A buddy. Fly with (If I catch you I'll fly with you)



There's no such thing as not tipping off the RWR. There might be RWRs that are old and not capable of processing the signals correctly, and RWRs that can't process the frequency a given SAM is using. The A-10C should be subject to neither of those.
No change in frequency is needed to sound the alarm. STT (or the equivalent carried out by a PESA/AESA radar) + inside lethal range = launch warning. That's how things SHOULD work in a lot of cases ... probably.

Phased array systems can search while tracking (SWT, not TWS like on F-15) because they can rapidly point the beam all over the search space. By rapidly I mean forming some 2000+ beams every second. This is quite a bit faster than a mechanically scanned radar, if you know how to do the math



Realistically you should expect things to spread out. This is different from a fulda gap scenario where you'd point your nose between the hills so to speak, lock the maverick on the first thing you see (and you would see, straight away) and fire. And then fire. And fire some more (Fulda gap: thousands of tanks assaulting europe). It's the realistic scenario for packing 6 mavs, and pretty much nothing else.

A more modern setting would see you facing companies of tanks split up by platoons (3 to a platoon for russian doctrine) and SAMs forming an umbrella over the ground vehicles rather than travelling with them in convoys. There would also be fewer SAMs per non-SAM unit probably, but they'd be harder to find (and ideally, sneakier).

Thanks GG. Awesome info as usual. I googled a bunch of info on the SA10 and saw I had some of the equipment right but wasn't sure about the phased array and how it worked in terms of searching and tracking. That's why I love this forum.

I think I turned the server off last night... But I hadn't been considering guys like ice over on the other side of the world. I'll go get it back up when I finish this post.

tc, there are smoke & WP? rockets on your wings to mark the target positions. If you are coming into the target area and no one has hit a target in the group to send up a smoke column, use two rockets to mark the position. That way you can broadcast the area and the line that the targets are on so you can extend and have a good chance of picking them up on the Mav display next time around.

Fulda Gap is a mission where you do want a buddy who knows how to form up, and watch for fire as you go in to draw it. Those freakin tanks that get into the cities don't stay in one place and they are really difficult to kill. Thankfully, NATO is there to clean up after the CBUs and give reparations out to the locals.


And for heaven's sake, guys, stay away from those SA-10s. They are coming from so far away that the launch sensors on the A-10C do not see them. Sometimes the only warning you will get is from another player who is observing the whole battlefield (you know, one of those nasty CIA tricks).


WC

The pizza was great, but then Tom Cruise put me to sleep in Ghost Protocol...

HE WAS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE BUILDING!!!

Heh yeah I knew I had em from looking at the DSMS but it never crossed my mind to use em. Ugh. Oh well at least I get better all the time, nowhere to go but up huh?

The mission is fairly safe up to 6000 feet ASL at least, I was flying around that height all the time and went unharassed save for a ZSU-23 I still had to whack. Threats would go back to just plain dangerous had I worked East a bit though. I can see this mission being a methodical scrubbing type. Killing the mobile SAMs was priority one for me and it paid off. There were at least two SA-19s farther East but I was outside their threat range. Killing the first two westernmost ones was a rush. Most intense session I've had yet.

That's an interesting tactic and makes sense. I like it! Though I guess you could just kill two vehicles in a row

How long does the smoke last?

It's easily safe up to 20000, depending on how far east you go. You can designate one aircraft as AFAC with TGP + Smoke pods (plus two mavs and 3 GBUs of some sort, not clusters) and he can scout out the area first and clear you in on targets, as well as mark them if necessary.

Re: White Bird

Stay away from the SA-10s. Read the briefing, learn it, know it, live it.

The SA-10s are the targets of the F/A-18 SEAD strikes. You will have plenty to do in the mean time.


Phased array radar has a big panel - look at the Patriot system - that scans all of the space out in front of it about a million times a minute. Different sections of the radar panel send beams out that triangulate each little cube of space for a hundred miles out. When the radar sees something in a cube it will concentrate more in that area, while still pinging all of the rest of it's space.

I'm happy with your first impressions. Right on target


Unfortunately, when a triggered message is sent, it is different than a text chat message, such that you cannot press a key to see it repeated. I would have to add logic to repeat those messages within the time window that they are relevant - I'll look into it. The other option on those types of messages is that the time length can be set - 10 seconds, 20, 100, etc., but they can't be on too long such that they overlay the next message.

The weather - very interesting stuff, I'm really just getting the hang of it. One guy over in DCS forums wants to create a tornado. Another says its possible to generate thunderstorms! (Riders On The Storm - coming to theaters near Bosnia) The main page of the CDU shows wind direction and speed - before I sent White Bird out yesterday I dialed back the winds from 30-40 MPH to around 10-15, still brutal, but at least the A-10s aren't getting pushed **backwards** anymore I'm thinking I may need to reduce the 6 weather zones down to 4 for an FPS improvement... we'll see. That just may be too aggressive, but its the first attempt.

There is an SA-10 right there at Kutaisi to discourage A-10Cs from approaching. General Vaz thinks he's well protected, but he's horny, too. That's why we have to kill the SA-10s from the west with carrier-based F/A-18s, and attack his convoy from the east with the more versatile A-10Cs in the mountains and the snow. Yes, it's a big area. I already ripped it all up once and relocated things... I had targets all over the hills before, but because it is so big, I got the brilliant idea to locate all targets on waypoints (our spies at work). So if you see an RWR threat, look at the nearest wp to the threat and you should find it within 2,000 meters. Note that with the severe weather, units will go down and come back up. You don't need to fly the waypoints - they are in this mission for another purpose - to mark all the known enemy locations with the help of our spy network.

The F/A-18s prosecute the SA-10s from the north, down the coast to Senaki and Kutaisi. Because of the overlapping coverage of the SA-10s, the F/A-18s have to pick them off one at at time starting from the end. Because of this and the weather, it is going to take a bit of time before the darn radars are all down. But - but - if you can get to the General's helicopter and shoot it down then the mission is won right there - your choice - otherwise you're going to have to wait for our spies to inform us as to where the General is on-route to the Dada Lake House (that's what she calls it, "Come to Dada Lake House tonight, moi generale. Come to meeee." How can General 'Dada' resist ? "Приходите на озере дом сегодня, мой генерал!"

WC

AGM-65G in da house!

Not sure if anything's happening tonight - Eno is busy and I don't have server access. And the TS server is down. Maybe this is the start of the Zombie Apocalypse.


WC

I'm flying right now. It's 2 am in the mission and its a free flight hop. I'll take what I can get though!