Tips to engage SA-10's with HARM's?
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Hi all. Some tips to engange a SA-10 from long distance with HARM’s?
I’m having trouble to destroy it from safe distance.
Tips needed: distance to shoot, best speed and altitude, etc.The SA-10 detects me from long range, in test detects me at about 80nm (I see that can detect at 108nm), and when at 20000ft, SA-10 can shoot me before I can enter on shoot range with HARM’s to shoot first at SA-10, but when I’m at about 28000ft, the SA-10 don’t shoot me and I can shoot first, but can’t get a good impact, HARM’s don’t go to the objective, and I have the SA-10 active and detecting me on the HAD, not hidden.
I will try to test more and read more to can use this HARM’s against SA-10, but any tips from good players that fight against SA-10’s with success, will be really appreciated.
It’s very cool to see how the SA-10’s defend themselves launching missiles against HARM’s and hitting them accurately.
And I want to create some testing TE’s with SA-10 and need all tips that good players can contribute to know how exactly defeat SA-10’s.Thank’s in advance.
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Hi @cchaparro,
The only way I found to successfully destroy SA-10 radars with HARM’s is to ingress at very low altitude. The best is to use the HAD-mode accessible when the aircraft carries a HTS pod . As soon as the SA-10 warning shows up on your RWR and appears on your MFD, you can lock the target and launch your HARM. Then proceed to an evasive maneuver flying at low level and releasing some flares. If you fly at high altitude, you will be down for sure or the SA-10 will destroy your HARM if you have launched one. As soon as the radars are down (flap lid and big bird), then the SA-10 launchers are blind: then you can fly over the area at high altitude. I hope it helps.
Good luck! -
@Magnum1964 said in Tips to engage SA-10’s with HARM’s?:
Hi @cchaparro,
The only way I found to successfully destroy SA-10 radars with HARM’s is to ingress at very low altitude. The best is to use the HAD-mode accessible when the aircraft carries a HTS pod . As soon as the SA-10 warning shows up on your RWR and appears on your MFD, you can lock the target and launch your HARM. Then proceed to an evasive maneuver flying at low level and releasing some flares. If you fly at high altitude, you will be down for sure or the SA-10 will destroy your HARM if you have launched one. As soon as the radars are down (flap lid and big bird), then the SA-10 launchers are blind: then you can fly over the area at high altitude. I hope it helps.
Good luck!If you launch on the sa10 in HAD asap then your harm might end up at 20NM from the target
You need to wait at least PGM2
Best way is to ingress low alt and engage in HAS, at least you will get the position right
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@cchaparro SA-10 hunting is challenging and there is no fool proof way. My best practice:
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If you know the approximate location of the SAM battery, mark it on your campaign map. If he mission is generated by HQ, the triangle waypoint is exactly where the SA-10 is.
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Don’t need HAD. HARM’s two main modes are good enough (POS).
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Just fly towards the battery at 20000 ft. You’ll get a spike on your RWR symbol 10 very far out. You don’t need to worry until a 10 appears in the inner RWR ring (that’s the flap lid FCR emitting). That’s your que to conduct a 45 degree dive straight for the hard deck.
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Keep hugging the terrain until about 25 nm out, when you should start pulling up to about 3000-4000 ft or until the ‘10’ appears on your RWR. Sometimes the inner 10 wont light up so you need to linger a bit but careful not to get too close (20 nm is the minimum recommended distance).
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As soon as the inner ‘10’ lights up on your RWR, make sure the correct waypoint is selected, point your nose at the waypoint, make SURE that the HARM is RDY on the SMS page, and that 10T is selected in POS mode. Fire.
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As soon as the missile left the rails, pump chaff and split S onto the hard deck. Once the ‘10’ disappears, make sure you come back up to ‘bait’ the FCR to continue emitting. Do that 2 or three times.
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When the next time you come back up to altitude and the inner 10 is no longer emitting, it might be destroyed. If after 2 min it’s still there, that means the HARM either missed, shot down, or found another emitter and went after that. In this case, re-engage.
This requires a few pre-requisites:
You have achieved air superiority or enemy fighters WILL intercept you
You plotted a course that steers clear of SHORAD and other air defenseAlso turn on your ACMI and review your footage in Tacview to see what happened. SA-10 shooting down your HARM is only labeled as a miss in debriefing.
Good luck
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@cchaparro Hi. You’ve gotten a lot of good tips here. Personally, I’ve found 2 that work for me.
- Extremely low approach (as others have mentioned.), as in 50 ft AGL NOE and/or terrain masking. I prefer the DEAD approach and use such as JSOW instead of HARM (the whole PGM 1 issue) You want a cluster munition with good stand-off range .It does indeed help if you have a waypoint set for it. Get as close as you can, pop up ,acquire and launch as quickly as possible, then dive quickly. If you take out the Flap Lid, you negate the site
- SLAM or SLAM-ER
- Back in the day, my multiplayer group used to do what we called the HARM Lottery. Our 4 ship would load up with HARM. As soon as we entered it’s threat radius we would salvo the HARM in POS. The “lottery” part was whose missile would get to the radar. Then , you can close and destroy the site with other ordinance. Idk, if you can coordinate that tactic with AI, though.
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Attack the same time from two different directions. Because the Flap Lid has only 105 or 90 degree launch arc.
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Thank’s for so many tips, great procedures that can be used.
I have done several tests using your tips, and I see on ACMI that no matter if I launch from high or low altitude, the HARM’s always go high altitude, at about 20000ft and until 25000ft, then the SA-10 launch missiles, I see on inner ring the 10 alert, and this enemy missiles don’t come for me, they are to defend SA-10 itself and they are going to hunt and destroy the HARM’s.
These initial tests are on single player, with only me on a fighter. How you said, the best strategy is to attack from different sides at same time, and with at least 4 fighters launching 2 HARM’s everyone, perhaps 2 fighters with 4 HARM’s can success, but this SA-10 knows how to defend itself very well.
I tried POS, HAS and HAD with HTS pod, and all results are the same, the HARM’s are destroyed by SA-10 missiles, but are only 2 HARM’s how I said, I’m the only fighter on tests for now.
When I try, for example, to beat a ship that can launch IR missiles from 40nm’s away, the Harpoon AGM84 can strike this ship from low altitude, the weapon allows to configure this option. HARM’s don’t know if can, always get high altitude.
The other weapons, like JSOW’s, JDAM’s, SLAM’s, etc, depends on their long distance capability, for example, the GBU-39 SDB have a secure 60nm’s launch range, but others have only 5nm’s to 15nm’s, and can’t be used against a SA-10 because have a so close dangerous distance. If no mountains, on a coast or a desert, low and short range strategy are impossible to use.
And too, this weapons depends that you can see the SA-10 site to can mark the targets in “Recon” map mode, PrePlannedTargets PPT, while a HARM only needs that any SA-10 become visible emitting a signal.In short, it’s quite difficult to destroy a SA-10, it’s quite risky if you don’t use multiple fighters. In multiplayer it should be a little easier, but with the AI it will take practice, the whole element is exposed a lot.
All are very nice tips guys, everything helps me a lot, to continue testing this situation against SA-10’s, until find some less dangerous method.
I apreciatte all this help, thank you all.
Please continue providing more tips, are very useful. -
@cchaparro Here you go, https://www.mediafire.com/file/1xbplqamf6iufbj/SA-10_Engagement.acmi/file
I tried to engage an SA-10 with the HARM in POS mode. Flap Lid destroyed.- I popped up and lingered a bit to wait for the ‘inner’ 10 to show (Flap Lid emitting). As soon as it lit up, point nose in direction of waypoint and fire first HARM
- I was probably too close to the SAM site and too high. If it weren’t for my wingman eating some missiles I would probably been hit before getting back down on deck. I was at 20nm out. 25 is safer.
P.S. Have a laugh at my A.I. wingman, always gets himself into trouble but at least took one for the team. It’s my fault I ordered a rejoin too early but the important take-away is that the SA-10 is not invincible.
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You all are aware that you can instruct wingmen to go on deck
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If you know the position of sa-10, directly fly towards it at 20-24k feet, be sure you’ve turned your ECM on in XMIT mode 3. Turning on your ECM is most important part before sa-10 launches a missile on you, if you do that after launch you’re dead. Launch your harms in EOM submode at approximately 50 miles with some interval. Continue to fly towards sa-10 battery and don’t care about being locked. Your ECM will cover you until 36nm and also cover your harms. When sa-10 radar is gone from your RWR don’t forget to turn your ECM off in case launched missiles chases you in HOJ mode. You can do this with AI-assigned steer points, I launch first missile at 5th steerpoint towards 7th targetpoint. Better than flying low because you will probably get killed by manpads or sa8/9/13/15 or enter into desperate fight with MIGs and SUs.
PS: You can use E-8C JSTAR to locate air defenses, it helps a lot. -
@spotdott Hi spot, some way to convert .acmi to .vhs?, I use .vhs to see ingame, into BMS, can’t read .acmi
On testing, and against SA-10, I’m trying to beat for myself, alone, to avoid this danger to any fighter on my air-team, and avoid to lose any of them.
Close distance strategy against these SA-10’s are very dangerous, I see several videos about defeating SA-10’s and all this pop-up tactics are really hard to do, some miss and… BUM!, you’re death. -
@slient Interesting tips. I’ll try to test it.
— I test it —
I did some tests and it’s also dangerous to do.You must turn quick and go to low altitude to get more speed quickly too.
The SA-10 missiles are first going against the fighter, and HARM’s can advance a few more, but at about 10 nm’s to 15 nm’s from the objective, the SA-10’s launch 1 missile against each HARM, and destroy them when they was on their way near to hit their objectives.
Sincerely, I like so much these SA-10’s, they are really a very nice challenge.
In campaign mode, a simply strategy but slow tactic on-time, is to send an armored battalion to destroy these SA’s sites when they are dangerous to beat from air, and provide cover for our batallion against enemy fighters. With 1 or 2 batallion I think is enough.
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@Mav-jp Interesting tip.
It’s an interesting strategy, leader over 3000ft to 4000 ft and wingman go deck to very low altitude.
In the tests, giving the “go deck” order to the wingman and flying between 3000ft and 4000ft, allows launching 2 HARM’s just when the SA-10 is in the inner RWR circle/ring, above 36nm’s, 3-5 seconds between every launch, giving the order to “attack my target” and next giving the “weapons free order”.
Depending on the situation, you can hit at least with 1 of the HARM’s, maybe achieve the 2 hits, and take out the SA-10’s radar, to make a next bomb mission with MK-82’s or GBU-39 SDB’s from distance if you know the exactly waypoint and set the targets PPT before start the mission.
Important is that both fighters turned quickly when launching the HARM’s, descending to low altitude, below 300ft, and at full speed in the opposite direction of the SA-10 radar signal. It’s very risky, the SA-10’s missiles came close to taking us down, a few more seconds without turning quickly, and we would be dead.
These was a really good, but dangerous, strategy to beat a SA-10. Pop-up tactic is, by far, much more dangerous than this.
I’m still doing more tests, but mainly alone, without wingman, to not risk the lives of the AI pilots and find the best tactic possible with not so much danger.
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@cchaparro Are you sure you jammed the sa-10’s radar? I will send a acmi file later when I do a dead mission, because it works %90 of times for me.
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@cchaparro https://mega.nz/file/NhUXDLhL#GVkFuU6KO00XwKHZRD8WI5pGvyRJAIvwkUGRjhpRQKA
here is an engagement in Baltic. Both missiles hit. -
@slient Very interesting situation.
You are so lucky, SA-10 missiles fail to hit your HARM’s.
In my situation, on Korea original theater, the SA-10’s have great precision and hit my HARM’s without any fail.
I do another test that was better, I fly to the steerpoint at very low altitude, below 300ft, and at full speed. When at 25 nm’s of the steerpoint, I prepare POS mode, EOM, 10A target selected, and climbing up to 8600ft slowly, and on some point between 4000ft and 8600ft, the HARM’s are in range and can be fired with all settings ok on the HUD, firing the first one, and 20 seconds later firing the second one, then turn in the opposite direction of the SA site at maximum speed and at very low altitude. First HARM hits good, second HARM fail. No SA-10’s missiles fired.
Not all situations are the same, sometimes perhaps is hard, sometimes SA-10 no reacts because is a surprise attack from very close distance. Was over the water and plane terrain without mountains.
For example, I tried to attack with 4 fighters, and 3 of them were shot down. They was very big losses.
SA-10 needs a mix of tactics, all your tips are very nice to try and test. In campaign mode, can save first and then try these tips. Depending on the situation, can apply one or another tip. It’s a great challenge to confront these SA-10’s.
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@molnibalage said in Tips to engage SA-10’s with HARM’s?:
Attack the same time from two different directions. Because the Flap Lid has only 105 or 90 degree launch arc.
Hi
In ttba we use two azimuths offset by 100°.
We use the OA1 points and the ETA to be in the right place at the right time.
A little calculator helps you to calculate the OA1 points.https://www.djetdail.fr/falcon/data_falcon/calculettes/attaque_sead_separation_eng.php
Bonne chasse
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@cchaparro all theaters run the same code, so there won’t be difference in Korea. I myself completed bear trap campaign. Also sa-10 didn’t even launch a missile neither on me or to my harms. I used low flying approach before, I think if harms fly low sa-10 can’t engage them.
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@cchaparro you need to download Tacview (there is a free version here https://www.tacview.net/) to use .acmi files.
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@Fearripper96
I know, but: “However, after the trial period of 21 days, the more advanced features will be disabled. If you wish to continue to use these features, you will need to purchase Tacview Standard or above.”, and I don’t want to use a program which overrides options you might need at some point, and I haven’t the 100€ that costs to buy, for example, on Steam.I play BMS occasionally, not all the time, Tacview is an excellent program, but I can’t buy it for now and to use it occasionally only. For regular and pro players, is a must to have. Thank’s for the tip.