Helicopter armor

[Mobhack]

Because as discussed many a time and oft - if there is any damage to a plane then it may well fall out of the sky without notice. Pilots really don't like that idea at all, so they RTB as soon as they can. Only the wrench wallahs can look at the thing and determine if the damage needs down time in the maintenance hangar.

Its a basic design element of the SP engine, and aint going to change whatsoever. A damaged flying machine = RTB.

So if your helo gets plinked, then drop the passengers or fire at what you can before the pilot decides to scarper.

Andy

[gila]

Yay that,
What people seem to forget,is the rotor or blades have no armour just a nick on the blades throws off the balance and makes it highly unstable to fly,and any major damage to the rear rotor it spins to the ground.

[Firestorm]

I don't use helos very often, but when I do I tend to use them the same way I use horse cavalry in WinSPWW2: fast, potent but fragile offensive force. You use them as a mobile reserve to deal with enemy breakthroughs and other trouble spots, you send them behind the lines to bash the enemy's artillery park, or you use them at the end to corral and finish off a broken force.

I just thought it was natural for them to die quickly when a still-potent force starts shooting at them. I guess not.

[iln82]

Originally Posted by Firestorm

I just thought it was natural for them to die quickly when a still-potent force starts shooting at them. I guess not.

So it's natural that an Apache or Hind that are protected from heavy caliber gun fire, should retreat when they suffer damage (1) from rifle fire. What's the point of having an armored helicopter then??? A tank or IFV does not retreat when it's damaged; why should an attack helicopter? (Note that I am talking about damage up to (2) and armored helos only; obviously a transport would retreat even with minimum damage...)
PS: I have no problem with helos taking evasive maneuvers when being fired on; however I though they would fly away from enemy fire rather than towards it (as it unfortunately happens now in the game...)

[shahadi]

I'm currently authoring a scenario using attack helos, CAS with an interdiction mission as well. What I'm researching is how the Vipers react given higher EW numbers. The higher numbers seem to enable the Vipers to stick and fight whereas at their stated EW of 9 they would bug out. Also, I have significantly increased the EW of Venoms with satisfactory results too. While I've modified EW numbers, the armor ratings remain unchanged.

[Suhiir]

I'm sure many of you have heard this before - A pilot once told me a helo is nothing more then 100,000 parts flying in close formation, and 90% of them vital to it staying airborne.

In my tests for my OOB variant I've fooled around with adding 1 armor to all helos and increasing the armor on attack types. It does reduce their vulnerability but once they get damaged it's all over.
It may help to think of them as aerial trucks rather then APC's.
If you expose trucks loaded with troops to fire, any fire, you're going to be very unhappy with the result.

[sabresandy]

I'm fine with helis retreating if they take damage; in that case, then, it looks like the focus will be on fine-tuning the code for helicopter armor so that they don't take damage from small arms so often. Agreed or not?

[gila]

Originally Posted by sabresandy

I'm fine with helis retreating if they take damage; in that case, then, it looks like the focus will be on fine-tuning the code for helicopter armor so that they don't take damage from small arms so often. Agreed or not?

Look up at posts 3 and 13

[sabresandy]

Hey, now, the discussion did take a detour on the whole "evasive maneuvers" issue and another one on whether or not helis would retreat when damaged or not. For all intents and purposes there were three related issues under discussion.

[gila]

Sorry,i meant the issue should be looked at.
As Suhir pointed to,helos are not flying tanks,but rather delicate an vunerable.
Easier to shoot down than than low level fixed winged air units and much slower.
They don't always take damage when hit,are you just pushing them a bit much?
I would suppose any pilot flying into intense small arms fire would evade as modeled in game.