What's my role on the battlefield?

[CheshireCat]

Long time listener, first time caller!

 

I've been playing Black Shark for a while now, but I am still unsure of what exactly the missions expect from me. My current view of the Black Shark is that of an extremely mobile tank, with close to no armor at all .. so when flying missions, I constantly ask myself the same question: what exactly am I supposed to do?!

 

As far as I can tell, there are anti aircraft stations littered everywhere through the missions, and these lead me to my first question: Am I supposed to spot these..? I had a hard time identifying targets, so I decided to switch on the labels, in order to use this option for training. But even with these, I am totally unable to aim at hidden AA placements, when they are posted in some forest or in a town.. so my current view is this: AA stuff is not there to be shot at, bot *solely* to force me to fly very carefully and keep my head down. Like some sort of annoying background noise - I can't shut it off, I just have to live with it ..?

 

And this leads directly to my main question: When I look at AI controlled helicopters, they like to strafe the battlefield and are in constant motion. So I always assumed that's the way to fly .. rush over the battlefield, scan for targets and quickly take them out. But after some hours of flying it seems to me thats a completely wrong approach?

 

So I switched my strategy to the following: try to anticipate from where I will be able to pick off some enemies, and sneak up to that position. Go into cover, and very carefully take out as much as possible, and then look for the next position to crawl to.

 

Now my problem: this really takes a lot of time! It's much more flexible than a tank on the ground, but the AI tanks just roll on forward, while I'm still trying to get into position, and consequently they all get shot to bits and pieces. So .. am I supposed to rush on in front of the tanks and clear the way for them..? That seems kind of ridiculous to me? They are the firepower, I'm just the support?

 

Also: is it even possible to be a really fast killer with the Black Shark? After all, first you have to find a target, slew the camera to aim at it, set your marker and then still be far enough away that the other guy can't shoot back at you - and no AA emplacements just picking you off while you're doing your attack run ..

 

So.. any advice for this rookie?

 

 

 

(As a side node: since this is my first post, I'd like to thank the awesome community here for all the tips I already took from the site, and of course give a lot of thanks to the awesome development team, who took it upon themselves to grace us with the most awesome sim experience of this day and age - you guys just plain rock :) )

[power5]

Read the mission brief and try to do what it says to. If your tanks are getting shot to pieces that is what I would focus on first. Taking out those targets. SAMs and AAA are just there to take you out, not your tanks. So, if you can avoid them, do so and focus on your objective. If the AAA and SAMs are prohibiting you from getting to your objective, you will need to sneak in and take them out. Rushing in is a sure way to get killed faster.

[CheshireCat]

Alright, but that's kind of my problem: All the mission briefing says is to "support close fire support", and that -to me- means: I follow the tanks, and take out what harms them and they cannot handle on their own.

 

But -again, to me- does certainly not mean: Fly ahead of your tanks and take out what they are supposed to. This is what I don't get: I'm supposed to be the support? They are the group of 5+x tanks, so they are the firepower to do the heavy lifting, not me? (As a more specific example: when facing another group of tanks, supported by enemy artillery, it should clearly be the tank squad's job to take out the enemy armor, while I use the Shark to bite the artillery in the back? But once I do that, my tanks just get chewed up ôO )

 

Also, as an additional question: shouldn't it be possible for the tanks to transmit their designated targets? As far as I understand, the Shark's datalink only works with it's own flight group, so it's not possible to get targeting data from units on the ground / headquarters / etc.?

[power5]

Hover just beyond the enemy's effective range and pick off the priority targets at max distance with Vihkrs. Get about 500feet AGL so you have a good angle on targets. You have 12 precision shots which should be enough for a small tank platoon plus some AAA. If you can not get the enemy taken care of before your tanks get withing their range, you just need more practice to be quicker. What mission is this? I am curious now.

 

You are really on your own and it really feels like it in BS as the tanks would at least be talking to you IRL giving you directions to the target at least.

 

Edit, I forgot about wingman sending targets back when you send him as recon.

Edited October 24, 2010 by power5

[Steel Jaw]

Noone has come up with good detailed missions nor briefs yet, it's only beta. I would expect that to change after release.

[CheshireCat]

I appreciate the helpfulness, but you're probably talking about the DCS Warthog game, correct? Cuz.. like.. I'm not ;)

[power5]

Go back to sleep Mower. ;)

[joey45]

Noone has come up with good detailed missions nor briefs yet, it's only beta. I would expect that to change after release.

 

Wrong part of the forum / sim..

[Pigmachine]

Send out your wingmen on recon, since they seems to have supermans x-ray vision, then use their datalinked targets, to send to them, since they also have supermans precision when shooting. See yourself as the director, as long as your wingmen have missiles left... Not so fun, but it increases (your) survivability. unless it's a mission when you are alone, then it's really hard to spot targets, unless you know where they are.

[CheshireCat]

So this creepy guy always following me actually has some use.. will definitely try that one, thanks!

[ShalashakaDS]

But -again, to me- does certainly not mean: Fly ahead of your tanks and take out what they are supposed to

 

 

 

Thats exactly what that means. When asked to support tanks, your job is to guarantee they will stay alive till the end of the mission, youll do that by taking out enemy tanks. You can take them out from up 10km so you should really use this advantage and kill them before your own guys get close enought to get shot at.

Also, you should take a good look on the mission planner prior to hitting the fly button, there you can see exactly wich path your guys will fallow and exactly where are the units youre supposed to take out (no mission will ask you to take out a whole army).

One more thing, your wingman can be very usefull, but more often hes just plain dumb, refusing to attack targets or flying straight into AAA, so to avoid frustration you shouldnt really count on him that much IMHO.

[hawk2495]

I always thought of the KA-50 as a slow lumbering decoy meant to draw fire away from the targets. At least that's how I felt every time I went up in the thing.

[Arclight]

Considering it's one of the fastest, most nimble helicopters in existence, I'd say that's not really accurate. ;)

[hawk2495]

Well in all fairness Arc I'm used to Lock On and Falcon where I'm flying aircraft that can at least skirt mach one, if not blow right past it. When I stepped into KA-50 for the first time, I felt like a slug. She is fast and nimble, it just takes time to get used to flying it to even be able to see those abilities. I am finding, however, that I am much better suited for fixed wing aircraft, but I will not give up.. Yet.... :)

[Isegrim]

Hi :)

 

a short tip from me

 

Single Player is not the best place to learn handling the Shark and working with it.

You have to learn and to find out the best Tactics all by yourself and an AI Pilot never will tell you when a Missile has been Launched at you .

;)

 

But some Basics for finding your own Tactics

 

- No Sam will fire at you in a Radaralt lower then 10 meters (but Wire guided)

 

- Wire Guided misiles are Slow >Vikhr is Faster< and they will miss you at a sidewalk of 40 km/h

 

- Hovering in Autohover can be your dead your not Agile enough in my opinion

 

Hope this helps you :)

[Squid_DK]

My best advice would be to take things easy, be slow and methodical, always skirt around hills never jump over them, use terrain masking to hide yourself and always be mindful of your tasking.

PPPPPP

Proper Planning Prevents P#ss Poor Performance!

 

Or in milder terms

KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid!

 

Staffan

[CheshireCat]

Thanks for all the tips and clearing some stuff up for me! Hadn't time to jump into it the last few days, but will try out some new approaches right now. I think I mainly just got impatient last time and started to just rush into the missions. Have to get those Unreal Tournament reflexes out of my head :)

 

As a follow-up question: With all this careful planning and nimbly sneaking around the battlefield, how long does a short mission usually take you? (And a long one?) Very often I think my approach - even when it's actually working - is far too slow and I should have been over that hill in front of me ten minutes ago.. I don't have any real frame of reference here, except my experience with other games which play much faster and thus probably shouldn't factor into designing tactics for this machine.

[Pigmachine]

The faster you go, the easier you run into 'unseen' trouble (unless you know where the 'trouble' is located/have labels on)

[average_pilot]

The truth is that Black Shark is an amazing rotorcraft simulator, but an awful combat enviroment simulation. To develop a complete and coherent simulated battlefield would take more resources than the machine simulation part.

To me is a question of taking the missions as "games" with their own rules, and not expect them to be like a combat simulation. If things doesn't happen as you would expect in real life that is because this is a simplified gaming version of a battlefield. Take it as that.

[polomeister]

I'd be inclined to agree with average_pilot, although I wouldn't go as far as saying the combat environment is 'awful'.

Definitely BS is built from the bottom-up, where the guys have got the flight model & all the switches etc working perfectly but have paid less attention to how the whole environment fits together.

 

To go back to the initial post, which I thought made some very good points:

> I'm not sure the BS has ever been tested in a real anti-tank role (Georgia possibly?). Whilst it's good for sneaking up on the odd terrorist & launching a few missiles their way or special service support roles, would it even be fit for purpose against NATO? It doesn't even have radar!

> Yes, AI flight is totally different to real player flight (with the possibly exception of Frazer - I don't know if you've seen his vids but they are seriously impressive) but then AI is almost always getting blown out of the sky. I remember a post by EtherealN, where he said the idea is to be like a sniper, which I think is what you've realised

 

For me, now that WH is almost out, I wish ED would concentrate on improving gameplay, AI and immersiveness of the existing products rather than start a new aircraft

[Bucic]

AI flight is totally different to real player flight (with the possibly exception of Frazer - I don't know if you've seen his vids but they are seriously impressive)

:D

 

For me, now that WH is almost out, I wish ED would concentrate on improving gameplay, AI and immersiveness of the existing products rather than start a new aircraft

:thumbup:

[average_pilot]

I'd be inclined to agree with average_pilot, although I wouldn't go as far as saying the combat environment is 'awful'.

It's just that, as english is not my language, words like that doesn't sound so heavy to me. Same with dirty words or rude expressions in english.

After a visit to wordreference dot com I must say that, yes, 'awful' is just too much. Still, I often find that the combat evironment is naive to say the least.

 

And I'm saying that awared that I haven't done any intelectual contribution to the sim (neither could I have done any) and I'm also awared of the hard work, knowledge, talent and dedication of the people at ED. I thank them in silence everytime I finish a flying session :thumbup:

[Arclight]

Well in all fairness Arc I'm used to Lock On and Falcon where I'm flying aircraft that can at least skirt mach one, if not blow right past it. When I stepped into KA-50 for the first time, I felt like a slug. She is fast and nimble, it just takes time to get used to flying it to even be able to see those abilities. I am finding, however, that I am much better suited for fixed wing aircraft, but I will not give up.. Yet.... :)

I know, it's just that you can't compare a helo to fixed-wing. If you find yourself competing with fixed-wing aircraft, you're doing something wrong (or the topcover is screwing up/blown away).

 

Normally the only airborne threat you have to deal with are other helicopters, which you can both out-run and out-manuevre.

[Grimes]

AI is almost always getting blown out of the sky. I remember a post by EtherealN, where he said the idea is to be like a sniper, which I think is what you've realised

 

For me, now that WH is almost out, I wish ED would concentrate on improving gameplay, AI and immersiveness of the existing products rather than start a new aircraft

 

Keep in mind that there is expected to be a compatibility patch for BS to WH to become online compatible. What this meant for the BS to FC2 patch was that BS got a new sound engine and a few other improvements. So once BS and WH become compatible the standalone version of BS will get access to the new parts of the map, new AI, and other non-A10 specific features.

 

That said the improvements to WH AI are mostly for land vehicles and maybe some for fixed wing aircraft. I'd have to test an identical situation with 4 AI Ka-50s attacking a target in either game to see if any behavior is different, but I doubt they changed much if at all.

 

For the role of the Ka-50 we kinda have to bend the rules a little bit. Its been used mostly for "counter insurgency operations" , yet most of its kills are not infantry. Most scenarios have a healthy mix of tanks, APCs, light vehicles, and army level air defenses as the primary target of the Ka-50. I'd even question the ratio we spend fighting the "insurgent" coalition within the game.

 

Once we get Ka-50 with A-10C I think it can become abit more interesting. Think of it this way... Ka-50 is Army CAS, A-10C is AirForce CAS. If both were available, ground forces would first call Ka-50 (or any attack chopper) first for air support, especially if its an urban combat situation. If a bigger threat emerges the A-10C or other Air Force CAS aircraft would be called to the scene to assist.

 

It would also be really interesting if we had 2 A-10C act as an AFAC/high threat support to a 4+ Ka-50 attack. A-10C can circle high above the threat envelope of possible IR or radar sams, they could use their superior Litening Pod to located and task targets, if an OSA or other similar SAM threat pops up (which Ka-50 shouldn't even try to engage) the A-10 can use their superior weaponry to clear the threats.

[Isegrim]

Ha ??? Which Sam threat shouldn't a KA 50 try to engage ???

I engage everything exept Child ,Woman and little cute Cats :D

 

In my opinion the Hog is a really bad choice for Destroying enemy LR Radar SAMs like S300. Its build to eat Tanks for lunch but and an Anti Radar Missile is realy missing on that Aircraft. :(

 

Taking out SAMs with an KA50 isnt soo Hard. ;)