Hard to find targets

Sometimes enemy vehicles are hidden in woods or towns, thus very difficult to find. As the attached picture shows, the tank to be hit by this Maverick is almost invisible to naked eyes.

I looked for it for quite a while, using both my eyes and the AGM-65H's guidance sensor. The missile locked the target correctly and I still didn't see the tank on the display. I couldn't believe that it was there until the F6 view clearly showed it. I tried 65D, the IR model in later battles. But it still wouldn't exhibit the target very clearly. I had to open my map to find tanks. Do you guys have a better idea to find targets?

That's just how it is. There's nothing more to it. I guess you're already using the zoom function for the MK.I Eyeball?

You can read up on finding targets, especially tanks and artillery, in european woodland as an A-10A driver in the book "A-10s Over Kosovo: The Victory of Airpower over a fielded Army as told by the airman". It was pretty difficult for them to find and see hidden vehicles. The only difference is, that they had handheld binoculars. But that's what the zoom function in DCS is for.

Edit: The book is available for free as PDF here: http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil/digital/pdf/book/b_0090_haave_haun_a10s_over_kosovo.pdf

Thank you for the link! I've been trying to buy it as an ebook for quite some time. (Oct. 2010 to be precise), and now I get it for free. :)

Glad I could help :)

Thanks for you reply. Yeah, I zoomed in to max. As shown in the screenshot, you won't find it unless you are extremely close to it and you are told "it is there". At this distance it can also drill some holes on my engines with its tiny .50 machine gun.

Sometimes I just dropped a CBU-97 to cover the whole town or forest. It feels like cheating. And this bomb in reality is more expensive than Mavericks!

Mate just use markers?

I think its alt+f10 or ctrl +f10

cant remember

Regards, MrChickies

Thanks for you reply. Yeah, I zoomed in to max. As shown in the screenshot, you won't find it unless you are extremely close to it and you are told "it is there". At this distance it can also drill some holes on my engines with its tiny .50 machine gun.

Sometimes I just dropped a CBU-97 to cover the whole town or forest. It feels like cheating. And this bomb in reality is more expensive than Mavericks!

Shows how effective camouflage can be. :smilewink:

If the only information you have is there's a tank in the little wood south of the village and you must take it out to beat a bad (or challenging?) mission design, the CBU is a valid option and no cheat. IMHO, of course.

You mean label? Yeah, I knew that trick. Just learning to rely on my own eyes and the sensors. Labels and enemy-displaying maps are restricted in some multiplayer servers, and are less realistic.

Try creating a custom snap view that zooms your maverick screen to nearly full screen while holding down a button, then going back to F1 cockpit when the button is released. A quick press of the button will help in spotting targets at greater distances because the mav screen is so big, and releasing the button gets you quickly back to 'heads-up' in the cockpit.

I can often lock a target at longer ranges using this method but then I have to wait until it's in range to fire.

I often spot tanks by flying right over where I expect them to be and looking for the green tracers flying up at me lol

I often spot tanks by flying right over where I expect them to be and looking for the green tracers flying up at me lol

Not going to lie, I do this too.

I'm hoping the Rift will help a bit, as I've heard not having a big monitor and high resolution really makes it more difficult to find ground targets.

Really glad to read this thread though and know I'm not the only one squinting at my screen going "where the hell is this thing". The only time I don't have trouble is when the targets are on a road. Even if the targets are on open fields it can be a struggle. I have noticed that some units will kick up dust when they're moving or firing, so that's helpful to spot.

Zoom in feature is really the only way I've been able to get better.

I find that the AGM-65K locks on easier to armour than the D too, so tend to switch to that. Pausing overhead a target and having a good look around helps too! Been trying to finish the first mission (bit of a newbie) of the campaign but tend to get slaughtered by the AAA low down. Is fun to limp back to base with half a plane though. The A-10C has better avionics, starting to feel that it would have been better to rather have spent the money on that than FC3. The SU25T is a bit of a dog to fly but has better weapons systems too. Do love the A-10A's flight model though, feels like a real plane.

Welcome to a concept called "Camoflage"...it´s the art of "not being seen by pesky aircraft that want to bomb me"...

Yes, hidden target are hard to see, how is that such a big mistery? We also have to cope with gamey stuff like draw distances, LODs, and pixel desity on our monitors, which real life pilots don´t have to do.

Since DCS 1.5 was released, spotting vehicles on the ground became significantly harder. Perhaps something to do with the color scheme change etc...

One good way to compensate is to use the model enlargement feature in the options. Try out which enlargement size feels best! And zoom in as much as you can to increase spot chance!