Attack Helicopters with Laser Guided Missiles

[[GER]Birnd]

Attack Helicopters with LG Missiles with a good gunner dont have to rely on any intel. They can destroy everything since AA doesnt work if the Pilot flies correctly.(Most of the AA Kits dont function at all anyway) Often enough a whole round is decided by 1 Attack Chopper. 3 Digit Kill counts are Possible. They can take multiple HE or AP Rounds.

P.S.:
WTF Developers?

[viirusiiseli]

Birnd;2061985']Attack Helicopters with LG Missiles with a good gunner dont have to rely on any intel. They can destroy everything since AA doesnt work if the Pilot flies correctly.(Most of the AA Kits dont function at all anyway) Often enough a whole round is decided by 1 Attack Chopper. 3 Digit Kill counts are Possible. They can take multiple HE or AP Rounds.

P.S.:
WTF Developers?

I think in this patch it might seem worse than it is because of the handheld stinger's lock-on problem. Also, if a heli is going 3 digit kill counts, they have a spotter/commander. Coming from someone who's done this. Flying in the blind is quite hard actually, the enemies have most likely had commander/spotter against you.

[[GER]Birnd]

On the WotF Torunament we played on modded Operation Archer with different Factions. We had 2 Manpads and two Avengers sending Rockets flying everytime CAS attacked our Fobs and AA Vehicles, Cas still killed our AA emplacements several times and 1 Avenger even though more than 10 AA Rockets were flying everytime she attacked. There was no Commander or Infantry spotting due to the disabled UAV. Just unbearable.

[PatrickLA_CA]

I find CAS, especially helicopters extremely easy to kill, you just need to make sure you shoot at them with the AA when they are flying towards you, not away from you.

[[GER]Birnd]

Its easy to shoot down inexperienced Pilots. If u fly properly AA wont kill u.

[Frontliner]

I think in this patch it might seem worse than it is because of the handheld stinger's lock-on problem. Also, if a heli is going 3 digit kill counts, they have a spotter/commander. Coming from someone who's done this. Flying in the blind is quite hard actually, the enemies have most likely had commander/spotter against you.

UAV is broken, CAS or no CAS, but at the very least it seems they found a sensible solution that hopefully will be implemented next patch, so I'll leave it at that.

To me, it doesn't matter whether or not the handheld Stinger is bugged currently, CAS helis especially aren't fazed by AA emplacements which should be the go-to counter for infantry in order to tackle everything airbourne, and yet it hardly ever works because the pilot can just flare a bit and avoid getting shot. This should've been adressed a while ago already, so I doubt it's going to be.

[Spook]

I have no issues shooting down CAS. And If i am doing CAS and enemies have dedicated AA players I too can get shot pretty easily even when extremely careful.

If someone can kill an AAV without knowing its location before attacking the issue is not the CAS but the AAV gunner himself.

[_Fizzco_]

This is more a case of AA being kind of broken. It really is 100% luck. I've found the best tactic is to not even lock on. Just look in the general direction of the CAS and shoot everything you have. This is literally the only feasible tactic to use AA against CAS.

I have watched a Havoc fly over a whole team at very slow speed. Not only did he have 2 LAVS shooting at him, 50 cal from avengers and 2 avengers so thats 16 missiles? not to mention the 2 AA emplacements that were up and the handheld AA (so more like 20 missiles ish) Nothing. He simply flew off without a care in the world only to turn around and kill both the avengers before they could rearm. Liam can attest to this (and i hope he does cus as annoying as it was it was fucking hillarious)

[PatrickLA_CA]

Well whoever was in the APCs was really inaccurate, it only takes 3-4 shots to down a CAS.

[Rhino]

This is more a case of AA being kind of broken. It really is 100% luck.

Not really. If you know how to use AA then you can shoot down even the best pilots. The problem is not that many people understand how AA really works and how to use it effectively, and as such then they just fire off and hope which is yes then about luck if it hits

This video explains most of how to use AA Missiles:

I personally can get around a 90% hit rate with AA missiles myself, unless I'm not being conservative with ammo and taking pot shots I know are unlikely to hit which then it drops to around 75%.

[Senshi]

I hope you are kidding with your claimed 90% hit ratio, because I dare you to prove that against skilled CAS pilots. I would bet real money that this kind of ratio is absolutely impossible.

A good CAS pilot doesn't really have to bother about AA too much. Even following all the tricks outlined in Murkey's video, your AA simply won't hit a flare-spamming CAS in most cases, no matter if it's stationary, moving towards/away from you. It's easier to hit them when they come at you, but you rarely kill them. Sometimes you hit/"hurt" them due to a near miss, but it's near-impossible to instantly kill them. They almost always will make it back home safely to repair and rearm.

The experience of all the past tournaments and everyday public play on European servers shows clearly that AA stands no chance unless the CAS pilot makes a mistake or does very risky attack runs.

The biggest risk and most effective counter for CAS choppers currently is the enemy CAS chopper. Definitely more than 50% (most likely even more than 75%) of CAS losses are due to CAS vs CAS dogfight. Which entirely defeats the whole rock-paper-scissor-principle that works for most other PR warfare.

Hell, choppers in general are crazily robust. Some choppers survive a 120mm tank shell (Chinook, Hind)! CAS choppers take ~6 hits by 30mm autocannon. And a near-infinite amount of "smaller" caliber such as .50 cal.

[mandariene]

Not really. If you know how to use AA then you can shoot down even the best pilots. The problem is not that many people understand how AA really works and how to use it effectively, and as such then they just fire off and hope which is yes then about luck if it hits

This video explains most of how to use AA Missiles:


SNIP


I personally can get around a 90% hit rate with AA missiles myself, unless I'm not being conservative with ammo and taking pot shots I know are unlikely to hit which then it drops to around 75%.

The simple fact that the Stinger is totally fucked, and has been for more than five months makes me call "Bollocks!" on this. Not only do you not get any lock-on sounds, you also have the bloody zoom that takes away any situational awareness - you simply can't aim before the helo because then you don't see it.
Problems are less extreme for the Strela, but it still is ludicrously easy to fuck things up as the CAS helo.

Not only is the sound system broken (since 1.0, if a helicopter flies directly at you, you will hear it once it is above you - and after it kills you). On top of that the flare-system is ludicrously powerful to the point that spamming flares will negate any AA - no matter how many tubes are aimed at the helicopter.

Even PR to certain degree relies on a rock-scissor-paper mechanic - and the CAS helicopter is like the big, black wolf that eats all three...

[Rhino]

I hope you are kidding with your claimed 90% hit ratio, because I dare you to prove that against skilled CAS pilots. I would bet real money that this kind of ratio is absolutely impossible.

A good CAS pilot doesn't really have to bother about AA too much. Even following all the tricks outlined in Murkey's video, your AA simply won't hit a flare-spamming CAS in most cases, no matter if it's stationary, moving towards/away from you. It's easier to hit them when they come at you, but you rarely kill them. Sometimes you hit/"hurt" them due to a near miss, but it's near-impossible to instantly kill them. They almost always will make it back home safely to repair and rearm.

Like I said in my previous post, I normally don't fire my AA unless I'm pretty damn sure its going to hit, which is why I can achieve around a 90% hit ratio, which isn't a lie.

But even against flare spamming choppers, its possible to find gaps in their "flare shield" if you know how the missiles work and how to use them. But yes there are times when you can't get a shot off because of it. This is why you need to move to a place the CAS doesn't expect you to be so they don't flare spam before you start trying to lock them. CAS only really flare spam when they go into areas they know have AA, or are likley to have AA, so you need to go outside of that if you really want to get a good shot on them before they can do anything about trying to counter you.

There are also many more tricks to the trade than highlighted in Murkey's video. One of the biggest and unknown ones is deliberately locking on and firing at a flare that is between you and the chopper, knowing that once the missile misses that flare, the next target its going to find is the enemy chopper which will get no warning at all for it to deploy more flares even.

Hell, choppers in general are crazily robust. Some choppers survive a 120mm tank shell (Chinook, Hind)! CAS choppers take ~6 hits by 30mm autocannon. And a near-infinite amount of "smaller" caliber such as .50 cal.

You should post detailed bug reports on these:
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f26-pr-bf2-bugs
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f26-pr ... sting.html

[mandariene]

But even against flare spamming choppers, its possible to find gaps in their "flare shield" if you know how the missiles work and how to use them. But yes there are times when you can't get a shot off because of it. This is why you need to move to a place the CAS doesn't expect you to be so they don't flare spam before you start trying to lock them. CAS only really flare spam when they go into areas they know have AA, or are likley to have AA, so you need to go outside of that if you really want to get a good shot on them before they can do anything about trying to counter you.

Small hint: Usually a team can't wait for me to crawl over the map, but has to rely on an AA to protect a certain area - that's the entire bloody point of building an AA emplacement in the first place.

There are also many more tricks to the trade than highlighted in Murkey's video. One of the biggest and unknown ones is deliberately locking on and firing at a flare that is between you and the chopper, knowing that once the missile misses that flare, the next target its going to find is the enemy chopper which will get no warning at all for it to deploy more flares even.

This is not unknown, it has been the case since practically forever (I remember doing that in the 0.8something builds, which is definitely not the first version of PR I played). The way rockets work hasn't changed fundamentally, my experience still applies.
Edit: On top of that, the situation you describe is practically impossible to achieve under real conditions. Heck, I'm not even a good CAS pilot, and even I can show you how easy it is for me to get away...

Last but not least comes the problem that most helicopters don't go down when they are hit - they start smoking, sometimes even burning and fly back into their base to repair. Congratulations, in two minutes your tanks will be under threat again...

[Senshi]

When you lock from an unexpected location on a non-flaring CAS, it will immediately start continuously dropping flares until it gets far enough away to lose the lock. While you still wait for the lock and the AA travels towards the chopper, the flares will already be far enough away to nullify or minimize any serious damage, so it can just "shrug it off".

The trick of "bouncing" the missile off a flare onto the chopper also rarely works, because CAS usually is generous with its flares. In most cases, once your missile misses the first flare, it will lock on to another flare and veer completely off-course.

I'm fairly certain most experienced players only fire AA when they are fairly certain of having a good-ish chance of hitting. It's just you never have a real good chance to hit. As said, the moment the CAS drops flares, your AA almost always locks on to one of those instead of the chopper, and the splash damage of AA quickly evaporates with every bit of distance.

I hope more veteran players speak up on this topic, to make it clear that this is not an issue of "Learn 2 Play", but an actual balance problem.

[Geronimo]

I agree with Senshi on this.

The best counter to a cas-chopper is another cas-chopper. That doesn't sound balanced to me.

[Rhino]

I hope more veteran players speak up on this topic, to make it clear that this is not an issue of "Learn 2 Play", but an actual balance problem.

No I didn't say that. I was actually just replying to _Fizzco_ on his comments that the AA is "100% down to luck" as that simply isn't the case and hence why I only quoted that bit from his post.

I do agree that Heavy Attack Choppers are OP at the moment, but have yet to see any suggestions on how you guys think it should be changed.

[fecht_niko]

What fizzco said. just shoot without lock and hope to hit.

Remember the WoF Beirut battle with a very skilled team having 3 Stormer (? 8 rockets) + manpad AA + handheld AA and the hit ratio was around 10%.

Where do u play Rhino?

What could be changed: Only rockets for lazed targets + cannon with more deviation

[Mats391]

Does the bouncing off flares even work? The missiles are coded to explode close to the target they are following, so if that is a flare they will explode close to that.
AA missile are getting a bit of change in the next patch. We are yet to test how effective they are tho.

[Rhino]

Where do u play Rhino?

I don't play PR that often these days since the guys I normally play PR with don't play it much any more and most of my free time I spend working on PR too. But hoping to get back into playing again soon

Does the bouncing off flares even work? The missiles are coded to explode close to the target they are following, so if that is a flare they will explode close to that.

Ye, it works surprisingly well if you know how to use it but pretty hard to find the right situation to do it in.

The proximity "ObjectTemplate.detonation.triggerType" for AA missiles is "MTYVehicle", which flares don't come under so the most they can do is divert the missile away from a target and then once the missile has passed it, it normally can't find the proper target again.

This is also one of the big culprits for TKing with AA missiles since after a missile has gone past a flare, sometimes the only other target it can find after that is a friendly aircraft and goes after that