Operation "Blue Flag" - 24/7 PvP Campaign - ROUND 8

[Reaper6]

Really great time with you all and great fun the times i was on red TS channel as well having a little conversation. :D

 

Especially Bodyorgan and some other guys whos name i forgot due to my terrible memory for names.

 

And thx reaper I really learnt a lot from you in terms of trolling AND how to fly helicopters even more stealthy.

 

 

Really great round :D

 

Don't feed the trolls... Congrats Bluefor

 

Reaper6

[BSS_Sniper]

Good job Bluefor. You may have had to have 5-1 odds, but you did it!

[Alpenwolf]

Some bases when captured need to have some fighters! When we captured the south coming all the way down from Beslan and Nalchik, at some point we couldn't hold it or close the campaign. Not just outnumbered, but the fact that the closest Flankers we could have were at Mozdok and Vody made it impossible to provide CAP and escort missions for the attackers! So how on earth were we supposed to hold the south or even finish off the blues after we've pushed them to the coast (around Batumi)?! Put at least 3 or 4 Flankers/Fulcrums in Tibilisi to make it doable. Capturing those should be rewarded with something. Ain't easy after all. unless it should go on for 17 days! Therefore a better distribution of the units would be nice...

 

Keep it up BuddySpike!!! DCS is nothing without the BLUEFLAG event!

[razgriz33]

Good job Bluefor. You may have had to have 5-1 odds, but you did it!

 

even then, last weekend we were on the ropes! :pilotfly:

[microvax]

Don't feed the trolls... Congrats Bluefor

 

Reaper6

 

still owe you the video of our knife fight :D

 

Was so glorious because GCI was like he is right above you, and normally fighter GCI is likee that when you are 5nm away somewhere. Then I just take a look through my roof window and was like FUAAAAG THATS LITERALLY ON THE TOP OF ME. :megalol:

[RAZBAM_ELMO]

Please let the next round be Korean era or f5 v 21

 

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

[*Rage*]

+1 F5 vs Mig21

[Foka1]

I was proposing F5 vs MiG-21 even before F-5 came out!

[Reaper6]

So as promised I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for up and coming KA50 pilots. As for all the haters, I think you know where you can stick your accusations and BS.

 

1. You're never going to outrun a jet or a missile, SO DON'T TRY! But you can out maneuver BOTH. Plan a route that is near cities and buildings, never fly out in the open or higher than 30m( I tend to keep it around 10m AGL when possible).

 

2. Your most important asset in the KA50 is the ABRIS, so memorize every page, function, button, etc AND USE IT! You can draw lines of different colors on the ABRIS map. You know which airfields are friendly and enemy, so draw lines from the enemy airfield back to your route. This will help you with situational awareness. Jets are predictable and if I may say so LAZY! So you are going to know which general direction they will come from.

 

3. I adjust the brightness and contrast of my Shkval so I can easily spot "dots" in the sky. I slew my Shkval above the horizon and set it to scan, and let it do its job. YOU CAN spot jets around 40-50km out, and they CAN spot you as well. I always assume the jet has already picked me up on radar, so get yourself off his radar fast!

 

4. Never travel more than 20-30km without slowing or stopping and having a look around. Everyone zooms in on the screen so use that as well as the Shkval. Slowing or stopping also will help you get off a enemy jets radar!

 

5. Fly with your Vikhrs selected, burst to medium and A/A - H/O engaged. Lock your jet or Heli QUICKLY! Hold fire until for a jet 5km H/O, for a Heli I usually engage at 6-7km. If the jet spots you even better, as I stated before Jet pilots are lazy and rely too much on technology. So they WILL come head on towards you. Before I was known, they would go guns BIG BIG mistake for them. If a jet is burning towards you launch 2 Vikhrs at 7km out, he will run right into it! Now that people know me they never go guns on me, so I have to rely on flares and getting my Vikhrs off first. Strafe sideways, you will see the missile coming. At the last second FLARE and strafe quickly the opposite direction. There are NO defenses in a jet or another Heli(besides another KA50) that can detect a Vikhr inbound.

 

6. If you have stirred up a hornets nest, which I have done a lot this round. You will be swarmed by jets! This is where you ABRIS planning comes in. Get to a city near you, hide in between some houses, if there are two houses squeeze your ass in there! SHUT OFF your engines (Fuel cutoff levers, on the left of pilot). Raise full collective when rotors are at around 5, then when at 2 slam the rotor brake on! If you think there will be Helis in the area coming for you as well, you're stuck. Fight it out the best you can, let the Helis come in 1km and get them with guns. Jets wont see AP as much as HE, and AP rounds travel faster with a higher probability of hits. Alternative to shutting down engines if Helis are near and jets, put your engines to idle. This will sometimes not pickup on IR seeker as much, coupled with being between buildings. Bottom line is, if you are swarmed, find a hole and get in it. Trees wont hide you from an IR seeker, so I am not sure why so many people think I land inside trees. If that is the only thing around fine, but they are useless for any type of cover. They also hinder your Shkval, so hover right above them if anything.

 

7. Take the time to plan your mission very very carefully. I can spend 2 hours getting somewhere, which is fine with me. Because I know when I arrive, there will be mass destruction :) I spend at least 5 minutes on the ground messing with ABRIS and other systems, going thru my checklist, coordinating with CAP, CAS, Transport.

 

8. Probably the most important! YOU WILL NOT WIN THE CAMPAIGN ON YOUR OWN... No matter how awesome you are, you have to depend on your team to have your back and you have theirs. Listen to the GCI, every bit of information him or other pilots say is USEFUL to you. If they have spotted jets in a certain area MARK IT ON YOUR ABRIS!

 

9. Take care of your troop transport, you are his eyes and ears. If something is out of place, make him stop and shutdown until your ready to resume. Keep him a good distance from you, jets WILL try and use him to find YOU! So keep him back 300-400m from you.

 

10. Lastly, When you are 10-12km out from the target area come to a hover. Find your targets and input ALL of them into your Data-Link. You can store up to 4 of each type, for a total of 12 which is plenty. Once you have all your targets entered move in to about 6-7km for engagement. Don't engage at max distance of Vikhr. You will burn up your laser, and it takes way more time to engage each target. Before you fire your first Vikhr, make sure everyone is ready! A FARP you should be in and captured within 2 minutes, an airfield maybe 5 minutes. You want it fast a vicious, so the enemy doesn't have an opportunity to react before you have it captured.

 

So those are some of my tips, haters are gonna hate and call you a hack or cheat or whatever, I couldn't care less. I have been flying the KA50 since it first came out(BS1 still have the CD), long before DCS world even existed. I normally play single player, unless Blueflag is up. I set the worst weather conditions imaginable to fight and navigate in. I will set fog to where you cant see 10m in front of you, and you have no choice but trust your gauges and ABRIS. So when you have near perfect conditions like blueflag, its not even an issue. I would venture to guess that of all my flight time in the KA50, 3/4 of that is the worst weather conditions imaginable, landing on ships, moving trains, top of buildings, etc. Learn everything about the KA50, read the manual and then read it again! Browse the forums, there is tons of info there. I also purchased FC3 and A10C for the sole purpose of knowing their capabilities against my precious KA50. The bottom line is you aren't going to master the Shark overnight, there are still things I am learning. It took me YEARS to get where I am with the KA50. People hop in a jet for a couple months and assume I am driving down roads, landing in trees, hacking, cheating blah blah blah. I think those people are despicable to be honest, they don't realize the effort some of us great pilots have put into learning our craft. Its a slap in the face, when people just cant say "he's a good pilot" rather than "oh I'm not that good, so he must be cheating". That is why I trolled blue so hard this round!!! If you out fly me, out maneuver me, out kill me, fine I will give you your due respect and I expect the same in return!!!

 

Reaper6

[*Rage*]

^^ Legendary ^^

[microvax]

So as promised I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for up and coming KA50 pilots. As for all the haters, I think you know where you can stick your accusations and BS.

 

1. You're never going to outrun a jet or a missile, SO DON'T TRY! But you can out maneuver BOTH. Plan a route that is near cities and buildings, never fly out in the open or higher than 30m( I tend to keep it around 10m AGL when possible).

 

2. Your most important asset in the KA50 is the ABRIS, so memorize every page, function, button, etc AND USE IT! You can draw lines of different colors on the ABRIS map. You know which airfields are friendly and enemy, so draw lines from the enemy airfield back to your route. This will help you with situational awareness. Jets are predictable and if I may say so LAZY! So you are going to know which general direction they will come from.

 

3. I adjust the brightness and contrast of my Shkval so I can easily spot "dots" in the sky. I slew my Shkval above the horizon and set it to scan, and let it do its job. YOU CAN spot jets around 40-50km out, and they CAN spot you as well. I always assume the jet has already picked me up on radar, so get yourself off his radar fast!

 

4. Never travel more than 20-30km without slowing or stopping and having a look around. Everyone zooms in on the screen so use that as well as the Shkval. Slowing or stopping also will help you get off a enemy jets radar!

 

5. Fly with your Vikhrs selected, burst to medium and A/A - H/O engaged. Lock your jet or Heli QUICKLY! Hold fire until for a jet 5km H/O, for a Heli I usually engage at 6-7km. If the jet spots you even better, as I stated before Jet pilots are lazy and rely too much on technology. So they WILL come head on towards you. Before I was known, they would go guns BIG BIG mistake for them. If a jet is burning towards you launch 2 Vikhrs at 7km out, he will run right into it! Now that people know me they never go guns on me, so I have to rely on flares and getting my Vikhrs off first. Strafe sideways, you will see the missile coming. At the last second FLARE and strafe quickly the opposite direction. There are NO defenses in a jet or another Heli(besides another KA50) that can detect a Vikhr inbound.

 

6. If you have stirred up a hornets nest, which I have done a lot this round. You will be swarmed by jets! This is where you ABRIS planning comes in. Get to a city near you, hide in between some houses, if there are two houses squeeze your ass in there! SHUT OFF your engines (Fuel cutoff levers, on the left of pilot). Raise full collective when rotors are at around 5, then when at 2 slam the rotor brake on! If you think there will be Helis in the area coming for you as well, you're stuck. Fight it out the best you can, let the Helis come in 1km and get them with guns. Jets wont see AP as much as HE, and AP rounds travel faster with a higher probability of hits. Alternative to shutting down engines if Helis are near and jets, put your engines to idle. This will sometimes not pickup on IR seeker as much, coupled with being between buildings. Bottom line is, if you are swarmed, find a hole and get in it. Trees wont hide you from an IR seeker, so I am not sure why so many people think I land inside trees. If that is the only thing around fine, but they are useless for any type of cover. They also hinder your Shkval, so hover right above them if anything.

 

7. Take the time to plan your mission very very carefully. I can spend 2 hours getting somewhere, which is fine with me. Because I know when I arrive, there will be mass destruction :) I spend at least 5 minutes on the ground messing with ABRIS and other systems, going thru my checklist, coordinating with CAP, CAS, Transport.

 

8. Probably the most important! YOU WILL NOT WIN THE CAMPAIGN ON YOUR OWN... No matter how awesome you are, you have to depend on your team to have your back and you have theirs. Listen to the GCI, every bit of information him or other pilots say is USEFUL to you. If they have spotted jets in a certain area MARK IT ON YOUR ABRIS!

 

9. Take care of your troop transport, you are his eyes and ears. If something is out of place, make him stop and shutdown until your ready to resume. Keep him a good distance from you, jets WILL try and use him to find YOU! So keep him back 300-400m from you.

 

10. Lastly, When you are 10-12km out from the target area come to a hover. Find your targets and input ALL of them into your Data-Link. You can store up to 4 of each type, for a total of 12 which is plenty. Once you have all your targets entered move in to about 6-7km for engagement. Don't engage at max distance of Vikhr. You will burn up your laser, and it takes way more time to engage each target. Before you fire your first Vikhr, make sure everyone is ready! A FARP you should be in and captured within 2 minutes, an airfield maybe 5 minutes. You want it fast a vicious, so the enemy doesn't have an opportunity to react before you have it captured.

 

So those are some of my tips, haters are gonna hate and call you a hack or cheat or whatever, I couldn't care less. I have been flying the KA50 since it first came out(BS1 still have the CD), long before DCS world even existed. I normally play single player, unless Blueflag is up. I set the worst weather conditions imaginable to fight and navigate in. I will set fog to where you cant see 10m in front of you, and you have no choice but trust your gauges and ABRIS. So when you have near perfect conditions like blueflag, its not even an issue. I would venture to guess that of all my flight time in the KA50, 3/4 of that is the worst weather conditions imaginable, landing on ships, moving trains, top of buildings, etc. Learn everything about the KA50, read the manual and then read it again! Browse the forums, there is tons of info there. I also purchased FC3 and A10C for the sole purpose of knowing their capabilities against my precious KA50. The bottom line is you aren't going to master the Shark overnight, there are still things I am learning. It took me YEARS to get where I am with the KA50. People hop in a jet for a couple months and assume I am driving down roads, landing in trees, hacking, cheating blah blah blah. I think those people are despicable to be honest, they don't realize the effort some of us great pilots have put into learning our craft. Its a slap in the face, when people just cant say "he's a good pilot" rather than "oh I'm not that good, so he must be cheating". That is why I trolled blue so hard this round!!! If you out fly me, out maneuver me, out kill me, fine I will give you your due respect and I expect the same in return!!!

 

Reaper6

 

For 2: That is interesting, I never used the vector functionality of the ABRIS so far but I guess for a scenario like blueflag its really usefull. I was allways like I cant slew to it, why should I care. :D

 

3 is actually really good point as well, same here, scan didnt seem to be too usefull to me since it didnt autolock anything which would be contrast rich enough to be locked.

 

Yeah figured 4 out from watching your tracks and it works quite well, can ackowledge. :D

 

For 5, actually the A10c has a LWS afaik, it just doesnt alarm per default, not sure if you can change that but there is symbology for beeing painted by lazer afaik.

 

For 10 I tend to just hammer coordinates in of bunnkers and air defence systems into the pvi800 as TGT points. Doesnt give you the accuracy of the datalink because it doesnt store vectors but it gives one a good option to just cycle through the points quite fast to know which one is possibly in range without zooming around on the ABRIS. Also I find it more comfortable then the datalink, if you dont need to land right on top of the target instantly. :D But It gives you a way to start hammering targets in earlier then you can visually aquire them by shkval.

 

 

 

Yeah was really fun playing hide and seek with you. :D And can confirm you gave me insta kudos for killing you in muh gazelle even though I spoted you late. :DD

 

Also toptip, use s8KOM against the bunkers. 10 s8kom take down a bunker and within like 1 kilometer just with the burst at 10 rockets thats working really good, I got it down to like 80% succes with the first burst when I did testing what secondary load was best against them, and you dont have to waste 4 vikhrs and well its fun. :D

 

 

And yeah, dont go guns on a heli unless you can go guns from like 30degrees + better like 50-60.

There the skval is tending to be blind or you are forced to be pitched up quite a bit for a long time.

 

 

Yeah really nice fights and sneaky things were done during round8, was fun. :D

[be warned, the Gazelles laser range finder ATM doesnt trigger the LWR atm. You can fire without the ranging since its SACLOS and the guidance system just keeps it on the aimpoint not the point its supposed to go to, aaaand its smokeless. But in comparison the slew rate of the camera is just terrible. And it takes forevar to rotate the thing in autohover by camera but engagement can be on average faster since the missile is slow enough that you can just fire and guide it in while its already on its way. And hovering just is a terrible unsafe state of flight. xD]

 

 

And Bss-sniper really how and from where did you shoot me on mm59 ? :D I was literally hovering there [on 95% torque btw, could not clibm faster then 10m/min] only looking over the mountain peek in front of me with the sight. :D I think you came from the east somewhere but I really could not figure out why and how the fug from where you shot me there. :D

Edited August 15, 2016 by microvax

[Manzanita]

That was a fun round, good game. Hoping for some fixes on the player imbalance on the next one. :)

[Kozmyk]

Thank you Buddy Spike for some great entertainment in Blue flag Round 8.

It was fun both to fly and to watch.

Congrats to Blue and Red for a fight well fought.

[Flappie]

Yes, many thanks to the Buddy Spike team! I've never had so much fun playing DCS, really.

 

I think the NATO / Russia scenario was a very good choice: each aircraft has its own advantages and flaws, but the balance was good. For instance, as I was targeting a FARP from a distance with my Ka-50, a Huey spawned and started firing at me with his minigun while still on the ground. I had to move away, I eventually lost him, and he came to me and killed me! :)

 

My greatest moment: I had reached Tbilisi city with an Mi-8 in order to take an airbase, but all Ka-50s on the way were shot down. I received the order to land and stay hidden, which I did. I spawned an Igla to protect myself. Minutes later, I saw my Igla shoot down a Huey. Yay! Later on, as the session was ending, I thought I might try to take the city on my own, just to try. As I was taking off between buildings, I saw two Igla missiles coming towards me! I managed to kill the troops with my cannon! (and then the server crashed... :D) I never knew if the enemy Igla had been placed here just to get me when I would take off again...

 

The only thing I didn't like was the unbalance in the players numbers, often 30 vs 4 players at 21.00 Zulu time, for instance. I guess this is due to the american players' natural fondness for NATO aircrafts, right? :music_whistling:

 

EDIT: oh, and thanks to the red GCIs as well!

Edited August 15, 2016 by Flappie

[sirscorpion]

Great round as always and shame about the numbers.

 

In essence I think that numbers issue are a scale of 3 critical things, 2 of which Buddy spike can maybe change:

 

1. To get it Out of the way, Simply no interesting "Red" aircraft has been added to the game in ages, And not even in the development pipe, you think its bad now but wait for the Huge amount of Blue DCS platforms coming soon and it will be hard to keep interest in RED. Its our duty as the Blue flag community To put pressure on the Devs and how Our interest in New Red aircraft that can be added to the game to keep the interest in Both sides Of the game. They do not need to all be DCS quality, But something between DCS and FC3 will enable the devs to make stuff faster and not the 3-4 years insanity we have right now. "This is not saying that DCS quality should be stopped, But supplemented. The scope of new Aircraft should always be late 3rd and early mid 4th gen.

 

Blue flags is the main reason i bought all the helos Mi-8, Huey and Gazelle, This game mod is a Seller, ED needs to Pay attention to it.

 

 

2. The Rounds take too Long, 14 days is a marathon and its hard to keep Player interested in one side or the other. The final or "Total victory options are significantly Hard to achieve". If the rounds are faster and ability to "total victory" becomes much more possible with out the need for a 2:1 or 4:1 ratio the Mplay will eventually find a balance between the sides "we will have a few roles at the start but some squadrons will switch sides if the time lock was not 2 weeks with little progress.

 

3. Add the ability for squadrons to switch sides with in time frame, or a possible "Pick up" game system, This if the game windows are shorter can be organized to some extent, another possible system is simply adding mixed aircraft to all side "which i hate but to top the East west player preference", I do hate full symmetry but with the lack of the platforms I fear its our only hope to keep interest in both sides equal while the devs stop making WW2 and crappy trainers and focus a fuller 70s-90s environment.

 

Good fight for the reds, you have an amazing and concomitant core team, but please lower the chat trolling its not fun and basically Ultra commits people to fictional sides

[autogyro]

Was the F-5E on blue or red in round eight? I'd happily sign up and join red to fly it as a MiG-28 pilot.

[BitMaster]

So as promised I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for up and coming KA50 pilots. As for all the haters, I think you know where you can stick your accusations and BS.

 

1. You're never going to outrun a jet or a missile, SO DON'T TRY! But you can out maneuver BOTH. Plan a route that is near cities and buildings, never fly out in the open or higher than 30m( I tend to keep it around 10m AGL when possible).

 

2. Your most important asset in the KA50 is the ABRIS, so memorize every page, function, button, etc AND USE IT! You can draw lines of different colors on the ABRIS map. You know which airfields are friendly and enemy, so draw lines from the enemy airfield back to your route. This will help you with situational awareness. Jets are predictable and if I may say so LAZY! So you are going to know which general direction they will come from.

 

3. I adjust the brightness and contrast of my Shkval so I can easily spot "dots" in the sky. I slew my Shkval above the horizon and set it to scan, and let it do its job. YOU CAN spot jets around 40-50km out, and they CAN spot you as well. I always assume the jet has already picked me up on radar, so get yourself off his radar fast!

 

4. Never travel more than 20-30km without slowing or stopping and having a look around. Everyone zooms in on the screen so use that as well as the Shkval. Slowing or stopping also will help you get off a enemy jets radar!

 

5. Fly with your Vikhrs selected, burst to medium and A/A - H/O engaged. Lock your jet or Heli QUICKLY! Hold fire until for a jet 5km H/O, for a Heli I usually engage at 6-7km. If the jet spots you even better, as I stated before Jet pilots are lazy and rely too much on technology. So they WILL come head on towards you. Before I was known, they would go guns BIG BIG mistake for them. If a jet is burning towards you launch 2 Vikhrs at 7km out, he will run right into it! Now that people know me they never go guns on me, so I have to rely on flares and getting my Vikhrs off first. Strafe sideways, you will see the missile coming. At the last second FLARE and strafe quickly the opposite direction. There are NO defenses in a jet or another Heli(besides another KA50) that can detect a Vikhr inbound.

 

6. If you have stirred up a hornets nest, which I have done a lot this round. You will be swarmed by jets! This is where you ABRIS planning comes in. Get to a city near you, hide in between some houses, if there are two houses squeeze your ass in there! SHUT OFF your engines (Fuel cutoff levers, on the left of pilot). Raise full collective when rotors are at around 5, then when at 2 slam the rotor brake on! If you think there will be Helis in the area coming for you as well, you're stuck. Fight it out the best you can, let the Helis come in 1km and get them with guns. Jets wont see AP as much as HE, and AP rounds travel faster with a higher probability of hits. Alternative to shutting down engines if Helis are near and jets, put your engines to idle. This will sometimes not pickup on IR seeker as much, coupled with being between buildings. Bottom line is, if you are swarmed, find a hole and get in it. Trees wont hide you from an IR seeker, so I am not sure why so many people think I land inside trees. If that is the only thing around fine, but they are useless for any type of cover. They also hinder your Shkval, so hover right above them if anything.

 

7. Take the time to plan your mission very very carefully. I can spend 2 hours getting somewhere, which is fine with me. Because I know when I arrive, there will be mass destruction :) I spend at least 5 minutes on the ground messing with ABRIS and other systems, going thru my checklist, coordinating with CAP, CAS, Transport.

 

8. Probably the most important! YOU WILL NOT WIN THE CAMPAIGN ON YOUR OWN... No matter how awesome you are, you have to depend on your team to have your back and you have theirs. Listen to the GCI, every bit of information him or other pilots say is USEFUL to you. If they have spotted jets in a certain area MARK IT ON YOUR ABRIS!

 

9. Take care of your troop transport, you are his eyes and ears. If something is out of place, make him stop and shutdown until your ready to resume. Keep him a good distance from you, jets WILL try and use him to find YOU! So keep him back 300-400m from you.

 

10. Lastly, When you are 10-12km out from the target area come to a hover. Find your targets and input ALL of them into your Data-Link. You can store up to 4 of each type, for a total of 12 which is plenty. Once you have all your targets entered move in to about 6-7km for engagement. Don't engage at max distance of Vikhr. You will burn up your laser, and it takes way more time to engage each target. Before you fire your first Vikhr, make sure everyone is ready! A FARP you should be in and captured within 2 minutes, an airfield maybe 5 minutes. You want it fast a vicious, so the enemy doesn't have an opportunity to react before you have it captured.

 

So those are some of my tips, haters are gonna hate and call you a hack or cheat or whatever, I couldn't care less. I have been flying the KA50 since it first came out(BS1 still have the CD), long before DCS world even existed. I normally play single player, unless Blueflag is up. I set the worst weather conditions imaginable to fight and navigate in. I will set fog to where you cant see 10m in front of you, and you have no choice but trust your gauges and ABRIS. So when you have near perfect conditions like blueflag, its not even an issue. I would venture to guess that of all my flight time in the KA50, 3/4 of that is the worst weather conditions imaginable, landing on ships, moving trains, top of buildings, etc. Learn everything about the KA50, read the manual and then read it again! Browse the forums, there is tons of info there. I also purchased FC3 and A10C for the sole purpose of knowing their capabilities against my precious KA50. The bottom line is you aren't going to master the Shark overnight, there are still things I am learning. It took me YEARS to get where I am with the KA50. People hop in a jet for a couple months and assume I am driving down roads, landing in trees, hacking, cheating blah blah blah. I think those people are despicable to be honest, they don't realize the effort some of us great pilots have put into learning our craft. Its a slap in the face, when people just cant say "he's a good pilot" rather than "oh I'm not that good, so he must be cheating". That is why I trolled blue so hard this round!!! If you out fly me, out maneuver me, out kill me, fine I will give you your due respect and I expect the same in return!!!

 

Reaper6

 

 

It's been a joy and pleasure to fly with you Reaper.

 

When I am taking the Mi-8 out for a FARP ambush I always feel safe when you are around ;)

 

I have been flying the Ka-50 for almost 2 years exclusively and I am far behind your skills.

So I can only underline what you said. It takes a lot of dedication, patience, training and some brains too.

 

Your wannabe Wingman

Bit

[Pikey]

Congrats to everyone who made the game better by your participation, I certainly think the Red team has a lot to crow about in this round, I saw more of the same people there, Blue looks like it had some turnover. At any given stage I don't think pure numbers are worth talking about as the fluctuations were much more relevant, however....

 

I personally found it hard to attend more in Round 8, I know people are at different lifecycles of the Blue Flag experience and I'll be honest the F-15C vs SU-27 contest is causing me to lose interest a lot. I'm desperate to try some of the other modules in a fairer and closer fight but simply making them available doesn't make them worth using (in my personal findings). Given the offer of the toolbox, I cannot reasonably pick any other tool than an F-15C. Helos were pretty un fun without a larger and more focused team gameplan, the Hawk which is now fixed was too far away from the fight much of the time, the F-5E was closer to the fight, but really you are offering another target and reliant on a 1:1 GCI relationship (did anyone have any success with them in the air?)

 

I can't offer much of a solution, Blue Flag achieves its aim by allowing us to fly most modules in a realistic unpredictable combat environment. If we took FC3 away it's likely to destroy a larger and more popular user base on which BF relies.

 

I'm likely myself to look for an alternative than Blue Flag in its last rendition but I what it to be known I think BF is awesome and one of the best things the community has done in DCS.

[Alpenwolf]

So as promised I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for up and coming KA50 pilots. As for all the haters, I think you know where you can stick your accusations and BS.

 

1. You're never going to outrun a jet or a missile, SO DON'T TRY! But you can out maneuver BOTH. Plan a route that is near cities and buildings, never fly out in the open or higher than 30m( I tend to keep it around 10m AGL when possible).

 

2. Your most important asset in the KA50 is the ABRIS, so memorize every page, function, button, etc AND USE IT! You can draw lines of different colors on the ABRIS map. You know which airfields are friendly and enemy, so draw lines from the enemy airfield back to your route. This will help you with situational awareness. Jets are predictable and if I may say so LAZY! So you are going to know which general direction they will come from.

 

3. I adjust the brightness and contrast of my Shkval so I can easily spot "dots" in the sky. I slew my Shkval above the horizon and set it to scan, and let it do its job. YOU CAN spot jets around 40-50km out, and they CAN spot you as well. I always assume the jet has already picked me up on radar, so get yourself off his radar fast!

 

4. Never travel more than 20-30km without slowing or stopping and having a look around. Everyone zooms in on the screen so use that as well as the Shkval. Slowing or stopping also will help you get off a enemy jets radar!

 

5. Fly with your Vikhrs selected, burst to medium and A/A - H/O engaged. Lock your jet or Heli QUICKLY! Hold fire until for a jet 5km H/O, for a Heli I usually engage at 6-7km. If the jet spots you even better, as I stated before Jet pilots are lazy and rely too much on technology. So they WILL come head on towards you. Before I was known, they would go guns BIG BIG mistake for them. If a jet is burning towards you launch 2 Vikhrs at 7km out, he will run right into it! Now that people know me they never go guns on me, so I have to rely on flares and getting my Vikhrs off first. Strafe sideways, you will see the missile coming. At the last second FLARE and strafe quickly the opposite direction. There are NO defenses in a jet or another Heli(besides another KA50) that can detect a Vikhr inbound.

 

6. If you have stirred up a hornets nest, which I have done a lot this round. You will be swarmed by jets! This is where you ABRIS planning comes in. Get to a city near you, hide in between some houses, if there are two houses squeeze your ass in there! SHUT OFF your engines (Fuel cutoff levers, on the left of pilot). Raise full collective when rotors are at around 5, then when at 2 slam the rotor brake on! If you think there will be Helis in the area coming for you as well, you're stuck. Fight it out the best you can, let the Helis come in 1km and get them with guns. Jets wont see AP as much as HE, and AP rounds travel faster with a higher probability of hits. Alternative to shutting down engines if Helis are near and jets, put your engines to idle. This will sometimes not pickup on IR seeker as much, coupled with being between buildings. Bottom line is, if you are swarmed, find a hole and get in it. Trees wont hide you from an IR seeker, so I am not sure why so many people think I land inside trees. If that is the only thing around fine, but they are useless for any type of cover. They also hinder your Shkval, so hover right above them if anything.

 

7. Take the time to plan your mission very very carefully. I can spend 2 hours getting somewhere, which is fine with me. Because I know when I arrive, there will be mass destruction :) I spend at least 5 minutes on the ground messing with ABRIS and other systems, going thru my checklist, coordinating with CAP, CAS, Transport.

 

8. Probably the most important! YOU WILL NOT WIN THE CAMPAIGN ON YOUR OWN... No matter how awesome you are, you have to depend on your team to have your back and you have theirs. Listen to the GCI, every bit of information him or other pilots say is USEFUL to you. If they have spotted jets in a certain area MARK IT ON YOUR ABRIS!

 

9. Take care of your troop transport, you are his eyes and ears. If something is out of place, make him stop and shutdown until your ready to resume. Keep him a good distance from you, jets WILL try and use him to find YOU! So keep him back 300-400m from you.

 

10. Lastly, When you are 10-12km out from the target area come to a hover. Find your targets and input ALL of them into your Data-Link. You can store up to 4 of each type, for a total of 12 which is plenty. Once you have all your targets entered move in to about 6-7km for engagement. Don't engage at max distance of Vikhr. You will burn up your laser, and it takes way more time to engage each target. Before you fire your first Vikhr, make sure everyone is ready! A FARP you should be in and captured within 2 minutes, an airfield maybe 5 minutes. You want it fast a vicious, so the enemy doesn't have an opportunity to react before you have it captured.

 

So those are some of my tips, haters are gonna hate and call you a hack or cheat or whatever, I couldn't care less. I have been flying the KA50 since it first came out(BS1 still have the CD), long before DCS world even existed. I normally play single player, unless Blueflag is up. I set the worst weather conditions imaginable to fight and navigate in. I will set fog to where you cant see 10m in front of you, and you have no choice but trust your gauges and ABRIS. So when you have near perfect conditions like blueflag, its not even an issue. I would venture to guess that of all my flight time in the KA50, 3/4 of that is the worst weather conditions imaginable, landing on ships, moving trains, top of buildings, etc. Learn everything about the KA50, read the manual and then read it again! Browse the forums, there is tons of info there. I also purchased FC3 and A10C for the sole purpose of knowing their capabilities against my precious KA50. The bottom line is you aren't going to master the Shark overnight, there are still things I am learning. It took me YEARS to get where I am with the KA50. People hop in a jet for a couple months and assume I am driving down roads, landing in trees, hacking, cheating blah blah blah. I think those people are despicable to be honest, they don't realize the effort some of us great pilots have put into learning our craft. Its a slap in the face, when people just cant say "he's a good pilot" rather than "oh I'm not that good, so he must be cheating". That is why I trolled blue so hard this round!!! If you out fly me, out maneuver me, out kill me, fine I will give you your due respect and I expect the same in return!!!

 

Reaper6

 

1. That is true, but if I'm not mistaken BodyOrgan and some of his friends tested this out and it seems that this feature is broken! According to him you can even hover all you want and jets can still pick you up from long distances! Maybe the last updates (I call them bugs nowadays) caused this.

 

2. 100% right about the ABRIS! On the pages from 181 to 296 (extended manual) you find all you want about the ABRIS! Sometimes I spend more time playing with it than flying.

 

3. Been successful in shooting down helis so far but no jets! It's pretty damn hard to even lock 'em up. A tip regarding that: Create a mission in the mission editor with 2-3 different planes flying around and start practicing. Create another one if needed with only helis coming at you.

 

8. and 9. basically apply to any plane/helicopter!

 

10. If you're talking about the PRTz Data Link then it's actually 10 targets per type that can be stored in the computer! You're talking about the diamond or house shaped symbols apperaing on the ABRIS, right?

 

 

 

I've posted a thread once regarding AA missiles for the Ka-50 (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=145613). If I was just as good, Reaper6, I wouldn't care. Need to practice more. Good thing the round is over so I can go back to practicing air combats in the Ka-50. Would've loved to fly the Ka-50 in the last round but with you around it wasn't really needed. After all, someone had to tend to the Mi-8 :)

 

Stay well, buddy!

[CheshireCat]

So as promised I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for up and coming KA50 pilots. (..)

 

Very cool, thanks a lot for sharing Reaper! I started flying the Shark on and off since it came out but I never stuck with it because of a perceived lack of things to do.

 

Seems like I was just being lazy and there's actually plenty of SP content out there. When you say you mess around with the worst weather conditions, are you flying the included missions? Fan made ones? Would you be willing to compile a list of maybe a couple of suggestions to get people started and learn looking in the right places for fun SP stuff to fly?

 

Also -- and sorry for asking for your arm here after you just extended a hand -- would you maybe be willing to post a sample mission? Not a video, mind you, but maybe just fly as you usually do, and take a screenshot every once in a while (for example if you do an ABRIS update) and then post them here with some annotations.

I would hugely appreciate something like that and I'm pretty sure I'd not the only one!

 

To everyone else I'd like to say: I just dipped my toe into Blue Flag as it was coming to its close, and it was amazingly fun to just be part of that map-spanning team effort, listening in to you guys coordinating and setting up attack runs. I'll be sure to be back next round and hopefully contribute some as well!

[Roston]

Are there any extension to show ABRIS on android phone or etc? Thx.

[Farlander]

Why was there no SA-3's? i mean.. literally everything was on BLUE this time, SU-25 was restircted in the capabilities it is good at, no SA-3's and overall less popular aircraft.. Personally i flew on BLUE only because of Mirage, but it wasn't exactly hard to see what would happen this round..

 

I think give back SA-3's, some of Su-25's capabilities and it should be fine.. it was really not that great this time playing on a team with huge advantages and more players against RED who had quite little chance to take you down.

[microvax]

1. That is true, but if I'm not mistaken BodyOrgan and some of his friends tested this out and it seems that this feature is broken! According to him you can even hover all you want and jets can still pick you up from long distances! Maybe the last updates (I call them bugs nowadays) caused this.

 

 

I've posted a thread once regarding AA missiles for the Ka-50 (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=145613). If I was just as good, Reaper6, I wouldn't care. Need to practice more. Good thing the round is over so I can go back to practicing air combats in the Ka-50. Would've loved to fly the Ka-50 in the last round but with you around it wasn't really needed. After all, someone had to tend to the Mi-8 :)

 

Stay well, buddy!

 

At least for 1 I can tell you that you cant in the mirage ! :D As soon as you drop under notch speed your drop of the radar. Unless closer then like 2 miles.

 

Not the god damn igla discussion again. :lol:

[Reaper6]

For 2: That is interesting, I never used the vector functionality of the ABRIS so far but I guess for a scenario like blueflag its really usefull. I was allways like I cant slew to it, why should I care. :D

 

You are going up against pilots with far more technology than you, RWR, Radar, Heat seekers, FLIR, etc. You have a 1950s TV and your ABRIS, make that your advantage. Learn those systems inside and out, every little piece of intelligence is helpful.

 

3 is actually really good point as well, same here, scan didnt seem to be too usefull to me since it didnt autolock anything which would be contrast rich enough to be locked.

 

It's not really auto lock that I achieve, just being able to spot any little speck on the horizon. There have been times where I thought a speck of dust was a jet. I am constantly looking at the Shkval, out the windows, and mirrors.

 

For 5, actually the A10c has a LWS afaik, it just doesnt alarm per default, not sure if you can change that but there is symbology for beeing painted by lazer afaik.

 

I was aware the A10 has LWS, but most pilots don't bother to pay attention. 99% of the time they don't have a clue, and if they do they only know its a laser painting them not a pair of Vikhrs inbound. I also lock the wing of the A10 instead of the body to somewhat deter their warning. This also makes sure the A10 will be taken out, a wing hit is more lethal than a frontal hit.

 

For 10 I tend to just hammer coordinates in of bunnkers and air defence systems into the pvi800 as TGT points. Doesnt give you the accuracy of the datalink because it doesnt store vectors but it gives one a good option to just cycle through the points quite fast to know which one is possibly in range without zooming around on the ABRIS. Also I find it more comfortable then the datalink, if you dont need to land right on top of the target instantly. :D But It gives you a way to start hammering targets in earlier then you can visually aquire them by shkval.

 

I don't input targets thru PVI because as you said the accuracy is just not there. Plus the values are inputted at sea level rather than what the actual elevation of the target is. Inputting targets into the datalink is a fast way to ingress thru the targets with your Shkval.

 

 

Yeah was really fun playing hide and seek with you. :D And can confirm you gave me insta kudos for killing you in muh gazelle even though I spoted you late. :DD

 

This was the first time I flew against the Gazelle, it is very agile and I learned my lesson the first time going in on it. After that I stayed at distance and made the take down. People would go spectator immediately after I damaged them, so after that I never bothered going in for the kill anymore. I would send a couple S8s their way just in case they dropped an Igla, and then I was off.

 

Also toptip, use s8KOM against the bunkers. 10 s8kom take down a bunker and within like 1 kilometer just with the burst at 10 rockets thats working really good, I got it down to like 80% succes with the first burst when I did testing what secondary load was best against them, and you dont have to waste 4 vikhrs and well its fun. :D

 

I generally just shoot in pairs, rather than burst for unguided rockets. After the first pair have launched your helicopter has sprung upwards to take you off target.

 

 

And yeah, dont go guns on a heli unless you can go guns from like 30degrees + better like 50-60.

There the skval is tending to be blind or you are forced to be pitched up quite a bit for a long time.

 

If I do get myself into a close in battle with another Heli, I always put full collective and get above them. The KA50 is magnificent at out climbing any other Heli. The gun on the KA50 can pretty much slew 90 degrees down, and Helis will try and pitch up to go guns and fall backwards. Then it's an easy kill after that.

 

 

Yeah really nice fights and sneaky things were done during round8, was fun. :D

[be warned, the Gazelles laser range finder ATM doesnt trigger the LWR atm. You can fire without the ranging since its SACLOS and the guidance system just keeps it on the aimpoint not the point its supposed to go to, aaaand its smokeless. But in comparison the slew rate of the camera is just terrible. And it takes forevar to rotate the thing in autohover by camera but engagement can be on average faster since the missile is slow enough that you can just fire and guide it in while its already on its way. And hovering just is a terrible unsafe state of flight. xD]

 

Exactly why I prefer to stay mobile instead of sit in a hover. even a small lateral movement can be helpful in defense of a ATGM.

 

Reaper6

[Reaper6]

It's been a joy and pleasure to fly with you Reaper.

 

When I am taking the Mi-8 out for a FARP ambush I always feel safe when you are around ;)

 

I have been flying the Ka-50 for almost 2 years exclusively and I am far behind your skills.

So I can only underline what you said. It takes a lot of dedication, patience, training and some brains too.

 

Your wannabe Wingman

Bit

 

The pleasure was all mine. I have huge respect for the Transport pilots. I flew a few times in the Mi8 and it is a handful! I was completely lost without my ABRIS lol!!!

 

Reaper6