Ability to call in Arty

[HansRoaming]

Am currently reading the most excellent book, Snake Pilot, about a Cobra pilot who flew attack helicopters in Vietnam.

 

One of the type of missions they would fly was to escort a scout and apart from using their own weapons to engage any found enemies could call in arty and air strikes.

 

Does the Russian military give such an ability to it's Ka-50 pilots, especially if I remember correctly that these are special forces helicopters that I can imagine engage in the type of warfare missions the above cobra pilot did?

 

You can imagine, you fly very low level to terrain mask, find the enemy camp and using the targeting capability of you helicopter use the Abris to plot a grid reference that can be passed onto Arty. Do currently units have this capability in the Russian military to operate like this and would it be possible to do in game if they do?

 

To act as the on scene commander using direct and calling in strikes. If so would think it would add depth to the combat side of this excellent sim.

[nemises]

Allthough it is not possible to do this completely dynamically in the ME (ie. sending co-ordinates) , it could certainly be approximated by using triggers.

 

If it were possible to set flag's from an action (ie. send custom message), then you could trigger from your radio, but as it stands, the best you could do is "fake" it by having an audio message and activate group action based on a locational trigger zone.

[Acedy]

OT: make sure that you also read the "Low Level Hell" book, it has been written from the perspective of an OH-6 pilot, i.e. the complementary part in the "hunter-killer" team.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Low-Level-Hell-Scout-Pilot/dp/0891417192/

[EtherealN]

Another possible "fake" way to do it is to have an enemy unit that is not under direct threat from your other friendlies. You then have a flag on that unit that is activated with the "group damaged" flag (I think that was the name of it), which activates friendly artillery. That way, when you engage the enemy (signifying that you have found them), you get immediate artillery support. Since there won't be any other friendlies laying down punishment on those targets, the only way to activate the flag is for the player to locate and engage them.

 

But as for the user manually specifying a target point and ordering the fire mission, no, this is not possible wit the current mechanisms.

[Dusty Rhodes]

That would be a good way to approximate calling in Arty. Good thinking EtherealN! ;)

[HansRoaming]

But as for the user manually specifying a target point and ordering the fire mission, no, this is not possible wit the current mechanisms.

 

Thanks everyone for your replies.

 

I didn't think it would be possible currently within the game. Does anyone know if this is a capabilty the Russian special forces ka-50 pilots can make use of though? If so would be a neat addition in a future DCS patch maybe.

[Valtyr]

I don't know current russian doctrine, but calling for fire is not very complicated, it can be, but the basic version is rather simple. Now, once again, I can't speak for the russian military, I'm going by U.S. Army standards here.

 

But the KA-50 is more then capable of getting all the information needed to place a call fo fire. Most important of all, Target Location (MGRS, or map coordinates) and what kind of target the guns will be firing at. So as long as the KA-50 has communications with a forward observer, the gun battery itself or someone who can pass the information on to said gun battery. The ABRIS/SHIVAL make this very easy.

 

I guess it all depends on Russian Doctrine.

[goldfinger35]

Ability to call in Arty would be one of the best and most entertaining options in the game.

[CAT_101st]

This was one of my favrot options in the Jane's LB2 game just sit back and watch the mayhem. Jane's also limited the bardge time and had a restock on shells time befor you culd call for it agin.

[HansRoaming]

I wonder if we have any Russian military helo pilots n here that could shed light on some doctrine such as calling in arty?

[ericinexile]

Another possible "fake" way to do it is to have an enemy unit that is not under direct threat from your other friendlies. You then have a flag on that unit that is activated with the "group damaged" flag...

 

Tried this last night and it does work well. Nice one, Ethereal! But I really hate how the lack of a dynamic campaign forces us into this "toy soldier" mindset of battlefield creation and play.

[Dusty Rhodes]

It is the big BEAR in the room. Without a dynamic campaign, replayability is left up to the community. I for one like mission oriented, realistic missions that have a meaning for something. But if I build it, I already know what can and does happen before it happens. Major bummer for the mission/campaign maker. Right now there just doesn't seem to be enough mission makers. People are still basic flight now but will burn through the campaigns and single missions in no time and then what. You hope your buddies or the community are making missions and lately from the thread dedicated to mission makers, no one is sharing.

[HansRoaming]

Dusty, to go off topic a sec am currently reading a lot of helicopter combat books (including now, Low Level Hell) to try and get a feel for how a mission would look to be real.

 

I wonder if anyone knows of any translated good Russian helicopter pilot books though? Maybe from Afghanistan etc?

[EtherealN]

But if I build it, I already know what can and does happen before it happens.

 

Well, that depends on how much randomization you build into the mission. With sufficient random elements your foreknowledge won't be much bigger than what a proper briefing would give you.

 

That aside, yeah, a good dynamic campaign would have been nice - but I definitely don't want to be the coder who gets the job of devising a dynamic campaign that remains realistic enough.