DCS Black Shark: Tactics Primer (Part 2)

10 Rules to Live by (Continued)

Rule #2: Fire munitions from their maximum range

The farther you are from your target, the less possible it will detect and fire back at you.

Shkval view of an enemy tank engaged with an anti-tank missile from a distance of 1.7 km. At this distance, enemy tanks can shoot you down very easily.

Shkval view of an enemy tank engaged with an anti-tank missile from a distance of 5.3 km. At this distance, the enemy tanks will have a hard time detecting and firing at you.

Rule #3: Avoid the "Dead Man's Zone"

The crest of hills are the worst places to be hovering or flying. Remember to use terrain to mask your helicopter. Fly around hills, not over them.

(Click on the image for an expanded view)

(Click on the image for an expanded view)

Cheers,

DCS Black Shark: Tactics Primer (Part 2)

10 Rules to Live By

All forms of combat require an agile mind able to adapt to the continuously changing challenges of the battlefield. In tactical combat, there are never absolute truths or optimal solutions and speaking of "rules" sounds like out of place. The "rules" discussed here are actually guides that are valid in most situations. Take these "rules" as a framework to think about your own solutions to the tactical challenges you will face.

Rule #1: Never fly over the objective

... or over any area in which you know or suspect there are enemy troops. Remember, under your aircraft is one of the places where you cannot see or aim your weapons.

(Click on the image for an expanded view). During un-guided rocket runs is when most of virtual pilots make the mistake of over-flying the objective.

(Click on the image for an expanded view)

(Click on the image for an expanded view). An ideal un-guided rocket run.

(Click on the image for an expanded view)

Cheers,

Real Life Interruption. Will be back soon though!

Dear readers,

I'm in a business trip and will be back posting very soon. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

"No Enemy, but Peace", a Comic About Real Heroes

This has to be my oddest find ever. In a comics store I found a comic written by a US Marine about a real-life story of heroism and courage during the battle of At-Tarmiyah.

Very good reading and illustrations. You immediately note that the author knows what he is writing about.

There is a more extensive comic coming out in the near future.

Please support this small operation by buying the comic here.

Cheers,

War Gaming in the Military

The Training and Simulation Journal has an article about war gaming in the armed forces around the globe.

The Army realized that the new generation, or Generation Y, is a significant percentage of the Army and that it learns more efficiently using a game than with PowerPoint, said Don Toliver, operations director at the National Simulation Center (NSC) at the Army Combined Arms Center and Training at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Cheers,

DCS Black Shark: Tactical Landing ... Sorta

1.5 km away from the runway

Runway is getting closer ...

Gear down!

The runway gets buried under the nose. Thank Lord for TrackIR!

The dive ...

From the cockpit, closely watching the airspeed ...

Pulling the cyclic like there was no tomorrow

Finally level flight

Touchdown!

Cheers,

DCS Black Shark: Tactics Primer (Part 1)

This series of entries are focused in attack helicopter tactics at the individual level. Off course, attack helicopters almost never take-off to combat individually. At a later time, I will expand this series to tactics to be used at the platoon level. On the meantime, the tactical principles in this primer will help you to fly as a part of a formation.

This series of entries are based in stuff I gathered on the web. I condensed and adapted most of the stuff found and I encourage you to check those original sources. The sources will be cited at the end of each installment.

Flying to the objective

Compared to fixed wing aircraft, the attack helicopter doesn’t have the luxury of being able to fly very high or fast. It’s almost ironic that these two apparent shortcomings of the attack helicopter are actually its two advantages: being able to both fly extremely slow and at a low altitude that allows it to evade enemy anti-air weapon systems. In addition, the attack helicopter has a very high maneuverability that allows it to change the flight regime in small space and time spans.

Unfortunately, the advances in radar and infrared detection technologies are always a threat for the attack helicopter pilot. The biggest challenge for the attack helicopter pilot is to fly towards the objective avoiding detection. The best way to avoid detection is using terrain as cover.

If you are a virtual pilot of fixed-wing combat aircraft, it’s time for a paradigm shift. You are used to dive majestically from the blue with your wings pregnant of fire and the arrogant attitude of a God that entertains himself dealing death to the poor earth-laden mortals. Those times are gone. You are now like a hero of the ancient Greek mythology, half-god and half-mortal. The earth where the soldier lives and dies is now your life and death. The eternal paradoxes of tactical land combat are now your salvation and perdition. Being pilot and soldier at the same time will require the most from your abilities and intelligence. This is your time of greatest glory.

One way to avoid detection by using terrain as cover is the so-called “nap of the earth” (NoE) flying. In NoE flying, the pilot flies at approximately 6-7 meters above the ground and at a speed of 90 Km/h. The vast majority of modern radar systems cannot detect targets flying at a very low altitude. In addition, Doppler-based radars are designed to ignore returns moving at speeds of less than 100 Km/h in order to avoid detecting civilian traffic. During a NoE flight, the pilot chooses a route that allows the maximum terrain cover. The base of hills, around (not over) elevations and behind crowded terrain is ideal for NoE flying. In mountainous terrain, attack helicopter pilots usually fly at an altitude that is halfway between the base and the top of the mountains.

As exhilarating as dangerous, NoE flying requires a lot of concentration.

NoE flying is not problem-free. The slow speed and the low altitude expose the attack helicopter to small-arms fire and un-guided rockets. An alternative to NoE flying is “contour-chasing” (CC) flying, which is done at higher altitudes and speeds. CC flying is used when the presence of enemy anti-aerial or aircraft is less likely. For a CC flight, the pilot maintains an altitude of 12-15 meters and a speed of 150 Km/h. The pilot doesn’t fly around the hills but rather maintains a straight course, keeping a constant altitude above the ground.

CC flying has the advantage of higher speed at the expense of concealment

Coming up next, “10 Rules to Live by”

Source for this entry:

http://www.101st.org/Data/5.27.htm

Cheers,

Battle Group Commander: Episode One

In a previous entry, I shared the news about a sale at Shrapnel Games.

Thanks to the sale event and the coupon I mentioned in my previous entry, you can get "Battle Group Commander: Episode One" for $12.49.

Sure, this game features only four scenarios. Yet I can assure you will be hooked and get hours of gameplay and tactical goodness out of this game. If you have been in the fence about this line of war games, this a golden opportunity.

Cheers,

FM 3-24.2 Tactics in Counterinsurgency

After being published and quickly taken off from the US Army Combined Arms Center last April, copies of the manual appeared in several blogs and websites.

Now it is available from the "Small Wars Journal" website.

It is very exciting to witness doctrine in the making.

The field manual is 300 pages long and I'm still reading it. Two stray thoughts about it:

• From the point of view of employing armed forces to kill insurgents/enemy combatants the US Army never suffered major tactical defeats in the recent past. This field manual not only revises the employment of troops for the destruction of enemy combatants/insurgents but also integrates such activity with wining the hearts and minds of the civil population and preserving the civilian infrastructure. This is not a trivial thing.
• Some parts are really eye catchers. Like this passage in section 5.2 (Characteristics of the Offense):

  The characteristics of the offense are surprise, audacity, tempo, and concentration. For COIN, an additional characteristic, flexibility, is added.

Wait a minute, I thought that flexibility was always a part of the offense ... :)

• Some other parts are surprising, at least to me. Like when the manual lists the types of offensive operations, one of them is "movement to contact", which includes search-and-attack and cordon-and-search operations. In my understanding, the greatest problem in battling insurgencies is that the enemy combatants always have the choice of when and where to show up. Movement to contact may be a bit too optimistic IMHO. But the actual surprise to me is that in the manual there is a mention of using reconnaissance forces to find the insurgents. Regular recce units?
  

Cheers,

Modern Military Thinkers: John Boyd

John Boyd had both the mind of the bold, daring soldier who never surrenders and that of a brilliant scholar whose thirst for truth uncovers new patterns in places where nobody thought there was anything else to question.

He is known mostly for his "observation, orientation, decision, action" loop (OODA loop). This is unfortunate because his contributions are as wide-ranging as the ones from titans like Clausewitz. It is also unfortunate because OODA is not a loop but rather a cycle. But anyway, most people's knowledge of Clausewitz doesn't go farther than "war is the continuation of politics by other means".

As I'm doing with every military thinker I post about, I will leave the task of exploring Boyd's theories to my readers. A little warning, you are in for a wild ride.

One of the spin-offs from Boyd's thinking is the so-called maneuver warfare, which was adopted by the US Marine Corps as a doctrinal framework. There is also a movement leaded by Chet Richards, that applies Boyd's thinking to business.


Boyd never wrote a book. His preferred way of exposing ideas were his legendary briefings, which lasted half a day. The text of these briefings can be found in the web. Frank Osinga recently published a book which is the ultimate analysis of Boyd's theories: "Science, Strategy and War". This book is a bit pricey from Amazon and I would rather recommend the print-on-demand service from Routledge.






One of the things that impressed me in Osinga's book is his analysis of the context in which Boyd formulated his ideas. According to Osinga, Boyd's experiences as a fighter pilot, his self education and the scientific ambiance contemporary to his studies are important to understand his theories. I also recommend the biographical book by Robert Coram "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War".





Cheers,