BVR cranking maneuver.

[ArkRoyal]

Ok so I looking for some pointers on cranking maneuvers.

 

Here is what I do currently(F-15):

 

1. Lock up the bandit in TWS.

 

2. Wait till I feel close enough to fire something with at least a modicum of hit chance

 

3. crank to gimbals after firing

 

4. Once enemy missile (if fired) is defeated, I turn back into the bandit and fire again if necessary.

 

Rise repeat till bandit dead.

 

 

Generally speaking I am finding this very effective. I come out on top about 90% of the time, but I feel like Im missing something.

 

 

I know I should be flying with a wing man, and that any serious tactical discussion would involve that, but I dont always have a friend on to fly with so.....game etc.

 

Given that, Id like to center this on the assumption that Im alone, at least at first. Not because I think I should fly alone, but because I have to most of the time.

 

Anyhow, does anyone have any tips for this? I would prefer to only hear form people who well and truly know what they are doing, as I want to continue to step up my game.

 

My main concern has been the realization that each time my missile misses and I have to turn back in to fire again, due to the engagement getting closer I have less time to turn in and re-defend before catching his next missile in the face. This has led me to sometime press the bandit whenever I notice that he either hasn't turned back in or for whatever reason I dont see the need to be unnecessarily defensive. Thoughts?

[DarkFire]

I'm far, far from being any sort of expert in this sort of thing, but I'll offer a few observations:

 

1) If you're coming out on top 90% of the time, your tactics are already working.

 

2) Something I like to do, obviously depending on the tactical situation, is to gain altitude at the same time as cranking. If it does become necessary to turn in again then you're in an advantageous position and also have some altitude which you can trade for speed, again if necessary. Add in the fact that your radar is generally better at looking down than those of normal adversaries (Su-27, MiG-29) and you'll be in a superior position.

 

3) It's absolutely worth staying at range if you can, particularly against the Su-27 and MiG-29, as both enjoy a significant nose authority advantage in a turning fight beneath about 7,000m altitude. The R-73 only tips the balance further in their favour. The F-15 is no slouch in a turning fight but if you come across an Su-27 pilot who REALLY knows how to operate the machine to the limits of controlled flight, he can sit behind you all day eating sandwiches with one hand whilst firing R-73s at you with the other. Bear in mind though that the F-15 is both faster and has significantly better acceleration. Use these to your advantage and don't get sucked in to the Su-27's most proficient type of engagement.

 

Edited to add:

 

Against previous-generation adversaries (I'm thinking MiG-21 or -23) your tactic is well proven and will work as described. If you're facing another F-15 then it'll all come down to skill and experience. Against something super agile like an F-16, then the same as the above applies - do not get sucked in to a turning fight under any circumstances. Use your energy advantage and if necessary extend and come back for another engagement.

Edited July 13, 2015 by DarkFire

[Ktulu2]

I have played a lot in the 104th, usually my only deaths are due to things like ''unfair'' teams (stuff like I get into a dogfight while I'm being shot at from BVR) So I'm quite sure what I will say will apply.

 

1-I do not fire before close NEZ IF :

-Ennemy is cold/flanking

-We are in mountaineous zone, below 10 000 RDR alt (so usually about 15K') (Missiles are too easy to evade with mountains)

-I have SIGNIFICANT height advantage (let's say 15K')

 

2-I NEVER go/push into WVR against a hot ennemy (for reason above and because a lot of people tend to suffer from radar operation, so I am 95% of the time first on the ennemy) The only times I get into WVR is because of mountains, which, as already said, allow you to evade almost any missile further than about 4 miles if low enough.

 

3-High or flat terrain engagements require a «preventive» missile at about half Pk. Without it you'll either have him on your defensive 6, or be dead

 

4-You are not rambo... as said, most my deaths are due to the difficulty of understanding that lol. Being smart gives you less kills, but keeps you alive.

 

5-Unless in mountains or HEAVILY crowded area, altitude is NEZ extension, wich means you have more time to escape while you have placed a deadly missile, wich often gives you a win. On the other hand, a significant height disadventage is only good when the other has a hard time with radar.

 

If you want to see engagements from me, I have A youtube channel (description) where I explain this kind of decisions and it would show you how I do it.

[Erdem]

TWS is simply devastating against opponents who are usually expecting a STT shot. I myself have fallen many times for it while I was learning the Flanker on the 104th. It's like those sneaky ET shots of the Flanker, you never know if it's in the air, but you better expect it every time.

 

It gives the enemy about 5-10 seconds of reaction time, which is enough to kill the greedy ones still trying to guide their ER's in. If you're attacking from weird angles you can even score completely silent kills with the AMRAAM as the SPO-15 won't pick up the missile. I've been blown out of the sky out of nowhere a couple of times with TWS shots.

[Grigs]

Add in the fact that your radar is generally better at looking down than those of normal adversaries (Su-27, MiG-29) and you'll be in a superior position.

Well it sounds like a strange statement to me. In fact, if we focus on the radar function, you put yourself in an inferior position in comparison to your opponents since they are lower and are thus looking-up (while your own radar is looking-down).

That being said, I am not stating anything about the tactic as a whole ;)

[104th_Maverick]

From what you have described it sounds like you have a very good grasp of the basics and what you should be doing in BVR

 

I feel like Im missing something.

 

You are.... 1000's of hours of practice ;)

 

BVR is a nasty beast that takes a certain skill set that is overlooked by so many people.

Your best weapon in BVR is not TWS or the AMRAAM but your own SA, having good SA keeps you alive, having great SA allows you to kill people and stay alive.

 

You have to earn your SA by grinding against other Pilots in a High threat environment, it cannot be taught or given to you. You have to get out there and make mistakes so you can learn from them. SA is not just about knowing what's going on around you, its also about drawing on your past experiences to be able to predict what is going to happen next.

 

The better your SA the easier it is for you to 'Fly in the Future', you want to be making decisions and positioning your aircraft based on what you predict is going to happen, this is what separates great BVR from good BVR.

 

If you can predict what someone is going to do and get prepared for it, then once it actually happens, it makes it extremely difficult for him to defend against you.

 

Being a good fighter pilot real or virtual is not about having the best hands on skills and tricks, it's about having the best SA. I really cannot emphasis enough just how important SA is, it is no understatement that to consistently succeed in BVR you need to know and understand everything that is going on around you.

 

I show this video clip from JetStream to every Cadet that joins the 104th to get them into the right mentality that its not about pilot skill it's about making good decisions in the air based off your SA.

 

 

 

I know I should be flying with a wing man, and that any serious tactical discussion would involve that, but I dont always have a friend on to fly with so.....game etc.

 

This is not the end of the world.

 

Flying alone makes you work harder and stretches your SA to the limit, I regularly go up on my own without any of my Squadron just to stay sharp and not have to be dependant on having Wingmen to kill people.

 

If you genuinely want to improve your game then there are some harsh facts you need to face up too first....

 

You need to be getting your ass kicked to get better. Staying alive is all well and good but you want to also be an effective weapon. As a result it's important that you do push your limits and try new things and NOT get mentally messed up in the head because someone shot you down.

 

This is where I see most people fall .... rather than use it as a learning opportunity they get angry, angry at the sim, angry at their aircraft / weapons or angry at themselves. Subsequently they're skills do not progress because they cannot get over the angry wall.

 

To get better at BVR you must find success through failure, I preach this to everyone in my Squadron.

The mistakes you make are a golden opportunity to learn why it went wrong and what you could have done differently. You will never reach a mystical level where you simply do not get shot down, so its very important to have the right attitude towards failure and not let your ego stand in the way of your progression.

 

I'm currently ranked number 1 in DCS World for PvP air to air combat and I still get shot down!

Every time this happens I learn from it and improve, if I make a mistake I immediately put my hand up and admit it, I don't try to be perfect I just try to be the best I can be, so I don't get angry when things go wrong, I get smarter! I let my ego walk away from DCS a long time ago, it was only after doing this that I started to rise to the top!

 

So get up there on your own and put yourself under a bit of pressure, remember the more time you spend in the air the better your SA becomes. Don't beat yourself or your PC up when you get shot down, take a step back and actually think about what happened and the events leading up to you punching out.

 

 

Anyhow, does anyone have any tips for this? I would prefer to only hear form people who well and truly know what they are doing, as I want to continue to step up my game.

 

Another harsh lesson to learn here..... strictly speaking, there is no right answer for most things BVR related. There are lots of wrong answers but there are often several ways you 'could' have done things.

For this reason its very important that you don't rigidly conform yourself to one routine, you need to have the skills and the SA to adapt to what is going on around you and not treat every engagement in the same manner.

 

Being unpredictable is a great way to catch your opponent off guard, so as I said above, get up there and try some new stuff out, make some mistakes and learn from them!

 

BVR takes a long time to get very good at, subsequently most BVR pilots worth a bob or two are not in too much of a hurry to share all their tactics and experiences, because they had to go out and earn them the hard way.

 

A lot of my experience has been passed on through the 104th Training Program for our Cadets along with other senior 104th members, as you can appreciate there are some things we don't want to share with everyone.

 

I'll throw you a quick bone though....

 

Never fly straight towards the person you are shooting at... never! Always approach him off centre ideally with him in the gimble then turn in to him and fire.

In a High Threat environment you want to be presenting yourself as a Target of Opportunity to the enemy, once you're sure of what is going on around you, doing this with bad SA is not recommended.

 

Think of it like this, if you see a bandit flying straight towards you 20-15nm away, you are immediately (or you should be) assuming that he is targeted on you and will engage. You should also apply this thought process to your opponent, if he see's you coming straight towards him... he knows the game is on.

 

Now think about seeing a bandit 20-15nm off your nose but he is not flying straight towards you but is passing slightly from your left to right or right to left. Instantly your fighter pilot brain should be saying 'we can push on this guy!' ... as most other peoples will, this is what you have to take advantage of, you want to advertise yourself as an easy target.

 

The aim here for you, is to always be tracking the guy in the gimble but all the time closing in the range. So at a certain point, normally around 10nm, you are going to turn in on him and fire.

In a High Threat environment you are going to be perceived as a lesser threat to the enemy than the guy he can see flying straight towards him and this is what the aim is... you're trying to entice him to make a run at you so he thinks he is the one with the plan, when really, he is just burning into your trap.

When you get more experienced at this you can start to become over more unpredictable and try even riskier things to present yourself as a target. Remember he is expecting you to burn straight at him and fire, the more you can mess with his 'flying in the future' predictions the better!

 

Keeping him in the Gimble as you approach also gives you another advantage, if he fires early at you his missile is heading way out in the lead pursuit in the direction of your crank.

When you turn in to fire on him it has a long way to travel to make to you.

 

Again however I want to stress about what I mentioned earlier. BVR is so dynamic that there is no one correct answer for most questions / situations, there are however lots of wrong ways to do it.

I'm not saying approaching in the Gimble is the be all and end all, its just a useful tool to use when you can.

 

My main concern has been the realization that each time my missile misses and I have to turn back in to fire again, due to the engagement getting closer I have less time to turn in and re-defend before catching his next missile in the face.

 

This is the crisis all old BVR hands find themselves in today too. The really experienced guys in DCS have flown for 6+ years, many came up through FC1 and 2 and have flown for even longer!

The missile performance now is night and day compared to what it used to be. In FC2 you could kill people from 40nm away, these days anything fired outside 10nm is a gamble.

 

The most important thing to consider and put energy into these days is PK (probability of kill). Because the ranges are so closer your enemy has a much better chance of killing you if you make a mistake.

Therefore to give yourself the best chance, you ideally want to kill him on the first pass!

 

This is how I fly, I always try to kill my opponent in one pass and set myself up with the maximum chance of doing so by making sure I have the highest PK possible at launch. One thing I always do is fire 2 missiles every time I fire! Regardless of range, aspect or aircraft type, whoever I shoot at I double tap every time!

When I was coming up through the ranks in FC2 to often did I see my missile sail past my opponent or it hit but only damaged him and he returned fire and got me. So since then I have always double tapped my opponent, simply to give myself that extra percentage chance of killing him, I don't want to damage him or disable his aircraft, I want to kill him dead no compromise.

Some people say to me I should only fire 1 at a time so I can be more effective and kill more aircraft per sortie, my answer is always.

 

'I shoot to kill, I don't shoot for kills!'

 

There is much more to PK than airspeed, range and altitude, you have to take lots of things into consideration, such as your shoot cue, target aspect and the terrain surrounding you. What aircraft you are flying against, where his friendlies are, where your friendlies are, what's his airspeed and angels, how many missiles will you fire and more.

 

Experience gets you better at achieving high PK shots simply because the more you miss the more you learn, or you should learn! Lessons can be taken not just from getting shot down but by watching your missile fly straight past the guy you are shooting at. Use these experiences to try something different the next time, if you consistently miss targets then your weapon delivery is wrong!

 

Often though, your first pass will miss and the bandit will escape, this is when it becomes risky as you begin to enter WVR combat. I try to avoid this as best I can, I will go Banzai (enter into WVR) on a bandit when I have the upper hand and good SA, but I will never tumble weed myself into BFM with someone.

I also avoid going to BFM when the odds are 50/50 or if the enemy has the upper hand (is in a better position). I only commit when I have good SA and I'm confident I am going in at the strongest position, if this criteria isn't met, I simply turn round and extend away from him.

I'm not superman and I don't pretend to be so I will avoid a 50/50 fair BFM fight if I can because here the enemy has the best chance of killing me, I don't let my ego drag me into a merge because I think I will win. If I can't kill him quickly I will extend and save my aircraft and re-engage in a stronger position.

 

Remember there are no rules in BFM, if you loose sight of him or you don't know what's going on, get the hell out of there! You are not obliged to fly around looking everywhere because the fight has already started :)

These days there are some very talented BFM opponents out there and you enter the merge at your own risk.

 

If it can't be avoided then go for it with everything you have but if you can't kill him quickly then GTFO of there fast!

 

 

Like I mentioned at the start it looks like you already have a great grasp of what you should be doing.

Now starts the long road to experience! Remember, there is no substitute for practice, get in the air and get learning and remember its 100% fine to make mistakes and get shot down as long as you are learning from it, you will never reach a stage in your DCS career where you don't ever get shot down!

 

There are also no magic moves or infallible tricks, like I said, strictly speaking there is never only one correct answer but there are lots of wrong ones. So don't put energy into trying to find some magic move that will work in all situations.

Every engagement is different, it's more important that you have the SA and the skills to adapt to what is going on around you, and choose the correct action to take rather than to have some magic AMRAAM dodging move that you're sure will always work.

[whiteladder]

Maverick, do you use Track Ir?

 

 

 

SA is one of the thing I struggle with.

[104th_Maverick]

Maverick, do you use Track Ir?

 

SA is one of the thing I struggle with.

 

No I just use the HAT switch on the top of my Logitech 3D Pro Joystick to look around :)

This does put me a disadvantage in BFM though and my SA has to work overtime in these situations because its not easy for me to track my bandit, I have to predict where he is going to be a lot of the time.

 

As I mentioned above sir, there is no short cut to getting great SA, its all about practice, practice, practice!

You don't need fancy add ons for great SA (I'm not saying you said this) so don't worry if you do not have TrackIR or a Warthog HOTAS.

 

What you do need is the right attitude, like I tried to say above, getting shot down is a crucial part of getting better SA. You must be able to find success in failure to improve your ability and SA, getting frustrated after getting shot down will not get you anywhere!

 

I've tried TrackIR once and didn't like it, I may try again after a PC upgrade as my main issue with it is my graphics go fuzzy (screen tearing) when I look around as my monitor is not the best on the market!

 

I fly with one of the cheapest Joysticks on the market in combination with a Saitek x52 Throttle, so don't let anyone tell you to succeed in DCS you need to spend good money on hardware because you don't :)

[Pikey]

Watch the tacview

Watch your pitbull timer

Your offensive movement should always assume a slammer inbound

Running is valid

Altitude and energy for launch

Centre the dot before taking the shot

Watch bandits altitude and aspect changes for clues as to what he is thinking

Take a friend

Play sober

Winner usually flew better defensive bfm post launch

Practice

[Ragnarok]

Mav I appreciate your philosophical approach of DCS. The philosophy gives a soul to DCS. S!

[GGTharos]

;2432217']You have to earn your SA by grinding against other Pilots in a High threat environment' date=' it cannot be taught or given to you.[/quote']

 

That is partly incorrect. It is teachable, you probably just haven't run into anyone who knows how to teach it ;)

There are techniques for everything. There is no 'art', regardless of how many people like to claim that as a fact for air to air combat.

 

From there on, you run into the following:

 

- A brain that just can't build SA (it happens)

- Don't have enough time to practice building SA

- Don't have patience to learn how to or to build SA

 

In the end, what you need is:

- A brain that can handle this particular type of SA

- A good instructor

- DISCIPLINE (includes patience/time)

 

The result of all this is reducing the 1000's of hours of 'practice' (air quotes for when practice = reinventing the wheel) to a few tens of hours of training.

 

Not to diminish the accomplishment of those who have reinvented the wheel ... it's actually a pretty difficult task.

 

 

And as an end-note, SA is made more difficult in air quake because really, there's no mission. Everyone's just wherever and no matter how well you try to cover anything, combined with missiles not being long ranged or lethal enough, means you're going to get stuck there and get jumped by bandit's sharks - I mean friends.

[Frostie]

 

My main concern has been the realization that each time my missile misses and I have to turn back in to fire again, due to the engagement getting closer I have less time to turn in and re-defend before catching his next missile in the face. This has led me to sometime press the bandit whenever I notice that he either hasn't turned back in or for whatever reason I dont see the need to be unnecessarily defensive. Thoughts?

 

The way you're flying now without the turning back in and pressing etc. is pretty basic stuff, anyone can do this in an F-15 and never get shot down. This is because the level of players in mp is so sporadic that there are plenty of guys just willing to fly into your missiles whilst you're running away.

 

The problem is you're not achieving anything but racking up kills against near drone like players. Guys that know what they're doing will generally not fall for these tactics and will have defeated your shot before you've even fired it. Then comes the moment where you decide to turn back in and because they've out witted you you're toast or you'll achieve a mutual or get lucky.

 

Now how to make this right is to build your SA and reduce his, before turning back in. Just because the tews is quiet it doesn't make you safe.

Collect bandits bearing, altitude, aspect when he went defensive, what is the ground layout, estimate his range to you, if you're planning on turning back in then get lower or even if he's so close conceal yourself in the terrain.

Without a wingman turning back in is a gamble so you need to expect him sitting on your six waiting for you to do it.

 

If you have the doubt then just extend to friendlies but then you won't be learning the fan hitting scenario which makes the difference by learning how to survive and win a furball.

[Destroyer37]

This all sounds very interesting, going to have to give it a shot when this trip is over.

[SgtPappy]

Good posts, gents. Wow I've been doing so much wrong. I think this time I'll practise endlessly instead of giving in to just BFM fights on other servers.

 

I feel determined now!