Apache rocket attack....drunken shotgun of the gods

[Hev]

Thats a cool diagram, in practise i would expect a pilot (in a strafing attack) to fire 6 rockets, miss the first two, hit with the second two, and miss with the last two. Or something along those lines.

If the pilot lined up, and ripled them off as he flew towards the target that would reduce the Yaw from the rockets leaving the rails. And of course, i imagine he would get a lot closer than 2000 meters.

Also, in a lot of the videos we've seen, the helo attacked with two weapons in a pass, hosing with the chain gun in the early stage of the attack and finishing with one or two rockets as a parting shot. Is that something we could see in the game?

[John Kettler]

YankeeDog,

An absolutely stellar find full of current and future grog goodness! The briefer misspelled "lasing," though.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Pandur]

whats up with ouer drunken shotguns!? i know 1.06 or 1.07 helped em a bit but maybe they shouldnt shoot 15 rockets a run but just 2 but hit more often or something along that line

every time i order such a strike, wich is rare but still, its really off, one or two missiles may hit the target building/area... but heck, for what did the pilot shoot the other 10+ !? its not they have unlimited amounts of them onborad.

[Lethaface]

Last time I used them they ware fired one by one and very accurate ( or it did fire hellfires on medium?) in Ash SHammas. They actually all hit the SF HQ which I was pounding, or very near to it. I think it shot 4/5 rockets per pass with 5-10 seconds in between.

However, previously i also noticed the map wide spread. That was in previous versions though and I can remember that some patch addressed the grouping.

Any1 had anything similar (small volleys instead of strafing runs)?

[permanent666]

the apaches are the best air asset for a precise attack - unlike the planes - their gbus fail their target most of the time .... in my opinion they need some more tweaking

[Pandur]

they are more than accurate with the hellfires, normaly i use heavy strikes for air suppot, other than that it doesnt pay off in my view.

and in heavy attack mode i only saw the long bursts from the rocked pods the last times i used it.

dont know if it is different with medium strikes but i dont know what could be the reason for pilots to blast off more than nessesary in heavy mode. i mean "heavy" means for me weight towards heavy weapons and not weight towards sensless sparying of medium weapons mixed with heavy weapons.

after all if you have air assets available you have artillery suppor too, most of the time. so why bother with a light/medium AH64 strike when i can have that in, sometimes half the time more accurate and devestating, delivered by arttilery.

let alone the kiowa´s, ill take a "cheap" mortar instead of a expensive aircraft anytime in CMSF right now.

that said i dont talk about fixed wing assets here. i barely used them so far and have no clue what stryke type does what to wich type of target.

i talk about the rotary winged ones...

[Clavicula_Nox]

Originally posted by permanent666:

the apaches are the best air asset for a precise attack - unlike the planes - their gbus fail their target most of the time .... in my opinion they need some more tweaking

Yeah, the last time I used an F-16 was quite devestating. I had a whole company getting ready to breach a wall, meanwhile, I had artillery and air strikes planned for another section of the battlefield. Well, Mr. F-16 pilot decided to drop his bomb directly on my dismounted company. There was less than a dozen survivors, all of them Yellow wounded, and one of my platoon leaders survived to lead a hasty retreat from the kill zone.

[Lethaface]

Using JTAC's my f16's never missed greatly. Sometimes a little of target but allways still damaging the intended target. Didnt use m too many times though

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Today I had an Apache miss its target considerably--as in, its shots didn't even land on the map even though its target was close to the center.

I think that the effectiveness of CAS is very hit-and-miss (no pun intended). My experiences with F-16s have been very different--I've always seen them hit, even against moving targets. I only have one recorded miss (which did, it must be admitted, wipe out a squad).

-FMB

[Lee]

Here's a very cool video that shows heavily armed Blackhawks absolutely hammering a target with miniguns, 30mm cannon and rockets. Note how accurate the rockets are, they go straight into where the cannon fire is going, right on the money. So the 2.75 inch rockets in CM should have similar accuracy, whether fired by an Apache or a Cobra (Marine module), or a jet aircraft (perhaps a bit less if the jet is one that is flying fast, unlike an A-10, which can make slow highly accurate passes).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncjn96dON3I&feature=related

[John Kettler]

Lee,

Gack! Was pretty sure you were wrong about the 30mm

cannon on a Blackhawk, but it's a SpecOps MH-60K which apparently has a GEPOD 30 installed. Was unaware these were used on anything other than fixed wing aircraft.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ June 01, 2008, 03:28 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Lee]

Yeah, those Blackhawks rock hard. This is the MH-60L DAP gunship variant being used here. Without a doubt the coolest type of Blackhawk. Here's another video (with decent quality this time) of these Blackhawk gunships putting a serious hurt on some terrorists, very impressive! Again, note the superb accuracy of the 2.75 inch rockets on these attack runs, the rockets are right on target. The title of the video is wrong, they are blackhawks.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Let's keep in mind that MH-series helicopters are quite limited.

[SgtMuhammed]

Also keep in mind that they are basically hovering over their target at very close range with no threat from AAA or SAMs. The choppers in the game are making runs on the target in an environment that is much more hostile.

[Lee]

They are making runs in a shallow dive and firing at closer range than they would if they were going up against an army that could put up serious AA fire. But if there aren't any Shilka's or such in the area, they can afford to make runs at closer range on enemy troops (such as the Syrians), which means very good accuracy.

That's what on-map AA guns are for, if the enemy doesn't have them, then too bad, our choppers can come in and make super accurate strikes with ease. If they do have AA available and fire at the choppers, then that would be factored in to the accuracy of the air strikes. And this should be reflected in CMII. An Apache making an attack run without having any serious AA fire coming it's way, should be making very precise and devastating strikes, not spreading rockets all over the place. Most of them should be on target.

[the Fighting Seabee]

Here's a couple more.

This one is from the rocket pod view, and shows just how accurate they can be...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d25_1199655931

This one shows the accuracy...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=877d7d1a7a

[the Fighting Seabee]

Originally posted by Lee:

They are making runs in a shallow dive and firing at closer range than they would if they were going up against an army that could put up serious AA fire. But if there aren't any Shilka's or such in the area, they can afford to make runs at closer range on enemy troops (such as the Syrians), which means very good accuracy.

That's what on-map AA guns are for, if the enemy doesn't have them, then too bad, our choppers can come in and make super accurate strikes with ease. If they do have AA available and fire at the choppers, then that would be factored in to the accuracy of the air strikes. And this should be reflected in CMII. An Apache making an attack run without having any serious AA fire coming it's way, should be making very precise and devastating strikes, not spreading rockets all over the place. Most of them should be on target.

Lee, you sparked an idea in my head...

BFC should make zsu-23's and other AA assets. If they are present on the battlefield, then you would have a chance of losing your air support. Maybe each run they make, they would have to survive a 'roll of the dice' in order to complete the attack.

This would give the ground forces an additional target to neutralize. I think that would make for a fun mission... hunt down the AA assets before you can call in air support. If you don't, they have a chance of being "shot down", which, in game, would mean it is removed from your list of support assets. Just an idea.

[Lee]

the Fighting Seabee: That first video shows very clearly just how accurate those rockets can be. Hopefully this will be adjusted in CMII to reflect this.

About the AA, absolutely, that's the way it already is in CM. You can see the AA guns firing at any aircraft that try to make attack runs. Which can do a number of things, have no effect (bad shooting, or a very skillful pilot, or random chance), make the strafing/bombing/rocketing run less accurate, drive the plane off for awhile (I think), damage the plane and force it to withdraw (no more air strikes from that plane), or shoot the plane down.

This would make taking on any AA vehicles a high priority for U.S. troops if they were fighting the Syrians and had tac air support on call. Of course, one would also expect that any and all AA capability of the Syrians would be one of the first things that got hit hard by the Air Force and Navy as soon as the war broke out. So they wouldn't have much of this stuff left after our opening salvo.

[SgtMuhammed]

You might want to review the attack by the 11th Aviation Regiment that resulted in the downing of one Apache and severe damage to several others. It wasn't Shilkas that chewed that battalion up it was a bunch of guys firing whatever they had into the air. Most of the choppers suffered damage when they had to slow to get good shots off.

[Lee]

Just about anything can happen, sometimes you get in a tricky spot and the bad guys get some lucky hits. But it's obviously not a real big problem, or else we'd have most of our choppers out of commission by now. And they fly strikes all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan. In any case, the rocket attacks should be a lot more accurate than they are now.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Originally posted by SgtMuhammed:

You might want to review the attack by the 11th Aviation Regiment that resulted in the downing of one Apache and severe damage to several others. It wasn't Shilkas that chewed that battalion up it was a bunch of guys firing whatever they had into the air. Most of the choppers suffered damage when they had to slow to get good shots off.

Are you talking about that Apache in Desert Storm that was downed by a farmer armed with a bolt action rifle?

[SgtMuhammed]

OIF. Yes the official Iraqi story is that farmer Mustapha and his trusty musket brought down the big bad AH64. One of the funniest video clips of the war.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Yeah, I couldn't remember if it was OIF or Desert Storm.

[redbear]

well i saw the post and didn't take to much attention to it until now. I was playing a scenario on the ghost campaign and assign a target to an apache. It was to attack an at squad in the top of a small house. Well i saw all the rockets going from one side of the map to another. This is not right no need to se a video to know it. the only way that a pattern like that happen is that the pilot have his target at nine ok and he pull the trigger and them do a hard turn to the target and pass it all the way with the trigger presed.

This is not a drunken pilot he is under cocaine effects to do that kind of maneuver. Steve we need a patch before the marines goes out .

Is easy to put rockets on target at high speed i do that on fly simulators like lock on and if more easy to put rockets on target in the apache you have to tilt your nose in a hover to bring your target on. most of the case in high speed attacks you go straight to the target fire when in range and them brake that's the procedures.

You could practises that if you find the Janes Longbow2 fly simulator humm!!! what memories.

Well steve i don't want to see the cobra doing the same in the marines;)

[the Fighting Seabee]

Redbear,

Alright man, another sim pilot! I miss the old Janes flight sims. Great stuff. And yes, I can fire off a salvo of rockets in any flight sim, including ww2, 50 times more accurately than these coked out apache pilots in cmsf. They must be pulling at least 12 g's while firing! Coke? I don't know, maybe they're smokin' weed and getting paranoid about ground fire and pulling up during the attack.

Btw, it seems that the current tactics in use now are diving toward the enemy and shooting, then circling around rather than hovering and firing. I think it cuts down on the possibility of being hit with ground fire.