Red smoke

[Owl]

Hello

In DCS, sometimes enemy is marked with red smoke. That do they do in the real life?
 

Is it not happening in real life, or is a smoke cartridges shooting through the enemy, or dropped by aircraft, or?

 

best regards

[Netrunner]

M18 smoke grenade - Wikipedia

[Owl]

@Netrunner Thank you for your reply.  Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my question. I know what a smoke grenade is, but I’m looking for an answer how you mark an area, where the enemy’s are. It looks like a hand granade, and as Wiki says, a soldier can catch it about 35 m/115 ft. I would not like to be only from that distance to my enemy, to be honest. 
 

are ground units using a grenade gun, and how far away can it shoot? Are you catching it out from a helicopter, aircraft, drone or?

 

best regards

[Sinclair_76]

1 hour ago, Owl said:

@Netrunner Thank you for your reply.  Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my question. I know what a smoke grenade is, but I’m looking for an answer how you mark an area, where the enemy’s are. It looks like a hand granade, and as Wiki says, a soldier can catch it about 35 m/115 ft. I would not like to be only from that distance to my enemy, to be honest. 
 

are ground units using a grenade gun, and how far away can it shoot? Are you catching it out from a helicopter, aircraft, drone or?

 

best regards

Smoke can be deployed by spotter aircraft, i.e. the OV-10 in Vietnam used smoke to mark targets. The A-10 also has done this in recent times (OIF/OEF/ISAF). Artillery (M109/PHz2000) can be used but don't know if they operationally did so. Mortars have been used as well (of 60mm at least) they have a range of 4km. Lastly underslung (M203/AG36) with a range of 350 can shoot smoke grenades. Dedicated automatic grenade launchers like the Mk19 or HK GMG have a range of almost 2km.

A link to a video where an A-10 is guided to a target by using smoke.

 

[Owl]

@Sinclair_76thank you for your reply. Now it’s making sense for me. 
 

best regards

[Dragon1-1]

Mind you, unlike in DCS, a real enemy will not stay "marked" like that for long. Since most of them know what that plume of colored smoke is for, IRL they'd make every effort to be anywhere but at the position indicated by smoke. There are plenty of ways to lay smoke, but it needs to be combined with suppressive fire for best effect. Sometimes you'd mark your own position instead, or even a spot on the no man's land, and then talk the aircraft on using smoke as a reference.