Some questions regarding GBU bombs in F14

[user-3579]

Hi,

 

 

Have some questions regarding these GBU for F14, been flying the bird for a while now but was wonder If some could help or advise on these q below, has read Mude-Spike and Heat blur manuals but can’t see any of these questions are mention or comment there,

 

 

Mainly use DCS Beta v.

 

 

 

Questions:

1. Someone know of some details regarding how these bombs work, like how does the basic system works with the laser-code and how does the bomb pick this up ++ and if possibly how does the laser-sensor works on bomb and the lantirn-pod.

 

2. Does weather like wind/turbulence/clouds/Rain ++ have any impact on precision on the GBU bombs in DCS ? (my experience so fare kind of show that clouds can have a huge impact to precision and how accurate these bombs are, assume it behaves like the real one?)

 

3. Have been struggle to get the GBU-24 to work, and see some posts that there may be some issue in dcs with this bomb, is this still an issue?

 

4. How high can you fly and the laser will still be able to assign target on ground (msl)

 

5. If you need to hit moving target like truck/tank, what mode will be best to use “Area” and or point-track, or you will need to follow target with the “slew” in manual mode.

 

6. If you need to hit moving target like a truck/tank, what is best/optimal and must accurate way to enter it, fly same heading as target or any comments or details,

 

 

 

Any feedback or comments are very welcome and appreciated.

 

 

 

Brgds

S.Eagle

[QuiGon]

1) Hmm, not sure what you want to know here. There's an optical sensor at the tip of the GBU that can pick up the laser reflection from the target and guide in on it. There is one thing to keep in mind about the guidance system. The Paveway II series (GBU-1x) uses old bang bang guidance, meaning it can only deflect its control surface to full extension or neutral position. That means it oversteers all the time and has to correct itself again by countersteering. That way it looses a lot of energy and may not reach its target. To prevent this, it is recommend to only turn the laser on when Time To Impact is less than 15 seconds, so the bomb can fly balistically for the first part of its flight before it starts guiding.

 

2) Wind has an impact on the bombs ballistics, but AFAIK the LANTIRN will take this into its ballistic calculations, so you don't really have to worry about it. Even if I'm wrong and it doesn't consider wind, the wind must be pretty strong for the bomb to not be able to reach the target.

Fog and clouds (not sure about rain) does reduce the lantirns ability to track / ground stabilize.

 

3) The GBU-24 is a Paveway III bomb and hence uses a different guidance control than the bang bang control of the Paveway II series, which has not been implemented yet.

 

4) The limitation is slant range, as the laser in dcs can't reach further then 9nm slant range. That means you can still drop bombs from 40,000+ ft as long as you stay over the target to lase it.

 

5) The bomb doesn't care wheter you're using AREA or POINT track. You just need to keep the laser on the target, either by using POINT to make the LANTIRN follow the target on its own or by using AREA and slewing the LANTIRN manually to keep up with the target.

 

6) I have achieved good hits on moving targets from any direction, but I think it works best if you come from the opposite direction, followed by the same direction as the second best option. It helps (especially if the target is moving pretty fast) if you designate a spot in front of the moving target as the target point (leading the target), so the bomb doesn't need to correct as much.

 

 

Hope that helps a bit :)

[user-3579]

Hi QuiGon,

 

 

Many Thanks for the feedback very appreciated :):)

 

 

Then I actual for now only has one q left, since clouds has an impact on the laser, my own experience and also

according to you feedback above.

 

How is this in Multiplayer (MP) when the RIO is a Human. We have discovered in MP that clouds populate different from player to player.

so which flir-camera will have impact on the Laser(?). The one from Pilot “office” or the one in the Rio`s office (or if have same issue

when using buddy lasering). Let me explain with an example:

 

Let’s say you are in a cloudy area and the skies for the RIO is populate with many clouds and same on his flir-camera/scope as well, but on

pilots flir-camera all looks good (no clouds). Which flir-camera/scope will have the valid “data” regards to the laser beam on the target.?

 

 

• I would assume that the battlefield will be measured against clouds that is populate from the pc that are hosting the mp-session and not from what another player sees in their DCS sim/pc.
  

 

 

 

 

 

Above is based on this setup:

- DCS beta

- Pilot and RIO in example above are both sitting in the same aircraft F14.

- Pilot is human hosting the multiplayer session called “lantirn-05”.

- Rio is a different human player and joined mp session called “lantirn-05”.

 

 

 

 

 

Thx again,

 

 

 

 

 

Brgds

S.

Edited March 11, 2020 by user-3579

[QuiGon]

Hmm, good question and I'm afraid I don't know the technical answer to it.

 

Personally I've logged a couple hundred hours as a RIO on multiplayer servers (it's actually how I use the F-14 99,9% of the time), but because of the desync issue many public multiplayer servers have clouds disabled, so I've only encountered clouds during LANTIRN operations a few times. In those situations I wasn't really thinking about the laser being blocked by clouds and cloud desync between players, because in practice it was rather simple: If I (the RIO) couldn't see the target, because a cloud was visually blocking my LANTIRN line of sight, then I couldn't point my LANTIRN on the target and had to wait till the cloud passed so I could see the target again to know where I have to point the LANTIRN to.

 

So to be honest, your issue isn't really a factor, because no matter if the laser can actually reach the target, if the RIO can't see it visually, because clouds are blocking his line of sight, then he can't direct the LANTIRN on it.

Edited March 11, 2020 by QuiGon

[user-3579]

Hi QuiGon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great feedback and great to hear from one with couple of hundred hours as a RIO :-). my full respect and honor.

 

 

 

 

Okay, I see but was not adware so many mp session was running with clouds disabled and in that case I agree its not a problem assume we may need to do this in our session as well, Even it feels a little strange :-).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brgds

S.O