AGM-65D "confused" by Power Line Poles in Caucasus Map

[LeCuvier]

I find that power line poles along the road make it almost impossible to kill MBT's with IR Mavericks. I have not tried othe Maverick types.

I can lock the tanks with the TGP no problem. I can slave the Maverick to SPI. The problem occurs when I push the TMS forward short in order to get a Maverick lock on the target. In that moment I can see see the SPI moving slightly away from the tank. The AGM usually hits a pole. Even if it doesn't hit the pole, it doesn't achieve a direct hit on the tank, and the tank is either just damaged, or totally unharmed.
I attach a track where I fire 4 Mavericks at 4 MBT's and get no kill.

Test AGM-65D with Poles.trk

Edit: I tried the same scenario with AGM-65H, but the result is not better.

Edited Sunday at 06:25 PM by LeCuvier

[Yurgon]

8 hours ago, LeCuvier said:

I find that power line poles along the road make it almost impossible to kill MBT's with IR Mavericks.

Unfortunately, that's an ages old problem. For whatever reason, Mavericks in DCS just love all sorts of poles (power line poles, lamp poles) and tend to prefer them over much juicier objects like main battle tanks. I assume the invisible hit-box or tracking-box of these things is just too large and it's probably not an easy fix.

In order to work around the issue, I guess you'll have to circle around the targets until the poles are no longer in front of them.

8 hours ago, LeCuvier said:

In that moment I can see see the SPI moving slightly away from the tank.

The crosshair. Tracking an object with a Maverick doesn't update the SPI (unless the Maverick is set as SPI Generator, which in your track I think it wasn't).

[LeCuvier]

5 hours ago, Yurgon said:

In order to work around the issue, I guess you'll have to circle around the targets until the poles are no longer in front of them.

Not sure that will help much. In my track, at least one of the tanks is in the middle between two poles, and the AGM does not kill it. It's as if the poles "distracted" the missile.

[LeCuvier]

I have been flying the A-10C since it became available, using AGM-65D for years without problems. Among others, the mission "Kashuri Gap" was one of my favourites.
That mission is no longer included with the A-10C II, but I kept a copy and updated it to the A-10C II. In that mission, the Maverick has become almost totally useless because the roads used by the red tanks have poles almost everywhere. I did not keep a copy of the old Caucasus map, but I suspect that it didn't have this profusion of poles.
I suspect that the problem began with the poles in the "new" Caucasus map.
So let's get rid of the poles! I'm afraid that's wishful thinking

[Yurgon]

48 minutes ago, LeCuvier said:

So let's get rid of the poles!

Having lit roads between cities and villages is a huuuuuuge bonus in the current version of the map. Removing the poles and, in turn, the road lights, would be a massive step backwards IMHO.

The best way to fix this would be to adjust the tracking-box or hit-box for the poles. And I have no idea if this is simple or complicated and what side-effects could come out of such a change. In either case, I share your frustration, and I'm not sure if this has been reported; it probably has, but let me double-check and create a new internal report if need be to hopefully see this addressed in a future update.

[LeCuvier]

38 minutes ago, Yurgon said:

Having lit roads between cities and villages is a huuuuuuge bonus in the current version of the map. Removing the poles and, in turn, the road lights, would be a massive step backwards IMHO.

The best way to fix this would be to adjust the tracking-box or hit-box for the poles. And I have no idea if this is simple or complicated and what side-effects could come out of such a change. In either case, I share your frustration, and I'm not sure if this has been reported; it probably has, but let me double-check and create a new internal report if need be to hopefully see this addressed in a future update.

Thank you, @Yurgon!

[Yurgon]

I just filed an internal report.

In testing this against the only other module in which I'm familiar with Mavericks, it turns out in the F/A-18C the AGM-65F seems to be able to hit the intended target just fine even if the target is obstructed by a powerline pole (in the same scenario as the A-10C II test). I crosschecked this against A-10C II with an AGM-65G and its larger warhead (compared to the D and H models) and found that the G model will still track and hit a powerline pole with perfect accuracy and will damage a tank right behind it to 50%, which might be considered a mission kill, but definitely not a k-kill.

Of course another workaround is to sacrifice one Maverick for a powerline pole, which will then be destroyed/removed, and allow to actually track and destroy the intended target with a second Maverick, provided the target doesn't move away after the pole was destroyed...

[LeCuvier]

9 hours ago, Yurgon said:

I just filed an internal report.
...

Thank you!
The result of your cross-check with he AGM-65F gives me hope that the problem may not be too difficult to correct.