Recon and unguided bombs questions

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Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/6/2019 5:30:16 PM

goldfinger35

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Joined: 1/1/2009
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I have spent many hours playing this great sim but couple of things still trouble me so any help would be appreciated:

1. Recon: I have been flying directly over unidentified column of vehicles for 2 hours with RQ-1A Predator UAV @10.000 feet (8.612 AGL), day, light low clouds@5-7k and Predator equipped with radar and camera cannot identify the vehicles (they are tanks) until I drop to 8.000 feet. Is that realistic? This is a in-game pic: https://ibb.co/cC1R4zX
This is a view from 10.000 feet without cameras and zoom and I am pretty sure I could ID tanks on the road: https://www.alamy.com/a-view-from-10000-feet-looking-out-the-window-of-an-airplane-image238634419.html

2. Recon: I have overflown at 1.000 feet an enemy airport with 2xRF-4E Phantom II equipped with recon loadout (Internal EO/IR/SLAR AN/ALQ-119 DECM Pod) and radar on and pilots (regular) didn�t spot enemy parked planes (there were parked plans). Any tips?

3. I am finding unguided bombs pretty useless: most bombs (I use mostly Mk 82) miss targets at enemy airport by 500-1500 feet. I have even tried flying at 10.000 feet, loiter but they still usually miss.

4. Which leads me to the last question: I order a group of 4xF5E Tigers equipped with Mk82s to attack ground targets at enemy airport and set the group manually to fly at 10.000 feet but when they commence the attack, only 1st F5 flies at 10.000 feet while other 3 go to auto height at 36.000 feet. Only workaround I found is to switch to unit view and assign each F5 manual height 10.000. Is this supposed to work like that?

< Message edited by goldfinger35 -- 5/6/2019 5:33:00 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/6/2019 6:01:24 PM

SeaQueen

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From: Washington D.C.
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It's hard to say whether its realistic or not. There's many factors involved in both visual and IR detection. Camouflage and cover as well as surrounding environmental factors like vegetation, ambient light, surface reflectivity and contrast are all big factors and aren't explicitly modeled in the game that I'm aware of. It's not necessarily unreasonable, either. It's yet another case of "Maybe?"

Unguided bombs are best used very differently from guided bombs. General purpose bombs need to be used more like area effect weapons where the damage mechanism is mostly due to fragmentation. Attacking point targets (e.g. tanks) unless the target is fairly large (e.g. a building or a runway), is a lot less likely to be successful unless you're deploying large numbers of them from heavy bombers (e.g. B-52s, or a large formation of F-105s). You'll tend to see a lot more stuff damaged but not necessarily destroyed. If accuracy is important, you might consider deploying retarded snake eyes at low altitude.

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Post #: 2

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/6/2019 8:41:56 PM

AndrewJ

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I find I get best results with unguided bombs from very low altitude, typically less than 1,000 meters (~3,000 feet). The lower the better. Miss distances increase dramatically as altitude increases. Of course this puts you down in perfect range for light AAA... No free lunch!

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Post #: 3

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/6/2019 8:52:25 PM

Randomizer

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Joined: 6/28/2008
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quote:

3. I am finding unguided bombs pretty useless: most bombs (I use mostly Mk 82) miss targets at enemy airport by 500-1500 feet. I have even tried flying at 10.000 feet, loiter but they still usually miss.

This is one of the reasons why more conventional bombs were dropped on North Korea from 1950-53 than on Germany from 1939-45 and on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos than in WW1 and WW2 combined. You need a lot of them to have a chance at actually hitting your target. For much of the Second World War the hit criteria for the RAF was anywhere within 5-miles (26,400') of the aim point. In 1945 the Little Boy bomb missed its Hiroshima aim point by over 800' and it was dropped by arguably the best trained bombardier in the USAF with the most sophisticated bomb sight on an aiming point that the bomb aimer himself referred to as "the best, most distinct aim point I have ever seen". The following year shot Able at Bikini Atoll missed its aim point by some 3000' It's easy to see why hundreds of gravity bombs have been replaced by one or two guided bombs.

I used the nukes as examples because we have solid data on their individual accuracy but since they were dropped by elite crews in ideal conditions and still missed widely, it probably says something about gravity bombs in general.

Sounds like CMANO models gravity-bomb accuracy pretty close to reality.

-C

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RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/7/2019 7:24:00 AM

Joelsi

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Joined: 10/17/2018
From: Finland
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Dumb bombs are accurate enough in CMANO if you drop them low enough and the bombsight is good

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Post #: 5

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/7/2019 7:52:09 AM

Filitch

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Joined: 6/25/2016
From: St. Petersburg, Russia
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My 2 cents. This is view from 10000 ft with clouds https://www.alamy.com/a-view-from-10000-feet-looking-out-the-window-of-an-airplane-image238634448.html
Looks like detection and identification tasks getting slight harder.

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Post #: 6

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/7/2019 5:21:44 PM

Cik

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Joined: 10/5/2016
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if you want to hit something smaller than a gridsquare, use AIR/SE or cluster.

re: recon, what command misses the most is "signature blooms" from activity. seeing stuff that's immobile and recessed into a treeline is pretty hard, but seeing stuff that's charging across the terrain in large numbers, releasing big, smoky missiles in all directions, etc. is much easier.

you should NEVER have problems spotting a traditional, single-digit SAM if it is releasing weapons at you. the smoke trails are huge, 20,000+ ft vertical smoke trails that hang in the air for quite a while. even a cursory visual left-right scan will pick out the fact that there is a SAM there from miles away because there's a giant vertical spear of smoke connecting to the ground.

ID'ing it is maybe a bit harder- what's an SA-2 vs and SA-3 smoke trail look like? but knowing that there is a SAM there, and throwing some weapons at it (depending on the weapon) should be overly difficult as far as i know.

Big improvement to the spotting mechanics would be to extend "flaming datum" effects to SAMs and ATGMs, i think.

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Post #: 7

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/7/2019 8:50:10 PM

Rhygin00

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I have found that in Command, modern targeting computers enable a single aircraft to take out targets with dumb bombs from 10000 ft. Times have changed it seems.

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Post #: 8

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/7/2019 9:26:37 PM

Gunner98

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quote:

modern targeting computers enable a single aircraft

Yes but you need something like an F-15E, F-16 Bl50+, GR.9, Su-34 or something equivalent and conditions have to be near perfect. If there are SAMs engaging and the AC in maneuvering your chances go way down. Anything older and the miss distances clime steeply.

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RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/8/2019 12:47:32 AM

Zanthra

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Joined: 2/6/2019
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rhygin00

I have found that in Command, modern targeting computers enable a single aircraft to take out targets with dumb bombs from 10000 ft. Times have changed it seems.

Many many more command scenarios have wind and sea state of 0 than engagements in reality.

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Post #: 10

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/8/2019 8:11:14 AM

Tailhook

Posts: 293
Joined: 1/18/2015
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Re: Signature Bloom

This is one of my chief gripes. MANPADS are a huge pain in the ass in this game, unrealistically so. Examples: In the Korean Ground Game scenario in the Chains of War DLC, it's entirely possible for attack aircraft to get stuck in an Engaged Defensive loop while being launched at by NK MANPADS. It's all well and good that the launched on aircraft (in my case, Apaches) go defensive, but NO other aircraft can detect the launching unit. Yes, camo exists, but if my guy can spot a missile the second it launches, then presumably he should see the guy running away from where it came from. It makes it impossible to target these guys because a drone out of MANPADS range by 10 feet is also out of visual location range. Furthermore, fast mover reaction to MANPADS isn't realistic and gets them stuck in the aforementioned loop (this happened to me in the Okinawa Blitz scenario as well). The best defense against SHORADS is to climb above it (ideally you'd never get in range but that's not always an option). However, with the "Engaged Defensive" doctrine the aircraft wants to dive and beam the target. This makes sense against air to air threats and larger SAMs, but it's a great way to get stuck on the ground against MANPADS/SHORAD. If you disable the "auto evade" function, you lose huge maneuverability buffs. I'm not entirely sure how I'd recommend going about fixing it, but perhaps there can be a way for unit AI to detect that it's being launched on by SHORAD of some sort and attempt to climb away from it.

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Post #: 11

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/8/2019 2:41:37 PM

Dimitris

Posts: 13282
Joined: 7/31/2005
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Hi,

quote:

ORIGINAL: goldfinger35
1. Recon: I have been flying directly over unidentified column of vehicles for 2 hours with RQ-1A Predator UAV @10.000 feet (8.612 AGL), day, light low clouds@5-7k and Predator equipped with radar and camera cannot identify the vehicles (they are tanks) until I drop to 8.000 feet. Is that realistic?

Yes. Clouds at 5-7K means you can't visually ID the vehicles. Your radar can track them but not ID them.

quote:

2. Recon: I have overflown at 1.000 feet an enemy airport with 2xRF-4E Phantom II equipped with recon loadout (Internal EO/IR/SLAR AN/ALQ-119 DECM Pod) and radar on and pilots (regular) didn�t spot enemy parked planes (there were parked plans). Any tips?

Were they parked on open-air facilities (tarmac etc.) or hangars/shelters? If the latter then you wouldn't be able to spot them unless they were coming in/out of them right then.

quote:

4. Which leads me to the last question: I order a group of 4xF5E Tigers equipped with Mk82s to attack ground targets at enemy airport and set the group manually to fly at 10.000 feet but when they commence the attack, only 1st F5 flies at 10.000 feet while other 3 go to auto height at 36.000 feet. Only workaround I found is to switch to unit view and assign each F5 manual height 10.000. Is this supposed to work like that?

Can you make a new thread on the Tech Support forum and post a suitable save (pre-command) so that we can investigate. Thanks.

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Post #: 12

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/8/2019 5:15:13 PM

Dimitris

Posts: 13282
Joined: 7/31/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tailhook

Re: Signature Bloom

This is one of my chief gripes. MANPADS are a huge pain in the ass in this game, unrealistically so. Examples: In the Korean Ground Game scenario in the Chains of War DLC, it's entirely possible for attack aircraft to get stuck in an Engaged Defensive loop while being launched at by NK MANPADS. It's all well and good that the launched on aircraft (in my case, Apaches) go defensive, but NO other aircraft can detect the launching unit. Yes, camo exists, but if my guy can spot a missile the second it launches, then presumably he should see the guy running away from where it came from. It makes it impossible to target these guys because a drone out of MANPADS range by 10 feet is also out of visual location range. Furthermore, fast mover reaction to MANPADS isn't realistic and gets them stuck in the aforementioned loop (this happened to me in the Okinawa Blitz scenario as well). The best defense against SHORADS is to climb above it (ideally you'd never get in range but that's not always an option). However, with the "Engaged Defensive" doctrine the aircraft wants to dive and beam the target. This makes sense against air to air threats and larger SAMs, but it's a great way to get stuck on the ground against MANPADS/SHORAD. If you disable the "auto evade" function, you lose huge maneuverability buffs. I'm not entirely sure how I'd recommend going about fixing it, but perhaps there can be a way for unit AI to detect that it's being launched on by SHORAD of some sort and attempt to climb away from it.

We actually have signature bloom in certain cases (incl. missile launches), but not contact auto-generation like we have for subs when torps & sub-launched missiles are detected. It's something we certainly want to add in the future.

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Post #: 13

RE: Recon and unguided bombs questions - 5/9/2019 6:08:19 PM

goldfinger35

Posts: 142
Joined: 1/1/2009
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So, to summarize, recon (ID of targets) is supposed to work like that-you have to get really close and low even with plane with good optics, day, light clouds.
Regarding dumb bombs: using them at really low altitude (3.000 feet) IMO is hazardous if enemy has Shilka or manpads. Instead use cluster bombs from medium height or rockets: my testing shows that rockets are much more efficient than dumb bombs!

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Post #: 14