Hind Combat Tips; Please Give Me

[Seria17hri11er]

Hello all. So I am having trouble figuring out exactly how to approach and attack ground targets using rockets and the cannon. I have successfully had my gunner fire rockets multiple times at ground targets. However, I cannot consistently get him to fire. What should I be doing? Should I be coming in at the target just 100 feet AGL and maintain it? Should I be dive bombing them keeping them in my sites? What is the tactic here to get the gunner to consistently fire?

Thanks a million.

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[Seria17hri11er]

Deleted this post.

[Emetivore]

Well, I see this thread was immediately derailed and disregarded, but it seems to be the only source of information on what the heck to do with this helicopter in battle on the entire internets.

So, let me reopen it. Here's my question:

I just don't understand how to approach ground targets. As soon as I get near them I'm immediately shot down 100% of the time. I've tried flying in fast and low, I've tried flying in at 500 altitude, I've tried hovering slowly in the distance, no matter what I do I'm shot down within 10 seconds and destroy nothing.

I've tried manual fire and unloaded all of my rockets as fast as I can right into the center of the enemy base as I fly by at 300kph, and destroyed nothing.

Do I need to have a magic wand in my cockpit, or is there something I'm doing wrong?

Please... is there a guide here somewhere that details what to do here?

Thanks!

[Max Power]

Here's a guide I wrote in another thread:

Here are some things I have noticed about the hind while playing:

The hind is most stable at high speed, so high speed attack runs seem to be the easiest to pull off.

When you are lining the helicopter up for a missile shot as the pilot, make sure your target is as close to the centre of your reticle as possible. This will ensure the highest probability of a hit.

Rocket attacks work very well on area targets from a distance. Aim slightly above the target area and let a volley off between 2 and 1 km and observe the effects until you are comfortable with range estimation. Once you're fairly good at it, you don't need to stick around to watch the rockets impact, you can simply reset for another run well out of reach.

The hind has very good dive accelleration at all speeds. To get out of dodge quickly, I would suggest diving. A consequence of this is that in a terminal dive for an attack at high speed, the helicopter will quickly overspeed and receive stress damage. Complicating matters is targets aquisition (in the OEM missions) is usually accompanied by all kinds of noise, distractions, and forced radio communication with Warmonger. Cruising at 75% collective at 300 km/h at 500m altitude followed by a terminal dive to target = 1 wrecked helicopter. Make sure that your airspeed, altitude, attitude, and heading are all in order before you commence your attacks. If you intend to dive on target, it is best to make sure you are going no faster than 250 km/h at the start of the dive, and you only stay in the dive to put shots on one target. Multiple engagements in the same dive = 1 wrecked helicopter.

In this sim in general, I have noticed that the best indicator of your accelleration, all things being equal, is your rate of descent indicator. Usually, if you are sinking, you are accellerating, and if you are climbing, you are decellerating.

In my experience in ArmA, the old style strela 2 missile launchers have very poor target tracking capability, and are only really dangerous head on and from the direct rear aspect. Doing attack runs in a figure 8 track minimizes your rear aspect exposure to the target area. Make an attack run, DO NOT overfly the target area, turn away no closer than 500m distance, make a wide 270 degree turn and then start a 2km, diagonal leg of your egress, then make another 270 degree turn in the opposite direction, and come in for another attack run, acquire your targets, fire from as far away as you dare, observe impacts if required (like with SACLOS missiles) and then turn away in a wide arc again for the egress leg of your figure 8 track.

Speed and distance are your friends. Shooting salvos of rockets into an area with open zsu-23-2 AAA guns will allow you to kill the gunners with spash damage before you are in range. Entering a diving turn at high speed is usually enough to avoid trouble from ground fire.

Hard turns with high collective should be avoided. I have found that a hard turn at high speed with high collective causes the aircraft to behave sort of like a stall in IL2. At any rate, high AoA maneuvers eat up your energy quite quickly and force you to accellerate again afterwards.

Mopping up remaining (helpless) infantry usually requires a direct flyover to get your gunner to identify the targets. You may get close and do all the silly things you can do in ArmA to kill people on the ground provided they don't have machineguns or AA weapons.

Taxiing can be accomplished by using small applications of collective, NOT forward cyclic. Cyclic causes torque to climb rapidly, and causes the helicopter to spin on its wheels (necessitating the application of anti-torque pedal), and does not actually give you much forward thrust. Applying cyclic gradually can allow you to taxi quite easily. Attempting a take off run like a fixed wing aircraft causes bumping sounds at a certain speed and I am not sure if that is the indicator for damage or not, but it's best not to taxi at high speeds at any rate.

[Emetivore]

Very, very helpful, thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Also, what are the relative ranges on the Hind armaments?

[Max Power]

At around 1 km I can put a rocket salvo into a 50m square area. The gun ranges are pretty long but they are limited to the ability of the crew to spot their targets, same with missiles. I find that the SACLOS icon for missiles appears at about the 1 km mark. I think the maximum range of the missiles depends (on your altitude and speed and the type of missile) but it's probably from 3 to 5 km.

I find that the range for pegging off things like t-34s with rockets is very close due to the fundamental instability of the helicopter.