Helicopter armor

[sabresandy]

Without going into the black-box stuff that you can't legally talk about, what can you tell me about how helicopter armor is supposed to work? I ask because losing Hinds against 7.62mm AA guns at silly ranges is becoming an almost-regular occurrence, and I've no doub t that if I played as the US and deployed Apaches more often I'd see them retreat from small-caliber hits too. IRL the Hind and the Apache could easily ignore anything less than .50cal, especially to the front and at long ranges, which presumably is what the armor 2 rating is supposed to represent, but the only time I think the armor worked as intended was against a long-range hit where the heli was indicated hit but took no damage. (And even then that could have been a lucky damage roll.)

If helicopter armor is supposed to defend against small-caliber threats consistently--as it does in reality, since plinking at a Hind or an Apache with a PKM is a fool's errand--I suspect the code may need some reworking. Conversely, if the armor function is working as intended, then may I suggest that armored gunships at least don't retreat unless they're down to a certain amount of HP? Damn pilots over at Army Aviation are currently getting some very angry messages from frontline soldiers wondering why their gunship support turned tail and ran from a few M240 hits.

[Dion]

Ya, I know what you mean, same thing happens to me too. It's like they ain't even flying. How they get to point A to point B without running is beyond me. Very aggravating. Maybe I should move them the entire distance in one long move, instead of one hex multiple times per move. If their moved one hex multiple times, maybe their considered moving slow with a lot of hoovering (easy targets). Either I need a lot more practice using them or there's something wrong with the code. I think their a waste of buy points.

[DRG]

I've noted this down on the list

[Imp]

Not used helos for a while but just a couple of questions & observations.

Not disputing armor rating vs small arms fire may need tweaking.
Some do stand a pretty good chance of coming off unscathed by point blank small arms fire as in run up to a hidden squad.

What is taking them down I am guessing APC mounted weapons if 7.62mm so lots of fire at 2-3% hit chance?
Really asking dedicated AA with a hit chance at least in double figures or the above.

I am no pilot but a couple of thoughts on behaviour upon receiving anything much more than rifle fire.
Unless I am extremely experienced I would guess receiving fire from any automatic weapon like a MG would have me running for cover. Good enough to decide sounds like being peppered by a LMG not a 0.5cal or autocannon so we will ignore it briefly. I still would not proceed to stay in its sights for long just in case it gets lucky.
Don't want to test the autogiro feature & my superior would be pissed at my ineptness for wrecking a multimillion dollar machine.

Dion
They are very powerful on maps with cover but they are expensive so if you take fire about the only time you don't take cover is a brief dash to a safer local while receiving fire at 1-2% hit chance.
Don't under any circumstances charge with them, by all ,means especially if TI equipped use them as scouts but sensibly as you would a scout vehicle. They are worth their weight in gold for this ability & the capability to quickly plug gaps. Their other role is to take out a target in a position that it is hard to mount an attack on.

Avoidance is the key as a rule repeated fire will make them run however in most cases popping up or exposing to take a shot & receiving a few shots they stay. Now its threat assessment time depending on what fired do you take the shot or duck so as not to draw more which might force you to do so.
Maybe with low experience morale sides (under 70) they react differently.
Same as ground units never move more than a hex or 2 if you are going to fire.
Unless you know its safe move them a few hexes at a time, they are not hovering once speed is up.

Making life easy for helos
Buy a flight of SEAD aircraft & at least some CM arty
Use them to take out hard target AAA & other arty or ground forces to take out or suppress other AAA assets.
Also makes sense to have scout helos ratio anything from 2-1 to 1-2 is common that way if one receives fire there is a chance someone will see it.
Work with your ground forces most of the time scouting & taking out their big threats while they deal with yours.
Don't be impatient if you can take the enemy out with ground units do so save the attack helo & its limited ammo for the tricky situations or forcing a break through.

[Airborne Rifles]

US Apaches in Afghanistan have taken heavy small arms fire (and damage) and stayed in the fight. Examples are Operation Anaconda (Not A Good Day to Die is a good book about this) and the battle for COP Keating. I remember the Hinds in Afghanistan were considered pretty much invulnerable to anything smaller than Oerlicons or missiles as well.

[sabresandy]

re: Imp: yeah, that sounds logical, but the "evasive maneuvers" behaviour reflects that. If they start taking too much fire they bob and weave. And I don't doubt that a good burst of 7.62 can hurt a Huey or a Hip, and induce an evac, but those are unarmored anyway. It's the armored helis that need looking at.

And, yeah, I wouldn't be complaining if it were dedicated AA that were swatting them from the sky. It's 7.62 AAMGs mounted on APCs, though, and against Hinds too. Lots of testimony about them withstanding tremendous amounts of punishment and still staying in the fight. I understand the decision to implement the "if heli is damaged then run" behaviour, but I don't agree with its current implementation, which is where they'll hightail it out despite taking only scratch damage. Lots of real-life heli pilots have decided "there are a few holes in my bird but she can still stay in the air, and they still need me to provide cover, so I'm staying".

Otherwise, though, I agree with the tactical advice on how to use helis. SEAD helps, but the greatest threat is MANPADS. Keep your birds flying NOE, run scouts ahead of your main force, and keep in mind that helis are not meant to be the spearhead. Airmobile operations to seize a key town or ridge are inherently high-risk, high-reward activities.

(Also, sidenote, I'd like to ask about the cost of the Blackhawk series, which makes air assaults prohibitively expensive for Americans compared to Hips, which can carry almost twice as many troops--given the size of Soviet infantry platoons, entire platoons per bird is possible--and costs about half as much. There were enough variants, and field-variations, that I think that a Blackhawk variant with less protection and less EW but not costing a ridiculous 170 points per heli should be a good addition to the US orbat.)

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Is there someway to recover a post for this thread, after being told to log back in and hit enter, I get a banner saying something along the lines of you can't log in because you already are? The post came back up blank. Not happy with this site right now when given positive direction to do something. No other keys were hit. Didn't start new thread as it occured in this one. Sorry but frustrated with this, especially you knew how I type for one.

Regards,
Pat

[AMX]

Originally Posted by FASTBOAT TOUGH

Is there someway to recover a post for this thread, after being told to log back in and hit enter, I get a banner saying something along the lines of you can't log in because you already are? The post came back up blank. Not happy with this site right now when given positive direction to do something. No other keys were hit. Didn't start new thread as it occured in this one. Sorry but frustrated with this, especially you knew how I type for one.

Regards,
Pat

The post content might still be in your browser cache - just use the browser history to jump back to it, then copy it to the clipboard so you can paste it into a new post.

That is pretty unreliable, though - clicking "back" immediately when the login prompt comes up usually works (but not always), but trying it later is unlikely to work, especially if you have made another post since then.


In general, I recommend "preventative copying" - unless it's a post you don't mind retyping, hit Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C before clicking Submit.
(Posts I consider "really important" go in a text file... just in case I accidentally fill the clipboard with something else, like my password...)

[Imp]

Originally Posted by Airborne Rifles

US Apaches in Afghanistan have taken heavy small arms fire (and damage) and stayed in the fight. Examples are Operation Anaconda (Not A Good Day to Die is a good book about this) and the battle for COP Keating. I remember the Hinds in Afghanistan were considered pretty much invulnerable to anything smaller than Oerlicons or missiles as well.

Okay lets review this
So attack helos were attacked & damaged by small arms fire?
If so then the game doing so on occasion is not far off.

In cases where they were damaged & decided to stay was this because all they faced was small arms fire, in other words no dedicated AAA or real threat like MANPADS?

This presents a bit of a problem I am guessing game wise in that helos would need to access the threat & react differently. Run if dedicated AAA stay if otherwise.
Could possibly be done based on warhead size, size 1 would be small arms or MG anything bigger is a major threat.
Cold war type battle they would bug out due to dedicated AAA but vs insurgents etc they might stay is what I am getting at.

I am guessing this bit of code is a mess though so lots of work, damaged helos sometimes have a fit & recover if fired at as retreating. Has pros & cons in that it can get itself killed but it can also deplete air defence ammo as its not much use anyway.

I would still in most cases withdraw the damaged unit for a number of reasons.
Firstly damage may well make it fairly inaccurate so chances of it being battle effective are lessened.
Conversely the chances of it dying are higher as it probably wont evade so well & I don't want to risk losing the unit as they are normally high points value.

Just saying not sure there is an easy answer here.

On the transport helo option forget the points look at USA military doctrine.
As you said hi risk op do you not think USA of all countries would put them in the best stuff available to actually get them to the mission with the minimum of loses.
Don't quote me on this but I reckon USA has the best protected (EW) transport helos around because of this thinking.

[shahadi]

After reading this thread, it appears some tweaking of the Armor Hull rating of the Attack Helos is agreed. In the meantime, while we're developing scenarios with Attack Helos (I'm writing one using the Marine Viper) what can a developer do to tweak the Attack Helos until the patch is released?

I am considering the Front and Side Hull ratings increased from 10 to as high as 20 and 6 respectively. However, after viewing the Russian ratings, their Side Hull ratings are as low as the Viper, although the Front Hull rating is significantly higher,thus I am not confident adjusting the Armor ratings in Edit Unit Data is sufficient to model current damage profiles of Attack Helos, or affect the behavior to "stay in the fight."