Chopper Popper

[ZQuickSilverZ]

I'm curious to know from the air superiority fliers (aka fast movers) if it's as easy as they thought it would be to find and shoot down choppers. I have heard many fast movers say they have not even seen a chopper. Im curious to hear stories of either a fast mover shooting down a chopper (intresting) or a chopper giving a fast mover the slip (even more intresting). Any body have a story of shooting down a jet with a chopper?That really would impress.

[Panzertard]

You mean like this?

Well, I don't know when it happened - server messages was off, and a couple of the =SE= gents had quite a lot of fun chasing me down.

We exchanged flares, lead and quite alot of crazy manouvers.

 

What I did wrong to be detected:

- Flew way to fast, should have kept my speed down below 140kp/h

- Lacked fixed wing support, they were busy elsewhere.

 

Again, yesterday on the 104th - we had a rather long session, some 8-12 hours.

Lost a few ships, but never to Airunits.

2 losses to Radar-SAMs, and 2 to CFIT if I remember correctly.

Radar-SAM paid a heavy price, 12-15 losses - plus 15-20 misc Armored units.

Fixed wing support and voice-com kept me updated on the status, I was free to roam (or hide).

And my fixed wing friends worked their butts off to keep us safe.

 

Quite fun indeed. ;)

[EtherealN]

I can give you a brief story of defending a chopper, if that is interesting. :)

 

Been flying a good bit on the 104th server after DCS:BS 1.0.2 release, and did do a little bit of BS at first but then switched to F15 to be top cover. That was awful quiet for a while (as it can be) and I switched again to a Hog and proceeded to pound some targets alongside the choppers. After a while the AWACS came in and informed us of some popup groups that me and the other Hog driver decided were a bit ominous, so we alerted the sharks that they should switch to hide-mode and we gave ourselves the role of improvised CAP for the poor sharks flitting about. What followed was a very interesting engagement:

 

- The first hostiles, which we could only track via AWACS calls, ended up going way around; in the end it became apparent that they were not interested in our rotorheads but rather a completely different type of rotating head - the AWACS.

 

- A second and very low-flying popup was reported around the same time however and it did stay in the area and was a very big threat to both ourselves (remember, we were two guys with only a soon-to-be-dead AWACS and our own RWR as any resemblance of BVR detection equipment, and AIM-9's as our only A2A missiles) and the choppers (who don't even have a way to detect that they're being engaged by such a jet). After some maneuvering and using the RWR as faux radar (reminder to all jet pilots: your radar not only tells you where people are - it tells others in an even wider radius where YOU are; and while at it, using jammers at all times only causes your friends to be forced to intercept you at great fuel expenditure since they cannot IFF you, so stop that permanent jammers-on crap) I get visual on the F15 and turn in to engage as he is headed straight for the hill the choppers are using for cover. With a very narrow engagement window due to the relative speeds I only give myself the briefest of tones before launching my AIMs, which fail to track all the way: however, the F15 seemed to have noticed that someone was looking to kill him and turned back in which gave me a cannon attempt which unfortunately missed (kingdom for a gun radar to calculate lead). After that he got me and the other A10.

 

However, by that time an SU27 which had been out to sea to intercept the threat to our AWACS had made it back to the area while I was re-tooling into an F15 and made best speed to that area and nailed him as he was running from that SU27. He made a cute remark about "shame you called in friends" or something like that. :)

 

The basic lesson to take from all that is: the biggest asset of a helicopter when it comes to not being killed by jets is to have people around that can keep the jets busy as well as tell you when to hide. If you have that the enemy will need a very serious numbers advantage to be a threat because taking time off to slew their radars down to look for you might cost them their life until they have mopped up your cover. And of course, they can only lock what they can "see" - if you are only able to get information about an incoming threat you can take such appropriate steps as using buildings and terrain contours to hide you from it's radar even if it is looking. That way even a pair of A10's which are really not a serious threat to the fighter can keep both you updated and the threat occupied long enough for friendly CAP to come in.

 

As for shooting down jets with choppers... Might theoretically happen with kills on A10's and Frogs I guess, but very unlikely. Kills on fighters would only happen if they are either parked at an airbase or stupid enough to be close to the ground. (Seriously, by climbing from 1k feet to 15k feet you'll quite nicely double the effective range of your missiles as well as improve radar coverage, and a Shark isn't able to do squat against a jet flying at altitude.)

 

Only expect choppers to kill fighters if the chopper pilot is me and the fighter pilot is GG. :D

[EtherealN]

And my fixed wing friends worked their butts off to keep us safe.

 

Good to know you realized it was hard work. :D

[Panzertard]

Heck Yes! Without you guys we would have had a much harder time.

Until you went chasing that Awacs of theirs like a dog chasing a car.

Crazy jet-jockeys. :D

[Boberro]

Only expect choppers to kill fighters if the chopper pilot is me and the fighter pilot is GG. :D

 

I've been asking GG for ages to do strike between his Hog and mine Shark.... He always claims he will kill me by bombing, but has never tried so far hehehe :music_whistling:

 

 

About Heli vs bombers.... Recently I've played with Mbot and MoGas.... It was hard to find MoGas there till he said more-less where he was. Then it was easier, however not enough easy as it can look like when we say about Shkval with 23x zoom which is large for device.

 

Later I killed MBot via TermoPod Merkurij, heh besides its real poor quality it can help a bit searching units. It was much easier to find it by IR pod and I killed him by Vikhr. Yes he was with me and allowed for this (thanks for my first chopper kill :D).

 

Btw I heard a plane can't lock Shark untill it is flying faster than 80 km\h or you don't do zig-zag maneuvers, right?

Edited May 16, 2010 by Boberro

[EtherealN]

Notch-gate is a bit of a trouble for jets chasing sharks in LO/DCS, yes, since the doppler of the rotor blades is not modeled. (In real life today there's no such thing as a notch gate for a chopper, since it's rotors will always provide enough of a doppler-shift in the returning signals to differentiate it from the ground.)

 

I'm not entirely certain about whether it's actually impossible to lock though, would have to test that.

 

Heck Yes! Without you guys we would have had a much harder time.

Until you went chasing that Awacs of theirs like a dog chasing a car.

Crazy jet-jockeys. :D

 

Well, I did get it! Right from under the nose of that S-300 site, too!

And I must say it was followed by one of the most surreal moments in my flight sim history - when I went in for guns with only one engine against an enemy F-15 and it ran away! (Then I was nailed by a Tor... :D )

Edited May 16, 2010 by EtherealN

[Speed]

I donno what it is, maybe I've also been lucky, but I was able to fly on the 104th yesterday for like six hours, and never got shot down. I SAW enemy jets, and had people report enemy jets at my location, and watched other, higher-flying Ka-50s get shot down, but the enemy jets never saw me. Typically, when crossing open areas, I'd fly at about 10 meters. When engaging ground forces, I try to take up position in a city or somewhere else where there is lots of visual and radar clutter to camoflauge my signature, and hover at around 15-25 meters near a building or group of trees. The day before yesterday I was also on the 104th server for a long period, employing similar tactics. I DID get shot down once by Niko, but it was probably because I was at 300 meters AGL- there was a group of enemy ground targets that I HAD to be high to see at all, as they were located in sort of a "bowl" in the terrain :(

 

So I'm loving the survivability of the Ka-50 against enemy jets! I think that jets must have a near to impossible time spotting us if we are 20 meters AGL or less, and using visual and radar clutter to our advantage. Maybe also I'm being helped alot by our jets distracting them, or the birdstrike put into LOFC2 that keeps jets from flying very low, but this is FUN!

Edited May 16, 2010 by Speed

[GGTharos]

It has nothing to do with the altitude you fly at as far as radar detection is concerned.

It's more about ED having given you certain concessions so you won't be the complete sitting duck that you ought to be in that chopper.

[EtherealN]

Yeah, in-game the easiest method for a non-practiced fighter pilot to spot you is to get down low and try to acquire you visually where low altitude obviously gives huge advantages.

 

But if we had "real" modern radars in the jets we'd see your rotors even if you were on the ground spooling up. (Refer to the desert storm A2A kill by an F15E using a bomb... ;) )

[Speed]

Right... It's the doppler sig of the spinning rotors that I was told was excluded from the radar modelling. But doesn't flying very low and slow help IN GAME to mask your radar signature?

[Panzertard]

Flying low for terrain masking should work as expected. ;)

[Speed]

Flying low for terrain masking should work as expected. ;)

 

But does flying low provide more benefit than just terrain masking? Doesn't flying low IRL help to hide your signature with ground clutter or something like that, even if you have a clear LOS? I thought that was modelled in DCS. Without the effects of spinning rotor blades, in a very low altitude hover, I should be indistinguishable from a building and invisible on A-A radar.

[Panzertard]

Radar modelling, obstructions / LOS:

- Clutter isnt modelled.

- Buildings isnt modelled.

- Terrain is.

[GGTharos]

Flying BELOW the altitude of the threat radar will reduce detection range and it will also allow you to use the notch. Exactly how low you fly doesn't matter.

[EtherealN]

- Clutter isnt modelled.

 

To clarify - the clutter itself isn't modelled, but the clutter notch gate is.

[ZQuickSilverZ]

This thread kinda got off topic. I simply wanted to know if it was as easy as thought to find and pop choppers and hear some stories of said events. Seems like it turned into a radar tech topic. Granted it has to do with said engagements but I am intrested in hearing some war stories not talking shop. Anybody got any intresting stories? We already have a few lets add more.

[ericinexile]

I was on Teamspeak on the 104th today and a very talkative chap in an F-15 claimed to have downed 20 Ka50s yesterday. It was on Teamspeak so it must've been true.

[ZQuickSilverZ]

As for shooting down jets with choppers... Might theoretically happen with kills on A10's and Frogs I guess, but very unlikely. Kills on fighters would only happen if they are either parked at an airbase or stupid enough to be close to the ground. (Seriously, by climbing from 1k feet to 15k feet you'll quite nicely double the effective range of your missiles as well as improve radar coverage, and a Shark isn't able to do squat against a jet flying at altitude.

 

Yeah I guess you are right about that. My experience with fast movers and there tactics is pretty limited. Though I have studied helo tactics somewhat. Most of my flight sim experience is of the commercial kind (FS 2000, FSX, X-Plane 9, plus I work for an airline maintance base and see md80, 737, 757, and 777 every day so i get a REAL first person view of those cockpits), though I started playing IL2 about october of last year. Wich means I have experience navigating, using flight controls, and basic operation. However I think we can all agree flying from point A to point B while involved is hardly the same as ariel combat. In fact, if you could direct me to some online content to study on the subject (fast mover combat) I would be greatful. Judging from my performance in IL2 I don't think I could ever be great at air to air (I only have 2 IL kills in about 10 total online hours of play) but Im good enouph with the blackshark to hit a moving target while moving (sometimes) and I think I could be a pretty good (high altitude) bomber.

[Speed]

This thread kinda got off topic. I simply wanted to know if it was as easy as thought to find and pop choppers and hear some stories of said events. Seems like it turned into a radar tech topic.

 

How are those two topics not deeply and mutually related? What are you looking for exactly? A simple yes or no?

 

All I know is that while flying low, I have not yet been shot down by a fighter, though I'm sure it will happen. It doesn't help that friendly fighters think it's a good idea to hot dog it down low with the helos. Considering that it's an enemy tactic to fly low and while trolling for helos, I'm thinking I might just try to put some rounds into the next jet fighter I see down low buzzing a chopper. After all, about half the time that there IS a fighter down low, it IS an enemy!

 

It also doesn't help that these servers are running missions where the enemy has both US and Russian aircraft. The only way to ID friend or foe is with IFF, which is not realistic for the majority of imaginable scenarios.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Speed

[fangav]

I was on 104th server on Saturday and saw a jet, F15 i think shoot a ka50 down who was high and had his nav lights on, not a good idea. I was only about 3kms away and my first instinct was to jam on the brakes and get into a low hover, He turned a 270 and then flew around me and smoked another ka50 who was behind me and up high, estimate about 200m, I reckon staying below the horizon and slow is your best defense, harder to catch the eye of the jet pilot when not moving. AND turn your lights off. hehehehehe

[ZQuickSilverZ]

How are those two topics not deeply and mutually related?

 

Oh they are related. I am not saying they are not. But what I am really after is tactics I can use to avoid them spotting me. Its my understanding its hard to spot the helo on radar. I'm curious if that is so how the fast movers cope with that deficiency. I mean if there radar is unreliable how are they finding the helo targets. I wanted there opinion if it was as easy to spot them as they thought it would be prepatch. My goal is to learn from KA-50 pilots mistakes from their stories, and to take advantage of a weakness in the jets radar.......... if there is one. I also want to know about there victories. Did they shake a fixed wing (say an A-10) and how did they do it? Did they shoot one down perhaps? I might later use the same tactics. Plus its fun to hear all the war stories.

[Bucic]

You keep discussing the possibility to find a flying Ka-50. But what about when Ka-50 is in the target area and has to deploy flares and weapons. Totally fried in such a situation. The target area just has to be clear then.

[Boberro]

The problem is peps rarely fly with protect near them.... also rarely someone wants to fly over bomber targets especially to guard them loosing in this time probably at least 1 kill ;]

[Krebs20]

This is what the other side of this engagement looked like from my point of view (F-15). Please note that I am a very new pilot that is still learning how to play.

 

I can give you a brief story of defending a chopper, if that is interesting. :)

 

Been flying a good bit on the 104th server after DCS:BS 1.0.2 release, and did do a little bit of BS at first but then switched to F15 to be top cover. That was awful quiet for a while (as it can be) and I switched again to a Hog and proceeded to pound some targets alongside the choppers. After a while the AWACS came in and informed us of some popup groups that me and the other Hog driver decided were a bit ominous, so we alerted the sharks that they should switch to hide-mode and we gave ourselves the role of improvised CAP for the poor sharks flitting about. What followed was a very interesting engagement:

 

- The first hostiles, which we could only track via AWACS calls, ended up going way around; in the end it became apparent that they were not interested in our rotorheads but rather a completely different type of rotating head - the AWACS.

3 of us took off out of Mineral. An SU27 and 2 F15s. We made our way to the ground pounders with the intention to get some of them to switch into fighters. The turkey hunt was on. We started low until about the last 60 miles and made a slow climb to FL250. We picked up 4 contacts on radar. 3 of them showing alt of 0 on the TWS. Our 27 pilot got contact on what he thought was the blue AWACS. He decided to go for it. The other 15 and myself leveled at FL20 and each fired AIM120s on the Ka50s 20NM out. They show up on radar very well. I dropped down to FL050 the other 15 stayed high.

- A second and very low-flying popup was reported around the same time however and it did stay in the area and was a very big threat to both ourselves (remember, we were two guys with only a soon-to-be-dead AWACS and our own RWR as any resemblance of BVR detection equipment, and AIM-9's as our only A2A missiles) and the choppers (who don't even have a way to detect that they're being engaged by such a jet). After some maneuvering and using the RWR as faux radar (reminder to all jet pilots: your radar not only tells you where people are - it tells others in an even wider radius where YOU are; and while at it, using jammers at all times only causes your friends to be forced to intercept you at great fuel expenditure since they cannot IFF you, so stop that permanent jammers-on crap) I get visual on the F15 and turn in to engage as he is headed straight for the hill the choppers are using for cover. With a very narrow engagement window due to the relative speeds I only give myself the briefest of tones before launching my AIMs, which fail to track all the way: however, the F15 seemed to have noticed that someone was looking to kill him and turned back in which gave me a cannon attempt which unfortunately missed (kingdom for a gun radar to calculate lead). After that he got me and the other A10.

I had my radar slewed to about a low as I could. Narrow Focus, 10nm, and only searching the 0-5k feet. I had lock on a Ka50 at "Tank Hill" 5 miles out I let a 120 go on it. It went ballistic on its last mile. I never lost radar lock but I was probably to close when I launched and too fast. I don't really know, I am still new at this. I then switch to guns manual and dove on the ka50. I didnt have enough room to make the get a good angle so I pulled out and headed to the "river by tank hill". Our Su27 Reported that he shot down the Tanker. He then decieced that he was going to head back to us to assist with hunting KA50s.

 

I then saw what looked to be Flares. (I guess it was an AIM9) Then at my 11o clock, an A10 in a steep right hand turn and I am on its 5 o' clock. I am still not very good with switching weapons in flight so I went full AB and charged in gave a guess and fired some cannon rounds a mile in front of him. Not even close. I shot by his tail and made a hard left and tried to regain a visual. I had my cannon radar on this pass and found an A10 flying in a straight line level. In about the exact spot I made my 1st pass. I took my time and gunned him down. Thinking that the A10 was destroyed, I went back to "tank hill" to reengage the blackshark. I switched to AIM9 and had radar on to help guide me into it when I saw an a10 over tank hill in a steep left hand turn. From my point of view I thought the A10 was trying to get a lock with an AIM9. I turned my radar off and fired. The Aim 9 hit him moments before he was able to complete his turn on me.

 

Richard III ? My kingdom for a horse? (kingdom for a gun radar to calculate lead) I don't understand this.

 

However, by that time an SU27 which had been out to sea to intercept the threat to our AWACS had made it back to the area while I was re-tooling into an F15 and made best speed to that area and nailed him as he was running from that SU27. He made a cute remark about "shame you called in friends" or something like that. :)

I was then fired on from behind. Missle warning going off I dove low over tank hill and made for the coast. It missed, (I dont know how) I turned back into the bandit. With help from the other 15. I turned the radar on and pointed it to FL15 and had a lock at 15ish miles. I fired my last 120c from the deck and turned back inland to a neutral airport. ( 800 Pounds fuel) On my way in I got lock with my remaining Aim 9 and downed a KA50. A little further on I saw a second KA 50 with its lights on and made a fast attempt to gun it down. I didnt have enough time and my shots all went over it. I buzzed it with less then 20 feet between us at 500 knots. The Blackshark managed a few hits with its cannon after my flyby. I was impressed but he didn't damage anything. I made a landing at the local airport and that was it.

The basic lesson to take from all that is: the biggest asset of a helicopter when it comes to not being killed by jets is to have people around that can keep the jets busy as well as tell you when to hide. If you have that the enemy will need a very serious numbers advantage to be a threat because taking time off to slew their radars down to look for you might cost them their life until they have mopped up your cover. And of course, they can only lock what they can "see" - if you are only able to get information about an incoming threat you can take such appropriate steps as using buildings and terrain contours to hide you from it's radar even if it is looking. That way even a pair of A10's which are really not a serious threat to the fighter can keep both you updated and the threat occupied long enough for friendly CAP to come in.

I can agree with this 100%. I had a f15 doing support at 20k feet. I wasn't looking for fighters. He was. 50s are harder to hit then I was expecting. (They are still the easiest target I have shot on yet.) But in order to get a clear lock you have to join them are there level. You are extremely vulnerable to enemy fighters yourself then. One fighter is enough to hold up a group of attackers.

 

As for shooting down jets with choppers... Might theoretically happen with kills on A10's and Frogs I guess, but very unlikely. Kills on fighters would only happen if they are either parked at an airbase or stupid enough to be close to the ground. (Seriously, by climbing from 1k feet to 15k feet you'll quite nicely double the effective range of your missiles as well as improve radar coverage, and a Shark isn't able to do squat against a jet flying at altitude.)

 

Only expect choppers to kill fighters if the chopper pilot is me and the fighter pilot is GG. :D

 

Advice to Blacksharks from my run.

 

Most of the KA50s I saw hit had one major thing in common. They all had there lights on.

 

150+ meters is easy to spot on radar. Stay under 400 agl

 

Hide in a city. If you cannot be found, you cannot be killed.

 

Brown hayfield do not hide your profile from above. If you want to hide, Look for something dark below you to hide above. I makes you much harder to spot.

 

Any level of support will increase your chances of not being shot down.

 

To the post about how buildings have no effect on Radar. This is true, However if the missile cannot pass threw the building to get to the ka50 on the other side. It works better then chaff.

 

Okay, sorry for the wall of battle I posted here. Again, I am new at this. So all of my information can be taking with a grain of salt.