Gliders

[II./JG1_Krupinski]

I know this must be a noob question, but I can't figure it out for the life of me. Even so, I am a noob here.

How do you utilize Gliders for a mission?

We want to be able to drop forces, tanks, aa, arty, etc. at various place on the map.

In FMB you create a glider and a tow aircraft like it were an escort. The have the tow ground attack when you want to let the glider go. Works "fairly" well.

I can't duplicate it in the MP.

What planes do I have to use? What's the MP procedure?

Best regards,

Raven

[II./JG1_Krupinski]

I've tried a few things. An Me -321 is available IF I select a tow plane (Ju 52). The Me-321 is available like an escort.

It schedules fine (it seems) but, when you fly the mission both planes immediately explode - physical laws as occupying the same space as another object is prohibited.

Looking further, they start off as airstarts. I open in FMB, and I notice the waypoint targets of the planes are incomplete and reverse. The Me-321 has a single waypoint target, the Ju 52. Okay fine: I set these guys to takeoff from the field. Loading it up in the game, they aren't connected.

I may be wrong, but I think the way the system is setting up the tow wrong. The glider only has 1 waypoint.

In FMB I had to set the glider plane up with multiple waypoints and have it's waypoints 'set' (using the set button) to the tow planes waypoints. And you have to do this for EVERY waypoint you don't want to release the glider.

I have an FMB mission demonstrating using an Me-321 with a 110 C-4 if this post is confusing. It's late and I'm tired.

Please help, we've been farting with this single task for better than a week.

[II./JG1_Krupinski]

Update: If the glider is TAKEOFF then the glider requires multiple waypoints and 'sets' have to be performed for each waypoint 'not a drop'.

For airstarts you need only 1 waypoint (start) for the glider and that is the only one requiring a set.

However, the glider can't be at the same position as the tow plane.

Doing this in MP puts the glider and tow plane at the same start point.

Another note, DO NOT PERFORM ANY ALTITUDE CHANGES WITH THE TOW PLANE IF IT'S SLOW! This causes the glider to 'catch' the tow plane and BOOOOM!

Am I doing something wrong in the MP concerning the start positions of the planes?

-Raven

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

It has been a while since I looked at glider operations, but they have been used quite seriously in at least one public campaign that I know of.

First, you control whether the glider has an airstart or not by the DCS Enforce Air Starts for Gliders option.

Second, to make a glider mission, you put a tow plane and a glider on the same airbase. Then you load your airborne troops onto the glider as freight. Then task the TOW PLANE to fly where you want, and place a GATTACK point where you want the glider to land. After "Finalize", you will see a glider drop-down box where the usual escort drop-down is. Choose your glider, and commit. That's it. Success is usually dependent on your skill in making a smooth approach to tow plane release, in estimating the glide distance, and in choosing a suitably wide area free of rivers and obstacles for the glider to land at. If the glider lands OK and survives the mission, you will be able to unload your airborne combat units directly using the MP.

Third, there are catches. Some tow planes are able to be flown by humans (Bf-110). The coop host must NEVER occupy the pilot seat in a tow plane with an active glider or else an immediate detonation will result - this is an IL-2 bug. Furthermore, steep turns or high flight speeds can cause detonations or early releases. Some combinations of aircraft do not work together either.

Now, Raven, you are reporting a bug here. I will have a look at that ASAP, many thanks.

Cheers,
4Shades

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Just had a look. Prompted by Raven's post, I found that for certain (long) air regiment names, the DB NewWaypoints.Way_Type field was not wide enough (only 20 characters) to take the full glider operations directive. I have increased this field to 50 characters which should remove that intermittent problem.

Second, I checked the air start and ground start code for gliders. All is working well, however commanders still need to be aware of reasonable towplane+glider combinations. In particular, for Raven's situation, the combination of Ju-52 3MG4E with Me-321 is not a good mix. The Ju-52 is too underpowered to pull the Me-321 with either a ground start or an air start. If you use a He-111 variant, the glider operation works properly with a Me-321. It may be that the Ju-52 can only tow a G-11 glider successfully. I didn't try the Bf-110 towplane with the Me-321.

So, yes, glider ops are working OK now, but will be more robust with the next patch. Commanders need to make sure that their towplane+glider combinations are OK. Remember, only one towplane+glider per runway!

Cheers,
4Shades

[II./JG1_Krupinski]

Thanks Shades for looking into this.

Just had a look. Prompted by Raven's post, I found that for certain (long) air regiment names, the DB NewWaypoints.Way_Type field was not wide enough (only 20 characters) to take the full glider operations directive. I have increased this field to 50 characters which should remove that intermittent problem.

Don't understand the above. What intermittent problem?

In particular, for Raven's situation, the combination of Ju-52 3MG4E with Me-321 is not a good mix. The Ju-52 is too underpowered to pull the Me-321 with either a ground start or an air start. If you use a He-111 variant, the glider operation works properly with a Me-321. It may be that the Ju-52 can only tow a G-11 glider successfully.

Tests in FMB show that the Ju 52 can get it up and going from airstart or ground, but doing things like leveling off causes the Me321 to collide with Ju 52 if at the default SE speed of 166.


Airstarts are fine, I'd hate to require ground starts just for the gliders. But the airstarts, regardless of tow plane type always end up being the EXACT SAME location. As soon as the mission starts BOOM! There goes the glider and tow plane.

Here's the details just generated from DCS 3.1.

[I_SG3_10]
Planes 1
OnlyAI 1
Skill 3
Class air.HE_111H6
Fuel 50
weapons default
[I_SG3_10_Way]
NORMFLY 6912.71 47514.69 4000.00 200.00 &0
NORMFLY 12789.70 47913.90 1500.00 214.00 &0
NORMFLY 19904.30 44916.40 1500.00 214.00 &0
NORMFLY 23564.30 40071.10 1500.00 214.00 &0
NORMFLY 26730.90 35390.00 1500.00 214.00 &0
GATTACK 29486.30 31407.00 1500.00 214.00 &0
NORMFLY 31542.50 27834.70 1500.00 214.00 &0
NORMFLY 8677.27 18185.10 1500.00 214.00 &0
LANDING 5399.28 47247.83 0.00 0 &0
[I_SG3_20]
Planes 1
Skill 3
Class air.ME_321
Fuel 100
weapons default
[I_SG3_20_Way]
NORMFLY 6912.71 47514.69 4000.00 200.00 I_SG3_10 0 &0

Notice two things here, one the start x/y/z are identical
6912.71 47514.69 4000.00
for both planes

Secondly, the altitude is 4000 meters for the airstart even though the rest of the trip is 1500 meters.

This scenario happens no matter what the plane combination is, so I don't think its a reasonable combination of glider+tow issue.

So, yes, glider ops are working OK now, but will be more robust with the next patch. Commanders need to make sure that their towplane+glider combinations are OK. Remember, only one towplane+glider per runway!

Could you explain more in detail about getting them to work OK with an airstart? At this point is how do I go about setting up a workable glider airstart? Did I miss something / do something wrong? They still occupy the same space at mission start.

-Raven

[II./JG1_Krupinski]

Shades,

I reset everything by basically reinstalling all pieces. And low and behold, airstarts for gliders are working. The only setting I changed was 'force airstarts for gliders' to false (unchecked).

I was hoping it'd ground start to test, but I'm glad it worked airstart.

-Raven

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Interesting - I tested the code last night with identical coords for towplane and glider and it worked every time, except for Ju-52 + Me-321. This is the way I have always done it in SEOW, and it has worked many times before for other people. This issue deserves more digging...

The intermittent problem is something you hadn't noticed, but I did.

EDIT: Just saw your "working" post. Wow.

Cheers,
4S

[II./JG1_Krupinski]

Shades,

I'm sure a lot of this can be chaulked up to my noobness. Last night was late, it's possible that I scheduled the wrong tow plane - hence doesn't work with Ju 52.

Today it works with He-111 and I'm happy for that.

Now I'm getting the details hashed out. Seems that the you have to plan to release 1 waypoint before your GA waypoint.

-Raven

[eric963]

How do I determine what planes can be used to tow gliders?

Eric

[EJGr.Ost_Chamel]

How do I determine what planes can be used to tow gliders?

In the table "object_specifications" of the database there is a field "Tow_Glider". The planes with a value of 1 are able to tow gliders.

List of these planes:

Code: Select all

Object_Type   Object_Class
G4M2E         PBO
HE_111H2      PBO
HE_111H6      PBO
PE_8          PBO
JU_88MSTL     PTR
BF_110C4      PFB
BF_110C4B     PFB
BF_110G2      PFB
C_47          PTR
HE_111Z       PTR
JU_52_3MG4E   PTR
L2D           PTR
LI_2          PTR

Greetings

Chamel

[eric963]

Thanks!!!!



Eric