How much to use in your salvo?

[Rudd]

I've done a bit of piloting ingame, but I generally stay away from attack varients, though I want to give them a serious go.

My question to the pilots around here mainly concerns the aircraft that use hydras.

you receive a CAS request, do you use your entire salvo on that target and then RTB to reload or do you say, fire 6 hydras, then swing around to a safe position and ask if more is needed?

in my mind, coming around and firing several sets of approx 6 missiles would probabyl be far more effective and suppress the enemy as much as kill them, better helping my friends on the ground, as well as decreasing the time I am back on teh carier.

what do teh experts think?

[masterceo]

Keep in mind that while making an attack run you are most likely to deploy flares, and as you have only 30 of those you can't make a lot attack runs before landing to replenish your supply. My technique involves strafing an area, making a turn and strafing it perpendicularly to the 1st attack run, and then flying away.

EDIT: So answering your question, I use half of my ordinance on 1st run and the remaining half on the 2nd run.

[cyberzomby]

From my experience of being on the receiving end I'd do it in 2 parts as well. After the first run if we have casualty's mostly we start reviving and rebuilding. If you moved away in the carrier direction we think your going back for resuply when in fact a minute later here you are unloading again! Different direction works as well since the enemy will have to find a different cover angle.

[Ron-Schultz]

Normaly after every income u have to fall back to the carrier becouse u must drop flares and u only got 30. So when u go in shoot every rockets into your target becouse u always have to reload after that. As a result only come in for hardwaretargets (fb, apc, aa,...) and spray from long range for the enemy infantery with the gun. (middle of the number of the sl-atk-marker)

[ralfidude]

Chopper wise, all of them, you dont have many, so make it count. Coming in for another run just makes it more dangerous for you.

As for a JET cas with rockets, i do plenty and then pull out, ask if more are needed.

[Tarranauha200]

Whit CAS huey I unload all the hell I have on them! muhahaha

[Tim270]

For CAS Hueys..

- Depends on the targets. If my target is a fob, there is likely going to be emplacements spread around it, maybe even troops. Thus, I want a lot of spread to try and hit everything that is there first time incase there is AA/TOW. So for a fob I would say all 14 (?).

- An APC is quite trickey and requires about 3-5 hits to kill it, most of the time its going to move after being fired at so you may need multiple runs, however this makes you a really easy target. So I would say put as many into him on the first run as possible, Slowly and accurately rather than going for spread.

- Generally I would say its bad practice to do 2nd run right after the 1st. You attract a lot of attention, everything that can see you will want to kill you. Turning back in line of sight/sound range of the enemy forces you to lose speed which makes you a easy kill for ground AA and APCS that might have missed/not seen you the first time.

- You can only get away with as many runs as you have flares for. Muttrah especially you need a lot of flaring. You never know when a sneaky AA can get into the docks and catch you off guard when going back to the carrier without flares.

A rule of thumb is to 'Shoot-and-scoot', hanging around for too long is just going to attract way too much attention to yourself, as the CAS birds only really get away with strafing when everyone on the ground is engaged in combat and not watching the sky.

Long story short, I think its best to always do runs with maximum surprise then get the hell out of there.

[Hitman.2.5]

why using the Attack heuy, fire is sets of two then once your sure you gonna hit every time after the first set fire em all try to avoid going for BTR's or BDRM's as there cannon will make short work of you, with a jet just aim at the numbers on your marker and you dont have to go into SAM range, use as many as you want to.

[Arnoldio]

From an infantry point, it seriously f's me up when masterceos variant is used. (if my squad is the target, especially on low cover area.). After first run you are supressed, and you are back before everybody can get some cover, wich results in decimated squad.

[Dirty-Lex]

From an Aviators view point,

I would say that it is situation dependent, however keep in mind that the amount of firepower you send down range should be directly coorelated to the threat at hand. In other words: if you are blowing up BMP's lay down about 3/4's of your rockets if that's all you have3/4's is a safe number because you want the highest probability to make a kill on your first run.


If you have Hellfires available, hang back out of range and line of sight, and woop their ***, then Charlie Mike, drop about 3 to 4 ten round bursts of 30mm and you should be good to go.


another smidgen of wisdom to keep in mind is that it takes aprox 2 seconds from the time you are locked by an SA-7 for it to hit you. so dump some flares when you are in range.

[Sgt.BountyOrig]

The simple answer is, as many as you need,
If your using a no-gunner craft,you should use as many rockets as possible in one pass
In gunner craft, you should be letting the gunner expend his salvo first, and then use hydra, or only let the gunner attack and concerntrate on angle, height and hover motion

[illidur]

so i dissagree with the above statement that they are like arty. firing all the rockets blindly like a fool usually makes the enemy hide/ defensive. and they will just revive after you leave. because a good pilot will be very accurate with hydras now that you can't see the attack marker to fire bvr.

i'd say it all GREATLY depends on the situation. now that every attack helicopter flys like a hydra huey, i'd say strafing twice is best against the most common and popular target ( THE ENEMY FOB ).i'll say why in a sec.

lets say for example you have a hydra huey (14 rockets) and you know its a target fob (no aa emplaced). you would want to come in at a 45* angle while throttling down so you can pullup and slow your fall. dont forget to flare.

this is a 2 pass assault. fire 7 into the lase making sure to kill the fob and whatever is around it. fly away flareing and gaining altitude. wait 2 mins, and come in again killing the medic that would have healed all the wounded and killing the guy rebuilding the aa. that last part is the most crucial for killing off their tickets and getting kills. you would have fired only a few rockets at the aa if its lased perfectly. also the 2nd run can give you an even greater advantage because of the co-pilot's thermal lases. Its ok to fire almost all the rockets, as long as you save a few for a second pass to finish them off.

hope this helps.

[Qubetube]

I gotta say, this thread has been very informative, especially Tophatter94's post. Also, back when Huey gunships were first introduced, the ones with rocket pods were formally known as Aerial Rocket Artillery. The M270 MLRS is also considered an artillery piece. I'm pretty sure that rockets can be considered artillery in the aerial bombardment role.