MINOR EDITS: 3/30/2024 - ORIGINAL POST: 10/01/2022
I think it is fair to say that the Cold War scene has been on the rise as of late. It is a very interesting development, like we already mentioned in one of our previous articles, seeing as this era is much more driven by old school techniques rather than relying on sensors to do most of the work for you when you enter combat with someone else.
This feeling of complete analog combat is what drove me to test Enigma. I have not been the most successful pilot, but I had a couple of interesting sorties. But none of those compare to the feeling that I had when I decided to finally go on a sortie with the Hind. To say that I had fun would be an understatement. I found myself in situations where I had not found myself in before, situations which forced me to use the Hind in ways I just hadn't before. I took off from one of the FOBs and went straight to the frontline with four AT-6s, two R-60s and two rocket pods. In order to carry all of that, I had to reduce my fuel load, which is fine.
The fly from the FOB to the frontline was uneventful, at least for me. Over me, an aerial battle was being fought between a Mirage F1 and a pair of MiG-21s. It was kind of terrifying, because I was just a couple of hundred feet from the furball: hiding at tree top level. I flew as fast as I could, with my R-60s prepped and my left thumb over the countermeasures button. Thankfully, the pair of Fishbeds won, and the Mirage went down in a ball of flames. At this point I had already reached the frontline. Since I had already vectored myself thanks to a friendly recon flight, I went for a quick attack on an enemy FOB with my rockets. I was not the most successful, but you can't ask much from ED's standard damage model. Splash damage feels very much nonexistent, depending on the circumstances.
It was during one of these rocket passes that I saw a small dot in the distance: an aircraft. It was flying at treetop level and going slow, so it had to be another helicopter. Judging by its direction, it had to be an enemy one!
I called off my last rocket pass and armed my R-60s. The hunt had begun!
THE HUNT
I continued closing distance with the enemy helicopter, which I now confirmed to be an enemy Gazelle. I chose to approach it from the side and then proceeded to place myself at its six o-clock. Not only that, but I got tone and the missile flew off my rail. It took it a bit to make contact but, when it did, that Gazelle's tail assembly had a different zip code.
That tail flew off the Gazelle, and it came tumbling down, crashing in a ball of fire. That was the first kill. I had no time to celebrate, though. In the distance, I managed to see what looked to be flares from a recce team. That meant that another helicopter was nearby.
I looked in that direction and found another dot, one that belonged to a Huey. I did the same, went in for the kill. That was the second one. Unexpectedly, just a kilometer away, two other Hueys were strafing one of our positions. It was at that moment that I heard a jet engine roaring past me. A Mirage had flown over me. I tried to line up a shot, but by the time I had turned around, it was long gone. With the Mirage gone, I prayed I wasn't in any immediate danger as I vectored towards the Hueys.
I was joined by an allied Hind and a Hip, both which seemed to have been operating around the same area as me. The Hueys strafed the Hip, hitting it a couple of times. I rushed in, getting into what was my first helicopter dogfight. The Hueys and I danced around, trying to get a proper shooting position. The Huey hit me a couple of times with the miniguns, but nothing important was hit. At least to my knowledge.
It wasn't until one of the Hueys extended a turn that I whipped myself around, took aim and fired at him with my 30mm. His main rotor shattered, sending him to a painful death. That being said, I never knew what became of that second Huey.
Sadly, even after 3 kills, my flight did not end in the best of ways. I landed in the middle of a field close to the Huey's wreck to unload a recon team I had loaded. I let them do their thing, and then I got the prompt to pick them back up. That is when I got overconfident and, while trying to do an expedited descent, entered DCS' exaggerated VRS (Vortex Ring State) and crashed right next to my team.
IF YOU LIKE HELOS, GIVE ENIGMA'S A TRY
If you find yourself wanting a place to go on helicopter sorties with your friend to have what has got to be an unparalleled Cold War experience with helicopters, Enigma is the place to go.
Helicopters play a crucial role in the mission and fit perfectly in it. This is not common in popular servers, which are usually much more focused on the experience that supersonic fixed-wing fighters will have, not the slow rotary-wing aircraft.
About the author
Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos
Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and the co-founder of Skyward ever since. Twitter | Discord: Cubeboy
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