Practical applications of the Su-25?

[guitarxe]

I can punch in any kind of scenario in the mission editor and go have fun with the crazy bird, but I was wondering, what are real practical applications of the Su-25? From some videos and user-made missions I've seen, it's mostly a one-target, one-pass thing. You load up with bombs or rockets, make a single pass on the target, then go home.

 

How and what was the Su-25 used for in real world scenarios?

[Flying Penguin]

I can punch in any kind of scenario in the mission editor and go have fun with the crazy bird, but I was wondering, what are real practical applications of the Su-25? From some videos and user-made missions I've seen, it's mostly a one-target, one-pass thing. You load up with bombs or rockets, make a single pass on the target, then go home.

 

How and what was the Su-25 used for in real world scenarios?

 

There is no reason it can't be used like any other strike plane (stand off, multiple passes), as long as you are aware that it (even more so than the A-10C) can be a massive turkey if used in a heavily contested environment, due to the lack of modern stand off weapons, although like the A10A, it was designed as a front line strike aircraft for a cold war gone hot scenario.

 

The SU25 Wikipedia page gives it's main engagements, but in summary, it did well in the Iran-Iraq war as a conventional strike aircraft, and in countless low intensity/insurgency conflicts (Afghanistan, Chechnya etc), but did less well in Georgia in 2008 against modern air defence. So what that means for scenario design is that it's only really going to work in situations where the opponent isn't packing high end SAMs, so insurgency or 1980s style scenarios....

 

In terms of targets, it's got a perfectly functional laser designator, so there's no reason it can't be loaded up with KH-25Ls and used for precision strike in a similar way to the A-10, especially if you are attacking softer targets like artillery or convoys.

 

The "one pass, pour out ammo and run for the hills" approach is perfectly valid for high threat environments and these seem to be quite common in DCS missions, due to the temptation to liberally scatter high end SAMs and MANPADS around the target area in concentrations at the high end of what a RL deployment would be.

 

So yeah, in summary, it's a pretty versatile bird, as long as you remember that the base SU25 hasn't really changed all that much since the early 80's and putting it unsupported against a modern IADS is going to get you killed.

[karambiatos]

 

The "one pass, pour out ammo and run for the hills" approach is perfectly valid for high threat environments and these seem to be quite common in DCS missions, due to the temptation to liberally scatter high end SAMs and MANPADS around the target area in concentrations at the high end of what a RL deployment would be.

People like making the perfect concentation of AA vehicles, as in what every military would love to have (1 IR sam vehicle for every 4 tanks)

[Flying Penguin]

People like making the perfect concentation of AA vehicles, as in what every military would love to have (1 IR sam vehicle for every 4 tanks)

Which is exactly why game A2G tactics are often very far removed from real world ones, every mission seems to be set up to be an assault into the perfect storm of AA defences.

 

It can be difficult to separate tactics driven by 'spectacle based' mission design from those that are doctrinally sound and likely to occur in a real world conflict.

 

The best RL indicator remains the combat record...

[guitarxe]

The SU25 Wikipedia page gives it's main engagements, but in summary, it did well in the Iran-Iraq war as a conventional strike aircraft, and in countless low intensity/insurgency conflicts (Afghanistan, Chechnya etc), but did less well in Georgia in 2008 against modern air defence.

 

Out of the air defenses that we have available in DCS, which are considered to be "too modern" for the Su-25 to handle?

[Flying Penguin]

Out of the air defenses that we have available in DCS, which are considered to be "too modern" for the Su-25 to handle?

 

That's a difficult one to answer, if there is an answer at all, but bear in mind that most of the systems in DCS were introduced around the same time (or thereabouts) as the SU25 (the exception that comes to mind is the ancient SA-3), so are not in themselves "too modern", even if they would have been high end at the time the SU25 entered service, but it's more a question of using them more sparingly as they would have been assigned to defend high value targets, with rear areas being guarded by substantially less capable systems.

 

If we are talking about western SAMs, you could argue that Patriot is on the difficult side, and given that in the late 70's/early 80's NATO SAM capability was somewhat lacking, it is unrealistic to expect that every target an SU25 could have possibly hit would have had a top tier SAM site close enough for an attacker to "just happen" to pass through effective range, at least for anything short of WW3....

[karambiatos]

anything that fires a radar missile is pretty much too modern for the 25A, you can go against IR sams, but you have to be extra careful.

[Flying Penguin]

anything that fires a radar missile is pretty much too modern for the 25A, you can go against IR sams, but you have to be extra careful.

 

But remember, like the A10, it was originally designed to operate in a 1970s/80s FEBA environment. The casualties would have been horrific (both for the Grach and the Warthog), but that was the point of the plane, completely eliminating radar missiles from missions would be as unrealistic as always placing them perfectly in the flight path.

 

Ideally, the target itself shouldn't be perfectly guarded by a full missile battery (unless you are simulating a coordinated strike/SEAD mission with lots of other aircraft involved), but thinking about what other high value targets in the area might be defended in that way and position missiles to defend them, that way you don't throw yourself at a brick wall, but equally you don't end up with a turkey shoot in a sterile mission environment.

[Weta43]

During the Iran-Iraq war, with an ECM pod it proved perfectly capable against the HAWK SAMS it was flying against, to the point where the US upgraded HAWK systems pretty much specifically to improve their effectiveness against Soviet ECM.

 

All the HAWK batteries in DCS seem to have that upgrade though :)

[esb77]

IR short range SAMs such as: Iglas, Strelas, Stingers, ect. are really the bane of low level strike aircraft like the Su-25 and A-10. The planes are built for low level attacks with visual targeting, and the MANPADS and similar systems make doing what they're meant to do very dangerous.

 

Longer range radar SAMs and fighters are deadly of course, but if your side is adequately equipped and trained someone else should either have already cleared these out, or at the very least be keeping them busy enough so that they don't have much time to pay attention to the strike package.

 

So if you exclude the suicide missions you have three general sort of situations that are reasonably likely.

 

WWIII High threat, high casualty, but the opposition should be somewhat disorganized and if you're careful and lucky you should be able to get in, wreak havoc on ground targets and get out again. Don't expect your luck to last long though.

 

Air dominance including long range SAM suppression/elimination. MANPAD and AAA rich. This is the common 3rd world fly high scenario. You need clear weather and you're not going to be very efficient with munitions, but you drop stuff from high altitudes until you hit what you want to hit. Lots of collateral damage is likely if you're not flying the variants with upgraded avionics that let you use the longer range standoff munitions.

 

Total dominance, no real air defense. MANPADS are rare or mostly non-functional. Fly in and destroy targets until you run out of payload.

 

There are intermediate scenarios too. Say an emergency strike in a MANPAD rich environment on a day with a low cloud deck. Good planning and excellent flying might work, but you shouldn't be a really happy pilot when this is the assignment.

 

Losing planes and pilots is expensive and replacement is time consuming. If your mission isn't structured to make success probable, then there better be a really good reason for the desperation that drives you to do it.

 

In a general sense the CAS strike aircraft is meant to be really good at destroying armored vehicles, utility vehicles, and tactical targets that don't require a very heavy bomb load to effectively engage. Things like bunkers, airfields, bridges, refineries, power plants, radio/cell towers provided they aren't so big or so fortified that you need a full bomber to take them out.

[Exorcet]

You can use the Su-25 Like anything else. Remember too that the sim is flexible. If you want, the Su-25 could be the only strike aircraft available. If you look at the entire list of aircraft together, the best planes stand out pretty clearly. In real war though you don't have unlimited numbers of the best jets and you might not want to risk them by having them do everything.

 

As far as mission scenarios in the sim go, one problem is the AI's single mindedness. Air Defense only care about shooting planes down. They don't care about surviving or any greater strategic goal (unless the mission designer goes through a lot of effort). This is what makes it easy to land at extremes with mission difficulty. Weak AI SEAD and fearless AI SAM's can lead to invulnerable missile wall. On the other hand if the mission editor sees the deficiencies of the system they might just remove the air defense or make them trivial. Balancing defenses is one of the issues I had when making A-10 missions. A full battle simulation is a complex thing. I'd really like to see a lot of changes to the sim, but at the same time I know ED can only do so much at a time. I'm sure they have their own goals, but either way it will take time.

[LFCChameleon_Silk]

well often its just poor tactics by the pilot, they fly into missile wall and die when the target is outside of the WEZ of the missile wall.

 

a single OSA site guarding something you can bait all the missiles out E-Z-P-Z and then destroy the targets.

 

Another big problem (and not always the mission designer) is that people flying the mission have absolutley horrible situational awareness and pre-planning... I could write in briefing x area is heavily fortified by IR sams and people would be 1000 meters flying over that area, crashing and burning and then blame the mission designer.... how about you adjust tactics with the intel given if the ceiling of such a weapon system is 4km maybe you should fly over that area 4k meters high... you should always see where the FEBA is and then once past the frontline always assume a manpad is sitting in that villa down there.

 

in short 90 pct of the time its the pilot making stupid decisions when flying.

 

the kh-29l (although I refuse to use this on anything besides bridges, buildings and ships) and kh-25ml are the 2 weapons that provide standoff against mechanized IR sams and with proper fuel management you can definetly make more then 1-2 passes with the su-25.