The defensive fight...

[Ian_cf-18]

Ok gentlemen... I am in need of your advice!

 

I've been setting up small, quick battles with the FBP ( mostly because I don't have alot of time to play lately), and I am miserably failing (i.e. getting shot out of the sky) everytime the fight is defensive, for example 2 against 3, or even worst odds...

 

Of all the tutorials out there, I cannot seem to find one for that tyoe of engagement. There are excellent tactics for duels, but none for multiple bogey fights. Therefore, I would like to ask you all for your advice/tactics in those situations.

 

As an example, I have described below a typical fight that I play, without much success. Please take note that I will accept in good spirit any joke on my flying skills only if:

a) It is accompanied with good advice;

b) The joke is really funny!:p

 

Typical fight: 2 SU-33's (including me) against 3 Turkish F-5s...

 

OK, here I am with my trusted friend "pilot 2", inbound head-on against 3 F-5s loaded with 6 AIM-9 each... Easy you might think, so did I, at first.

 

Ok, I acheive a lock fairly easily on the lead bogey at about 70-80km, tell "pilot 2" to engage my target, which he confirms. I break the lock and lock the second bogey, thinking "we'll acheive long range kills on the first two, and then that poor lone F-5 will be downed quickly when we get to WVR...Wrong!:(

 

First off, after launching a pair of R-27ER at the midpoint between the max range for non maneuvering target and the next caret, I maintain lock iwth the F-5, turning slightly and diving in the process... so far so good. Arriving within 15 km, both of my missiles have been spoofed and the F-5 is flying perpendicular to me, we are down to about 1000m altitude. After spoofing another one of my missile (R-27), I finally got the kill within less than 4 km with an R-73.:D

 

OK, time to see what is going on with my buddy. Looking left, I notice another F-5 close to me, with "pilot 2" in chase... To my surprise, the F-5 is not defensive, but coming after me! In the next second, he releases no less than 4 missiles my way. After expanding ALL my flares (can you say panicky?), I am still looking left only to notice that "pilot 2" is himself being chased by the 3rd F-5!!

 

With that multi-tasking (looking left and releasing flares:rolleyes: ) I forgot one important thing... fly the airplane. By the time I heard Betty's voice, I was already in the drink.

 

I won't even tell you what happened when I replaced the f-5s with F-16s...

 

Any comments appreciated. Thanks!

[britgliderpilot]

OK, further tips here:

 

Fire as soon as you can. It's a low PK shot, but it forces the bandit to start worrying about the missile that's coming his way, puts him on the back foot.

 

Since that one will almost certainly miss, fire again at about 40km range.

 

If he dodges that as well, fire just outside BVR and then throw an R27ET as you merge.

With practice, he shouldn't survive any further than that.

 

 

The way the AI usually dodges your radar-homing missiles is by breaking lock through notching your radar. He flies at 90 degrees to you, closure rate is same to him as the ground, your radar filters him out as the ground and the lock drops. Your lock transitions to EOS (thankyou Sukhoi), but the missile loses guidance. Just a fact of life.

It's easy to see how if you launch both missiles at the same time, they'll both miss.

 

Tip - if you fly beneath him, the radar doesn't have to filter him out and he can't notch you. You keep the lock, the missile keeps guiding, and . . . well, you can see where this is going ;)

 

However, at the beginning of the fight you still want to be as high and fast as possible, to get the first launch. I'm having success against the AI by going from high and fast, to a steep descent to get underneath him after I've fired my second missile.

 

 

The AI are weirdly good at using flares to dodge IR-seeking missiles. You can wait for a high PK shot, or you can let him extend a little further away and blow him into smithereens with an R27 . . . . you can't use them in a turning fight, but if there's a little separation while you're still WVR, they can't dodge them.

 

 

If you PM me your email address, I'll record a track of me flying such an encounter and email it to you.

[Ian_cf-18]

Thanks for the tips... I sent you a private message.

 

I knew and have been trying to put those in action, but it seems that it is especially difficult against multiple opponents, because the SARH missile forces you to keep focusing on one bandit, leaving always a bandit free...

[britgliderpilot]

Track recorded, on it's way - that was bloody hard work!

Harder than I remembered, that's for sure . . . .

 

 

In this track I assigned my wingman to the bandit that split off to the left, I went for the leader, and then after he disappeared in a puff of black smoke I went looking for his wingman. RWR and wide-open eyes . . . .

 

You're right, it's just not possible with the Russian sensors to keep track of the third F5 while engaging the first two BVR. A poor mans substitute is to close to 25k or so in TWS with wide separation between you and your wingman, let them split up so you get an idea of where they are. Lock and fire (an R27ET if you can, fire and forget) at as close a range as possible, minimise your blindness time.

After you've killed yours, point to where the untargeted aircraft was . . . hopefully it won't have moved too far.

 

But you didn't ask for that - and you've have to be very confident about what you're facing to try it.

 

 

It's further complicated by the size and agility of the F5 - if you were up against 3x Tomcats, you'd be able to acquire them visually at about 15km, which would greatly simplify matters. Searching 360 degrees of sky for a missing F5 is, err, tricky ;)

Discovered that when a cannon shell from the F5 I thought was in front of me neatly removed my wing ;)

 

 

As a general rule, the Russian aircraft just aren't designed for multiple-target engagement. Avoid it where you can.

[Ironhand]

Track recorded, on it's way - that was bloody hard work! (Remainder snipped)

Hey Brit,

 

Want to send it to me, too? richards7(at)earthlink(dot)net

 

It's always enlightening to see other people fly.

 

Rich

[192nd_Erdem]

I just made some flights,I didn't know a couple of F-5's could be such a headache! :)

 

In my first tries,I wasted ALL(4) my R-27RE's on a single F-5 yet he survived...They easily evade all the missiles,so the BVR "picking" doesn't work well.In WVR R-73's did their jobs,but mostly I got killed while working on one F-5.

 

Then I put some R-27R on my plane and managed to get some BVR kills,I dunno maybe it's more maneuvrable or luck.After that it was 2vs2 and second Su-27 did his job with R-27ET(while I was being the bait :) ).

 

Now I think a Su driver should think twice before engaging our F-5E's :D

[GGTharos]

Well it is a tiny (also in rcs) and very maneuverable plane - basically I think it was meant to be a MiG-21 adversary :)

 

Although I think that BVR should work a lot better against'em ...

[Ian_cf-18]

Brit,

 

Just viewed the track. Nice work! I am really impressed on how well you re-acquired with the Helmet Mounted Sight...Do you have TrackIR? Man, I should really get that. Slewing the view with the hat stick of the joystick is just a pain when frantically searching for the planes WVR.

 

If it's hard with 3 F-5s, just imagine the difficulty against 3 F-16s...

 

 

NBTW, how's your naval MOD coming along?

[Ironhand]

Ian_cf-18,

 

I just reread your scenario and realized who you have set for an adversary. (I was at work before and reading fast--too fast in this case.) In the scenario you've described, Su-33 (2) vs F-5E (3), it helps to know your adversary. That's what will give you the advantage. Don't know if you realize it but the F-5E does not have pulse-doppler radar. Their radar is an older pulse model. Place them in a look down situation and they cannot lock you (actually their radar shouldn't see you either and they should not know where you are until they acquire you visually but that's another issue).

 

So you might want to try attacking from below. If your scenario provides you with the time, climb to a higher altitude but only to drag them higher and then dive below them. That way, with more altitude to play with, you can stay below them for longer.

 

Just a thought concerning a tactic you might want to give a try.

 

EDIT: Took a few minutes to fly this after I ate some dinner: 2Su-27_v_3F-5E_Ironhand.zip Is this the sort of setup you had in mind? However, if I'm in a Sukoi, I prefer to fly under Ukrainian colors. So that means I'm in a -27 instead of a -33.

 

Rich

[junae]

Nice topic!

 

 

If some of you have recorded other tracks, please post them here, I'll be proud to watch them...

 

 

Thank you

[britgliderpilot]

Brit,

 

Just viewed the track. Nice work! I am really impressed on how well you re-acquired with the Helmet Mounted Sight...Do you have TrackIR? Man, I should really get that. Slewing the view with the hat stick of the joystick is just a pain when frantically searching for the planes WVR.

 

If it's hard with 3 F-5s, just imagine the difficulty against 3 F-16s...

 

 

NBTW, how's your naval MOD coming along?

 

Well given each F-16 could, if it so wished, fire a missile at each of you . . . . yeah, that could be tricky. I'll see if I can actually manage to win that one . . . . ;)

 

 

I don't have TrackIR, no. I've been meaning to look at it, but to be honest I think the effect on my housemates of seeing my gazing at a computer screen with HOTAS and microphone AND a couple of little shiny dots stuck to my forehead might be just too much :P

 

Reacquiring there was reasonably lucky - from the RWR, I knew the bandit was close, I knew which direction he was, and I knew he had me locked up. Saw the flash of a something shiny against the sea, could only be an F5.

The naughty way to do that is to scan around while padlock-spamming, which works, but I try to avoid.

 

 

Ironhand's track demonstrates the wait-until-they-get-close-and-you-know-where-they-are theory perfectly - even then it's not simple to reacquire the third bandit.

 

 

The Naval Mod itself is more or less ready, but there are a couple of minor problems I need to sort out. I need to record two tracks and three voiceovers, and I need to fix the Loman file because I missed a couple of files.

Voiceovers isn't too hard but is time-consuming, changing the Loman file is easy.

 

The big annoyance is the filesizes, particularly including the Merzifon airbase - it's going to be essential to the campaign, so it has to be there, but the scenery files alone add up to 40Mb.

I like to send the files out to test before I let them go, but I've got a 512k connection . . . . *wince*

 

It's coming - my aim for release of the first version is next weekend.

 

The version including the big campaign will take longer - will almost certainly be post v1.12 release, which will make life interesting for both campaign missions and training tracks. Hopefully it'll include a proper Black Sea Ops menu interface instead of my lightly modded interface, too . . . . :)

[britgliderpilot]

Nice topic!

 

 

If some of you have recorded other tracks, please post them here, I'll be proud to watch them...

 

 

Thank you

 

Haven't got any more A2A tracks hosted (there's a voiceover Su33 BVR vs Tomcat track coming with the Navy Mod), but if you want to move some mud then check out these links - one's an S-300, one's a Patriot, and one's 5x Excellent Shilkas.

 

http://www.lockonskins.co.uk/files/tracks/bgp/VipersNest.zip

 

http://www.lockonskins.co.uk/files/tracks/bgp/Smackdown.trk

 

http://www.lockonskins.co.uk/files/tracks/bgp/Weaselling.trk

[junae]

Wow, nice Brit!!

 

 

I'm D/L them right away...

 

 

 

Thank you ;)

[Maulkin]

I don't have TrackIR, no. I've been meaning to look at it, but to be honest I think the effect on my housemates of seeing my gazing at a computer screen with HOTAS and microphone AND a couple of little shiny dots stuck to my forehead might be just too much :P

 

I got around that by buying some reflective tape and wrapping some around the microphone of my headset. :)

[britgliderpilot]

Just recorded a couple of tracks against the 3x F16s . . . . IMO, it's actually easier than the F5s if you can dodge AMRAAMs.

 

First track, managed to get my bandit BVR, as did the wingman. Unfortunately, the 3rd F16 caught me a glancing blow with an AMRAAM, and while I was floating around cancelling warnings and switching to LMA mode, he disappeared.

 

I did manage to locate him again, but he was on my tail at that point, and he managed to sever a wing with gunfire . . . .

 

 

Second track, I got my bandit BVR, then got his wingman.

Unfortunately, the F16 that had gone after my wingman managed to turn him into a fireball and then vanished again. Floating around with radar on and nothing on the RWR wondering where the baddy's gone is not fun . . . . :p

 

Aimed off towards my wingman's smoke trails, guessing the bandit had continued out in that direction - think my radar tripped his RWR at some point, he turned back into me and I got an R27 off at about 15km. Goodnight nurse.

 

Second track coming your way.

[Ian_cf-18]

Ironhand, Brit,

 

Nice work on the track guys! I am always impressed by this community and how people are willing to help each other out.

 

I will try to put all those good strategies in practice (unfortunately I will be away on a business trip next week, and the girlfriend probably won't let me be at the computer much today!).

 

Ironhand:

 

Last night I was re-watching your excellent "Surviving the duel" tutorial. You mention in there, just like you did in this thread, the importance of the knowledge of your opponent. In the tutorial, you mention that you know the range of the F-15 by the signal strength on the RWR. Do you have a table with that type of information but for other planes?

[Weta43]

Any chance of a look at that track BGP ????

[britgliderpilot]

Any chance of a look at that track BGP ????

 

PM me your email address and I'll forward it - I don't have any way to host things at the moment.

 

Could ask MrWolf to host them on LockonSkins, but he doesn't seem to be around at the moment.

I think I've got a mini-section on there that doesn't have a link, I could really do with write-access to it for tracks . . . .

[junae]

Hi BGP... I watched the other tracks and have to say they're veeeery good!!

 

 

Thank you for your contribution, I'm learning a lot!!!

 

 

 

As for the other tracks (against the F16s) why don't you upload your tracks to a free host?

 

I frequently use this: http://www.webfilehost.com/

 

It's very easy, all you have to do is locate the file you want U/L (preferably in ZIP format) press the upload button and then copy the URL. ;)

 

 

If you don't mind I'll PM you for the new tracks, would you?

[Prophet_169th]

I have a tip for the russian radar. You know you are about to loose lock when the reticle starts blinking. You have about 3 seconds to get into a better position. Usually getting below him.

[junae]

I have a tip for the russian radar. You know you are about to loose lock when the reticle starts blinking. You have about 3 seconds to get into a better position. Usually getting below him.

 

 

What's the reason to break the lock? Is it because of 'beaming' or a big difference in elevation?

[Maximus_G]

...guess i'm late, but never the less.

As usual, bots are easy when you figure out how to handle them.

The basic thing derived from the real life is to counter bogey's spread formation. So ideally Flankers should flank'em and then funk'em :)

But here it's just enough to assign the left(right)most target to your wingman, and concentrate on the head-on attack.

MG_060116_1.zip