Swedish Attack Doctrine

[MBot]

I really love the Viggen and I think Heatblur has done a fantastic job with their module. As someone heavily invested in single play I remain quite disappointed though how badly DCS handles Swedish attack doctrine, which I consider the heart and soul of the Viggen. Unfortunately this bothers me so much that in the 1.5 years I own the module I heaven't really played it all that much.

 

As an example, here is me flying a solo pop-up attack against a radar site defended by SA-8 and MANPADS. As you can see this works exceptionally well, especially since the new collideable vegetation in DCS 2.5 provides ample cover even on flat terrain for a low level approach.

 

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Now for comparison, here are 3 AI wingman added to the attack:

 

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Note how the AI is approaching in plain view and is therefore immediately engaged and shot down by air defense once in range.

 

The inability of the AI to handle the Viggen's primary operational envelope unfortunately mostly limits the module to MP or SP one-against-the-world missions, at least if the aircraft is to be employed according to the Swedish doctrine (which is my main interest). If other Viggen are added, this results in very high aircraft losses. Which is especially bad with regards to dynamic campaigns, where losses matter.

 

I feel this shortcoming really hurts an otherwise wonderful DCS module.

[QuiGon]

The problem will get bigger as this is not just a swedish attack doctrine but was a widely used doctrin during the Cold War, especially by the germans and british. When we will get other aircraft in DCS that were build with this doctrine in mind (e.g. Tornado, F-111, Jaguar, ...).

 

But I don't really see ED teaching the AI how to apply this doctrine in the near future as it requires a lot of work and other things are more important. As someone who is more MP oriented this is not such a big problem for me, but I can totally understand how this spoils the fun for SP pilots.

[Jenrick]

I agree, pretty much any low level strike craft doesn't do well with the AI.

 

Also nice flying!

[Guille H. Mono]

Hi Mbot, I share 100% of what you said. The state of AI has been very poor in many other levels and in almost every DCS module.

 

I use to fly single player missions I edit. You can learn or develop some tricks to overcome AI limitations, but is easy to fall in a continuous state of frustration. More time testing, more time researching in the forums to little or no achivement.

 

I own the 37 and I haven't enough time to learn and fly it like you do. You may have tried everything at this point, but let me tell you what I did for kind-of swedish doctrine attack ( with m2000c in 1.5), it could help.

 

-Two aircraft flight (mission: GA)

-Tgt: Vehicle concentration (defenses: Osa, manpads and aaa. Random presence and number)

-Formation: trail (set in MissionEditor, before the attack point, so it changes without need of radio orders)

-During pop-up: Radio command -> Attack mission objetive and rejoin.

 

This made the wingman fly my path accurately well into the pop-up maneouver. Then, given the order, it used to climb a little bit more, point at the target, attack and rejoin safely (most of the times). You can play with te timing of the radio command and angle of the aproach to make a multi axis attack. After all the test I did, It seems to me it was the trail formation the most important thing in order to keep a nice formation during the attack.

 

If i didnt explained well enough, or you have any doubt, just tell me!

[unipus]

Certainly a knock against DCS AI and not the Viggen module. I flew a Ka-50 campaign mission yesterday which involved flying very slowly a few meters above a forest and then coming to a hover. I suddenly notice some flashing orange light in my cockpit, only to discover it's from my wingman's burning wreckage as he couldn't handle such a daunting task. sadnessemoji

 

Unfortunately I don't know what can be done other than hope Eagle is working on it.

[WinterH]

Unfortunately, the AI has so many different issues, it is a can of worms.

 

The ground unit AI, aircraft knowing only a single way to do things etc.

 

I have experienced the same back when the module was released and I've tried to create some missions including AI Viggens.

[DartzIRL]

Usually what happens when I try fly that low is that the game stops to load a tree for a half second.

 

 

And then decides that in the half second it was loading that tree the jet's flown about 500 metres smack bang into the side of a low hill.

[Dahlbeck]

It's so sad. Actually, even Su-27 Flanker 1.0 AI was capable of flying an almost nap-of-the-earth profile (50 m AGL IIRC) and do a low level bomb drop.

 

I sometimes get the feeling that the current AI was desgned purely with helicopters (Ka-50) and fixed wing CAS (A-10C) in mind and left at that while the sim has expanded.

 

Overall, I'm disapponited in the whole need for scripting. The mission designer should be able to simply select a task, make a flight plan, possibly selecting a target (waypoint) if the mission is any kind of strike/pin point attack and then the AI should do the rest, dynamically, on its own.

 

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[MBot]

Here is another one. This time a full AI flight doing a Rb04 anti-ship missile strike.

 

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The AI leader cannot get below 50m ASL, all AI wingmen are staggered even higher as usual. The initial pop-up to release the Rb04 is fine, but after launch the aircraft pull up sharply and climb over 1 km. Aircraft initially continue heading towards the target while doing pointless maneuvers at high altitude before turning around. Aircraft eventually egress while remaining at over 1 km alt (all waypoints were set at low altitude). This is so bad *shudder*.

 

Bonus points for Rb04 knocking each other out.

[Johnny Dioxin]

Strange, because I know the AI can do it (fly very low). I was gobasmacked at the weekend, when I flew the first mission in the Black Shark Deployment campaign.

 

You follow a pilot in a Hind and I can tell you he flies so low (most of the time) it is ridiculous. I was always waiting for him to hit the trees or the ground. So it can definitely be done.

 

Unfortunately the rest of the time he was up and down like a big dipper at a fairground, as well as coming to an almost complete stop, then accelerating away, repeatedly, when we were supposed to be holding 250 km/h.

 

 

 

[QuiGon]

I think there is a big difference between helicopter AI and aircraft AI ;)

[Johnny Dioxin]

Doesn't matter - aircraft is flying at speed at low altitude - you saying it can be done with a helicopter but not with a fixed-wing aircraft?

 

You can't possibly know that because you don't have access to ED's code. ;)

[QuiGon]

I said it can't be done. I just said what has been done is different for helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.

[Cobra847]

We're working on some AI improvements currently (the ones that we can influence). E.g. RB-15/04 for AI aircraft and their breakoff procedures.

[FanOfALF]

We're working on some AI improvements currently (the ones that we can influence). E.g. RB-15/04 for AI aircraft and their breakoff procedures.

 

Great news Cobra! Can't get that RB04 to work with AI aircraft (wingman or flight).

[MBot]

Hooray :)

[Lupson]

We're working on some AI improvements currently (the ones that we can influence). E.g. RB-15/04 for AI aircraft and their breakoff procedures.

 

Awesome! I spent a lot of time trying to get AI wingmen and AI flights to engage ships in a meaningful manner a while back. My wishlist:

 

* Fire all (i.e. both) RB-04/15 missiles carried instead of one per "attack run". This was likely the standard tactical procedure of the SwAF Viggens.

* Utilize the full range envelope of the missiles.

* Break-off and go to next waypoint after launch (if current waypoint is target waypoint?)

* Possibility to set up RB-04/15 "fire at coordinate" in ME, e.g. we could theoretically set up missions where AI flights would perform something such as a "bearing only"-attack. E.g. "Enroute task - fire at coordinate" where the AI would launch at the designated coordinate once in range.

[Spathiphyllum]

Awesome! I spent a lot of time trying to get AI wingmen and AI flights to engage ships in a meaningful manner a while back. My wishlist:

 

* Fire all (i.e. both) RB-04/15 missiles carried instead of one per "attack run". This was likely the standard tactical procedure of the SwAF Viggens.

* Utilize the full range envelope of the missiles.

* Break-off and go to next waypoint after launch (if current waypoint is target waypoint?)

* Possibility to set up RB-04/15 "fire at coordinate" in ME, e.g. we could theoretically set up missions where AI flights would perform something such as a "bearing only"-attack. E.g. "Enroute task - fire at coordinate" where the AI would launch at the designated coordinate once in range.

 

+1 this!

[MBot]

* Fire all (i.e. both) RB-04/15 missiles carried instead of one per "attack run". This was likely the standard tactical procedure of the SwAF Viggens.

 

There is a little trick for that. Unpack the .miz file with and extract the 'mission' file. Open it with a text editor. Search for the attack task. It should look something like this:

 

task = {
["id"] = "ComboTask",
["params"] = {
	["tasks"] = {
		[1] = {
			["enabled"] = true,
			["auto"] = false,
			["id"] = "AttackGroup",
			["number"] = 1,
			["params"] = {
				["weaponType"] = 4161536,
				["groupId"] = 1,
				["expend"] = "All",		--ADD THIS
			}
		}
	}
}
}

 

Add the line of code that is marked above. Save the 'mission' file and put it back into the .miz file. Now, the aircraft will attack with all their missiles at once.

 

It is often possible to control AI beyond what is possible in the Mission Editor by directly editing the mission file.

[Lupson]

There is a little trick for that. Unpack the .miz file with and extract the 'mission' file. Open it with a text editor. Search for the attack task. It should look something like this:

 

task = {
["id"] = "ComboTask",
["params"] = {
	["tasks"] = {
		[1] = {
			["enabled"] = true,
			["auto"] = false,
			["id"] = "AttackGroup",
			["number"] = 1,
			["params"] = {
				["weaponType"] = 4161536,
				["groupId"] = 1,
				["expend"] = "All",		--ADD THIS
			}
		}
	}
}
}

 

Add the line of code that is marked above. Save the 'mission' file and put it back into the .miz file. Now, the aircraft will attack with all their missiles at once.

 

It is often possible to control AI beyond what is possible in the Mission Editor by directly editing the mission file.

 

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I do however recall that one can specify "expend" directly in the ME? Though that's perhaps only for certain actions which would explain having to modify the .miz.

 

I couldn't get AI flights to reliably attack at all back in january though, see https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=199575

[Lupson]

I messed around with the ME with various Viggen weaponry (latest Open Beta) yesterday. Some findings for an AI flight:

 

-- RBS 15F --

* Attack group or Attack unit doesn't work at all. Neither with RBS-15 or RBS-15 AI. Never engages.

* With "anti-shipping" as task, RBS-15 (non AI) are fired at appropriate distance. Sometimes, missiles just crash into the sea, I think it happens when the launching plane changes its heading too much away from the target ship.

* With RBS-15 AI, no missiles are ever fired.

 

For Air-to-ground, I set up a column of 12 fuel trucks.

-- ARAK - CAS as mission --

* Works fine, though the AI fires an arbitrary number of rockets per run. Sometimes 1 or 2, sometimes a few more. Realistically it should be all 24 rockets though we can fire 4 at a time using "Impuls" setting when flying ourselves.

 

-- M/71 low drag - CAS as mission --

* Works very well, the AI even adjusted its approach for covering the whole column with bombs.

* When I changed to formation of the trucks to a more spread out formation, the AI performs multiple passes releasing a few bombs per run. Typically, one should release all bombs but IIRC it's possible to release just a few by releasing the trigger early?

 

-- M/71 high drag - CAS as mission --

* Sort-of works but since bombs are released at 300 m altitude the precision is really bad. AI doesn't seem to be capable of low-level releases.

 

-- RB-05 -- Bombing as mission --

* Works nicely.

 

-- M/71 low drag - Bombing as mission --

* I couldn't get the AI planes to release bombs at all.

[MBot]

There is something really weird going on with AI Viggens and anti-ship missions. Today I just couldn't get AI flights to attack a convoy with Rb04(AI). Now this is strange, because I have been working on a mission for over a week and on each of the past days I had the AI attacking. But today it didn't. Ok, perhaps I changed some tiny detail today that broke it.

 

So I set up the simplest possible scenario to test one AI Viggen attacking a single ship with Rb04 (for AI). Attack Group was used (because it gives the AI omnipotent knowledge of the target) and reaction to threat was disabled (to force AI to attack). It still didn't work. Then I eventually found out target type plays a role. The attack worked against all Russian ships except Tango sub, Kuznetzov, Bulk Carrier, Dry Cargo ship and Elnya tanker. This is a rather strange selection, because there are both ships armed/with sensors and unarmed/without sensors that are not attacked. And I swear this week I had successful AI strikes on Elnya tankers and bulk carriers.

 

Changing the aircraft to an AI Hornet with Harpoons yields all successful attacks.

 

Changing the aircraft to AI Viggen with RB75 yields all successful attacks.

 

 

As a side note, trying to get an AI Viggen to attack ships with RB75 using Engage tasks (which depend on the aircraft detecting the targets, versus Attack tasks that link the AI to the target) is unsuccessful even letting the AI overfly the target. It seems the AI is completely unable to detect a ship on its own.

 

All in all very frustrating to work on missions.

[MBot]

Ok, I just worked it out. Speed is the magic ingredient. The AI won't attack the mentioned ships if they travel faster than 3 kph. If they move 3 kph or less, the AI will attack them with Rb04!

[Lupson]

Ok, I just worked it out. Speed is the magic ingredient. The AI won't attack the mentioned ships if they travel faster than 3 kph. If they move 3 kph or less, the AI will attack them with Rb04!

 

Interesting. For my RBS-15F tests above I used a Bulk Cargo belonging to Red coalition. I actually think I tried both 0 kts and 5 kts as speed without any noticeable difference in AI behavior.

 

Can try changing ship type according to your findings and see what happens.

[RagnarDa]

There is fixes incoming for Rb-04 for AI by JediTeo in the next patch (which I think is Wednesday).