known TGP not LASING when rolling towards the target

[MoppleTheWhale42]

I am flying at 12000 ft above sea level and have a target on sea level on my 3’o clock position in 9 nm distance. My targeting pod is installed on my right site and therefore has perfect visibility on the target. Nevertheless, I cannot fire the LASER. I need to roll slight to the left, i.e. away from the target, to be able to activate the LASER. As soon as my bank angle is 0, or I roll to the right, the LASER goes off. I have even unmounted the AIM-9s to ensure that nothing is blocking the LOS of the TGP.
I am pretty sure that this is new behavior, as this prevents to circle around a target and be able to LASER the target.

 

[Yurgon]

Sounds like a known issue.

The problem is that we only have one masking profile (M4, I believe), and it doesn't take into account what weapons are actually loaded on the various stations. So even with the TGP on 10 and nothing on 11, the masking profile still prevents the laser from firing despite a clear line of sight, as long as a Sidewinder or a jammer pod on station 11 would block the LOS if it was installed.

[MoppleTheWhale42]

Yurgon, thank you for the quick answer. Don't you think that this is new behavior? This behavior prevents us from circling around a target, and I am pretty sure that worked in the past.

[Foka]

No, it's nothing new.

Also, in addition to what Yurgon said - camera lense and laser lense are not in this same place on TGP. There is possibility, that you can see a terget, but laser can't.

 

[ASAP]

3 hours ago, Foka said:

No, it's nothing new.

Also, in addition to what Yurgon said - camera lense and laser lense are not in this same place on TGP. There is possibility, that you can see a terget, but laser can't.

 

As I understand it, its true in most if not all cases the laser will at least be artificially masked before the camera is. The system is designed to be a little conservative with the mask zone so it isn’t blasting high power energy off of your jet and reflecting harmful laser energy back into the optics or the at the pilot. 
 

if DCS wanted to fix it they’d either need to give us a more realistic dynamically updated LMZ or give us a visual indication of the LMZ in the TGP like the real thing or better yet, both of those features combined. 

[jaylw314]

The lowest I'm able to circle and keep the laser on is a depression angle of about 30 degrees, or a slant range : AGL ratio of about 2:1, e.g. 5 nm (30,000 feet) : 15,000' AGL, and I don't remember that changing in the last couple years.  9 nm and 12k' AGL seems unlikely.

Edited April 25, 2022 by jaylw314

[MoppleTheWhale42]

Thank you very much for the many valuable replies.

 

Looks like I didn't remember correctly and that my expectation was too high.

[NineLine]

Masking is something our SME asked us to address, I hope to see it at some point when we get back into the A-10C II.

[cow_art]

Unfortunately this is still happening and I find it quite frustrating. Any news on this?

[icemaker]

Still no love for A-10!