Finally able to fly fairly well and land, finding it impossible to ID targets

[Sholtz]

So I am finally at the point that I can start this bird cold, get in the air, find my way around and land. On to bigger and better things, mainly - blowing stuff up! :pilotfly:

 

I have the weapon systems down, having done the shooting range so many times I could probably do it in my sleep. That's childs play. But anything other than that is a disaster - have been trying to do the Death Valley mission and I honestly have NO freaking Idea what I should be shooting at. Makes sense that the armor on the ground that is facing the same direction as me is likely friendly, right? So I put that to the test by locking one up and commanding a wingman to attack it. He understandably says "Unable". Cool, built in Friend or Foe indicator in the omnioptent wingman.

 

But then it gets goofy - I keep looking around and see armor facing me, just sitting there. AHA! That must be the enemy! Lock it up, order to engage - "Unable".

 

Uh. Ok, Presumably there is something out here for me to shoot at becau - oh crap I hear bullets bouncing off the side WARNING UNDER ATTACK lights flashing and beeps and boops everywhere, going down.

 

Any tips on 1) Identifying what the hell I am supposed to blow up 2) Other than mashing counter measures, avoiding getting blown out of the sky in two seconds after 15 minutes of boredom?

 

I find it utterly fascinating that this thing was successful at all not having any sort of radar or IFF system.

[Mouse]

Friendly fire is a real and constant risk. If you believe Wikipedia, for example, 4 to 5 times as many Coalition soldiers were wounded by friendly fire as by enemy fire at the Battle of 73 Easting.

 

Your best tool for identifying targets is your local friendly JTAC, if available. You might also want to brush up on your vehicle recognition; check the mission briefing for threats so you know what to look for.

[TurboHog]

Before flying:

 

- Make sure you know the enemies you will face and make sure that you know the abilities of your enemy's material.

 

- Make sure you know the hostile area. You can also mark a hot zone in your ABRIS using the draw function.

 

When entering a hostile area:

 

- Make a few runs facing the enemy and scan the area with your shkval. If you have identified a threat, make a datalink and continue searching for more (dangerous) threats. Break off and fly back for another run.

 

- If you have decent cover you can also hover in one spot and scan the area. NEVER stay in one place for too long. Especially when playing against CA people never stay in one position for longer than two minutes.

 

- Watch for explosions, muzzle flashes, smoke trails and tracers. Use HMS to lock a position where the muzzle flashes, tracers or smoke trails come from.

 

- Don't move too slow. Better make a few runs at high speed. If you're slow you make yourself an easy target for wire guided ATGM's.

 

- NEVER ignore laser warnings if you don't know where it comes from. Break to the left or right and move fast and away in a zig-zag pattern. Laser guided or laser beam riding missiles are very dangerous and relatively agile compared to a wire guided ATGM's.

 

- After you have acquired enough targets, start attacking them. Judge by their type and position which ones you want to engage first. Again I prefer to make attack runs and fire my missiles while moving forward and break off after 1 or 2 launches. You can also do this while in a hover but make sure there is enough cover. Keep searching between your attacks as new threats can emerge.

[roob]

Reading, and more importantly, understanding, the briefing helps a lot when flying a mission. Especially one you have never flown before. I just looked at it, and it states "Threats: M4A1 Abrams and M2A2 Bradley".

 

The nice thing about this mission is that you are Russian and the enemy is American, which have units very different in style and appearance. '

 

Familiarize yourself with those two type of targets, on http://duckduckgo.com or the built-in Encylopedia. You should also familiarize yourself with what units you might have on your own side. It's probably going to be the same setup. I'm guessing the Russian T-80 and maybe some verison of BMP or BTR.

 

Back to the briefing, the map shows blue (USA) units on the northern side of the river. Since this is a fairly easy mission, units on the south side will most likely be your allies. Keep that in mind!

 

EDIT:

 

Recorded one, of many, approaches to this mission :) : http://www.twitch.tv/juclecia/b/349148224

Jump ahead to ~8 minutes, that's when the action starts. The first target is the Abrams, which is recognizable by it's "edgy" and boxlike appearance, the second is the Bradley, small and also boxy.

Edited December 18, 2012 by roob

[BigfootMSR]

So I am finally at the point that I can start this bird cold, get in the air, find my way around and land. On to bigger and better things, mainly - blowing stuff up! :pilotfly:

 

I have the weapon systems down, having done the shooting range so many times I could probably do it in my sleep. That's childs play. But anything other than that is a disaster - have been trying to do the Death Valley mission and I honestly have NO freaking Idea what I should be shooting at. Makes sense that the armor on the ground that is facing the same direction as me is likely friendly, right? So I put that to the test by locking one up and commanding a wingman to attack it. He understandably says "Unable". Cool, built in Friend or Foe indicator in the omnioptent wingman.

 

But then it gets goofy - I keep looking around and see armor facing me, just sitting there. AHA! That must be the enemy! Lock it up, order to engage - "Unable".

 

Uh. Ok, Presumably there is something out here for me to shoot at becau - oh crap I hear bullets bouncing off the side WARNING UNDER ATTACK lights flashing and beeps and boops everywhere, going down.

 

Any tips on 1) Identifying what the hell I am supposed to blow up 2) Other than mashing counter measures, avoiding getting blown out of the sky in two seconds after 15 minutes of boredom?

 

I find it utterly fascinating that this thing was successful at all not having any sort of radar or IFF system.

 

I guess the question I have since he is saying unable is, are you actually sending your wingman a target to engage via the datalink? Have the wingmen scout out in front of you and he will send you back target locations via the data link. If you don't know what I am talking about, see my training missions in my signature.

[Pizzicato]

I'm not sure if this applies to the Death Valley mission, but most campaign missions have predefined Target Points. It's generally pretty easy and relatively safe to bring yourself into a hover ~8km from a Target Point and then slave the Shkval to that location. This will ensure that you're at least looking in the right area.

 

As TurboHog said, it's also really important to pay attention to the briefing with special regard to the locations of known enemy units. That'll give you a really sense of where your attention should be focused on arrival at your target area.

 

With all of that said, there are always going to be nasty surprises that you'll struggle to spot without a ridiculous amount of diligence. The Operation Medvedev II campaign is littered with such deadly pitfalls.

[Sholtz]

Wow, lots of info here thanks everyone! A few spcifics:

 

Before flying:

 

 

 

- Make sure you know the hostile area. You can also mark a hot zone in your ABRIS using the draw function.

 

I may need to spend more time with the ABRIS, I recall seeing things like this in training but have not used it yet.

 

When entering a hostile area:

 

- Make a few runs facing the enemy and scan the area with your shkval. If you have identified a threat, make a datalink and continue searching for more (dangerous) threats. Break off and fly back for another run.

 

- If you have decent cover you can also hover in one spot and scan the area. NEVER stay in one place for too long. Especially when playing against CA people never stay in one position for longer than two minutes.

 

What is CA?

 

 

I guess the question I have since he is saying unable is, are you actually sending your wingman a target to engage via the datalink? Have the wingmen scout out in front of you and he will send you back target locations via the data link. If you don't know what I am talking about, see my training missions in my signature.

 

I have actually done your missions and have noticed something odd; the datalink commands work great in those. But whenever I play a mission or campaign, my wingmen always seem to tell me "unable" when I order them to engage my target.

 

Another baffling thing to me is, if I send a wingman out to recon and he designates a target, why am I finding it so difficult to determine how to say "Oh you found something? Well don't just stand there, attack the damn thing!!!"

 

For some reason that course of action evades me - is it possible?

[Sholtz]

Friendly fire is a real and constant risk. If you believe Wikipedia, for example, 4 to 5 times as many Coalition soldiers were wounded by friendly fire as by enemy fire at the Battle of 73 Easting.

 

Your best tool for identifying targets is your local friendly JTAC, if available. You might also want to brush up on your vehicle recognition; check the mission briefing for threats so you know what to look for.

 

What is this? I don't recall seeing that term anywhere in my training.

[TurboHog]

@Sholtz

 

CA is Combined Arms.

 

Human players are smart (most of them). I myself killed many hovering KA-50's with the optical guided SA-19 missile. If they had moved I would have been far less succesfull...

 

So staying in a hover too long is not a good idea!

[Sholtz]

EDIT:

 

Recorded one, of many, approaches to this mission :) : http://www.twitch.tv/juclecia/b/349148224

Jump ahead to ~8 minutes, that's when the action starts. The first target is the Abrams, which is recognizable by it's "edgy" and boxlike appearance, the second is the Bradley, small and also boxy.

 

Been watching this and I wish my SHKVAL was that smooth - I don't see the HMS so am curious how he is able to move it so quickly and smoothly with the keys?

 

Mine pans very slowly with keys and so fast with the HMS that it is not usable other than to get it into the relative vicinity so I can slowly pan with the keys.

[TurboHog]

Been watching this and I wish my SHKVAL was that smooth - I don't see the HMS so am curious how he is able to move it so quickly and smoothly with the keys?

 

Mine pans very slowly with keys and so fast with the HMS that it is not usable other than to get it into the relative vicinity so I can slowly pan with the keys.

 

TrackIR / Freetrack / FaceTrackNoIr is a must for being effective in combat. Or maybe I am spoilt. It greatly enhances your SA (Situational Awareness).

 

I'm using FaceTrack. It is free and a $10 webcam does the job. Same for freetrack but you need to modify the webcam.

[Sholtz]

TrackIR / Freetrack / FaceTrackNoIr is a must for being effective in combat. Or maybe I am spoilt. It greatly enhances your SA (Situational Awareness).

 

I'm using FaceTrack. It is free and a $10 webcam does the job. Same for freetrack but you need to modify the webcam.

 

I use Freetrack and it works great. For viewing that is, when I use it for the HMS it is so flipping sensitive and fast that I don't even bother with it other than getting the reticle to a relative position, then fine tuning with the keys.

 

In other words, when using Freetrack for my viewpoint it is smooth, I have to turn my head quite a bit to look behind me. I like it that way.

 

But with the HMS active if I so much as twitch or wrinkle my nose it's on the other side of the screen - is there a way to adjust just the HMS sensitivity?

Edited December 19, 2012 by Sholtz

[Sholtz]

RE: using datalink

 

This is exactly what I am talking about:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao19ZthmUGE

 

Around the 5 minute mark he sends his wingman out who IDs some targets. The targets show up on his ABRIS after the wingman sends the information over (implying that he has it, otherwise how could he transmit it?). Yet he still says you have to manually lock up the target and tell them to attack it -

 

Is there no way to just order them to attack the thing they just locked up themselves?!

[TurboHog]

RE: using datalink

 

This is exactly what I am talking about:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao19ZthmUGE

 

Around the 5 minute mark he sends his wingman out who IDs some targets. The targets show up on his ABRIS after the wingman sends the information over (implying that he has it, otherwise how could he transmit it?). Yet he still says you have to manually lock up the target and tell them to attack it -

 

Is there no way to just order them to attack the thing they just locked up themselves?!

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=94966&page=5

 

Not your fault...

 

Behaviour of my tracker does not change when HMS is on. Can't help with that...

[roob]

Been watching this and I wish my SHKVAL was that smooth - I don't see the HMS so am curious how he is able to move it so quickly and smoothly with the keys?

 

Mine pans very slowly with keys and so fast with the HMS that it is not usable other than to get it into the relative vicinity so I can slowly pan with the keys.

 

There are two options for controlling the Shkval. By analogue and digital commands. The fast one is me using my "mousestick" with its analogue input on my Warthog's throttle, and when I need to acquire a target and be more precise I have the digital mapped to my POV hat.

 

Which, by the way, is why I sometimes reset or get the HMS up by accident since I also look around with the POV hat.

Edited December 22, 2012 by roob

[StoOopiD]

u also can send your wingman to recon, datalink the targets, then sit back and auto-turn to target :)

 

on Death Valley ur suppose to escort the convoy into the city. so make sure they dont die

[Evil.Bonsai]

@Sholtz

 

CA is Combined Arms.

 

Human players are smart (most of them). I myself killed many hovering KA-50's with the optical guided SA-19 missile. If they had moved I would have been far less succesfull...

 

So staying in a hover too long is not a good idea!

 

Yup. When CA first came out, was playing online (forget which map, though) and someone was flying a Blackshark and plinking tanks. I got killed a couple times. But I learned to just scoot back from a hill crest and started shooting "BVR" over the hill at the guy that was just hovering there. Took about four shots, but he went down. I couldn't see him but my target brackets never moved.