Air Support should have attack axis

[c3k]

Gents,

Why can't strafing runs or other air support attacks have their run-in axis specified? I'm not a CAS expert, but it seemst that calling the run-in direction, and hence limiting the under/over drops or strafing pattern, is a critical part of CAS calls.

It could be specified by drawing a linear pattern EXACTLY like artillery. (Just color it blue!)

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ken

[DaveDash]

I think this is a great idea.

On the subject of CAS, there should be a larger limit on the area you can bring in Air Support.

The campaign mission (06 I think) where you command the scout platoon, and you get assaulted by enemy armour, it is extremely difficult to call in Air Support on that mission.

You can designate an area up to 400m, but you should be able to enlarge that area up to say, 2000m. It's not like Apache pilots are just gonna turn around and go back into a holding pattern if there are numerous enemy tanks in the AO and slightly out of their 400m engagement circle, and trying to guess a 400m circle where tanks are going to be in 7 minutes is next to impossible.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I can understand why the air support area is smallish, or peopled just indicate the entire map and let the CAS go to town. It would be nice if the 'adjust fire' mission would be a bit more responsive.

On the direction of an airstrike, frankly that to me seems more bother then it's worth. Yet another hoop to jump trough when ordering support. Only if it could be very smoothly integrated onto existing commands would I want to see it at all. And really, it's only useful for the helo rocket attacks. Other strike packages manage deliver their attacks accurate enough as to not make it matter.

[c3k]

Elmar,

Point taken. However, does CAS only hit POINT targets? Of course not. Right now the Artillery Interface is pretty good; hugely better than CMx1. The CAS is similar to Artillery but it is missing the Linear Strike option. I'm just asking to include that option. I don't see how that would be more bother than it's worth.

If I want to suppress a tree line - Linear.

If I want to strike a trench line - Linear.

If I want to nail a string of rooftops - Linear.

Additionally, if I am CLOSE (CAS) to my troops, I want the runs to come in perpedicular to my line of advance to preclude misses from hitting my guys.

Thanks,

Ken

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Just with the linear strikes would work. That way you can get the run-in axis defined without saddling the other strikes with extra input to be given. Heck, even the linear strike stays the way it is from a user point of view.

[c3k]

Exactly!!

(Okay, here are more words to make the minimum word count: am I done?)

Regards,

Ken

[YankeeDog]

[Mostly ninja'd by C3K and Elmar, but to add my pig to the pile. . .]

Run-in axis has been used as a way of limiting friendly casualties from CAS, and especially strafing or unguided rocket runs, since WWII. Most air-to-ground weapons systems are far less accurate in range than they are in bearing. So it generally makes sense to orient the run-in axis parallel to the line of contact when possible. There are also specific target types where run-in axis can be used to optimize the distribution of ordnance. Roads, trenchlines, and ridgelines would be typical examples. Presently, you can't do this in CMSF; you either have to accept a point target, or use a circular area target, and accept some ordnance wasted to either side of the linear target.

It is worth noting that sometimes other factors determine run-in axis; likely or known sources of AAA is a big one.

It would be nice to eventually have some control over this in the game; the aforementioned suggestion of just allowing the "Line" target command for Air Support would work very well, and wouldn't really add any additional complexity to the interface; if you wanted to do a point target with a run-in axis designation, you could just plot a very short line. And if you don't want to bother with run-in axis, you can just use the point or area target commands.

Cheers,

YD

[c3k]

BF.C, any chance?

[c3k]

Not just a mindless BUMP, but a rather, a reasoned BUMP.

With the T-90 being announced, if there were a convoy of them moving along a road, an airstrike with a linear axis would be even more important.

Regards,

Ken

[Guinnessman]

I suggested this very same thing in the Drunken Shotgun of the Gods thread, after calling in an Apache rocket strike. The strike promptly arrived, and the attack axis was a direct line between a building with friendly troops and an enemy-held building which was the point target.

After the Apache had hosed the area down with rockets, the enemy had lost an MG team, and I'd lost almost an entire squad. Ouch....

[Lee]

I very much agree. If there is a long enemy trench line filled with troops, it's silly to try a point target attack on that, when what the pilot would do is lay down fire along the axis of the trench. Whether that be a strafing attack, or firing rockets, or laying down bombs in a staggered drop to hit the trench along it's length.

The player should be able to specify a line target on the battlefield, like you can with artillery. Plus be able to indicate which direction the attack should take place from to try and protect friendly troops from getting hit by stray fire. So you could tell the pilot to come in from north to south, or east to west, etc.

[c3k]

While I'm perusing threads, I thought I'd bring this back up to the first page.

Thanks,

Ken

[Battlefront.com]

The original design did have in it the ability to specify the approach direction for a particular attack. However, as YankeeDog stated on the previous page, there are certain real world parameters which have an influence on if this happens or not. Generally speaking attack runs are done perpendicular to the friendly lines. This is to minimize collateral damage as well as enemy engagement from small arms and other weapons. Because this is generally the way it should be, and we didn't have time to code something complex and fair to the Red Forces, we left it with perpendicular attacks as standard fare. Not completely realistic, of course, but on balance probably more so than not. Primarily because most munitions are dropped miles away from the battlefield and therefore angle of approach isn't an issue.

Note also that as of v1.10 there will be no more gun runs by fixed wing aircraft, with the exceptions of the A-10 and Harrier. This was based on conversations and some research about the likelihood of cannon ammo being expended on ground targets in a fairly hostile environment.

Steve

[c3k]

Thanks!

Ken

[c3k]

Ooops, one more question: since the runs will/are perpendicular, how is that established? Is it pre-determined based on friendly board edge? Ie, parallel to whatever board edge is friendly? Or is it based on set up zones?

How will gun runs by Harriers/A-10 be used? As they are now, point targets?

Regards,

Ken

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, it is predetermined based on map edge control. It's a rough way to do it, but usually it works out fine.

Gun runs haven't changed any in and of themselves. It's just that F-15, F-16, and FA/18s (not that you guys would notice that one!) no longer have the ability to perform gun runs. In a very low intensity environment, like Afghanistan, gun runs would be done from time to time as they are now. But in a very fluid and contested environment, they would not. The aircraft would reserve the rounds for their intended purpose (air to air defense) and stay the Hell away from the ground As a couple of F-15 pilots put it to one of our testers... "shooting stuff on the ground is the Army's job, not ours".

Steve

[John Kettler]

Steve,

Does the change also apply to Red tacair? Would certainly expect the Su-25, MiG-27 and several other models to retain this capability, since that's what they train to do.

Regards,

John Kettler

[bodkin]

I guess this was an exception, but if it means more a-10 action then I'm not going to complain.

[slug88]

John, this game doesn't feature red tacair at the moment.

[Battlefront.com]

The pilots agreed that for a low intensity environment, which even Iraq qualifies for most of the time now, gun runs would be an option if the reasons for it were clearly called for. But in the sort of high intensity environment simulated in CM:SF, those situations would be either non-existent or very rare indeed.

Red side has no air force

Steve

[John Kettler]

slug88,

I thought it did for Red on Red, or have I confused things yet again between what's in and what's planned?

Steve,

If the axis of attack is perpendicular to friendly lines, then doesn't this greatly increase the likelihood of a short, especially if a strong of gravity bombs is dropped?

Regards,

John Kettler

[slug88]

John, red air air only exists via a mod (my own creation ) which simply changes the aircraft names from A-10 to Su-25, and so on. I believe it's been hinted that it will appear properly in CMSF2.

[John Kettler]

slug88,

Appreciate the clarification. Am really looking forward to seeing the real deal properly depicted. Yay for your mod, and yay for my (eventually) getting a suitable rig and the game!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

For sure, any static treatment of attack vector is going to be "brittle". It really needs to be situationally dependent, but coming up with realistic parameters for getting it to be that way isn't easy. For example, a JTAC should be able to direct an aircraft to come in and attack with the greatest degree of precision and situational context that can possibly be imagined. This includes taking enemy counter measures into account and planning accordingly. But an airstrike called in by a Squad Leader at the front is completely different, yet in some ways equally detailed. Trying to simulate this in greater fidelity is simply not in our collective best interests. It's a feature that very quickly becomes a "time sink" that takes away from other things. The way it works now is reasonably realistic, therefore it makes sense to leave it "as is" and work on other things that have realism or functionality issues which can better benefit from our attention.

Steve

[YankeeDog]

Well, if you're not going to let us set attack axis, it would at least be nice to be able to see what the attack axis is going to be before you confirm the strike...

Particularly with those Hydra rockets, the difference between the range dispersion and the bearing dispersion is huge. Here have been several times when I assumed I had my guys well away from the target point (as in 400m or more), only to get nailed by one of the outlier shorts when the AH-64 came in on an unexpected axis and let loose with the rocket pods. Honestly, the way it is now, if we're not going to get to control attack axis, then I'd prefer it if I could somehow designate "no unguided rockets" for AH-64s, as I hardly ever want them used. You can kind of do this by setting ordnance usage (i.e, "Light" usually sticks to the chain gun, "Heavy" usually prefers the Hellfires), but this isn't 100% reliable. For example, on "Heavy", it seems that the AH-64s will use Hellfires first, but will then let loose with the Hydras once they're out of Hellfires.

But If I knew the approximate attack axis, I would either arrange my ground forces appropriately to keep them out of the attack axis, or, if this wasn't possible, just not do the strike at all. On your typical CMSF-sized map, a Hydra-70 strike will drop rockets 1/2 the length of the map or more along the attack axis; you really don't want to be using these unless you can get that axis clear.

Regards,

YD