I keep struggling with employing guided bombs with gliding capabilities (GBU-39, but also all Paveways, Walleyes, GBU-8, -15,…) regarding speed and altitude to drop them so they can reach their target.
Of course I can use the CCRP function to determine the drop point, but not only is this often quite off apparently, but I’d also want to be able to plan an attack profile, not only relying on the fly on the CCRP information.
So, does anyone possibly know how to determine how those weapons glide dependent on release speed, or what parameter can be used to at least roughly estimate that?
All I can think of right now is to test by dropping those weapons at certain speeds, distance and altitudes, and see if the weapons is able to reach the target, but that will be a lot of testing…
Sadly the Ccrp and Ccip aren’t that accurate on any ammunition that doesn’t have the ballistics of a conventional bomb
So sadly you have to do alot of testing to find out the max range at a certain envelope.
What I can tell you from my testing is:
Paceway 4 is able to reach 30km if dropped around 6000m radar altitude while being at around 1.7mach
Grom-2 is able to reach 50km if dropped at 10km altitude at around 1.7mach
I didn’t do any testing for the gbu39 so I can only give you my guess.
They should be able to reach 20km at there max release speed while being below the contrail height and if you need more range you just have to fly higher.
For the Gbu 39 I believe they can go further than that at low altitude. In sim when I drop them from a A-10C at 250 knot/10000feet they easily reach 10 to 15 kilometer.
To get a rough estimate, you can use this control:
(same used for MCLOS missiles, like bullpups)
This allows you to get the extends of the range of your guided bomb. However, the longer the range it already is, the more launch sensitive it is, and this shows a lot with the CCIP marker going all around. But if you quickly tap pitch up, it usually shows roughly how far it can go in front of you before the CCIP marker shifts off and does it own thing. Try to also aim for a bit less than this range, because this really shows maximum range.
Note this only works well for GPS/IOG guided bombs. TV bombs like GBU-8, -15 and walleye won’t work as well if at all. These bomb don’t loft and guide in a direct path, which is less energy efficient. Russian TV bombs may be another story as they do loft. Bombs with wings may even be able to go further, but they usually always work unless you are super slow (for reference, an A-10 at 600-700kph at sealevel can still get 6-7km range out of the GBU-39, with a little toss).
Anyway if you do use this, aim for a bit less than the indicated CCIP marker, because that marker really only shows where your bombs basically have run out of energy. This is especially important for GNSS+SALH bombs, as you probably want some energy to maneuver in the terminal phase.
Example:
Spoiler
After that it’s just experience after trying what works and maintaining similar launch conditions each time.
We could theoretically calculate the glide ratio for a bomb at any given speed and altitude using a formula if we know the drag, lift, and weight of each bomb.
It obviously wouldn’t be accurate, but it could give a rough estimate of the absolute maximum distance that your bomb your theoretically travel.
Edit: We could also just ask Gaijin very nicely to fix the calculations for CCIP and CCRP with guided bombs.
