How do I properly execute a skate?

[Hyperlynx]

I've watched this video series on BVR combat a few times, and found it very informative, but I still have a few questions.

From what I understand, a "short skate" is that once you reach the specified distance from the threat you launch your missile and then immediately perform an out (a full AB max performance turn to directly away from the threat). But in that case you'll break your lock on the target before your missile goes active.

That can't be right, though. When is the correct time to fire my missile? Am I actually supposed to fire, crank, and go out? How do I tell when to launch?

Related question: in my testing against a Su-27 at 20,000ft, the number on my HUD for what distance I'll be from the enemy when my missile goes pitbull if I were to fire now is always 14nm, even when I'm going Mach 1.5. That's within the (Falcon BMS) documented minimum abort range of 15. So I'd never be able to launch on the enemy and have the missile go active before I have to go out. Is that expected?

It seems to me that the best I can reasonably expect, given a MAR of 15nm, is to convince the enemy to go away rather than kill them. A kill would simply be a bonus.

Finally: if you're doing a skate or long skate, how do you know when to turn back in? You turn out to defeat any missile the threat may have fired at you, right? So how do you know when that's happened, and it's time to go in again?

[Tenkom]

If up against intelligent(players) enemies I don't think you will ever "know" much. It's all about anticipation. Like a game of chess.

Fire an amraam early which you know will not hit but it will force him to do something. But he has done the same probably. So you need to do something. But when to turn back in? Too early and you eat a missile. Too late and he will gain the advantage... 
I don't know. This is why I stick to shooting AIs. Then you just climb to 40k feet, launch the amraam at 40nm and they will usually eat it.

[WHOGX5]

2 hours ago, Hyperlynx said:

I've watched this video series on BVR combat a few times, and found it very informative, but I still have a few questions.

From what I understand, a "short skate" is that once you reach the specified distance from the threat you launch your missile and then immediately perform an out (a full AB max performance turn to directly away from the threat). But in that case you'll break your lock on the target before your missile goes active.

That can't be right, though. When is the correct time to fire my missile? Am I actually supposed to fire, crank, and go out? How do I tell when to launch?

Related question: in my testing against a Su-27 at 20,000ft, the number on my HUD for what distance I'll be from the enemy when my missile goes pitbull if I were to fire now is always 14nm, even when I'm going Mach 1.5. That's within the (Falcon BMS) documented minimum abort range of 15. So I'd never be able to launch on the enemy and have the missile go active before I have to go out. Is that expected?

It seems to me that the best I can reasonably expect, given a MAR of 15nm, is to convince the enemy to go away rather than kill them. A kill would simply be a bonus.

Finally: if you're doing a skate or long skate, how do you know when to turn back in? You turn out to defeat any missile the threat may have fired at you, right? So how do you know when that's happened, and it's time to go in again?

The only difference between a Skate and a Short Skate, is that during a Skate you turn cold with enough distance to be able to turn hot again, reacquire your target, fire a missile, and then turn cold again before reaching the MAR. Short Skate simply means that you intend to turn out before the MAR with no margin to be able to turn hot again. Neither Skate nor Short Skate really has anything to do with when you launch your missiles.

When and how you launch your missiles will depend on the situation. Like you mentioned, during a Skate/Short Skate it makes sense to launch your missile when the M-Pole is equal to the distance at which you want to turn cold, as you'll be able to guide your missile until Pitbull. However, that might not always possible or desireable, so depending on the situation you can launch your missile both sooner or later than that. Remember that with active radar missiles (like the AIM-120) the missile can still acquire its target even without guidance, it's mostly a question of whether the enemy threat manages to maneuver outside of your missiles search cone before it is detected. So if you launch your missile "too late" and you have to turn cold before it goes active, assuming it wasn't to far from when it was supposed to go active or if the enemy threat hasn't maneuvered too much since you dropped the lock, chances are that it'll still be able to find its target. Sometimes you can even "mad dog" an AMRAAM without using your radar at all, and as long as you pointed your aircraft in the right direction before you launched it, it will (hopefully) find the target and kill it. So with these things in mind, you can choose to increase the risk of your missile not acquiring its target in exchange for a higher probability-of-kill by launching late, as that means your missile will have more energy. Likewise, you can launch a missile way to far away to have any real probability-of-kill at all, just in an attempt to get the threat to go defensive. Unfortunately we don't have the AIM-120's High PRF mode, or "Husky", in DCS yet, which would activate before reaching Pitbull and allow you to fire much sooner with the missile being able to guide itself against high aspect targets, as this would increase the distance from where you could launch your missiles.

Regarding the turn back in, that will depend on your tactics and what kind of threats you're up against. In general, you just want to be in a position where the enemy will not kill you as soon as you turn hot. If you're up against a Su-27 for example, it will probably launch both radar guided and infrared missiles at you, plus it can track you with it's infrared sensor, so simply having no RWR spikes is not enough to know that you're safe. If you're up against a M2000C, you know that it only has short range infra-reds, so if you're not spiked and got a good couple of miles between you, you're practically 100% safe to turn back in. So for something like the Su-27, you'd need to know the distance and/or aspect of the threat, as well as waiting long enough that you know that any eventual AA-10D's (R-27ET) are out of energy, to know whether you're safe to turn back in. To figure this out you can communicate with your wingmen or GCI, reference your RWR or HSD, etc. Just remember that LINK 16 is not 100% accurate and can show quite old tracks, so in situations where everything happens very quickly, it is not very reliable. Also, the AN/ALR-56M radar warning receiver in real life would give you a lot more information about the relative lethality of a detected threat, but it currently doesn't in DCS so it's a bit useless for assessing whether you're "safe" or not apart from knowing if you've got nails/spikes. Lastly, it's also a question of what your acceptable risk level is. How much risk are you willing to take in order to kill that threat? If you're protecting a high value asset you might want to take bigger risks than if you're flying BARCAP over a piece of meaningless ocean.

[Hyperlynx]

So it sounds like short/long/normal skate procedures don't actually have anything to do with when to launch missiles, they're totally separate things. Is that right?

But that should affect the desired out range, though, for a normal ("medium"? lol) skate, though, right? You'd pick a distance so that when you turn back in you have enough range to launch with the MAR as the m-pole, crank, and then go out at MAR with the missile hopefully pitbull? Or is the MOR really supposed to be the distance at which you go out (always? only if spiked? only if fired on?) and when safe you turn back in and only have enough room to immediately yeet a missile before going out for the last time?

Or is this all up to the flight lead to brief when they want shots taken, and what launch procedures to use for skate and long skate?

[WHOGX5]

2 hours ago, Hyperlynx said:

So it sounds like short/long/normal skate procedures don't actually have anything to do with when to launch missiles, they're totally separate things. Is that right?

But that should affect the desired out range, though, for a normal ("medium"? lol) skate, though, right? You'd pick a distance so that when you turn back in you have enough range to launch with the MAR as the m-pole, crank, and then go out at MAR with the missile hopefully pitbull? Or is the MOR really supposed to be the distance at which you go out (always? only if spiked? only if fired on?) and when safe you turn back in and only have enough room to immediately yeet a missile before going out for the last time?

Or is this all up to the flight lead to brief when they want shots taken, and what launch procedures to use for skate and long skate?

Yeah, as I mentioned, all distances like those for long/short/normal skates, decision range, minimum abort range, etc. do not care about your own missiles or when you launch them at all. They are distances which are dependent on the enemy missiles and how quickly you can turn cold. They are only meant as pre-calculated distances which you can adhere to in order to safely employ different types of tactics. It is completely, 100%, absolutely mega separate from when you launch your own missiles.

I think what you're trying to get at is which tactic to choose. As I explained previously, it depends on a lot of different factors. In real life, flight leads will call out the desired tactic for each engagement depending on what he thinks is appropriate, depending on the tactical picture, his own air forces doctrine, the acceptable risk levels for his mission, etc. Also, like you're touching upon, it might not make a whole lot of sense to employ Skate against a threat where the desired out range is so far that you're not even within Rmax1 range before you need to turn out. You simply have to choose what you think will be most effective and accomplish the mission objectives. Also, these tactics like Skates and Banzais are only the intention of doing something. Air combat is very dynamic, and a good pilot has to both be proactive but also reactive to changing circumstances. If you tell your flight to Skate, does not mean that your forbidden from changing that plan before you turn out at the DOR/MOR. Similarly, just because you choose to employ Banzai tactics, does not mean you're not allowed to turn out before the MAR if you notice that Banzai wasn't such a good idea.

If you want to listen to how they do things in real life, there are some audio recordings on youtube of real world fighter pilots communicating with AWACS. There you can hear how they actually communicate with each other and choose tactics for each engagement. I've linked a video below which shows this pretty well. The subtitles aren't perfect, but it's good enough.

 

[Hyperlynx]

Thanks! I'm going to have to give that a few listens and study it. The rest of what you've been saying is very helpful too.

So, in a skate or long skate you turn in again once you're sure it's safe, based on what you're up against, and the SA you've built up. Cool. But how do you decide (as a flight lead) whether to go out at that MOR and do the skate as normal, vs just continue on and short skate or whatever? I get why you go out and stay out in a short skate: because you're skirting the range at which the enemy can kill you. I'm not quite clear on the function of the out in a skate or long skate, especially if these are not necessarily coupled with launching a missile at the enemy.

I mean, would you go out at the MOR regardless of what the enemy is doing? Regardless of whether you're spiked or launched on? That doesn't seem right, it seems like you'd make the decision based on different factors...

edit: Or is the idea that the MOR is a decision point, where you go out if you're actively threatened, but otherwise do something else?

Edited May 25, 2024 by Hyperlynx

[WHOGX5]

On 5/25/2024 at 4:57 AM, Hyperlynx said:

Thanks! I'm going to have to give that a few listens and study it. The rest of what you've been saying is very helpful too.

So, in a skate or long skate you turn in again once you're sure it's safe, based on what you're up against, and the SA you've built up. Cool. But how do you decide (as a flight lead) whether to go out at that MOR and do the skate as normal, vs just continue on and short skate or whatever? I get why you go out and stay out in a short skate: because you're skirting the range at which the enemy can kill you. I'm not quite clear on the function of the out in a skate or long skate, especially if these are not necessarily coupled with launching a missile at the enemy.

I mean, would you go out at the MOR regardless of what the enemy is doing? Regardless of whether you're spiked or launched on? That doesn't seem right, it seems like you'd make the decision based on different factors...

edit: Or is the idea that the MOR is a decision point, where you go out if you're actively threatened, but otherwise do something else?

 

The main reason to perform Skate or Long Skate is simply to buy time. If you have a mission tasking like TARCAP (providing cover at a target which other aircraft are striking), then your primary goal is simply to protect that target, rather than score kills. In a situation like that, you usually have a designated time period where the strike package will be vulnerable, and as long as you keep all enemies away from the target during that vulnerability period, you have accomplished your mission. In that case it makes sense to launch your missiles as far away as you can, just to slow the enemy down. At those distances, as you pretty much know that the enemy will not be hit by your missile unless they willingly choose to fly into it rather than defending, you can for example choose to only shoot a single AMRAAM at an enemy 4-ship, simply to force them to defend. Then as you get closer and the probability-of-kill increases, you can increase the amount of missiles you launch as they now actually stand a chance of killing something.

The downside of the Short Skate is that you don't have a lot of options left after that. You're cold just outside the Stern WEZ, you probably have an enemy behind you, and if your opponent is faster than you it won't take long until they can kill you even from the rear aspect. If you have superior numbers you might be able to recommit doing some kind of split with your wingmen, or maybe you can flee for long enough that some other friendly flight delouses you or your opponent figures it's not worth the fuel to chase you down. However, if you've got a long station time to keep, then fleeing for a prolonged amount of time isn't great for your fuel state.

And yes, you can view all these distances as decision points. Nothing is etched in stone, situations change, and you've gotta be able to react to those changing circumstances. Like in the example above with a TARCAP mission, if your only goal is to buy time and you've planned a Skate, but you get a golden opportunity to actually kill the enemy, then that is obviously preferable to turning out and spending an additional 10 minutes wasting fuel and missiles just to buy time, only to eventually end up in a position where you need to kill the enemy anyways, just with worse odds, less fuel and less missiles than you had before. The important thing is just to make sure you accomplish your mission task in the best way possible, that's what your decision making should be based on.

[Hyperlynx]

On 5/27/2024 at 8:14 PM, WHOGX5 said:

The main reason to perform Skate or Long Skate is simply to buy time. If you have a mission tasking like TARCAP (providing cover at a target which other aircraft are striking), then your primary goal is simply to protect that target, rather than score kills. In a situation like that, you usually have a designated time period where the strike package will be vulnerable, and as long as you keep all enemies away from the target during that vulnerability period, you have accomplished your mission. In that case it makes sense to launch your missiles as far away as you can, just to slow the enemy down. At those distances, as you pretty much know that the enemy will not be hit by your missile unless they willingly choose to fly into it rather than defending

That makes a ton of sense! Thank you!

It reminds me a lot of SEAD using HARMs with no HTS or actual DEAD, where you keep missiles in flight just to keep SAMs from being active while the strike aircraft are in the zone rather than because you're trying to kill the SAMs.