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TOW the most feared low altitude air defense?


mjolner

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Been up against manpads, Linebacker, Chap, Avenger, only the Bradley mounted TOW missile makes me sweat. Endless reload and no effective counter measure except stay away.

 

The effectiveness of flares on the Black SHark makes infrared seekers worthless at any difficulty. Atleast my observation.

 

Whats up with all the stingers hitting the ground? Known bug or bad AI?

 

Anyone else have different story?

 

 

Even so, still playing and having a blast. I can almost land anywhere I want now.

 

Cheers

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I think the strangest thing that has me most terrified out there is the T-72 MBT's 122mm gun. I've never read of a tank actually using its main gun to shoot at/down helicopters, but i'll be dog goned if they didn't do that to me on multiple occasions. Lets just say I employ the hell out of some standoff. If i'm closer than 7-ish km from any enemy, i'm not a happy camper.

 

Brad

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Spanish Leopards shoot down many helicopters in the simulators, day after day with the main gun. It´s something very usual. Nothing too much complicated for the weapons computers.

 

A stopped helicopter is a died one.

" You must think in russian.."

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  • ED Team

To avoid being main tank gun and ATGM fodder, be very careful about hovering within 4 km of a shooter, and if within the threat area, never drive directly at the shooter with no crossing angle. Generally, you want to be be side slipping in the threat area a bit and never give the shooter a head on shot. When you get a lase warning, it's a good indication you are about to have a round inbound, so quickly maneuver the aircraft.

 

Playing the excellent Steel Beats Pro gives you a good idea of this from the tanker's POV.

 

As mentioned above, many tank and ATGM crews these days practice regularly engaging slow and low helos. With the MPAT round, this is even more effective.


Edited by Wags
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Well that's just plain good information to know. That's something i've never heard ever happening. Standoff is my main deal, i'm always seeking an engagement within the last third of my weapons engagement ranges, not so effective against moving targets, but stationary armor in a field it works well enough.

 

Brad

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So watch out for T-72s got it.

 

What about the TOW missile. Is it supposed to be so effective against air borne targets? I fear that more than a tank round. If you are side tracking you can dodge a round but not a TOW atleast less likely to avoid the missile.

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If i'm closer than 7-ish km from any enemy, I'm not a happy camper.

Holy cow - THAT'S why I keep being shot down?!?! I'm not usually much further than 2-3 km!!! Too much strafing at 600 kts in Falcon I think. SAMs in Falcon = they're toast 99% of the time...with guns.

 

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Thanks for the info guys. Gonna try some masking tactics with the Bradleys, see how I fare. I have to admit at this point I have been testing different systems by approaching slow at 30 to 50mm seeing how long I live.

 

I also downloaded Mitch's skin pack from Lockofiles and have been playing with a turkish Ka-50 against russian SAMs, lots o fun.

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Playing the excellent Steel Beats Pro gives you a good idea of this from the tanker's POV.

 

Oh yes, someone moving in a zick-zack pattern towards you is the worst type of target (for me at least). The time to target (for the projectile) and the irregular pattern makes a hassle.

 

 

Anyways, I haven't been hit by a tank's main gun yet. What get me most of the times are either SAM launches I'm not aware of or the small caliber roof mounted guns. And the not so usual radar guided missiles.

 

I need to check out this TOW thing, their range is very "short" (based on Steel Beasts experience) 3km or something. So being 5km away would bring me outside of harms way from TOW's at least. And at these ranges, a AP round from a tank would be hard to put on a target aswell even if it's moving really slowly (as you do when hoover, I'm never still. I move in one way and another in 2-3km/h)

/Nasder, "I came, I saw, I got shot down."

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So watch out for T-72s got it.

 

What about the TOW missile. Is it supposed to be so effective against air borne targets? I fear that more than a tank round. If you are side tracking you can dodge a round but not a TOW atleast less likely to avoid the missile.

 

The TOW is wire-guided by the shooter, so it would be a little harder to evade. I believe it has about 3-4km range.

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  • ED Team

For tactics and threats from tanks, see the book "Weapons Free - Story of a Gulf War Royal Navy Pilot". Very good descriptions - tanks are definitely a threat to helos!

For an up to date book of Apache tactics in Afghanistan - "Apache Dawn"

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Just don't hover in the battle area unless you're sure about your safety. That's a common mistake I see online- people hit autohover and start shooting at things. No easier way to get all kind of surprises in your face.

 

As for TOW or any other land-guided ATGM- just beam or change altitude. They're cable guided by an operator but they're not maneuvarable at all. I haven't been hit by ATGM yet, though I've eate some 120mm rounds.


Edited by =RvE=Tito

"See, to me that's a stupid instrument. It tells what your angle of attack is. If you don't know you shouldn't be flying." - Chuck Yeager, from the back seat of F-15D at age 89.

=RvE=

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Regarding the TOW, the Bradley has only two ready rounds, after that it would require a lengthy manual reload. Also I believe that the TOW can only be fired and guided from a standstill vehicle (one of the SBP players please confirm this). I guess stuff like this will be improved over time.


Edited by MBot
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  • ED Team

For those of you with infantry training, when flying a helo, think like a sniper. Observe from concealment, shoot, move your position. Final assault tactics do not work unless you have another force saturating the target area from another position

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If you know where the enemy is, plot your course such that you are concealed until the last few moments, bump up, fire and voila, dead enemies.

 

I must say I find doing this in the BS very hard and really highlights the advantage of a two man crew - twiddling with the Shkval to get the cursors on target while manouvering is bloody hard!:) Thinking about it, maybe I need to use padlock and the HMS more!

 

Closing into guns range is, for me, far too dangerous (although of course I do it in BS) - you can end up in threat envelope of manpad real fast. In real life, I'd behard pressed to ever want to be within 6km of anywhere the enemy could be. I'm amazed that in Iraq there haven't been more US helicoter loses - I can only assume the Iraq's didn't have many Iglas. One day someone's airforce is going to be in for real shock if they fight an organised enemy with a healthy stock of IR SAMs...


Edited by McVittees

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I have been practicing over and over locking targets at 100+ kmh flying low. Before this I got shot down too many times by those nasty tanks. Normally I fly past target area at approx 5 ~ 6 km from center. Any SAM launches should be easy avoidable at that range. Then I position myself at 03.00 from target at approx. 8 km. Then I work my way closer to the battlefield (slowly).

 

I still hate those man held stingers, hard to spot and they also come as a surprise.

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I forgot to mention to actually, a lot of the stuff i've mentioned works rather well against MANPADS and older SAM systems. The 2S6 (god help you if you encounter it) kind of throws a wrench in the whole works. It's missiles can engage you out to 8km, and its guns cover the middle ground out to a max of 4km. So, if the enemy has a solid ADA setup, i.e. there's a single radar site doing the hunting, and its feeding the data out to the gun units, life can get very interesting, and very, very bad for you in a hurry.

 

Brad

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I forgot to mention to actually, a lot of the stuff i've mentioned works rather well against MANPADS and older SAM systems. The 2S6 (god help you if you encounter it) kind of throws a wrench in the whole works. It's missiles can engage you out to 8km, and its guns cover the middle ground out to a max of 4km. So, if the enemy has a solid ADA setup, i.e. there's a single radar site doing the hunting, and its feeding the data out to the gun units, life can get very interesting, and very, very bad for you in a hurry.

 

Brad

 

Nice post, Brad. Hopefully we'll see ground units (especially air-defences) cooperation in a patch or other DCS module.

"See, to me that's a stupid instrument. It tells what your angle of attack is. If you don't know you shouldn't be flying." - Chuck Yeager, from the back seat of F-15D at age 89.

=RvE=

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Aye - something about the 'Warning - Under Attack' Rita message that manages to turn all my Fingers to Thumbs........BOOM..........Oops........Scratch one Kamov.....:pilotfly:

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Being a former Army 11H Heavy Anti Armor Infantryman and a rated expert gunner, I can tell you if you are within 3Km, I would take a shot at you. And I would most likely hit you, and that is from a HMMWV traversing unit, which is manually controlled. IIRC the M2's have much better tracking.

 

It is theoretically possible to jam the BGM-71 although I don't recall it ever being recorded as being done. The BGM-71 has a IR and UV strobe on the rear of the missile. If you have seen one launched what most people believe to be the rocket motor on the back is actually the IR strobe. The tracking unit will monitor these strobes and can tell the relative distance between the strobe and where the cross hairs are pointed, and send proper guidance back down the wires to the missile. Theoretically if you jammed both the IR and UV beacon you could jam the BGM-71. But that is the reason it uses both IR and UV is because its practically impossible to jam.


Edited by =Prophet=
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