@Red:
My experience with LGB is quite extensive, but I confess it’s more centred around the GBU-12.
That’s also the case in the training mission.
When these weapons are used correctly in BMS, there’s hardly a miss.
Of course, that’s why I stated that I did a lot of testing and I was getting both Ls – the laser firing indication (flashing L) and the laser ranging (solid L).
@Red:
We do single release from hi alt, from low alt, lofting them and we do buddy lasing and when we miss it’s 99% our faults
The possible reasons is bad laser code, laser not armed, SPI issue, tracking the wrong target on the CCRP cues and expecting to strike another target.
Laser firing time is hardly the issue but we most of the time use 12 seconds for GBU-12. When we do buddy lasing, we use 15 seconds lasing time.
Yeah I had the same experience/opinion from 4.33 (I don’t remember if I was dropping Paveway IIs or IIs at that time) but then I went AWOL for 3 years and came back then was having these 2000lbers hit a lot, then all of the sudden missing a lot, then I checked the manual and double-checked and yet was still having problems. I re-installed and that did not fix the problem. However, this though is exclusively with GBU-24/B HEs so this could just be a Paveway II vs Paveway III issue. Before this I lased for 16 seconds.
@Red:
Also, when we miss, we don’t feel the need to question the system. We question us and our procedures. We also do not expect bombs to have a 100% hit rate and we can live with missing the target.
Well, I am not a BMS expert, but if I may try to assure you – I have many successful hours of dropping bombs (dumb, LGB, and JDAM) as this is probably what I love doing most in BMS. I do have misses and I can usually figure out why I am missing on most occassions. If I missed once in awhile I wouldn’t worry about it. I would just think it’s an random number failure or I had my head up and locked for the pass. But this was miss after miss after miss after having hit after hit after hit. So, I was doing level bombing, got the right indications from the TGP pod that all was well. Double-triple-checked that I had the right laser codes. Flew straight and level at different machs (.7 to .94 mostly) and then realized that I had been dropping from just above manpad altitude and had started dropping higher. Then I confirmed that this seemed to be the issue. Truly, it is the only thing that was different. Nevertheless I am still open to the fact that I might be doing something wrong, but I’ve probably dropped 40 GBU-24s from Angels 30ish with a laser time of 45 seconds since my first post and not one – I repeat – not one miss.
@Red:
My overal experience with GBU in 4.34 is that it works pretty well if you follow the published procedures, with the correct weapon related to that procedure.
Granted since the manual author use less the GBU-24 and alike, the procedure and our manual testing might not be as extensive as with the GBU-12.
Hey I think you do an amazing job with the manuals, and I often find myself kicking myself in the butt for struggling with a problem that isn’t a problem if I just would have RTFM. But I am 99% sure that this is one case where the manuals need fleshing out. And I speculate that it may be that the coders didn’t let you know that you would get different results with Paveway IIIs. So I am not trying to blame anyone there, it’s just that I really think there is something amiss here. I encourage you to test with laser time 15 at Angels 30 with GBU-24 /B /HE.
@Red:
From there, it’s pretty expected AFAIK that the further away you are when you lase, the less energy reach the target, clouds obstruction, respect of the ballistic CCRP cues first, switchology are all parameters that will influence the hit rate which should never be 100% IMHO.
Well I have hit with 100% accuracy for some 40 each GBU-24 bombs or more by simply changing the lase time from 16 to 45. So from 15k to 30k there doesn’t seem to be an energy loss issue. Also, all my reported misses and hits were during clear skies. The very fact that I was having so many misses in clear skies was the thing that I found the most confusing.
@Red:
Last note regarding the manuals. All these chapters were created for 4.33 and checked but not fully rewritten with 4.34. As they were tested OK, and since there was no notification of behaviour changes, the succesful tests of what’s written in the manual were enough to ensure the manuals were still correct.
Yes of course, you would have no reason to change the manual unless this sort of issue was brought to your attention by a developer, tester, or a player. So I just think of myself as being the player that raised the concern here that some testing should be done or the code looked at and if there is a shortfall in the documentation it would be sweet if it was addressed.
@Red:
Since then, also remember we had 3 consecutive updates which are normally bugfixes only but that’s the visible part of the iceberg and manuals are not rewritten for such lower updates. So there’s a slight possibility of a mismatch induced here as well (from my experience changelogs are not always enough to check that, but it’s a start)
From my perspective – that of a fan – you guys do a great job and I am not calling your quality control into question. I think I just might have stumbled onto something that slipped through and if so I am not worried about who did what, I am just interested in this being looked at by the devs to see if the code or manual needs some tweaking. But from what I saw when going back through the manuals was that there really isn’t a detailed look at laser guided bombs like the marvelous work you have in there for JDAMS and Mavericks. I could be missing it, though.
@Red:
Considering all of the above, If you guys can point out specific shortcomings in the manuals, I will make sure they are updated for the next round.
the best thing to ensure it happens is to use the relevant topic in the Documentation forum once you’re positive the manuals are outdated. These are the main topics I track for manual updates.
Thanks
Yes, I was planning to bring it up over there but only after the thread here had reached the end of it’s lifecycle so that I could present what I know and supporting information – such as Dee-Jay saying in real life you lase from pickle all the way down with Paveway IIIs but not Paveway IIs. Also, keep in mind I can only fly as good as I can fly, read the manual as good as I can read, etc. so if the problem could be me, you are rightly going to want confirmation of this issue before diving in after it. I have well over 6 hours of video documenting this (from the time I put in the laser code and for the entire flight so not 100s of bombs – but a few dozen for sure – which I can upload that to Youtube, but I think you’d come to a similar conclusion if you or someone on the team just fragged a flight and tried it with GBU 24s, Angels 30, laser time 16, then reflying the same exact mission and only changing laser time 45.
NOTE: All this testing was done during a Rolling Fire campaign.