why there is no air to air missiles?

[GGTharos]

Sure, I don't claim to know every heli that's had AAMs strapped onto it lately.

 

Add Gazela Gama to the list

[EtherealN]

In a conflict where your attack helicopters keep getting engaged by air threats what you want to do is not rush A2A missiles onto them - you want to improve your air cover. That's where you (if NATO) get GG to fly his F-15's for a couple extra sorties.

 

The best A2A capability of an attack aircraft is to have an air superiority fighter in support. You spot an air threat? Tell him where to point his radar and wait for him to inform you that the threat has been neutralized. ;)

[Speed_2]

You are trying to say that they should implement an unrealistic weapon selection because people make unrealistic missions, in order to make it realistic.

 

Unreal + Unreal = Real?

 

The missions aren't necessarily unrealistic. They are just like nothing that has ever been seen in real life- war between NATO and Russia with Ka-50s and Mi-28s vs Apaches? Or, even, a war between two sides that are both deploying attack helicopters that are coming tinto contact with each other? Never been seen (except maybe Iraq vs Iran). But possible.

 

When you are trying to model conflicts unlike any that have ever occured, it is EXTREMELY narrow-minded to assume that the tactics used for the last war or in peacetime will end up being what is done in a war UNLIKE the kind of conflict that those tactics were designed for!!!

 

Seriously, do you really think that Apaches, Ka-50s, etc. would truely, really, NOT carry air to air missiles if they started running into each other in battle? To think that would be as dumb as thinking in 1914 that airplanes won't carry machine guns because they don't in 1914. Note that the change WOULD require a long enough conflict for the choppers to actually be retrofitted, just as it took a little while for planes to start carrying machine guns.

 

However, in the case of these attack choppers, as far as I know, they have already been tested with air to air missiles, so how long would it really take? I have no idea.

[Speed_2]

And I'll repeat ... DCS attempts to simulate realism. A mission where you face A2A combat is either not necessarily realistic, or a rare oddity - if you are constantly building missions with A2A in them, then the problem is the building of unrealistic scenarios.

 

Just because 'they could happen' doesn't mean DCS should offer unrealistic payloads. It is a slippery slope.

 

I understand. DCS does not seek to model a huge, drawn out conflict between similar militaries. For the most part, it's a dissimliar war vs insurgents. So I guess it make sense to not have AAMs. I'm just fine with that, so long as I don't have to defend myself from enemy choppers- but I DO, all the dang time. If we were REAL Black Shark pilots, and these were REAL missions, wouldn't YOU DEMAND air to air missiles!?!?! Heck, you'd probably want them if you heard there was even a POSSIBILITY of encountering enemy air. And that's where I see something unrealistic. I haven't flown through the campaign much, been doing mostly scripted multiplayer. How often in the campaign do you have to engage air targets?

[EtherealN]

It may not have happened IRL, but you can bet that it has happened in training. Now obviously some have decided that they need to outfit their choppers with A2A capability, but in other cases they have decided that they'd rather just get the purpose-built A2A-platforms on the scene. Both Russia and the US have a lot of fighters in service and for both it really is only against each other that they wouldn't be able to immediately guarantee air superiority.

 

But thing is - if the opposition gets air superiority you won't improve your survivability by much through strapping Archers and such on your helicopter. The enemy A2A assets would be too fast and would outreach you with no effort. On the other side, A2A fights between helicopters will most likely be incidental - just like is often seen in the Georgian Oil War campaign. You just happen to have targets in the same area. Decreasing mission payload to carry A2A missiles because this MIGHT happen would appear to not be something the military planners care for, especially since the birds already have air self-defence capability.

 

EDIT:

No, I would "demand" fighter cover, and whether I get it or not I would take some time to ensure I really remember how to employ the Vikhr and 30mm correctly to defend myself.

[GGTharos]

I understand. DCS does not seek to model a huge, drawn out conflict between similar militaries.

 

... which experimented with, and had no intention of sticking AAMs on their choppers. ;)

This is a fairly modern concept in terms of actual operational deployment.

 

If we were REAL Black Shark pilots, and these were REAL missions, wouldn't YOU DEMAND air to air missiles!?!?!

 

No. I would demand top cover, because I need to spend time, fuel and effort to BUST ARMOR, not other choppers.

 

Heck, you'd probably want them if you heard there was even a POSSIBILITY of encountering enemy air.

 

No, I would want top cover - because I wouldn't go 'OMG, enemy chopper!' when one popped out in front of me - I'd see it explode after being discovered by a fighter BVR, and well before it got near me.

 

And that's where I see something unrealistic. I haven't flown through the campaign much, been doing mostly scripted multiplayer. How often in the campaign do you have to engage air targets?

 

I haven't encountered air targets very often myself, but they do happen. What you do when you encounter enemy air is exactly what the field manual says: Avoid and evade. You fight as a last resort.

[Speed_2]

It may not have happened IRL, but you can bet that it has happened in training. Now obviously some have decided that they need to outfit their choppers with A2A capability, but in other cases they have decided that they'd rather just get the purpose-built A2A-platforms on the scene. Both Russia and the US have a lot of fighters in service and for both it really is only against each other that they wouldn't be able to immediately guarantee air superiority.

 

But thing is - if the opposition gets air superiority you won't improve your survivability by much through strapping Archers and such on your helicopter. The enemy A2A assets would be too fast and would outreach you with no effort. On the other side, A2A fights between helicopters will most likely be incidental - just like is often seen in the Georgian Oil War campaign. You just happen to have targets in the same area. Decreasing mission payload to carry A2A missiles because this MIGHT happen would appear to not be something the military planners care for, especially since the birds already have air self-defence capability.

 

EDIT:

No, I would "demand" fighter cover, and whether I get it or not I would take some time to ensure I really remember how to employ the Vikhr and 30mm correctly to defend myself.

 

I disagree. Just as you can't depend on the police to always protect you, I wouldn't depend on friendly air cover to always protect me! I'd take the best of both worlds- air to air missiles AND friendly fighters. When you make contact with enemy choppers, RUN! and call in the fighters, but if you're cornered, you gotta do what you gotta do- shoot that AAM. Additionally, having AAMs on board would make enemy choppers, and even FIGHTERS (to a lesser extent) wary of engaging you in the first place! They would have a definate deterance effect.

 

I see the Vikhr occasionally mentioned as a possible substitute for a real AAM, but the fact is the Vikhr is a pure pursuit missile with ONLY ONE control fin. I like how they are modelled in the game in regards to the difficulty of hitting anything airborne with one- impossible unless your air target is coming more or less towards (or away from) you.

[159th_Viper]

One has to draw the Line somewhere......And our Virtual kamov is bound by it's RL Counterpart, ie No AAM's - Period. No What-If's etc etc etc.......The RL Kamov lacks it, so the Virtual one does too - Fullstop.

 

Right/Wrong or somewhere inbetween - Consensus will not be reached. All we can do is make the best with what one has - and that's Vikhrs. At least one has a Fighting Chance when you're about to get tagged with a Vikhr, unlike an AAM. I would think that it would be even more of an Airquake Clusterf#*k if we all ran around packing R-60's and the like.

 

Perfectly amenable with the Status Quo at present ta :)

[Cola]

I haven't encountered air targets very often myself, but they do happen. What you do when you encounter enemy air is exactly what the field manual says: Avoid and evade. You fight as a last resort.

I read in a book once that you can launch some ammo to discourage, or even drop pods to fool the enemy into believing that you have a2a capability. Before evading of course. You can't scare AI though, so it's hardly relevant.

[Speed_2]

No. I would demand top cover, because I need to spend time, fuel and effort to BUST ARMOR, not other choppers.

 

You'd be changing your tune pretty quickly if you found yourself staring down the wrong end of a 30mm chain gun. At that moment, you wouldn't care why you lost your fighter cover, or where the hell they went to- you'd be too busy trying to call them on the radio. But it wouldn't work, because they got shot down or chased off by enemy fighters, or maybe, you're just on the wrong frequency or they got grounded due to some unknown reason. The flaw in your thinking is that you're making an assumption that friendly fighter cover is ALWAYS available, and it's not. ESPECIALLY if you're fighting a war against another military which is powerful enough to also deploy sophisticated attack helicopters.

 

By your thinking, there was absolutely no reason for F-16s to EVER carry AIM-9s during Operation Desert Storm. Yet they did, because you simply cannot ALWAYS depend on the dedicated air to air platforms to do their jobs correctly. This real life example proves that real militaries do not operate on your mode of thinking. They prepare for the fact that for WHATEVER reason, things don't always go as planned. You can casually disregard such possibilities with a wave of your hand while chatting on some forum, but in real life, it's very serious. You MIGHT run into enemy choppers, so you better carry AAMs. Besides, AAMs, especially if you simply carried some SA-16s or Stingers or some such, are really light!

 

But these are some major what-ifs. But, if those what-ifs came true- it would be stupidity in the extreme NOT to give yourself the best chances to come out alive.

 

Now, to this point, I do know for a fact that DCS is not really meant to model these kinds of conflicts- right? So perhaps that's the real problem- as already mentioned.

Edited October 9, 2009 by Speed_2

[EtherealN]

I disagree. Just as you can't depend on the police to always protect you, I wouldn't depend on friendly air cover to always protect me!

 

So by the same logic every infantryman should be issued with a Stinger, because he cannot depend on others to protect him from air cover?

 

I'd take the best of both worlds- air to air missiles AND friendly fighters. When you make contact with enemy choppers, RUN! and call in the fighters, but if you're cornered, you gotta do what you gotta do- shoot that AAM.

 

What you are doing here is that you are expending takeoff-weight and fuel to carry something that would only be a last resort - and a job that your aircraft really isn't meant to do. A10's would carry AIM-9's and similar for self defence because they do not have the same capability to hide as a helicopter does (and it also has slightly better margins on takeoff weight).

 

Additionally, having AAMs on board would make enemy choppers, and even FIGHTERS (to a lesser extent) wary of engaging you in the first place!

 

Enemy choppers would be aircraft with the same mission you have - to kill stuff on the ground. They ALSO would only engage you as a last resort already!

 

Fighters, on the other hand, wouldn't care at all if you carry a heatseeker or two. They'll just pop you from 30 kilometers out with a fire-and-forget missile that you never saw coming. ;)

 

I like how they are modelled in the game in regards to the difficulty of hitting anything airborne with one- impossible unless your air target is coming more or less towards (or away from) you.

 

Impossible? I've hit helicopters flying at speed perpendicular to myself with Vikhrs. It's not as easy as letting lose a Sidewinder or Archer, but it's a far cry from "impossible".

 

You'd be changing your tune pretty quickly if you found yourself staring down the wrong end of a 30mm chain gun. At that moment, you wouldn't care why you lost your fighter cover, or where the hell they went to- you'd be too busy trying to call them on the radio.

 

No.

I would be "too busy" with remembering my training - that is, I'd make a quick judgement on whether I can evade. If yes - I'd do so. If no - I'd engage with my own 30mm.

 

You seem to think that air-to-air missiles would be some kind of wondrous survival trick for helicopters, but it really isn't. If you are staring down the barrel of a 30mm you should be maneuvering like hell to frustrate their aim, not try to get a quick lock with your missile while their bullets are in flight. ;)

Edited October 9, 2009 by EtherealN

[AlphaOneSix]

Oops, nevermind, repeating what's already been said.

[Speed_2]

So by the same logic every infantryman should be issued with a Stinger, because he cannot depend on others to protect him from air cover?

 

 

 

What you are doing here is that you are expending takeoff-weight and fuel to carry something that would only be a last resort - and a job that your aircraft really isn't meant to do. A10's would carry AIM-9's and similar for self defence because they do not have the same capability to hide as a helicopter does (and it also has slightly better margins on takeoff weight).

Your example with infantry carrying Stingers is not valid on both a combat effectiveness and cost standpoint. It would cost alot of money, but more importantly, it would be putting the infantry in more danger than they were in before, with them having to lug around this giant, heavy, shoulder-launched missile.

 

Yet you have to draw the line somewhere. It would be a cost-benefit anaylsis. How much will these AAMs weigh down our choppers, making them less safe and effective, vs. how much they will improve survivability by allowing better defense against enemy choppers?

 

 

 

 

Enemy choppers would be aircraft with the same mission you have - to kill stuff on the ground. They ALSO would only engage you as a last resort already!

 

Their mission is to kill stuff on the ground- so that their own troops can live. Now, if they thought their own fighters could get to you, then they wouldn't engage you, and you soon have worse problems. But YOU are assuming you're operating under some fighter cover, so the issue would be doubtful. They very well might decide to engage you.

 

Impossible? I've hit helicopters flying at speed perpendicular to myself with Vikhrs. It's not as easy as letting lose a Sidewinder or Archer, but it's a far cry from "impossible".

 

Really? I've never, NEVER been able to hit anything other than rear and frontal Vikhr shots, and I've taken quite a few. How is it possible?

[AlphaOneSix]

You'd be changing your tune pretty quickly if you found yourself staring down the wrong end of a 30mm chain gun. At that moment, you wouldn't care why you lost your fighter cover, or where the hell they went to- you'd be too busy trying to call them on the radio. But it wouldn't work, because they got shot down or chased off by enemy fighters, or maybe, you're just on the wrong frequency or they got grounded due to some unknown reason. The flaw in your thinking is that you're making an assumption that friendly fighter cover is ALWAYS available, and it's not. ESPECIALLY if you're fighting a war against another military which is powerful enough to also deploy sophisticated attack helicopters.

 

You must recognize the flaw in your thinking as well. You wouldn't be staring down the barrel of a 30mm chain gun, because the other side is taught the same thing: Avoid and evade. Your entire argument centers around this very tenet, that the other side will be hunting you with their helicopters. They won't.

[EtherealN]

Point is - you have the exact same judgement to make on the helicopters. A2A missiles is added weight, which means you either bring along less fuel or less A2G weapons - the latter being the weapons you are actually meant to use. Added weight means even with full fuel you'll have less combat range and decreased loiter time - and loiter time is VITAL for the CAS role, and a helicopter's ability to loiter in a small area is one of the things that make it better than strike aircraft for many CAS scenarios.

 

Extra weight of any kind that is not fuel directly defeats or frustrates your ability to fulfill your mission objective - which is to support your ground forces against enemy ground units. When they need support against aircraft they'll call for the fastmovers, not you. When you need support against aircraft you will do the exact same thing the ground forces do - get your head down and call for fastmovers to assist.

 

Now, IF enemy choppers do engage me - I'll hide, maneuver to a position of advantage, and kill them either with my 30mm autocannon of absolute mayhem and slaughter (I love that thing, especially for A2A) or with my Vikhrs. In fact, through the entire campaigns that came with DCS:BS I have never been killed by an aircraft. NEVER. I've been killed by tanks, MANPADS, AAA and SAMs quite a lot tho. ;)

 

Finally, to kill a helicopter moving at speed and perpendicular to you with a Vikhr, flip your launch control to manual - voila, you now have a missile with rudimentary LOAL (Lock On After Launch) capability. :P Check out the direction of flight of the enemy, slew your seeker ahead of the enemy, launch, and when the enemy comes into view you lock him to give your missile a last-second course correction. This way, if you've done it right, your enemy will have only about a second or so of his LWR blaring before your missile hits.

 

It's not easy, but with training it can be done. And this way you would also decrease the risk of your target conducting evasive maneuvers which might defeat your missile.

[Speed_2]

You must recognize the flaw in your thinking as well. You wouldn't be staring down the barrel of a 30mm chain gun, because the other side is taught the same thing: Avoid and evade. Your entire argument centers around this very tenet, that the other side will be hunting you with their helicopters. They won't.

 

Well, first of all, you're assuming that an enterprising Apache pilot, seeing his buddies blasted to smithereens by Vikhrs, won't try to spring a trap on the unsuspecting Black Shark or Havoc with guns (or hellfires). Or, if you make yourself a target, he's likely to take a potshot at you and then run away. He won't be hunting for you, but you will likely run into contact, since you're both at the FEBA trying to give your guys support. You really think that Apache is just going to stand by while he watches you blow away the ground troops he's supposed to be supporting? He'll try to shoot you down or run you off, calling in fighters on you at the same time if available. Maybe, if the two choppers make contact with each other, they'll just turn around and fly away.

 

Yes, the normal SOP may be to turn away and try to avoid contact, but sometimes that won't happen.

 

Next, let me change the arguement for you a bit then-

Imagine that enemy chopper is now armed with a Stinger- because the US has now started fitting their choppers with Stingers seeing as how their Apaches keep running into Ka-50s and Mi-24s and not doing anything else but running away or ambushing them. You don't think that Apache will now take a potshot at you with a Stinger?

 

Now these scenarios are all SERIOUSLY getting to the what-if territory. I've come around to your way of thinking, at least in that DCS didn't have any buisness of putting AAMs into the game- SO LONG AS we don't have some Russia vs NATO campaign coming out. But to say that AAMs would never be fitted to attack helos under any imaginable circumstances, especially when some very lightweight options that have already been tested are available (Stingers and SA-16s/18s) is seriously naive. Whether you guys really believe in THAT extreme or not, I don't know. Someone who would believe something like that, living in 1914, would probably be arguing with me about whether machine guns would ever be fitted to airplanes or not.

[Griffin]

Yeah, personally I would dump the rockets and take AAMs instead. It's true you can't trust air support but since DCS is supposed to simulate the real thing, there simply isn't any choise. It would kill a bit of the immersion if some imaginary functions would be implemented.

[Speed_2]

Finally, to kill a helicopter moving at speed and perpendicular to you with a Vikhr, flip your launch control to manual - voila, you now have a missile with rudimentary LOAL (Lock On After Launch) capability. :P Check out the direction of flight of the enemy, slew your seeker ahead of the enemy, launch, and when the enemy comes into view you lock him to give your missile a last-second course correction. This way, if you've done it right, your enemy will have only about a second or so of his LWR blaring before your missile hits.

 

It's not easy, but with training it can be done. And this way you would also decrease the risk of your target conducting evasive maneuvers which might defeat your missile.

 

Thanks for the tip, that's a good idea. I WAS trying to do it by pointing the Shvkal ahead of the target and then at the last second, slewing it to the chopper I'm trying to engage, to sort of manually fly the lead pursuit course for my missile, or at least, the last leg of a lead pursuit course. I never got the timing quite right, and never have I scored a hit with this method. Sounds like my problem may be practice then.

[EtherealN]

Yes, there may be scenarios where a helicopter pilot will feel compelled to engage another helicopter. Point is: he already has the tools to do so!

 

Also: "Or, if you make yourself a target, he's likely to take a potshot at you and then run away." The solution here is: don't make yourself a target! Always have cover available.

 

And even if there is a "real" Russia vs Nato campaign, the Ka50 should still not have A2A missiles. Because it isn't equipped with them. It really is that simple.

 

Your example with 1914 airplanes and machineguns is seriously misguided. There ARE aircraft that are designed to attack enemy air assets. They're called "fighters". Nato has them, Russia has them, and evidently both have in several instances decided that integrating A2A missiles to their attack helicopters isn't worth it for a variety of reasons. As mentioned, loiter time and combat range are one aspect that needs to be considered and that you have studiously avoided considering.

 

How happy would you be, as an infantryman, if your air cover suddenly tells you that he's bugging out while you are still engaged, because he is running out of fuel because he was carrying around a bunch of anti-aircraft missiles that he didn't have to use?

 

EDIT:

On slewing the Shkval, I believe it's possible to use analog on it if you have an analog microstick. I don't, so I'm stuck with the "normal" method, but if you have one and set it up to allow small enough adjustments it should be possible. (The problem with manually steering a missile in flight is that quick movement can cause your missile to end up outside your laser beam, which means it has no choice but to "go ballistic".)

Edited October 9, 2009 by EtherealN

[Speed_2]

Meh, if my commander wasn't allowing me to carry AAMs, I'd just put a gunrack in the back of my Black Shark, put a SA-18 in it, and when that ugly Apache showed his face, pop the canopy open and let him have it, or shoot through the front wind shield Rambo-style :)

 

On a serious note though, how heavy would a couple Stingers or SA-16s/18s really be? Weight of the weapons plus a little extra hardware? Would that REALLY noticably affect the chopper?

Edited October 9, 2009 by Speed_2

[EtherealN]

What I would do is I'd ask the commander of ground forces to distribute more of the SA-18's to the ground forces I'll be called to support. That way I can support them against Abrams and Bradleys and they can support me against AH-64's. ;)

[Nutkin]

Mystery ordinance?

 

OK, things got a little tense above so this is just a bit of fun :lol:

 

On the right wing of the Ka-50 at

 

http://rutube.ru/tracks/1901349.html?v=2f94855874fc84d79822bfa082890ed5

 

What's the white missile next to the rocket pod? I don't recognise it from the DCS BS manual. Could it be our fabled AA missile? :D

 

PS - Search 'Chernaya Akula' in youtube. There's a 3 min clip of the Black Shark movie - it looks hilariously bad but the pilot is damned cool!

 

PPS - you have to love the 'comedy commandos' in the link above - there's so much prancing about in the snow I think they must have hired the Moscow ballet

[EtherealN]

Yeah Nutkin, those missiles have been tested on the Ka-50, but they are not used operationally and are not integrated as an option on the operational craft.

 

That's what makes this such an often recurring debate - sites like Wikipedia will list them as using A2A missiles based on those tests and people get upset because DCS:BS doesn't have them. In some previous threads on the topic it even came to the point of people saying that ED was "wrong" and needed to do better research. Funny since ED not only worked with Kamov on it, they also solicited input and testing from actual operational pilots. :P

 

But yeah, that russian version of Airwolf is awesome. :D

[EvilBivol-1]

Speed_2, I for one am quite convinced that Russian Ka-50s would not in fact be equipped with A-A missiles even in a full-scale conventional conflict. Who is to say which one of us is right? The USSR only began to employ A-A missiles on Mi-24s in the late-80s and only in a few squadrons. IMHO, the only way this capability could exist operationally on the Ka-50 would be if the USSR never collapsed and the program was pursued further. But this is too much conjecture. DCS tries to simulate a modern conflict through hypothetical, but contemporary scenarios. Meaning that in DCS: Black Shark, you are piloting a Ka-50 as it would be flown by Russian pilots tomorrow if the fictitious scenario of the campaign would become a reality. You are not a Soviet pilot from an alter dimension.

 

I don't believe ED has any information on A-A missiles even being tested on the Ka-50. At least, not any details of such tests. If tested at all, were they just flown on the pylons? Were they practiced-targeted, practice-fired? Whatever it is, they are not and cannot reasonably be assumed to be an operational capability of the Ka-50 in the foreseeable future.

Edited October 10, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

[GGTharos]

What's the white missile next to the rocket pod? I don't recognise it from the DCS BS manual. Could it be our fabled AA missile? :D

 

 

You mean the black-striped DUMMY missile? Yeah, I see that. ;)