Attack helos -- pilot = pilot, gunner = gunner

[GRB]

Fire and forget missiles in helicopters like the ones in the aircrafts wouldn't be a very good idea. That wold make the choppers ridiculously powerful. With a good pilot and gunner they are already über deadly. A missile that needs designation from a ground soldier or another chopper would truly be awesome, but I think it could ruin the balance of the game.

This is why you also limit the abilities of the actual Fire and Forget missiles. We must make the missiles fast with a very tight turning radius. This will ensure that the missiles will have to be used realistically. (From a distance.)

Also, ammo limitations will play a key role here as well. Once the helicopter is out of missiles, it will have to go back and re-arm. Forcing aircraft to land to re-arm may be a function to limit the instantaneous reloading action. Or just simply increase the reload time.

[Enforcer1975]

Once a pilot flies away without a gunner he is already punished. He never reaches the full capacity of the helo and therefor it's just a flying piece of metal.

I think in RL the pilot has control over the FFAR ( and maybe the AA missiles ), at least in Jane's Apache simulator it was made so ( i think it's quite realistic that way ) and the gunner has the 30mm and all other guided missiles.

[phlerp]

GRB']This is why you also limit the abilities of the actual Fire and Forget missiles. We must make the missiles fast with a very tight turning radius. This will ensure that the missiles will have to be used realistically. (From a distance.)

I still think this would make the helicopters far too powerful.... or you would have to limit the missiles so much that it would render them almost useless against anything else than non moving targets.

With the missile we have today I can hit stuff at a farther distance than what is possible to see, and I have frequently been hovering in a concealed position and shot missile after missile against not suspecting targets.

But this requires some level of skill from you as a gunner. A fire and forget weapon like that in the planes would be a weapon anyone could use without any real skill. In the aircrafts it's working because you can't stand still, but as soon as you have the ability to hover this difficulty goes out of the window.

Remember that this is a game it will never be a simulator, and as such it has to have balance. If helicopters are too powerfull against other vehicles no one want's to use the other vehicles, if they are too weak no one will use the helicopters... And I don't believe you will find this balance with the fire and forget style missiles.

As a gunner I'd love them, but I doubt the other players would.

[ECale3]

the helos are easy enough to shoot down in PRMM that giving them properly behaving anti-tank missiles would not hurt the game balance.

[Happy]

Check out this video CobraPhantom found. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... gunship%22

[phlerp]

Actually I'd rather see something far more similar to the real TOW instead. The TOW is controlled by keeping your sight on the target very much like the infantry antitank weapon in BF2. Put that type of guidance in a helicopter and you would have a weapon that requires more skill than the fire and forget type of guidance like in the planes.

The TV guidance used in helicopters now isn't very realistic either but it requires a lot of skill and is what I like most about this game. Despite that there is no such type of guidance in the real world.

EDIT: realized that it wasn't clear what I really meant, so I rephrased

[Helstrm]

Actually I'd rather see something far more similar to the real TOW instead. The TOW is controlled by keeping your sight on the target very much like the infantry antitank weapon in BF2. Put that type of guidance in a helicopter and you would have a weapon that requires more skill than the fire and forget type of guidance. The TV guidance used now isn't very realistic but it requires a lot of skill and is what I like most about this game. Despite that there is no such type of guidance in the real world.

Research before posting. TV guided weapons have been around for a very long time.

Visually-guided weapons
The programs started again in the Korean War, where the political ramifications of nuclear war would have been unthinkable. In the 1960s, the electro-optical bomb or "fire and forget" camera bomb was introduced. They were equipped with television cameras and steerable flare sights, in which the bomb would be steered until the flare superimposed the target. The camera bombs transmitted a "bomb's eye view" of the target back to a controlling aircraft. An operator in this aircraft then transmitted control signals to steerable fins fitted to the bomb. Such weapons were used increasingly by the USAF in the last few years of the Vietnam War because the political climate was increasingly intolerant of collateral damage.

Although not as popular as the newer JDAM and JSOW weapons, or even the older Laser-guided bomb systems, weapons like the AGM-62 Walleye TV guided bomb are still being used, in conjunction with the AAW-144 Data Link Pod, on US Navy F/A-18 Hornets.

[phlerp]

Research before posting. TV guided weapons have been around for a very long time.

Yeah, I know... never said TV-guided weapons don't exist. Just that TV guided missiles like those in BF2 don't exist.

TV guided missiles like the AGM-65 works through the shooter acquiring the target by placing the sight on it, then the missiles seeker system tracks the target partly by knowing how it self moves and thus calculating how to move the seeker head to keep the target in sight, but mostly through identifying the differences in contrast between the target and background in the TV image. A real TV guided missile is fire and forget, just as your quote says. And to be nit picking there is, as far as I know, no TV-guided missiles in use for helicopters. The AGM-65 might theoretically be possible to fire from a helicopter, but you just don't do it. So actually I have done my homework.

In BF2 you don't acquire any target, and you have to steer the missile all the way to the target. This is NOT the way it works in the real world. I doubt it would even be a very good way to guide a missile since you wold get a delay between the images sent to you from the missile and your steering commands reaching the missile. Also the missile is a better aimer than the shooter, so there is really no point in the shooter steering it all the way to the target.

But that doesn't keep me from enjoying the TV guided missiles of BF2 more than probably anything else in this game.

EDIT: realized I was a bit unclear in my previous post. I don't mean that the current TV-guided missiles are fire and forget. I was referring to the missiles currently in some of the planes, that some people want implemented in the helicopters too. Apart from that, the missile currently in the helicopters aren't that realistic either.... if it's realism you're striving for

[Poofyfinger]

Sometimes you get the one nub running as fast as they can just to fly themselves to another cap point and jump out with a spec ops class.

MAKES ME SOOO MAD! grr

[Rg]

A pilot class would get rid of that^

Maybe all they should have is a parashute and a pistol, lol.

[Happy]

If you watch that video after 2:30 it shows the actually gunner's view as he shoots missles.

[phlerp]

Wonder if it is TOW or Hellfire he is shooting. From the sight I'd almost say it's TOW, but I don't even know if they use it in the Cobra any longer.

Hellfire which is semi active can either be controlled by laser designation or radar depending what version it is. Normally it is laser. Since it is semi active it's not really fire and forget as the missiles in the planes in BF2. Someone will have to illuminate the target. Be it the helicopter itself or ground troops or even pink elephants... Either way. I still think a missile guided like the antitank weapons would be a more realistic and balanced addition to the helicopters in BF2 than the fire and forget missile used in the planes right now.

[Happy]

If the helicopter is a AH-1Z then thoose missles are Hellfires. The AH-1Z is not compatible with the TOWs

[Eddie Baker]

The helicopters in the video were AH-1W SuperCobras, as the AH-1Z "King Cobra" is not yet in service. It almost looked like they had a mixed loadout of TOW and Hellfire in the exterior shots.

[USAF-Marshall]

Would definately be nice to have TOW and Hellfires all in one

[GRB]

If you look in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, it shows the weapon system that is currently active. The first missiles that are used are Hellfires. (HF) Hellfires are used for the majority of the video. Mainly because they are much more efficient and reliable.

Lots of gunning as well.

The TOW missiles come in at around 9:09...You can tell which is TOW and which is HF simply by the speed of the missile. TOW is a very slow missile because it is wire guided. The TOW also has the very noticeable split flame in the back of the missile. The HF on the other hand is very fast and very discreet..

Again, lots of gunning.

Keep in mind that these videos are from multiple Cobras.

Anyone know what the DES indicator, indicates? (besides me)

There is a mixture of TOW and HF, no doubt about that. The HF are the missiles on the right pylon. (black/grey with lense on tip. these are also the missiles that are currently on the cobra in BF2.)

The TOW are the missiles that are very TUBEULAR and sort of a light grey/tan, located on the left pylon...

Awesome video by the way! That's how ALL the target/crosshair screens should be for the gunners in Helos. Tanks should have something similar for the driver and gunner.

[Armand61685]

omg this is exactly how the attack choppers should be in pm! The camera zooM!

[BrokenArrow]

GRB']
Anyone know what the DES indicator, indicates? (besides me)

wild guess after watching it: something to do with it's target having been designated?

haha now you can tell us what it means for those of us who dont know.

[GRB]

Wow, first guess. You're right Beckwith.

The DES indicator below the Weapon System indicator lets the Gunner know that the target is accquired, targeted and being tracked by the computer system.

Although DES doesnt stand for Designated. Anyone know what it stands for?

[Mad Max]

Little note. US targetting screens (the cross tracker thingy) are different from British ones, and Russian and so on and so forthe. I forget how they differ but I think the British ones have a box with a cross around it rather than just a cross, so if you're going to add all this to everyone elses kit then you'll need to do some research into what each nations (or what nation their gear is from) lays things out.