A little bird tells me people will be seriously disappointed with this “tank” (it isn’t) and how it can’t even do one pass with magical AI.
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An AH-6 is just jealous of the mighty Russian beast 
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That’s great news!
The current AI Mi-24 is affected by 20MM fire the same way you would be if someone threw popcorn at you, and absorbs 30MM like a sponge. The AIM-9 is also how they strip the paint off before repainting the camouflage.
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Years ago, Belsimtek showed us what they had in store for “Jesterski”. The AI should be able to perform both pilot and gunner roles. Some of the relatively simple commands should be able to be given using a new UI.
We are aiming to implement control over AI functionality with help of AI GUI which will allow you to use only 4 buttons to give AI specific commands regarding:
Heading
Speed
ALtitude
Maneuvers
Hover menu
Target choice
Something that plagues many AI’s in many sims and games is the fact that they are often either all-seeing and all-knowing with near-godly aim or simply brain-dead. BST showed us they were going the extra mile to make sure the AI behaved realistically, showing us some diagrams (unfortunately annotated in Cyrillic) for how spotting works for this AI.
This is all already a few years old and since then, BST has folded back into ED. I don’t know what happened to all this. Wether it is still present and has been improved upon or has been CTRL-A deleted. I do have high hopes that the AI will be quite good, despite the fairly limited role of the front-seater.
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Will this be retro-fitted to the Mi8?
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Myth and legend vs reality and all that jazz. It’s more accurate to think of it as a eggbeater artillery piece. Rotary wing Shturmovik is apt for it.
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A propose this… there was an “expert” at the Simulator that was adamant the internal gun of the Eurofighter would have done no damage to the Hind we had in the Database and went all sort of crazy when Pilots could actually shoot it down with a short burst.
Being in charge of the Database I had some serious hard time making him understand the reality of the Russian engineering
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Yeah, my understanding is speed was often more the defense of choice for Hind pilots.
Of course, if DCS is to believed, they are invisible to radar as well…
(at least if you happen to be an errant Amraam)
Spoiler tag for those that do not want to watch RL Hind taking a missile.
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does the hind have the same doppler nav system as the MI8, aswell as the “moving map” thing, I have just spent the evening learning the black magic arts of the one in the MI8, and managed about a hundred km flight over the desert in Syria, ending up about 1km from the target destination… it seems a very good system.
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I’m curious… how does the “moving map” work? Is it a digital display or an actual paper map?
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Yes, has the same navigation system.
The latter. It’s a paper map that has to be exchanged for another when going between areas.
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I appreciated older games that had a single key command that had the gunner cycle between targets with line of sight. Simple, slightly unrealistic, but it worked. You could make range and slew speed increase with AI gunner skill level.
Connected to the Doppler nav, I think - judging from one of the videos posted above. It would make it basically a graphic interface upgrade of the Mi-8 Doppler nav. It’ll be cool to see it in action.
Maybe some will be, I guess?
I don’t hold any delusions about it’s combat capability - if I want to plink a squillion tanks, the Ka-50 will be better, no question.
The Hind will be, in the DCS context, a Hip-like helo with some boosted combat capability (old school AT missiles, a turreted gun) but retaining the same old Soviet charm as the “8”.
I look forward to it for those reasons, plus flying it will be manual, like the Huey or the Hip as opposed to the AP management flying style the Ka requires. I like the Ka-50 but don’t particularly love flying the autopilot…so it’ll be nice to have a tank-kill capable helo that’s fun to fly.
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Ah. Well, in fairness it’s probably better to have the penetration. The turreted gun would probably be frustratingly ineffective.
I quite like the fixed mount look, plus it will need a bit more piloting to stay on the target which will be fun. I cant wait to wreck some soft convoys
It should be faster and more accurate than the hip while moving, but more work to hover and land. There’s also some bits of armor that might or might not make a difference, and you have one less crewmember for that witty banter that really keeps flying machines aloft.
Flying artillery piece is indeed pretty much what the Soviets intended this as. Sturmovik helicopter.
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Most likely, yes. Most cold-war era hinds with flexible guns had either an Afanasev or a YakB. Both are chambered in 12.7mm and thus likely ineffective at anything more armored than infantry and trucks at practical ranges. The twin gun we’re getting now is a modified version of the same gun we already have on our Su-25 variants, so that could be indicative of its performance. Hinds with swiveling 23mm cannons were rare (Like Su-25T levels of rare) but I would totally buy one. An example is this Mi-24VP, which according to wikipedia first flew in 1985 but only saw 25 produced.
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