Tanks Vs Helicopters

[kubor]

In some Youtube video I noticed a player taking out ground hovering helicopters. This feels ultra unrealistic. Are there plans to add some basic helicopter pilot intelligence?

[xtremist]

Originally posted by kubor:

In some Youtube video I noticed a player taking out ground hovering helicopters. This feels ultra unrealistic. Are there plans to add some basic helicopter pilot intelligence?

The only plausible/realistic situation when a tank takes out a helicopter with its gun is when the helicopter is hovering or flying slow in a straight line. Also, the helicopters of this timeframe were capable of using guided missiles only when hovering, or flying slow in a straight line, so the situation is absolutely not unrealistic.

[orcbuster]

Originally posted by kubor:

In some Youtube video I noticed a player taking out ground hovering helicopters. This feels ultra unrealistic. Are there plans to add some basic helicopter pilot intelligence?

Its not unrealistic, manual specifies main gun as primary anti helicopter weapon at the ranges typically encountered in game for most tanks that does automatic lead input.

[kubor]

Originally posted by xtremist:

Originally posted by kubor:

In some Youtube video I noticed a player taking out ground hovering helicopters. This feels ultra unrealistic. Are there plans to add some basic helicopter pilot intelligence?

The only plausible/realistic situation when a tank takes out a helicopter with its gun is when the helicopter is hovering or flying slow in a straight line. Also, the helicopters of this timeframe were capable of using guided missiles only when hovering, or flying slow in a straight line, so the situation is absolutely not unrealistic.

The problem is that a lot of the helicopters are hovering low in the field of sight. This makes wiping them out way to easy. I'd assume standard heli strategy would be to have a higher angle of attack from a greater distance.

This leads to tanks taking out 3 helicopters. Doesn't feel right at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rxu9sINt4

[xtremist]

The Cobras deploy FFAR rockets after using up all the TOW missiles, thats why they come so close to the enemy, and the best defense for choppers is to stay as low as possible. Sure, they are a little closer than necessary, and they could go home after running out of TOW missiles, but it would be also frustrating for the player to suffer the attack from outside of his own engagement range without the possibility of shooting back.
This just simply shows how it would have been if a soviet armoured attack met a desperate attack from a NATO helicopter gunship squadron with the technology of that era. That is why they spent the GDP of a smaller county to develop longer range fire and forget anti tank missiles, sensor and radar domes on top of the rotor hub to avoid close contact and direct line of sight with the enemy armour.

[Blacktail]

For a bit of historic context, the Iraqi Army suffered heavy tank losses to AH-1 Cobras using TOW missiles early in the Iran-Iraq War, but noticed that they had to stop in a stationary hover a kilometer or two from their intended target before they could launch, and had to remain totally stationary until the missile hit it's target. The Iragi TCs adapted by having the entire formation halt when they spotted approaching Cobras, train their .50cal machine guns on them, and wait until the Cobras stopped to hover --- then massed all their combined machine gun fire on each of them, one at a time.

Once that tactic went into use, it was Iranian Cobras, not Iraqi tanks, that were destroyed in these encounters. As soon as the Iranians realized what was happening, they stopped attacking armored vehicles with helicopters, which was never attempted again for the rest of the war.

Let's also not forget about the AH-64 Apache Battalion that ran into Fedayeen militia in 2003; with nothing but small arms and a few heavy machine guns, they shot half of those helicopters to pieces in a single firefight. Nor that more than half of the helicopters the Soviet Air Force lost in Afghanistan were shot-down by machine gun fire, before the Mujjahadeen ever started using MANPADS weapons like the Redeye and Stinger.

The bottom line is that shooting down helicopters is a lot easier than most militaries are willing to admit; even small and slim ones like the Cobra, or heavily-armored ones like the Hind and Apache.

[Technopiper]

Those are BMPs, or Infantry Fighting Vehicles, not tanks. Just pointing out.