Tank column: which cluster, AD and BA?
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Good info here…I’ll give both JSOW and 97’s a go next time, 97’s with a BA of 3000…see what happens…
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Since the CBU-97 contains BLU-97/B bomblets, I would strongly suggest the AGM-154A with same submunitions. You can fire it from outside the “danger zone” and they are somewhat weapons of mass destruction in BMS, because even the bomblets are guided. On my last planned-CAS mission I wiped out 27 vehicles with 4 JSOWS, although it is less effective against MBTs.
CBU-87/103 use the BLU-97. CBU-97 have all been converted to CBU-105 because of the suicidal delivery parameters the -97 required.
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I figured CBU-97s were not used anymore. I mean a 900,000$ bomb and you don’t want to put a 25K WCMD kit on it? Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
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Talking about the cluster bombs… i checked their data files.
some questions:
is damage diameter linear to burst altitude and limited by MaxDamageDiameter parameter?
i.e.
damage diameter = min(MaxDamageDiameter, BA * damageDiameterBurstAltMultiplier) ?what does LethalAlt mean? does that mean the damage is maximized when the BA is at LethalAlt and will decay linearly to 0 when BA reaches inefficientAlt ? what damage will it be when BA is lower than LethalAlt? still maximum or decay to 0 ?
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I figured CBU-97s were not used anymore. I mean a 900,000$ bomb and you don’t want to put a 25K WCMD kit on it? Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
360,000$
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Unit cost isn’t that big of a clue as to what the bomb is worth. They take the entire project cost and divide by the number of bombs produced. If they made tens of thousands of them the cost would come down quite a bit. They still are “golden bullets.”
Conventional CBUs used in modern conflict 60,000
SFWs used… 6It’s good for a giggle but like the JSOW or DCS SFW it’s good to keep a perspective on things. Nerdgasming at it like my previous squadron did (ugh, everyone had 2-4 SFWs) was so distasteful.
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I prefer agm65s against tanks,CBUs against mechanized infantry(BMPs,IFVs)…About 1:1 CBU kill ratio during gulf war, in Vipers in the storm I remember f16s where tasked destroying what they tought was tank depot with more than 200 vehichles.Anyway it turned out that Iraqis moved the vehichles so they dropped 64 cbu87 and scored 0 kills.I belive it is not isolated case…Also A10s fired 5000 mavericks, so number of vehichles destroyed by CBUs is not that big.CBU97 during test apparently destroyed 10 BMPs every time, so carring 8 of them in perfect conditions could result in 80 destroyed BMPs.Point is,in case of ww3 CBUs would become area weapons used to destroy as much targets as possible, and during desert storm strategy was to make Iraqis surrender, not to kill all of them as they were no match for Coalition soldiers.
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so, yesterday i did 2 flights, one with 8 87’s and one with 8 97’s…
87’s: 16 kills incl. t55
97’s: 19 kills incl. t72so it’s clear for me now…my rockeye days are over and i’m sticking to either 87’s or 97’s when attacking columns…
edit: just got lucky (and an Air Medal )… 7 of 8 87’s hit targets: 38 kills!! :blowpar:
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oh, and i had BA set as follows:
87’s: 2500
97’s: 3000 -
I posted this a few weeks ago on youtube, not that often that I get a chance to ripple all 8 at once, so of course this a planned circumstance for my vid. As of now my cluster of choice is the 87, will gladly use the others, 97s and mk-20s but seem to have better luck with the 87s.
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I posted this a few weeks ago on youtube, not that often that I get a chance to ripple all 8 at once, so of course this a planned circumstance for my vid. As of now my cluster of choice is the 87, will gladly use the others, 97s and mk-20s but seem to have better luck with the 87s.
As i know… CBU-87 has the maximum MaxDamageDiameter parameter in all the CBUs according to those data files in the BOMBDATA folder… so i think it will hit more targets than other CBUs, only if you have the right setup of BA.
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oh, and i had BA set as follows:
87’s: 2500
97’s: 3000I know it was years ago, but what other settings did you use (spacing, ripple etc.) on the SMS page for each? And ingress altitude?
thx
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The way i see it if you have mavericks in stock then use those for BAI/CAS also use the D model if available as they can be fired in all weather and at night as they’re heat seeking. If no mavs then Rockeyes…
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Never had much luck with clusters no matter what altitude or burst Alt. I would suspect that lower is better (within reason with threats) and have seen various posts claiming anywhere from 1800’ to 2400’ for burst altitude. Also, I have tried Mavs as well a myriad of times and still don’t get much success. GBU-12’s are my go to for movers usually. Just recently finally getting the hang of JSOWs too, and they produced many kills as posted by many others.