MAVs Hit or Miss?
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Not alone jetlag87…it happened me a few times, but I supposed it was some “finger problem”!!!. And still might be…
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Personal preference - I’d skip the handoff…I’d use the TGP to find the target and get the MAV looking in the general area (in SLAVE), then I would transition to the MAV as sensor, find the target, and lock. You may end up a bit closer to the target this way but depending on the target/area - i.e.; if/how much you’re getting shot at - you’d be more assured of a lock/rifle in one pass.
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True.
But if you want the most of it (ripple shots for instance), the way to do it is by handoff through the TGP. My own opinion… -
Your right Stevie, the less steps the less chances of messing it up. Look, track, lock, boom. But I just want to make sure I’m not doing something wrong in the handoff process. And I just tried this again. Attempted to handoff to two tanks relatively far apart to make sure each mav was looking at something different, and ripple them. First pass, handoff on station 3 went fine, handoff on station 7 for some reason tracked the same tank handed off to station 3, even though the TGP was looking at a different tank. Canceled the handoff for both missiles, and tried again, this time I got handoff fails for both stations. Reset and went around. Second pass, first handoff perfect, second handoff perfect, rippled two, both hit fine, reset and went around. Third pass, first handoff perfect, second handoff perfect, rippled two, second missile failed to loft itself and hit the water, first missile hit target. Funny, but still having a blast figuring this out none the less.
Adam
Jet Lag -
…. just want to make sure I’m not doing something wrong in the handoff process. And I just tried this again. Attempted to handoff to two tanks relatively far apart to make sure each mav was looking at something different, and ripple them. …
Adam
Jet LagIt’s very unlikely this will work, imho. Even with handoff (and in ripple fire) BOTH targets need to be in the keyhole of their respective Mav’s. Spacing targets out will almost guarantee one or both are outside the keyhole.
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I’m not sure why people are rippling MAVs - they are meant to be a precision munition, and if you are shooting at something that it takes a ripple of MAVs to take out you should probably be choosing another weapon - like rockets or Mk80 series LGBs…and if you’re carrying MAV on a triple rack, then we’re back to my peeve about having to blow the dome covers prior to takeoff to boresight them (each weapon, not just each rack…depending on how BMS has them modeled) so why have coveres in place anyway?
IRMAV (MAV G) is also not the munition of choice for attacking tanks - an LMAV is far more efficient in that it will pinpoint the TGP laser spot, and you only need fire one per tank. There are many reasons an IR MAV could miss a tank - use IR MAV against light shipping, or a stationary target at night, forex. when thermal contrast is high…which will not be the case for a tank in the dirt at midday! Also - if the missiles are lofting you’re too low at launch…
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Thanks for the reply Agave. I didn’t space the targets out that much, and I always make sure to check the respective stations with a missile step to ensure a steady cross before I pickle. And the second pass the targets were as spaced out as the first, and that pass went perfectly. Here’s how I spaced them, as best as I can show with a example, maybe 200-300 feet apart, just estimating, you can see both tanks in narrow fov with 2x-3x zoom on the tgp.
T1…T2 T3…T4
Would handoff tank 3 to station 3, and tank 1 to station 7, or vice versa, just enough space to be sure when I looked at the mav video I would know both stations were looking at different tanks.
Thanks for all the quick reply’s from everyone, much appreciated!
Adam
Jet Lag -
Actually, IRL, firing 2 Mavs simultaneously on 2 targets close together (like 2 tanks) makes a lot of sense. If you fire them one after the other, the explosion/smoke of the first target is likely to mess up the camera image of the second - thus screwing up target acquisition. Firing them simultaneously allows you to fire 2 in one pass while limiting the risks of that happening.
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True Stevie, thanks for the reply. I’m at about 8 to 10,000 when I launch the mavs, and I’m rippling two mavs at two different tanks. Your right though, IR mavs in the middle of the day isn’t the best choice, but the issue I’m having is not missing the targets after launch, its just the handoff in general. When I get a good handoff and a valid launch, the missile always hits, except for the one that didn’t loft, but I’m just having problems getting to that point with a tgp handoff, that’s all.
Edit: And I’m assuming LMAV is a laser guided maverick, is that weapon in Falcon?
Adam
Jet Lag -
It only makes sense if two aircraft fire one shot each…and again, you need to use a laser MAV and by definition one jet cannot throw two spots. If people are trying to do as you describe and are missing targets, it’s because you will likely miss…
…but if you’re at 8K neither one should be lofting.
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Same has been happening to me. Good boresighting. Good handoff (I thought). Then I reread the manual umpteen times and tried changing mode e.g. dogfight and back between the boresighting routine and my eventual run in to handing off targets. Voila! (Something to do with the Mavs still being locked to the steerpoint). Try it.
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Could have something to do with your selection for steering as you start the attack - if you haven’t actually forced the TGP to be SOI you may be slaved to the steer point (the TGP iitself should be slaved to the steer point initially, I think…until you designate) - and then transitioning Modes gets you to where you want to be.
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I think you’re right. The same happened again just now. I was able to successfully hand off 2 mavs (on a Harrier), but the last one would always stay rooted to where the FCR was before the attack. If I change the FCR to SP, then that cures it. But surely if I’ve gone to Point mode with the TGP, that means I must have changed SOI from the FCR to the TGP?
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Sort of depends on how the system behaves if/as you transition modes…does it retain your last selection, does it slave everything to the new SOI, or does it return to some default state on re-selection? There could be a lot of combinations in play here…and they could all depend on just how you do the dance.
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I think I may of figured the issue out, at least for me, hopefully everyone else too. I believe I was trying to handoff the to the mavs way too far out. I was thinking, the one thing the maverick needs for a lock is its own video picture, the contrast between the target, and the surrounding ground, the tgp can handoff to the maverick all it wants, but if the maverick cant lock onto what the tgp handed off because say, the target is still way to small on the mav video, then the handoff will fail correct? So I waited to handoff to the maverick a little under 20 miles, say 18 or so, and it worked perfectly. Rippled two mavs at two different tanks, both hit dead on. Second pass was within 13 or so miles when I handed off, again perfect launches, and hits. So try to get in a little closer, and see if that helps. Remember, the mav video cant be super zoomed in like the tgp, even narrow fov on the mav video cant get very close to targets. The tgp handoff, and mav missile depend on the mavs video for a valid handoff, and lock.
Adam
Jet Lag -
I think you pegged it…and why I generally prefer to use the weapon as sensor for MAV G. It’s all in the dance steps!
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Did you all try the mav tutorial te?
do you manage to ripple both in one pass?
at what distance do you start your climb, and how high do you climb?
i tried it now for x times, the first hit is no problem, but whenever i try to do the second, I lock the first missile, or the same target, or i lock the correct target but seem to be out of keyhole. i’m simply to slow -
…I guess I still don’t see how or why one would ripple MAVG…LMAV, maybe - because they would all seek and go to the same laser spot…and even then, the way BMS is working you’d still need to step through and blow all the dome covers first. For laser or/and particularly for IR ones. But for an IR MAV you have to lock each weapon, and in that case I would expect only the first weapon off the tree to actually hit the target. In RL, anyway…
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well I want to master the mission this way because I read it, we should be able to do it that way
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…I guess I still don’t see how or why one would ripple MAVG…LMAV, maybe - because they would all seek and go to the same laser spot…and even then, the way BMS is working you’d still need to step through and blow all the dome covers first. For laser or/and particularly for IR ones. But for an IR MAV you have to lock each weapon, and in that case I would expect only the first weapon off the tree to actually hit the target. In RL, anyway…
I like the new hand off feature, but I must say I don’t use it much ATM, maybe because I’m used to 4.32?, I just lock with FCR, switch to WPN page, lock and shoot, but that’s not knocking it, I think it just takes time to get familiar with new things, weapon STEP button important in 4.33, never used it much in 4.32.