Shturm - effective range

[Mr_sukebe]

I was out practicing last night in the Hind, conducting attacks against an armoured road convoy of BTR80s.

Have to say that I found it a little disconcerting that whilst I could select a target at a sensible range, but by the time Petro had put the crosshair over the target for me to fire, that during my attack run, I was already under (the ridiculously accurate) AI fire from the moving BTRs.

 

From wiki, I see that the effective range of the Shturms is upto 5km.  My guess is that I was able to fire at around 1-2km.  

Has anyone had success firing them from further off?  If so, what type of attack pattern were you using?

[WinterH]

Start the attack run from further up, I was able to get pretty longish shots both with Petrovich and with multicrew usually. At least from quite longer range than most AAA can return fire. Sometimes I am close enough for 23mm AAA to fire just before the missile impact, but being at extreme range they are easy to dodge, or even not accurate at all.

 

You can also try using missiles from hover, or slow flight beyond their range, but it isn't Hind's strong suite, and usually ends up with about as many misses as hits for me when I try it. And doesn't work when Petrovich is gunner, only as an actual behind the guidance/sight.

 

The simplest attack pattern: fly low with decent forward speed, align the sights and keep stable, turn back after the missile impacts. Not always, but usually I can get quite decent standoff to turn back this way, or even get two missiles in sometimes. The key is starting  the attack run from decently far away.

 

Another one is apparently from period Soviet or East German manuals: if you know where targers are, line up while behind cover/terrain many kilometers away, pop up with a climb, sight in and launch. Tried this multicrew with me as gunner, and the sight was very, very stable this way, and we already turned back after the hit quite far away from targets.

[Mr_sukebe]

Thanks, I’ll try both

[iLOVEwindmills]

7 hours ago, WinterH said:

Start the attack run from further up, I was able to get pretty longish shots both with Petrovich and with multicrew usually. At least from quite longer range than most AAA can return fire. Sometimes I am close enough for 23mm AAA to fire just before the missile impact, but being at extreme range they are easy to dodge, or even not accurate at all.

 

You can also try using missiles from hover, or slow flight beyond their range, but it isn't Hind's strong suite, and usually ends up with about as many misses as hits for me when I try it. And doesn't work when Petrovich is gunner, only as an actual behind the guidance/sight.

 

The simplest attack pattern: fly low with decent forward speed, align the sights and keep stable, turn back after the missile impacts. Not always, but usually I can get quite decent standoff to turn back this way, or even get two missiles in sometimes. The key is starting  the attack run from decently far away.

 

Another one is apparently from period Soviet or East German manuals: if you know where targers are, line up while behind cover/terrain many kilometers away, pop up with a climb, sight in and launch. Tried this multicrew with me as gunner, and the sight was very, very stable this way, and we already turned back after the hit quite far away from targets.

 

Echo this, just fly in a steady forward flight. No need to go anywhere near top speed but fast enough to be stable. Petro's accuracy pretty much reflects how steady you are flying it, if you don't jiggle (which is somewhat hard atm with flaky trim), you can get very high accuracy.

 

For the last bit, I would not recommend doing this right now. It would work in real life due to surprise but that does not exist ingame. You'll just be in the teeth of the enemy as everything with a gun will be training it on you the second you clear the hill. It's basically an ambush on you at this point, not on them. At range you can decide to decline the attack if too much fire comes in on you, up close you'll have to eat it from every single one of them.

 

Perhaps when they ever do something about the ridiculously omniscient AI it will be worthwhile.

[WinterH]

Just now, iLOVEwindmills said:

For the last bit, I would not recommend doing this right now. It would work in real life due to surprise but that does not exist ingame. You'll just be in the teeth of the enemy as everything with a gun will be training it on you the second you clear the hill. It's basically an ambush on you at this point, not on them. At range you can decide to decline the attack if too much fire comes in on you, up close you'll have to eat it from every single one of them.

Actually when we did this, we were comfortably away from AAA range by the time we turned back, felt really safe, but there weren't threats in that practice mission and only tried that once. But the key is, we did the pop-up and the missile shot both many kilometers away from the target area, and we were still some ways off by the time missile impacted.

[SparxOne]

I've explained my issue in another thread about the difficulty i'm experiencing trying to shoot ATGMs at AAAs with great range (Gepard for example) or attacking any type of armored vehicle that will instantly shoot at you with laser precise aim the moment you get inside their maximum attack range. The issue is ridiculous as you become very vulnerable throughout these processes.

 

This is the range of the Gepard + Detecting range, on the calculator is the range of the Gepard in meters of coarse, to compare that to the max range of the Shturm missiles

So we have the Shturm with its max range of 5500 meters, that gives us 1500 meters to work with when doing a run on a Gepard if you want to remain totally safe of coarse. You have to eyeball and acquire target before entering that 1500 meters zone (Good luck doing that without unit markers or preplanned intel of the exact location) than hope Petro actually hits the target before entering the 4000 meters radius or it's back to square one for a run and one less missile to put to good use (If you survived entering that engagement ring).

 

If you take into account the speed at which you would usually fly, which i'd say is probably around 250Km/h for a missile run, that gives you 21.5 seconds to use before entering the Gepards shooting range -> (Shooting missile and guiding it to target, considering Petro had properly acquired target + you being stable enough the moment you enter that 1500m zone).

 

Calculation i've made to find the 21.5 seconds : 250km/h = 250.000m/h -> 250.000/60 = 4166m/minutes -> 4166/60 = 69.5m/seconds -> 1500meters/69.5 = 21.5 seconds.

 

That was a scenario in its best case, most of the time you have to take into account tree lines blocking line of sight from certains angles (therefore forced to come from a certain angle otherwise missile hits trees), height you shouldn't go over as to stay safe from other longer range SAM threats, portions of the circle around that target you can't use because overlaping with other anti air engagement zones, the lack of any precise distance measuring tool to allow you or Petro to shoot the second you enter the 1500m mark, the fact that we are humans and simply have to remove probably 3-4 seconds to those 21.5 because of human brain lag or whatever you wanna call it haha, etc.

You're basically left with no more than 20 seconds at best inside that safe 1500 meters zone.

 

As much as Petro is really cool to use, his aim i would guess from my own experience is probably a good 50% hit rate at long shooting ranges, which isn't much i feel like.

 

I'm not gonna go too deep concerning the rocket attack runs on Tanks, APCs, IFVs, point is that they will almost always start engaging you with MGs/HMGs before you're even in range for the rocket trigger point while trying to keep the spread of those rockets to a minimum otherwise pretty much useless.

Therefore, if once again you wanna keep yourself entirely safe, you'd have to engage them with ATGMs and have a greater margin this time luckily. But therefore being a No Go for the rockets.

 

So basically this is my little Hind experience so far when it comes to using the Shturm. To me it all boils down to the fact that i personnaly feel the Hind is close to a turkey shoot when engaging AAAs or anything with decent anti-air capability. There is a lot of very defensive flying to do if you wanna go against those ! And i'd much rather use something like a Ka-50 or future Apache who have the hover and shoot capacity, allowing for much ease on all of the above.

 

Doing rocket runs on defensless convoys, buildings, troops or simply anything without proper anti-air capability ? Yeah Hind is super fun and cool to use for sure !

[iLOVEwindmills]

35mm is doom tier AAA, fast round, long range and 1 or 2 hits are frequently lethal. You are probably better off engaging IR sams while just spamming flares than trying to deal with Gepards.

 

Like you said, absolute max range only but you are uncomfortable regardless. Added to right now you are the one who has to eyeball the distance, Petrovich should hopefully be doing some better job at ranging soon.

 

Ataka might give us some breathing room later, faster missile with a bit more range.

Edited June 25, 2021 by iLOVEwindmills

[SparxOne]

6 minutes ago, iLOVEwindmills said:

35mm is doom tier AAA, fast round, long range and 1 or 2 hits are frequently lethal. You are probably better off engaging IR sams while just spamming flares than trying to deal with Gepards.

 

Like you said, absolute max range only but you are uncomfortable regardless. Added to right now you are the one who has to eyeball the distance, Petrovich should hopefully be doing some better job at ranging soon.

 

Ataka might give us some breathing room later, faster missile with a bit more range.

 

 

Going for guns on any SPAA unit or AAA unit is pretty much suicide if you ask me, unless you're 200% sure of wrecking the target in the very few split seconds exposing yourself, with the omniscient situational awareness of the ground AI, by the time you pop over your cover and start aligning your sight, he's most definitely already looking at you preparing for your pop up, it will very much be a matter of 2-3 seconds max before bullets start going through your windshield. 

Even if you were to shoot guns from long range, there is no way you are outranging him with your guns, so either way, if you can shoot him, he can too, and i'm willing to bet 3/4 of the time he'll have landed a critical burst by the time you line him up and actually get a hit.

 

I've thought about the Ataka, but unless Petro gets better at even longer ranges than what he is right now, than i'm still waiting to see how that will play out

[sublime]

This is an issue we worried about before release.  I don't know if it's as bad as many worried but it's bad.  It's really hard to engage almost anything in game that has a weapon without extreme risk.   Its a lot of fun but I wonder how many of these issues with ai they really can fix.  Some things will probably never be modelled totally like morale effect. Hell even modelling splinters and shrapnel would kill processors

[gnomechild]

Best strategy I've found for long range use of shturm,

 

Player pilot with Petrovich on the signt:

 

Fly just high enough to spot your target. 250kph. 8-10KM

 

Fly towards it with a 30-40* angle off while arguing with Petrovich about what target you're talking about/getting in spotting range/activating sighs/etc 

 

Once you have the target selected for Petrovich, turn towards it while climbing 20-30 degrees. When your airspeed hits 150, level off and line up the cross hairs. Should put you in a nice slow dive towards the target with about 15-20 seconds before you get disentegrated by magic AI.

 

Works very reliably for BMPs, Tanks, AAA emplacements. It is much harder to get the distance just right for a Gepard or other radar AAA, but 60% of the time it works every time. Haven't tried against any IR SAMs yet but I don't see it going too well. 

 

If you want Petrovich to fly while you're on the sight... May God have mercy on your soul. 

[SparxOne]

16 minutes ago, gnomechild said:

Best strategy I've found for long range use of shturm,

 

Player pilot with Petrovich on the signt:

 

Fly just high enough to spot your target. 250kph. 8-10KM

 

Fly towards it with a 30-40* angle off while arguing with Petrovich about what target you're talking about/getting in spotting range/activating sighs/etc 

 

Once you have the target selected for Petrovich, turn towards it while climbing 20-30 degrees. When your airspeed hits 150, level off and line up the cross hairs. Should put you in a nice slow dive towards the target with about 15-20 seconds before you get disentegrated by magic AI.

 

Works very reliably for BMPs, Tanks, AAA emplacements. It is much harder to get the distance just right for a Gepard or other radar AAA, but 60% of the time it works every time. Haven't tried against any IR SAMs yet but I don't see it going too well. 

 

If you want Petrovich to fly while you're on the sight... May God have mercy on your soul. 

 

Hahaha, nice read, thanks bud

[WinterH]

5 hours ago, iLOVEwindmills said:

Ataka might give us some breathing room later, faster missile with a bit more range.

It shouldn't change too much really, because the sight is barely good enough for Shturm's maximum range.

 

As for the Gepard, that's easily the most threatening AAA in DCS. If you want to take on the best anti helicopter thing in DCS with an older tech helicopter, results shouldn't be overly surprising :p. I'd say against that guy make an exception and try the other two methods of Shturm employment: with override switch, or "guide straight up first, then onto target". Tell Petrovich to hold 60km/h. Perhaps that can be reliable enough need to try. 57mm ZSU-57 and S-60 are also surprisingly scary against helicopters I've found. Gnomechild's method above looks good too. At least if there's no longer range radar sams to worry about.

 

I'd honestly rather take on a bunch of manpads or ir sam's than Gepard though. However, you can outrange most other AAA just fine really.

[admiki]

Guys, if you switch diff open(to the right of OBSERVE switch) you don't need to fly straight at your target. While you still need to be stable, it will give AI more problems of aiming correctly with enough lead to hit you.

[UncleZam]

It says on "Flakpanzer Gepard" wikipedia page (Finnish language version), that Gepard was designed to counter heavy attack helicopters like Mi-24. I guess they succeeded in their design goals.