Tactics to attack targets in a forest

[Gadjuka]

With the current situation that AI placed in a forest can see you, but you can't see him - how do you handle it?

 

I mean...at least for me it's impossible to discover a tank in a forest until the plinking on my airframe starts, and even then it's really hard to take him out!

 

So - any tips? What's your tactics?

[Feuerfalke]

Disabling trees.

[Boberro]

Disabling trees.

 

:megalol:

 

 

Serious mode on:

 

Read brief, there are keys where you should try start looking for enemies. Forest is forest, in real life you also would have problems to find human or tank in Ka-50 or even moderner choppers.

[Feuerfalke]

But in RL the tank would have also problems firing at you ;)

 

 

Seriously, if you want it easy, disable trees (and install the desert-terrain-mod).

 

If you want to make it more challenging, go around these targets or find ways to locate and engage them from other angles vertical and/or horizontal.

[bumfire]

Fly high when attacking targets in forests, cuz as you said, they can see you and fire through trees but you cant see them til your basically on top of them, so its best to be as high as possible taken the threats into consideration and then scan for the targets and kill them from up high.

 

If their is radar guided SAM's in the area, then forget about going high and also forget about going low and looking for a target in a forest, or as its more commonly called, a needle in a haystack.

 

If you just have IR SAM's and AAA to contend with then going as high as possible will more than likely be ok as you should get plenty of warning when an IR missile is launched at you and the flares easily make IR missiles lose track in this sim, well until the patch that is :( and AAA isnt likely to hit you in the first place as long as you are not hovering.

[fox_111]

I did a mission recently where the ennemy is firing Nona and other weapons at a village from the edge of a forest. When I get in range to attack, they "ear" me and run deep in the forest.

 

The only way for me to engage them, is to fly higher and saturate the erea with rockets. I get a few kills here and there. It's easyer when they return fire.

 

The AI wingmens finish the job, as he aparently has something I don't in his chopper, like a termal sight... (o:

 

But seriously, like said by other, engaging from high angle is the key. It let you a short window of opportunity to engage. Probably to short for missils. But quick enough for a rockets run or a strafing run with the cannon.

 

When they are on fire, it get easyer to spot the rest of them if they are not to spread out.

[CAT_101st]

:crazy:You call in a air strike to carpet bomb the area!

[aphelion79]

How do you disable trees?

[Mustang]

But in RL the tank would have also problems firing at you ;)

 

Yep, i hate this also, you cannot see the AI unit hidden amongst the trees, but they can see you as if there is NOTHING at all to block their line-of-sight. :mad:

 

Same issue existed in LockOn, and unless trees become a collideable entity, this will never be fixed.

[Martillo1]

Yep, i hate this also, you cannot see the AI unit hidden amongst the trees, but they can see you as if there is NOTHING at all to block their line-of-sight. :mad:

 

Same issue existed in LockOn, and unless trees become a collideable entity, this will never be fixed.

 

This evening I was flying a mission I made against a column composed of several units of M1A2, M2A2, Vulcan, Avenger and Chaparral. I usually shoot at them from more than 6 Km away, but today I NOEd around and got to a position 2.4 km from them. When I poped up from terrain mask but still under the cover of the forest, they started shooting at me through the trees!!! I could evade a shell (cause i was already strafing), but when I turned round to escape, the SAMs took me down.

 

So forest do not mask you, really.

[Ramstein]

The Bomb Droplets (like cluster bombs) should work in these situations, but they do not work properly in this game against Ground troups. They have both ( AP) and (AT) I am pretty sure they are 'anti-personnel' and 'anti-tank' droplets. But, if you drop them over troops that are close togethers, you might only get a few soldiers. In real live it would wipe out everyone, everything, and more..

[Yskonyn]

Interesting subject brought up here, even apart from the trees-not-covering issue in-game.

 

Its clear to all of us that spotting units inside a forest from a helo in real life is quite a task, but I wonder how easy or difficult it is for units on the ground to shoot a helo from a forest. If you're in a clearing, for example, pilot would still be having difficulties spotting you until he is close by the clearing and can see over the treetops into the clearing (when he does make contact with the units on the ground depends on his altitude and distance). However, the unit in the clearing in the forest already has a good cue (by sound) where the helo is coming from. Giving him an initiative advantage to ready his weapons and aim in the general direction the helo is coming from.

 

I can imagine in this situation the ground units have the advantage by:

a) better cover

b) initiative by sound

 

I am not saying that the game models this. Not at all, but to ease the pain a bit I tend to think of it like this when I am looking for targets in forests.

 

I do agree though that the sim would benefit hugely from a different logic concerning spotting and trees, because units tend to be able to shoot right through trees at shallow angles as well.

[Griffin]

However, the unit in the clearing in the forest already has a good cue (by sound) where the helo is coming from. Giving him an initiative advantage to ready his weapons and aim in the general direction the helo is coming from.

 

A trained anti-aircraft guy said that it's actually harder to shoot down helicopters than jets after they did simulated firings against aircraft. Reason was that helicopters fly in the nap of the earth and if you are in a forest clearing, the forest absorbs the sound of helicopter until it's quite close. So during those 2-5 seconds when the helicopter swoops over the opening at 250 km/h, you should be able to point your guns to that direction, aim and try to fire at it. Plus in real war you should also be able to recognize a friend from enemy.

Jets in the other hand fly higher and even though they fly much faster, they still spend more time in your field of fire.

All this would be in the case if you are in the middle of a forest. Of course if you are at the edge of the forest, you could set up nearly invisible (to helicopters such as Ka-50 without any IR systems) AA position right in the treeline with huge field of view.

[Yskonyn]

All this would be in the case if you are in the middle of a forest. Of course if you are at the edge of the forest, you could set up nearly invisible (to helicopters such as Ka-50 without any IR systems) AA position right in the treeline with huge field of view.

 

Yeah indeed. You get my point.

I didn't know about your first remark, though, but it does sound logical when you stop and think about it for a second or two. :thumbup:

 

Anyway it does show that the current situation in game is not very realistic except for units being at the edge of forests.

[wickedpenguin]

Someone needs to create a napalm weapon mod to take care of this little problem.

 

Enemy won't come out of the forest? Fine. Burn 'em out.

[Boberro]

How do you disable trees?

 

Remove 3D models for forests. They have "tree" in filename. If you would back to trees simple paste them back to directory.

[Endoplasmic Reticulum]

How do you disable trees?

 

With "Agent Orange":D

[Martillo1]

How do you disable trees?

 

:D

[ArchAngel]

In real life, sams would not be placed in dense forrests. In a large clearing or along the woodline, maybe. AAA and dismounts, rpgs and the like, yeah that's a possibility. So, how do u locate, close with and engage such a threat?

 

First of all, you will know once u r fired upon that there is a threat. If u have a wingman, as u should, u or the wingman should flyby at high speed while the other observes where the fire is coming from. Then u will have a chance at eleminating the threat. Its a risky move but it can be effective.

[isoul]

I don't think that anyone can place a non-portable SAM in dense forest, only portable ones are able to enter a forest but then if the forest is too dense then you can't fire.

 

AAA can enter a forest and can fire thru trees cause high caliber rounds just cut all the tree branches in the way.

 

According to my little experience (while in military serveice) while in a forest , with some luck, you can spot a target in the air as long as you see it from a distance (if it is flying in at a high altitude) or hear it (especially in mountainous regions the echo sometimes works against the helo and warns the infantry).

 

I imagine that while flying a KA-50 its quite hard to spot anything inside a forest.Especially if you fly at 250km/h its even harder. Afteall if it was easy all infantry would fall prey to all airborne threats...

[Feuerfalke]

Remove 3D models for forests. They have "tree" in filename. If you would back to trees simple paste them back to directory.

 

That's the hard way.

 

The soft way is to open your graphics.cfg and make a copy of it for backup reasons. Then search for the lines:

 

trees = {number, number};

 

 

Replace the numbers by 0 and no groundunit will fire through the trees at you any longer. There are still some trees in urban areas, so trees are not completely gone, but the large forests will be.

 

I also found out the hard way, that a lot of players on PvP-servers are using this option. So don't try hiding in a forest - they'll just see a brown cloud of dust on the green gras. You could as well hold up a blinking neon-sign. :crazy:

[JimMack]

First of all, you will know once u r fired upon that there is a threat. If u have a wingman, as u should, u or the wingman should flyby at high speed while the other observes where the fire is coming from. Then u will have a chance at eleminating the threat. Its a risky move but it can be effective.

 

 

It is known as "recce-to-find-fire", and is a common tactic. The last time that there was major combat over forests/jungle was Vietnam. The Balkans conflicts had plenty of forests, but helos were not used. Iraq and Afghanistan do not have too many forests (though Helmand province has a lot of heavy wooded areas around the river).

 

There are many books/papers on the tactics used by helos in Vietnam.

 

For an interesting book (and documentary on UK Sky "Helicopter Warfare") about a Lynx from 847 squadron and a Gazelle trying to find a T55 that was well camouflaged and were giving them a hard time in Basra in Iraq, see "Armed Action" by James Newton. It describes the duel and tactics adopted by both sides, relevant to forests as well as urban warfare. The Lynx finally won, but only just.

Edited July 12, 2009 by JimMack

[ArchAngel]

Interesting read jimmack, i will reference above mentioned. thanx :-)

[PhoenixBvo]

That's the hard way.

 

The soft way is to open your graphics.cfg and make a copy of it for backup reasons. Then search for the lines:

 

trees = {number, number};

 

 

Replace the numbers by 0 and no groundunit will fire through the trees at you any longer. There are still some trees in urban areas, so trees are not completely gone, but the large forests will be.

 

I also found out the hard way, that a lot of players on PvP-servers are using this option. So don't try hiding in a forest - they'll just see a brown cloud of dust on the green gras. You could as well hold up a blinking neon-sign. :crazy:

 

Vielen Dank Feuerfalke,

 

that's a good heads-up for multiplayer as well. Please ED, tell us the patch will deal with this issue...

It is essentially a cheat and should be locked for clients and only be settable by the server.

Also, is the AI line-of-sight being addressed? (Sorry if this has been answered somewhere already)

[Yskonyn]

Wouldn't MANPADs be difficult to fire in a forest as well?

I don't know how the targeting system works for a MANPAD, but I can imagine that trees will be a major factor.

I would assume they need to be in a large clearing or at the edge of woods as well?

 

Can we conclude that in real-life the biggests threats from forests are small-arms and AAA's?

That would make a 'high-altitude' sweep a definitely viable action.

 

Just brain storming here. . .