Helicopters in FPC

[2ndACR]

True, but trust me, for a realistic contest, the main gun of the M1A1 dang sure would be used against a Hind. Real life, a tank crew is going to use the main gun to reach out and swat down a Hind, in a heartbeat. Hit ratio might go from a realistic 90% first hit to 75% first hit.

It was never an official policy but at the unit level, it was discussed heavily. We even talked to our Cobra guys sometimes about it, and they stated flat out that seeing a NATO tank aim in their direction would make them dive for the tree's.

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

It was never an official policy but at the unit level, it was discussed heavily. We even talked to our Cobra guys sometimes about it, and they stated flat out that seeing a NATO tank aim in their direction would make them dive for the tree's.

This will never be resolved. I would even give the M1's a couple of early Hind kills with the main gun. After that, try to get one to hold still long enough.

It's like playing a scenario that you don't know there are enemy units within 2 hexes of the those VL's. They catch you by surprise the first time but after that my recon doesn't just go slamming across 15km using Hasty Movement.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Werewolf13]

Push comes to shove its anyone's guess how well Hinds in '89 would have performed on the battlefield vs NATO. Many, many excellent points made by both sides in this thread. The level of knowledge is impressive.

My new guy input: It's all a guess, no one knows what would have happened. A roll of the dice would do the trick as well. With my limited experience with Red Storm so far I'd say the devs made hard choices and modeled helos as good as could be done with the info available.

Why do I say that? Think Maverick missile. The wonder weapon for fixed wing aircraft anti-tank operations. Every study, every live test they all said it was gonna kick butt. Real Life Combat - not so much. Dudd is being generous. I stopped keeping up with it years ago, maybe its been fixed but it was a miserable failure when put to the test in actual combat.

[DoubleDeuce]

I think getting the actual ADA stuff to "act right" so to speak will resolve most of the argument. Main guns vs. Hinds, yeah it can be done in RL albeit some training or luck but is it really something that would happen enough to be modeled into the game. Re-reading the thread the old term "Kentucky Windage" comes to mind. We are probably talking a rare shot that cannot easily be repeated.

[Panta_slith]

IIRC most MBTs have also .50 or equivalent caliber HMGs atop the turret mainly for AA fire purposes, though its range in AD fire isn't probably greater than one or two hexes.

[DoubleDeuce]

Just for the record. One of my raggedly old M60A3's just took out an Mi-2 at about 1000 meters (was 2 hexes away). [:D]

>08:37 3/D/2/68 AR claims 1 Mi-2 Hoplite KIA in hex 3513

[Mad Russian]

Hey, be nice to those old raggedy M60A3's. Those are the toys we had to play with when my boots were on the ground.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Kommissar]

Why exactly was NATO weak in the air defense department? It seems to be an odd and rather critical weakness for any modern army especially if their stated opponent is another well-equipped modern army. Did NATO just presume they would have air supremacy and therefore it was not seen as necessary (limited resources could be devoted to other areas)? Did NATO decide that artillery would be good enough to handle helos and other alower moving aircraft? Enough MANPADS to be considered sufficient for air defense?

[andyph]

I'd refer you to the chapter in Armed Action by James Newton - The Heli was certainly running but not in a state to fire back. and that I think is the point.

Sure non AD weapons will not (effectively) be able to engage a helicopter flying fast and evading. But for the Heli to launch a ATGW is a different ball game - it has to be pointing at the target and being a relatively stable flight.

In this situation for the ground gunner it makes little difference (vis aiming at a vehicle) that the target is a few mils above the horizon or that it may even bit of forward speed ( as that is essentially straight at the gunner)

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

It was never an official policy but at the unit level, it was discussed heavily. We even talked to our Cobra guys sometimes about it, and they stated flat out that seeing a NATO tank aim in their direction would make them dive for the tree's.

This will never be resolved. I would even give the M1's a couple of early Hind kills with the main gun. After that, try to get one to hold still long enough.

It's like playing a scenario that you don't know there are enemy units within 2 hexes of the those VL's. They catch you by surprise the first time but after that my recon doesn't just go slamming across 15km using Hasty Movement.

Good Hunting.

MR

Good Hunting.

MR

[2ndACR]

And dealing with a round moving at a mile per sec, so anything at 1500 meters and under, it is almost a instant impact.

[Tazak]

I think that while single tanks using their main guns against single helo's may be a valid topic what we should be taking into consideration is how the soviets would employ helo's. Their tactics as far as I know were two-fold:

1. Airborne arty in direct support of fast moving ground forces that outstrip their SPARTY elements (such as OMG forces).
In this deployment it would be reasonable to assume that the helos would not operate alone or in pairs similar to NATO helo tactics but enmass providing fire suppression allowing ground forces to move forward.

2. Air assault operations
Here we would likely see mass arty strike on a smallish section of the front suppressing local AD assets allowing the airassualt forces to penetrate between 30-100km into the rear areas to capture objectives (airfields/special weapon sites/bridges)

In the case of air assault operations its unlikely that the helo's would remain still until their troops are disembarking, while in the airborne arty situation there would be multiple ground targets ahead or in line with the helicopters, what were the tanker target priority list when faced with multiple targets/threats?

[Mad Russian]

Actually, I think this discussion is limited to helicopters being used as gunships and the vehicles that would be their targets trying to return the favor and shoot them down instead.

Good Hunting.

MR

[DoubleDeuce]

Got another one (between 1000-1500 meters) with my M60A3's; [8D]

>06:52 2/A/2/68 AR claims 1 Mi-8MT Hip KIA in hex 2312

[Werewolf13]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

Hey, be nice to those old raggedy M60A3's. Those are the toys we had to play with when my boots were on the ground.

Good Hunting.

MR

Well, heck. Yur just'a baby. M-60's is what I served in. C Co. 4/64A, 3rd Bgd/3ID Aschaffenburg. I remember when we got M-60A1's to replace the M-60's. Man - we were in hog heaven.

[TPatcher]

AS WP I try to have my helicopters just behind my lead elements. I try to neutralize whatever NATO ADA assets do show up.

Why do that? The NATO AD assets as they are modeled in the game are absolutely worthless and are zero threat. Your Hind is more likely to be shot down by a M-109 Paladin than a Vulcan or Chaparral. Just buzz in way ahead of your lead elements right into the heart of the enemy formations and destroy tanks and APCs with impunity! It's what the AI does.

I'm basically getting to the point where when playing as NATO and the WP have Hinds, I don't really even bother with much of a plan to start with. I just sit back and wait for the Hinds to come destroy whatever they are going to before they go away. Then I'll see what I have left to work with and try to come up with something.

[wodin]

Must admit I hate Hinds..feel pretty helpless against them..and when they come along and happily wipe out my fresh tank platoons who where on the way to help out their buddies but never got a shot off nor reached their destination it was abit soul destroying. I want them to be lethal..but also at the same time fragile. If you can do some work on their stealth like qualities (terrain feature hugging) making them a target for only short periods..but when they are spotted be very vulnerable for that short period of time and in that time let them get of a couple of shots..rather than sat up there happy as larry pumping out round after round into one tank after another.

Maybe Heli's should go into Hover mode when shooting and be extremely vulnerable whilst in that mode?

It will be hard to get right due to the hex scale..as the player is limited in being able to hug terrain and stay behind hills etc to do the pop up and fire. This all has to be abstracted which means the player can't really use the heli tactically putting thought into the direction it should go and when it should pop up and fire. SO now you have to find a balance between the abstraction of the Hex terrain and the vulnerability and chance to shoot a Heli would have in a combat situation and give the player some sort of tactical input.

Away around it is a new movement order..terrain hugging..this means the heli is very, very hard to spot unless it goes into shoot\hover move. The draw backs is slower movement rate less chance to spot enemies and more vulnerable to small arms ground fire if spotted and it can only get a couple of shots off at a time but maybe more accuracy. Or you can go normal flight mode..get more shots in and great spotting but be seen at distance and very vulnerable to anti air missiles and heavy MG fire.

[Panta_slith]

I just stopped playing scenarios with too many choppers, once is enough for me. [8D]

ORIGINAL: TPatcher

I'm basically getting to the point where when playing as NATO and the WP have Hinds, I don't really even bother with much of a plan to start with. I just sit back and wait for the Hinds to come destroy whatever they are going to before they go away. Then I'll see what I have left to work with and try to come up with something.

[TPatcher]

I just completed another scenario as NATO where I faced a number of Hinds and I still just can't get over how utterly inept the NATO AD units are. I very, very rarely see them actually engage targets and I can only recall seeing 1 Soviet helo brought down by one in all the scenarios I've played. Just one.

The Soviet AD units? Oh yeah, those guys are badasses. I lost all 3 of my Kiowas to them in the very first 2 minutes of the very first command cycle of the last scenario I played. Three shots, three kills.

[TheWombat_matrixforum]

ORIGINAL: TPatcher

I just completed another scenario as NATO where I faced a number of Hinds and I still just can't get over how utterly inept the NATO AD units are. I very, very rarely see them actually engage targets and I can only recall seeing 1 Soviet helo brought down by one in all the scenarios I've played. Just one.

The Soviet AD units? Oh yeah, those guys are badasses. I lost all 3 of my Kiowas to them in the very first 2 minutes of the very first command cycle of the last scenario I played. Three shots, three kills.

Back in the day we worried a lot about this too. The USSR kept developing and fielding a vast array of sophisticated, mobile, and apparently effective SAM and AAA units, and we...didn't. There was a lot of denial, and dismissing of the Russian gear as ineffective or primitive, but that really didn't wash. Our experiences in Vietnam with Russian air defense systems, and the difficulties the Israelis had before they could physically remove the SA-6 sites with ground forces, among other historical facts, should have made us a lot more worried, but a combination of political and economic issues made such awareness elusive.

Ultimately, you could argue we made the right call, because we never faced a Pact attack, and post-Cold War we've had exactly zero need for low level, tactical, ground-based air defenses (Patriots vs. SCUDs are a different scale and scope, of course). But I'm not sure today that we're really any better off, maybe even worse off, given that everyone else has developed scads of good low-level air defenses, and better CAS and helo capability, and we...got rid of the A-10s and still don't have SHORAD worth a damn.

[Mad Russian]

"Red Thrust" by Steven Zaloga goes into helicopter combat and ADA pretty well for the time period. His book is about a Soviet attack out of Czechoslovakia. (Czechs should be appearing soon on a computer screen near you.)

He makes the point of the differences in tactical employment, defense, helo vs helo.

I personally think the NATO air defenses should do a better job in engaging the Soviet helo's when they are in range. I see them all too often sit and not fire. I don't think that would be the case. I think the issue is the 'missing ADA', where we didn't field anything, and the poor performance of the equipment fielded. Not that they don't fire at all.

Good Hunting.

MR