Helicopter Evasion

[Imp]

Originally Posted by Marek_Tucan

OTOH on real battlefield there would be much less radar-directed AA (heavy SAMs, radar AA-guns etc.) than it is possible in SP.

Than it is possible yes but often play pretty realisticly.
Possibly if high vis & think likely might have a couple of area SAMs but recent game playing as 2/3rds early 80s Soviet Tank Regiment had 4 ZSU-23s with radar & 2 basic SAMs Gopher as I think this is about right. Did have some manpads in infantry company but this was protecting 60 tanks & all the supporting infanty arty APCs etc.
Yes his air did find holes but thats how it goes, manpads did quite a good job in this particular game & lack of TI was a much more serious problem.

[mosborne]

Hi:
Like the many good points.
It probably would lead to abuse, but on the other hand-

The SAMs would be bled and spotted perhaps, just as easily the way it is now. Consider, the copter goes high and is shot at 4-5 times, all near misses (but likely inflicting some cummulative damage). For example, Site A fires, computer moves helo, Site B fires, computer moves helo, Site A fires again computer moves helo, Site C fires computer moves helo, etc. Some of the shots are from different SAM sites, others from the same SAM site. The multiple shots from the same SAM site will reveal their location. It also reveals the number of SAMs sites in the area.

The defender would probably like to have an opportunity to tune the range on his AD so that all don't go off, revealing their number and location. What could be even worst, is that they are all shooting at a target that could be out of the game with just one damage point.

Note also, that not even planes do what the helos do when fired upon by SAMs.

The other consideration, is the helos are not treated like ground targets. The ground targets get shot at from everyone who can see them at the location they are at. Whereas for helos, they get shot at from their original location and again when they are moved by the computer, when you loose control of them, to a new location.

Perhaps in this last comment lies the solution.

Maybe just remove the routine that moves the helicopter when it is shot at. Since in the big scheme of things and to be consistent with other units, all firing takes place at the same time for any move. So if I move my helo to location A (high or low), it may get shot at by multiple SAMs, but it doesn't move on its own (computer AI) to some other location, and drawing additional fire. This way, I can decide (assuming the helo survived) - change altitude, withdraw or continue. I think this could be the happy medium for all. Of course this means I can no longer get those helo kills by forcing the helo to move into range of my other AD, but I certainly like this idea better. In fact, I think under some cases, this is how it works too, just don't know what makes the computer decide to take over sometimes and not other times.

Cheers