Zimmerdylan Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 (edited) I had my A10 pilot/ student this morning. Some new things he shed light on for me: 1. The cannon, He said that they were trained to hold off firing at ground targets until they were around 4000 ft. away. That they did not usually like to fire at 1 mile because of the flashlight effect of the pattern and because the gun was designed to be very much dependent on the velocity of the rounds. He said that at 1.5 to 3 miles, a single round would not likely penetrate a heavily armored target (no matter the round) because the rounds themselves needed the velocity to do so. And that it was very unlikely that another round or rounds would hit the same spot or area because of the spread issue. He told me that during Operation Desert Storm, he talked to a tank crew that surrendered to the Americans and they told him that they could hear the rounds from the A10's hitting their tank but they did not penetrate because they were fired from too far away. Pretty interesting. 2. Rockets: There was a debate about rocket pods here on the forums some months ago. That some servers weren't letting people load down with tons rockets because A10's weren't capable of carrying that many. Well.....this is right, but it's also wrong. Most pilots do not like using rocket pods to start with because they're not very accurate at all. He said that the mounting system itself is much to blame for this. The screw mounting system leaves a lot of room for inaccuracy. That since there are 4 points of contact, that a person could screw the back left point this many turns and the front right this other many turns and the pods are almost never exactly straight. Also, the drop rate of the rockets is somewhat unpredictable. But....you could conceivably mount every station with 3 pods and have tons of rockets. But according to him it would be a colossal waste of rockets because you would almost never hit anything. And he said that yes....a rocket is a direct hit proposition on a tank. And even then it's not 100% depending on where you hit the tank. 3. Smart bombs. He was explaining how easy it is to set up and drop smart bombs. That you just marked a target, let the plane do all of the calculations and waited for lines to line up and crosses to cross and just drop. Accurate to within ten meters. And again....he said that 10 meters from a T72-90 isn't going to take it out. 3. Marking stuff. This was kind of funny actually. He was telling me that During Desert storm, and in Kosivo that they would literally have Recon planes flying over targets with guys who had high powered binoculars marking targets for them . That they would find a target while the A10's loitered at 20,000 ft. And then they'd mark the target with a smoke rocket, and the A10's would come down and take it out. He did say that it is not very easy to see things on the ground. Desert is much easier to see targets in than cities or wooded areas. But none the less, it's not easy to see things on the ground, or even other AC for that matter. So that issue in DCS is closed for me. And that they never fly low altitude under 10,000 feet unless they have a very good reason. He kept mentioning 20,000 ft. so I'm imagining that is or the standard altitude. He keeps kind of eluding to the whole waypoint thing being only for specialized missions. And that although targets are marked a lot of the time, they do not usually depend on a set system of waypoints to get them to the targets. And that there is rarely just a flight of A10's flying around, that there are always other support AC somewhere helping them. Hmm.......all stuff I did not know. The guy promises to come fly DCS with me on the 8th of January. So we'll see what he thinks! Edited December 11, 2015 by Zimmerdylan 18
Blooze Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 (edited) Considering that the Hawg is the only plane I fly I found your post to be one of the most interesting and educational that I have ever read and thanks for sharing. It would be cool to start a Q&A thread where DCS pilots could ask questions and you could get the answers. I have often had questions about A-10 procedures and knew that only a real A-10 pilot would have the answer so I am hoping that this will continue. :thumbup: Edited December 11, 2015 by Blooze [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
bart Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Interesting post Zimmerdylan........thanks for sharing it with us. :thumbup: Looking forward to his thoughts on "our Hawg" Please post them up when you're ready. Have some rep mate. System :- i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12 core, ASUS ROG Strix Z690-A Gaming, 64GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200MHz, 24GB Asus ROG Strix Geforce RTX 3090, 1x 500GB Samsung 980 PRO M.2, 1x 2TB Samsung 980 PRO M.2, Corsair 1000W RMx Series Modular 80 Plus Gold PSU, Windows 10. VIRPIL VPC WarBRD Base with HOTAS Warthog Stick and Warthog Throttle, VIRPIL ACE Interceptor Pedals, VIRPIL VPC Rotor TCS Plus Base with a Hawk-60 Grip, HP Reverb G2.
cichlidfan Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Thanks for posting this. Quite interesting. ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero, i7-6700K, Noctua NH-D14 Cooler, Crucial 32GB DDR4 2133, Samsung 950 Pro NVMe 256GB, Samsung EVO 250GB & 500GB SSD, 2TB Caviar Black, Zotac GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme 8GB, Corsair HX1000i, Phillips BDM4065UC 40" 4k monitor, VX2258 TouchScreen, TIR 5 w/ProClip, TM Warthog, VKB Gladiator Pro, Saitek X56, et. al., MFG Crosswind Pedals #1199, VolairSim Pit, Rift CV1 :thumbup:
Sabre-TLA Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Very cool to hear from a real pilot's perspective. Will be interesting to know what they think of the DCS Simulation of what they have done for real. MapleFlagMissions - Read Our Blog for Updates
Tello Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Oh man I want to be a part of that flight on the 8th. Just to listen in would be okay :P But good read, thank you for sharing [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
baltic_dragon Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 I had my A10 pilot/ student this morning. Some new things he shed light on for me: 3. Marking stuff. This was kind of funny actually. He was telling me that During Desert storm, and in Kosivo that they would literally have Recon planes flying over targets with guys who had high powered binoculars marking targets for them . That they would find a target while the A10's loitered at 20,000 ft. And then they'd mark the target with a smoke rocket, and the A10's would come down and take it out. He did say that it is not very easy to see things on the ground. Desert is much easier to see targets in than cities or wooded areas. But none the less, it's not easy to see things on the ground, or even other AC for that matter. So that issue in DCS is closed for me. And that they never fly low altitude under 10,000 feet unless they have a very good reason. He kept mentioning 20,000 ft. so I'm imagining that is or the standard altitude. He keeps kind of eluding to the whole waypoint thing being only for specialized missions. And that although targets are marked a lot of the time, they do not usually depend on a set system of waypoints to get them to the targets. And that there is rarely just a flight of A10's flying around, that there are always other support AC somewhere helping them. Hmm.......all stuff I did not know. The guy promises to come fly DCS with me on the 8th of January. So we'll see what he thinks! Hey! Thanks for the post, extremely interesting, REP inbound! As for the WP part - I guess they didn't use them over Kosovo / Iraq, as they were flying A-10As back then, with very outdated navigation system compared to what was installed in A-10A+ and A-10Cs around 2007/2008 IIRC. Perhaps that is why the waypoints were not used that much. Looking forward to your further posts & thanks for sharing!! For more information, please visit my website. If you want to reach me with a bug report, feedback or a question, it is best to do this via my Discord channel. Details about the WinWing draw can be found here. Also, please consider following my channel on Facebook.
Kev2go Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 (edited) I had my A10 pilot/ student this morning. Some new things he shed light on for me: 1. The cannon, He said that they were trained to hold off firing at ground targets until they were around 4000 ft. away. That they did not usually like to fire at 1 mile because of the flashlight effect of the pattern and because the gun was designed to be very much dependent on the velocity of the rounds. He said that at 1.5 to 3 miles, a single round would not likely penetrate a heavily armored target (no matter the round) because the rounds themselves needed the velocity to do so. And that it was very unlikely that another round or rounds would hit the same spot or area because of the spread issue. He told me that during Operation Desert Storm, he talked to a tank crew that surrendered to the Americans and they told him that they could hear the rounds from the A10's hitting their tank but they did not penetrate because they were fired from too far away. Pretty interesting. 2. Rockets: There was a debate about rocket pods here on the forums some months ago. That some servers weren't letting people load down with tons rockets because A10's weren't capable of carrying that many. Well.....this is right, but it's also wrong. Most pilots do not like using rocket pods to start with because they're not very accurate at all. He said that the mounting system itself is much to blame for this. The screw mounting system leaves a lot of room for inaccuracy. That since there are 4 points of contact, that a person could screw the back left point this many turns and the front right this other many turns and the pods are almost never exactly straight. Also, the drop rate of the rockets is somewhat unpredictable. But....you could conceivably mount every station with 3 pods and have tons of rockets. But according to him it would be a colossal waste of rockets because you would almost never hit anything. And he said that yes....a rocket is a direct hit proposition on a tank. And even then it's not 100% depending on where you hit the tank. 3. Smart bombs. He was explaining how easy it is to set up and drop smart bombs. That you just marked a target, let the plane do all of the calculations and waited for lines to line up and crosses to cross and just drop. Accurate to within ten meters. And again....he said that 10 meters from a T72-90 isn't going to take it out. 3. Marking stuff. This was kind of funny actually. He was telling me that During Desert storm, and in Kosivo that they would literally have Recon planes flying over targets with guys who had high powered binoculars marking targets for them . That they would find a target while the A10's loitered at 20,000 ft. And then they'd mark the target with a smoke rocket, and the A10's would come down and take it out. He did say that it is not very easy to see things on the ground. Desert is much easier to see targets in than cities or wooded areas. But none the less, it's not easy to see things on the ground, or even other AC for that matter. So that issue in DCS is closed for me. And that they never fly low altitude under 10,000 feet unless they have a very good reason. He kept mentioning 20,000 ft. so I'm imagining that is or the standard altitude. He keeps kind of eluding to the whole waypoint thing being only for specialized missions. And that although targets are marked a lot of the time, they do not usually depend on a set system of waypoints to get them to the targets. And that there is rarely just a flight of A10's flying around, that there are always other support AC somewhere helping them. Hmm.......all stuff I did not know. The guy promises to come fly DCS with me on the 8th of January. So we'll see what he thinks! Very interesting. It would be cool to see former combat pilots flying the same respective aircraft they flew in their career within dcs. Hope to hear the opinions but I'm confident dcs a10c will serve justice. after all ed did sell the module to the us air national guard for cockpit familrization when the transfered from a10a to the a10c Edited December 11, 2015 by Kev2go Build: Windows 10 64 bit Pro Case/Tower: Corsair Graphite 760tm ,Asus Strix Z790 Motherboard, Intel Core i7 12700k ,Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 64gb ram (3600 mhz) , (Asus strix oc edition) Nvidia RTX 3080 12gb , Evga g2 850 watt psu, Hardrives ; Samsung 970 EVo, , Samsung evo 860 pro 1 TB SSD, Samsung evo 850 pro 1TB SSD, WD 1TB HDD
BackboneOne Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 thanks, rep inbound! MB: Asus ROG Strix Z390-E \ CPU: i9-9900K NZXT Kraken X52\ DDR4: 3000MHz G.SKILL Trident Z Royal 32Gb RAM \ VID: MSI Nvidia RTX4070 12GB \ MON: Samsung ue49ks8000 49'', Lilliput 8'' x2 CNTRL: Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog \ Saitek Combat Rudder pedals \ TrackIR 5 \ Thrustmaster MFD Cougar Pack
Shaman Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 I have just been practicing with a friend out of the blue, he was flying TF-51D and marking targets for me, while I was staying way above 10000ft in my A-10C attacking them. Now just found this thread and OP, good read! 51PVO Founding member (DEC2007-) 100KIAP Founding member (DEC2018-) :: Shaman aka [100☭] Shamansky tail# 44 or 444 [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] 100KIAP Regiment Early Warning & Control officer
Mike77 Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 Very interesting, thank you! What is your connection to him? He is giving you real world flying lessons? Thank you again. Very cool! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. System specs: Windows 7 Pro, EVGA X58 3x classified 3 MOBO, i7 960 @3.2Ghz, 24Gb Ram, Nvidia EVGA GTX 780ti with 3 Gb VRAM. 12th Gen i7 12700K, MSI Z690 Edge mobo, 32 GB of DDR4-3600 RAM (G.Skill Ripjaws V CL16). Gigabyte RTX4080 Eagle OC (Triple Fan, 16GB VRAM), ACER XV322QU 32" IPS monitor (running 2560x1440). 2TB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD (3D TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4). Windows 11.
Mike77 Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 . ... after all ed did sell the module to the us air national guard for cockpit familrization when the transfered from a10a to the a10c That's awesome to hear!!!! Thank you for posting that. I was wondering about it but hadn't seen anything solid about it here on the forums. Of course, I'm a new guy, so... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. System specs: Windows 7 Pro, EVGA X58 3x classified 3 MOBO, i7 960 @3.2Ghz, 24Gb Ram, Nvidia EVGA GTX 780ti with 3 Gb VRAM. 12th Gen i7 12700K, MSI Z690 Edge mobo, 32 GB of DDR4-3600 RAM (G.Skill Ripjaws V CL16). Gigabyte RTX4080 Eagle OC (Triple Fan, 16GB VRAM), ACER XV322QU 32" IPS monitor (running 2560x1440). 2TB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD (3D TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4). Windows 11.
Fishnuts Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 I head to Air Force pilot training around April/May and I will be aiming for the A-10 when the time comes around the end of UPT (about 52-55 weeks). If I am fortunate enough, I will share all experiences. Skylake 6600K(4.5GHz) | EVGA GTX970 FTW | 16GB 2666 DDR4 Corsair Vengeance | MSI Z170A Krait | Windows 10 (64bit) | X52 Pro | TrackIR 5 Hawk T.1A | F-15C | F-86F | UH-1H | A-10C | P-51D | F-5E | M-2000C USAF Pilot w/ T-6/T-38 Time
Zimmerdylan Posted December 12, 2015 Author Posted December 12, 2015 Very interesting, thank you! What is your connection to him? He is giving you real world flying lessons? Thank you again. Very cool! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. System specs: Windows 7 Pro, EVGA X58 3x classified 3 MOBO, i7 960 @3.2Ghz, 24Gb Ram, Nvidia EVGA GTX 780ti with 3 Gb VRAM. He takes Guitar lessons from me.
cichlidfan Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 That's awesome to hear!!!! Thank you for posting that. I was wondering about it but hadn't seen anything solid about it here on the forums. Actually, that isn't solid or correct. The ANG does not use our module. They use software developed by ED but not the specific A-10C module that we have available to us. ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero, i7-6700K, Noctua NH-D14 Cooler, Crucial 32GB DDR4 2133, Samsung 950 Pro NVMe 256GB, Samsung EVO 250GB & 500GB SSD, 2TB Caviar Black, Zotac GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme 8GB, Corsair HX1000i, Phillips BDM4065UC 40" 4k monitor, VX2258 TouchScreen, TIR 5 w/ProClip, TM Warthog, VKB Gladiator Pro, Saitek X56, et. al., MFG Crosswind Pedals #1199, VolairSim Pit, Rift CV1 :thumbup:
borchi_2b Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 What real A10c pilots think of the DCS a10c is easy. I talked to one of the National Guard guys that fly the a10c and his smile and response that it is about the be the real deal, besides some electronic warfare, which is supposed to get close to the real deal too, mad me think positive of thier opinion about the DCS sim ;-) http://www.polychop-sims.com
StandingCow Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 Awesome! Thanks for sharing. 5900X - 32 GB 3600 RAM - 1080TI My Twitch Channel ~Moo
Mike77 Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 Actually, that isn't solid or correct. The ANG does not use our module. They use software developed by ED but not the specific A-10C module that we have available to us. Ooooops... sorry about that! Lesson learned :) I live 15 minutes from Martin State Airport and see the Air National Guard flying their A10s quite often. I suppose that's one reason I pounced on that post. No excuse though. Thank you for the correction. I appreciate it! Mike Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. System specs: Windows 7 Pro, EVGA X58 3x classified 3 MOBO, i7 960 @3.2Ghz, 24Gb Ram, Nvidia EVGA GTX 780ti with 3 Gb VRAM. 12th Gen i7 12700K, MSI Z690 Edge mobo, 32 GB of DDR4-3600 RAM (G.Skill Ripjaws V CL16). Gigabyte RTX4080 Eagle OC (Triple Fan, 16GB VRAM), ACER XV322QU 32" IPS monitor (running 2560x1440). 2TB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD (3D TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4). Windows 11.
Mike77 Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 He takes Guitar lessons from me. That's so cool. Thanks for sharing what you've learned! Mike Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. System specs: Windows 7 Pro, EVGA X58 3x classified 3 MOBO, i7 960 @3.2Ghz, 24Gb Ram, Nvidia EVGA GTX 780ti with 3 Gb VRAM. 12th Gen i7 12700K, MSI Z690 Edge mobo, 32 GB of DDR4-3600 RAM (G.Skill Ripjaws V CL16). Gigabyte RTX4080 Eagle OC (Triple Fan, 16GB VRAM), ACER XV322QU 32" IPS monitor (running 2560x1440). 2TB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD (3D TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4). Windows 11.
Toolboy77 Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 Thanks for sharing dude! I'm always interested to hear about real life procedures. I was especially interested in the part about min altitudes while this is exactly my style of flying...as high as possible while staying effective with weapon delivery! :D Can't wait to hear what he says about the sim! REP! :thumbup: DCS World 2.0 Open Alpha | CPU Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.20GHz| Mobo ASUS ROG MAXIMUS IX HERO | RAM G.SKILL 32 GB | GPU ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 | PSU Corsair RM750i | OS Win 120 64-bit | TM Warthog HOTAS | TH Cougar MFDs | Saitek Pro Flight Combat Rudder Pedals | TrackIR 5 / TrackClip Pro & Oculus Rift | Monitor: Samsung U28D590D (3840 x 2160) |
spacenavy90 Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 Super cool post! Thanks for sharing! My father is an active duty CH-47 pilot, which is unfortunately not flyable... yet. But if anyone had questions concerning the aircraft or helicopters in general I'm sure he wouldn't mind answering some. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] | Mi-8MTV2 | MiG-21 | M-2000C | F-86F | P-51D | BS2 | UH-1H | FC3 | CA 1.5 | A-10C | i7 2700k --EVGA GTX970 --16Gb RAM --Seiki 39" 4K --Saitek X-55 Rhino --Saitek Pro Flight Pedals --TrackIR 5 --Win10 x64
QuiGon Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 Thanks for sharing dude! I'm always interested to hear about real life procedures. I was especially interested in the part about min altitudes while this is exactly my style of flying...as high as possible while staying effective with weapon delivery! :D Can't wait to hear what he says about the sim! REP! :thumbup: Regarding flight height you need to take in consideration the scenario. Today they fly in the middle east against insurgents or low developed states where they have complete air superiority and only face some some small air defense (mostly AAA and manpads) if at all. In DCS you often end up in different scenarios closer to the Cold War with equal opposites. That requires different tactics. During the Cold War their doctrine was to stay as low as possible to stay hidden from enemy air and long range SAMs. Intel i7-12700K @ 8x5GHz+4x3.8GHz + 32 GB DDR5 RAM + Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 (8 GB VRAM) + M.2 SSD + Windows 10 64Bit DCS Panavia Tornado (IDS) really needs to be a thing!
SnorreSelmer Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 Excellent info! If you have TrackIR, could I ask that you have him do and "walk-n-talk" through the proper startup and shutdown procedure, maybe while recording his commentary via Audacity or something similar and upload the sound-file along with the .trk, just for reference? I'd give my left arm for that... ASUS Z170-P w/ Intel i7-7700, 32GB DDR4 RAM, SSDs out the wazoo and a GTX 1080Ti, Oculus Rift CV1, TM Warthog stick and throttle, TM Cougar MFDs, MFG Crosswind pedals and WheelStandPro Warthog (w/ the custom small Warthog plate) Former F-16 Ground Crew @ RNoAF [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Kev2go Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 (edited) I have just been practicing with a friend out of the blue, he was flying TF-51D and marking targets for me, while I was staying way above 10000ft in my A-10C attacking them. Now just found this thread and OP, good read! how does one mark/ designate targets without a laser guidance or without datalink. I must have missed out on noticing some of these epic retrofits on the TF51. Edited December 12, 2015 by Kev2go Build: Windows 10 64 bit Pro Case/Tower: Corsair Graphite 760tm ,Asus Strix Z790 Motherboard, Intel Core i7 12700k ,Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 64gb ram (3600 mhz) , (Asus strix oc edition) Nvidia RTX 3080 12gb , Evga g2 850 watt psu, Hardrives ; Samsung 970 EVo, , Samsung evo 860 pro 1 TB SSD, Samsung evo 850 pro 1TB SSD, WD 1TB HDD
Griffon26 Posted December 12, 2015 Posted December 12, 2015 how does one mark/ designate targets without a laser guidance or without datalink. I must have missed out on noticing some of these epic retrofits on the TF51. Maybe with the good old Eyeballs? ;) :P Im interested too :D Regards Griffon26 [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Never parachute into an area you've just bombed You never have too much fuel, unless you burn.
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