Trouble locking at dusk

[Jalava]

I was wondering that when flying the mission Dusk in first campaign, I had severe problems locking to targets.

 

After pressing lock, the hud just said ЧД and i just couldn't find that from my manual anywhere.

 

Then I thought that perhaps smoke and heat rising from wrecks in front of me might block proper laser lock and circled to the side of target area and suddenly everything worked.

 

However, I'm interested in undestanding different HUD states while targeting that might occur and if my hypothesis was right.

 

Man that mission was hard to do, I alway ran into trouble when out of missiles and had to close in for rockets :)

[GGTharos]

The Shkval is not a low-light device.

[Jalava]

The Shkval is not a low-light device.

 

I know, but low-light conditions shouldn't affect laser-lock, as the laser is reflected in enhanced manner in low-light conditions, right?

[Peyoteros]

Shkval does not lock on target in the dark as it is TV sencor and works purely on the contrast betveen object and the background. There is a Su34, which drops some candle* (ilumination) bombs. Once they're lit you can lock and fire Vikhr missiles. Other than that you can correct laser beam manualy while missile is flying to the target without locking on it.

[Jalava]

I think you are thinking different mission, in dusk you fly over the border and mountain range and then descent to destroy a camp near lake. You have lots of BMP-2, BTR-80, T-72 to destroy, air-support helps initially with air-defenses but after that they just leave.

 

And it's not really that dark in there, almost normal day-light conditions.

http://jalava.stc.cx/dcs/dusk_complete.jpg

 

Thing is, from certain directions, I can't get lock even from 4km, from some directions I can get lock from 8km. Any idea what that ЧД means in hud when attempting to lock. Because I do get range measured properly, but no TA lock, it just skhval screen just keeps at TГ while hud says ЧД and counter counts down for cool down.

 

Can I improve the locking by adjusting the skhval contrast and brightness settings?

[Peyoteros]

Well, mission time is 20:39, it's too dark for proper lock... I guess contrast and brightness adjusts Shkval screen view only...

Yeah I did had other mission in mind. Looks like mission for rockets thou...

[EvilBivol-1]

The ЧД on the HUD is the "Laser-Active" indication, meaning the laser is firing to range the target. The problem is not related to the laser. It is, as pointed out by others, that the Shkval optics are not able to reliably track a target (engage "auto-track" mode, "TA" on the TVM), due to the limited light conditions. You can still ground stabilize the Shkval ("TГ" on the TVM), but you cannot actually track a target. You can still employ weapons in ground-stabilized mode, but you have to manually adjust the LOS to keep it on target.

[Jalava]

Ah, I see, that's exactly what I did when couldn't get tracking.

 

Slew to target, range check, fire and correcting los on shkval while moving sideways and yawing nose towards target :)

 

Pretty easy from <4km ranges... though that's when they start firing back at you :)

[d0ppler]

Another tip in order to make it a easier on your home trip is to ask for NGV mounted helmet from the ground crew before you take off.

[Chillspider]

maybe if you get close enough use the spotlight

[d0ppler]

maybe if you get close enough use the spotlight

I guess your chopper is ripped into pieces by enemy fire before your spotlight is useful ;)