Heavy calibre AAA.

One thing DCS is sorely lacking is some heavy anti-aircraft artillery that can reach higher altitudes then the ones we currently have. Sure, we have the ZU-23, Shilka and Tunguska but their maximum engagement altitude is so low that they're rarely a factor when flying modern fighters. I think that guns like the S-60, KS-19 and even the KS-30 would be a much needed addition. They've been in service for over half a decade and are still in use all around the world. At the moment I feel too safe when I'm waltzing about at 20,000 feet without anything to worry about except for SAMs. I want flak so thick I can walk on it. I want to see the night sky lit up by shrapnel from all directions. Am I the only one yearning for this to make its way into DCS?

This is the primary reason I bought the WW2 assets pack. It's surely not close to modern AAA, but it at least creates the right visual atmosphere.

I agree in what we need such pieces for DCS.

+1 Definitely need more comprehensive assets and larger calibre AA guns like the ones you mentioned would be fantastic. As well as for instance the US 90mm M1/M1A1/M2 and 120mm M1 (with their respective FCS systems and support vehicles). Okay these are older systems but just something on the BLUFOR side.

It was my understanding that such Heavy AAA was superseded by SAMS with Vietnam being the last real use of radar directed heavy flak.

Having done some quick Googling, looks like Iraq had some 85 mm, 100 mm and 130 mm AAA guns during Desert Storm - apparently of the M1939 (52-K), KS-19 & KS-30 types. All are of WW2 or 1950's vintage; but they were 40/50 years old 29 years ago.

As to the efficacy of these systems - would it be worth the effort to model for the ostensibly 70s/80s/90s era that DCS inhabits? One would suspect that the vintage of the radar direction elements were probably easily jammed by this timescale.

For a 1950s/1960s era sandbox, then yes to the KS-19 & KS-30; they'd fit nicely into a Korea Map with the F-86 and MiG-15 (hint-hint ED). If DCS broadens the scope of it's WW2 efforts to the Eastern Front then the M1939 (52-K) would also be needed.

I just don't believe that there's sufficient demand, relevance or resources to model these currently.

You have that German heavy flak gun. Actually Germany have some really interesting units that I have been Neglecting in my Mission creations. But yes, more Flak would be great. Also remember many smaller countries use outdated equipment.

Errr… relevance?

Not Flak.

It was my understanding that such Heavy AAA was superseded by SAMS with Vietnam being the last real use of radar directed heavy flak.

 

Having done some quick Googling, looks like Iraq had some 85 mm, 100 mm and 130 mm AAA guns during Desert Storm - apparently of the M1939 (52-K), KS-19 & KS-30 types. All are of WW2 or 1950's vintage; but they were 40/50 years old 29 years ago.

 

As to the efficacy of these systems - would it be worth the effort to model for the ostensibly 70s/80s/90s era that DCS inhabits? One would suspect that the vintage of the radar direction elements were probably easily jammed by this timescale.

 

For a 1950s/1960s era sandbox, then yes to the KS-19 & KS-30; they'd fit nicely into a Korea Map with the F-86 and MiG-15 (hint-hint ED). If DCS broadens the scope of it's WW2 efforts to the Eastern Front then the M1939 (52-K) would also be needed.

 

I just don't believe that there's sufficient demand, relevance or resources to model these currently.

Well yes, they would be worth to model if you want to simulate a realistic combat environment. In a addition to your mention of Iraq, they were used extensively by Yugoslavia during Operation Allied Force during the late 90's. Yugoslavia had about 5,000 pieces of anti aircraft artillery and a total of eleven AAA regiments compared to only four SAM regiments. During desert storm Iraq had roughly 6,000-7,000 pieces of AAA above 23mm caliber, most of which were S-60s and KS-19s. We're also getting a Syrian theater in the near future and Syria has thousands of AAA, a lot of which are S-60s and KS-19s as well as the old M1939. Just because they were designed during the 30s-50-s doesn't mean they're irrelevant today. If a country were to invade Syria today, they would be defending themselves against KS-19s and M1939 just like the F-86 pilots did in Korea simply because they've been in use for over 70 years straight.

And you're partly right in the fact that AAA isn't very effective. From a kill count point of view it isn't very effective but that's due to the fact that pilots in that airspace actively avoid them. It disrupts enemy operations since they can't fly from point A to point B without taking some form of evasive action. Flying at medium altitudes also becomes way more dangerous with heavy AAA in the area.

Currently in DCS if you're flying at 35,000ft and get a SAM launched at you, you can safely descend 20,000 ft while defending before you'll be in danger of SHORADs and the likes. In a realistic environment you'd be getting hit by heavy AAA long before that with their accuracy constantly increasing the lower you get being highly dangerous when you get down to the altitudes where SHORADs are able to engage you at all. That's why we need it modeled in DCS.

AAA is still effective against helicopters, don't forget. So are many other things & you don't need heavy AAA vs helis particularily.

Looks like a similar enough thread, so I'll mention something I wanted to talk about for some time:

AA Guns mounted on Toyota Truck .... WHEN !?!?!?!

Sorry for a low effort post and a joke reference to the dynamic campaign thread, but I'm going to leave this one sit, I've done enough brainstorming around DCS for the week ;)

the Zu-23 ural is a technical, but we still need lower-tier technicals across the board, tbh.

there are huge gaps in the OOB for modern wars in the syrian mold.

we still don't have ATGMs, machine gun technicals (m240, m2, dshk, kord, pkm, etc) heavy weapon teams (same) etc. etc.

Well yes, they would be worth to model if you want to simulate a realistic combat environment. In a addition to your mention of Iraq, they were used extensively by Yugoslavia during Operation Allied Force during the late 90's. Yugoslavia had about 5,000 pieces of anti aircraft artillery and a total of eleven AAA regiments compared to only four SAM regiments. During desert storm Iraq had roughly 6,000-7,000 pieces of AAA above 23mm caliber, most of which were S-60s and KS-19s. We're also getting a Syrian theater in the near future and Syria has thousands of AAA, a lot of which are S-60s and KS-19s as well as the old M1939. Just because they were designed during the 30s-50-s doesn't mean they're irrelevant today. If a country were to invade Syria today, they would be defending themselves against KS-19s and M1939 just like the F-86 pilots did in Korea simply because they've been in use for over 70 years straight.

 

And you're partly right in the fact that AAA isn't very effective. From a kill count point of view it isn't very effective but that's due to the fact that pilots in that airspace actively avoid them. It disrupts enemy operations since they can't fly from point A to point B without taking some form of evasive action. Flying at medium altitudes also becomes way more dangerous with heavy AAA in the area.

 

Currently in DCS if you're flying at 35,000ft and get a SAM launched at you, you can safely descend 20,000 ft while defending before you'll be in danger of SHORADs and the likes. In a realistic environment you'd be getting hit by heavy AAA long before that with their accuracy constantly increasing the lower you get being highly dangerous when you get down to the altitudes where SHORADs are able to engage you at all. That's why we need it modeled in DCS.

Absolutely this :thumbup:

Yes please: 1991 Baghdad style.

Or a Hanoi 'simulation'.

During flight planning we reviewed the SAM and AAA order of battle. Hanoi was the most heavily defended city in the history of warfare with 21 active SAM sites and thousands of gun barrels of AAA. Here is what the AAA picture looked like.

The gun symbols on the chart above are not individual gun barrels, they are AAA sites with five to seven gun barrels at each location. Brown colored gun symbols are 105mm, blue are 85mm, red are 57/37mm and yellow are automatic weapons. Only in placing the yellow, we ran out of yellow ink. Automatic weapons were all over the place

Source: The Navy Air War Over North Vietnam

AAA heavy calibre has planned by ED from some time ago, has the same situation with the cold war Sam and WW2 AAA, only has a matter of time.

We need a new AI logic for AA.

Features like the AAA wouldn't try to hit the target by aiming at it, but try to create a barrage front of the aircraft so if aircraft keeps flying straight it will fly to line of fire. And then make AI not to track target but pick a leading point of the target and fire the burst at it. Now target pilot can't just maneuver and avoid all hits, but pilot needs to watch where the Artillery is firing and prepare to avoid flying straight at that random line of fire, this way denying flying straight or trying to get a strafing solution.

Meaning that pilot needs to observe carefully where he is flying at, instead predicting that own maneuvers keeps firing solution inaccurate all the time.

The Guns and missiles needs to have not just max and min ranges, but reaction time and assumption as well trying. Meaning when crew knows that their 23mm cannons max effective range is 3500 meters, they don't magically shoot only when target is inside that range. They will shoot at target anywhere between 2500-4500m depending target attitude and behavior. This way a pilot can't trust their range information that they would be safe as long they keep that 3500m off the target, as they very well can be engaged one kilometer further, even when with less possibilities to hit them.

Same thing for missiles, engage targets at way beyond max range etc when expected that there is a change for interception. This means that if missile guidance time is 60 seconds, then that can be maximized by launching missile sooner to high speed target, even just to scare away if it denies target entering the area.

the Zu-23 ural is a technical, but we still need lower-tier technicals across the board, tbh.

 

 

 

there are huge gaps in the OOB for modern wars in the syrian mold.

 

 

we still don't have ATGMs, machine gun technicals (m240, m2, dshk, kord, pkm, etc) heavy weapon teams (same) etc. etc.

Right, and there's so many variations, but the big dev issue is, there's no standard, proper simulation would be a guess, only the types that have official stuff put together would probably count, and if there's enough tech data on them, but I think it should be possible to figure out what kind of gun they strapped on, it's about identifying, trucks shouldn't be that hard since you can just get toyota, but ground vehicles aren't as simulated as full aircraft modules anyway so the standard is lower so I think it could work out just fine initially.

We need a new AI logic for AA.

Features like the AAA wouldn't try to hit the target by aiming at it, but try to create a barrage front of the aircraft so if aircraft keeps flying straight it will fly to line of fire. And then make AI not to track target but pick a leading point of the target and fire the burst at it. Now target pilot can't just maneuver and avoid all hits, but pilot needs to watch where the Artillery is firing and prepare to avoid flying straight at that random line of fire, this way denying flying straight or trying to get a strafing solution.

 

Meaning that pilot needs to observe carefully where he is flying at, instead predicting that own maneuvers keeps firing solution inaccurate all the time.

 

The Guns and missiles needs to have not just max and min ranges, but reaction time and assumption as well trying. Meaning when crew knows that their 23mm cannons max effective range is 3500 meters, they don't magically shoot only when target is inside that range. They will shoot at target anywhere between 2500-4500m depending target attitude and behavior. This way a pilot can't trust their range information that they would be safe as long they keep that 3500m off the target, as they very well can be engaged one kilometer further, even when with less possibilities to hit them.

 

Same thing for missiles, engage targets at way beyond max range etc when expected that there is a change for interception. This means that if missile guidance time is 60 seconds, then that can be maximized by launching missile sooner to high speed target, even just to scare away if it denies target entering the area.

:thumbup:

I have used the 88mm Flak guns from the WWII Assets Pack. I place them in groups of about 4 to 6 guns with the optical range finder unit. I place a few of them around SA-2 missile sites to defend them from low altitude attacks. Then I attack them and area targets with A-4E-C and AI F-5E's and AI F-4E's. It makes for some excitement. Sometimes I'm inbound at low level in an A-4E-C to attack a SAM site when a bunch of flak shells burst around me, together with 23mm tracers.

Problem with using 88mm Flak is that it's part of WWII Asset Pack and everyone who flies in such a mission on a server, apparently has to own the WWII Asset Pack. That kills enthusiasm for such servers.

So, I WISH for guns mentioned here to be added to the general array of Air Defense weapons, like the ZU-23. This doesn't have to wait for a Vietnam Map. Vietnam-type missions can made in any of the maps.

I'd like the following Soviet Era towed anti-aircraft artillery mounts...

37mm M1939

57mm AZP S-60 - single-barrel, towed gun, optically aimed... but when grouped with a tracking radar like the SON-50 "Flap Wheel", would be radar directed.

85mm M1939 52-K/KS-12

100mm KS-19 optically directed. However, when grouped with a SON 9 "Fire Can" radar, would become radar directed.

130mm KS-30 directed by SON-30 "Fire Wheel" radar director, when grouped together in ME.

Yes pleas more flack.