How to know and track where a ground target is using CCIP?

Sorry for what i'm sure is a dumb question, but when bombing using CCIP how can you know where a target is?

 

Auto bombing i'm fine with (mostly) and there is a nice little diamond placed around the target, but CCIP there seems to be nothing. I'm using VR and finding it very difficult to spot tanks hiding in trees etc.

 

Are you supposed to cheat a little and use auto to show you where the target is and then change to CCIP at the last minute? That would seem a little limited for an expensive and advanced fighter jet?

 

What am I missing?

 

Thanks in advance

You look at the target, dive to it and when the + is on the target, release the bomb.

 

And that's not cheating. Of course you can use auto to get the location and change to CCIP.

It's absolutely no cheating to roll in with AUTO and change to CCIP before you release the bomb. But a lot of Hornet pilots actually use AUTO even for "CCIP style" attacks with dumb bombs, without ever switching to CCIP.

Easy:

 

VR zoom is your friend

Pfft, scrub pilot has his zoom key bound to his flight stick instead of his throttle. :)

VR zoom is your friend

 

VR zoom, as any zoom, is little like cheating. Because it should be the binoculars in the game, requiring you to pick them up and store them when using them.

It's not zoom, it's fov change because surprise, surprise, you cannot cover human fov even with new vr sets.

 

Exactly this. It’s been a stable of flight simulators for god knows how long. The addition of Vr spotting zoom has been a huge step forwards for me... spotting ground and air targets is now possible and I don’t feel so handicapped vs monitor players.

It's not zoom, it's fov change because surprise, surprise, you cannot cover human fov even with new vr sets.

 

zooming in is reducing fov...

how does reducing fov give you a human level of fov?

you would need to zoom out for that..

 

so this does not make sense.

 

you have to move your head and scan to make up for the lack of FOV in VR..

At some point we will get TGP LOS symbol on the HUD. Then you can find the target on the TGP and roll in using the TGP LOS as a targeting cue.

Simply, it gives you option to select between ambient and focal vision fov.

 

as I read this sentence. the word I'm currently focusing on is not larger than the words I am not focusing on, in my peripheral vision.

if I want the words larger I need to wear reading glasses.

 

which is why that pilot has binoculars.

 

and you only have one field of view. its the brain that filters out distractions and splits it into focal point, and peripheral vision.

with out that filter you would not have blurry peripheral vision, you would see everything in your field of view in focus.

 

its an adaption for hunters, so they don't get distracted from the prey.

your peripheral vision is setup to only give you helpful information. like detecting movement.

and nothing draws the eye like movement..

its the hunter in us all. even vegetarians :)

You get TGP symbology on the SA page of the MFCD. Is a small square. If you have intel as to the general area where you want to apply, then slew the pod to that area on the mfcd.

 

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Exactly this. It’s been a stable of flight simulators for god knows how long. The addition of Vr spotting zoom has been a huge step forwards for me... spotting ground and air targets is now possible and I don’t feel so handicapped vs monitor players.

 

With Rift CV1 I could spot large aircrafts like C-130 from over 30km range in good optimal weather. F-15C size was around 20km ranges.

 

Both are unrealistic ones really.

 

Then to spot a aircrafts at shorter ranges like 10km was difficult if not possible when against ground, just like they should be, as BVR is about 3-7km ranges only, and that in a optimal case for large fighters like F-14 and short range for small ones like MIg-21 or F-5 when flying toward.

 

In CV1 those ranges were about the right, but on ground units it was unrealistic as you can spot them from multiple kilometers distances like around 6-7km where you shouldn't be able see anything even if they are on the move unless they smoke, create hugue tracks like in snow or travel on high contrast areas like on road.

It is easy to spot a red or white car traveling on paved road from high altitude, but not at all such a case when it is camouflaged vehicle traveling off-road, and openly sitting camouflaged vehicle is about 1.5km range only for visual spotting, and that means it has only the camouflage paint on it, not the nets, no trees etc to camouflage it perfectly invisible to even humans next to it!

 

With Rift S I can see far far better in DCS. I can spot ground units from 10-15km ranges, I can spot infantry from 3km ranges, again both completely unrealistic.

Fighters against the ground are super easy to spot at 8-10km ranges, again completely unrealistic, and this is the summer and not winter. On winter time I can spot a attack helicopters flying NOE at 10-12km ranges. Again, completely unrealistic.

 

And I do this all _without_ any zooming in VR.

 

All you need to do is just look around to general areas and you will spot the targets easily. If you do not know what is where in general manner, then you have way too much to try observe and search that you eventually get shot down or miss targets as you can't look every possible building, tree etc. But if someone tells that "East side of the town", it is good enough to find them. If someone says "That 1x3km forest island south edge" and it is again easy to find. But if you need to scan a 30x30km area to find something... Good luck... As it is not as easy as ship at sea that you can see from 30-40km distance middle of nowhere.

 

What DCS requires is start making units transparent by the distance. To limit the spotting capabilities as now they are very unrealistic by many ways, especially spotting ground units as they just pop-up with high contrast.

It's not zoom, it's fov change because surprise, surprise, you cannot cover human fov even with new vr sets.

 

FOV means FIELD OF VIEW. It means that how wide area you can see at once. For humans it is typically 180-220 degrees depending the person head structure etc.

 

But what you are meaning is the resolution. And human vision 20/15 (that is very good eye sight that some people reach at age 25 and after that their vision starts to weaken, much better than average. The standard 20/20 is slightly lower than average human vision) means that you see 80 PPD, and that means 80 Pixels Per Degree.

 

Your thumbnail is about 2 degree FOV when you extend your arm front of you and put thumb up. That area your eye sees in about 160 pixels at optimal scenario if you have 20/15 vision!

 

There are rare individuals who have far better vision, I knew one who could read a road signs from multiple kilometer distances, that means a 20 cm tall letters were easy for her to read from 3-4km distance. She could read a normal newspaper from a 20 meters distance.

Do you know how crazy that really was? You could walk 20 meters distance from her, pull a random business card and ask her to read the telephone number on it, printed in 12pt letters and she could without any problems tell you the numbers correctly. While normal people were like "Is that a business card in his hand?"

 

Virtual pilots are way too custom to unrealistic spotting capabilities, to see targets on ground and in air at ranges that they should never be able to do, That is because there is just way too less pixels, way too high contrasts and the units really are rendered while they shouldn't.

 

And they think that zooming in (narrowing FOV!) is realistic and right, while it is not. You would be there aiming at the general area, as you know the general location and targets position it it, you can find out some elements there like on open area the vehicle shadow creates a hard edge that is easy to spot, but not the vehicle itself. You know its general area and you aim to that general area and then to such thing as that shadow middle of nowhere.

 

And that is all already possible in DCS with far greater possibilities and capabilities without any zooming.

 

That is why zooming should be disabled in DCS as you don't need such!

And they think that zooming in (narrowing FOV!) is realistic and right, while it is not. You would be there aiming at the general area, as you know the general location and targets position it it, you can find out some elements there like on open area the vehicle shadow creates a hard edge that is easy to spot, but not the vehicle itself. You know its general area and you aim to that general area and then to such thing as that shadow middle of nowhere.

 

And that is all already possible in DCS with far greater possibilities and capabilities without any zooming.

 

That is why zooming should be disabled in DCS as you don't need such!

 

The truth actually is that zooming OUT like

(and literally everyone on YouTube does this, noone stays at a zoom level where just the HUD alone fills the screen already) on a screen that covers ~30° FOV of your vision is unrealistic, not zooming in to have the screen show a FOV that you're actually looking at. My wild guess is that most people playing on a screen have it inside a 40° or less FOV of their vision. And zooming all the way in down to 20° FOV (which is DCS' minimum) is just to overcome the hardware limitations if you still can determine the pixels of your screen.

That's ridiculous. You would not pass class 1 medical with sight you got in DCS with average display and realistic FOV.

 

No it is not, because DCS doesn't render the world nor any objects in it realistically!

 

You would clearly pass medical in the DCS as you can spot such targets that you wouldn't spot in the real world at such ranges.

No, with fixed realistic FOV you lose ambient vision. Without ambient vision you are unfit to fly.

 

I am not talking about FOV, I am talking about spotting capability and that is directly linked to definition of the objects and the vision.

It's absolutely no cheating to roll in with AUTO and change to CCIP before you release the bomb. But a lot of Hornet pilots actually use AUTO even for "CCIP style" attacks with dumb bombs, without ever switching to CCIP.

 

Can confirm. CCIP is actually almost considered an emergency mode for F/A-18 pilots these days. With the sort of conflicts in which the United States has been involved over the past 2 decades, there's just so little tolerance for error in bomb drop. The overwhelming majority of the time in actual combat, it will be GPS or laser-guided because that's preferable to someone basically eyeballing when to pickle.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Chuck_Henry
Additional context

Can confirm. CCIP is actually almost considered an emergency mode for F/A-18 pilots these days. With the sort of conflicts in which the United States has been involved over the past 2 decades, there's just so little tolerance for error in bomb drop. The overwhelming majority of the time in actual combat, it will be GPS or laser-guided because that's preferable to someone basically eyeballing when to pickle.

 

CAS for instance is usually a very dynamic situation and lots of times it's seconds from the time you get call, whip the plane around and put the pipper on the target.

btw, I can't wait for the A/G functionality of HMD, especially when you're a JTAC. You spot something, look at it, designate it, press "mark" and you have waypoint on the target with coordinates you can relay.

 

Are you supposed to cheat a little and use auto to show you where the target is and then change to CCIP at the last minute? That would seem a little limited for an expensive and advanced fighter jet?

 

Using lables would be cheating, using the F-18's systems is never cheating

You can absolutely mark the target for attack!

 

Select your waypoint and then press the WPDSG button. That will put a diamond on your target in the hud, along with an arrow pointing towards it and range information. Then pull up your bombs and get them set up. If you setup the bombs first it automatically puts it in auto mode.

 

Here is a quick video I made of the process. It may be a few minutes before it's done processing.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by mcnabb100

You can absolutely mark the target for attack!

 

Select your waypoint and then press the WPDSG button. That will put a diamond on your target in the hud, along with an arrow pointing towards it and range information. Then pull up your bombs and get them set up. If you setup the bombs first it automatically puts it in auto mode.

 

Here is a quick video I made of the process. It may be a few minutes before it's done processing.

 

 

 

Not sure if you're responding to my post, in case you are:

"Mark" function is not implemented yet. It's not the same as "wpdsg" that you would use to designate a preprogrammed waypoint as tgt. Sure, you can input a waypoint on the fly. Say, someone radios a set of coordinates that you can plug in and designate.

I was referring to a helmet mounted cueing functionality for A/G. It could be useful for number of reasons, not just CAS. Let's say you spotted something on the ground and need to relay coordinates to your team. All you have to do is point your helmet sight on the object, click TDC to designate it as tgt. Pressing "Mark" button on HSI will add it to your waypoint database, along with coordinates. It takes few seconds.

Not sure if you're responding to my post, in case you are:

"Mark" function is not implemented yet. It's not the same as "wpdsg" that you would use to designate a preprogrammed waypoint as tgt. Sure, you can input a waypoint on the fly. Say, someone radios a set of coordinates that you can plug in and designate.

I was referring to a helmet mounted cueing functionality for A/G. It could be useful for number of reasons, not just CAS. Let's say you spotted something on the ground and need to relay coordinates to your team. All you have to do is point your helmet sight on the object, click TDC to designate it as tgt. Pressing "Mark" button on HSI will add it to your waypoint database, along with coordinates. It takes few seconds.

 

No, I wasn't, I provably shouldn't have worded my post that way. I just intended to show a method that could be used with the current build that could be used to give a visual reference for CCIP bombing.

Head Up .. Eyes Outside .. Build A Mental Picture

 

Roads, Intersections, Rivers, Bridges, Unique Buildings, Landscape Features.

 

Start “Big Picture” and then narrow it down to the unit(s) you’re trying to strike.

You can absolutely mark the target for attack!

 

Select your waypoint and then press the WPDSG button. That will put a diamond on your target in the hud, along with an arrow pointing towards it and range information. Then pull up your bombs and get them set up. If you setup the bombs first it automatically puts it in auto mode.

 

Here is a quick video I made of the process. It may be a few minutes before it's done processing.

 

 

 

thats quite a nice workaround. i was looking for a way to have it like in the harrier. it's hard to keep eyes on ground targets in low-res VR. thx for the tip