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Proper procedure for rearming countermeasures?


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I looked through the official manual and Chuck's guide, but I didn't see a step by step procedure for properly rearming the countermeasure cartridges.

I've heard that we're not supposed to do it directly from the rearming window and instead from the F10 menu, and I've also heard the exact opposite.

 

Can someone clearly explain how it's supposed to be done? Thanks!

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F14B in DCS have two CM stations, one is build-in aircraft another is add on.

 

AN.ALE 39 is build in and it have space for 60 cartridges and those can be set by mission editor or radio/groundcrew. This station is only one in F14 with flares. You can set any ratio of flares to chaff as long they are multiple of 10.

 

When u take AIM9s on stations 1A and 8A u get add on station, which is attached directly to sidewinder pylons. These contain chaff only and they last for 40 additional chaff drops.

 

As u see even though rearmament window states u can have hundreds of countermeasures, in actuality you get them much less - a M2000 level of it. For most multiplayer missions ALE 39 is fully loaded with flares so default loadout is 60 flares and 40 chaff. Personally I like to change that by ground crew to 30/30 ratio in ALE39, so in the end I get 30 flares and 70 chaff which seem much more effective

 

For info seek into manual.

http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#an-ale-39-countermeasures-dispensing-set

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F14B in DCS have two CM stations, one is build-in aircraft another is add on.

 

AN.ALE 39 is build in and it have space for 60 cartridges and those can be set by mission editor or radio/groundcrew. This station is only one in F14 with flares. You can set any ratio of flares to chaff as long they are multiple of 10.

 

When u take AIM9s on stations 1A and 8A u get add on station, which is attached directly to sidewinder pylons. These contain chaff only and they last for 40 additional chaff drops.

 

As u see even though rearmament window states u can have hundreds of countermeasures, in actuality you get them much less - a M2000 level of it. For most multiplayer missions ALE 39 is fully loaded with flares so default loadout is 60 flares and 40 chaff. Personally I like to change that by ground crew to 30/30 ratio in ALE39, so in the end I get 30 flares and 70 chaff which seem much more effective

 

For info seek into manual.

http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#an-ale-39-countermeasures-dispensing-set

 

Ok, so if I've expended every chaff/flare I have, I would first go to F10, request my chaff/flare ratio from the ground crew, then adjust the slider bars in the rearm window to match what I'm supposed to have, adding in the extra 40 chaff from the add on stations?

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I think you just rearm with correct setup in rearming panel. No need for ground crew. I would slide flares to the ratio you given to ground crew and rest max chaff as aim9 pylons actually hold 160 chaff but each cartridge is only 1/4 in size. System releases 4 cartridges from aim9 pylons per impulse thus 160/4=40 additional chaff impulses. Not sure how HB implemented it in game and possibly thats the reason why rearming window "allow" setting 200 of chaff or flare, even though u can deploy only 100 of CM in total.

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I think you just rearm with correct setup in rearming panel. No need for ground crew. I would slide flares to the ratio you given to ground crew and rest max chaff as aim9 pylons actually hold 160 chaff but each cartridge is only 1/4 in size. System releases 4 cartridges from aim9 pylons per impulse thus 160/4=40 additional chaff impulses. Not sure how HB implemented it in game and possibly thats the reason why rearming window "allow" setting 200 of chaff or flare, even though u can deploy only 100 of CM in total.

 

Cool, thanks for your input.

I'm still hoping someone from Heatblur chimes in, because like I said the manual doesn't really explain the proper method.

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Best is to not touch rearming window at all and do it from the ground crew. Else, what the Tau said, is correct.

 

If chaff and flares are completely empty, does setting 30/30 in the F10 menu and putting AIM-9s on the outer pylons give me a full countermeasure load, regardless of what the sliders are showing?

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so using the AN/ALE menu alone WILL NOT rearm the countermeasures.

 

However, if you select the loadout you want through that menu and then select the same numbers on the sliders it WILL reload your CM.

 

HB, I understand its not supposed to work this way, but this is the only way i have managed to get a reload so far


Edited by Tyrant07
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so using the AN/ALE menu alone WILL NOT rearm the countermeasures.

 

However, if you select the loadout you want through that menu and then select the same numbers on the sliders it WILL reload your CM.

 

HB, I understand its not supposed to work this way, but this is the only way i have managed to get a reload so far

 

Ok now I'm confused. IronMike said one thing, and you're saying something completely different. This is exactly why I asked the question, because depending on where you look you will get two different answers.

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Ok now I'm confused. IronMike said one thing, and you're saying something completely different. This is exactly why I asked the question, because depending on where you look you will get two different answers.

 

The way I posted is the only way I have managed to get a successful countermeasure reload after exhausting my starting loadout. If you try to rearm them by simply using the AN/ALE-39 menu you WILL NOT get a reload.

 

I understand what Ironmike says should be the correct way to reload them, however right now that simply does not work and has not worked for all of 2020.

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F14B in DCS have two CM stations, one is build-in aircraft another is add on.

 

AN.ALE 39 is build in and it have space for 60 cartridges and those can be set by mission editor or radio/groundcrew. This station is only one in F14 with flares. You can set any ratio of flares to chaff as long they are multiple of 10.

 

When u take AIM9s on stations 1A and 8A u get add on station, which is attached directly to sidewinder pylons. These contain chaff only and they last for 40 additional chaff drops.

 

As u see even though rearmament window states u can have hundreds of countermeasures, in actuality you get them much less - a M2000 level of it. For most multiplayer missions ALE 39 is fully loaded with flares so default loadout is 60 flares and 40 chaff. Personally I like to change that by ground crew to 30/30 ratio in ALE39, so in the end I get 30 flares and 70 chaff which seem much more effective

 

For info seek into manual.

http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#an-ale-39-countermeasures-dispensing-set

 

Wait, so if i got this right:

1. The 2x LAU-138 launchers contain 160 chaff each.

2. 4 of these chaff are equivalent to 1 "Standard" DCS chaff unit;

3. Dispensing a CM releases chaff from both launchers at the same time (4 at a time);

4. This gives us 40 launches from the LAU's;

5. AN/ALE-39 (both units put together) hold 60 CM of either chaff or flare;

6. Each of these units counts as 1 "standard" of the said DCS type.

 

Hypothesis - say we load 2x LAU-138's and top the AN/ALE-39 with chaff only. We proceed to the threat area and start dispensing CM. The first 40 launches will be "double" sets of the 138 and the last 60 will be "single" sets from the 39.

 

Question - Are the double sets treated as 2 chaff units when compared to the single sets as much as DCS CM rejection-saturation is concerned? That is, is a launch from the the two 138's twice as effective then a launch from the 39?

Modules: FC3, Mirage 2000C, Harrier AV-8B NA, F-5, AJS-37 Viggen, F-14B, F-14A, Combined Arms, F/A-18C, F-16C, MiG-19P, F-86, MiG-15, FW-190A, Spitfire Mk IX, UH-1 Huey, Su-25, P-51PD, Caucasus map, Nevada map, Persian Gulf map, Marianas map, Syria Map, Super Carrier, Sinai map, Mosquito, P-51, AH-64 Apache

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Grover is just looking in to it, I didnt want to say anything wrong possibly, so I forwarded it to him. He's super busy atm, but he should get back to you guys shortly.

Heatblur Simulations

 

Please feel free to contact me anytime, either via PM here, on the forums, or via email through the contact form on our homepage.

 

http://www.heatblur.com/

 

https://www.facebook.com/heatblur/

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Grover is just looking in to it, I didnt want to say anything wrong possibly, so I forwarded it to him. He's super busy atm, but he should get back to you guys shortly.

That's great to hear, because the CM rearming is the single most confusing thing about the Tomcat for me. It's even more confusing for me as I fly multicrew only and in a test my pilot and me (I was RIO and server host) only got it to work once somehow when we both (meaning me and my pilot had to do it, as it wouldn't sync between us otherwise, resulting in different CM cartridge loadouts displayed in the kneeboard between us) used the rearming windows as well as the ground crew option. We ran out of time to test it further and confirm this though, so I'm still not really sure how it works correctly. :huh:

So please tell groover to also check this in multicrew, not just in SP!


Edited by QuiGon

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!

 

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Multicrew desync is nothing we can influence unfortunately though. I mean, we try what we can to alleviate it of course, but it happens "to us" just as it happens "to you" so to speak.

Heatblur Simulations

 

Please feel free to contact me anytime, either via PM here, on the forums, or via email through the contact form on our homepage.

 

http://www.heatblur.com/

 

https://www.facebook.com/heatblur/

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Multicrew desync is nothing we can influence unfortunately though. I mean, we try what we can to alleviate it of course, but it happens "to us" just as it happens "to you" so to speak.

I understand that you can't do much about it, but it would be good if the proper way to work around these issues would be documented somewhere at least. Or in case it is not possible to work around it, it should be mentioned somewhere, as it can drive people crazy trying it :)

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!

 

Tornado3 small.jpg

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I would believe so. 2 LAU 138s launches 2 "full "chaff in total per impulse. Now, to make things more interesting, in manual they say that in RL, F-14s carried only one Lau 138 as, due to its size it hampers access to cooling bottle in shoulder aim9 pylon on one side

Wait, i think it was one per pylon, thought they could actually carry two.

Modules: FC3, Mirage 2000C, Harrier AV-8B NA, F-5, AJS-37 Viggen, F-14B, F-14A, Combined Arms, F/A-18C, F-16C, MiG-19P, F-86, MiG-15, FW-190A, Spitfire Mk IX, UH-1 Huey, Su-25, P-51PD, Caucasus map, Nevada map, Persian Gulf map, Marianas map, Syria Map, Super Carrier, Sinai map, Mosquito, P-51, AH-64 Apache

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Technically they could, but in Real Life they didn't. Exactly same with Dumb bombs, or 6 Aim54s. They were cleared to do it, but never actually did it. At least with US Navy service. Not much info for Iranians.

Eh, the Iranians never got the BOL so let them worry about it :D

Modules: FC3, Mirage 2000C, Harrier AV-8B NA, F-5, AJS-37 Viggen, F-14B, F-14A, Combined Arms, F/A-18C, F-16C, MiG-19P, F-86, MiG-15, FW-190A, Spitfire Mk IX, UH-1 Huey, Su-25, P-51PD, Caucasus map, Nevada map, Persian Gulf map, Marianas map, Syria Map, Super Carrier, Sinai map, Mosquito, P-51, AH-64 Apache

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  • 5 months later...
On 10/1/2020 at 2:52 PM, IronMike said:

Grover is just looking in to it, I didnt want to say anything wrong possibly, so I forwarded it to him. He's super busy atm, but he should get back to you guys shortly.

 

Did Grover ever find out the definitive way to rearm countermeasures? Or did Grover post in another thread that I missed?

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12 hours ago, Halcyon said:

Did Grover ever find out the definitive way to rearm countermeasures? Or did Grover post in another thread that I missed?

 

I don't think there is an answer to this yet. I myself have been experimenting with Tomcat countermeassure rearming in the past few weeks again, but still haven't found a way how to rearm countermeassures reliably (especially when flying with multicrewing).

It seems like both crewmembers (or maybe just the RIO or maybe this also depends if one of them is the server host or not) have to change the CM  loadout through the comms menu and then perform a rearming afterwards, but that often results in some other odd bugs, like inconsistent fuel loads (see pic).

 

So yeah, I would really appreciate if this could get answered/fixed!

Meanwhile I continue experimenting with different ways to rearm CMs...

 

Screen_210226_183722.png


Edited by QuiGon

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!

 

Tornado3 small.jpg

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10 minutes ago, Skysurfer said:

Afaik. only the pilot can rearm/refuel the jet via the comms menu. 

 

No, that's definitely no true. I've done this often enough as a RIO myself. It can sometimes cause issues though, if both crewmembers rearm/refuel the jet in turns and result in weird fuel amounts as seen in the pic above.


Edited by QuiGon
  • Like 1

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!

 

Tornado3 small.jpg

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