In real life, the hellfire missile suite has a few different options for target aquisition and flight path to target. Now, I realise that due to the relative power of helecopters in the game and the limited reasonable visibility distance, that giving the hellfire it's realistic 7 km long, 2km high flight path may not be wise or even necessary (the implications of this and the remote target designation mentioned below would turn the hellfire into a wonder weapon of game breaking proportions). I've been wracking my brain with ways to expand the use of the laser designator (and/or the Kiowa Warrior) for team play, and to make helecopter missions a little more realistic.
The hellfire missile in real life can be employed in a number of ways. The way ofp does sort of emulates the Lock-On Before Launch (LOBL) method. In this method, the helecopter emits a coded spectre laser beam to the target and allows the hellfire to lock on to the reflected radiation before launch. The helelcopter launches the missile, and then guides the missile to the target throughout its entire flight path, similar to the way TOW missiles are employed. This way, the gunner can ensure a positive lock before he expends a missile, reducing the likelihood of a lost or stray ATGM. The pilot can also choose to launch a missile using an external laser designator, like a forward observer unit or a scout helecopter like the Kiowa Warrior. Using this method, he simpy points his aircraft at a target (presumably but not necessarily from behind a mask like a hill or something), and the missile climbs to scan for the coded spectre IR reflection. If it finds it, it locks on and continues to the target. This method of employment is called Lock On After Launch (LOAL). There are 3 different kinds of LOAL employment methods, but all of them share the trait that the missile is fired dumb and scans for targets while in a preprogrammed ascent pattern.
My idea was to see if you can script a hellfire missile to lock on to a laser designator target either before or after launch. I've been trying to use the laser designator target (stock, no scripts) in different scenarios, but I've never really found a use for them. If you could use the mast site on a Kiowa or a hidden Spec Ops commando with a laser designator on a target, and you could fire hellfires from behind a hill and have them seek targets, you could have a semi realistic/challenging helecopter assault mission. You could load up an armour column with so much AAA that they could shoot down the moon and, as long as you were meticulous and careful about the way you went about it, you would have a reasonable chance at success, given time and the use of proper tactics (I'm a big fan of the pop up attack, myself).
So, all you scripters and computer geniuses out there, is this possible/reasonable? I would greatly appreciate feedback in this regard.
Sources:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/agm-114.htmThe above link has some neat information on the flight patterns of the Hellfire, as well as its statistics and armour penetration characteristics (which are a little bit underated in OFP, but the choppers are death machines already).
Topic: Hellfire Missile and Laser Designation (Read 2364 times)