Ka-50 Escorting Gazelles | DCS | BSD Helo World

Great flight following Lateo & Gizmo. Follows on the previous session, with some Black Shark Den members informally hopping on Helo World. MY take-homes from this sortie (critiqueing myself):
I need some more landing & formation flying practice - especially with zippy little Gazelles. It's very easy to lose sight of them with the limited cockpit angles of the Shark.

The assault on that tiny clearing on the peak needed a bit longer passes - possibly acquiring them with a larger tracking gate with laser on to ground stabilise, then dipping lower until close enough for a descisive rocket strike, breaking away sooner before dipping into one of the gulleys with some room to spare for the acceleration of the dive. The large tracking gate would avoid locking something specific, and have it drift off should that thing start driving and the scope loses it. Not 100% sure why I was having trouble with the scope drifting off target and needing to reacquire all the time - if it was just be forgetting to have the laser on while locking or what - but that was chowing up my time to find targets on each pass.
Don't think a super-long range high angle would've been ideal - would need a lot of engine power (which I probably had), and would have left me exposed to other possibly KS-19 batteries in the surrounds.
The cannon with AP rounds worked well on those BMPs for point blank, though I wasn't quite using it in a shock & awe bump. If there was tougher armour there I might have needed a longer/high shots unless I already had it locked & lined up with only a gentle pull up to unmask on a run-in - Vikhrs need the pippers lined up well for point-blank shots.
Some of the turns being too strong on the pedals rather than having bank sort out the flight path left it with too much sideslip on the attack pass, meaning the pipper was far off on the side rather than where I needed it.

Some more "directional" awareness, in terms of checking the target point versus that rocky ridge and the pre-flight North-to-South attack direction. They already knew the target area, I was playing catchup. Sattelite view from the F10 might also have helped.
Going in for BMPs I should have switched to AP earlier.

I was a bit pre-occupied scoping out the gulleys leading up there for enemy contacts rather than holding formation or checking the ABRIS. My target point 2 was pretty close to the clearing, so I could have been more prepared for that first turn-in given the pre-flight instruction of an initial attack from the North.

And I was clearly still in the mood to chance it with TOWs rather than doing attack runs like the previous sorties that afternoon.

My loadout was the 5 inboard S-13s, 6 x Vikhrs, Full Guns, 63% fuel, total a lighter 10321kg. Targets were at ~1381m with the flight path close to that in altitude for the peaks. Still debating if I should have taken a second S-13 pod or less fuel.

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