I feel the same way. I maxed 4 air trees and generally perform very well in aircraft, but sometimes I forget a feature or learn new tricks to features. For example, using external view to get an approximation then switching to the camera to quickly lock a target.
Some tips, mainly for laser and TV weapons: One thing that's very important for autotracker laser weapons: wait for the "POINT" message next to your weapon in the top left. This means that the weapon sees the target and will likely be able to hit it. If the POINT tag is not showing up, you either need to: -Enable your laser. There's a separate keybind for it. - Aim yourself at the target. The weapon only has a limited FOV (especially true for LGBs such as Paveways), so it's possible that the weapon will simply pass over the target area without ever seeing your laser. Make sure you're oriented towards the target (so most likely diving), and when the POINT tag pops up, make sure you're not still actively pitching downwards or rolling or else you'll bump your bomb and throw it off course (lol). Lay off the controls for a full second or two once you have the POINT tag. - Get closer; use your missile's statcard range (sometimes also dispayed in your targeting cam) to figure out how close. If you're using an LGB, try it in a test flight against a point straight ahead to try to learn (for most Paveway bombs, the bomb only sees targets within 7km.) It's worth noting that you _can_ toss-bomb LGBs further than their laser range; with enough speed and a lot of practice, you can climb above the horizon before releasing the bomb, then let it arc down as it glides and thus angle itself to see your laser as it comes into range. But this is fairly hard to do, and will usually just waste your bomb. You can also do some trickery with your laser to make the weapon acquire it and proceed to hit a target from a "bad" angle, thus overcoming the limited FOV issue. Aim your laser anywhere it'll get the POINT tag, drop your bomb, then lower your laser down onto the intended target slowly. The weapon will attempt to follow it and soon enough be able to see what your actual target was. But again, this is hard to get right, and it's usually better to just put yourself into a dive and do it the traditional way; you can always pull off and climb afterwards (just watch the square in your targeting view to see how far you can afford to continue pitching upwards without exceeding your laser gimbal limit). Some other tips: - Speed. Your weapon range is dependent on the firing platform, especially if the weapon has no power of its own. Some aircraft, like the A-10, need to make up for a speed deficiency with altitude, or else even a Maverick won't reach the target. For A-10 Mavericks, I like to have _at most_ a 3:1 ratio for range:personal alt (assuming you're at a decent speed, relatively speaking). Once you've locked your target, you can switch to the cockpit to see the range displayed on the HUD; if my target's 6km away, I want to be at least at 2000m up. But a 2- or 2.5- to 1 ratio is a safer bet. - Orient your plane above the angle to the target (while staying within your weapons FOV). Otherwise you're making the weapon pitch back up onto target, which wastes fuel and can make Mavericks run dry early. - Make sure your contrast sensor (TV) weapons are actually locking a tank, and not the ground below them. You need to be close for this; range varies by weapon and environmental conditions. If the camera follows the enemy as they move, you're good to go; or, you can usually tell because it'll appear to be locking just above where you aimed. - If your contrast-based weapon isn't locking, you likely either need to get closer, or environmental conditions are making it difficult, if not impossible, for the weapon to pick out your exact target. Your statcard lock range isn't guaranteed. - However, you don't always need to lock the target itself with a TV weapon; with some of the larger GBUs (notably the GBU-8), it's pretty reliable for you to be able to lock the ground beneath someone holding still and kill them from *_extreme_* range. If they move, they'll almost definitely survive, but this tactic is very valid against SPAA. In the F-16 for example, I usually will drop my GBUs on SPAA immediately upon spawn before climbing away to avoid counter fire. The bomb will take a while to get there but the enemy will usually see you and thus stop to keep track, which ironically is exactly what they _shouldn't_ do. - Mavericks make for _very_ good heli counters. Launch in a dive. Laser guided bombs, however, seem to be bugged and pass through helis without detonating and thus can _only_ kill a heli if it's close to the ground and in the blast radius. - There's another bug (?) where ERA, tracks, or roof MGs will just eat warheads they have no business stopping. If you have a good lock and they aren't moving, consider aiming at the ground just to the side of your enemy, or else a DSHk mount might stop a 2000lb bomb. -Paveways need some room to orient themselves onto target. Don't get too close before dropping.
Minor caveat to your third point, some weapons (off the top of my head the Kh-25ML and 29L) will almost always reach their stat card range energy wise. While others like the AGM-65 often do take some experience figuring out launch parameters to get that stat card range.
I have been having issues with my LGB just F-ing off after I drop them, maybe these tips will help! Though usually they are Kilometers outside of where the CCIP said they'd land when I dropped them so it could just be a bug...
"- Make sure your contrast sensor (TV) weapons are actually locking a tank, and not the ground below them. You need to be close for this; range varies by weapon and environmental conditions. If the camera follows the enemy as they move, you're good to go; or, you can usually tell because it'll appear to be locking just above where you aimed." A TV bomb or missile will tell you if it is locket at the ground or at the tank. If it is locket to the ground it will tell you "POINT" in der 3. person view. but if it is locket on a tank it tells you "TRACK". In combination with a laser camera like in the Harrier Gr.7 it will tell in the laser sight, so you dont have to go to the 3. person view to know.
Amazing Tim, the added footage of live gameplay is something you didn't need to include, but you made the effort to illustrate it for your viewers. Thank you and I personally really appreciate it.
What we need is updated guides every year bc Gaijin can't leave some features alone and they be changing how they work, thus we need updated guides yearly on everything.
11:30 You also don't have to bind "turn off target point", you can point your cursor at the sky and hit the target point key to get rid of it as well; I've never found the lack of the "turn off target point" bind to be an issue. But it's just a small thing to consider.
My biggest challenge (with what I got unlocked) is, to find a target within the few seconds i fly over the BF at 900+ km/h, while trying to not getting shot down. So I prefer a helicopter instead, from 8.7 and above (specially now when everyone has something with AGMs). I do had my moments with the "Nords" back than, when the game did not had much better stuff.
Love the vids. Been playing for years, got to level 100 but still learn something interesting from watching your vids. I really love how well you explain things, not only do you explain things well verbally but your visuals are easy to keep up with, there's not much clutter on the screen or music to distract. I appreciate it a lot, keep it up!
Also whats cool about CCRP is the possibility for pop up "throw" attacks where you fly low after designating a target beforehand so you can pop up slightly above the horizon safe from SPAA and the bomb releases automatically while you are pulling up. Accuracy suffers, of course but its generally pretty reliable as long as you only make a vertical input.
Always happy to see a Tims Variety guide! One thing some might find helpful is turning off the auto leveling of a plane when switching to gunner and bomber sight view. I found it especially helps with bombers that might like to jerk as you line up for final approach to the target.
If someone is struggling for keybinds, “switch secondary weapon” can be used with “fire secondary weapon” and “secondary weapon ripple quantity.” The first one will fire/drop whatever you have selected, if it’s guided it will activate the guidance on the first press (e.g. AAMs will spool up) and fire on the second, though it’s probably a good idea to have a separate keybind for the tracking still. Ripple quantity lets you select how much ordnance you use: the weapon’s default, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and Series (which will fire as long as you hold the fire secondary weapon key)
Excellent video! A lot of stuff I didn’t know about/know how to do! Also honestly this video is just satisfying to listen to! You earned yourself a sub! keep up the good work
Another amazing guide. Probably the best in the business when it comes to this. Often I like to play these in the backround or watch for entertainment even if I know whats going on. Its just amazing quality.
Props to you for using Italy in this video, my fav nation in the game even tho it's expensive af and not the best, they have some really fun vehicles, especially at lower brs.
Thank you so much Tim for these videos. If you aren't the best UA-camr for videos like this you are definitely top 3 at least. Without your videos, attention to details, and going over things like you are talking to someone who is completely new, I would still be completely lost on plane weapons, especially since I am on PS4, and have to overlap some controls. You deserve so much more watch time, subscribers, and have enough of both to do this full time and live comfortably, if that is in fact what you eventually want to do. Thank you again, and looking forward to your future videos! I'm almost top tier in the American tech tree, and look forward to either flying with, or against you some day. Although I will most likely die if we are on opposite sides I admit lol
Absolutely love these guides of yours. Always learn something, even when I thought I knew it all. Honestly, we're getting to the point of far too many keybinds for aircraft. A huge part of top-tier battles for me is information overload, and that includes having to constantly remember which key does what. Maneuvering is fine, but countermeasures, missiles, radar... it can really put you at a disadvantage if you're like me and sometimes hit the wrong thing. That goes double for air-to-ground.
@@TimsVariety Well yeah, me too, but it's still weird to keep track of. For instance, I had to add a second keybind for switch secondary weapon and switch radar to ACM, because I needed them closer to my left hand. I have all of my radar controls on the num pad, weapons on the top number row, hover and wing sweep on the arrow keys, almost everything is bound somewhere. I'm annoyed when they add something else, like dropping weapons or fuel tanks.
@@letsgobrandontrump2024 Wish my muscle memory was that good. I find myself completely unable to commit some small, oddly specific things to memory long-term.
A little tip with the Fritz-X (And presumably other bombs they might add using the same game mechanic), if you have the controls for it set to *relative* Mode, in the bomb sight its just put the crosshair on the target and the bomb will fall there rather than it resetting constantly. So if you're just going to be using the Fritz for a while and not any of the missiles, it can be helpful to turn that relative control on, whereas generally the advice for the MCLOS missiles is to turn that off.
for anyone wondering you do not need to set toggles for ballistic computers they are on by default if the aircraft has them and if for some reason they happen to be off which will be rare you can just use the y menu
^ ^ This is correct. Almost the only time you need to deliberately toggle the ballistics computer is if you have multiple things with forward-firing CCIP (rockets, and cannons, for example) and it wont let you turn both on at the same time.
In some way, I prefer to use the menu to turn some of these things on instead of straight keybinds. Some things of course you need to be able to get to in an instant, but navigating a radial menu, once you memorize it, can be incredibly fast and helps guide you onto your option if you are confused or haven't played in awhile.
Since I started using selected weapon mode the only time I don't use it is with the drop bomb series, because using both simultaneously seems bugged and drops all bombs. One trick I have seen somewhere is when using a jet with laser-guided bombs at high altitudes. - Equip 1 dumb bomb - Select a target with the camera - Select the dumb bomb, this activates CCRP - Just before CCRP tells you to drop the bomb, switch to laser-guided bombs and drop one. This should give the guided bomb a good trajectory to hit the target.
I rarely comment like this, but please Tim, Please keep up the hard work and efforts you put into these guides. I cannot believe the amounts of detail and work you put in. It's simply unbelievable from a youtuber of your sub and view count. This is TOP NOTCH. I just fear that you'll think it's not worth it and stop making them. I hope you see this. Much respect, brother.
Whoo! Got here in the first 149 people! Anyway.. thank you for all of your incredibly informative videos! Although 12:15 AM est is a very strange upload time.
The guide for bomb CCRP was really helpful, as I’ve seen quite a few UA-camrs use it and have guides for it, but yours was the clearest(for me) to understand. I wish I could use the guide for guided bombs, but Japan still hasn’t gotten any even though they have some irl.
The missiles on the tornado. The missiles radar can lock ground targets but the plane radar can’t, so if you launch it agenst a plane and it looses lock the missile goes pitbull kinda like the aim-54 and can then lock a ground target and guide to it
I'm already giving you a thumbs up for being brave enough to fly the Skyray into actual combat. But the guide itself is extremely useful and appreciated, _especially_ the key binding settings.
Just commenting while halfway through the vid. Super informative and well laid out info as always. I had no idea CCRP had a Switch Mission Bombing Target key bind for all the bases. That's super useful, I always had to nose down and try to get a good mark while grinding with the A4E-Early.
"to extract information from your target you have to use a technique called Waterboarding. Do this by placing a piece of cloth over your target's mouth and using your 'pour' keybind to pour water on it. Here is a demonstration from live gameplay"
I need to find someone who does ground/combined arms info like you do for aircraft. 1 minute in and you are talking about the needed keybinds and this is something I have been looking for. They should pay you to do the air tutorials and just link your youtube in the game.
I am a fighter pilot mainly. But to break up the "Monoteny" of PvP I unlocked the German Tornado Here I was bombing bases like a caveman. But you have showed me far more effective techniques. Thanks Tim!
Tip for ccrp, use the gun camera view to set the target point. it is faster to get an accurate target point. Secondarily dont underestimate it, in war thunder it is near laser accurate. Early jets with it can challenge radar spaa if they have enough speed.
Great video. As someone with over 6000 hours in WT, sometimes I find myself looking at tips to help me better myself with CAS. You learn new stuff all the time. For those who want to mult role / CAS with the F16A: Best way to counter SPAA is by using the GBU-8's. Reason being / strat: 1. As soon as you spawn immediately look for SPAA but don't take too long. If you spawn further than 12 KM you have maybe 10-25 secs. Most experienced CAS players like myself know where to look for SAMS / SPAA. On most maps, you spawn at 12 KM unless it's Fulda where you spawn within ITO / FlakRad / TOR range, hell sometimes ADATS / Tungie. If you think you wont be able to spot, side climb up and have a look around. 2. Depending on the player and skill, you can easily pop a SAMS from 1000m altitude depending on the map / terrain. I'd sugest nosing up to maybe 1500 - 2000m this is if you want to quickly acquire, have the time to lock and drop, and rid them. You can fly straight or nose up slightly to sort of "loft" the GBU. If you have enough speed that bomb will track. If they move / take cover then it'll drop whereever you point you locked onto. 3. If you want to use the AGM-65B Maverick. Best strat for SEAD (killing SAMS), I usually climb up to 7000 - 10000m, dive a little, get a lock and fire. This doesn't always work especially if the SAMS you're locking onto is competent. Most ITO players I've seen are pretty aware. Yes they can hit you if they look up 90 degrees. 4. For tanks if you want to use TV guided bombs best is to wait until they're on a cap and sit perfectly still. If you use Mavericks I'd suggest firing 2 because you'll get gaijined meaning the AGM will hit the top of the tank, then the MG will all of the explosive filler. It's a pain sometimes. Personally, I prefer laser guided munitions BUT for US CAS players, you dont have that option unless you give the snail $70 and it's not worth it in my opinion. Conclusion: TV munitions work but if the server or target you want to hit is laggy / has bad ping it'll probably not work.
Your guides for weapon and Radar have been a life saver for situations in War thunder and helped with peaking my interest into guided weapons on aircraft and if not me fighting my Autism and thinking your easy to go by guides would be useless I wouldn't be somewhat average in air combat today without them, keep up the great work Tim don't burn yourself out from putting out the content 👍
Yeah, it ... took a while .. I was able to pre-make a bunch of my regular wednesday WT vids during the holiday break, and have been mostly working on this since then lol
Nice update. I would have liked additional things for sim, since you don't have the outside view and the generic hud there and are reliant on the in game instruments, witch are incomplete to say the least and the implemented hud
for a simplified key settup removing allot of the wepon bindings i use ("space" to fire secondary wepons) and then i got my 2 key for selecting secondary weapon, meaning they all can be fired from 1 button as long as you preselect what weapon to use, as well as a ripple fire button removes the need of a fire salvo button.
That is best if not THE BEST tutorial I could find, im getting slowly to those kinds of weapons and that will help me imensly with how to use them, and save time screwing orund keybinds nad test flights to learn them. THANK YOU KIND SIR!!
So a couple things I personally would have put in is 1. For the keybinds I recommend binding 4 buttons total for weapons (gaijin makes you bind all weapon activation keybinds but I like these 4) Fire Primary, Fire Secondary, Select Primary and Select Secondary. With these 4 bound you don't have to mess around with any other keybinds and you can select/fire any armament on your aircraft together or seperate. 2nd: I can't speak too much for the lazer guided weapons but I have a lot of experience with the TV guided weapons. You can activate all the TV guided weapons from 3rd person view if you want to get in closer but you have to keep in mind not all of these will target directly at the nose. For instance the A10 with mavericks will try to target a good amount below the nose while a plane like the F5E will target directly where you're facing (I hope that made sense). Same thing can be applied to MCLOS weapons like bullpups. Some sit at an angle on the wings and will fire slightly down while others like on the F100 can be used without any inputs as slightly more accurate dumb rockets. Overall I think it was a great video though and hopefully will help players better understand their air to ground weapons.
I found this video both very informative and very entertaining, my only real criticism about the video is that I didn’t find this video much sooner😂😂, as a warthunder veteran player myself it’s pretty funny and interesting on how many new features have been added and introduced into the game, such as on the ground scouts can now use UAV’s to locate and target enemies along with better game physics as well as game mechanics, such as in my case as a challenger 2 player, most if not all enemies can more or less one shot you regardless of where they hit you, where I was shot by a long way away and credit where credit is due, he managed to shoot into my gun block, through my gun breach chamber and into the crew compartment, resulting in the deaths of everyone apart from the driver.
Something to add, (unless I missed it being mentioned), when using laser guided bombs, just make sure that if you can see the CCIP reticle, its best to never put it PAST the target, I've found that its best to put the CCIP reticle a little bit short of the target if you're using it as a reference. If the CCIP reticle is too far past your target, its likely that the seekers on the bombs won't actually see the lase point and will effectively be dropped as dumb bombs. Or even if they do still see the lase point, they likely won't possess the maneuverability to hit the target, since they'll have to counter their entire ballistic arc to turn back into it and essentially end up flying back in the opposite direction that you were traveling when you dropped them. Just as a general rule, try to never overshoot LGBs, but don't worry too much about undershooting them, LGBs can glide very well in Warthunder, probably a little too well lol.
As a Britain main, the PGM 2000 and the AGM-65D are my best friends at top tier. It’s also nice that the Red Angel rockets on the Wyvern fire separately now.
I strongly recommend using ‘switch secondary weapon’ and ‘fire secondary weapon’ instead of separate keybinds for ‘drop bomb’ ‘fire rocket’ etc. It’s just way fewer keybinds to keep track of
Simply amazing guide overall, know that if I manage to reach higher tiers I will be coming back to all your guides for info. Only one question I'd have is what song you're using for the live gameplay sections, the same one from the recent jet plane reviews
Fun fact, torpedo bombers used to have torpedo sights, kind of like CCIP around 5 to 6 years ago. I remember the BTD having a good time taking out carriers due to this. I believe it looked similar to the torpedo guidance of naval arcade battles
quick feedback at 10:14 when you talk about the CCRP the informative graphics appear on the screen exactly when the important stuff of the background gameplay happens. When the circle and the dash align and you are ready to drop. The infographics divert the attention from this crucial information. Maybe you could have zoomed in on the lifegameplay to show how the 2 symbols interact with each other and then show the inforgraphics afterwards
the autotrack laser missile sight also is the sight all helicopters have so if you are familiar with helicopters then it should help when using that sight
Great effort making this guide, extremely helpful! 👍👍 I only have one question. For switching to the targeting camera view for TV guided missiles I always use my keybind for switching between all views. I looked for a specific keybind multiple times, but I never found one. It's also the same thing for me when using the camera of the Scout UAV.
Off the top of my head, I think the only "view" that has a dedicated keybind is the optical bombsight for bombers, but I could be wrong. I use the generic cycle-view keybind for all the others.
GBU-8s on the F-16 are hands down the most effective SEAD weapon in the game (speaking from a perspective of custom Armageddon with 4 2S6s and ADATS aggressively hunting me). It used to be zunis with CCIP but they nerfed that a long time ago and it left a deficient range gap that has not really been filled until now. They can be dropped at any speed and locked at any distance to the ground, and if you lob them correctly, you can get 7-8 miles of range out of them. Also forgot to mention their best feature, they can be snap locked in third person like a maverick and are effective against ships too, very effective. If you want to grief a scummy goober in custom, it’s your go to
A quick thing about radar, the tornado is only capable of detecting ships due to the larger, more noticeable radar signature that bounces off from the somewhat flat, cold, uniform background that is the water.
Complete Guide To Radar:
ua-cam.com/video/n78r6klLlEQ/v-deo.html
Complete Guide To Air To Air Missiles:
ua-cam.com/video/v8j3kJwm_Eg/v-deo.html
I love these guides. Even as a more experienced player, they prove as a good refresher.
I feel the same way. I maxed 4 air trees and generally perform very well in aircraft, but sometimes I forget a feature or learn new tricks to features. For example, using external view to get an approximation then switching to the camera to quickly lock a target.
Same man even also as an experienced player there’s always a chance that you might learn something new 👍🏽
Agreed
Yep keep watching even thought i know alot of it
Real
Some tips, mainly for laser and TV weapons:
One thing that's very important for autotracker laser weapons: wait for the "POINT" message next to your weapon in the top left. This means that the weapon sees the target and will likely be able to hit it. If the POINT tag is not showing up, you either need to:
-Enable your laser. There's a separate keybind for it.
- Aim yourself at the target. The weapon only has a limited FOV (especially true for LGBs such as Paveways), so it's possible that the weapon will simply pass over the target area without ever seeing your laser. Make sure you're oriented towards the target (so most likely diving), and when the POINT tag pops up, make sure you're not still actively pitching downwards or rolling or else you'll bump your bomb and throw it off course (lol). Lay off the controls for a full second or two once you have the POINT tag.
- Get closer; use your missile's statcard range (sometimes also dispayed in your targeting cam) to figure out how close. If you're using an LGB, try it in a test flight against a point straight ahead to try to learn (for most Paveway bombs, the bomb only sees targets within 7km.)
It's worth noting that you _can_ toss-bomb LGBs further than their laser range; with enough speed and a lot of practice, you can climb above the horizon before releasing the bomb, then let it arc down as it glides and thus angle itself to see your laser as it comes into range. But this is fairly hard to do, and will usually just waste your bomb.
You can also do some trickery with your laser to make the weapon acquire it and proceed to hit a target from a "bad" angle, thus overcoming the limited FOV issue. Aim your laser anywhere it'll get the POINT tag, drop your bomb, then lower your laser down onto the intended target slowly. The weapon will attempt to follow it and soon enough be able to see what your actual target was. But again, this is hard to get right, and it's usually better to just put yourself into a dive and do it the traditional way; you can always pull off and climb afterwards (just watch the square in your targeting view to see how far you can afford to continue pitching upwards without exceeding your laser gimbal limit).
Some other tips:
- Speed. Your weapon range is dependent on the firing platform, especially if the weapon has no power of its own. Some aircraft, like the A-10, need to make up for a speed deficiency with altitude, or else even a Maverick won't reach the target. For A-10 Mavericks, I like to have _at most_ a 3:1 ratio for range:personal alt (assuming you're at a decent speed, relatively speaking). Once you've locked your target, you can switch to the cockpit to see the range displayed on the HUD; if my target's 6km away, I want to be at least at 2000m up. But a 2- or 2.5- to 1 ratio is a safer bet.
- Orient your plane above the angle to the target (while staying within your weapons FOV). Otherwise you're making the weapon pitch back up onto target, which wastes fuel and can make Mavericks run dry early.
- Make sure your contrast sensor (TV) weapons are actually locking a tank, and not the ground below them. You need to be close for this; range varies by weapon and environmental conditions. If the camera follows the enemy as they move, you're good to go; or, you can usually tell because it'll appear to be locking just above where you aimed.
- If your contrast-based weapon isn't locking, you likely either need to get closer, or environmental conditions are making it difficult, if not impossible, for the weapon to pick out your exact target. Your statcard lock range isn't guaranteed.
- However, you don't always need to lock the target itself with a TV weapon; with some of the larger GBUs (notably the GBU-8), it's pretty reliable for you to be able to lock the ground beneath someone holding still and kill them from *_extreme_* range. If they move, they'll almost definitely survive, but this tactic is very valid against SPAA. In the F-16 for example, I usually will drop my GBUs on SPAA immediately upon spawn before climbing away to avoid counter fire. The bomb will take a while to get there but the enemy will usually see you and thus stop to keep track, which ironically is exactly what they _shouldn't_ do.
- Mavericks make for _very_ good heli counters. Launch in a dive. Laser guided bombs, however, seem to be bugged and pass through helis without detonating and thus can _only_ kill a heli if it's close to the ground and in the blast radius.
- There's another bug (?) where ERA, tracks, or roof MGs will just eat warheads they have no business stopping. If you have a good lock and they aren't moving, consider aiming at the ground just to the side of your enemy, or else a DSHk mount might stop a 2000lb bomb.
-Paveways need some room to orient themselves onto target. Don't get too close before dropping.
I know everything about described features, but this is an amazing comment for everyone who is beginner to the top tier CAS.
Minor caveat to your third point, some weapons (off the top of my head the Kh-25ML and 29L) will almost always reach their stat card range energy wise. While others like the AGM-65 often do take some experience figuring out launch parameters to get that stat card range.
I have been having issues with my LGB just F-ing off after I drop them, maybe these tips will help! Though usually they are Kilometers outside of where the CCIP said they'd land when I dropped them so it could just be a bug...
There's always the essay writer in the comment section 💀 thanks tho!
"- Make sure your contrast sensor (TV) weapons are actually locking a tank, and not the ground below them. You need to be close for this; range varies by weapon and environmental conditions. If the camera follows the enemy as they move, you're good to go; or, you can usually tell because it'll appear to be locking just above where you aimed."
A TV bomb or missile will tell you if it is locket at the ground or at the tank. If it is locket to the ground it will tell you "POINT" in der 3. person view. but if it is locket on a tank it tells you "TRACK". In combination with a laser camera like in the Harrier Gr.7 it will tell in the laser sight, so you dont have to go to the 3. person view to know.
Actually just the best, most straight forward tutorial.
Amazing Tim, the added footage of live gameplay is something you didn't need to include, but you made the effort to illustrate it for your viewers. Thank you and I personally really appreciate it.
Great work! I feel like WT needs new tutorials at every tier
Why would they need to make them when they know Tim will just make a better one?
What we need is updated guides every year bc Gaijin can't leave some features alone and they be changing how they work, thus we need updated guides yearly on everything.
Tim, seriously thank you. You're a great person for this community. I hope you keep making vids for years to come. :D
Thank you so much!
11:30 You also don't have to bind "turn off target point", you can point your cursor at the sky and hit the target point key to get rid of it as well; I've never found the lack of the "turn off target point" bind to be an issue. But it's just a small thing to consider.
My biggest challenge (with what I got unlocked) is, to find a target within the few seconds i fly over the BF at 900+ km/h, while trying to not getting shot down. So I prefer a helicopter instead, from 8.7 and above (specially now when everyone has something with AGMs). I do had my moments with the "Nords" back than, when the game did not had much better stuff.
Love the vids. Been playing for years, got to level 100 but still learn something interesting from watching your vids. I really love how well you explain things, not only do you explain things well verbally but your visuals are easy to keep up with, there's not much clutter on the screen or music to distract. I appreciate it a lot, keep it up!
Also whats cool about CCRP is the possibility for pop up "throw" attacks where you fly low after designating a target beforehand so you can pop up slightly above the horizon safe from SPAA and the bomb releases automatically while you are pulling up. Accuracy suffers, of course but its generally pretty reliable as long as you only make a vertical input.
This is one of the best War Thunder guides I've ever seen! Thank you for this great video!
This was perhaps the best overview of these sorts of weapons I have ever seen! This will help a lot as I climb the ranks.
Always happy to see a Tims Variety guide!
One thing some might find helpful is turning off the auto leveling of a plane when switching to gunner and bomber sight view. I found it especially helps with bombers that might like to jerk as you line up for final approach to the target.
This is the most comprehensive and thus best guide I've found, thank you.
If someone is struggling for keybinds, “switch secondary weapon” can be used with “fire secondary weapon” and “secondary weapon ripple quantity.”
The first one will fire/drop whatever you have selected, if it’s guided it will activate the guidance on the first press (e.g. AAMs will spool up) and fire on the second, though it’s probably a good idea to have a separate keybind for the tracking still.
Ripple quantity lets you select how much ordnance you use: the weapon’s default, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and Series (which will fire as long as you hold the fire secondary weapon key)
Excellent video! A lot of stuff I didn’t know about/know how to do! Also honestly this video is just satisfying to listen to! You earned yourself a sub! keep up the good work
"Wooooo! Yeah baby! That's what I've been waiting for!"
~Charlie
Another amazing guide. Probably the best in the business when it comes to this. Often I like to play these in the backround or watch for entertainment even if I know whats going on. Its just amazing quality.
Props to you for using Italy in this video, my fav nation in the game even tho it's expensive af and not the best, they have some really fun vehicles, especially at lower brs.
I always try to use a variety of aircraft in these vids.
Thank you so much Tim for these videos. If you aren't the best UA-camr for videos like this you are definitely top 3 at least. Without your videos, attention to details, and going over things like you are talking to someone who is completely new, I would still be completely lost on plane weapons, especially since I am on PS4, and have to overlap some controls. You deserve so much more watch time, subscribers, and have enough of both to do this full time and live comfortably, if that is in fact what you eventually want to do. Thank you again, and looking forward to your future videos! I'm almost top tier in the American tech tree, and look forward to either flying with, or against you some day. Although I will most likely die if we are on opposite sides I admit lol
Thanks for the update!
Thanks for making an updated video on air to ground weapons! I've been having a hard time with agms lately
This was awesome bro, thank you so much for making this
Great guide, thanks
Absolutely love these guides of yours. Always learn something, even when I thought I knew it all.
Honestly, we're getting to the point of far too many keybinds for aircraft. A huge part of top-tier battles for me is information overload, and that includes having to constantly remember which key does what. Maneuvering is fine, but countermeasures, missiles, radar... it can really put you at a disadvantage if you're like me and sometimes hit the wrong thing. That goes double for air-to-ground.
I use overlapping keybinds.
@@TimsVariety Well yeah, me too, but it's still weird to keep track of. For instance, I had to add a second keybind for switch secondary weapon and switch radar to ACM, because I needed them closer to my left hand.
I have all of my radar controls on the num pad, weapons on the top number row, hover and wing sweep on the arrow keys, almost everything is bound somewhere. I'm annoyed when they add something else, like dropping weapons or fuel tanks.
I play on console and keybinds are muscle memory for me I can’t tell you what buttons I’m hitting to do what but I’m nailing it lol
@@letsgobrandontrump2024 Wish my muscle memory was that good. I find myself completely unable to commit some small, oddly specific things to memory long-term.
A little tip with the Fritz-X (And presumably other bombs they might add using the same game mechanic), if you have the controls for it set to *relative* Mode, in the bomb sight its just put the crosshair on the target and the bomb will fall there rather than it resetting constantly. So if you're just going to be using the Fritz for a while and not any of the missiles, it can be helpful to turn that relative control on, whereas generally the advice for the MCLOS missiles is to turn that off.
for anyone wondering you do not need to set toggles for ballistic computers they are on by default if the aircraft has them and if for some reason they happen to be off which will be rare you can just use the y menu
^ ^ This is correct.
Almost the only time you need to deliberately toggle the ballistics computer is if you have multiple things with forward-firing CCIP (rockets, and cannons, for example) and it wont let you turn both on at the same time.
Found this channel like a week ago, best find of my life
In some way, I prefer to use the menu to turn some of these things on instead of straight keybinds. Some things of course you need to be able to get to in an instant, but navigating a radial menu, once you memorize it, can be incredibly fast and helps guide you onto your option if you are confused or haven't played in awhile.
Since I started using selected weapon mode the only time I don't use it is with the drop bomb series, because using both simultaneously seems bugged and drops all bombs.
One trick I have seen somewhere is when using a jet with laser-guided bombs at high altitudes.
- Equip 1 dumb bomb
- Select a target with the camera
- Select the dumb bomb, this activates CCRP
- Just before CCRP tells you to drop the bomb, switch to laser-guided bombs and drop one.
This should give the guided bomb a good trajectory to hit the target.
I rarely comment like this, but please Tim, Please keep up the hard work and efforts you put into these guides. I cannot believe the amounts of detail and work you put in. It's simply unbelievable from a youtuber of your sub and view count. This is TOP NOTCH. I just fear that you'll think it's not worth it and stop making them. I hope you see this. Much respect, brother.
Whoo! Got here in the first 149 people!
Anyway.. thank you for all of your incredibly informative videos! Although 12:15 AM est is a very strange upload time.
this should be the standard tutorial vids for WT. very good work and thx for your efforts to create them
This was an excellent video, thanks Tim!
The guide for bomb CCRP was really helpful, as I’ve seen quite a few UA-camrs use it and have guides for it, but yours was the clearest(for me) to understand. I wish I could use the guide for guided bombs, but Japan still hasn’t gotten any even though they have some irl.
finally the long awaited guide
i love these videos, i've been playing since 2015 and there was so much in this video i didnt know existed
The missiles on the tornado. The missiles radar can lock ground targets but the plane radar can’t, so if you launch it agenst a plane and it looses lock the missile goes pitbull kinda like the aim-54 and can then lock a ground target and guide to it
I don't think that's intended tho
I'm already giving you a thumbs up for being brave enough to fly the Skyray into actual combat. But the guide itself is extremely useful and appreciated, _especially_ the key binding settings.
I actually had a pretty good time with the skyray, you should check out my full review of it :-)
Thanks for the guides. IMO the game needs more analytical or serious content like this that hits the more detailed aspects.
This need to be on WT official page as a tutorial. Great work as always!
Just commenting while halfway through the vid. Super informative and well laid out info as always. I had no idea CCRP had a Switch Mission Bombing Target key bind for all the bases. That's super useful, I always had to nose down and try to get a good mark while grinding with the A4E-Early.
I love that you showed and explained it during a test, then showed it during live game play. Thanks!
Best Tutorial on Air to Ground Ever!!!! You earned a follower.
Top notch tutorial video.
Finding your channel has saved my sanity. Thank you.
I live to serve.
o7
"to extract information from your target you have to use a technique called Waterboarding. Do this by placing a piece of cloth over your target's mouth and using your 'pour' keybind to pour water on it. Here is a demonstration from live gameplay"
great vid as always
29:45 also the missiles don't track well, but that'ts on the generic targeting/tracking from War Thunder
I need to find someone who does ground/combined arms info like you do for aircraft. 1 minute in and you are talking about the needed keybinds and this is something I have been looking for. They should pay you to do the air tutorials and just link your youtube in the game.
FWIW, in my aircraft reviews I almost always cover ground attack, and if its CAS-suitable I'll go into more detail and demonstrate some footage.
Using the frits X is fun in naval as you can steer it right into turrets in order to hit magazines
Subbed because of this video. Your others are great. But, this one was the cherry on top. :) Thank you!
It'll be getting an update sometime in the next month or two to reflect new weapons and recent UI changes
@TimsVariety looking forward to it man.
I’ve been watching almost all your WT vids, didn’t even realize I wasn’t subbed. Enjoy! 😂😂
I love these guides
I am a fighter pilot mainly. But to break up the "Monoteny" of PvP I unlocked the German Tornado
Here I was bombing bases like a caveman. But you have showed me far more effective techniques.
Thanks Tim!
Thanks
Tip for ccrp, use the gun camera view to set the target point. it is faster to get an accurate target point. Secondarily dont underestimate it, in war thunder it is near laser accurate. Early jets with it can challenge radar spaa if they have enough speed.
I really appreciate how thorough, detailed, and concise your videos are on stuff like this. It's a godsend.
oh been waiting for a Vid for something good awesome good to see ... best Vids best Info for WT knowledge right here 👍
great video!
Perfect Video thx
Sincere thank you. 🙏
I live to serve o7
Great video. As someone with over 6000 hours in WT, sometimes I find myself looking at tips to help me better myself with CAS. You learn new stuff all the time. For those who want to mult role / CAS with the F16A:
Best way to counter SPAA is by using the GBU-8's. Reason being / strat:
1. As soon as you spawn immediately look for SPAA but don't take too long. If you spawn further than 12 KM you have maybe 10-25 secs. Most experienced CAS players like myself know where to look for SAMS / SPAA. On most maps, you spawn at 12 KM unless it's Fulda where you spawn within ITO / FlakRad / TOR range, hell sometimes ADATS / Tungie. If you think you wont be able to spot, side climb up and have a look around.
2. Depending on the player and skill, you can easily pop a SAMS from 1000m altitude depending on the map / terrain. I'd sugest nosing up to maybe 1500 - 2000m this is if you want to quickly acquire, have the time to lock and drop, and rid them. You can fly straight or nose up slightly to sort of "loft" the GBU. If you have enough speed that bomb will track. If they move / take cover then it'll drop whereever you point you locked onto.
3. If you want to use the AGM-65B Maverick. Best strat for SEAD (killing SAMS), I usually climb up to 7000 - 10000m, dive a little, get a lock and fire. This doesn't always work especially if the SAMS you're locking onto is competent. Most ITO players I've seen are pretty aware. Yes they can hit you if they look up 90 degrees.
4. For tanks if you want to use TV guided bombs best is to wait until they're on a cap and sit perfectly still. If you use Mavericks I'd suggest firing 2 because you'll get gaijined meaning the AGM will hit the top of the tank, then the MG will all of the explosive filler. It's a pain sometimes.
Personally, I prefer laser guided munitions BUT for US CAS players, you dont have that option unless you give the snail $70 and it's not worth it in my opinion.
Conclusion: TV munitions work but if the server or target you want to hit is laggy / has bad ping it'll probably not work.
thx man, useful video
Love ya tim
Your guides for weapon and Radar have been a life saver for situations in War thunder and helped with peaking my interest into guided weapons on aircraft and if not me fighting my Autism and thinking your easy to go by guides would be useless I wouldn't be somewhat average in air combat today without them, keep up the great work Tim don't burn yourself out from putting out the content 👍
Very good video! Concise and to the point. Saves DAYS in encyclopedia!!!
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
Holy shit. As a GRB player who finished several nations already, I know how much work this must have been.
Yeah, it ... took a while .. I was able to pre-make a bunch of my regular wednesday WT vids during the holiday break, and have been mostly working on this since then lol
Thanks I really need this thank you so much
Nice update. I would have liked additional things for sim, since you don't have the outside view and the generic hud there and are reliant on the in game instruments, witch are incomplete to say the least and the implemented hud
I hear ya man - I don't play a lot of sim myself, but at some point I'm going to put out a version of these tutorials specifically for sim mode.
for a simplified key settup removing allot of the wepon bindings i use ("space" to fire secondary wepons) and then i got my 2 key for selecting secondary weapon, meaning they all can be fired from 1 button as long as you preselect what weapon to use, as well as a ripple fire button removes the need of a fire salvo button.
I love that you used my favorite jet in the opening ❤❤
That is best if not THE BEST tutorial I could find, im getting slowly to those kinds of weapons and that will help me imensly with how to use them, and save time screwing orund keybinds nad test flights to learn them. THANK YOU KIND SIR!!
So a couple things I personally would have put in is 1. For the keybinds I recommend binding 4 buttons total for weapons (gaijin makes you bind all weapon activation keybinds but I like these 4) Fire Primary, Fire Secondary, Select Primary and Select Secondary. With these 4 bound you don't have to mess around with any other keybinds and you can select/fire any armament on your aircraft together or seperate. 2nd: I can't speak too much for the lazer guided weapons but I have a lot of experience with the TV guided weapons. You can activate all the TV guided weapons from 3rd person view if you want to get in closer but you have to keep in mind not all of these will target directly at the nose. For instance the A10 with mavericks will try to target a good amount below the nose while a plane like the F5E will target directly where you're facing (I hope that made sense). Same thing can be applied to MCLOS weapons like bullpups. Some sit at an angle on the wings and will fire slightly down while others like on the F100 can be used without any inputs as slightly more accurate dumb rockets.
Overall I think it was a great video though and hopefully will help players better understand their air to ground weapons.
I found this video both very informative and very entertaining, my only real criticism about the video is that I didn’t find this video much sooner😂😂, as a warthunder veteran player myself it’s pretty funny and interesting on how many new features have been added and introduced into the game, such as on the ground scouts can now use UAV’s to locate and target enemies along with better game physics as well as game mechanics, such as in my case as a challenger 2 player, most if not all enemies can more or less one shot you regardless of where they hit you, where I was shot by a long way away and credit where credit is due, he managed to shoot into my gun block, through my gun breach chamber and into the crew compartment, resulting in the deaths of everyone apart from the driver.
i cant even begin to grasp how much time this took. such a well made guide, thank you Tim.
Something to add, (unless I missed it being mentioned), when using laser guided bombs, just make sure that if you can see the CCIP reticle, its best to never put it PAST the target, I've found that its best to put the CCIP reticle a little bit short of the target if you're using it as a reference. If the CCIP reticle is too far past your target, its likely that the seekers on the bombs won't actually see the lase point and will effectively be dropped as dumb bombs. Or even if they do still see the lase point, they likely won't possess the maneuverability to hit the target, since they'll have to counter their entire ballistic arc to turn back into it and essentially end up flying back in the opposite direction that you were traveling when you dropped them. Just as a general rule, try to never overshoot LGBs, but don't worry too much about undershooting them, LGBs can glide very well in Warthunder, probably a little too well lol.
As a Britain main, the PGM 2000 and the AGM-65D are my best friends at top tier. It’s also nice that the Red Angel rockets on the Wyvern fire separately now.
Why is this guy not a million subs
I an mega early to this, but thanks so much for updating your ATG tutorial! I have to say, your style works very well with this sort of video!
Here is an example from live gameplay:
thank uuu, u made me fall in love for this video
I strongly recommend using ‘switch secondary weapon’ and ‘fire secondary weapon’ instead of separate keybinds for ‘drop bomb’ ‘fire rocket’ etc. It’s just way fewer keybinds to keep track of
I use overlapping keybinds for dropping/firing - my full keybinds look like a disaster, but there is a method in the madness ;-)
Simply amazing guide overall, know that if I manage to reach higher tiers I will be coming back to all your guides for info. Only one question I'd have is what song you're using for the live gameplay sections, the same one from the recent jet plane reviews
Thats the new War Thunder soundtrack going.
@@TimsVariety Oh cool, thanks man!
GOAT guide for war thunder. Thanks a bunch!
The pars 3 is a brutal concept when used right like you park over a hill or building launch it and go baxk down and the missile does it’s thibg
I had a lot of fun with that when i reviewed the Tiger heli :-)
@@TimsVariety its truly effective when it works
Tims, a "recent" patch, some months ago, takes the vertical lead into account. You can safely set it to for example 800m and get a proper CCIP lead.
OMG I play WT from the begining and the music that play in your videos is a complete stranger to me, I have music off since the begining
Fun fact, torpedo bombers used to have torpedo sights, kind of like CCIP around 5 to 6 years ago. I remember the BTD having a good time taking out carriers due to this. I believe it looked similar to the torpedo guidance of naval arcade battles
Very useful, as I didnt play the game in some time, and I got into a match without having keys binded to the drone Atgms 😂
thank you tim!
This is very nice and simple video with great explanation, I need something like that.
omg im dead 😂 killing a chopper with the blast radius of a laser guided bomb , brilliant !
Yeah, that was a serious "HOLY SH*T THAT ACTUALLY WORKED!" moment ;-)
quick feedback at 10:14 when you talk about the CCRP
the informative graphics appear on the screen exactly when the important stuff of the background gameplay happens. When the circle and the dash align and you are ready to drop. The infographics divert the attention from this crucial information.
Maybe you could have zoomed in on the lifegameplay to show how the 2 symbols interact with each other and then show the inforgraphics afterwards
the autotrack laser missile sight also is the sight all helicopters have so if you are familiar with helicopters then it should help when using that sight
Great effort making this guide, extremely helpful! 👍👍
I only have one question. For switching to the targeting camera view for TV guided missiles I always use my keybind for switching between all views. I looked for a specific keybind multiple times, but I never found one. It's also the same thing for me when using the camera of the Scout UAV.
Off the top of my head, I think the only "view" that has a dedicated keybind is the optical bombsight for bombers, but I could be wrong. I use the generic cycle-view keybind for all the others.
GBU-8s on the F-16 are hands down the most effective SEAD weapon in the game (speaking from a perspective of custom Armageddon with 4 2S6s and ADATS aggressively hunting me). It used to be zunis with CCIP but they nerfed that a long time ago and it left a deficient range gap that has not really been filled until now. They can be dropped at any speed and locked at any distance to the ground, and if you lob them correctly, you can get 7-8 miles of range out of them. Also forgot to mention their best feature, they can be snap locked in third person like a maverick and are effective against ships too, very effective. If you want to grief a scummy goober in custom, it’s your go to
A quick thing about radar, the tornado is only capable of detecting ships due to the larger, more noticeable radar signature that bounces off from the somewhat flat, cold, uniform background that is the water.