New icon series

[Suhiir]

PlasmaKrab said:
Question: what do you plan on using your COIN versions for? For instance, the ones COIN variants I have created in some OOBs are nearly bereft of any AT weaponry. I have given e.g. some HE (FAE) ATGMs to some fictional Hind variants, and some BB Hellfires would make sense for MC choppers. You'd have to set the variants straight, of course. But I mean, I have stripped down COIN Cobras even down to their AP 20mm rounds. In exchange they get more HE Hydras.
Also, I have stuck to AAMs only when it was more or less built in in the helo default loadout (see Tigers) or didn't lose hardpoints or weapon slots to more important stuff.
Most of the time, and characteristically in operations were COIN loadouts are to be preferred to tank hunters, the AA ability is moot, and a waste of lots of points, because you are not going to come across much air in the first place.

Regarding the Hellfire, it's true you can't model its main advantage in Marines terms, i.e. that it can be fired over large expenses of water without losing signal .
Because of a much higher speed, it should also be significantly more accurate than a TOW in game terms. Warhead is larger, range higher, there are a numer of factors that should make them better than the TOWs.
Agreed now, I just checked my modded OOBs and the baseline Hellfire returns a cost value 2 points lower than the TOW-2A...

The COIN version I give 1/2 the Hellfire/TOW loadout (4 missiles instead of 8) and 19-shot rocket pods instead of 9's. The early versions often have a lower Vision rating too (since they had no built-in system and wore wore NVG's).

BB Hellfire's would be nice, that stats did you give them?

The AAM's on the AH-1 are mounted on the ends of the stubby weapon mount wings, nothing else can be mounted there. It's more a matter of do they feel the need to carry them. I suppose there might be some weight trade-off so they'd carry less other weapons, but I never seen (or looked for) any indication of this.

You need to keep in mind doctrine too. Strange as it may sound the main anti-tank weapons of the USMC are fixed wing and helo's. We don't have enough tanks to play Tank Wars. USMC tanks are primarily infantry support. Sure, if they're handy we'll send them after other tanks, but given how few of them we have we don't assume they'll be available. Thus unless we know damn good and well there is no armor around no AH-1 would leave the ground without a few ATGM's.

Yeah I looked at the Hellfire's a bit last night, decided to go with the 'A' and 'K' variants. The double warhead on the 'K' will help a lot I'm sure. Outta curiosity I noticed the 'A' variant had the same accuracy as the TOW's and the 'B' in the default OOB was only 7% better, what sort of accuracy did you give them?

[PlasmaKrab]

Suhiir said:The COIN version I give 1/2 the Hellfire/TOW loadout (4 missiles instead of 8) and 19-shot rocket pods instead of 9's. The early versions often have a lower Vision rating too (since they had no built-in system and wore wore NVG's).
(...)
You need to keep in mind doctrine too. Strange as it may sound the main anti-tank weapons of the USMC are fixed wing and helo's. We don't have enough tanks to play Tank Wars. USMC tanks are primarily infantry support. Sure, if they're handy we'll send them after other tanks, but given how few of them we have we don't assume they'll be available. Thus unless we know damn good and well there is no armor around no AH-1 would leave the ground without a few ATGM's.

Thanks for the doctrine info. Now this raises the question (again...) of how you handle attack and COIN classes prior to ATGM service.
Since you're up to picklists, I'd personally tend to replace the standard AT helo and plane sets with COIN-only (no or few AT weapons) only when facing vehicle-less opponents, think Viet-Cong, Somalia, Iraq from 2004 onwards, to quote a few real-world examples. Keep in mind that both helo classes wouldn't cohabit in the same battle unless you (player or scenarist) really want them to.

BB Hellfire's would be nice, that stats did you give them?
(...)
Yeah I looked at the Hellfire's a bit last night, decided to go with the 'A' and 'K' variants. The double warhead on the 'K' will help a lot I'm sure. Outta curiosity I noticed the 'A' variant had the same accuracy as the TOW's and the 'B' in the default OOB was only 7% better, what sort of accuracy did you give them?

Code:

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Model       Name                Acc.  WHS  HEATP  MinRange MaxRange IOC

AGM-114A    Hellfire             94    8    100  25       160      86

AGM-114K    Hellfire-II          95    9    100  ???      180      94

AGM-114L    Hellfire-Longbow     100   9    100  ???      180      2005

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These are the ones I use for obat012, precluding any non-HEAT variant which I haven't started on yet.
HE-Frag stats should be easy, look at howitzer stats of same WHS.
FAE is a bit hazy, depending on what you consider a penetration. HEK should be higher than for Frags, but not too much, maybe divide WHS by 3 to reduce off-hex splash damage.
APHE (blast-frag) should get HE-Frag HEK levels, HEAT penetration divided by ~3 and HE penetration to your liking, but low (preferably shrapnel level).
All that is wild guess from end to end, since I haven't tested it yet.

The AAM's on the AH-1 are mounted on the ends of the stubby weapon mount wings, nothing else can be mounted there. It's more a matter of do they feel the need to carry them. I suppose there might be some weight trade-off so they'd carry less other weapons, but I never seen (or looked for) any indication of this.

Fair enough. As I said, when it doesn't intrude on other weapons (like it does on the Tiger which I've always done with alternate rocket loadouts), it is more a matter of weapon slots and unit cost.

[Epoletov_SPR]

Your work is important for us !

I hope developers from SP CAMO will include these new Icon in WinSP !?

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Barge Carriers look too bulky in WinSPMBT 3.5, can be make their such?


rus web page 1

rus web page 2

rus web page 3

[Suhiir]

PlasmaKrab said:
Thanks for the doctrine info. Now this raises the question (again...) of how you handle attack and COIN classes prior to ATGM service.
Since you're up to picklists, I'd personally tend to replace the standard AT helo and plane sets with COIN-only (no or few AT weapons) only when facing vehicle-less opponents, think Viet-Cong, Somalia, Iraq from 2004 onwards, to quote a few real-world examples. Keep in mind that both helo classes wouldn't cohabit in the same battle unless you (player or scenarist) really want them to.

Actually I'm doing formations, but since picklists work off the formations info I needed to know a couple things about how they did it before I got too deep into the formations only to find out I'd shot myself in the foot when I went to do picklists.

Yeah, I kinda assumed for the picklists I'd make much the same substitution.
Now Strike VS COIN aircraft is a whole nuther story ! I've perhaps gone a bit overboard playing with ordinance loads, but what the hack I had fun. I did try to keep in mind 500# lb dumb bombs are cheap tho

Thanks for the Hellfire data.

[PlasmaKrab]

Suhiir said:
Now Strike VS COIN aircraft is a whole nuther story ! I've perhaps gone a bit overboard playing with ordinance loads, but what the hack I had fun. I did try to keep in mind 500# lb dumb bombs are cheap tho

That's what I've been doing with most countries which routinely have more planes than the game can handle (limit of 27 units per class at one single date IIRC). The non-AT loadouts (napalm, HE cluster, light rockets...) go in a separate class (COIN fighter) and are used by the IA only against those opponents that have little or no chance to go armor-wave all over the place.
Of course, for that you need to give some slack to the variants, e.g. keeping some rockets-and-dumb-bombs cheap loadouts in class 44, and adding one or two variants in COIN class which a couple of high-end dumb weapon like ICM bombs or heavy rockets. Mostly it's guided weapons you want to get rid of. And there again, you can do that only in an airforce with sufficient proficiency in guided weapons, e.g. not in Switzerland or Austria who aren't even supposed to do ground attack.
The two classes can also be used in slightly different ways as well, as alternate air support classes. Two examples: in Libya, I set to COIN all the second-line LIFT/support planes (SIAI Warrior, Orao, L-39...) that are used only against AA-less opponents like Chad. Pushing the reasoning a bit further, I split French aircrafts in two classes on naval/airforce lines. That may sound pointless since the loadout capabilities are the same more or less, but it is meant mainly to prevent carrier-only crafts from doing fire support on the inter-German border on their own accord, and I was able to give them slightly less-AP weaponry since they were meant to come up only against off-Europe force-projection opponents.

Sorry for the blabber, I just meant to illustrate how far you could push that trick.

[KraMax]

PlasmaKrab
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You have plane icons - Mig-25?

[Suhiir]

I did something similar myself Plasma.
The US Navy aircraft and helos in the OOB (SH-2 Seasprite and F-14 Tomcat for example) I made radio code X1, and the USAF stuff I made x3. So designers can use it if they want but the AI will only rarely use Navy and never use USAF to provide close air support.