If you've enjoyed this video, you might be interested in my 2-ship Su-25 attack behind enemy lines: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HwPoXNDSNkk.html
A small but relevant consideration is that in the case of rockets, bombs, artillery shells and missiles fragmentation is the main killer by the numbers- it's just unpredictable and too resource intensive to model properly. DCS just models "blast zones" that do "hit points" to nearby personnel, vehicles, and static objects. In reality, a spread of rockets over a square kilometer is going to make lots of very small craters, and very small blast zones (and DCS leaves it at that), but the zone that is sprayed with fragmentation will be significantly larger.
Depending on whether they are fin or spin stabilized, have separate or integral motors/warhead sections, you should be able to tighten the along-track scatter considerably. Simply by implementing a screw-on guidance section that implemented a programmable X (launch time) +Y (ballistic energy variance) digital counter which effectively treats all rockets with a ripple or salve group as though fired together, within a +/- specific time increment, by supplying them with a small rate gyro (spin counter and motor acceleration values = estimated downrange) and a pitch down spoiler which means that, without any kind of costly homing head (ala AGR-20/APKWS), a rocket can follow the ballistic trajectory equivalent of a round fired 1-3-5 rounds ahead of it. Thus, with a B-8-20 pod, you could deliver clusters of 5 impacts of 4 rockets each. Describing a range-ring arc that was 1/1,000 or 1/100th of a second apart and thus 5-10-50m spacing. Far more likely to hit within the CEP range error of say a 100m compound, 20m vehicle park or 10m gun pit. Without having to go for a full IMU. It doesn't account for variability in terrain or pilot azimuth error in hitting his pitchup point but it shouldn't matter unless you are specifically attempting an air burst. The way you need to look at this is the inverse equivalent to a Dive Toss bombing attack from a 30` low angle to 60` high angle delivery, with the latter concentrating bombs more within the CEP. This does the same thing except, instead of trusting the pilot's death-dot pipper placement, pre-pickle, it puts the correction for grazing angle into the munition, post launch. It's all the same ballistic calc math really, it's just that there are more rockets to average out the enfilade error.
When I tested this stuff myself, I was doing a 20 degree loft with the same IAS and AGL as you and could get I think 20km out of the S-13s. Also, you can get a really focused shotgun pattern if you do a half-G nose down as you pull the trigger. Obviously, this is more complicated, but I've used it to good effect sometimes. Awesome video btw, thank you!
i believe that more modern su-25 variants have a system for rocket lofting. i wish we had su-25sm3 ff in dcs but not possible. probably never gonna be.
Thank you for doing the tests! The video is only 5.5 minutes long but I'm sure the testing behind it was much longer :) Now I must go test it out myself with your base results!
Tree lines are the best, and probably most realistic targets for these kind of attack runs. Also, you can't be pulling up and shooting at the same time. This will result in a huge spread. I've had some fun doing these lofting attacks too with pretty decent results.
Actually I think pulling up slightly and shooting can result in a biggest kill zone, as gauging the exact distance is always going to be tough so might as well have at least a little bit of a spread. But I agree that too much is also not great.
@@CommandT hm but you'll always have a decent spread anyway cause you're aiming up and flying pretty fast. I haven't flown in dcs for a while but from what I remember I was able to achieve the best results by holding the attitude while shooting. And that's what they seem to be doing in Ukraine. Cheers!
To have best results you actually need to start shooting and gradually lower pitch. So that former and latter rockets have same impact point on ground. Its impossible to gauge but its what i do on mi24 lofts and it improves results
You can vastly decrease the longitudinal spread by first holding angle to steady out the aircraft, and then pushing a bit less than negative half gee. You'll still have a wide horizontal spread but the longitude will be reduced by miles. If you do it just right you can land it all in a big circle with much more saturation. They'll all also strike at roughly the same time.
Sure, I agree, but the downside is that nailing the distance from you to the target to get the "circle" onto it is very hard with changes in wind and when you pull the trigger. So having some longitudinal spread should increase the chances of getting something onto the target.
great perspective - very interesting to see it validated, and good that you included the negative aspects of the tactic as well. love your vids, please keep them coming!
Thank you for your hopes about ending all real wars. Some people no doubt think simmers just have bloodlust. Not necessarily true: DCS, other games, and sports can be healthy ways of managing humanity’s impulse for conflict.
With the dense air defense on both sides, this tactics is pretty useful to saturate an area without entering the range of MANPADS and short range AA defends. It's bound to hit someone or something. It's a forgien concept to western eyes because we fought against countries with little to no air defense similar to Russia or Ukraine.
Actually, it's not really a foreign concept if you think about it. Even the A-4 Skyhawk had an semi-automatic system for lofting bombs, but modern fighters also have it. Of course, if they can, they use stealth bombers and/or fighters to infiltrate the enemy airspace if it poses a great danger (e.g. in Desert Storm), so bomb/rocket lofting is not as important in the West as it once used to be.
@@Petidani0330 Aside of Vietnam previous conflicts, we brought down air defense or fought small countries, so lodging wasn't a huge thing for us. Since Russia and Ukraine are at each other's doorstep, the AA threat is very dense and Russia has zero experience with SEAD because they also fought small countries with no air defense until now.
It's not a foreign concept, it's just not necessary for any recent conflict. The A-10 has onboard systems to help calculate attacks like this using unguided rockets, but it just hasn't needed to in Syria. They do much better by simply strafing and hitting targets while they're visible, or just skip planes entirely and go for attack helicopters and M777 artillery. The biggest problem here is accuracy. Americans don't like using indirect fire unless it's really necessary. Whereas Russia has no problems with just leveling an entire city like they did with Grozny, Mariupol, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Aleppo.
It works very well just when you have soft conponent of targets. Not just vehicles but also crews and personnel, ammo caches. If using cluster rockets like s8kl, mpsm its going to slay any type of targets really
Theres one issue, all of russias su25's have been upgraded to the SM standard, rocket lofting is alot easier in these because you can pop down a glonass marker on the digital interfaces and the aircraft will display you the correct information such as angle of attack bearing and distance
Russia operates lots and lots of old, non-SM Su-25s. And yeah sure, you can get a more accurate pull up point on an MFD screen, but the DME on the old Su-25 is also good enough for this. It looks like they often use some sort of app on their phones to work out ranges.
@@CommandT nah man as of 2021 122 out of 192 SU25s were upgraded to the SM standard, the only other su25 the russia airforce use are SU25 UB,UTG,BM and T in very limited numbers. As on november 2023, 22 su25 have been shotdown, all of them being SM models, russia does not use older SU25 for front link combat only for training and reserves, speaking of reserves your mentioned older su25 will be entering front like combat yet again
@@TheSovietWombat A few points: 1. Russia does use old Su-25s in combat in Ukraine. It's documented extensively. The clip I used at 1:15 is literally showing an old Su-25 rocket lofting in Ukraine. And RU-vid is absolutely full of old Russian Su-25 doing rocket lofts in Ukraine. 2. The last time anyone had documented or filmed an Su-25T was over a decade ago. Unless you have any credible source, I would assume those have not been in operational service for a long time. 3. I'm not sure wat your source is, from what I've read it's more like 110 SMs by the beginning of the invasion in 2022. However you are right in implying that most have been upgraded. I suggest this article for a good overview: www.key.aero/article/how-ukraine-war-has-exposed-vulnerabilities-within-russias-su-25-fleet
Never assume real world combat tactics are arbitrary… especially if you lack the knowledge surrounding various nation’s combat doctrine. DCS doesn’t accurately model the suppressive effects of rocket impacts near troop concentrations, so it won’t be as effective in DCS as it would be IRL.
It should be easier and more accurate (and more flexible) to do in the A10 as it has a *calculated* loft indicator on its hud with rockets in CCRP mode, although it's slower speed probably reduces the range a fair bit.
But to what distance can CCRP be calculated by the in-flight computer? Surely there is a range (I'm guessing shorter than 4-6km but do correct me if I'm wrong).
@@civoksark Good question, I've not used CCRP rockets myself, but I put together a quick mission to test with and from the deck at 6nmi I'd start a pull up and computer would tell me to put the pipper at 25 degrees, so might actually be able to do it at a further distance, but 11km isn't too shabby. The pipper itself moves down so if you chase it you end up with a decent concentration of rockets. One issue I did notice though was that the hydras ripple off pretty slowly so you do end up gaining quite a bit of altitude and lose a lot of speed. Not sure if there s a setting to change the ripple interval.
@@CynicalOldDwarf nice then you can lob them pretty far out while still having the impact point calculated. Is there a way to shoot off a couple of them at a time and ripple that (like one press of a button is 8-16 rockets) to get a higher density of fire?
i’ve been trying this and will start pitching down slightly while launching. Keeps them in a smaller area instead of a line. Just depends how good you get with it though. definitely a good stand off tactic though if you like to not get shot down
@@okakokakiev787 its fun I recommend binding the dials to rotary encoders if u have them on your stick. NS430s are super easy to use irl but not in a sim where a mouse is how you interact with the environment. but its useful itll bring over ME waypoints but I dont think it will do F10 drop points so usually youll have to key in your own IPs and stuff. its very useful tho and makes sense why basically everyone with cold war era soviet jets uses them or some variant.
Thanks for the video. I was under the impression that the rockets are guided rockets, and very accurate. I'm sure unguided are used as well because they are so much more cost effective (affordable). Any thoughts?
This is a tactic that works fine in an environment where you are using saturated fire. It won’t be pin point accurate or really even close to area accurate. It is a tactic born out of desperation using aircraft that are obsolescent and are completely out matched by local anti air. This is the reality of a peer fight.
Another thing. Ofc best to use modern aircraft su25sm, ka52, mi35m. These have navigation to gsuge distance and direction. And ballistic conputer thst puts a reticle on hud
I tried it, i actually hit some targets as well, but due to the non existant splash damage in DCS my rockets could land next to a target but dont damage it :/
Why would physics work any differently for a Rocket fired from a moving platform and a standing platform? The rocket is accelerating from different constant speeds. One happens to be 0, the other about 600 km/h. The one from the plane has greater initial energy and thus more range, but the principle is completely the same. If firing rockets by lofting from planes is stupid, then every rocket launcher is stupid.
The accuracy is greatly reduced due to a lack of an accurate ballistics sight, and the aircraft is obviously aimed by a human where a tenth of a degree in pitch can make a difference whereas a ground based system is obviously steady when aimed.
It might be to increase maneuverability. Less weight, more agile aircraft. In a manpad saturated air space could help the pilot dodge incoming missiles.
Lofting needs to be done quick. If you have too much ammo it takes too much time to ripple fire it and this leads to increase in spread. The beaten area elongates greatly. Much more efficient to use short salvo. The rockets cover a nice ellipse
@CommandT wind was negligible, speed was correct, sometimes I was just a bit faster, pitch was at least 10°. Don't know what I'm doing wrong, altitude was pretty much same as yours, even though I don't have the numbers, you were flying pretty much at tree top level.
I love how when Russians used this tactic in Ukraine first, everyone ditched it as obviously a dumb tactic, and thought that the Russians are simply morons and wasting war material. When footages emerged showing Ukrainians doing the same thing, most people went quiet (or, as usual, claimed the footages to be fake and part of some anti-Ukrainian propaganda). Fast forward a couple months, and we have dozens of videos proving that yes, this tactic is indeed viable even in a game which doesn't simulate fragmentation, only a very limited blast damage.
You know the parameters you need to satisfy, then you plan your sortie and define visual and navigational clues on when to fire. People with practice can hit quite small targets with this. That is in DCS. In real world I don't know about Ukrainians, but Russian helicopters and aircrafts have their software updated to support this kind of fire and increase it's accuracy. Of course, it is still against area targets, but rockets themselves are meant against area targets anyway. With current experienced pilots and firing platforms, this kind of fire is pretty accurate even for some CAS scenarios.
