Taking out the Kirov - AGM-65G FTW
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This post is a big long, but bear with me. If you want the TLDR, just scroll to the end. While this takes place in the Battle for Balkans campaign, this is probably relevant for anything, so that’s why I’m posting it here.
So I started up a new BFB campaign and as a first step, made all the F-16 squadrons be fragged by the AI except for my own (that way I didn’t just have a bunch of F-16 on the ground doing nothing). I decided a good first mission for me to frag was a strike on an airbase that has a squadron of Mig-21s, and defended by an SA-2 SAM site. I fragged a 2-ship SEAD Strike mission to go after the air defenses and a 4-ship escort flight for my 4-ship OCA Strike on the airbase. We ingress from the east, and the flight is going pretty well, however I wind up getting shot down by some manpads stationed about 5 miles east of the airbase as I egress. Ok, maybe I should take control of the SEAD strike…
So I try again, flying lead in the SEAD strike mission. Coming in at around 10,000 ft, I order my wingman to attack the tanks and manpads east of the airbase, while I use HARMs (well, technically in this campaign they’re AGM-45 Shrikes) to go after the SA-2 radar station, and plan to finish of the launchers with some CBUs. While ingressing, I notice that my RWR has some naval threats pop up, but surely I’m way of of range of them…right?
Boom! “Warning!” What the? I never heard a launch tone, and I’m way too high for the manpads to be shooting at me. Let’s do this again with the AMCI turned on. I should get in the habit of using this thing.
Ok, take 2 (or is this take 3?) How hard can it be just to take out an airbase? We’re 20 miles out - AMCI ON! Wingan, attack the manpads. RWR shows the naval threats again, no big deal. SA-2 launch! My HARMs are almost in range. Magnum! Break left! “Chaff…Flare”. Dodged one SA-2, and that radar is now out of commission. Let’s go in and take care of those launchers.
BOOM! Seriously? Again? Let’s take a look at this AMCI footage. Ok, so there’s the SA-2 launch, There goes my HARM. What in the world is a SA-N-6? Wait, is that heading for me? I didn’t hear a launch tone. Holy cow those things go far! But why didn’t I hear a launch tone?
Time to do some research. Oh, wow, the SA-N-6 won’t produce a launch tone. This thing is like a pissed off SA-10. We need to take this thing out.
I frag a 4-ship naval strike mission (I can’t remember what the mission type actually is - “TO” something I think). It looks like we’re up against 5 ships, the main one causing us grief is the Kirov. We’re loaded up with some Mavericks and GBUs. I figured we’d use pairs of GBUs to sink the Kirov so we can continue with our airbase strike. We come in low, about 1000’, and my wingmen are itching to blow some stuff up. I issue a “Weapons Free” and I start to hear them say “Rifle”, “Rifle”. So they’re going with Mavericks, that’s ok I guess. Soon we’ll finish them up with GBUs. Then I see my flight start to explode in the air. Oh this is going to be bad. Sure enough, before I’m even close to being on target, BOOM. Man my eject lever is getting worn out…
Ok, let’s just try a pop-up attack with GBUs. I have no idea how to get my wingmen to fly NOE, so I guess I’m alone on this one. (Can you make AI wingmen do pop-up attacks from NOE?) My main target is the Kirov, so if I drop 4 GBU-10s on that guy, that’s 8000 lbs of “You’re not floating anymore” furry. I fly out to the target, set my launch angle to 30°, set it to release in pairs, set my interval to 0’, and set my ripple pulses to 2. That should let them all go at once, all on target for LASER nirvana. I find my target on the radar about 40 miles, and then go silent and NOE. Open up the targeting pod, and about 15 to 20 miles out I pick them up on the pod. I line up with the Kirov, and am awaiting my loft cue. I go ahead and switch to CAT-I so I’ll be able to crank it after I let these bombs go. I get my loft cue, pull up, and BOOM. Well that didn’t work. ACMI shows that not only do they have SA-N-6s, they also have AIM-7s. A few more tries at this shows that flying low pretty much takes the SA-N-6s out of the equation (unless I get too high), and while I can dodge the first AIM-7, the 2nd one pretty much always finds its target. I can’t even get to the point where I can get these bombs off the rail, let alone guide them to the target, before becoming the biggest chaff pod in the world.
Let’s try an “ultra” high altitude attack, say 40,000’. As you can guess, trying to dodge SA-N-6 launches while loaded down with 4 tons of bombs ends with me swimming in the ocean below.
Then I remember that my wingmen were launching their Mavericks. Well, since I don’t have an SR-71, it seems like getting GBUs to the target is going to be an act in futility, so let’s see what I can do with some AMG-65s. The “G” model seems to be the way to go if I want firepower, so let’s load 4 of those bad babies up.
Ok, once again, acquire the target, drop to NOE, go nose cold. Let’s start trying to get the target on the WPN page. At about 15 miles out I can just start to make him out, so I MSL-STP through all 4 of my AGMs and uncover the seeker head, making rapid firing a bit easier. I have the Kirov locked up now, going CAT-I early in preparation of burning out of there. Almost in range…almost. “Rifle, Rifle, Rifle, Rifle”. AIM-7 launch. Break HARD left, beaming the targets. “Chaff…flare”. Do a 180 and drop more countermeasures. I have no idea if I hit the target. But I’m focused on the fact that I still hear the missile launch tone. I roll right, dropping more countermeasures and build up some distance between myself and the target. The missile launch tone goes away, and for the first time I am egressing from the target, having deployed all my munitions. The post mission briefing shows that I really haven’t inflicted much damage to the target, but doing a recon on the area shows that the fleet is at 80%. What do you know, the Kirov went down.
Just to be sure, I decided to actually fly a recon flight over the target. Sure enough, only 4 ships remain, and as I gain altitude during the recon, I find that they’re not really interested in taking me out. Sounds like easy pickings for a future mission.
The Kirov is dead…airbase, here we come.
TLDR - Give your maverick a hug, and then shoot it at something!
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SA-N-6 is navalised SA-10
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Good job on the kirov. Going NOE is the only way to survive it. Thanks for sharing it
I had it one time that the kirov hit my lead on a mission from 35 miles out. He was hit two times and the third missile passed me with still having >mach 3… They are incredible fast.
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yea, I got him too (his hull is underwater already)
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That pretty much summarises my BFB experience as well - had to puch a hole through the naval barricade before moving to strikes.
Also went through various weapons and approaches before finally succeeding with mavericks. Ingress noe, at about 20miles out, with hud off and full zoom, you can just about make out the naval fleet. Hud on, maverick on vis mode, and lock up the kirov on the hud. Fine tune on mfd, and wait for in-range.
Pickling 2-3 mavs on the range threshold, followed by a hard turn away with full AB, dropping CM, saw me outrun whatever the kirov was throwing at me. Wingman wasnt so lucky, but thats also probably why i survived in the first place.
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…Ingress noe, at about 20miles out, with hud off and full zoom, you can just about make out the naval fleet. …
Didn’t think to turn of the HUD, but that would have been helpful in spotting the fleet since the artificial horizon blocks the view of the ships. I was using trackIR and leaning around the HUD to get a good visual.
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Lukas: What’s that screenshot from?
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…HARPOON…
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It reminded me of this:
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Lukas: What’s that screenshot from?
Falcon 3.05, Operation “Fighting Tiger” - Kurile theater
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“BOOM! Seriously? Again? Let’s take a look at this AMCI footage. Ok, so there’s the SA-2 launch, There goes my HARM. What in the world is a SA-N-6? Wait, is that heading for me? I didn’t hear a launch tone. Holy cow those things go far! But why didn’t I hear a launch tone?”
Ah, I remember the day I learned that, as I watched my wingman explode over the ocean for no apparent reason.
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RWR can not always give a launch indication. If the system is working outside the working band of RWR, if the system do not use a defined missile up-link or no specific radar pattern/characteristics allowing to identify a possible launch, if the emitter is outside the RWR angular coverage, if the system is not present in the RWR library, if there are some ambiguities in the library with other systems … you will not have a launch indication… or sometimes, possible false (not implemented) launch indications.
Remember, RWRs are not made to “protect” yourself from (radar/radio assisted) SAMs, just a tool that will/should increase your survivability ratio.
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GBUs to sink the Kirov
Bomb attacks on a high threat tgt isn’t a good idea (low threat cargo vessels - maybe yeah) The best the falcon carries in BMS, as you’ve found out, is the Maverick. Falcons on a ship strike - … I don’t know, they aren’t built for that, but hey, improvisation is a good thing and they get the job done if flown good
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I’d like to see how this changes if BMS gets an update that allows these ships to engage incoming missiles, haha. SA-N-6/Standard variants/SA-N-9/SA-N-4/RAM/Sea Sparrow/ESSM are just a tiny slice of the tools available to modern warships that don’t break a sweat at killing slow, non-maneuvering missiles like the Maverick. You’ll have to overwhelm them by firing so many at once that they can’t engage them all before they hit – but that’s kind of a tall order!
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More complicated than that, as always…… depends on ship orientation at launch, detection of launch, state of readiness of the ship, etc. It does have some weapons, but there are been more successful antiship missile hits than “hard kill” by the defence. And these were active seeker missiles, not passive IR guidance like a Mav, although the missile launch smoke can be seen by the guys on watch.
TBH, I personnally think a fixed 50% chance of defence is almost as unrealistic as a fixed 0% And code the whole shebang would be … complicated
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Thanks for your timely post as I have just been working on the Kirov, and getting the ‘BOOM’ as you did. The closest I got was a run under 500 feet, but had a hard time seeing the ships on the MAV WPN page screen. So I popped up to 800 feet and only had time to launch two before the SA-N-6’s were coming at me. I’ve found success in the Korea theater under 1500 for most SA’s, and can even overfly hot targets if I’m going fast. Is there a minimum altitude I can stay under against the SA-N-6 from the Kirov so I can get in closer to get all 4 missiles off? Would Radar and ECM off help me get close?
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Great post rsparkyc! I’ve been on a bit of a SEAD Strike kick lately, but haven’t attempted the Kirov or any SA-10’s yet. Going NOE is one of my favorite things in BMS, so I’ll definitely take your lessons on board when I finally go for it.
Thanks for sharing.
Zep
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As soon as it appears I steal a barcap or task a harpoon strike if I got F18’s. F15E AGM-130 work too from long range. Boom
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EDIT: Thank you for your post. this is quite similar procedure for a single ship flight with 8 AGM-65D’s. didn’t try with 4 AGM-65G’s. will give it a try and see if it works. seems that Radar ON doesn’t make much difference as you can see. but it makes locating Kirov much easier than with just seeker head what in turn reduces workload.
–----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hi,
Don’t know if it is still relevant since I find experienced pilots deal with Kirov quite easily and often.
also if someone finds mistake please correct me.I have been told by a fellow pilot that AGM-65D payload is more effective against “Kirov” than AGM-65G since you can take a payload of 8 AGM-65D’s instead of only 4 of AGM6-65G’s (don’t know if true since G variant is more powerfull).
so Yesterday I tried to check this out and to take out “Kirov” cruisers on the COOP FO server (BFB).
turns out it is pretty much easy, and I took down 2 of them. each on a single solo flight.my attack profile:
- ingress at 200ft AGL. Radar ON. ECM ON.
- Power AGMS’s early. then cycle thru each hard point with missile step and UNCAGE each missile. also EXPAND each missile’s FOV, this way you make sure that each Hardpoint is SOI beforehand and also you will see the ships clearly visually on the weapon screen.
- Avionics: Radar to SEA mode. then to SNOWPLOW mode with 20NM scan range. switch to CAT 1.
- at 30NM out of the attack steerpoint slow down to 350kts.
- at about 15-12NM you will begin see some small dots on the radar, usally at offset to the right or left of your main steerpoint becouse the ships are moving.
- EXPAND the radar View on the dots and you will see “Kirov” as a large dot surrounded by smaller dots.
- LOCK the large dot on radar (TMS UP) and then lock it once again (once more TMS UP) with AGM Seeker head.
8.) in few seconds you will be at range to fire AGM’s, begin to fire as soon you cross the AGM MAX range.
each following shot you need to press TMS UP to lock the next missile on the Target so the cross stops flashing. after you fired the first 4 missiles the next 4 need also to be UNCAGED before TMS UP and Fire. - once you fired all your missiles break hard and turn 180 back to your base with full Afterburner while popping chaff. try to preserve 200ft altitude during all the process.
- if done right and all 8 missiles hit the target you will see “Kirov” destroyed on debrief screen.
by flying 200ft altitude with ECM on, I have been able to get close up to 8-7NM from “Kirov” during the attack
without being shot at.CHECKED AND VERIFIED.
taking out the rest of the fleet on the next flight is a piece of cake. 3 AGM-65D’s per ship IIRC.