Cobra missing repeatedly?

[noxnoctum]

Alright so I'm playing the first mission of Paper Tiger's campaign and there's a T-62 sitting in plain sight on top of a hill (nothing blocking it from visibility). I ordered a point attack on it by a cobra (with the "heavy" setting), and it makes 4 passes and misses every time. I was pretty shocked. So just to check, I restarted the mission, and tried again, same thing. I did this 4 times, every single time the Cobra missed on each pass until it was "guns dry". Are they really this ineffective in RL?

It was 250 meters from my FO, and like I said, in plain sight on top of a hill.

[Alan8325]

Do you know if the Cobra was equipped with ATGMs or was it just using unguided rockets? If all it has are guns and rockets, then it will use rockets on the "Heavy" missions. Those things seem to miss a lot. I haven't tried this campaign yet.

[AkumaSD]

If I remember correctly the briefing says the cobra is fitted for "ground operations" and not "AT operations". I'm pretty sure the cobra only has it's cannon and rockets on this map, neither of which will do much to a tank. Use a TOW from one of your jeeps on the first tank and then javs for any others you find on that map.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Aircraft, of any sort, missing ground targets,...is a GOOD thing.

[meade95]

I find Helicopters terribly inaccurate throughout CMSF......Now planes put fires exactly where you want them..

[zmoney]

I'm currently playing this mission and set my helo to area target at the begining of the mission. To my suprise I discovered that the helo KOed at least one of the tanks. First time I've seen that.

[LongLeftFlank]

In playtesting my Ramadi scenario, I've found the Cobras (Light armament) to be fairly ineffective against Uncon infantry in buildings -- they do suppress somewhat. Point or area target seems to make little difference. And I think that's more or less realistic for COIN in a built-up area... if you're cleared to whack a specific building you send a Hellfire not cannons or pod rockets.

They do somewhat better against Uncon transport and exposed infantry moving in the streets, so long as targets are still in the area by the time they show up. Again, that's what I'd expect. I do wish you could shape the "area" circle into an elipse to set up a "directional" gun run, but it isn't a game killer for me. Don't expect too much.

[Dietrich]

Given the potential for rockets to miss quite widely (especially when engaging targets on or near the crest of a hill or on the roof of a tall building; an overshooting rocket can easily strike a couple hundred meters off the mark), perhaps it would be more realistic for the rotary-wing air support to be armed with ATGMs rather than rockets. In CM:SF, the Cobra is loaded up with ATGMs or rockets, whereas the Apache (as far as I've been able to discern) usually carries some rockets in addition to ATGMs when armed for anti-armor duty.

[akd]

In playtesting my Ramadi scenario, I've found the Cobras (Light armament) to be fairly ineffective against Uncon infantry in buildings -- they do suppress somewhat. Point or area target seems to make little difference. And I think that's more or less realistic for COIN in a built-up area... if you're cleared to whack a specific building you send a Hellfire not cannons or pod rockets.

They do somewhat better against Uncon transport and exposed infantry moving in the streets, so long as targets are still in the area by the time they show up. Again, that's what I'd expect. I do wish you could shape the "area" circle into an elipse to set up a "directional" gun run, but it isn't a game killer for me. Don't expect too much.

The need for an ability to set the "run in" direction of aircraft is really only apparent with unguided helicopter rockets, which are a minority of the munitions you see used in CMSF. I expect this will be a much bigger problem with dumb bombs in CM: Afghanistan.

Given the potential for rockets to miss quite widely (especially when engaging targets on or near the crest of a hill or on the roof of a tall building; an overshooting rocket can easily strike a couple hundred meters off the mark), perhaps it would be more realistic for the rotary-wing air support to be armed with ATGMs rather than rockets. In CM:SF, the Cobra is loaded up with ATGMs or rockets, whereas the Apache (as far as I've been able to discern) usually carries some rockets in addition to ATGMs when armed for anti-armor duty.

The great thing about the Apaches is you never really know when they are going to use the rockets, which adds an extra layer to the frustration of not being able to set a direction.

[Dietrich]

Doh! I just realized that I accidentally omitted something from my earlier post. It was supposed to read:

Given the potential for rockets to miss quite widely, perhaps it would be more realistic -- and less likely to yield collateral damage -- for rotary-wing air assets in COIN-type scenarios to be armed with ATGMs rather than rockets.

That should make more sense. '

[Jonny(FGM)]

One feature I would like to see would be for you to be able to set a line across the map with the FO which shows the limit of your advance (or your furthest defending unit) and then just set the aircraft to hunt beyond that area, taking out targets at will.