Maybe you'll need an Su-25T running SEAD as well, then?
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IronRain
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I will be available in the 25T.
Richy
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I think I keep the current targets, but add some more air defence units to them. Starting with some simple AAA, and then increasing difficulty from IR SAMs, to medium range, until with need some SEAD support. ^^
meson800
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Well, I tried my first campaign mission after finishing the training for the SU-25T and...
:lol:
My major issue appears to be actually seeing the targets. In the mission, after destroying two tanks I happened to find with the laser-guided missiles, I tried finding the main mission objective- artillery pieces. They unfortunately weren't marked with smoke, and in my attempt to find them, the SAM site locked on and destroyed me. :facepalm:
Any advice on actually finding targets? I've tried pausing, looking at the map, and looking in the approximate direction, but they're still hard to find, even with the TV display.
:lol:
My major issue appears to be actually seeing the targets. In the mission, after destroying two tanks I happened to find with the laser-guided missiles, I tried finding the main mission objective- artillery pieces. They unfortunately weren't marked with smoke, and in my attempt to find them, the SAM site locked on and destroyed me. :facepalm:
Any advice on actually finding targets? I've tried pausing, looking at the map, and looking in the approximate direction, but they're still hard to find, even with the TV display.
E
ex-orbinaut
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No, not dead. He is a new USAF pilot I created for the A-10A. The landings are registered, but not the hours.
Thanks for noting this. I have not played around with any external weapons at all on the A-10A, so far, but I am assuming that the noted omission of the LGBs must be because DCS does not support buddy laser designation(?). There was mention of the Pave Penny in the historical/specifications section of the manual, but no mention of employment of it in the weapons usage section. I mentioned (asked about) the topic of buddy laser designation in a much earlier post on this thread, and the addition of it would, I imagine, add some depth to the purposes that - at the very least - Combined Arms could be employed for. I am only hoping here that the word "yet" is applicable, and that this situation is rectified and integrated, with the fix for the modules, in a future update.
Urwumpe
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You could turn on the labels for them, so you see them at least in the normal eyeball view.
Otherwise, you need the same thing that real points need: Patience. Especially if artillery is firing, it is easy to locate the units.
Finished the first mission of the A-10A campaign. Objective: Take out three tanks. Three!
So, being the "expert" Su-25T jock that I am, I took off with some Mavericks, some bombs, and a fairly hefty tank full of smug, because three tanks? Please. I take out three tanks in one pass in an Su-25T! How hard could it be?
Answer turned out to be "very hard." For starters, the Maverick's max zoom of 6x compared to the Shkval's 21x made identifying targets significantly more difficult. Then, to make things even worse, the Mavericks don't have the Shkval's "target size" parameter, so they tend to lock onto anything and everything--buildings, bridges, telephone poles, etc. Just about the only thing they rarely locked onto were the tanks, and once they decided they had a target, getting them to switch was nearly impossible--it always went back to the previous target, and when trying to slew it off of the target it would start by going in the opposite direction from what I commanded...
Several passes were spent doing nothing more than trying to wrangle the target designator into position. The only times I managed to get it to work was when the tank was already in the center of the designator when I switched to ground reference mode, which is a giant PITA while trying to fly the airplane and not get hit.
I ended up finishing them all off after significantly more time than expected and some damage to the right engine, and made it back to base safely, my tank of smug having been fully depleted.
---------- Post added at 00:53 ---------- Previous post was at 00:06 ----------
Oh and! Let's not forget that the TDC resets back to the top of the HUD after each missile fired, which makes hitting more than one target in a single pass very difficult. Plus, even if you have the same missiles in hardpoints 3 and 9, it'll fire all the missiles off of one wing first instead of alternating and balancing them...
So, being the "expert" Su-25T jock that I am, I took off with some Mavericks, some bombs, and a fairly hefty tank full of smug, because three tanks? Please. I take out three tanks in one pass in an Su-25T! How hard could it be?
Answer turned out to be "very hard." For starters, the Maverick's max zoom of 6x compared to the Shkval's 21x made identifying targets significantly more difficult. Then, to make things even worse, the Mavericks don't have the Shkval's "target size" parameter, so they tend to lock onto anything and everything--buildings, bridges, telephone poles, etc. Just about the only thing they rarely locked onto were the tanks, and once they decided they had a target, getting them to switch was nearly impossible--it always went back to the previous target, and when trying to slew it off of the target it would start by going in the opposite direction from what I commanded...
Several passes were spent doing nothing more than trying to wrangle the target designator into position. The only times I managed to get it to work was when the tank was already in the center of the designator when I switched to ground reference mode, which is a giant PITA while trying to fly the airplane and not get hit.
I ended up finishing them all off after significantly more time than expected and some damage to the right engine, and made it back to base safely, my tank of smug having been fully depleted.
---------- Post added at 00:53 ---------- Previous post was at 00:06 ----------
Oh and! Let's not forget that the TDC resets back to the top of the HUD after each missile fired, which makes hitting more than one target in a single pass very difficult. Plus, even if you have the same missiles in hardpoints 3 and 9, it'll fire all the missiles off of one wing first instead of alternating and balancing them...
Urwumpe
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Which Maverick model you used, that is the important question - the D model is pretty reliable against tanks, the H model does everything but does not work at night.
With the A-10C, I use the targeting pod for finding the targets, which outperforms the Shkval system by far. (Narrow FOV and x10 zoom = you can see gophers from 10 NM away)
But usually, I just have one tank marked as SPI, but fire as many Mavericks as I can during a pass on the other tanks - for that it is important to remember the ground stabilize function of the Maverick. And the analog slew control of the Warthog HOTAS is sure helpful as well.
In the A-10A in Lock-On, I used to aim the Mavericks with the HUD and used the TV display only at night, maybe that helps.
With the A-10C, I use the targeting pod for finding the targets, which outperforms the Shkval system by far. (Narrow FOV and x10 zoom = you can see gophers from 10 NM away)
But usually, I just have one tank marked as SPI, but fire as many Mavericks as I can during a pass on the other tanks - for that it is important to remember the ground stabilize function of the Maverick. And the analog slew control of the Warthog HOTAS is sure helpful as well.
In the A-10A in Lock-On, I used to aim the Mavericks with the HUD and used the TV display only at night, maybe that helps.
Used the D model. It was consistently locking on everything OTHER than the target tanks. I have slew on my joystick which made things easy with the Shkval, but with the Maverick it always resets to the top of the HUD after launching one, and trying to move the target designator after ground stabilization usually results in an initial movement opposite the movement I commanded--if I tell it to move up, it'll start by moving down a bit first, then turn around and start moving up. And then it'll jump back to the previous bridge/building/whatever anyway. It was very difficult for me to get even one tank per pass, much less two or more.
E
ex-orbinaut
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That bit actually sounds quite reasonable, as the image on the screen should be coming from the camera on the nose of the Maverick itself, and not from an independent targeting camera, like the Shkval's mounted on the aircraft, that slaves the missile to it (or rather, to the laser that itself is aligned with the camera). Once the missile that you targeted has gone, you would have to start afresh with the next missile's own camera.
This bit does not sound as reasonable. Sounds tedious, in fact.
True, hadn't thought of it that way. Still seems to me that it should be able to at least get the seeker into the same general area, even if it can't necessarily ground-stabilize/lock on to something.
Tedious and frustrating, but I think I can work around it by changing my habits.
In the Su-25T: Slew the TDC close to the target, ground stabilize, move it to the intended target, wait for lock. If locked on wrong thing, move it to the right thing.
In the A-10A: Slew the TDC close to the target, *don't* ground stabilize until it's exactly on top of what you want to kill. If locked on wrong thing, remove the lock first, then move to right thing, then lock again.
I suspect it was also having issues with the city area that the targets were in for the first mission of the campaign--I tried a practice run later with targets in an open field and it wasn't nearly as bad.
---------- Post added 03-06-14 at 00:12 ---------- Previous post was 03-05-14 at 16:59 ----------
Completed the second A-10A campaign mission. Similar to the first--take out three tanks. This time, however, the three tanks were at an abandoned airfield instead of in the middle of a city, which made spotting them from a distance quite easy. Using the above-described method for Maverick utilization, I was able to aim on and destroy all three tanks and their AAA defense (started with the AAA in case I had to get closer) in a single pass before I even got within 3nm. Slew, lock, shoot, repeat.
Only had a couple false locks (probably due to the significantly reduced amount of clutter in the area compared to the previous targets), but unlocking, moving, then re-locking worked really well. Slewing the TDC while ground-stabilized should be avoided whenever possible due to the absurd move-in-the-wrong-direction behavior at first.
Fabri91
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If someone has a Kindle e-book reader, here are some files such as checklists, basic aerodrome information and, for the A-10C, tables with all the HOTAS functions:
http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1372097
http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1372097
Excellent, was needing something like this back when I first started flying the A-10C. Thanks for sharing!
E
ex-orbinaut
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Well, I see what you mean. I dove in head first to the campaign's first mission. Twice, that is, on two attempts to get those tanks. It seems that the A-10A campaign is different from the Su-25T's in as much as if you do not complete the objective, you get to repeat the same mission the next time.
First time around, the Mavericks. You have already said it all. Low zoom, and glitchy target acquisition. I tried your suggested method of using the "lock" as a target pickle function rather than a ground stabilization function, but it was still locking onto everything except the tanks. The only familiar thing about the scenario was missile spoofing - I got an SA-11 launch onto me, but with now functioning ECM and an already developed technique for evasion, they are nowhere near as scary as they were.
The gun did not do much against the tanks. Then I collected some of that aerial FOD that frequents the airspace over targets into number one engine, decided things were not in my favor, and went home.
Next time around, I tried the CBU-87s... nine of them. I set up what I figured was an effective ripple mode for all nine CBU's (I am not clear on the PRS and SGL modes of RIP, as there does not seem to be anything about it in the manual).
The bombs rippled off nicely in CCRP mode, which I read up about (as much as there was to read in the manual) before the flight...
...landed squarely in the target area...
...and did not so much as scratch the paint of the tanks! :lol:
Some relearning to do here, but that is all I have time for today.
Fabri91
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CBU-87/103 are more geared towards light targes, to tanks "'tis but a scratch!". For those targets, use CBU-97/105. 
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Urwumpe
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CBU-87/103 are more geared towards light targes, to tanks "'tis but a scratch!". For those targets, use CBU-89/105.
The version without WCMD kit of the CBU-105 is the CBU-97, not the CBU-89. The CBU-89 is the GATOR Mine system... I doubt it is included in DCS. :lol:
It seems that the A-10A campaign has fewer options at each campaign stage than the Su-25T one, so yeah, you end up with a lot of repeats.
It looks like you're using the non-IR Maverick?? Try the -65D--IR seeker and 6x zoom vs. the other's 3x.
I haven't re-tried the first mission using the new strategy, so it's certainly possible that it's still really difficult to target the tanks with all of the clutter around them. Obvious solution is to just get rid of the clutter, although the property owners might object to my methods for that...
---------- Post added at 12:20 ---------- Previous post was at 12:02 ----------
RIP SGL will drop one bomb at a time with the specified interval between them.
RIP PRS will drop two bombs at a time, one off of each wing, with the specified interval between pairs.
Yay for things I learned in my youth with A-10 Cuba! ...
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