Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/games1/f15bomb.zip/F15BOMB.TXT

Text File | 1993-06-14 | 6KB | 111 lines

Greetings!

Here is a post from Mike Barrs of CompuServe's Flight Forum
on selecting and bombing targets.  Hope it helps!

Uploaded by permission.

Quentin/MicroProse

#: 143371 S8/Modern Air Combat
    06-Jan-93  10:20:17
Sb: #143315-#F15 III Tactics
Fm: Mike Barrs/Assoc SysOp 76702,1706

The altitude for your ingress to target should be low enough to
avoid triggering enemy radar, but high enough to give you enough
look-ahead capability for your RBM (ground radar) so you can steer
around ground threats. The enemy will probably not launch aircraft
until a ground radar locks you up or until you hit your first target,
so I don't worry much about enemy aircraft on the way to target. I
have my radar in a/g mode 90% of the time during ingress, switching
to a/a mode only for brief forward scans.

While you're still "fence out", fly at 2100 feet so you can use
the full 80 mile range on your RBM to look ahead for threats. Put
the RBM in command mode (Alt 1 for the pilot's MPCD) and hit
<backspace> to target any blips you see ahead of you. In the
daytime, you can "cheat" and hit F10 to see what you're looking at.
At night, you have to guess what it is by the layout. Groups of
three or four blips tightly clustered together are probably AAA
or SAM's. It's a good idea to consider all blips as threats and
find a path where you can weave between them instead of flying
directly over. If you hear a single beep from your TWI while flying
at 2100 feet, immediately drop to 800 feet until you clear the
enemy radar range.

Once you go "fence in", drop to 1100 feet (I leave my autopilot
on to keep me out of the dirt). At this altitude you'll have a
40 mile look-ahead range on your RBM. Continue to steer around
ground targets. If you have to get close to a ground target,
drop down to 800 feet or less.

Mountainous terrain can be tough. If the mountains are scattered
with clear terrain between them, my first choice is to stay low
and steer around them. Sometimes mountains are arranged in long
continuous ranges and you have to fly over them. I look for the
lowest notch in the mountain range and change my course to fly
over the notch, keeping as close to the mountain as I dare. This
is where you run the biggest chance of triggering an enemy radar,
so head for low altitude the second you clear the top of the ridge.

If you see a square "locked" signal on your TWI, enemy aircraft
will be vectored to your present location. When that happens on
ingress to the target, I hit the afterburner and boogie fast to
put some distance from that point, then I slow down and stop every
5 miles or so to fly a 360 turn with a/a radar, looking for bandits.
Get AWACS reports but don't depend on them.

When you get within 40 miles of the target (flying at 1100 ft.),
turn to one side so you get a good "squint angle" on your RBM.
Hit "S" to see where your secondary target waypoint is, and turn
to that side of the primary target unless the enemy is more
concentrated there. As soon as you get within 20 miles of the
target, drop to 800 feet (you'll still get 20 mile range on the
RBM). Hit <backspace> on the RBM, or generate HRM maps until
you're sure you have the target locked up. Turn directly toward
the target at about 5 mile range. Slow to 70% throttle and pop
up to 1200 feet for the attack. Don't go any higher. If you're
getting beeps from your TWI, you might even try 800 feet
(turn hard after dropping slick bombs to avoid blast damage).
Immediately after hitting the target or launching stand-off
weapons, drop to 600 feet, hit afterburners and boogie to a
safe position, then fly a 360 degree turn with a/a radar on to
look for fighters. Good luck!

Additional info on designating ground targets with the RBM:

The easiest way I've found to designate targets is to first
put the RBM (ground radar) in command mode, where it shows
the four bright dots under the display. For the pilot's display,
that's <Alt 1>. It's usually  <Alt 6> for the Wizzo's display.
Then hit <backspace> as many times as necessary to cycle the
cursor over the available targets. You can use the F10 view
to "cheat" and see what you're locked on (this only works
during daytime). Note that this targeting technique does not
depend on getting an offset "squint angle" for the radar. If
several targets are close together, they might show as a single
dot in your RBM view at 40 mile range. Sometimes you need to
get within 20 or 10 mile range to distinguish individual targets
in a group.

For more precision and for night flying, generate HRM maps.
Fly at an offset to the target so you place it to one side of
the HRM display. The closer you place it to the edge of the radar
beam, the faster the map will generate. When the triangle symbol
for the target comes into view, wait until it comes into the 20
mile range of your RBM, then hit <backspace> to put the cursor
at the tip of the triangle (or use the mouse and right-click
on it). Use "Z" and "X" to set your zoom range, then hit "L" for
lock. This generates an HRM picture.  Look for the target
triangle... the crosshair should be centered on it. If it's not,
click with the right mouse button. If you don't see the
triangle at all, zoom out and generate another HRM until you
find it. Once you get the crosshair over the triangle, you're
all set. Jump to the pilot position and steer towards the diamond
symbol on your HUD.

Mike Barrs, Assoc.SysOp
CompuServe Flight Forum