Rediscovering the Su-25

After more than a year flying the MiG-21 and the F-5E, I took the Su-25A for a quick ride and it has been a bit of a revelation.

Coming for the virtual 1970's gives you a nice perspective. A glimpse of how the Frogfoot would have felt to a 1980's pilot: It's an absolute beast with incredible pinpoint accuracy.

I'd love a fully clickable cockpit, but surprisingly, once you are up in the air it doesn't make much difference.

I agree, its like a Su-25T but much more manouverable .... just wanted to share a very useful tutorial that helped me a lot to understand the primitive navigation computer of the Su-25A, and I think it may help people new to this aircraft

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Best regards

A Frog, best Frog ;) I spent a lot of time in the T, but vastly prefer the A. It has most of the same weaponry, too, barring the ARMs and it is difficult to use the longer range ones because you have to use your eyeballs, no TV zoom.

@Rudel

The reason the NAV system is clumsy with many waypoints is because in-RL the Su-25A only supports three navigation points (the lights go out) but in DCS you can keep adding them despite this.

If you keep that in mind and only use three nav points, then the system works "as designed". Combined with takeoff and landing waypoints, it gives you a total of five reference points. After that, it is necessary to use range and bearing from those points to estimate your position.

I'd love them to do the full DCS Su-25A

It's a great, iconic aircraft.

(With an NS 430 bolted awkwardly to the bulkhead :) )

Thanks for the video Rudel! A nice refresher.

The 3 nav points of the Su-25 are a luxury when you come from the MiG-21. The MiG has none! :)

I used to be really into the Su-25T when DCS first came out. I bought the Su-25A a while after but never got into it despite the better flying characteristics, mainly because I missed the Shkval and the HUD.

It's only now, after flying the MiG-21 for a long time, that I can appreciate the real value of the Su25A. I'm far less surprised now about the Russians never ordering the T version. The trade-off in agility is not really worth it. The SM upgrades make far more sense.

SU 25A il piacere assoluto di volare.

My favorite aircraft in DCS. Too bad we don’t have soft target like infantry well simulated to for example been transported in trucks or infantry vehicle. The vehicles in DCS don’t deploy infantry. That situation force the Su-25A to only do anti armor task. That’s not a big problem, the thing is most of the mission designers set too many tanks and in DCS the tanks system failures are not well simulated. IRL you can easily put out of combat a MBT with a single S-8KOM hit by disabling his sights or tracks or engine.

Also there are some weapons have been banned of our Su-25A and Russian planes in general. S-8 rockets have more variants but the most important and devastated for soft targets is the S-25O and S-25OF both with fragmentation warhead with this two you don’t really need direct hit and both will destroy a light vehicle with just several meters impact. The proximity fuse one must be a nightmare for enemy infantry. Can’t imagine how devastated could be an attack with S-25O proximity fuse warhead when hit a group of infantry.

I recently started flying the SU-25T after months in the FA-18, FW-190, and ME-109. I must say that as someone who likes air-to-mud missions and clickable cockpits, the SU25 is pretty awesome. The visual and flight models are good. Also the weapons systems are so easy to use. It's a lot of fun for me. I must say I really like the FC3 planes in general. I really don't even notice the fact that I cannot click on things. Actually, in some planes, the mouse clicking is a bit of a pain anyway. But overall the SU-25 has surprised me. I am now a big fan.

I really hope that ED continues to update these FC3 birds as time goes on.

There are scripts that adds a infantry for troop carriers (APC, IFV etc) so once those are attacked, the vehicles spreads out and once they stop, the script with spawn a specific infantry squads on them and then moves them, was it a 100 meter front of the vehicles. And those can be used for ground unit defences like each ground platoon has one squad that has couple MANPADS.

The script had a problem that if you didn't manage to kill all squad members and they returned to vehicle and mounted, then on next time they get unmounted the squad is full again.

But that alone sounds (I haven't tested that script) so crazy good that should have been in DCS from the start.

On the approaching a convoy, vehicles to scatter around, infantry unmounted for self air defence and then after each attack run, all units to move to new locations so they are never on the one same position when you come around.

That would make the Su-25 shine as you would really love to use the rockets for area effect, instead just try to blow up the vehicles and pretend that you are victorious.

And once we get a fragments and ground units damages simulated, the S-8KO will become deadly against even more modern MBT than T-55, as you could destroy tracks, sights, barrels, engines etc etc.

Suddenly a Su-25 kind aircraft with rockets starts to be far more effective than anything A-10 has with its cannon.

One of my recent flights in the Su-25T. I have yet to try the A model.

Operation Maelstrom

To better avoid IR missiles. After finished your inbound turn 90 degrees with a dive, throttle ~90% and keep dispense Flares. Never turn 180 just in front them and no climb too closely. You gonna spend time and fuel instead lose your plane. Before start the inbound set a fix outbound path and only turn for the new inbound when you are minimum 8km distance, if you set RTB in your nav mode that help to know the distance left for every point. Never go closer than 5 km in your first 3 inbounds. You need test the area first and to do that keep shooting kh-25ML first (Su-25A) and keep looking the area when you turn 90 degrees then you see from where are coming the enemy response to after that hit them.

Doing a well use of Kh-25ML in Su-25A: after ground stabilized laser close to the target to destroy, set gunsight reticle 8 key, and set the lower lines closer as possible to the target, after that move laser over the target for correction. Only like that you better avoid the asymmetrical movement to get a accurate targeting over enemy unit.

good advice pepin! Yes I pulled up and got too slow. Too much time in the Hornet. I have to break old habits.

I will experiment with the reticle (8 key)

With Su-25A you also can destroy SAMs like Rolands. Because they are short range SAMs and they will shot first to your missiles. Ones you know where they are, as you don’t have range longer than 10km, you better shot a Kh-29L first to force them shotdown your missile. Ones they launch you see from which unit came the launch. Turn off and on the laser and shot a second missile this one to the unit Rolands while he is still busy with your first missile you shot the second after reset the laser.

If they are more than one launcher unit you will need to brake behind a mountain or building with a hard dive to get cover between after hit the first launcher.

Well... I always was an air to air combat guy miself.

But curiosly there's also the very big appeal of droping bombs or guided missiles on surface targets.

And that's what really made me enjoy the Su-25T:

- it's faster than the A-10;

- does have very interesting payload options;

- guided bombs / missiles ? You have: TV guided; IR guided; Laser guided !

I also do have the Hornet... but it can't drop LGB with its own sensors yet.

Just made my first flight (also IFR) in the Su-25A. Put in the three waypoints. Everything worked beautifully. I really do love both models of the Su-25. The Hornet used to be my choice for air to mud. But now I find myself going to the Su-25.

With Su-25A you also can destroy SAMs like Rolands. Because they are short range SAMs and they will shot first to your missiles. Ones you know where they are, as you don’t have range longer than 10km, you better shot a Kh-29L first to force them shotdown your missile. Ones they launch you see from which unit came the launch. Turn off and on the laser and shot a second missile this one to the unit Rolands while he is still busy with your first missile you shot the second after reset the laser.

 

If they are more than one launcher unit you will need to brake behind a mountain or building with a hard dive to get cover between after hit the first launcher.

Great advice pepin!

Correcting. You shot the second 29L without turn off laser. Just take care to turn on your laser right before ~12km to avoid burn the laser designator.

The Su-25A will shine once you spend time to set lots of triggers for ground troops with radio triggers etc. Like when the ground group engage or gets engaged, when they spot something etc. They would launch a flare on their position.

What you really do is that you would fly around the area, listening the radio chatter, then receive a request over radio, look for the flare/smoke to mark the requester position and then get enemy position from the flare/smoke and you go to get your hands dirty at close.

Anyone here already tried to sink the "Moskva" Cruiser, while flying a Georgia Air Force Su-25T ?

I've been trying, but anyone else please tell me about your experiences. :thumbup:

I haven't flown that mission yet. But I am working on a mission involving mainly the Su-25 (both versions), the KA50, and the L-39.

Night, bad weather, plenty of tanks, 5000ft ceiling, rain. Continues into the daylight hours.

I am using this scenario to learn the Su-25 as well as the mission editor. It's a pretty good scenario for navigational training as well. Not easy to stay alive for sure.

Server in the signature below.

I am also working on some stuff for the Su-25A, namely a campaign set in the early 90's Caucasus. No ETA yet, but I've got a few missions done and tested. Hope to be able to share sometime soon. :thumbup: