SAM Killing TTPs (a guide)

So here are some tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) I've been using to knock out SA-15s and SA-19s.

Assume you are at 3500ft AGL your TGP is on and you have a AGM-65D hard point selected...

Step 1: You receive a SA-19 mudspike.

Step 2: Engage jammer and break away from the site while droping chaff until the SA-19 is on your 6 o'clock on the RWR.

Step 3: Back off the SAM system (10 miles or so) and get a back azimuth from your HUD: your heading is 150 (with the SAM directly behind you on the RWR) so your heading to the SAM is roughly 330.

Step 4: Head 330 now and once you receive the mudspike again it should be directly at your 12 o'clock on your RWR.

Step 5: Drop you TGP to 4.5 miles out and repeat step 2 (you can also create a mark point to help mark the area.

Step 6: Back of the area and begin searching for the SAM. Find it (use black hot), kill it.

Steps for engaging a SA-15 are the same except you don't need to break away immediately and the TGP point should be dropped to about 6.5 miles out. Track provided for a visual guide.

POOR MAN'S SEAD.trk

Great! thanks!

Great job, nice trk too. This should make SEAD in the A10 a lot more fun...

No problem, happy to help. I really enjoy SEAD missions and while the A-10 would probably never be assigned SEAD duties in real life, it is nice to know that if you bump into a SA-15 or 19 on the battlefield, you have the option to kill em rather than just run away from em.

Hello...

I dont know if this has been mentioned befor or if it even work very well...It was just an idea that came to me...i'm not at my gaming computer now so i have not really tried it yet...

When JTACs call out airdefences like for example:

ZEUS, 0 nautical...SA-8, 3 nautical south east...SA-8, 3 nautical east...

As i understand it the ZEUS would be right at the target triangle sent over from the JTAC...

easy enough to find but thoose SA-8s would take quite a bit of serching to find (atleast for me)...what i was thinking is this:

- Use the TAD screen in EXP-mode and HOOK CURS

- then hook the target triangle if not already done

- move the TAD cursor 3 nautical miles to the east of the target triangle and make a

markpoint...(you see the distance and bearing in the bottom right of the TAD screen)

- Select markpoint as steerpoint and then slave TGP to it

question:

Does this put the targetpod cloose enough to that SA-8 that the JTAC called out as

' SA-8, 3 nautical east' for me to find it or is this way of doing it to unprecise ?

Is there a better way to find thoose targets that are not at the coordinates given by the JTAC ?

Not sure on this one, but sounds like it should work to me (or at least get you in the neighborhood). I haven't used the JTAC much lately since it doesn't work in multi-player yet.

Great info Azazel. This is the kind of stuff that I really need to work on. Any tips on dealing with manpads?

Excellent thread.

Not sure on this one, but sounds like it should work to me (or at least get you in the neighborhood). I haven't used the JTAC much lately since it doesn't work in multi-player yet.

I started a thread on MANPAD tactics:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=72813

It may give you some ideas, but not too many people have added to it yet.

Great info Azazel. This is the kind of stuff that I really need to work on. Any tips on dealing with manpads?

Stop what you are doing and immediately drop flare, break away from the direction of launch while continuing to drop flares, dive away and cut throttle (while droping flares) and hope for the best :)

Biggest thing is to get away from the launch site, try and get a visual on the missile because last minute jinks with flare dropping will work, and don't be stingy with your flares. I like to drop four at a time in manual mode with each hit of the CMS forward. If I can't get a visual on the IR SAM then I continue to drop flare until I'm sure I'm safe (7-10 sec).

A quick track on spoofing manpads. Reaction time is everything. The faster you can drop flares and change your aspect, cut throttle, dive away, etc the better. You don't get much time to react with manpads so drop flares immediately.

MANPAD SPOOFING.trk

So here are some tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) I've been using to knock out SA-15s and SA-19s.

 

Assume you are at 3500ft AGL your TGP is on and you have a AGM-65D hard point selected...

 

Step 1: You receive a SA-19 mudspike.

Step 2: Engage jammer and break away from the site while droping chaff until the SA-19 is on your 6 o'clock on the RWR.

Step 3: Back off the SAM system (10 miles or so) and get a back azimuth from your HUD: your heading is 150 (with the SAM directly behind you on the RWR) so your heading to the SAM is roughly 330.

Step 4: Head 330 now and once you receive the mudspike again it should be directly at your 12 o'clock on your RWR.

Step 5: Drop you TGP to 4.5 miles out and repeat step 2 (you can also create a mark point to help mark the area.

Step 6: Back of the area and begin searching for the SAM. Find it (use black hot), kill it.

 

Steps for engaging a SA-15 are the same except you don't need to break away immediately and the TGP point should be dropped to about 6.5 miles out. Track provided for a visual guide.

Just curious, how did you get these values (4.5nm and 6.5)? Is that just a known limitation of the SA-19's and SA-15's detection range?

Stop what you are doing and immediately drop flare, break away from the direction of launch while continuing to drop flares, dive away and cut throttle (while droping flares) and hope for the best :)

 

Biggest thing is to get away from the launch site, try and get a visual on the missile because last minute jinks with flare dropping will work, and don't be stingy with your flares. I like to drop four at a time in manual mode with each hit of the CMS forward. If I can't get a visual on the IR SAM then I continue to drop flare until I'm sure I'm safe (7-10 sec).

I would add, AVOID. I know you're talking about the "what if" you get launched on scenario, but remember that

1.) MANPADs (IGLA) have a useful limit of 10k feet AGL, which you can get above to avoid being launched on

2.) If you can use terrain masking and low flight (<200R feet, or lower) you can defeat an acquisition by passing through the firing envelope of the MANPAD before they can successfully acquire and launch. Try flying Dodge or Tusk flight in Op First Strike using the default flight plan. Try it once at ~150 feet on the Radar Alt. then try again up above 500R feet on the Radar Alt.

Just curious, how did you get these values (4.5nm and 6.5)? Is that just a known limitation of the SA-19's and SA-15's detection range?

Values were found through trial and error and practice. The way the SA-19 and SA-15 work right now is that you only receive a mudspike on your RWR once they have you "locked." In other words, we are currently not receiving their search radar mudspike on the A-10s RWR. Once ED fixes this issue this TTP will change to larger distances.

In other words, we are currently not receiving their search radar mudspike on the A-10s RWR. Once ED fixes this issue this TTP will change to larger distances.

Ah this is the important bit of information that is hard to know unless you either are privy to developer information or, in this case, from just trial and error.

I was wondering how the SAM radar systems AI worked, under the hood. I know there are several techniques IRL that SAM operators can employ to make detection and evasion much harder, but knowing how the sim handles this is crucial to mission success. So either you have the time to test out various scenarios or have detailed information from the developers as to how the AI is modeled. Either way, thank you for your efforts and the rest of the community here and I hope we will be able to compile a comprehensive guide to dealing with all the sim's threats.

This is great chaps:) Can you possibly do one for the entire soviet arsenal. Well the specific air threats. Will help new and old alike:thumbup:

This is great chaps:) Can you possibly do one for the entire soviet arsenal. Well the specific air threats. Will help new and old alike:thumbup:

Once ED releases a final patch for A-10 I'll be able to do something like that more justice. Also note that not all SAM search radars are not showing up. However, they all are suffering from the same bug though. If another aircraft is in their "detection zone" you won't receive a search radar mudspike, just a missile launch warning. I documented this bug pretty throughly in this thread http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=71890 Hopefully it'll be fixed in the next patch.

Here's another "if only" that the A-10 could carry HARM or SIDEARM. Esp. SIDEARM since it can already carry 'winders.

Thought there was at least a time during the first Gulf War (1991) when some A-10s did carry HARM. I haven't read this book (yet), but I believe it's mentioned in here:

http://www.amazon.com/Warthog-Flying-10-Potomac-Warriors/dp/1574888862/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304105763&sr=1-1-spell

Was wondering why I was getting plastered by the stinking SA-15! I was up at 26,000 feet (had an older version of the Threat Guide, FTL). Now I see they reach up to 35K AGL! YIKES. Combine that with the RWR errors and I've been getting blasted a LOT lately - very frustrating!

Seems like only viable attack on an SA-15 where you don't know the exact location is to drop chaff / flare as soon as RWR lights up, 180 turn, and note the reciprocal bearing to the RWR symbol, set a markpoint at current location, run out to about 5+miles from markpoint, turn around to the bearing noted previously from referencing the RWR mud spike, set tgp to 7 miles + distance from markpoint and start searching.

Can't wait to try this out armed w/ new info.

Also, in a way, the broken RWR kind of adds realism as SAM operators can use crafty tricks to flip on fire and then acquire target as missiles are in the air (a la Scott O'Grady). Obviously if they flip on radar they won't gain insta-lock and the RWR symbol will move to inner ring once they've acquired so that part is not too real, but the "broken-ness" certainly ups the ante.

Was wondering why I was getting plastered by the stinking SA-15! I was up at 26,000 feet (had an older version of the Threat Guide, FTL). Now I see they reach up to 35K AGL! YIKES. Combine that with the RWR errors and I've been getting blasted a LOT lately - very frustrating!

 

Seems like only viable attack on an SA-15 where you don't know the exact location is to drop chaff / flare as soon as RWR lights up, 180 turn, and note the reciprocal bearing to the RWR symbol, set a markpoint at current location, run out to about 5+miles from markpoint, turn around to the bearing noted previously from referencing the RWR mud spike, set tgp to 7 miles + distance from markpoint and start searching.

 

Can't wait to try this out armed w/ new info.

 

Also, in a way, the broken RWR kind of adds realism as SAM operators can use crafty tricks to flip on fire and then acquire target as missiles are in the air (a la Scott O'Grady). Obviously if they flip on radar they won't gain insta-lock and the RWR symbol will move to inner ring once they've acquired so that part is not too real, but the "broken-ness" certainly ups the ante.

Yeah the SA-15 is actually pretty easy to jam. Use the SAM 2 setting on the jammer and he'll lose his lock. However, the SA-19 is much harder to avoid getting tagged by. You only get a few seconds to act after a SA-19 locks you up to turn around. I'm definitely looking forward to ED fixing the RWR in the up coming patches.