New targeting and weapons systems effects on Attack Helicopters

[Jason Straight 0]

Recent changes to targeting and locking with attack helicopters has taken the joy and effectiveness out of them, unrealistically.

 

I primarily fly the AH-99, so I'll be talking about my experiences with weapons, radar, and targeting in respect to what I've experienced in that aircraft, which lists a maximum sky range of 3000 and ground range of 2000 for IR, although I seem to actually get 4000 and 3000 respectively.

 

AA will lock on and fire at you at about 4km, you have virtually no chance of coming out on top of an engagement with armored AA, even if you employ bob-up tactics. They will saw you apart with their guns if the missiles don't get you a km before you would even be able to target them.

 

Missiles are now controlled by the pilot, which is great, but they can no longer be laser guided by the gunner, which means you MUST have a valid radar or IR lock to hit. This also means that for IR only munitions that the target be hot (or moving).

 

I understand that this was probably done for game "balance", but it's not balanced when AA can lock and fire at ~4km, and the attack helicopter only to 3km. It's also not at all realistic when you compare the actual effective ranges of laser markers and missiles like the IR DAGR or Hellfire.

[Beagle 684]

ArmA can not use "realistic" ranges, thats out of the scope of the engine, especially whe there are a lot of units involved at view ranges above 2000meters. All weapon ranges have to be scaled down. Btw. RL the ranges of AA are often above the ranges of the rather small and light missiles a helicopter can deploy...thats why SAMS are area denial wepons. The new static SAM particulary keos the sy clear now in MP around base and spawn areas...thats very welcome from ground unit players.

As a helicopter pilot you nw have to watch out where you go...I found out that going slow and low now really helps. Missiles still can' hit you through terrain or trees and cannon fire loses effectiveness above 2km except you're stationary on auto hover.

Yes life is harder now, but you can adapt, as always.

 

In MP is is a good Idea just like RL. to let the fixed wing aircraft like F/A-181 do SEAD. and let helicopters do CAS only.

Te new system of active or passive sensors gives groudn units some space to move again...it was prettty bad lately in large combined forces MP environtments wit a single Mi-48 helicopter up. Aircraft have better teeth now also in comparison to helcopters.

 

[Jason Straight 0]

Yeah, I don't expect complete realism, but I just feel that it's not right that AA is more real than the aircraft weapons. There's not even a fighting chance now.

 

I do like the fact that low and under-cover is more of a thing, but just annoyed that there's no way to operate against AA, not matter how good you are.

[Grumpy Old Man 3540]

12 hours ago, Jason Straight said:

Yeah, I don't expect complete realism, but I just feel that it's not right that AA is more real than the aircraft weapons. There's not even a fighting chance now.

 

I do like the fact that low and under-cover is more of a thing, but just annoyed that there's no way to operate against AA, not matter how good you are.

You seriously expect to take out AAA or SAM units with a CAS purpose attack chopper? AAA stands for anti aircraft artillery and SAM for surface to air missile, which is most of the time almost as long as the chopper you're flying and built for the sole purpose to mess your day up.

For what it's worth the authenticity increased with those changes. Let a tank or specops unit take out those anti air vehicles first, then move in the close air support, as it's supposed to be.

 

On 12/4/2017 at 2:16 AM, Beagle said:

ArmA can not use "realistic" ranges, thats out of the scope of the engine, especially whe there are a lot of units involved at view ranges above 2000meters. All weapon ranges have to be scaled down. Btw. RL the ranges of AA are often above the ranges of the rather small and light missiles a helicopter can deploy...thats why SAMS are area denial wepons. The new static SAM particulary keos the sy clear now in MP around base and spawn areas...thats very welcome from ground unit players.

As a helicopter pilot you nw have to watch out where you go...I found out that going slow and low now really helps. Missiles still can' hit you through terrain or trees and cannon fire loses effectiveness above 2km except you're stationary on auto hover.

Yes life is harder now, but you can adapt, as always.

 

In MP is is a good Idea just like RL. to let the fixed wing aircraft like F/A-181 do SEAD. and let helicopters do CAS only.

Te new system of active or passive sensors gives groudn units some space to move again...it was prettty bad lately in large combined forces MP environtments wit a single Mi-48 helicopter up. Aircraft have better teeth now also in comparison to helcopters.

 

 

Arma can very well have realistic ranges, not limited by the engine but more a developer decision from what I know.

Take artillery as an example, you can use a scorcher/mlrs with the highest charge to get around 800m/s muzzle velocity, fire at 45° and will hit a target at same sea altitude at around 73km distance and pinpoint accuracy.

You can also link up multiple ground units that are equipped with radar, have them share targets and have a SAM turret up to 16km away (maybe even more), SAM can lock on to any aircraft shared by any radar on the same side.

It's possible to place a few praetorians all over the map and enable their radars for a mere second and turn them off again if no enemy has been detected. If they found an enemy aircraft keep radar active until the SAM on the other side of the map took care of the threat.

 

SAM and AAA units are nasty, really nasty.

 

Luckily most mission makers don't fully utilize their power,

otherwise you'd be hard pressed to fly more than one km on most maps before some SAM missile takes you out.

 

 

Cheers

[dragon01 902]

Armored AA was, in fact, specifically invented to deal with attack helicopters. Don't expect to go up against those and have a chance. MANPADS too, though if you manage to dodge a missile from an isolated team you can usually retaliate and flatten them. Fixed wing aircraft can deal with armored AA, with some skill, but it also involves a lot of dodging an a fair bit of luck. And even that's only a SHORAD system. We've got a Sea Sparrow equivalent, but that's also a "point defense" system, albeit a medium range one. Serious AA missile systems simply aren't present in ArmA, and can cover a few hundred kilometers. Aircraft weapons, outside cruise missiles and dedicated anti-radar munitions, can hardly match them.

[Ex3B 265]

On 11/19/2017 at 5:57 AM, Jason Straight said:

I primarily fly the AH-99, so I'll be talking about my experiences with weapons, radar, and targeting in respect to what I've experienced in that aircraft, which lists a maximum sky range of 3000 and ground range of 2000 for IR, although I seem to actually get 4000 and 3000 respectively.

...

Missiles are now controlled by the pilot, which is great, but they can no longer be laser guided by the gunner, which means you MUST have a valid radar or IR lock to hit. This also means that for IR only munitions that the target be hot (or moving).

For the first... I do think that the blackfoot's sensors are gimped if these stats are accurate:

http://armedassault.wikia.com/wiki/AH-99_Blackfoot#Infrared_Search_and_Track.2FVisual_Sensor

http://armedassault.wikia.com/wiki/Mi-48_Kajman#Infrared_Search_and_Track.2FVisual_Sensor

Last time I checked in the config viewer, that was accurate. Its BS that the blackfoot has gimped sensors compared to the "do everything" Kajman, and it doesn't have any particular "stealth" advantage either.

As for the missiles controlled by the pilot... that is set by dynamic loadout no?

Why can't they be laser guided by the gunner, do scalpels no longer lock on to laser targets? that could gimp some missions that I previously made which used scalpels and laser targets...

 

If they still lock laser targets, then I don't understand why they can't be laser guided by the gunner?

I've been using them on fixed wing, just with the targeting camera and SACLOS guidance, and that works fine, I wish we had a helicopter equivalent for the targeting camera- particularly for the Falcon drone, since you can't have a pilot and gunner at the same time.

A 1 person version of the helos, with the pilot controlling a targeting camera (and the cannon) would be great... it wouldn't even have to be truly "1 person", it could work like the direct driving of tanks as gunner or commander, as long as there is an AI in the driver seat.