is still as much a mystery to me as women are, but let me toss the pics below into the playpen which might give us a clue- 1st pic- I place a blue Abrams and a Red BTR APC on opposite side of a hill and click the circled options. 2nd pic- I start the game and my Abrams can't see the enemy unit on the map because that hill's in the way. 3rd pic- I drive the Abrams onto the hilltop and the APC appears on the map because the Abrams can now see it. 4th Pic- the Abrams opens fire on the APC, it's just a dot (circled) because I've turned the labels off. Tactical note: I hopped out of the tank (Rt-Alt-J) and let the AI gunner spot and shoot at the target because his eyesight is probably better than mine at seeing dots..:)

I don't know if there's a list and I'm not sure what you mean, but personally when I want to know units weapon ranges I plonk them on the map in the editor like below and measure their ranges (the red circles) with the range tool, and write down the ranges on a piece of paper for posterity..:) For example the highlighted unit is a Bradley and its TOW missiles have got a range of about 2 nm-

And for my next trick..WARSHIPS versus MAVERICK F's and KH-29T's I tested every ship in the game by launching missiles at it and grabbing my popcorn to sit watching what happened. Below a typical setup, the planes let their birds fly.. The ship responds with SAMs and CIWS Gatlings- Some of the Tico's Standard SAMs intercepted KH-29T's like this- Below: noob note, see how the AI planes immediately bank away after releasing their missiles, because the KH-29T (and Maverick F) are fire-and-forget TV-guided missiles, so there's no need for the planes to stick around. The same applies when they're attacking land targets. By contrast, some missiles are NOT fire-and-forget, for example laser-guided missiles require the launch plane to keep flying towards the target after release in order to keep lasering the target for the missile. So fire-and-forgets are the safest way to go- TEST RESULTS American ships vs KH-29T The Tico, the Burke and all 6 carriers fired their SAMs AND Gatlings. The Perry and the Tarawa fired their Gatlings but NOT their SAM's. Russian ships vs Maverick F NO Russian ship fired its Gatlings. These fired SAM's- Moskva/ Pyotr Veliky/ Kusnetsov/ Kusnetsov 2017/ Neustrashimy. These fired NOTHING- Rezky/ Grisha/ Molniya. Chinese ships vs Maverick F NO Chinese ship fired its Gatlings These fired their SAMs- Type 052B destroyer/ Type 052C destroyer/ Type 054A frigate/ Type 071 Amph Dock (and before anybody asks, no the Armed speedboats of all nations didn't fire) SUMMARY- I remind my audience that Mavs and KH-29's are only relatively small hard-to-detect missiles which would account for why some SAM's and Gatlings didn't engage them. Some ships were better than others at shooting down the missiles, it's hard to put a precise hit rate percentage on it because there are so many variables, but I'd very roughly estimate that each missile and Gatling burst has an approx hit rate of around 40%.

I click Pan/Select but nothing happens. Whats it supposed to do? Next question- when I place a ground unit on the 2D map in the Editor, is there a key I can hit to immediately jump to it in the 3D world to make sure its in a good spot and that its facing etc is okay?

If by scroll you mean zoom, rolling my mouse wheel works fine for me. Here are some other keys you could try- And- F2= external plane view F7= external ground unit view F9= external ship view Left-Ctrl-F11= free camera

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Absolute Camera Vertical View'. I roll the mouse wheel to zoom in/out when i'm in external view in single player, but if it's not working for you check your view keys assignments page. Try the numpad / and numpad * keys too.

Okay muchachos, here's the FINAL SUMMARY (I hope) of my tests, let me know if i've overlooked anything or if you want to comment, I use this summary myself when creating scenarios..:) Remember the main purpose of this thread and tests was to find out what ground-based Air Defence weapons can stop enemy air-launched AT-missiles trashing our tanks, namely the Maverick F and the Russian KH-29T, both of which are TV-guided fire-and-forget. AAA guns WON'T engage them, and only these 3x missile units will- NATO (blue) Air Def units- only the Rapier and the Roland will engage KH-29T's. RUSSIAN (red) Air Def units- Only the Tor will engage Maverick F's. Here's a look at those 3 AD units- RAPIER Its family consists of the launcher and two trackers. In one test I deleted the 2 trackers to see if the launcher would fire without them, and it wouldn't. I then deleted just one of the trackers and the launcher did fire, no matter which tracker I deleted. So tactically it's good sense to always include both the trackers on the map so that if one is destroyed, the other can act as a backup. The BIG disadvantage of the Rapier is that it can't move and can't therefore accompany a moving vehicle group to protect it. Below- the ROLAND It can accompany a moving group which gives it greater flexibility than the static Rapier- There are 2 units in the Roland family, the launch vehicle and an Early Warning Radar vehicle (below), it will fire without the EWR as in the pic above, but including the EWR will presumably mean it'll detect incoming planes/missiles at longer range- Below: The Russian TOR- A close-up of the Tor, it's mobile and can therefore accompany moving groups NOTE:- I've been trying to get some idea of each of the 3 launchers hit percentage rate but its difficult because there are so many variables, eg weather, day or night, radar quality, rates of fire, reload times etc. However if I had to make a judgement I'd estimate the Tor is the best of the 3, followed closely by the Roland, both of which have hit rates of around 50%. The Rapier however has a poor hit rate, possibly only around 10%. PS- but let's not forget that ALL the many types of longrange Air Def SAM units in the game will shoot at planes at 20 miles or more, so in a typical game many planes won't even get close enough to their targets to launch their Mav F's and KH-29T's anyway, as their AI launch range is only around 5 or 6 miles..:)

Yeah I know the Rapier is British, but it's also listed among the American and some other nations Air Defence units. Likewise the Franco-German AAA Gepard is also used by America and some other nations. In fact a lot of units of all types are interchangeable, heck NATO can even use Russian/Chinese units etc and vice-versa if we want..:) PS- I did this thread about the Rapier- https://forums.eagle.ru/forum/english/dcs-world-topics/mission-editor-discussion-and-questions/291792-planes-don-t-pop-chaff-vs-rapier

5- A Rapier missile takes a KH-29L head-on- 6- The Roland gets in on the action- NOTE- Sadly the Rapiers hit rate against KH-29L's was very poor, it only hit about 10% of the time. The Rolands hit rate was better but still missed about 50% of the time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the tests,I tagged the SU-25T's as 'Invisible' to ensure the AD units concentrated solely on the KH-29T's, but when I removed the invisible tag, the AD units all fired at the planes like this Patriot is doing- ..and gets a proximity burst kill- SUMMARY: The tankbusting missiles Maverick F and KH-29T will only be shot at by the Russian Tor unit and the US Rapier and Roland units. I'll sort through all the other nationalities tomorrow to see if they've got any groundbased AD units capable of taking on tankbusting air-launched missiles, and i'll also look at ship CIWS systems. PS- For the record, everything in the tests was under AI control, I was simply a popcorn-munching observer. (Also, the skill levels were Veteran for planes and the equivalent High for ground units)

US AIR DEFENCE vs KH-29T's Below: the US AD units in the current game (November 2020) 1- The Russian KH-29T in action trashing an Abrams through its frontal armour, it's TV-guided and is the equivalent of the TV guided Maverick F- 2- My test setup, I placed a line of US AD units in front of a target group of AFV's to hopefully protect them against incoming KH-29T's, changing the AD units for different ones in each test- 3- The leader of an SU-25T group launches his KH-29T's- 4- Only the Rapier and the Roland fired at the KH-29T's, nothing else did-

4- confirmation that the Tor is the only Russian Air Defence unit that will engage Mavericks- 5- Sometimes Tors will hit a Mav head-on as below, but at other times a proximity-fuse detonation will get the Mav. HOWEVER- I estimate that the kill rate for each Tor missile is only around 50%. A Tor unit contains 8x missiles but they usually only manage to fire 3 of them because the small Mavs arrive so fast. Incidentally, although some units also have cannons, they never fired them at Mavs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Below:Like I said, only the Tor fired at Mavs, so just to make sure that all the other Air Def units weren't asleep, I ordered the Hornets to fly directly over them to see if they'd fire at planes, and they did, like these SA-10's are doing (The Hornets are 20 miles away but the SA-10 radars have already detected them, and the big SA-10 missiles have the range to reach them) A proximity burst gets this Hornet- SUMMARY- so Mavericks are not immune after all, as long as there are Tors around to engage them. The Russian equivalent of the Mav is the KH-29T, it's TV guided like the Mav, so I'll run tests later to see if NATO has got any Air Def units that can shoot down KH-29T's..:)

Thanks guys, I've been testing every Russian Air Defence unit in the game and found that only the Tor will fire at Mavericks like Dudikoff said..:) Below: the Russian Air Defence families (many are radar and command units, not actual launchers) 1- the setup for each test, this example (yellow circle) is the SAM SA-10 family consisting of 2x missile launchers (blue circles) and 4x supporting radar and command units. I placed a tank group behind them and ordered a Hornet group to approach from the top edge and launch Maverick F's at the tanks- 2- the Hornets launch their Mavs- 3- but the SA-10's don't fire at the Mavs, and neither do the Tunguskas in this other test below-

SHIP-BORNE SAMS and CIWS vs TOMAHAWKS 1- A test which confirms a Neustrashimy destroyer will fire its SAMs and CIWS against a Ticonderoga's Tomahawks- 2- A Tomahawk getting clobbered. Note- The Tom is a land-attack missile and you therefore can't target ships with it, so for the purposes of the test I targeted that bit of coastline just behind the ship. The ship's defences were excellent, shooting down about 8 out of 10 Toms-