Wed 20th September

[leopard]

Fun game, my thanks Col, Blockov's lot went home in their usual disgrace, after forgetting to bring ammunition (again) or so it seemed.

Was thinking swapping to a BMP-1 small unit and BMP-2 medium one (to get the LMG), wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference here though.

Wondering on the Mil-24D though, seems I either need two more to max them out or to leave them in the box, they are (in theory) my main anti-tank unit though so just dropping them is a problem..

decisions decisions...

I've come to the conclusion that HINDs are utter trash. Take the planes....

Even if you kill the AA, you will die to machine guns OR the 50 rockets coming your way in the NATO turn. Jet's don't have to put up with rockets or infantry fire, and are far better at killing NATO tanks. They only have to come on once to cripple a NATO tank unit.

To be honest I've not noticed much missile or MG fire during my opponents turn, they tend to fire all they can as reaction fire so unable to shoot it again in their own turn..

The ten points of them blatted a Chieftain before they all we shot down/chased off which is probably not too bad.

The Su-25 does look fun, its basically the same weapons load out though (so the ATGM is RoF:1) but they cost a bit more and are a lot less reliable..

"da plan" with the Mil-24D is to let them loiter off board for a few turns, not while the enemy AA is killed, to be honest thats not even a target, but to wait until the one turn it matters when everything lunges forwards and ideally swamps the enemy with targets, if they kill one tank I'm happy, two I'm very happy, then they die.

Issue tends to be the daft number of dice in AA fire thats coming back at anything, Su-25 and Mil-24D together to dilute that could work but its a lot of points (may try it anyway though)


Main problem with the darn things is they turn up, somehow survive the enemy AA fire, then their RoF:1 missiles all miss...

[Old Longy]

Guided missiles CANNOT shoot in reaction fire.

What I found is any HINDs that survive reaction fire die in the next turn to TOWs and such. Waste of points, doubt I'll ever field them again.

[leopard]

Guided missiles CANNOT shoot in reaction fire.

What I found is any HINDs that survive reaction fire die in the next turn to TOWs and such. Waste of points, doubt I'll ever field them again.

my understanding is you can only shoot at aircraft (of either short) in your shooting step, or before the aircraft fires, if you shoot in reaction you lose your ability to shoot those weapons in your next turn.

there is a note that guided weapons cannot fire in reaction, but it includes "other than Guided AA", so stuff like Milan teams etc can't react against helicopters, but the stuff that targets my poor innocent Mil-24D (Rapier) etc certainly can, plus the odd MG shot which seem to have an uncanny ability to do more damage than dedicated AA weapons.

So yes strike jets will likely have less of the "there is also this" weapon at them, though frankly I'd prefer Milan teams popped at the helicopters and left my poor innocent tanks alone..


To be honest if a flight of four Mil-24D (10 points) manage to squish a typical NATO battle tank before they get shot down I'm reasonably happy, the Su-25 would need to squish two of the swines to be worth it, which coupled with the 50-50 chance of them not showing up the turn they are needed is a pig given they have the same RoF as the helicopters.


I think any air is a bit of a risk, going for the lot or none seems a better bet, do see the point on helicopters (especially Mil-24D being so easy to hit) are not hard to shoot down if someone really wants them dead with ATGM in their own turn, way to avoid it seems to be to bring them in and strike, then if they live long enough to do it again rejoice!


Blockov has requested some more pilots from command who are starting to wonder how he gets through more of the actual helicopters than the missiles they carry

[Old Longy]

IMO from a lot of NATO games, and a couple of soviet, Planes survivability is 10x that of helicopters. HINDs are lucky to ever fire more than twice AND throw away VPs.

If you are manoeuvring your tanks correctly, a lot of MILANs won't be able to see them. But they can see the HINDs...

Honestly mate, give the planes a try for a few games. You will not regret it (your opponent will).

[leopard]

Well I've got four of each so may just do that for a bit