Helicopter inaccuracies

[donscott]

I am a Viet Nam vet with 19 months experience in Hueys in combat as a gunship crew chief and I am frustrated with the helicopter capabilities.

Let me preface the rest of my comments with KUDOS to those who keep the game in great shape. I have been playing it since it was a DOS product and now that I am retired I will play it every day until I kick off.

Currently I am playing a long campaign starting in 1966 - that is when I started working with helicopters, H-13 and H-21.

Gunship platoons typically had 8 UH-1B or C models, usually 2 were armed with the 40mm M-5 grenade launcher, 2 7 shot rocket pods (2.75 FFAR) and 2 M-60 door guns. One was a "Hog" with 2 24 shot rocket pods and 2 door guns.The other 5 were either flex gun ships if UH-1B or mini-gun ships if UH-1C. A flex gun system was 2 M-60 and 7 rocket pods to a side plus the door guns, a mini-gun ship had a 7.62 mini-gun and 7 rocket pods to a side plus the door guns. The mini-gun ship was the most common gun ship but it is not represented in the game. Suggestions for the UH-1C Mini-gun ship:
M-134 mini-gun 6 shots – but the impact results should reflect a 600 round, 3 second burst;
M-134 mini-gun 6 shots;
2x2.75 FFAR 7 shots,
M-60 door guns 90 shots.

Another frustration is having the aircraft turn tail and run. Gunship crews were volunteers and were the most experienced crews in the unit, running off the board would end your flying career. They would, however, take evasive action to look for a better attack point.

Instead of an aircraft simply crashing when shot down, it was more common for an aircraft that was shot down to auto-rotate to a safe landing, be recovered and fly again. During TET we sent five gunships to Quang Ngai City under attack by two battalions of VC. We killed over two hundred and wounded hundreds more without losing an aircraft or a man, however, none of our aircraft were flyable by the end of the day, although within 24 hours all aircraft were back in service.

I think that to make playability more realistic, you need to reduce the damage possibilities from just small arms, leave everything else the same. When an aircraft has received max damage, if at low level it can auto-rotate to a clear hex within three hexes and the crew escapes. The aircraft is recoverable unless destroyed on the ground, and the crew has the opportunity to escape and evade. If at high altitude, extend the auto-rotation possibilities to 5 clear hexes. If there are no clear hexes available the aircraft crashes and the crew might not escape. If double max damage occurs, the aircraft is destroyed in the air.

[DRG]

Try an experiment.......build a test scenario using the Helos you mentioned then increase crew experience and morale using the "modify current units data" then see if that changes things closer to what you remember.

Helos leave the map when damage becomes an issue rather than letting it accumulate.........it's a "safety valve" because most players would not retire the unit when damage became critical.

Auto-rotating landings rather than crashing would require "creative" code work that may or may not be possible

EDIT......I *ASSUME* when you write " aircraft" you are only referring to helos....?

Otherwise, we are glad you are enjoying the game in your retirement and happy to see you posting on the forums. You may want to consider building copy of the US OOB as an R&D then experiment with formation and weapon combinations then post it here for me to look at so I know exactly what you are thinking needs to be adjusted. Set them up separate as TEST formations or units..you may want to increase morale and experience modifiers as well to see how that works...currently Helo formations are not treated as "elite" units with + modifiers...maybe they should be but keep in mind "if we do it for one.......we do it for all"

In the meantime, if anyone else want's to join in the conversation, feel free...especially if you have first-hand experience like Don or are just a "gamer"....it seems to me the general impression is Helos are too difficult to shoot down...

[Suhiir]

While I certainly understand the "need" to have helo's auto withdraw (as you said many players wouldn't retire them) it does bother me that they do so after taking a single point of damage.

Would it be possible (without an unreasonable amount of code changing) to have them withdraw when they reach say 50% of their max damage threshold?

donscott:
If you want the mini-gunship steal one from the USMC OOB (Unit# 884 - "UH-1E+ Gunship" available in 9/67).

[donscott]

OOOKKKAAYY - you realize I'm older than dirt and my mind is just as crusty. I've never done this before but I'll give it a shot. By the way, KUDOs for the 2018 update, looks good.

Of course when I talk about aircraft, I'm talking helos, there is no other option.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by donscott

OOOKKKAAYY - you realize I'm older than dirt and my mind is just as crusty. I've never done this before but I'll give it a shot.

Think of it as a mind exercise. Just look at what's been done then build your own copies using a marker that they are experimental ( EXP) or TEST or just X_

Originally Posted by donscott

By the way, KUDOs for the 2018 update, looks good.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by donscott

Of course when I talk about aircraft, I'm talking helos, there is no other option.

I expected as much but aircraft ( real ones with those wingy things off to each side ) and helos are two different game animals

Don

[DRG]

Since the US OOB is getting short on unit slots if there is an existing unit that could be armed "more correctly" that's the better way than a new unit. In late '66 there are already 4 UH-1B's in the US OOB......there is 1 in USMC.....so I think the reason to " borrow" one from there is not necessary

[donscott]

As long as no systems were disrupted we would stay in the fight and often not know how bad the damage was until we landed. We were mostly volunteer adrenaline junkies anyway.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by donscott

As long as no systems were disrupted we would stay in the fight and often not know how bad the damage was until we landed. We were mostly volunteer adrenaline junkies anyway.

Andy might be able to adjust that..... admittedly it is annoying to have your helos go into retreat with minimal damage and delaying that until 90% damage might be somewhat more realistic....I haven't looked at the code to see what would be involved and I only have a rudimentary knowledge of coding anyway

[DRG]

I just double checked and Attack helos do get a +5 Experience boost already

[donscott]

I went in and changed some things, but it didn't change anything when I tried to build a battle, maybe that was the wrong approach.

The first thing I did was change the minigun, weapon 185. I tried to figure what the strike impact would be from a 3 second 600 round burst, think I set it at 30 HE. This should be discussed.

I changed the UH-1B gunship to:
Weapon 1 2xM-60 (134) 40 HE, they carried 1800 rounds per gun.
Weapon 2 same
Weapon 3 2x2.75 FFAR 7 (177), we carried 7 shots to a side.
Weapon 4 door guns, 2xM-60 (134) 30HE we carried about 2,000 rounds per gun.

I added door guns to the UH-1B SS-11.

I changed Unit 862 UH-1B Maxwell to a UH-1C Mini-gun ship.
Weapon 1 mini-gun (185)6 shots, we carried 3700 rounds but when you fire 600 rounds in three seconds you run out fast. Hint-have ammo resupply available.
Weapon 2, also a mini-gun
Weapon 3, 2x2.75 FFAR (177) 7
Weapon 4, doorguns

The UH-1C Frog (893)- (I hated that name, mine was just the M-5 ship), I took away the AP ammo, we had no way of changing types of ammo in action. I changed the rockets to 7 and added door guns.

The UH-1C and UH-1M were virtually the same aircraft except for the engine. The AH-1G, UH-1H and UH-1M had a stronger engine then earlier models. I think you don't need units 892 or 894.

+5 experience boost barely makes up for the swagger, but I guess it will have to do.

The UH-1E of the Marines did not have a min-gun, it had the TAT-101 system of two M-60's under the nose. They didn't carry much ammo.

I know you are busy, but I wrote an article about UH-1 Armament that I posted on Armchair General, Vietnam thread, user name Rotorwash, just in case you get bored.