ATGM vs Helo

[arc3371]

I am not an experienced player but something that really bugs me is that ATGMs are so effective against Helos (far better than Handheld SAMs), is this intended?

[Marcello]

How many tests have you run? What were the results?

[arc3371]

I haven´t run any tests, but while playing a generated campaign I constantly see that Russian SA series have 5-15% hit probability after EW adjustment, while the AT series (EW doesn´t seem to work against ATGM) are having hitprobabilities of around 35% with spikes up to 60% (stationary helo)

[Suhiir]

I've run into this too.
ATGM's are more effective primarily because they're designed to take out tanks - and a helo doesn't have near that level of armor.
I have noticed that ATGM only seem to fire at helos that hover in one place for a turn or so unlike SAM's.
I figure if the pilot is dumb enough to stay in one place that long there's no reason some alert ATGM crew can't send him a little present.

I also seem to recall of hearing about helo's being taken down by ATGM's or for that matter RPG's in real life.

[PlasmaKrab]

Suhiir is right, ATGMs are a serious threat to helos only if said helo has already spent some time hovering in one place (practically, more than one turn in the same hex). In that time frame, immobile helos can also be effectively targeted by sufficiently advanced tank guns. IIRC even aircraft strafing and cluster ammo can take them out, so...

Regarding MANPADS, I don't know which Russian weapons you came across, though I'd bet for basic SA-7 or similar (statistics talking). Remember that compared to modern weapons, such missiles are utter crap and not able to hit the broad side of a burn if it isn't already on fire. Against a helo with some amount of EW rating (i.e. any modern gunship), they are just a bloody nuisance, with the additional risk or dealing minor damage to your helo and sending it off-map.
Also bear in mind that in most cases IA-controlled SAMs are meant to engage air targets as often as possible. So dedicated AA weapons + lousy accuracy gives you blind pot-shots as soon as something barely airborne pops up on the horizon. As of now, the IA isn't very good at holding fire, hence its tendency to waste precious ammo against unreachable targets. Which ATGM teams wont do that often because they won't open fire against helos at a whim. So they keep their shots for instances where the helos are much more within their target frame (i.e. stationary or nearly so), and so they get better average hit ratings. QED (I hope)

Just for reference, what kind of ATGMs were fired at your helos with such accuracy?

[arc3371]

AT-4b,AT-13, AT-14 and NT-S Spike

[Djuice]

I've noticed this too, and kind of exploited it against the AI. Instead of buying SA-7/SA-14 Infantry SAM teams, which can only be used against Aircraft at a very low accuracy rate <5% (AH-64/A-10) etc, buy AT-4 Fagot teams which are cheaper and can be used against AFV aswell.. It's also alot better against helo's like AH-64 which averages around 20% accuracy rate

[SheaColandri]

Keep in mind that an AH-64 Apache (for example) is designed to withstand shrapnel and AA guns up to 30mm, so it IS a bit of a tank as flyin' things go. Another real-world advantage of a wire-guided ATGM is the closed guidance system - no warning for the target. Lastly, ATGMs are designed to deal with terrain features (trees & stuff), since they can be steered around them.

[Marek_Tucan]

OTOH AH-64 doesn't have armored cabin, it's a tradeoff - either armor glass and poor field of view or no armor glass and large windows - Apache has armored glass just between gunner and pilot so that one hit won't preferably get both.

[pdoktar]

The biggest and most vulnerable part of a helicopter is the rotor, no possibilities to mount armor of any kind there. Also the tail boom and rotor are vulnerable to small arms fire.