Page 5
Shooting!
For my tastes the avionics are well done, they are not as complex as the ones found in Longbow 2 but they do the job very well. You will find that there are not a lot of changes from Apache Havoc as far as the radar modes and operations, if you have much time with A-H you will transition to EECH very easily. The Hokum has a nice new feature with the periscope; it will help with the long-range target identification during daylight missions. You can choose to make aiming your weapons easier with a few of the setting in the options menus, there is options to have the avionics realistic or novice and for the target ID to be novice, realistic or off all together. The novice avionics uses your HMS (Helmet Mounted Sight, Hokum) or your HIDSS (Helmet Integrated Display and Sight System, Comanche). This will allow you to lock any target that you have line of sight on; these systems will also not be damaged when in novice mode. The target ID options will change how hard it is for new people to get into killing things, when off the copilot will not ID targets at all, leaving this task for you. This feature would have been nice to use if the sim supported pilot/copilot multiplay.
Right now I think you would have to be a masochist to try this while flying and fighting in EECH. On realistic the CPG will tell you what the unit is by its UN given name when he has line of site and time to do the ID. If you are one of those people who feel that they do not have time to learn the names of military tanks, SAMs and aircraft then the novice mode is for you. While on novice mode the CPG will give you the unit that is locked in simple terms like, enemy tank or enemy helicopter. The manual does a very nice job covering all the important info on how to use the various systems and options. Richard "Flexman" Hawley also covers this very well in his strategy guide (chapters 3 and 4) that can be found on the CD.
Shooting with the Comanche
Fig. 7. Comanche Weapons
Now that you about the systems to use them, here are the weapons that are in EECH. For the Comanche there are five ways to give the enemy a bad day they are:
- 20mm gattling gun
This is good for both light ground and air targets but you have to be within 1.5km and have a clear line of sight to use it. The ammo goes very fast when using it on most ground units so I save it for air targets or for cleaning up an enemy FARP.
- AIM-92 Stinger
This is the heat seeking, fire and forget air-to-air missile that is used for the Comanche. It has a range of 5km but it is pretty easy to spoof with flares. You have to really work with these to figure out how to effectively score kills. The biggest benefit in carrying these over the hellfires is that they are quite light at 13.6 Kg. (about 30 pounds) and they are much faster with a top speed of mach 2.0.
- AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire
This is an active radar fire and forget missile that can be used to ripple several off at different targets in quick succession. Here is one of the things that I would have liked to see in EECH weapons modeling is missing. It is a bit of a pain to hit the next target button quickly then ripple off hellfires at them when in the real helicopter you would use a PFZ (priority fire zone). This weapon is very good against any ground target and it is also quite good against slower air targets. This hellfire is used in the LOAL mode very well, you can get a radar lock on a target then lob the missile high over your cover and stay hidden until the target is destroyed.
Fig. 8. Hellfire from Comanche- AGM-114K Hellfire II
This is the semi-active laser guided version of the hellfire. It requires that the target be marked with a laser until impact. In order to use the LOAL feature you will have to unmask and mark the target before impact. You pay a price by carrying either type of hellfire, they are 45+ Kg (100+ Lbs.) and they have a top speed of mach 1.3. You will also lose range if you decide to use the LOAL mode since the high arcing flight path uses a big part of it's engine burn. This is a very nice thing to see modeled in EECH since most sims miss this.
- Hydra 70 Rockets
These are 70mm unguided folding fin rockets. You must line the helicopters nose up with the target to get lock with them; the wing-mounted pods do however have some movement to help you line up the shot. There are two different warheads that can be used on the rockets, M255 HE and the M261 MPSM. The M255 is for use against soft ground targets and grounded aircraft. The M261 are for use against any armored targets that you run into.
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