Hog vs Hornet Tactics

Well, lets give my .02...

I'm looking forward for the f18 and not because I want to do what the a10 can do. It wont replace the a10 for cas. It can't. It as other have said doesn't have the loiter time nor the low altitude ops the a10 has. In simple terms You don't/shouldn't loiter in the f18 below 10k agl. which makes visual spotting well A LOT harder.

So with that. I want to fly the f18 for the sead/strike purposes. Go blazing in launch harms maybe a bomb or 2 then turn around and high tail it back to the ship.

If I want to sit around and look for something to blow up Ill fly the hawg.

Well, lets give my .02...

I'm looking forward for the f18 and not because I want to do what the a10 can do. It wont replace the a10 for cas. It can't. It as other have said doesn't have the loiter time nor the low altitude ops the a10 has. In simple terms You don't/shouldn't loiter in the f18 below 10k agl. which makes visual spotting well A LOT harder.

 

So with that. I want to fly the f18 for the sead/strike purposes. Go blazing in launch harms maybe a bomb or 2 then turn around and high tail it back to the ship.

 

If I want to sit around and look for something to blow up Ill fly the hawg.

Don't forget taking out a couple of Migs on the way back to the carrier too. More fun!

F/A-18 might not be as good at loitering on but it can always refuel in the air.

It can do the same duration of missions of A-10C...just got to hit the tanker even maybe once. Fortunately combat ops are very short in this simulation compared to real life, that why I always try to make the the target on the other side of the map if possible, so I can have air to air refueling.

In terms of tactics read up about strike fighters, for CAS in a dangerous environment its almost a necessity to use JTAC's

Well, lets give my .02...

I'm looking forward for the f18 and not because I want to do what the a10 can do. It wont replace the a10 for cas. It can't. It as other have said doesn't have the loiter time nor the low altitude ops the a10 has. In simple terms You don't/shouldn't loiter in the f18 below 10k agl. which makes visual spotting well A LOT harder.

 

So with that. I want to fly the f18 for the sead/strike purposes. Go blazing in launch harms maybe a bomb or 2 then turn around and high tail it back to the ship.

 

If I want to sit around and look for something to blow up Ill fly the hawg.

Indeed. I totally agree with you here.

:thumbup:

surely some missions could be started from just uncoupled from the tanker, that would give a lot more time on target and flight back to the carrier.

In the Hornet it's:

 

1. Launch With 1 Winder, 1 JDAM
   
2. Refuel Immediately
   
3. Fly two hours to the CAS stack
   
4. Refuel
   
5. Sit in the CAS stack for two hours
   
6. Refuel
   
7. Sit in the CAS stack for two hours
   
8. Refuel
   
9. Go back to the boat (2 hrs)
   
10. Recover
    
11. Repeat for 7 months
    

Given the ranges we fly in NTTR or Caucasus you wont need that much Refuel time. AS somone else said with conservative flying you can proably get an hour station time over targets.

TBH for the ranges we fly in DCS i found A10;s Internal Fuel too much. Almost always go less than 100% fuel. and never had to do combat refueling because it never became nessary. For A10 to have decent handling performing you really need to travel around with gimped Loadout anyhow. A10 is a brick if you have Multiple bombs per rack or more than 2 mavericks.

Pick your poison.

1 is able to respond to the Ao faster but has shorter station time. The other takes ages to get to point b, but can hang around for few hours.

Well the A-10C is going to pretty useless if you are on an amphibious map with no friendly airfields.

Its just the Hornet and a CSAR bird!

Oh and the AV8B N/A!

Hog's are slow and often cumbersome, because of that they're pretty much stuck-in low. They hunt really well and make great use of their sensory. They're resilient and very dangerous (especially the front end).

Hornet's are quick and nimble, but seem a bit fragile. Agile while low, a hornet also can get high pretty quickly. They pack a pretty good punch, but most effective when grouped in with other attacking hornets.

They are really way too separate to compare unless you're talking super general terms.

Maybe I've missed someone already pointing this out, but they are used for very different situations from my limited understanding.

The A-10 is used once you have attained air superiority and there are limited threats from AA / AAA. It's perfect for close air support. If you control the area, the A-10 is a much more effective choice. It can loiter and support ground units and carries an amazing payload. The F/A-18 cannot compete here.

The Hornet can still be used in hostile environments due to it's speed, weapons, and ECM. The A-10 is useless in these situations unless you want your friends to practice SAR.

So it's not just which is more fun to fly, but which matches the mission.

Fun is subjective and you will never reach agreement on this. Some people love driving trains along straight tracks for 12 hours straight. Others prefer Pokemon-GO... It really doesn't matter what you prefer, just do what you enjoy! You're free to fly A-10 missions in hostile environments and respawn every few minutes if that is what you enjoy. You could also use the F/A-18 to do A-10 missions less efficiently - maybe there are no A-10 left as they have all been destroyed before you managed to claim the airspace.

Tactics/employment wise, I expect mission designers will have us initially doing what the A-10C can't: SEAD.

From then, I'd probably expect missions to have F/A-18 pilots jetting about the place, with refueling and rearming stops, doing small precise CAS covering a large area of land, rather than the A-10C missions, which tend to see them rolling in, lurking, then flattening the place in localised CAS or COIN.

Alternatively, can use the more strike role of the aircraft instead, which is a nice change.

Throw in a bit of light A2A for funsies and the F/A-18 should be good :)

Well, lets give my .02...

I'm looking forward for the f18 and not because I want to do what the a10 can do. It wont replace the a10 for cas. It can't. It as other have said doesn't have the loiter time nor the low altitude ops the a10 has. In simple terms You don't/shouldn't loiter in the f18 below 10k agl. which makes visual spotting well A LOT harder.

 

So with that. I want to fly the f18 for the sead/strike purposes. Go blazing in launch harms maybe a bomb or 2 then turn around and high tail it back to the ship.

 

If I want to sit around and look for something to blow up Ill fly the hawg.

Exactly this :)

Why one would use f/a-18 for cas ? Have A-10 to do CAP then :D

You'll have a hard time prying me away from A2A in the F/A-18C.

I don't want to drop stuff on someone's head. I want to fight them face to face.

Exactly this :)

Why one would use f/a-18 for cas ? Have A-10 to do CAP then :D

because its beeen used in that IRL.

F16'S flew more "cas" sorties than the A10 in A - STAN

CAS is a mission. Not a plane.

The advantage is a multirole fighter like the F/A18 can get from point A and B quicker. Troops need CAS ASAP so whilst A10s can hang around longer, Aircraft like the F/A18 are generally the "First Responders" so to speak because they can get there first.

Beyond CAS, F/A18 given its muli role expected to be performing a healthy amount of Air Interdiction ( its F/A for a reason) as well as SEAD. The Hornet like the AF vipers are thier respective Services Workhorse. Attack is one of its primary intended mission capabilities, not just Air to Air.

That's the advantage of a sim over real life. I can pick the missions I want to fly. :)

That's the advantage of a sim over real life. I can pick the missions I want to fly. :)

Then your missing out on quite alot if your going to use hornet only for a2a.

Not a pound for air to Ground F15 might be your plane. or the Tomcat, as both are dedicated A2A. But if thats they way you wanna fly the Hornet then by all means. we can all use the aircraft how we wish :thumbup:

How well I know. If they'd make the F-15 a full module it would be my plane. I still like it, but it's hard to make my only plane.

Off topic. This will get deleted.

Then your missing out on quite alot if your going to use hornet only for a2a.

 

Not a pound for air to Ground F15 might be your plane. or the Tomcat, as both are dedicated A2A. But if thats they way you wanna fly the Hornet then by all means. we can all use the aircraft how we wish :thumbup:

That's all true, just remember that the Hornet was built to be a dedicated fighter, the attack role came as a bonus in development. The digitalization of guided weapons has allowed pretty much any fighter to be able to be a true multirole.

IIRC there are one or two air forces in the world that us use the hornet exclusively for A/A.

Not saying your wrong about missing out on the fun of A/G.

It's just that the hornet is so capable in A/A that, especially in DCS, flying it just for A/A would be pretty great. Remember...

-A/A radar with so many modes that the only planned jet in DCS that could compete is the F-14.

-Larger max load possibly for AMRAAM, oh yeah ... Spamraam

-Datalink for better SA in BVR and better sneak attacks (something normally better for Russian AC in sim)

-JHMCS for WVR combat

-Aim-9x...

-will be one of the meanest dogfight/knifefight turn fighters

-while usually meant for SEAD, decoys may be used to make enemies waste missiles.

Exactly.

That's all true, just remember that the Hornet was built to be a dedicated fighter, the attack role came as a bonus in development. The digitalization of guided weapons has allowed pretty much any fighter to be able to be a true multirole.

 

IIRC there are one or two air forces in the world that us use the hornet exclusively for A/A.

Not saying your wrong about missing out on the fun of A/G.

It's just that the hornet is so capable in A/A that, especially in DCS, flying it just for A/A would be pretty great. Remember...

 

-A/A radar with so many modes that the only planned jet in DCS that could compete is the F-14.

-Larger max load possibly for AMRAAM, oh yeah ... Spamraam

-Datalink for better SA in BVR and better sneak attacks (something normally better for Russian AC in sim)

-JHMCS for WVR combat

-Aim-9x...

-will be one of the meanest dogfight/knifefight turn fighters

-while usually meant for SEAD, decoys may be used to make enemies waste missiles.

The Hornet may have supposed to really be dedicated earlier in development with the NAvy initially looking at 2 variations of the Hornet. the F-18 model for A2A and A-18 model for Air to ground. However idea was scrapped, & both functions were merged into a Single air frame that came to be known as the F/A18.

F/A18 since the A model has been a considered a multi role Strike Fighter.

all true it will be very mean plane in a2a, Just like as a potential Viper module post MID life update which would also have the 9x and HMCS :music_whistling:

guided munitions Aside, IN gulf war especially reading a book like Hornets over Kuwait pilots used quite a bit of unguided munitions in thier strike missions too, especially as the F/A18As that the author and felow squadron mates flew had less guided options. CCIP and CCRP alone makes using unguided muntions simpler and more precise than old school method of manual gunsight depressions

I felt the same way when I was younger. Go to the mall...hang out all day, kinda just buzz around look at all the things. Now that I'm older...it's more like; know where I'm going, get there, get in, get out. :thumbup:

Hahaha, I feel exactly the same :megalol::megalol:

... mods could you please move the OT part of this thread to the hornet chit chat thread?

"Not correct.

The YF-17 Cobra was the competition for the F-16 and lost. In fact, both the F-16 and the YF=17 never got a chance to be pure fighters, as the Europeans that were flying the Phantom and other airframes like the F-104, etc needed a replacement, so soon after first flights of both prototypes, they were told they needed to change course to multirole."

------------

Just because they were upgraded to have multirole capabilities doesn't mean they weren't designed to be fighters....

To "have a chance" to be a fighter they could just... equip a light A-A loadout.

I understand pure fighter is a little different, but I never have understood this notion that multi roles that were originally designed to be fighters have somehow given up their raw fighter ability.

--------------

"It wasn't until the timing of the design cycle for a replacement for the F-14 was the Super Hornet requirement laid out - another airplane that only looks like its lineage in the YF-17 and F/A-18, but is in fact a completely different airplane. "

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I'm sorry but just because the Navy changed a 7 to an 8 and made some improvements doesn't mean that the airframe lost the fact that its shape was that of an agile fighter.

Don't get me wrong....

Were changes to the airframe made? Yes! But what did those changes accomplish?

Better agility and flight performance like the LEX design giving better agility, and upgraded engines. While some things added weight like beefier landing gear, most changes to the airframe

Improved A/A capacity...

The FY-17 is simply the early airframe of the hornet, which was designed to be a fighter.

So even if we say the 17 was a totally different jet, and the navy started focusing on building a multirole, how did they do that? By perfecting an airframe that was built to dogfight?

My point was that the Hornet has being a pure fighter/dogfighter built into its DNA.

For CAS etc the A10 has excellent loiter time, the F18c not so much.

because its beeen used in that IRL.

 

F16'S flew more "cas" sorties than the A10 in A - STAN

 

CAS is a mission. Not a plane.

 

The advantage is a multirole fighter like the F/A18 can get from point A and B quicker. Troops need CAS ASAP so whilst A10s can hang around longer, Aircraft like the F/A18 are generally the "First Responders" so to speak because they can get there first.

 

Beyond CAS, F/A18 given its muli role expected to be performing a healthy amount of Air Interdiction ( its F/A for a reason) as well as SEAD. The Hornet like the AF vipers are thier respective Services Workhorse. Attack is one of its primary intended mission capabilities, not just Air to Air.

IRL the time on target is about the same for both. Though an f16 goes to more missions their actual mission time is less. As an a10 may engage a target for 1 hour an f16 may got to 4 calls and drop 4 bombs and be credited with 4 missions instead of one. From personal experience there is a huge difference in the effectivness of a cas strike with fast movers compared to slower aircraft that loiter let alone how close they can actually put their weapons to use when our lines are being probed... The biggest facter most people disregard that happens to be the most important is the time it takes to effectivley relay information over to the aircraft, even if the particular platoon has a jtac asset attached to it for said mission he is too important to be allowed on the front line with the pvts of said squad engaged and he will be back with weapons squad with the pl and platoon medic or with support by fire so the information gets relayed to a couple of people before he deciphers it and relays to aircraft and most kenetic engagment by that time the enemy has menauvered to a new position to counter our maneavers...