New icon series

[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
----------------
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.

[Epoletov_SPR]

Please make Icon for a Jeep with MG and ATGM.
Now these Vechicles are presented Icon as utility jeeps without the weapon.
I think many fans Steel Panthers will be grateful for your creativity.