Tow to effective against Air Assets

[PaveHawk]

Having seen this from both sides here are my thoughts.

It's not that easy to hit a Heli with a tow! It does take some skill.

TEAMWORK! Yesterday playing Operation Barracuda I watched as the US died over and over again because of the lack of TW.

That tow that keeps owning you is due to a squad building, manning, and defending a FOB. Not only is there a tow firing at you. So is AA, a automatic rifleman, sams, lat, hat, and other sorted small arms fire. All spotting and using teamwork.

For the love of god fly in pairs+.

The tow only has one shot before it has to reload. It shoots at one of the 2 incoming CAS Heli's giving away his location taking one of you out. The other comes in, clears it out. The transports come in and you have feet on the ground.

Bob and weave, put a little shake in your get-a-way. Sometimes a meter means a lot when you see a missile fly just to the left or right of you.

Best tactic I've seen for taking out tow/fob encampments is diving attack. Come in high, come in fast. And when done don't just pull up and fly straight. Weave, you are harder to hit turning then flying straight.

As for sniping with the tow.

Don't walk in the open. If you have to be in the open sprint.

Don't walk down the middle of the street. Hug the walls.

Don't cross large open areas. Don't be lazy, walk around the area.

Laze for the CAS squads. You get the pleasure of helping take out a hard target, and a cool fireworks show.

I'm sure there's more. But rather then trying to have the tow nerfed. Some tactics can easily be used to defeat this. You just have to use teamwork.

[McBumLuv]

The real problem isn't anything to do with the TOW (though a 0.2 second arming delay would be pretty nice and also avoid accidental fires). The REAL problem lacks in the extremely restricted helicopter and crew.

Restricted by 'engine limitations' somewhat, they are forced within less than 20% of their effective combat range. Additionally, any and all tactic is often impossible. Working in pairs, weaving towards the location, and lazing for a separate helicopter is impossible due to the lack of there BEING a second helicopter on the vast majority of maps (Kashan 32 in fact is THE ONLY map with two actual dedicated attack helicopters), and the lazing system and lack of any stabilization or work around preventing any cooperation there.

Helicopters and air assets are in fact the ONLY assets to require TEAMwork. Everything else, from ground assets, to building and maintaining forward outposts and assets, to assaulting and defending a position as infantry, only requires SQUADwork. These two notions are regrettably all two often mixed up, and it is assumed that a successful squad has worked well within the team while any pilot with any slight difficulty is barraged by insults of being a "lonewolf", "asset whore", "noob", or "selfish, not a teamplayer".

Bob's narration of a typical forum member is remarkably accurate:

"I just got owned by X weapon X number of times, which is total bull****! I'm l337! Its soo OP! Nerf plx!

This comment however is moreso directed from grunts, where the power of numbers is by and large behind those who refuse the joystick/cyclic.



The greatest amount of teamwork I've seen in PR with aircraft has been *GHASP* executed in the games of Combined Arms. True, the mod had fewer people on at the time, but despite how the vast majority of people without ever trying the minimod chastised it for appropriating the air assets realistically, most missions done within the game were far more coordinated, where Jets and Helicopters were 'forced' to take tactical steps (I say 'forced' loosely because at any moment they were given the rights and freedoms not to act with a tactical edge, but most attempts were suicidal. The same term used in PR however caries the flavour where players are physically forced not to take certain actions because they'd be impossible despite their realistic connotations. EG, removal of pilot's weapons, impossibility of using AG weapons independently, etc...).

If TOW 'overpoweredness' is to stop, then rather than dumbing the game once again down by nerfing, helicopters need to be given their full choice of tactical action. This involves the increase of view distance to make the gap between the target and predator an actual advantage in stealth and to destroy the tactic of "ceiling hugging". Additionally, maximum effective weapons ranges would need to be implemented, so that helicopters can choose to engage a target from outside their maximum effective range rather than be forced within plain sight and effective targeting distance of unrealistically silent but deadly Heavy AT. Furthermore, more power to the crew needs to be exerted in the ability to stabilize and lock onto known vehicle position while on the move.

[dtacs]

Niether is flying a helicopter without pedal controls or having airbases built less than 4 kilometers away from each other.

Getting pretty desperate with the 'neither is' realism comparison card there.

Key term - engine limitations.

Key term - Ford's idea.

No, this thread is about butthurt pilots trying to get all possible threats removed - afterall, they've spent so long honing thier skills and then these ground pounders come along and dare to shoot them down! Honestly, the cheek of it!

Seriously, this is just like the complaints about tanks being too effective against helicopters, deployed SAWs or AAVs being used on infantry - someone gets killed by a method they consider "cheap" then make a thread about it demanding it be nerfed, cos, you know, it'd be far too much effort to actually play the game as it is and, shock horror, try to overcome a challenge.

Not really. I absolutely hate piloting unless its the only thing to do, or the team needs. I am encouraging the changing of the TOW simply because its not realistic for it to have this ability, and to be better than the AA at taking down air assets.

From what I've gathered from your posts, you are saying the following:

• It is realistic for a TOW launcher to be able to track a chopper flying in excess of 100 kilometers an hour.
• The only reason this thread is going is because everyone advocating the nerfing of the TOW is 'butthurt'

Wow, if I were you, stick to being a mod only.

[Riflewizard]

I haven't had too many issues with tows and aircraft, as long as you stay mobile it's very unlikely, but it's happene. what annoys me in the new version is tow-spamming, as with a unlimited supply of TOW missles, tow gunners can pick off anything they want whenever they want. I've been killed countless time as infantry, sitting there and ...whoosh... BOOM.

[Qaiex]

Even faster than that. 100 km/h=62 mph=53 knots. I figure most will cruise somewhere around 185 km/h=115 mph=100 knots.

Still, shooting down a helicopter IRL with a TOW is practically impossible. I think they should have 1. lower ammo count 2. fire delay 3. hell of a lot slower transversing 4. lower max elevation 5. slower reload time.

Completely agree.

U mean take them out of the game or what? Ok the chopper thing i understand. But to change the tow in a way that its useless against anything isnt the way imo.

Fire Delay and the look up angle change is all that is needed imo. But dont lower it so hard that u cant shoot at tanks in the hills of kashan when u build a fob in the bunker area for example.

There is now way to reload then destroy it and build a new one. So dont lower the ammo plz.

There is enough shoveling in this version

It wouldn't be useless at all. Just against helicopters in flight. You would still be able to kill tanks, APC's, helicopters that have landed, and everything else with it.
Lowering the ammo is also valid, the TOW shouldn't be the end all that you can just set up everywhere and use instead of tanks, APC's, attack helicopters, HAT and LAT kits, and all other attack vehicles.

Everyone keeps complaining about how fast someone can turn the TOW around to keep aiming a chopper.
With it being controlled by the mouse one can just change their sensitivity on the fly and they can aim really quickly.

Not if you add mouse acceleration.
Also, they managed to make the tanks spin slowly even if you have high sensitivity. Maybe they can do that to the TOW.

Why? If someone has got the skill to hit you with an ATGM when you're flying low, using cover and jinking all over the shop, why should be be denied that kill?

Because it's not skill, it's a guided missile that has been put into the game without any limitations.
Helicopters suffer limitations, tanks suffer limitations, the AA weapons, the APC's, the cars, trucks, hand-held weapons... Everything has limitations because of the engine and because of the distances, except for the TOW, which apparently should have all the good things of the real life version, but none of the negative things, and absolutely no concessions made to balance gameplay or compensate for the lack of a realistic environment.

If the TOW was as useful IRL as it is in PR, it would be pointless to have any other weapon, you could just put TOW's on tanks, TOW's in helicopters and have TOW humvees because you definitely don't need anything else, ever.


Project Reality has for quite a while now been about teamwork and sacrifices realism to do that.
We got the deviation system to make the gameplay more balanced. We have kit request limitations to make gameplay more balanced. We have helicopter weapon concessions to make attack helicopters less deadly, to make gameplay more balanced.

So why are you making the argument that the TOW, which right now no one can deny is the end all weapon, shouldn't be nerfed to make gameplay more balanced?

[mat552]

Why? If someone has got the skill to hit you with an ATGM when you're flying low,

Because it isn't about skill.

I'm about as bad at this game as anyone who's been playing since the tail end of .4 can possibly be. I'm constantly being surprised by people using tactics and concepts that are beyond me, and as fast as I adapt, there's a new tactic. Long story and sufficient to say, I'm REALLY bad at anything not flying related, and my skills in flying are only honed by years upon years of constant practice. This thread inspired me to try out TOWing a helicopter in PR, something I assumed was impossibly futile.

My first round was on Ymalia as russian, and I downed 4 chinooks in an hour and a half, and only one of them was doing anything close to trying to land. It wasn't impossibly futile, it was impossibly easy. Even when the last chinook was diving rapidly, weaving left and right in turns that would have ripped the aircraft apart in real life, I tracked it effortlessly. I depressed the button and like vengeful wrath of a deity, furious and terrible, I speared that poor, fragile, flammable container of meat, fabric, and steel through the midsection, the burning wreckage and bodies littering the surrounding countryside like so many broken t...sorry, I was reminiscing.

My original point was that the TOW requires no skill to use against helicopters. If the emplacement can get you center crosshair for even the merest fraction of a second, you have literally no chance of survival. Even killing the shooter doesn't stop the projectile in flight. If it didn't turn so fast, look so high, fly so quickly, and maintain its course so perfectly, it wouldn't be a problem. I do agree with the post somewhere above mine, except on Quinling 64, Kashan 64, and Silent Eagle 64, the AA emplacement is now entirely moot and useless. The TOW is hilariously better suited for AA duty against anything but fixed wing aircraft.