Jul 06 weapons mod tough for sam evasion.

[tmdgm 0]

I've been using an older weapons mod from March 06 (maybe May 06) and I just recently realized I was out of date and installed the jul06 mod.

 

Dang, I can't survive an F-4 mission in LB1 or LB2. I see some migs and here the sam launches, before I would peek around and just make sure they weren't coming this way and I'm good to go. Now, the sams are tough. They whoop me every time. Not to mention I get too focused on the sams and the mig's are even starting to take me out. A mig 21 got em with an atoll. That never happened with the 'older' weapons pack.

 

Any strategies when you have both migs and sams to deal with with the latest weapons mod?

[Caesar 305]

Keep playing single missions with large numbers of SAMs and practice evasion. I'm no pro, but it has helped me, I'll say that much.

[MigBuster 2,884]

The SA-2F Model 5 is very difficult to beat without ECM or chaff and comes in to the standard game from around 1968/69. Your best bet is low level with these - am not sure they were this good in IRL though tbh there would have been a lot more jamming and ECM aircraft to support you.

Proper SAM evasion techniques are needed - ie beam it for a start.

Edited April 6, 2007 by CoolHand29

[+Dave 2,322]

The SA-2F Model 5 is very difficult to beat without ECM or chaff and comes in to the standard game from around 1968/69. Your best bet is low level with these - am not sure they were this good in IRL though tbh there would have been a lot more jamming and ECM aircraft to support you.

Proper SAM evasion techniques are needed - ie beam it for a start.

 

Low level though is tricky, it can fool the SAM's but you have ground fire to contend with. I usually hit the deck and take my chances with the AAA/Flak. Beaming SAM's is not my idea of fun.

[Nicholas Bell 117]

A question for the experts - is it possible within the framework of the sim engine to create stand-off jammers? Or is ECM modeled for the target only? If only the latter, wouldn't it be more realistic to reduce the effectiveness of the detection & lock capabilities of the weapon systems to represent the stand-off jamming?

 

I was an ADA officer back in the 1980s and have "some" knowledge of US and foreign ADA systems. The lack of correct ECM/ECCM modeling in my flights has always bothered me. I don't think it is a lack of publicly available data, just a lack of understanding on the part of designers. Perhaps they can be forgiven. I was fortunate back then to participating in Red Flag exercises which forced the re-acquaintance between the USAF and a device called an "IFF" So even the players don't always pay attention to important details.

[Fubar512 1,350]

Both "noise" and "deceptive" jammers can be added as load outs (external pods), or internally. Be aware, however, that there's also a "home on jam" statement that can be specified as a guidance parameter for missile seekers

 

IFF works, but it is presently limited to those aircraft utilizing the Avionics70.dll. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of the Avionics70.dll is that it lacks support for ground mapping/targeting radar (though the latter is really only somewhat useful in an anti ship role).

[tmdgm 0]

I can survive if I fly low and stay low. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to fight Mig's then cuz you can't very well stay in the vertical, the F-4's best advantage. So this is good for strike missions, but not really fighter sweeps. I can also survive on bomber escorts (at least B-52's anyway) as I just mix myself into the bombers and let the sam's shoot at them. Hey, the mission said to protect from enemy fighters, right? Actually, the B-52's probably have ECM anyway. The last mission I did this and all B-52's survive. Makes a long mission though.

 

Although, pretty much all my wingmen die in every mission since I upgraded the weapons pack.

[schatten_124 0]

SAMs with the new patch and weapons pack can be a bit on the tricksy side, the way I've come to deal with them is by combining a few things which seperately can work fairly well, but used in combination usually works very well.

 

First off on the ingress to the target area I ignore the waypoints that the briefing fellows set up for me as soon as I cross the front line. They seem to think it's amusing to have you fly as close as possible to as many enemy air bases as possible, and since those are usually armed to the teeth with AAA and SAM batteries I figure that adding a few miles to the trip is better than having my whole package turned into confetti. So I fly as far away from them as possible so long as I'm not going way too far out of my way. This works for every mission type pretty much except for escort, there I usually have to "more or less" follow the waypoints as plotted but I still try to keep as much distance as possible, especially if two enemy bases are right next to one another. The whole while I try to stay as low as possible since there usually aren't any enemy aircraft on to me yet, but not so low as to make it impossible to have much energy if some MiGs do show up suddenly, the height depends on the threat level of the area really.

 

The second thing I do on the way into the target area is as soon as one of the AI wingmen do their "SAM launch!" schtick I do a few jukes. Usually the missile isn't specifically aimed at me, but better safe than sorry and since you're not in a furball yet a few turns won't do you any harm. The added bonus to this is since you haven't told the AI to go off and wreak havoc on the enemy they're still in formation so when you juke some, they juke some, this usually means they survive better as well.

 

Once I get to the target area things change, if it's an attack or strike mission I keep hugging the deck like it's going out of style, do my attack and then get out of Dodge as quickly as possible. If there are enemy fighters right over the target I try to get them to chase me away from it before I climb up to deal with them since most places worth bombing usually have fairly good air defense nets around them and a furball right above a SAM battery usually isn't a swell situation to have yourself in. If it's a sweep or a CAP over an enemy base I go high, draw them as far away as possible from the base and juke a LOT more then try to merge my formation in with the enemy formation as tightly as possible. The SAMs will still fire at you but in a mixup like that the accuracy isn't all that great and the enemy battery commanders should think twice at lobbing SAMs willy-nilly into a mixed airspace...the AI being the AI and not real human battery commanders they do it anyhow, but the thought they may not helps keep me relaxed or something...

 

On the egress I act the same way as on the way in, but now it doesn't matter what sort of mission type you were on, all you have to do is get home, so I really take my time avoiding airbases and known SAM hubs. As long as the fuel state is fine you really have nothing at all to lose by taking your time to get home. If fuel is a consideration no one will shoot you if you land at the first available friendly base, so as long as you have enough gas to get to any friendly base you can take all the time you need. Again I stay as low as possible here unless gas is really an issue.

 

By combining those I rarely get shot down by SAMs unless I get impatient or greedy, and it usually helps to keep more of my flight alive too since they're following my lead the whole time. I've specifically been flying the Israel2 terrain with the Six Days War and Yom Kippur War campaigns so it could vary with other situations but in general it seems to work. I especially had to work on my SAM avoidance skills since a Mirage IIICJ doesn't come with any countermeasures at all, not even a RWR, so you have to be especially sneaky to not get smoked without much (or any at all) in the way of ECM. Also on that map in those secanrios, Yom Kippur especially, you do not want to take any chances at all anywhere near the Suez Canal, my first few missions when I first loaded the mod up were in that area so I had to work on SAM evasion very quicklike.

 

After I stopped being lazy and used the tactics that I knew I should have been using without thinking about them my loss rate to SAMs dropped by a big margin. Well that and removing nasty (and out of time period) things like SA-9s and the like which the Desert Object pack put into the game and the campaign was deciding since it said SAM in it it was fair game to park a bunch of them around Port Said. The first time I saw in my debrief log that it was SA-8s and -9s that took out half my flight I realised that something was slightly amiss there.

 

Most of how I do it is pretty obvious, but if you really concentrate on trying to minimize your exposure to SAMs it become instinctual and they progressively become less (but never completely zero) of a threat. Flying planes without any ECM at all while you're working on SAM evasion also seems to help, when I transferred from a Mirage squadron to a Phantom squadron for my next go around at Yom Kippur I didn't lose any plane myself and only 1 or 2 over the course of the whole campaign of my AI wingmen. Like I told my one friend whose dad flew actually Phantoms,"Going from a Mirage to a Phantom almost felt a little unfair." And when I went from a Phantom to an F-15 for a little Peace in Galilee deal I whipped up on a whim it felt like downright cheating. But hey, getting into a fair fight is pretty silly anyhow ya know. ;)

 

Sorry that was so long, and probably just a bunch of obvious points, but I can say that those tactics really do work once it becomes second nature.

Edited April 7, 2007 by schatten_124