LANTIRN over water

[MBot]

There seem to be a couple of issues with using LANTIRN over water:

 

LANTIRN is not able to point track a ship.

 

Area track only works over water if the sensor is pointed very close to an active ship. Once the ship is destroyed, area track ceases to work. It seems this is somehow tied to active game objects to work over water. This makes it very difficult to select a target point with sufficient lead to attack a moving ship.

 

When laser designating a moving ship by hand, LANTIRN has a very nasty habit to reverting from area track to RATES when the seeker is pointing down and changing orientation. This results in the seeker rapidly moving off target, making it impossible to re-acquire the target in time with a bomb in the terminal phase. About half of my attempts of attacking a moving ship with LGB resulted in such misses.

[QuiGon]

A couple of things:

 

I have used POINT TRACK to LGB-attack ships on quite a number of occasions and it always worked just fine, as long as the weather is absolutly clear (0 clouds, 0 dust/fog, 0 rain). It hasn't worked any less well than it did with land targets in my experience. I say "hasn't", because the last time I attacked ships with LGBs from the Tomcat was 2-3 months ago. Lately I had some difficulties to maintain a POINT TRACK on land targets though, but that might be because of imperfect weather conditions that got introduced to my favorite MP server and haven't been there before. LANTIRN POINT TRACK is very susceptible to less than perfectly clear weather, regardless of it targeting land or naval targets.

 

I haven't really tried AREA TRACK on water, but I guess that doesn't really work as water is a moving and transforming surface, unlike solid ground, so I don't know how a TGP is supposed to stabilize on it.

 

In regards to the RATES problem, you could try to laser desginate the target and then slew the LANTIRN to QST and leave it focused on it.

Edited September 25, 2019 by QuiGon

[MBot]

All my tests were in clear (default) weather.

 

I have tried Point Track against a Krivak, Neustrashimy and the Kuznetsov. Nether of which worked. Perhaps these are too large for the tracking gate?

 

I think Area Track is simply bugged (or implemented based on a workaround). Why should Area Track work on the water 100m next to s ship, but not work on the water 500m next to a ship.

 

Slewing the pod to QST is not a good option when attacking a moving ship, unless you happen to designate a point with the perfect amount of lead before dropping the bomb. Chances are you will require to adjust the aimpoint seconds before impact, which is when a sudden switch to RATES will slew your aim off target at a speed of 500-ish knots.

[QuiGon]

All my tests were in clear (default) weather.

 

I have tried Point Track against a Krivak, Neustrashimy and the Kuznetsov. Nether of which worked. Perhaps these are too large for the tracking gate?

Hmm, weird. I have successfully point tracked rather large ships (I think they have either been Neustrashimys or Sovremnys and the tracking gate was pretty large indeed. All the ships I have attacked were stationary though. Have you tried to point track moving or stationary ships?

 

I think Area Track is simply bugged (or implemented based on a workaround). Why should Area Track work on the water 100m next to s ship, but not work on the water 500m next to a ship.

Hmm, I'm not exactly sure how area track works technically, but if you try to area track a position 100m next to a ship, with the ship already being on camera it might use the ship as a reference. I'm entirely specualting here though.

 

Slewing the pod to QST is not a good option when attacking a moving ship, unless you happen to designate a point with the perfect amount of lead before dropping the bomb. Chances are you will require to adjust the aimpoint seconds before impact, which is when a sudden switch to RATES will slew your aim off target at a speed of 500-ish knots.

Good point! I haven't considered moving ships.

[Super Grover]

I have tried Point Track against a Krivak, Neustrashimy and the Kuznetsov. Nether of which worked. Perhaps these are too large for the tracking gate?

Quite possible. You can try using a wider field of view.

 

I think Area Track is simply bugged (or implemented based on a workaround). Why should Area Track work on the water 100m next to s ship, but not work on the water 500m next to a ship.

Hmm, I'm not exactly sure how area track works technically, but if you try to area track a position 100m next to a ship, with the ship already being on camera it might use the ship as a reference. I'm entirely specualting here though.

Yes, that's how it should work. Under good weather conditions, the area track should always work when used on the ground (within some reasonable distance), and over water only if there's another contrasting object or shore visible and close to the cross. This required some tuning, so if you find a situation when the tracking should work but it isn't (or shouldn't work but it is), please send me a screenshot, and if possible the mission, and I'll re-tune the algorithms. Of course clear weather only.

[QuiGon]

Quite possible. You can try using a wider field of view.

Yeah, an FOV be big enough to encompass the entire ship should be choosen. The tracking gate can become pretty big, but it can't be bigger than the FOV.

[MBot]

Ok, I figured it out. Point Track only engages in black-hot but not in white-hot (or was it the other way around?). An established Point Track is retained when switching back and forth between the two modes though.

 

I don't know if that is supposed to be like that.

[Super Grover]

Yes, POINT can be established in WHOT only. Or rather, to be more precise, it can be engaged on objects that appear white on a dark background (no matter if it's WHOT or BHOT). Once POINT is successfully engaged, it should be possible to change the polarity. However, due to the limitations of the simulation, it is simplified to: you can go into POINT only in WHOT.