What happen to my bombs?

[transporter]

On several occasions I tried to use air support to bomb a target.  Good line of sight, Jtac and/or forward observer team.  Heard the jet, cleared hot, but there is no explosion.  Then when I check the jet it shows a bomb has been dropped.  What am I missing.  There can't be that many duds.

Thanks

Edited May 10, 2019 by transporter

[puje]

Yeah I've experienced this often as well. 

[Bil Hardenberger]

Could be that they ran into some defending AA fire or received a SAM radar warning, jettisoned their ordnance and evacuated the AO.  

[The_MonkeyKing]

9 hours ago, transporter said:

On several occasions I tried to use air support to bomb a target.  Good line of sight, Jtac and/or forward observer team.  Heard the jet, cleared hot, but there is no explosion.  Then when I check the jet it shows a bomb has been dropped.  What am I missing.  There can't be that many duds.

Thanks

Me too. Also happens in CMBS

[transporter]

There is no AAA or SAM radar that I know of.  The helicopters work OK.   You would think that even if they jettisoned the bomb there ought to be a BANG somewhere.

Edited May 10, 2019 by transporter
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[sburke]

at least they dropped it somewhere.  My guys typically tell me they are all out when I can clearly see they aren't.  You'd think there would be a stat in the victory AAR screen for court martials.

[AlexUK]

Yes, I have experienced too. If not a big, it would be good to get an audio message explaining the reason.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Yup, I've experienced this in CM:SF & possibly in CMA, also in CMBS & CM:SF2.....It's usually the smaller secondary ordnance that vanishes in my experience.

[transporter]

I may have an answer.  When you assign a plane to a mission use at least "medium" for the attack.  Every time I use it the bomb dropped on target.  Perhaps the program considers "light" for strafing even though I see no evidence of it.

[transporter]

I thought I had the answer but I guess not.The rate of duds approaches 50%.  The other day I had a flight of 2 tornados each carrying 4 bombs.  Of the 8 bombs only 3 exploded.  No air to ground, no crossing of artillery gun target lines.  I tried using veteran, crack, and elite crews with the same results.  Some of the scenarios are pretty time sensitive and when you are moving troops you expect the planes to at least blow something up lest your stuck out in the open becoming fodder.  

[MOS:96B2P]

On 5/11/2019 at 4:05 PM, transporter said:

I may have an answer.  When you assign a plane to a mission use at least "medium" for the attack.  Every time I use it the bomb dropped on target.  Perhaps the program considers "light" for strafing even though I see no evidence of it.

This may have something to do with it.   

Aircraft (depending on game title) come in up to six configurations: Strafe, Light, Light Rockets, Heavy, Rockets & Maximum.

There are three types of air missions: Light, Medium & Heavy.  This refers to the ordnance to be used.  Light = bullets Heavy = bombs.

   Example: A Strafe configuration would always be light even if given a heavy mission since it only has light ordnance.

   Example: A heavy configuration given a light mission would only strafe and not drop bombs.

 

9 hours ago, transporter said:

I thought I had the answer but I guess not.The rate of duds approaches 50%.  The other day I had a flight of 2 tornados each carrying 4 bombs.  Of the 8 bombs only 3 exploded.  No air to ground, no crossing of artillery gun target lines.  I tried using veteran, crack, and elite crews with the same results.  Some of the scenarios are pretty time sensitive and when you are moving troops you expect the planes to at least blow something up lest your stuck out in the open becoming fodder.  

Aircraft have two types of targets: Point and Area.

Area target is a seek & destroy mission.  If the pilot spots OpFor in the area he will attack. 

If they do not spot a target fixed & rotor wing aircraft loiter about 3 to 5 minutes before returning to base.

There are no intentional dud bombs in the game that I am aware of.

Not sure if any of the above helps or not.  For clarification, are your planes starting the scenario with 8 bombs and ending with 0 bombs (As shown on the support panel display)?  Are you playing WEGO or Real Time? 

[transporter]

Thanks for getting back.  I use WEGO.  I don't strafe with aircraft. If available I use helos for that.  I use planes mainly for buildings or fixed defenses (bunkers, trenches, foxholes etc).  I use either medium of heavy.  The aircraft go into battle looking for a building and it says "target in sight".  I can hear it fly over.  Sometimes it will make multiple passes each time dropping a dud.  I check the ordinance available after each pass.  If the target is indeed destroyed I cancel the remaining mission to save the bombs for a future mission.  And  yes the aircraft are starting with 4 bombs per plane (tornados or F-16's)) or 5 with the F-15s.  

[c3k]

Do you have any savegames showing this? (Specifically, that a bomb is dropped but never lands?)

[MikeyD]

Iron bombs, in my limited experience, can go awry sometimes. If your target is near a map edge an errant bomb can disappear entirely off the map. This doesn't happen so much in modern war titles. I've only played with Syrian aircraft a handful of times. A MiG 21 doesn't seem like the world's most accurate precision bomber.

[transporter]

I am experimenting.  I think the problem may be that the targets I have picked out for the bombs were done so using air controllers and drones.  Perhaps the usage of drones is messing things up.  I will try line of sight targets and let you know what happens.

[transporter]

There must be a challenge with the drones.  Aircraft assigned targets by the use of drones for target acquisition had way more duds that those directed by line of sight.  For example, using the drone for 3 aircraft Tornado,F-16, F15, not all at once, only five out of 13 bombs were delivered.  When using direct line of sight with F-16,F-15 so far both dropped a good bomb on the first pass.  I think in the future I will use drones for helo's and artillery only.

[DasMorbo]

I just started playing the Canadian campaign. There I experienced this, too.

Spotter was a 'veteran' FO with a laser designator, Aircraft was an F/A-18 D with iron bombs, target was a single house designated as point target,

It had nothing to do with the aforementioned theories: there was no AA, no other aircraft interferring, target was in perfect sight and painted with a laser, target was in the middle of the map. Two passes, two bombs dropped - no effect.

[IICptMillerII]

The only way for this to be tested and verified as an issue is for savegames to be posted/submitted for testing and review. If you notice this behavior, save the turn and submit it. 

[rocketman]

On 1/3/2020 at 11:51 PM, IICptMillerII said:

The only way for this to be tested and verified as an issue is for savegames to be posted/submitted for testing and review. If you notice this behavior, save the turn and submit it. 

I've seen it repeatedly, first in the German campaign before the latest patch, and now in the British campaign with the new patch. After the German campaign I tried to made a quick test in the editor but couldn't make it happen again. Could this be caused by old scenarios/campaigns being updated to the new engine? As a test in the editor becomes "new". What kind of save would be of most use, action or planning phase? Problem with action phase is that you can't check the FO/JTAC if a bomb as been used or not during the phase.

On a related note - are regular British grunts supposed to be able to call in air strikes?

[Erwin]

19 minutes ago, rocketman said:

are regular British grunts supposed to be able to call in air strikes?

it's lucky that in current CMSF2 that they can since their platoon HQ's cannot (due to bug).  But, yes good question re RL.