Question on A2A engagements (Full Version)

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Gus112GR -> Question on A2A engagements (2/2/2019 4:11:15 PM)

This one has been bothering me for some time now. It appears that during air to air engagements, aircraft follow a specific pattern regardless of their individual characteristics.

The typical sequence I’ve observed (the latest scenario I’ve been playing is “Caribbean Fury – Hot Tamales” which is a bit air-combat heavy and both BVR and WVR weapons are available) is as follows; First a BVR attack is executed. Defenders will then start trading PE for KE (which is fine), problem is they usually level off at sea level. At this point attackers, if still able to commit to a BVR attack, end up wasting ammo against sea-skimming targets for which PK is inherently low. As soon as BVR weapons are expended, surviving aircraft merge into a dogfight, again at sea level.

Although trading altitude for speed is reasonable, I was wondering if there a practical limit in how low adversaries can go during an air to air engagement and if it’s realistic even for high altitude, high speed interceptors such as the Mig31 to engage in a knife fight at wave-top level (the latter would most definitely avoid that).



Dimitris -> RE: Question on A2A engagements (2/3/2019 8:37:12 AM)

Hi,

That's a fair point. What would be the threshold for separating "normal" aircraft (whose first reaction would be to dive, for a number of reasons) from "high fliers" (who would take their chances at their current speed & alt)? Where do we draw the line? Above a certain speed, above a certain altitude? Which values?



Ancalagon451 -> RE: Question on A2A engagements (2/3/2019 10:25:41 AM)

You shold make it configurable with a "never go under" floor altittude configurable in either mission or doctrine options.

Let it deactivated by default, and those players who want to employ the high speed evasion tactic will be able to do so.

As a bonus, such an option would also serve in another case discussed when chains of war was published, which is a modern fighter confronting a small number of obsolete SAM (S-75) backed by a huge number of AAA.

It was argued then, that the fighter is safer confronting a pair of very old missiles at high altitude rather than two hundred machine guns at ground level.

This option would enable the player to implement such a response in that situation if he prefers so.

Ancalagon



Dimitris -> RE: Question on A2A engagements (2/3/2019 11:34:21 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Ancalagon451
You should make it configurable with a "never go under" floor altittude configurable in either mission or doctrine options.


Very good, thank you.

Now let's try a solution that does not involve a configurable setting [:)]



Ancalagon451 -> RE: Question on A2A engagements (2/3/2019 12:19:52 PM)

Why not?

Let the player dig his own grave, yeah he'll still came here crying after a fvck up, but you can simply point to the switch, say: "leave it in default mode and see if it works better" and call it a day.

Ancalagon



Dimitris -> RE: Question on A2A engagements (2/3/2019 3:42:25 PM)

A no-configuration solution, please.



Ancalagon451 -> RE: Question on A2A engagements (2/3/2019 6:26:36 PM)

Well, if you are so adamant, I have three ideas but you aren't going to like any of them.

-1st. Since the high speed evasion it's a tactic that benefits the less maeuverable contender, make the fighter check what it is engaged against and select highspeed or turning evasion based in the agility of it's adversary; with default to turning against unidentified/unseen bogeys.

Of course the cases of multiple disimilar bogeys, attacked by a third party while engaging a slow mover and what to do against SAM shots probably make this even less desirable than the manual switch.

-2nd. Since it's a tactic that benefits high power-to-weight fighters, and for that very reason they usually are speedy planes, give the high speed evasion doctrine to those fighters with abnormally high max speeds (IE: those with a high-altitude afterburning speed higher than the standard 1.6 mach).

It's easy to implement but very quick and dirty and applicable to very few planes.

A more elaborate version would be perhaps assign it based in the fighter's own agility score, cross referenced against introducton date to account for the progressive improvement of the fighters as a whole.

An example with unsubstantiated numbers: Any 3.5 agility fighter with IOC before 1975, defaults to turning evasion. Any one with the same 3.5 but IOC after 1975 defaults to high-speed evasion.

Exact numbers should of course have to be carefully selected to avoid oddities wich is an issue by itself.

-3rd. This one almost deserves no mention but just for the sake of completeness: Start a DB research for ACM manuals and testimonies of pilots, to see what tactics where preferred fot each plane.

Of course the magnitude of such a work for the DB3000 and CWDB needs no mention.

Perhaps a more limited research to try to gleam some general rules from what real pilots say they did?

Other than that I'm drawing a blank, probably there is no good solution here, as is often the case with complex systems as CMANO.

Ancalagon



Gus112GR -> RE: Question on A2A engagements (2/5/2019 8:19:38 PM)

Hi Dimitris,

Further to Ancalagon's posts, another idea would be to limit the maximum descent during evasive action to e.g. 20,000 ft below mission altitude. So for aircraft flying CAP at 25,000 ft the “hard deck” for evasive action (or probably even dogfighting in general) would be 5000 ft. I believe 20k ft offers plenty of room for aircraft tasked on air superiority missions to trade altitude for speed. Beyond that limit (arbitrarily set to 5000 ft in this example) potential benefits are offset by the fact that as soon as you stop diving, you’re slower, more vulnerable and it’s a lot more difficult to regain that momentum (it probably just doesn’t make much sense from an energy conservation perspective, at least for air superiority aircraft).

On the other hand, it would be reasonable (and realistic) for aircraft tasked e.g. on a RESCAP mission at 5000 ft to hit the deck during ACM or evasive action.

Strike aircraft typically operating at low to medium altitude would also be ok to hit the deck assuming the AAA/MANPADS threat is not substantial (a user configurable option would be necessary here).

I realize this a complicated issue as lot of variables have to be taken into consideration but hitting the deck by default during missile evasion isn’t the best option either.

In the “Hot Tamales” scenario I’m currently playing, the early-model AIM-120A is available with several platforms. My original estimate was that against enemy Flankers, PK would be acceptable. The Sukhois have good situational awareness and generally detect the incoming missiles early on. As soon as my AIM-120s go active at around 20k ft, the Su-27s are already flying at 80 ft making the geometry of the engagement particularly unfavorable, as the active seeker of the AMRAAM is unable to track its intended target (this pattern kind of defeats the purpose of having an ARH AAM, at least one that can’t receive mid-course updates).

It’s been a while since I played with flight sims so I can't really remember if hitting the deck was the no1 option for missile evasion. It was more about positioning the aircraft relative to the incoming missile and maneuvering/deploying expendables. Could any active flight simmers perhaps give us a hint?



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