Mission planning, how to decide on dive angle for dumb bombs?
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Boggy, google Red Dog’s KOTAR RANGE OPS pdf and study it. It contains a DB table as in real life for that range. If you ever want to fly/train it as in RL and based on the pdf, hit me up.
Cheers
Agree …. Pick one of the standard profiles and go with that.
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General ROT: high drag -> low angle; low drag -> high angle.
But that’s not the end all - what threats are in the area, and what do you need to do to avoid both them, and the blast frag of your bomb (I’ve had a RL jet come home with self-frag damage…after straffing)? What does the terrain look like in the target area? Are there friendly troops in the area and where are they in relation to your target - how do you not frag them? How does your delivery profile affect your delivery accuracy? Are the weapons you are carrying suitable to destroy/damage the target of choice? How accurate are YOU for any given profile? Did troops in the area ask you for a particular/specific delivery, and can you actually comply, or suggest a more suitable alternative?
All these are considerations for choosing your ordnance, delivery profile, ingress, and egress routing - most directly for CAS employment, but not exclusively. Holds for pop-up attacks too.
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That won’t answer your question, but none probably. If ingress and egress are decided low, whatever the reason, and if SAM and AAA are no factor as said, I won’t use fuel to get high and dive again, I’ll use AIR Mk-82.
And if I had to, it would certainly depend why I chose that method and that weapon over the rest –> more context.
The MK-82 with the chute has one drawback, I think if you exceed 450 KTS it rips the chute off. 450 kts TAS at low level is kinda 450 CAS, it a fast but not that fast considering that most AAA guns like the Zeus can still hit you at those speeds. I prefer 500 kts because then if you have time to look outside you will see that the rounds are lagging behind you and the bullets are flying an arc and pass behind you. If you fly below 450kts they are going to be a direct hit.
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No chute ripping in BMS.
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If target area threat and terrain are no factor but low ingress is used that suggests the motivation is larger area picture threat like fighters. Most precious resource is time. Choose attack profile which provides the most flexibility, effects, and timeliness. I would pick an attack around the 20-30 degree window because seconds don’t matter but having to come around tomorrow because you missed do. Unless there’s some weaponeering reason why a steep attack is needed I wouldn’t. It just makes it more likely to abort the run or post hole. I’ve never heard of a pop up ending up in anything steeper than 30.
If target is a building it might depend on the particular building. A low flat warehouse might be nicer to have more lateral effect. If it’s a tall building with foundation you want to take out more vertical is desirable. Shallower means closer which isn’t healthy generally if you can avoid it.
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Hi guys,
Just curious, how do you decide what dive angle you are going to use on a target when you plan on bombing it with Mark 82s or similar?
Let’s assume:
- air defense is minimal, let’s say no SAMs or AAA to be worried about.
- terrain isn’t a factor
- low altitude ingress and egress.
- target is a building or similar, mk82 is the chosen weapon.
So I’m wondering, which angle and why would you pick a 10/20/30/45 degree dive angle for an attack?
depends on the target. you have to select a dive so the bomb will impact with an angle that will make more damage ie avoid ricochet(not modelled) and penetrate (not modelled) the target. for a building I would choose a high angle dive, 30º or more
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Vipers in the storm has some good references for dive bombing numbers. Pop up also. There is also a video on YouTube with a HAF F-4AUP that makes a pop-up attack.
You can check the HUD informations to see the distances and offset angles and how high he goes etc etc, it ends with a 30 degree dive bombing. The BEM is also giving good references, included in your BMS doc folder.
For the reason why choosing a certain dive angle over another one, on top of what the others have said I would also consider recovery altitude. At what altitude do you want to recover from your dive bombing ? The shallower your angle the further away, the steeper the closer to the target. In my case I am talking about dive bombing from high altitude, consider weather if you are bombing in CCIP, or see if it is acceptable to drop blind above the cloud deck in CCRP. It will depend on how good you can identify target on your A-G radar. Pop-up attacks are very good but require some pretty good studying of the target area and egress routes at low altitude and a good knowledge of the threat down there. Ingress route really needs to assure you non detection as to maximize the effect of surprise (consider emcom). Even if there are manpads and whatever on the ground, sometime it is much more survivable with a low level high speed ingress, counting on high speed and very low level to take advantage of the reaction time of most defenses, ending it with a pop-up attack with a 30 degree dive angle, a too shallow of a dive angle will expose you to the threats for a longer time, but it will increase your tracking time and give you longer time to aim at your target. Steeper dive angles offer you less tracking time and allow less margin for error and less time for corrections but expose you less time wise to the threats. All that needs to be combined with the proper safe escape maneuver, either ressource, straight ahead or turn away from target.
A 45 degree dive bombing after a pop up attack is just defeating the purpose of the pop up I think, you are pointing at 50 degrees nose high for a considerable amount of time, well long enough for any Sam or manpads to light you up and it will most certainly require you to hit the burner, even if you ingress at 550 KTS when you will point your nose up there your speed will decrease rapidly without burner ….Manpads up your tailpipe pretty fast.Low level attacks are still very well practiced in NATO countries, some areas are so well defended that the only option is low level. Medium to high level bombing is a doctrine now adopted by the USAF, but not everyone has their capacity or numbers or assets. Not all NATO countries have SEAD assets and thus also need to be able to conduct strikes on important targets even if it means that the crew won’t return. And besides, you don’t spend money and time to train in an area, low level that is, just for training purposes, especially if this training is deadly. The Super Hornet crash is a testimony to the fact that it is still a skill that no matter how dangerous still needs to be maintained. We can also look at the 2000D crash while they were conducting low level ingress.
Current conflict tactics and doctrines don’t mean that other tactics will never be used again, that mistake was made already and paid in blood.
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It is NEVER acceptable to drop a free fall weapon if you can’t see the target and/or do not have eyes on it.
…I know personally of people getting killed that way.
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It is NEVER acceptable to drop a free fall weapon if you can’t see the target and/or do not have eyes on it.
…I know personally of people getting killed that way.
Isn’t anymore then. Sorry for your loss.
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A deep angle wil not help, if there is no threat, the best otion in my opinion is a straight bombrun ccip, just make sure aim well in order to hit the target, other option is ccrp usign the ground radar to lock the target, but if cant lock the exact target on radar you may use the sniper pod to lock with ir sensor, my sugestion for ground units on an open field is to lineup with the colum and make a fast low alt atack using CBU in row, fly straight and low until clear the guns range then and break left or right and take altitud. is there is a hornet nest of ground units is better not to risk and use AGM64 for a distant atack.
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A deep angle wil not help, if there is no threat, the best otion in my opinion is a straight bombrun ccip, just make sure aim well in order to hit the target, other option is ccrp usign the ground radar to lock the target, but if cant lock the exact target on radar you may use the sniper pod to lock with ir sensor, my sugestion for ground units on an open field is to lineup with the colum and make a fast low alt atack using CBU in row, fly straight and low until clear the guns range then and break left or right and take altitud. is there is a hornet nest of ground units is better not to risk and use AGM64 for a distant atack.
Unless it is for a moving target, best practice is to not go TMS up on the radar return for CCRP. Even if you have put the cursors over the desired spot on the radar picture, by going TMS up you will make the FCR lock on the strongest return and it may not be where you placed your cursors, all you will have is diamond symbol on your FCR. If for example you try to bomb a bridge by using ccrp and the radar picture, just place your cursors over the desired impact point, don’t go TMS up.
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well yes in most of the cases is a good method just to line up the impact point with the target, desert scenaries can mess up with the sensosr if the sensors cant detect the ground or the target ccrp wont drop it happens on isreale scenario only in open desert.