Ship spoting

Hey to all

I have tried some anti-ship strikes but I find very difficult to find the ships especially if they are moving. Any tip-idea?

Thanx

First, you should already have a general idea of where to look. You can place a waypoint in the area for reference. Sensor-wise, depending on the ship, you can sometimes see ships with the A/G radar (just the raw return, you don't get bricks and can't lock it since we don't have the SEA mode yet) and slave the TPOD to it for visual ID. Using the TPOD alone is pretty difficult, at least for me. The ships don't stand out much from the background and there are zero visual references at sea.

I find it helps to switch to FLIR and adjust the levels and gain to increase the contrast.

Also, not sure I can explain this well, but dont focus on looking for a ship, specifically. Focus on the overall pattern and tune your eye to catch what's different. Similar to what a sniper would do. They are trained to anylize the environment and spot what's different/out of place.

Detection range of ships on the ground mapping radar is below 43 nm.

This might become better once SEA mode has been implementet.

Generally using the Tomcat's radar in pulse search is surprisingly good (especially if you do a RDR fix on them, allowing you to stick a waypoint over them). Viggen's radar also seems pretty good (probably the best sensor to use atm).

Can't vouch for the Hornet, but bear in mind that it doesn't have it's SEA mode which is dedicated to anti-ship.

I find TGPs a royal pain to use - in IR modes there's next to no contrast with the water, CCD/TV modes seem a little better.

In reality though ships should stick out like a sore thumb to airborne RADARs.

Use both the AG radar and the Tpod. Get a general area with the radar and then refine it with the Tpod. It’s a pretty useful method even in complete darkness.