Mission 10 manpad strategy? (SPOILERS)

[virgo47]

What is the best strategy to deal with the manpads (besides disabling them in the F10 menu, of course)?

They easily cover the whole area, at least in theory, although they don't seem to shoot as far as the circles would indicate. But if I just go north of the river towards the hut, I've got a hit both flying low in the valley or close to the hut. One does not have much time for evasive manoeuvres, so it's mostly game over in one hit.

[CHPL]

The Huey will automatically deploy flares, so with a swift evasive action, the pilot should be able to avoid being hit by the missile.
At least, this was the intention, and it has worked well for me and others until now.  However, there may be some changes in the ED core, and I need to review the mission. 
Many thanks for the feedback and great information.

[virgo47]

2 hours ago, CHPL said:

The Huey will automatically deploy flares, so with a swift evasive action, the pilot should be able to avoid being hit by the missile.
At least, this was the intention, and it has worked well for me and others until now.  However, there may be some changes in the ED core, and I need to review the mission. 
Many thanks for the feedback and great information.

Ah, I didn't know about those flares. I eventually managed to dodge some missiles, mostly when I was on the top of the ridge, and I dove down on the other side. But when I wanted to dive into the critical valley, I "bought" all the missiles so far. But I can't claim I took swift enough evasive action.

This mission is not that long until that point, so it's not so bad. I'll try again and check the flares count before and after the successful dodge, and I'll report back here. Thanks for the info!

[virgo47]

OK, this time I was prepared... kinda. I slowed down the time when the missile launch was reported. Alas...

I even set the flares counter beforehand (1). But looking at the panel now, the next time I'll also arm the flares (2).

[virgo47]

OK, mission finished! Observations:

• With flares armed, it starts flaring when the missile is incoming. It's 1 flare a second or so, so it may be a good idea to add a few more manually.
• The automatic flare dispension does not stop afterwards, so the player may want to switch countermeasures to SAFE if they want to keep some flares for the next missile.
• You'll likely need to dodge one missile if you fly towards the cottage or even none at all if you fly over the ridge. Though, it's more fun to pop up, bait the missile and dodge it right.
• After the landing with the Alpha team, I let the newly arrived helos doing their stuff for a few seconds before joining them. I haven't encountered another missile after that.

It's a fun mission after all, and it's also one of the shorter ones. Packed with action and tricky all the way to the final landing zone. (Just don't go through the orange smoke, obviously.)

Case closed, one more to go!