Secret to getting kills in the F-15? Go cold.

[ShuRugal]

So he wasted your missile, shot from close range, and ran away? :)

 

Or maybe he launched from really high, fast, and long range and then ran away when he got close? :)

 

possible, except, again, he was never within 35km of me with anything other than his reheats pointed at me.

 

BS. Don't even start that, you won't like where it leads.

hey, your man doesn't keep pestering me for something i already told him is broken, and then implying that i'm making shit up...

 

That just means your SA sucks. Maybe you should work on your SA? The Sparrow is shorter-ranged than the R-27ER, and he also need to get a radar picture on you after going cold.

Possible my SA sucks, or his is good enough that it didn't matter: His missile was in my canopy before i leveled out of my turn. It seems to me that breaking contact against someone who is more skilled than I am is not something that will ever get me anything other than killed.

 

Maybe the problem is you, and not AIM-120's or what others are suggesting.

 

or both. I may not be a good enough pilot to go head to head against yourself or maverick, but i shouldn't need to be to evade a missile which stopped being supported almost as soon as it was launched.

 

 

 

 

Here's what you should ask yourself: You went cold, you didn't keep track of him and probably didn't have a good plan of re-acquiring him. So, why did you turn back into him? Or at least, if you turned back and didn't find him within the next 5 seconds, why didn't you turn cold again and hit the road?

 

I had a plenty good plan for re-acquiring him: resume my previous bearing and scan the sky around his last known position and altitude. He just killed me before i could put it into action. Because he's a better pilot than I am and was able to bring his plane into position to do so while i was coming back around. Just like i said would happen if i tried to disengage before assuring the kill.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that he killed me. I did something that I knew would get me killed, and it got me killed. Five minutes later I tried it my way again and sucessfully kept him on the defensive long enough to close into R-73 range. He ended up splashing me with an AIM-9 because, again, he is a better pilot. It just shows that the advice people are always giving me that I should go cold as soon as I see an F-15 do the same is a pile of garbage: going cold in a 1v1 fight yields the initiative to the other guy. The -only- time this is not true is if you have an ARH close enough to the other guy that he has to focus on evading that before he can re-engage you.

 

 

I understand how frustrating this can get, but you've taken it into territory that you shouldn't have. The fault lies with you, period, end of story. You still have a lot to learn - people tried to help you and all you can do is complain.

 

I'll be the first to admit that I am frequently not as level-headed about this sort of thing as some of the other people around here. But the fact that I do not always remain calm when discussing this sort of thing does not automagically invalidate anything i have to say about it. Whether you like the way I say it or not, the fact remains that a missile which has no support and has not yet gone active should have no way of knowing where i am if i make radical course changes. The fact that I know that missile guidance in the case of no launcher support is excessively effective and could have chosen to disengage fully to evade it also does not invalidate the point that it is overkill.

 

You have said repeatedly to myself and to others in other threads that SU-27 pilots would be up that certain creek with no paddle if the AIM-120 were correctly modeled with last-known-position intercepts, datalink guidance, etc etc. I say bring it on. I'd rather fight a missile that is "even more effective than it is right now in a head-on engagement" than one that somehow knows where I am when its pilot has stopped supporting it before it ever turns on its own radar.

Edited December 30, 2014 by ShuRugal

[GGTharos]

possible, except, again, he was never within 35km of me with anything other than his reheats pointed at me.

 

You haven't said what altitude you were fighting at yet.

 

You're not getting hit with a 120 launched from 40km unless you're flying medium-high. Even then, at medium altitude the 120 has a pretty hard time reaching you from 40km with any sort of useful speed unless you're both at 10000m and possibly he launched with M1.3-1.5.

 

hey, your man doesn't keep pestering me for something i already told him is broken, and then implying that i'm making shit up...

 

Don't defend it, just don't do it again.

 

Possible my SA sucks, or his is good enough that it didn't matter: His missile was in my canopy before i leveled out of my turn. It seems to me that breaking contact against someone who is more skilled than I am is not something that will ever get me anything other than killed.

 

Sure it matters. You don't know what happened, so how do you know he didn't have a friend over there?

 

or both. I may not be a good enough pilot to go head to head against yourself or maverick, but i shouldn't need to be to evade a missile which stopped being supported almost as soon as it was launched.

 

Wah wah wah. Who says you were hit by such a missile? In any case, a 5g pull would defeat a 120 launched from 40km in this game. Especially since, from your description, you were not flying straight at it.

 

If you got hit by such a missile, it's your fault - and it means that it WAS supported long enough to go in your general direction and look for you. It doesn't take much.

 

If you got hit by an aircraft that was there and you didn't know about, that part's also your fault.

 

Quit whining about missiles that you don't know how they work - because you don't - stop clinging to excuses.

 

I had a plenty good plan for re-acquiring him: resume my previous bearing and scan the sky around his last known position and altitude. He just killed me before i could put it into action. Because he's a better pilot than I am and was able to bring his plane into position to do so while i was coming back around. Just like i said would happen if i tried to disengage before assuring the kill.

 

So, how'd he eat up all that distance? Why did he get his nose on you so much earlier than you did?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that he killed me. I did something that I knew would get me killed, and it got me killed. Five minutes later I tried it my way again and sucessfully kept him on the defensive long enough to close into R-73 range. He ended up splashing me with an AIM-9 because, again, he is a better pilot. It just shows that the advice people are always giving me that I should go cold as soon as I see an F-15 do the same is a pile of garbage: going cold in a 1v1 fight yields the initiative to the other guy. The -only- time this is not true is if you have an ARH close enough to the other guy that he has to focus on evading that before he can re-engage you.

 

What's a pile of garbage is your SA and by extension, your decision-making process.

 

There are other things you can do - you can abandon the fight after going cold, you can go into the notch instead of going cold, etc. etc. Some of it gets you out of the fight, some of it lets you re-engage sooner.

 

I'll be the first to admit that I am frequently not as level-headed about this sort of thing as some of the other people around here. But the fact that I do not always remain calm when discussing this sort of thing does not automagically invalidate anything i have to say about it. Whether you like the way I say it or not, the fact remains that a missile which has no support and has not yet gone active should have no way of knowing where i am if i make radical course changes. The fact that I know that missile guidance in the case of no launcher support is excessively effective and could have chosen to disengage fully to evade it also does not invalidate the point that it is overkill.

 

The fact remains that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. AIM-120 guidance is poor. Get over it. Even if it's scan picked you up, a sharp turn to collision/PN would kill all of its speed ... unless it was already on something akin to a collision course already, which is possible if rare, but there is a very legitimate possibility for it to happen.

 

So here are the possibilities of what happened:

 

1) You flew into that missile

2) It picked you up, turned, and hit you while being barely able to fly. This suggests you did not evade.

3) It picked you up while on course to you, because you cranked one way and the missile was informed of that crank at launch, so its flight path was relatively efficient. Still, being hit by it from 40km suggests you did not evade.

4) There was an aircraft closer that you did not know about that actually killed you, and your actual opponent's slow, slow missile hit the wreckage before it hit ground - thus granting him the kill.

5) Your opponent launched the missile high and FAST, in which case we're back to #3 but with a high-energy missile.

 

You have said repeatedly to myself and to others in other threads that SU-27 pilots would be up that certain creek with no paddle if the AIM-120 were correctly modeled with last-known-position intercepts, datalink guidance, etc etc. I say bring it on. I'd rather fight a missile that is "even more effective than it is right now in a head-on engagement" than one that somehow knows where I am when its pilot has stopped supporting it before it ever turns on its own radar.

 

Again, you're clinging to excuses regarding things you neither know nor understand. The 120 (and 77) does not know where you are unless it receives M-link or is already tracking you. The only way it can pick you if it not already tracking you is if you fall into its scan, and unless you're sitting somewhere where it won't have to turn to hit you, it'll destroy it's own ability to hit you with a sharp turn, despite the scan's wide, wide coverage.

If on the other hand you're where it's going, you have nothing to complain about.

 

Track or tacview or quit whining.

If your tracks don't work, ask someone for their track or the server tacview, if they're recording it.

[ShuRugal]

You haven't said what altitude you were fighting at yet.

 

right, sorry, i keep getting too worked up about this. Before i go on reading the rest of your post, the altitude was 7km. neither of us should have been able to kill the other at that altitude and range.

 

edit: you know what? screw this argument. I'm getting rather tired of being called a liar: I -know- that an AIM-120 launched at 40km and unsupported should not be able to hit me unless i fail to evade. that's my entire point in this thread saying that it is impossible (which is also what I am saying it should be) and then telling me that it didn't happen that way (IE: calling me a liar) is just as piss-poor a contribution to this discussion as my repeated failures to remain calm.

 

and yes, I am pissed off. Yes, I am posting angry. That's what happens when you go and repeatedly tell me that i'm lying when i tell you something happened that we both agree should not have.

Edited December 31, 2014 by ShuRugal

[Buckeye]

No one thinks you're lying, people just think that without the tracks you might not know all of the necessary facts to accurately and completely analyze the situation(s).

 

If you're convinced you have everything all figured out already, which it seems to me that you think you do based on your rebuttals to every suggestion that has been offered to you in this thread (but great pilots, no less), why even bother to make a thread?

[rami80]

Not sure but could it be related to a bug some people were experiencing, that causes the rwr to remain silent?

[GGTharos]

Not likely. The RWR has blind spots.

 

This is related to not understanding air combat well.

[Avernus]

ShuRugal there is a lack of critical information here about the engagement.

 

Info such as aspect altitude angle-off airspeed etc for both aircraft.

 

SA usually takes a steep fast dive due to heavy defensive actions over a short period of time, due in part to lack of support, or fixation.

 

If you cannot establish a good picture, consider an alternative to deny the enemy SA, vanish,exit then reassess.

 

observe, orient, decide, and act then repeat.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Avernus
catn speel

[TAW_Blaze]

And to people who say i should go cold when the f-15 does: I just tried it, it worked perfectly. I was head to head with Knight, went cold when he did around 30km, and when i came back around, I had no radar picture on him and he had a sparrow in my canopy. Y'all suckered me into that one.

 

IIRC you weren't fighting him, he just flood mode sparrowed you from some other spot.

 

If you're convinced you have everything all figured out already, which it seems to me that you think you do based on your rebuttals to every suggestion that has been offered to you in this thread (but great pilots, no less), why even bother to make a thread?

 

This. I'm confident enough to say that I can understand what happened in a flight without looking at the tacview. But if something nonsense happens I WILL look at the tacview because none of your claims mean a thing unless you know for sure and can back it up.

 

The reason I can do that is because I've been trained by the best and I've seen a lot of stuff. You're a new guy, quit crying and watch the tacview. If there's no tacview, don't make assumptions, because it'll lead the wrong way.

[[Knight]]

IIRC you weren't fighting him' date=' he just flood mode sparrowed you from some other spot.[/quote']

 

Yep that's what happened, You were defending another guy and u ran into me so I tapped a flood shot at u. If you would just take the time to watch tacview you wouldn't be in this position. A little effort goes a long way. Besides if u ever wondered , hey Why my missile miss, check tacview. It will explain allot, although not perfect you can grasp what happened.

 

My advise to you is to fly a sortie give it your all and and watch the track in single player with low gfx settings without accelerating time, its painful but works.

 

And if you fly against f15 always assume he will fire max range. The thing that is getting you killed is your pour SA, but thats not bad cause u can always improve on that. Don't put yourself in a position you can get out of.

 

I will agree with you the missile guidance is off but its not that bad. If you get shot down its not that the other guy is better its just you made a poor mistake and you payed for it. Good thing its just a sim ,right:joystick:

[ShuRugal]

Right, I'm suffering from a fit of rationality, may as well take advantage of it and ask a useful question while it lasts:

 

The general consensus is that my SA sucks. Whether or not this is responsible for what I described in the OP, I do not know, because I still can't get a replay of that track that doesn't have me dummying into the ground instead of landing for fuel before my last sortie...

 

anyway, what can do do to improve my SA? I am always scanning with radar, normally in high PRF, though i check medium periodically as well. I typically start scanning at my altitude, then high, then low. Then I repeat with the set shifted left and right. I typically set my altitude-scan range around 50km and before engaging any target i scan up to +15 and down to the ground to see if he has a buddy. I used to use IRST heavily as well, but since the last patch, i can't pick up anything on it that isn't cold aspect.

 

What else can I do to improve my odds of finding what's going to get me? I feel like I usually have a pretty good idea of what's in front of me, but since y'all are convinced that i don't...

[GGTharos]

Right, I'm suffering from a fit of rationality, may as well take advantage of it and ask a useful question while it lasts:

 

Make it last longer - for some it comes naturally, for others it is a learned skill. Try to organize your thoughts on paper, in Excel, whatever - it will help keep you focused and calm. :)

 

The general consensus is that my SA sucks. Whether or not this is responsible for what I described in the OP, I do not know, because I still can't get a replay of that track that doesn't have me dummying into the ground instead of landing for fuel before my last sortie...

 

Right, like I said, it pays to ask for someone else's track or tacview in this case. You could ask the server for a tacview as well, but whether it will be made available or not is up to them.

 

Incidentally, my tracks stopped breaking when I did the following (I don't know which one of those helped, or if it was some or all):

 

1. Upgraded overall system to an i5

2. 16Gb of RAM

3. Added an SSD which DCS runs from. Tracks are recorded to a separate HDD, as are tacviews etc.

4. As a last resort you can try recording a video of your gameplay, but it's not as good as a tacview.

 

For analysis, learn to do the math: I mean all of it. Timings from missile launch to impact, average launching distances for various missiles at different altitudes and speeds, etc. This will tell you what's more or less likely to have happened.

 

anyway, what can do do to improve my SA? I am always scanning with radar, normally in high PRF, though i check medium periodically as well. I typically start scanning at my altitude, then high, then low. Then I repeat with the set shifted left and right. I typically set my altitude-scan range around 50km and before engaging any target i scan up to +15 and down to the ground to see if he has a buddy. I used to use IRST heavily as well, but since the last patch, i can't pick up anything on it that isn't cold aspect.

 

Your scan technique sounds ok, but without seeing it there's no way to tell if you have gaps in it. Aside from this, it is also possible for bandits to hide from your radar - maybe there's a guy cold in front of you and you think that the hot one is the only one, but they're actually quite close. When you go STT, you instantly blow away all your radar SA on anything other than your target.

 

How can you solve this? Datalink and/or better yet, a wingman.

 

What else can I do to improve my odds of finding what's going to get me? I feel like I usually have a pretty good idea of what's in front of me, but since y'all are convinced that i don't...

 

That depends on what the error is. And there might be no error at all, which can make things more difficult.

 

There's also a question of timing: You have a guy that's 30km in front of you, and another 30km behind the first one. How long can you fight #1 before Mr. rear guard interferes?

[karambiatos]

Me as a not so good player, I just disengage when i dont feel comfortable with what's happening, unless I'm in my, i dont give a damn if i get shot down mode.

[ShuRugal]

Make it last longer - for some it comes naturally, for others it is a learned skill. Try to organize your thoughts on paper, in Excel, whatever - it will help keep you focused and calm. :)

 

hard to stay calm on my leisure time, i use up all my calm on duty....

 

 

 

Incidentally, my tracks stopped breaking when I did the following (I don't know which one of those helped, or if it was some or all):

 

1. Upgraded overall system to an i5

2. 16Gb of RAM

3. Added an SSD which DCS runs from. Tracks are recorded to a separate HDD, as are tacviews etc.

4. As a last resort you can try recording a video of your gameplay, but it's not as good as a tacview.

 

no worries about 1 2 and 3, I run on an MSI GT70. I do 4 whenever nVidia shadowplay is working, but it usually isn't :( still doesn't support full-window mode very well.

 

For analysis, learn to do the math: I mean all of it. Timings from missile launch to impact, average launching distances for various missiles at different altitudes and speeds, etc. This will tell you what's more or less likely to have happened.

 

got any reference resources on that subject? some basic time-to-intercept tables for various speed and altitude i could load up on my tablet for quick reference during combat?

 

 

 

How can you solve this? Datalink and/or better yet, a wingman.

 

I would love to be able to use Datalink in the SU-27... except that it seems to be a unanimous opinion among the guys running 104th that AWACS and EWR are both the spawn of Satan.

 

 

There's also a question of timing: You have a guy that's 30km in front of you, and another 30km behind the first one. How long can you fight #1 before Mr. rear guard interferes?

If i'm aware of both of them? one ER and one ET at the first one, then run like hell and pray to god there's not already a slammer in the air (if there is i'm dead either way)

[GGTharos]

got any reference resources on that subject? some basic time-to-intercept tables for various speed and altitude i could load up on my tablet for quick reference during combat?

 

Nothing handy, but doing the exercise of doing your own data gathering and tables will help you start doing the pilot math in your head.

 

As a rule of thumb you can assume an average speed of M2 for a missile, or M3 at high altitudes. Again, it's a rule of thumb, so it's not super accurate, but you can make a very quick mental calculation from this knowledge.

 

For example: Average speed of M2 if you're head on with it is M3 closure, which is about 1km/sec.

 

Choose whicever units you wish to use, just realize 600kph = 10km/min.

 

That metric alone will help you. So that guy we talked out sitting 30km back - he'll reach the original bandit (assuming you stop him from closing with you) in about 3 min if he's doing 600kph, or about 2 min at the more likely speed of 900kph.

 

I would love to be able to use Datalink in the SU-27... except that it seems to be a unanimous opinion among the guys running 104th that AWACS and EWR are both the spawn of Satan.

 

They might be, who knows. :D

There are problems with AWACS and data-link alike.

 

If i'm aware of both of them? one ER and one ET at the first one, then run like hell and pray to god there's not already a slammer in the air (if there is i'm dead either way)

 

Why don't you guess when he's going to launch? It's not that hard. It's another rule of thumb.

[ShuRugal]

Why don't you guess when he's going to launch? It's not that hard. It's another rule of thumb.

 

I always assume that the other guy has already launched, and I go defensive as soon as i launch. Since the other guy is usually an F15, this tends to be a reasonable assumption and i typically get a nice view of the slammer that kills me flying sideways into my canopy.

[TAW_Blaze]

There were some missions in rotation with AWACS, they seem to have disappeared for the moment, probably stability issues with the later patches. We even had to cut mission length to have less crashes.

[runny]

Although mad dog missiles seem to track pretty effectively, they're noticably less effective than guided ones to me. And neither of them are very difficult to avoid, especially the ones launched from 30-40 km away.

 

I'd tend to agree with what others have said: either there was another plane who was closer who launched on you (very possible especially with how you describe the bandit's actions) or you were trying to get on his six so bad that you successfully did most of the missile's work for it.

 

The view I choose to take here in DCS is that ultimately it's not real life. Whatever the situation and however this thing and that thing act, I accept it as part of the game without expecting it to be like or even comparing it to real life. Use the game's mechanics to your advantage regardless of how realistic they are. That mindset has helped me stay much more sane than the realism freaks around here, and more importantly I have more fun and kick more butt.

 

EDIT: The functionality of your RWR could also come into play here. The 27 has limited "RWR Visibility" on its belly; meaning the missile could've went active while you were turning away and showing your belly. You'd never know until you were back in a position for your antennas to pick up the signals again.

Edited January 1, 2015 by runny

[Buckeye]

Following this thread I've realized something: I can safely say I've never mad dogged a missile...gotta try that out soon.

[104th_Maverick]

Use the game's mechanics to your advantage regardless of how realistic they are. That mindset has helped me stay much more sane than the realism freaks around here, and more importantly I have more fun and kick more butt.

 

^THIS!!!

 

To many people fly in a way they 'think' something should work because of what they know about real air to air combat.

 

DCS is not real air to air combat its a game / sim, therefor you have to fly with what the sim gives you, not what you expect to happen because of what you read on a forum somewhere, or that a friend of a friend who knows a F-15 pilot said bla bla bla!

 

People need to keep this in mind, being succesfull in A2A combat PvP is about getting what you have to work for you, not flying to some regime you read about somewhere on the internet!