Ka-52 TEAM ALLIGATOR FLIGHT MANUAL

TITLE PAGE

DISCLAIMERS

[Disclaimers, warranty and liability information here. To be supplied by GT.]

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

[Technical support information here. To be supplied by GT.]

Written by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood

Edited and converted to html format by Gabriella Diffley

[Copyright and trademark information here. To be decided.]

Project Directors Gabriella Diffley

Carl Jones

Lead Designer Lee Brimmicombe-Wood

Game and Terrain Design David Millard

Mission Design Steve Masters

Lead Programmer Richard Mackie

Programmers Graham Parker

Rhona Robson

Network Programming Phil Rutherford

Flight and Physics Modelling Dr. Glyn Scragg

Additional Programming Tim Dinsdale

Jamie Brooker

Tony Francis

Daedalus Engine Development Julian Davies

Simon Anthony

Robin Bryce

Greg Booker

Environment and Terrain System Ed Daly

Lead Artist Tim Fawcett

Artists Mark Davies

Chris Luck

Pre-rendered Artwork George Grimshaw

Additional Artwork Simon Allen

James Brooksby

Adonis Stevenson

AV Engineer/Non-linear Editor Paul James

Voice Over Artists Boris Isarov

Larissa Kousnetsova

Oleg Mirochnikov

Enn Reitel

Casting and Voice Production Philip Morris, AllintheGame Ltd

Voice Overs Recorded at The Vocal Suite Ltd, London

Engineered by Andy Emery

Military Advisors Sgt. Sebastien Benoit, Armée de l’Air

Sgt. Frederic Bluet, Armée de l’Air

Simis Testers Paul Astley

Daniel Barnett

PC Network Support Darren Miller

Operational Support Tom Alexander

Tracy West

Production Manager Kevin Holloway

Simis CEOs Jonathan Newth

Ian Baverstock

Senior Producer Steve Sargent

Lead Tester John Moorcroft

Testers Andrew Azorbo

Alfred Bailey

Ian Ball

William Carter

Mark Dearsley

Mete Djemal

Paul McGuinniss

Alys Robinson

David Sanchez

Alexander Stoikou

Gian Paras

Andrew Theodoulou

Bill Bradshaw

Hector Garcia

QA Management Graham Axford

Director of Development Graeme Boxall

QA Supervisors Germaine Mendes

Richards Pareja

Code Supervisor Kolin Tregaskes

Localisation Manager Neil McKenna

Localisation Co-ordinator Alex Bush

PD Services Manager Kevin Turner

Office Mum Marion Kidd

Marketing Matthew Woodley

Paul Fox

Manual Production Marianne Durand

Test Manager Steve Knopf

Test Lead Tim Hess

Testers Tom Akimeta

Josh Galloway

Paul Ashby

AJ Pardilla

Scott Donaldson

Aaron Harris

Doug Price

Randy Jones

Joe Orr

Keith Moran

Mike Snow

Adam Harris

Arlo Evans

Brandon Montrone

Jon Marquette

Darrin Cottle

Chris Dunn

Yume Gregersen

Tyler Pendleton

Director of Marketing Tony Kee

Senior Product Manager Martin Currie

Creative Director Vic Merrit

Art Trafficking Manager Liz Fierro

Graphic Artist Jeremy MIller

Documentation Manager Pete Witcher

Archiving/Duplication Specialist Patrick Struhs

Special Thanks Mike Ryder

Dan Harnett

Chris Ziliotto

Robin Levy

Special thanks to: Grigory Yakemenko, chief designer, Kamov Bureau; Neil Soane, for the idea; Darren, for keeping everything running; Chris Roberts; Matty C.; Barry EJS; Benny Boy; Helen; Nona; Parky and the Boys; J.D. Webster; Tony Valle and the BoP99 Design Team; Karl Mueller; John Caraher; James F. Dunnigan and the Milgames list; all at the Connections 99 conference (especially Jack Radey for keeping the Red Flag flying in the face of USAF hubris); Jonathan Clements and his minions with minds of their own; Fighting Tiger, for getting back from Serbia (almost) in one piece; V.I.Lenin, for making this all possible; and to all our partners for their patience.

Welcome

Thank you for purchasing Ka-52 Team Alligator, a new helicopter simulation from Simis and GT Interactive.

Team Alligator is a flight simulation of the Kamov Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter. Set in two campaign areas – Belarusia and Tajikistan – and a Siberian training zone, you play the commander of a Russian Army aviation squadron. Your unit comprises six Alligator helicopters, the support personnel and aircrew.

As commander, you have the responsibility for planning and executing missions. You have to manage your personnel and limited resources to ensure the efficient operation of your team. In missions you will fly as the lead pilot and issue combat orders while fighting at low level, under enemy fire.

Getting Started

Installation

Please note that a hardware graphics system capable of accelerating Direct3D will be required to run Ka-52 Team Alligator.1.1 1.1 1.1 Installation in DOS/Windows ® 3.1

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Starting the Game

Insert the CD into your CD ROM drive. Click on the Ka-52 Team Alligator shortcut created by the installation program, or press the Team Alligator icon from the Windows® Start® button. This will bring up the Ka-52 Team Alligator launcher.

From here you have several options:

Quick Start

While there’s a great deal of depth to Team Alligator, it is possible to dive straight into the game and throw yourself into the thick of the fighting. This part of the Flight Manual describes how to set up the game so that you can get into the air and immediately start zapping enemies!

To get into the game quickly we recommend the Instant Action missions. When the game has loaded, select Instant Action from the main menu. Another menu screen will be displayed offering you the option to play in either Belarus or Tajikistan. In the Tajikistan mission the enemy have less capable equipment than in Belarus, so this mission is slightly easier. When you are happy with your selection, click Fly to start the mission.

The instant action missions set up a never-ending series of enemies to kill. Flying around the waypoints is the easiest way to find them. There is also an Arming and Resupply point in the mission for when you run low on ammo. The mission continues until you quit or are shot down. Fly the mission and see how high a score you can get!

A brief description of the basic controls is given below.

Take Off and Basic Flight

To take off and fly, follow this sequence of actions:

1. Release the rotor brake by pressing Ctrl + R.
2. Increase Collective control to around 70% by pressing the + key or push the joystick throttle wheel and watch the Torque value on the HUD rise.
3. The helicopter will rise slowly. Adjusting the Collective using the + or - keys, or the joystick throttle wheel, will alter the rate of ascent or descent.
4. Once safely off the ground, raise the landing gear by pressing the G key.
5. Align the helicopter to the desired heading by using the Yaw controls < or >.
6. Push the Cyclic, ­ key or joystick, forward gently to begin forward flight. Adjust the Collective using the + or - keys, or the joystick throttle wheel, to maintain a constant altitude.
7. The Yaw controls have a reduced effect as you increase speed. At high speeds you must turn by first using the Cyclic, ¬ ® keys or joystick, to bank the helicopter left or right.
8. Reduce forward speed by pulling back on the Cyclic, ¯ key or joystick, while maintaining altitude by balancing the Collective using the + or - keys or the joystick throttle wheel.
9. Come to a hover by reducing the forward speed to zero. Adjust the Collective so as to maintain height. Now engage Hover mode by pressing the H key. Hover mode will disengage by toggling the H key again.

Landing Sequence

Shooting Things

The use of the weapons systems are covered in greater detail later in this manual. What you need to know to get started is that the two-seat Ka-52 Alligator has a Weapons Officer on board who will pick and lock up targets for you to shoot at. To fire weapons you will usually need to point the weapons at the target. Should the target be within parameters, launch or firing authorisation will be indicated on the HUD.

The critical weapons controls to remember are the Backspace key (Button 2 on the joystick) which allows you to cycle through the weapons, and The Space key (Button 1 on the joystick) which fires the selected weapon.

However, you will not be able to fire anything until you have armed your weapons. To toggle your Master Arm on or off, press Ctrl + M.

…And Before You Go

Here are a couple more controls worth keeping in mind as you take off on your first flight:

1. The Escape key will exit the mission.
2. The Enter key will toggle the 3D cockpit on or off.
3. Ctrl + P will pause the game.

You now have the basics you need to begin playing the Instant Action missions. Good luck!

Introduction to the Ka-52 Alligator

Development

The Ka-52 is a two-seat development of the Ka-50 Chernaya Akula (‘Black Shark’) close-support helicopter. The Ka-50 program came out of a late 1970’s specification designated V-80 (or Vertolyet: Helicopter 80). The Ka-50 first flew in 1982 and underwent development and testing through the 1980s, culminating in a series of comparative tests against the competing Mil bureau’s aircraft, the Mil-28.

The Ka-50 was first reported in the West in the mid-80’s, though US publications appear to have been confused by its role. Even as late as 1991, the US Army’s Field Manuals defined the Ka-50 (NATO designation: Hokum) as a helicopter designed primarily for the air-to-air role. There may have also been some confusion due to Russian disinformation as the early prototypes had a fake rear cockpit painted on them. An early name for the helicopter, ‘Werewolf’, turned out to be a marketing name for export aircraft. Ever since the Ka-50 featured as the ‘Black Shark’ in an action drama on Russian TV, all Ka-50s have been referred to as ‘Black Sharks’.

In 1994-95, the Ka-50 beat its rival Mil-28 into Russian Army acceptance and the first pre-series aircraft were delivered. (At the time of writing the Mil-28 has still not entered service and remains a production prototype.) An improved night attack version of the aircraft, the Ka-50N (Nochnoy: night), with a FLIR system mounted in a nose turret, is undergoing development.

The Ka-52 (NATO designation: Hokum-B) was first revealed to the West in 1995 at the Paris Air Show. The first flight was on 25 June 1997. The airframe was 85% identical to the Ka-50, with the front fuselage remodelled to accommodate two crew side-by-side. Various avionics changes were also made, with the millimetre-wave radar and night vision systems of the Ka-50N fitted as standard. The role of the Ka-52 (nicknamed ‘Alligator’) is to support the ‘Black Shark’, in part as a flying command post, while designating targets for formations of single-seat Ka-50s.

In 1999 Kamov also revealed a variant of the Ka-52: the Ka-50-2, designed to meet Turkey’s attack helicopter requirement. This was shown in two configurations: one a side-by-side cockpit with repositioned sensor turrets, and one a conventional tandem cockpit. In both cases, the avionics fit was re-architectured by Israel Aircraft Industries’ Lahav Division to meet NATO standards. Another aircraft option was a 20 mm gun turret on a folding truss frame, which could be deployed below the aircraft while in flight.

This simulation primarily features the Ka-52 format developed for the Russian Army.

Description

The Ka-52 is a two-seat all-weather day/night combat and training helicopter. The fuselage is built of steel and carbon-based composites, with some 350 kg of armour protecting the pilot, engines, fuel system and ammunition bay. Coaxial, contrarotating rotors are employed instead of a conventional helicopter layout. The nose has been widened from the slimmer cross-section of the Ka-50, and the front fuselage can accommodate two crewmembers seated side-by-side; pilot to port and weapons officer to starboard. On the starboard side, the nose has been recessed to improve the field of fire of the 30mm cannon.

A small swept-back tailfin and high-set tailplane provide control authority at speed and during autorotation. The wings carry ECM pods at the tips. There are four underwing weapons pylons, with two additional latchment points, between the ECM pods and the outer pylons, capable of carrying lightweight Air-to-Air Missiles.

Much of the fuselage skin is formed by large hinged door panels, providing access to interior equipment from ground level. The landing gear is hydraulically retractable and of the tricycle type.

The production Ka-52 will employ two 1,838 kW Klimov TV3-117VMA-SB3 turboshaft engines. The engines have air intake dust filters and exhaust heat suppressers. The transmission system remains operable for 30 minutes after an oil system failure.

The cockpit is made of double-walled steel armour, able to protect the crew from hits by 20mm and 23mm gunfire down to ranges as close as 100 m. The interior is black-painted for use with Night Vision Goggles. Dual controls allow either crew member to fly the aircraft. There are two Zveda K-37-800 emergency escape systems; in the event of an emergency, the rotor blades explosively separate and the crew seats are simultaneously extracted from the cockpit by large rockets. Instruments include an ILS-31 Heads Up Display with a field of view of 24 degrees. The cockpit has four colour multifunction displays (MFDs). Aircrew have the use of Sextant Avioniques ‘Topowl’ helmet-mounted displays and image intensifiers.

All systems are configured for operational deployment away from base for up to 12 days without need for maintenance ground equipment. Refuelling, avionics and weapon servicing can all be performed from ground level. Systems include the Rubikon piloting, navigation and sighting system based on five computers. The Radian flight/navigation suite is a subsystem of Rubikon, in which the co-ordinates of up to two airfields, six consecutive waypoints, ten targets and four landmarks may be stored. ‘Slap Shot’ Identification Friend-Foe (IFF) equipment is fitted.

The Shkval-V day/night automatic sight and fire control system is a TV sighting system, linked with a laser rangefinder and designator. It is mounted in a gimballed nose turret and is used for search, identification, tracking and target designation. It is claimed the system features 0.6 m guidance precision. Once a target is identified and locked-on it is tracked automatically. A datalink system provides the pilot with the position of other helicopters working with him, targets and landmarks sent by other helicopters and ground command centres. It displays this data as symbols on the MFDs.

Other sensors include a mast-mounted dome containing a Arbalet millimetre-wave radar. A sphere above the cockpit houses the Samshit-E (Boxtree) electro-optical system, containing an imaging infrared camera, TV sensor and laser.

Self-defence systems include a L150 Pastel radar warning receiver. The L-140 Otklik laser sensor detects and identifies hostile laser designators and rangefinders. When the helicopter is illuminated by lasers and radars, the warning system issues a message and indicates the type and direction of the threat. The helicopter also carries an L-136 Mak infrared missile launch warning system. There are a total of 512 x 26mm chaff/flare cartridges in each wingtip, with a predefined release sequence.

The Ka-52’s main armament is the single-barrelled 2A42 gun on the starboard side of the fuselage, with up to 470 AP or HE rounds. This gun can be trained hydraulically. Elevation limits are from +3.5° to - 37° and it can traverse limits from - 2.5° to +9°. The gun is kept on target in azimuth by a tracker which turns the helicopter in its axis. The cannon may be fired in mobile mode (using the Shkval-V system) or fixed mode (using the HUD). There are two ammunition boxes in the centre-fuselage; the front box contains 240 AP rounds and the rear box 230 HE rounds. There is selectable rapid (550 to 600 rpm) or medium (350 rpm) fire, with automatic burst limitation bias of 10 or 20 rounds.

The wings have four pylons, capable of carrying S-8 80mm rockets; S-13 122mm rockets or 9A4172 Vikhr-M anti-tank guided missiles. Additional weapons such as UPK-23-250 gun pods, Igla and R-60 air-to-air missiles, Kh-25ML air-to-surface missiles and 500 kg bombs can be carried.

Performance

Team Alligator Interface

The Team Alligator interface screens are easy to use. Simply move the mouse pointer and click on the relevant icon or highlighted area of the screen to make your selection.

Main Menu

The Main Menu screen contains several options for playing and configuring Team Alligator. Note that these buttons also appear on other screens to allow you to navigate the interface easily.

Training This button takes you into the Training missions, where you can learn to fly and flightfight in the Alligator.

Instant Action This button takes you to the Instant Action missions.

Combat Missions This button takes you to the stand-alone Combat missions.

Campaign This button starts a real time Campaign game.

Network This button will allow you to start or enter a network game.

Team Management This button will allow you to construct teams of aircrew, as well as manage existing teams.

Options This button brings up the options screen for graphics configuration.

Quit Click here to exit Team Alligator. On other screens this button will take you back to the previous screen.

Main Menu On screens other than the Main Menu, this button will return you to the main menu.

Flight Training

No one ever said flying a helicopter was easy, so don’t expect to be able to master the Alligator in minutes. Having said that, the controls for the helicopter are straightforward and with practice should become instinctive. We’ve found that most rookies can fly and fight the Alligator after just a handful of training missions.

In the game are six training missions. We recommend you fly these first of all. To access these, click on Training in the main menu. The Training missions screen will appear, as shown below.

Select a mission and read the briefing, before clicking on Fly Mission. When you enter the mission you will be in the pilot’s seat. Your instructor pilot for the training sessions is Kapitan Sutyagin. He will talk you through your flight and weapons instruction, and tear you a strip if you foul up!

Training missions run in the following order:

When in the tutorials, you may skip audio sequences by pressing the Numpad / key.

Game Types

Team Alligator is three games in one, with the depth and realism varying depending on the game you play. The options are: Instant Action, Combat Missions and the Campaign, in respective order of complexity and realism. thereThere is a fourth game, the Network game, for multiple players who are connected by a Local Area Network or the Internet.

Instant Action

Instant Action missions are high action arcade-style missions where you will be confronted by numerous threats. When you click on the Instant Action button you will be given the option to fly in Belarus or Tajikistan. Instant action missions are flown solo, with no wingmen or other friendly support.

Combat Missions

The Combat missions are stand-alone missions based on typical mission profiles for an Alligator squadron. Scroll through the list of missions and click on the one you wish to fly, then click on Mission Planner to begin.

You will be taken through to the Mission Planner screen. This screen has a button that will permit you to toggle between the briefing orders and the planning map.

The briefing orders will show a text brief, including essential information on the mission objectives and your orders for its execution.

The planning map shows your flight path through the mission, and the flight paths of all the other formations in the mission. Each formation has a colour-coded route and waypoint markers. In the mission you fly along a series of route waypoints. At each waypoint, there are orders set for that leg of the journey. Most waypoints are marked with a square icon. A triangular icon marks the waypoint as a target zone where an engagement is planned.

The plus and minus buttons and the scroll buttons next to the map allow you to zoom in and out from the map and scroll around.

The Show/Hide Enemy button toggles the location of enemy forces on or off.

The Show/Hide Friendly button toggles the location of friendly forces on or off.

The NATO Icon button toggles between NATO and stylised icons on the map.

Where icons overlap on the screen, left-clicking the mouse on the overlapped area will bring up a display of the friendly or enemy force units in that area.

The colour-coded buttons to the left will show the friendly flights taking part in the mission. Each flight is named in alphabetical order, using the Russian phonetic alphabet, as follows: Alexei, Boris, Vasili, Gregori, Dmitri. Clicking on the flight buttons will show or hide their waypoint information on the map.

It is possible to edit elements of the mission plan. The waypoints are more than just geographical locations. They also mark legs of the mission in which various orders are set. Clicking directly on a waypoint on the planning map will bring up its parameters in an order window. You can edit the parameters in the window. These are the standing orders that apply to your team for the leg of the mission up to that waypoint:

1. Engage: engage and suppress/eliminate the enemy.
2. Bypass: bypass the enemy and fly to the next waypoint.

1. Transit: fly to the next waypoint.
2. Land: land at a base.
3. Deploy: Transport helicopters to drop off their load.
4. Pick Up: Transport helicopters pick up a load.
5. SEAD: Engage all enemy air defence units.
6. Engage Primary: Engage all primary targets.
7. Engage Secondary: Engage all secondary targets.
8. Engage AFV: Engage all armoured vehicles.
9. Engage All: Engage all targets.

The map will also mark the positions of any Rally Points. These are fallback positions for any helicopter forced to exit the combat area. Some Rally Points are Arming and Refuelling Supply Points, or ARSPs, where aircraft can rearm and refuel in the middle of a mission.

The Formation Screen is where you can change the allocation of helicopters and aircrew to the mission formations. The formations are already set, but can be customised. Only Alligator helicopters can be edited; you will not be able to move or edit non-Ka-52 helicopters.

The player’s helicopter forces are divided into a number of flights; pressing the scroll buttons will scroll through the flights. If you select an Alligator helicopter you can edit it in various ways. The Remove Heli and Add Heli buttons will move it to and from the Heli Pool. The Remove Crew button will remove selected aircrew members from the helicopter to the Pilot Pool. Selecting aircrew from the Pilot pool and pressing the Add Crew buttons will assign the crew to the selected helicopter. The information panel to the side will provide information on the current state of the selected helicopters and aircrew.

The Weapons Select Screen is where you can alter the weapon loadouts of your team. The team list will display each helicopter’s current loadout. A helicopter’s load can be altered by clicking and highlighting its icon, before scrolling through the loadout options at the top. The graphic will display what each load represents. When you have selected a load, press the OK button to change the helicopter’s loadout.

Note that by highlighting several helicopters, you can change all their weapon loads simultaneously.

When you have finished editing the mission, pressing the Fly Mission button will commence the mission.

Campaign Game

The campaign game is the most challenging part of Team Alligator. Not only must you plan and fly missions, as in the Combat missions, but also you must manage the personnel and resources of your team.

In the campaign you are the commander of a Russian aviation squadron. You have six Ka-52 Alligators at your disposal. You also have sixteen aircrew as well as eighteen maintenance crewchiefs. These are your resources for the campaign. Lost aircrew can be replaced, but you’ll recievereceive no replacements for aircraft losses. You must husband your aircraft and personnel with care.

You will choose either the Tajikistan or Belarus campaign, then you will fly a series of missions. Success or failure in these missions will affect the events going on around you. Missions will appear depending on the course events take. Intelligence briefings and newspaper reports will give you the wider picture and inform you of how your campaign is progressing.

By clicking the Campaign button in the Main Menu screen, you will begin a campaign. The campaign screen will offer you the chance to load an existing saved campaign. Simply select the saved game and click the Load Campaign button.

Pressing the New Campaign button will take you through to the New Campaign screen. Here, you select the parameters for the new campaign. You can set the campaign area, and decide whether or not to manage a team (in which case you must select a team or aircrew to fly the mission) or to manage maintenance.

If you decide to manage a team, pressing the Select Team button will take you through to the Team Management screens, to select or create a team for the campaign. If you do not select a team, you will use the default team.

Once you are satisfied with any changes you have made, press the Create Campaign button to begin the campaign.

When you first enter the campaign, you will begin at the Campaign Base screen. The critical areas of this screen are:

1. Exit: This exits the campaign.
2. Campaign Clock: This shows the current time in days, hours, minutes and seconds. Two arrow buttons to either side may be clicked to accelerate or decelerate time. As time goes on, messages will appear, telling you whether newspapers or new missions are available.
3. Operations: Takes you to the Operations screen.
4. Maintenance: Takes you to the Maintenance screen. (This is only available if the maintenance management option has been taken.)
5. Crews: Takes you to the Crews screen. (This is only available if the crew management option has been taken.)
6. Options: this allows you to alter the game options, or save or load a campaign.
7. Fly Mission: fly the currently selected mission.

The Operations screen is where you plan and organise your missions, when they are available. There are a number of ‘hot spots’ in operations:

1. News: If there is a newspaper available, you can access it here. The Army’s Red Star newspaper will keep you informed of how the war is going. Next to the newspaper report is a War Barometer which indicates how well the campaign is progressing.
2. Mission Planner: if there is a mission available, you may go to the mission planner, which functions exactly as for the combat missions.
3. Team Formation: if there is a mission available, you may go to the Team Formation screen, which functions exactly as for the combat missions.
4. Weapons Select: if there is a mission available, you may go to the Weapons Selection screen, which functions exactly as for the combat missions.
5. Supply State: the supplies inventory lists all the ammunition supplies remaining for the squadron. When an ammunition type is used up, that ammo may no longer be loaded on an aircraft.
6. Recruitment: if you are playing with the crew management option, you can replace killed or missing crewmembers by going to the recruitment screen.

The Maintenance screen displays the state of each Alligator in your unit. Click on a helicopter icon to view the state of that aircraft. The Condition entry will tell you whether the Alligator is capable of flying. Fully Mission Capable (FMC) means that it is in good order and ready for battle. Partially Mission Capable (PMC) means the aircraft has light damage or malfunctioning non-critical systems; you fly it at your own risk. Non-Mission Capable (NMC) means the aircraft is too damaged to fly.

The Damaged Components diagram will display the systems affected by damage or malfunction.

If you have not selected Auto Maintenance, the crewchiefs screen will be available.

When an Alligator system is damaged or malfunctions, it is indicated on the crewchiefs screen by altering the colour of the helicopter icons. A FMC helicopter will be green; a PMC helicopter will be amber; and a NMC helicopter icon will be red.

When you click on a helicopter, a list of damaged components will appear. Next to each component is the repair time before the system is repaired. The Crewchiefs box lists the number of crewchiefs needed or already assigned to the repair.

You can add or take away crewchiefs from repairing a component. Select the component and click the Add Crewchief or Remove Crewchief buttons to alter the crewchief total. Adding extra crewchiefs will reduce the repair time, but there is a limit on the number of chiefs that can be added; beyond a certain point, additional hands make no difference to the result. Some systems require a minimum number of men to complete the job; if you’ve allocated less than this, it will note the number of crewchiefs required to begin repairs. Repair of a system will not begin until the minimum number of crewchiefs has been assigned.

At the top of the Crewchiefs screen is a crewchiefs status box. If you work your crewchiefs too hard they will become fatigued, which in turn will affect their repair times. The only way to rest them is to stand down some of the crews by taking them off repair jobs. Crews not working wait in the Crewchiefs Resting box on the screen. Pressing the Rest Crewchiefs box will rest all the crewchiefs.

Entering the Crew screen, you can view the current status of all the aircrew in your unit. Boxes at the top of the screen lists the callsigns of all the crew members in your squadron. Click on a callsign to examine a crew member’s status and his total kills to date on the screen.

There are a number of buttons for each crew member. Fatigued aircrew can be instructed to sleep (unfatigued crew will not sleep). Rested aircrew can be woken.

If morale is particularly poor, you may encourage or discipline the crew. (Some men respond better to one form of treatment than the other.) You may also give them a ‘treat’ by selecting one from the list; however, there are a limited number of treats available in each campaign.

The recruitment button will take you to the recruitment screen and allow you to edit your team.

If you go to the options screen in the campaign, you ca access the regular options. However, you can also save your current campaign, or load a new one, from here.

Save: will allow you to save your current campaign. Click on the old or new slot you wish to save to. Click on the save button to save the game.

Load: you can reload a game from any existing save slot listed on the saved game screen. Click on the save slot of the saved game, then click on the Load button to load it. You will re-enter the campaign at the saved point.

The Team Alligator campaign is semi-dynamic, which means that the appearance of missions in the campaign is dependant on events. In particular, the loss of crewmen may result in rescue missions being mounted to recover them.

In certain extreme circumstances, events may occur which will cause you to be courts martialed and forced to retire from the campaign. We won’t detail these here; we’ll let you find them out for yourself!

Network

Team Alligator supports different modes of multi-player gaming. In network games one player – the "Host" – hosts the game and sets up the mission parameters. All other players are "Clients" and have no control over the mission options. A game can have multiple clients, but only one host. The maximum number of players allowed in Co-operative missions is six; in Head-to-Head missions it is eight.

When you click on Network in the Main Menu, you first come to the Network Screen.

Before you can enter a Network Game you must first give yourself a network name or Callsign; without this you will be unable to join or create a game. Click on the Callsign box and type a name, pressing Enter to confirm. If you are playing a network game using TCP/IP, you should type your IP address in the space provided.

Select the network type you are using. You may select from:

Below the Callsign box is a list of network games in progress. If you wish to join a game as a client, click on the game’s name to select it, then click on the Join button. You will be allowed to enter if the game has places available and hasn’t yet started.

If you wish to create a game as a host it, first select which type of game you wish to host: Co-operative missions, Campaign or Head-to-Head. Then click on the Create button.

Co-operative missions give you access to all the Combat Missions and allows up to six players to fly as an Alligator team. Players will have to work together to achieve victory.

The Campaign game allows you to fly a string of campaign missions co-operatively. Settings for weapons and mission planning are fixed to default.

Head-to-Head is frenzied competitive combat, which pits you against up to seven other players in four different missions. You also have several different options which alter the mission parameters.

Selecting a Co-operative mission will take you through to the Network Co-operative Screen.

This screen has a chat box which allows you to communicate with the other players. Typing a message here and pressing Enter will send the message to all the other players. The host may select a mission from the list provided. Clicking fly mission will commence that mission. Clients may examine the mission by selecting it and reading the briefing. Once all players have clicked on fly mission, the mission will commence.

The campaign missions work in just the same fashion as the co-operative missions, except that the host does not select the next mission.

After each mission of the campaign, all players return to the Campaign Co-operative screen, where the host can save the campaign game by clicking on Save. Pressing fly mission will take players though to the next mission.

Selecting a Head-to-Head game will take you through to the Head-to-Head Session Screen.

Next, the host must select a mission. The head-to-head missions are all deathmatches; free-for-all contests in which the player with the most kills wins. ARSPs are scattered around the area; landing on them will rearm your Alligator. The missions are all set in Siberia, with each mission involving a slightly different set up and weapon loadout for the helicopters.

In addition to the head-to-head mission, a number of other parameters may be selected:

When you have set all the parameters, click on fly mission to begin the game.

The left of the screen will list all the players who have joined the game. If the game is a team game you may assign them to the Red and Blue teams simply by clicking and dragging them into the respective boxes. When you are satisfied with the team allocations, click the Fly Mission button to start the game.

There are some special key commands which can be used in all Head-to-Head games. Pressing V will toggle the score feature on. This will show each sides’ or each player’s scores in the game. Pressing Tab will activate the message function. Simply type in a message and press the ` key; this will broadcast the message to everyone in the game. Pressing Ctrl + ` will cancel a message in progress.

If you find typing messages too hard, you can pre-set messages so that you can send them by keying Shift and a number key. There can be up to ten messages in all, available from keys Shift +1, Shift +2 etc., to Shift +0.

The text messages are kept in a file in the Tgator directory called netmsg.txt. Open up the file using a text editor like Notepad or WordPad and you will see a list of ten messages, one message per line. The top message corresponds to Shift +1; the bottom to Shift +0. You may change or edit these to suit yourself. Note that there is a maximum of 10 lines of messages; if you input more than 10 lines the excess will be ignored. Also note that no message can be longer than 32 characters; any excess will be ignored.

At the end of a mission, a debrief screen will appear to tell you who has won the game. At the side, all the players and their individual scores will be listed, in order of rank.

While in networked games, only the host player may advance waypoints or return to earlier ones. When playing Head-to-Head games, the autopilot does not function and no enemy camera views are allowed.

Team Management

In Team Alligator you have the opportunity to construct teams of 16 aircrew to fly your missions. As you play Combat and Campaign missions you can assign crews to aircraft and have them gain in skill and experience. It is also possible that crews may suffer casualties or loss of morale due to poor mission results.

The Team Management screen shows a list of teams and their composition. Existing teams can be loaded into missions and campaigns. New teams can be created using the Team Management screens.

Each crew member in a team is listed as follows:

Callsign: The Crew member’s callsign.

Rank: The crew member’s current rank. Crew ranks increase with experience. The equivalent ranks in the US Army are as follows:

Name: The crew member’s name.

Flying Skill: This number, between 0 and 99 is the crew’s ability at piloting and handling a helicopter. High ratings mean they are less accident prone under stress conditions.

Combat Reactions: This number, between 0 and 99, reflects the ability of the crew member to respond under stress. It impacts on their ability to employ sensors and guided weapons systems, and to find and lock up targets before the enemy can shoot back.

Accuracy: This number, between 0 and 99, measures the crew member’s accuracy at directing unguided weapons such as cannon and rockets.

Morale: This value, which begins at 50 (average) for all aircrew, fluctuates according to the success or failure of missions. High morale improves performance, while poor morale causes performance to deteriorate.

Fatigue: This value begins at 100 and is set at that value in all Combat Missions. However, in campaigns it will fall, depending on missions performed and the amount of rest the crew member is able to get. As the crew’s fatigue state worsens, their performance will begin to drop.

The Team Management screen lists all the teams you have created. (There is a default team available, if you have not created any.) Clicking on a team name will select that team. While selected, that team will serve in all missions and campaigns you play.

When a team is selected, the crew members in that team are displayed at the bottom of the screen. You can scroll through the list of aircrew callsigns. Selecting a crew member will cause their ratings to be displayed.

Pressing the Create Team button will take you through to the Team Creation screen. First click on the File Name box and type in a file name, up to eight characters long. This will be the name of the file (with a .tea suffix). Now click on and type in a team name (invent your own name, such as ‘Dnepr Roughriders’ or ‘Heroes of Lenin’). Then click on and type your own name into the Captain’s Name. Finally, select your team’s Division designation from the scrolling list at the foot of the screen.

If you press the Done button, you will go through to the Crew Selection screen. This indicates the number of crewmembers you are required to select, and there are sixteen crew ‘slots’ to fill. Scroll up and down the list of crew members’ callsigns to the left. When you click on a crew member, his details and parameters appear and he is automatically selected into a slot. Clicking his name a second time will give you the chance to deselect him.

Crewmembers may be killed as a result of missions. Alternatively, you may wish to drop a man from your team to make way for someone else. By going to the recruitment screen you can edit your team. This is done exactly as for the Team Creation screen. Clicking on unselected crew will fill an empty crew slot, while clicking on existing names will allow you to deselect them.

Note however that deselecting a crew member will mean their ratings revert to their default value. If you re-recruit them, they will start anew, without any experience they previously accrued.

Alligator Cockpit

Missions will begin in the cockpit of a Ka-52 Alligator. This section will describe the basic cockpit displays.

Instruments

The instrument panel in the 3D cockpit has four displays: the Airspeed Indicator, giving the current airspeed in kilometres per hour; the Vertical Speed Indicator giving the rate of climb or dive in metres per second; the Barometric Altimeter, giving the height above sea level; and the Artificial Horizon, which shows the helicopter’s relative orientation.

Warning Panel

In emergency situations, the lights on the warning panel will light. There are seventeen lights in all, each marked with an abbreviation.

The ten blue system status lights are as follows:

The five red warning lights are as follows:

The two engine lights are as follows:

Navigational HUD

The Heads Up Display, or HUD is on at all times and displays critical in-flight data. If the cockpit is switched off the HUD will fill the screen view. When weapons are disarmed, the navigational HUD can be seen. There are several elements to the HUD:

1. Heading Tape: This shows the current compass direction you are facing. It also shows the position of the next designated waypoint as an arrow.
2. Bank Indicator: This rotates around the HUD’s centre dot and shows the current bank of the aircraft relative to the ground. Bank angles are indicated on the HUD in increments of 30 degrees. Note that unlike Western-style HUDs, this is NOT an artificial horizon.
3. Pitch Ladder: This shows the aircraft’s inclination from the vertical.
4. Vertical Speed Indicator: The vertical scale to the right of the HUD is the Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI). The marker shows the current climb rate; if it is on the centre line then the helicopter is flying level. If it is above then the helicopter is climbing, if it is below the line, then the helicopter is descending.
5. Altitude: Above the VSI digital readout is displayed the altitude in metres. If the prefix is ‘R’, the readout is giving the radar altitude from the ground. If the helicopter is greater than 300 metres from the ground, the prefix will switch to a ‘B’ to indicate the barometric altitude.
6. Torque Indicator: The Torque Indicator displays the current torque ¾ the amount of power from the collective control ¾ as a percentage value. It is possible to go over 100% (though at the cost of extra wear and tear on the helicopter).
7. Airspeed Indicator: This indicates the airspeed in kilometres per hour.
8. Flight Path Marker: This small circle moves to indicate the relative bearing and altitude of the next waypoint. If to the left of the centre dot the helicopter must turn left to point at the waypoint; if to the right of the centre dot, the helicopter must turn right. If above the HUD centre dot, the helicopter must climb, and if below, the helicopter must dive.
9. Navigational Symbology: Navigational data can be found at the bottom of the HUD. The numbers to the left are the number of the next waypoint and the distance to the waypoint. To the right is the time to the next waypoint in minutes and seconds.

Combat HUD

Laser weapons HUD

Infrared weapons HUD

Unguided weapons HUD

When weapons are armed and selected, new symbols and displays appear on the HUD. These include:

1. Selected Weapon: This indicates the currently selected weapon. The number next to this is the amount of ammunition remaining.
2. Burst/Salvo Limit: If rocket or gun weapons are selected, the burst or salvo limit is indicated. This is the number of rockets or gun rounds fired with each pull of the trigger
3. Range Bar: This shows the range of the currently selected weapon, noted in kilometres at the top of the bar. At the bottom of the bar is the range to the current target, also in kilometres, and an arrow graphically indicates this range on the bar. Marks near the top and bottom of the bar show the maximum and minimum range (if any) of the weapon.
4. Manual/Automatic: This indicates whether the fire control systems are in Manual or Automatic mode. In Manual mode, the weapons will fire on any trigger pull, regardless of whether a launch has been authorised. In Automatic mode, weapons will fire when the trigger is pulled only if there is a valid target and a launch has been authorised.
5. Firing Confirmation: With laser and infrared weapons, if the weapon has a valid lock, a launch authorisation message will appear here. Otherwise, the ‘No Fire’ message will be indicated.
6. Weapon Constraints: When laser-guided weapons are selected, the weapon constraints box appears. The target must be within this box for launch authorisation to be given.
7. Aiming Box: When laser weapons are selected and a target is in sight, an aiming box appears over that target. If this box is broken then the weapon does not have a lock on. If this box turns solid, the weapon has locked on.
8. Infrared Aiming Reticule: When infrared weapons are selected and a target is in sight, an aiming reticule appears over that target. If this reticule is broken then the weapon does not have a lock on. If the reticule turns solid, the weapon has locked on.
9. Ballistic Aiming Reticule: When rockets or bombs are selected and a target is in sight, an aiming reticule appears as an ‘I’ beam on the HUD. If this ‘I’ beam is circled, then the weapon is on target for release.
10. Crosshair: When guns are selected, a crosshair representing the aiming point for the helicopter’s gun appears on the HUD.

Multi-Function Displays

There are two MFD screens. You can view them from the in-cockpit view, or close-up by pressing F3 for the left MFD, or F4 for the right MFD. There are a number of separate modes that a screen can display. Pressing the [ key for the left MFD and the ] key for the right will cycle through the modes. If the screen is listed as having a range mode, then pressing Shift + [ or Ctrl + [ for the left MFD and Shift + ] or Ctrl + ] for the right MFD will cycle up and down the range settings for that display.

Threat Warning Mode: This mode presents a 360 degree display of the area around the helicopter. The display has a range mode. The display shows the location of any enemy radar, laser or missile launch threats.

The symbols are as follows:

EWR: Early warning radars.

Each EWR, AAA and SAM unit will have a letter code next to it, which corresponds to one of the following radar types:

1. ZSU-23-4M
2. 2S6M
3. S-300PMU1
4. 9K37 Buk-1M
5. 9K330 Tor-M1
6. 30N6 (NATO: Flap Lid)
7. 9S18M1 (NATO: Snow Drift)
8. Dog Ear

Navigation Mode: Navigation mode displays a schematic of the mission’s flight plan. The navigation screen has a range mode. The screen will display the waypoints as numbered boxes connected by lines. Your helicopter is considered to be at the centre of the display. Additional symbols are as follows:

Radar Mode: This mode provides data from the helicopter’s radar. The radar has a range mode. The radar also has two sub-modes which can be cycled between by pressing the ‘ key.

Air sub-mode shows a circular display of the 360 degree space around the helicopter, showing the positions of enemy aircraft only.

The Ground sub-mode shows a wedge-shaped display of the area in front of the helicopter. Symbols on the display indicate different types of enemy unit:

Shkval: The Shkval electro-optical complex displays magnified images of targets on the screen. The magnification field of view can be cycled as for the range mode. The display is overlain by the following symbols:

1. Heading Tape: This indicates the helicopter’s current heading.
2. Azimuth Scale: This is the direction the Shkval turret is pointing in azimuth.
3. Elevation Scale: This is the direction the Shkval turret is pointing in elevation.
4. Field of View: This indicates whether the field of view is wide, medium or narrow.
5. Target Range Scale: This target range scale gives the range of the viewed object as for the HUD.

The Shkval will automatically track and follow the currently selected target.

Weapons Status: This mode shows a graphic of the six Ka-52 weapons pylons and the current type and number of weapons remaining on each pylon. The display shows the following:

1. Selected Pylons: A cross will appear to indicate the currently selected weapons pylons.
2. Master Arm: This will indicate whether the Master Arm is on or off.
3. Rocket Salvo: This is the current rocket salvo setting.
4. Gun: This gives the current gun rate of fire setting (Medium or High).
5. Stations: The currently selected stations are indicated, listing the weapon type and the number remaining.
6. Cannon Ammo: This lists the number of cannon rounds remaining.
7. Weapons: Beneath each pylon is a graphic representation of the weapon, and the number of rounds remaining. The weapon icons are:

Engine Status: The engine status screen shows the current power output of the engines. It also displays the rotor RPM and the fuel remaining.

Systems Status: This mode shows the major systems aboard your helicopter and their current state. FMC stands for Fully Mission Capable. PMC stands for partially mission capable (a partially operating system). NMC stands for Non-Mission Capable (a malfunctioning system).

Alligator Controls

Principles of Helicopter Flight

This section attempts to make simple the basics of helicopter flight. Knowing how helicopters fly will make your control of the Alligator more instinctive.

The most fundamental force in flight is gravity, which causes objects to fall to the Earth. Aircraft counter gravity with lift, which they create by slicing a wing rapidly through the air. The wings are shaped in cross section and angled so as to cause low air pressure on their upper side and high air pressure on their underside; it’s this difference in air pressures that causes the wing to lift the aircraft into the air.

In helicopters the wings, known as rotors, are not fixed, but are whirled around at high speed to create lift. The amount of lift is dependantreliant in part on the speed of the rotors through the air, but it is largely dependantdependent on the angle of incidence of the rotors – the angle at which the rotors hit the air. At the extremes – an angle of zero (where the rotor blades are flat to the ground) and an angle of ninety degrees (where they are flat to the air), rotor blades generate no usable lift at all. At the angles of incidence between these extremes, they generate varying amounts of lift. The Collective control in the helicopter is used to alter this angle of incidence (it controls all the rotors collectively, thus the name) and therefore controls the amount of lift from the rotors. In Team Alligator, the amount of lift from the collective is measured in terms of Engine Torque and is displayed on the HUD.

When a helicopter can balance its lift and gravity perfectly, it will hover.

It’s common to refer to the moving rotors as the rotor disc. Air around the disc flows up, over and down through the disc to create downwash. For the most part this has no effect on the helicopter; however, at very low altitudes, within a rotor length of the ground, the downwash bounces back off the ground and provides an air cushion for the heliciopter. This is known as the ground effect.

Another effect occurs when a helicopter with little forward speed descends too fast, into the disturbed air in the downwash. Beyond a certain point lift is lost and an effect known as vortex ring state can develop, which pushes the helicopter into the ground. One way to avoid this is to ensure that rapid descents are made with some forward speed so the rotors cut on ‘clean’ undisturbed air.

The spinning rotors and the rotor shaft that connects them to the engines create a torque force against the helicopter airframe. The torque will try to spin the helicopter in the direction opposite the direction of the rotors. To prevent it from spinning uncontrollably in the air, the Alligator has a pair of contrarotating rotor disks to oppose the torque force. By altering the torque power to each set of rotors, the helicopter can be spun in place, clockwise or counter-clockwise, around the rotor shaft. This spinning around the axis is known as yaw.

By tilting the rotor disc, the helicopter can be made to fly forward, or backward or sideways. This is because tilting the disc means that some of the lift force is not just being directed upwards, but also horizontally. The control used to tilt the rotor disc is known as the cyclic. Tilting the disc forward with the cyclic means the helicopter flies forward; sideways means it flies sideways; backward means it flies backward. Because some of the force is being directed toward horizontal motion, some of the lift needed to maintain height is lost. Therefore, when flying a helicopter, additional lift from the Collective control is required to maintain an even height. This also means that when slowing down from high speed level flight, the lift from the Collective must be reduced, otherwise the helicopter will translate all its forward lift into upward lift andand pop up from low level, which can be dangerous when engaged in combat.

As the helicopter begins to move forward, the air moves across the rotor blades, creating additional lift known as translational lift. This tends to kick in above a certain speed – about 15-25 kph in an Alligator. As it begins to manifest itself, the extra lift also improves the helicopter’s climb rate.

The helicopter’s top speed is limited by the force known as drag, which is the resistance caused by flying through the air. It is also limited by complex aerodynamic effects on the rotors, which cause them to stall, or lose all lift.

When in flight, it takes a moment for the helicopter to respond to alterations in the controls, so care must be taken not to overcompensate with control inputs.

At the limits of the helicopter’s speed, the retreating blade in the rotor disc may begin to stall. This will result in the helicopter suffering the effects of buffet and vibrations. Decreasing the collective will solve some of these problems, as will reducing the cyclic. If a contra-rotating helicopter such as the Ka-52 tries to turn hard while suffering the effects of blade stall, the rotor discs may collide, causing a mid-air accident.

If the engines cut out or are shut down, the helicopter will enter autorotation. The rotors will remain turning and supply some lift so long as there is energy in the rotor system. Conducting a gliding descent at low collective will keep the rotors turning. However, attempting to manoeuvre, or setting the collective to a high setting, will bleed energy from the rotors.

In autorotation you should attempt a forward gliding descent in autorotation, only setting high collective when approaching the ground, so as to slow your descent. However, you will only get one attempt at employing a high collective setting before the energy is bled out of your rotors and you have no more lift.

Flying the Alligator

When your mission starts, you will be sitting in your Alligator on a friendly airfield. Press Ctrl + R to start the engines and release the rotor brake. Once the rotors are up to speed (you can tell from the sound or check an external view), increase the Collective using the + or - keys and watch the Engine Torque percentage climb on the HUD. After a certain point (usually around 70%) the aircraft has enough lift to begin climbing into the air. By jockeying the Collective, and the Engine Torque percentage, you can climb the helicopter, cause it to sink, or even balance out lift and gravity so as to hover.

Balancing the Collective to control the helicopter’s vertical movement is helped greatly by the vertical scale on the right-hand side of the HUD. The arrow shows the current climb rate. If it is on the centreline then the helicopter is flying level, not gaining or losing altitude. If above the line the helicopter is climbing, and if below the line, then the helicopter is descending.

Close to the ground, the ground effect kicks in and you will find it easier to hover the Alligator. Higher up, you lose the ground effect and your lift is reduced.

In flight, you can use the yaw controls, < and > to yaw right or left; in effect spinning the helicopter around its rotor shaft. Yawing is most effective when the helicopter is stationary, in the hover. It’s less effective at high speed because of the drag on the airframe. Joysticks using an active rudder control can use that to control right or left yaw instead.

To move forwards from the hover, pitch your nose down by pushing the joystick forwards. If you have no joystick use the ­ key. To fly sideways or backwards, you move the joystick in that direction (or use the ¬ ® ¯ keys). Since some of the lift keeping the aircraft aloft is being used to move horizontally, you will probably have to increase the collective to prevent you from sinking toward the ground. If you pitch the controls too far (which can be done in some extreme circumstances), the rotors no longer produce lift and you will fall out of the sky.

Pressing A while in flight will enter you into Autopilot mode. While under autopilot control, your Alligator will follow its waypoints at the briefed heights and speeds.

Pressing H will enter you into Hover mode. While in Hover mode the Cyclic is disabled and you will remain stationary. The only flight controls you can use are the yaw controls and the Collective.

Toggling the key a second time will exit you from Autopilot and Hover mode.

Weapons Controls

There are several types of weapon carried by the Alligator. In general these can be classed as cannons; air-to-air missiles; anti-tank missiles; unguided rockets, bombs and air-to-surface missiles.

Weapons do not become available until the Master Arm is enabled by pressing the Ctrl + M keys. Once armed, the Backspace key will cycle through the Alligator’s weapons systems. If you have a secondary fire button on your joystick, this will also cycle the weapons. When selected, most of the weapons will fire by pressing the Space key, or the fire button on your joystick.

The weapons officer in the game operates intelligently. They will pick out targets and aim weapons at them, depending on the target’s level of mission importance, the level of threat and their range and position relative to you. You can have the WO make their selection dependant on the currently selected weapon or make it independently of weapon selection. Press the I key to toggle between dependant and independent modes.

The Weapons Officer will generally present you with the best targets they are able; to find; however, you can override the WO if you wish and have them target other enemies. Press the T key and they will immediately target the next most likely enemy; the Y key will target the previous enemy. You can use these keys to cycle through nearby enemies until your WO locks up the target you want. If you press the R or Numpad 1 keys, you will target the enemy closest to the HUD boresight.

Because the combat situation is constantly changing, your Weapons Officer might switch targets to a better one if it comes into view. To prevent this, press the U or Numpad 3 keys. This will order the WO to continue tracking their current target.

Keys J, K and L will order your weapons officer to prioritise primary targets (J), Air targets (K) or AAA/SAM targets (L) when making his selection. Toggling O will add friendly and neutral units to the target list, permitting you to also fire at these units.

If guns are selected, the S key toggles between Medium and High rate of fire settings. The gun will fire at the gun crosshair on the HUD. If the gun is locked to the target by the Weapons Officer, the gun will follow the target. However, the gun’s ability to steer is limited to between 11 degrees of traverse and 37 degrees of depression, so you must keep the helicopter pointed at the target throughout the gun engagement.

The number of rockets fired by each pod when the trigger is pulled depends on their salvo setting. Pressing the S key will cycle through these salvo settings. Rockets aim along the aircraft’s centreline, so you must point the Alligator directly at a target when you fire.

The weapons fire control system may be toggled between Manual and Automatic modes by pressing the D key. In Automatic mode, the weapons will only fire if the target is locked up or within valid firing constraints when the trigger is pulled. This mode prevents you wasting ammo against targets that are not within the launch constraints. In Manual Mode, weapons will fire every time you pull the trigger, regardless of whether or not the target is within launch constraints. In the case of the gun, setting to Manual fixes the gun along the helicopter’s centreline.

Camera Controls

There are a variety of camera views in Team Alligator. Feel free to experiment with these views:

Other Controls

Countermeasures Controls

Team Flying

In Team Alligator, you will be flying as part of a team, That team may comprise Alligators of the your own squadron, or supporting aircraft from other squadrons. Helicopters on a mission are organised into flights. You will always fly in the lead helicopter of the first flight.

Radio Channels

You may issue orders to flights using your radio. You set your radio channel by pressing keys:

You will communicate orders only to those aircraft on the appropriate channel.

Navigation Orders

You may issue navigation orders to flights as follows:

Combat Orders:

Rally Points and ARSPs

Each flight in the game has a Rally Point, a special waypoint representing a safe fallback area. If you need to pull a flight out of combat in a hurry, you may order that they fall back to the Rally Point using the End command. In some missions helicopters in the flight may have standing orders to fall back to the Rally Point on their own if damaged or low on ammunition or fuel.

Arming and Refuelling Supply Points (or ARSPs), are forward resupply points which may be specified in the mission. They are usually located at Rally Points. You may order that a flight fly to an ARSP and rearm and refuel by using the Ctrl + End command. If you fly your own helicopter to the ARSP and land, you will automatically be rearmed and refuelled.

Option Settings

There are a variety of different graphics and game settings with which you can customise Team Alligator. Going to the Options screen from the Main Menu allows you to set the options to suit yourself. While in a mission, you can go to this menu by pressing the Ctrl + O keys. There are two separate option screens: the Audio-Visual options screen and the Modelling options screen.

If you go to the options screens from within a mission, some of the options will not be available to change. You can only change these outside a mission.

Graphics Options

This panel allows you to set your graphics options. The sliders increase from left to right. Options include:

Sound Options

This panel allows you to set your sound options. The sliders increase from left to right. Options include:

Flight Model Options

This panel allows you to set your flight model options. Options include:

Game Options

This panel allows you to set your game options.

In addition, there are some hidden game options. These only become available through play. Watch the press for more details of these options.

Belarus Campaign

Background to the War

The collapse of the Russo-Belarusian Union has plunged Eastern Europe, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, into war. The shooting war is already seven weeks old. On the 22nd September the Russian President ordered tanks and troops across the Belarus border. Two days later the Ukraine was drawn into the conflict when the Crimean autonomous region was occupied by Russian troops.

Untangling the root causes of the conflict is beyond the scope of this essay, but events began to accelerate in the summer, with the popular uprising against the Belarus President Alexsandr Zhirasenka which climaxed in the barricade of the Belarus Supreme Soviet (parliament) by supporters of the old parliament and the 1994 constitution. As the leaders of the outlawed opposition manned the concrete blocks and the barricades, united under the banner of the Citizen’s Committee for the Protection of the Constitution, and as the tanks wavered before the crowds of human shields, unwilling to fire, the dictator Zhirasenka lost his grip on the country.

The rump parliament formed under the Zhirasenka’s "illegal" 1996 constitution was the first to crack, with some twelve Agrarian and Communist party deputies opportunistically declaring support for the Citizen’s Committee the moment the army’s loyalty came into question. The crack became a flood, as nearly half the 110 deputies came over. However, the upper chamber stood firm, with most of the senators ¾ appointees all ¾ standing by the President.

The situation drifted toward anarchy. Not only was the army unwilling to break up the barricades and the 100,000-strong ‘freedom’ demonstrations near the besieged Oval Hall in Minsk, but they formed an unwitting barrier against the civil authorities. Police riot forces stood off uneasily, while the state-controlled media broke their ties with Zhirasenka and began to broadcast pictures of the stand-off. Once the media had slipped the leash, support for the opposition snowballed.

It’s unclear what followed the four days in July, when the army and opposition faced each other at the Oval Hall. Zhirasenka appears to have ordered the army’s Second Division to clear the barricades and assault the parliament building, now filled with protesting students and deputies. The army demurred, shocked at the intervention of the media and mindful of the consequences of an open attack on the demonstrators. The stand-off ended when General Martynov, commanding the Minsk Military District, declared the army neutral; apparently unwilling to open fire on the million people who flocked to the centre of Minsk at the peak of the protests on 12th July.

Delighted, the Citizen’s Committee declared Zhirasenka’s government illegal under the terms of the suppressed 1994 constitution and called for a convention to establish a new government. Zhirasenka tried to remain in Minsk to direct operations against the opposition, but the KGB appears to have convinced him to leave, unsure whether the Police or army could protect him any longer. Zhirasenka re-established his government in Borisov.

With just three senators and half the deputies declared for democratic reform, the Citizen’s Committee, under their speaker Zianon Sarecki, formed an ‘interim government’ committed to a national referendum on democratic reform. They were also intent on undoing the Russo-Belarusian Union treaty, signed with Russia in 1996.

Russia’s reaction to events was one of alarm. Moscow had never ceased to regard independent nations such as Belarus and Ukraine as anything other than states to be reincorporated into a union with Russia. Zhirasenka, a former communist, was a close friend of Moscow who had worked since 1994 to overthrow the national constitution and reintegrate Belarus within a "greater Slavic union". Since 1996 Belarus was a district of Russia in all but name and Zhirasenka was tipped as a future Russian president.

Now, Zhirasenka was screaming for aid from his allies. He had loaned dozens of strategic bases in Belarus to the Russian military and demanded the Russians come out of them and march on Minsk. Initially, the Russian President refused, aware that the West’s response to such a blatant use of force would be hostile; but he changed his mind when the Belarusians handed him the casus belli he required.

The Belarus army, finding the pretence of neutrality impossible, began to co-operate with the interim government in Minsk. A purge of Russian officers, led by General Martynov and other nationalist sympathisers, secured the army’s loyalty. Worried by the presence of large Russian forces on Belarus soil, the army blockaded the Russian bases and demanded the Russians leave.

The Russian President countered with an all-out spin offensive, maintaining that the Russians occupied the bases legally under 25-year leases granted by the current government. Belarus had been subject to a putsch by a small clique of anti-democratic nationalists (he didn’t call them "Nazis", though the implication was plain). The security of Russian subjects was threatened and there had already been reports of ethnic cleansing led by party factions of the interim government.

These were half-truths at best, but potent ones, and gained currency when five Russian bases near the Polish border capitulated in September due to lack of supplies. The Russian commander was permitted to truck his men back to Russia, pursued by catcalls from the blockading Belarusians.

By now, the interim government had an ally in Ukraine, which granted recognition in August. The Ukraine government considered itself sidelined by the West, which continued to pursue a Moscow-oriented foreign policy. The Ukranians were delighted by events in Belarus, which had thrown off a finger of the Russian vice that gripped the nation, north and south. With the Moscow ally Zhirasenka gone, their chief worry now was the pro-Russian Crimean region, which had shown every sign of desiring reintegration. With the Belarus army tied down blockading the Russian bases, the Ukraine offered the interim government a defensive military alliance and aid in covering their southern border. Gratefully, the Belarusians accepted.

It was the last straw for the Russians. Attempts to bring Belarus and the Ukraine to heel by calling in fuel debts failed. The Russian President’s invasion order came three weeks later; it’s objective to smash the Ukraine-Belarus axis. Under the pretext of protecting Russian nationals, an entire army was tasked to advance from the Belarus border to the Berezina river and beyond to Minsk, liberating Russian bases as it went. Meanwhile, a manoeuvre group was ordered to seize the Crimean peninsula on the pretext of "protecting ethnic Russians from Ukrainian retaliation".

The Russo-Belarus War

The Russian assault was not the cakewalk they expected it to be. Belarusian forces were swamped by the initial assaults, but groups of army and popular militia units, rallying to the interim government, managed to delay the Russian advance. Inertia, poor doctrine and limited fuel supplies slowed a Russian juggernaut that was no longer the irresistible force of the Brezhnev era. The Russian armies punched a huge salient from Orsha to the outskirts of Borisov, but on the Berezina river line they halted, bogged down by supplies and a sea of mud. Ukrainian army reinforcements, committed to a war they didn’t expect to fight so soon, deployed to the south of the salient, which soon degenerated into a slogging match ¾ a war of limited gains.

Assaults on the bases still within the Belarus lines soon resolved the issue of the trapped Russian armies. Most surrendered without a fight and quantities of arms and supplies passed to the heavily extended Belarus army and the militias. Meanwhile, another opportunity beckoned that sent the Belarus army driving westward. The Russian enclave at Kaliningrad, garrisoned by a division and a naval brigade, offered the Belarus-Ukrainian Alliance the chance of a Baltic supply port, and leverage on Russia. Supported by a sympathetic Lithuania, who offered transit and supply routes across the Neman river, two Belarusian divisions drove into the Kaliningrad district and invested the city.

The Current Situation

The Western response to the war has been one of containment and conciliation. the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), led by America, has tried to bring Russia to the table with Allied representatives from Ukraine and the Belarus interim government, while including Zhirasenka’s ‘official’ government in side discussions. Russia refuses to acknowledge the interim government, referring to them as ‘insurgents’, but has nevertheless provisionally accepted meetings at a conference in Madrid, Spain, between Russian officials and OSCE brokers.

NATO, which has links with all the combatant governments under the Partnership for Peace (PfP) agreement, has suspended joint operations with all three nations and Lithuania. Latvia, concerned over Russian aggression, has requested a NATO deterrent force to be deployed to her territory under the terms of the Partnership for Peace. The US has agreed, but under condition that the force is deployed to the west of the capital, Riga, so as to appease a bellicose Russia. An US airmobile division, supported by advance elements of the 24th Mechanised Division, has been deployed to the south and west of the Riga.

Meanwhile Russia has plans to relieve the siege of Kaliningrad by opening a new front. Latvia has refused Russian requests for passage to the Lithuanian border. Now, Russian forces have moved into Latvia in an attempt to punch a relief column through to the besieged city. Despite requests to stand aside, US, Polish and German NATO forces in Latvia appear to be engaging advance elements of the Russian manoeuvre group, threatening to expand the conflict into a general European war.

Meanwhile, critical to the support of the Kaliningrad relief force is a breakthrough on the Belarus front near Borisov.

Tajikistan Campaign

Background to the War

It would be easy to dismiss the Tajik conflict as a contest between Islam and Russian secularism. This would not only be inaccurate, but would ignore the all-important regional, clan and ethnic forces that propelled the country into civil war. However, the roots of the war are difficult to untangle, and the reader is warned that any brief summary will inevitably leave out important information.

The collapse of the Soviet Union left Tajikistan in disarray. Under Soviet rule, this patchwork nation of ethnic groups, clans and religious parties had been ruled by a coalition of two regional factions: the Khujandis, from the northeastern part of the country (based in Khujand/ Leninabad), and their clients, the Kulabis, from the southeast (based in Kulob/Kulyab). The Khjandis dominated the Communist Party leadership and were aligned with the ethnic Uzbek population. However, at the beginning of the 1990s, the Khujand-Kulab faction’s grip on power was challanged by the rise of organised political opposition.

An attempt at political pluralism failed. A united opposition, comprising Tajik intellectuals and a grass-roots movement of Islamic moderates managed, after a series of violent incidents, to force concessions from Tajik President Nabiev. Together, in May 1992, they formed a coalition Government of National Reconciliation (GNR) which granted the opposition groups control of a third of the state ministries. But the regional governments in Khujand and Kulab refused to cooperate with a national government that included opposition party members. Eventually, the Kulabis turned violent, unleashing a savage militia force known as the Popular Front.

The Popular Front, led by the convicted murderer Sangak Safarov, launched a wave of terror and slaughter across the Kulab region, attempting to stamp out concentrations of opposition sympathy. This only made the moderates in the GNR seem weak and unable to control the situation. In turn this encouraged the more militant elements in the opposition to respond with their own reprisals against those with ties to Kulab. Radical Islamists began to gain greater influence in the opposition parties.

In October 1992 the Popular Front marched into the capital, Dushanbe, and overthrew the GNR. A new government was established, headed by the Kulabi communist Imomali Rahmonov. Rahmonov outlawed the opposition, while the Khujandi faction was forced to accept a reduced role in government under the newly ascendant Kulabis, whose forces now had control of much of the southwest of Tajikistan.

Rahmonov’s attempts to consolidate power resulted in a further wave of violence. Government forces conducted house-to-house searches and artillery and air assaults on villages suspected of aiding the opposition. By February 1993, some 90,000 refugees had fled south across the Afghan border. Northern Afghan warlords like General Dostum and General Ahmed Shah Mas’ud offered shelter to the refugees, who were largely Islamic. In some cases the warlords also provided arms, supplies, training and bases to the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), who were soon engaging in frequent raids on Tajik and Russian border posts.

The Russian government was initially confused in its reaction to events in Tajikistan, apparently fearing ‘another Afghanistan’. The 5,000 troops of the 201st Motorised Rifle Division and some 2,500 border troops remained stationed in-county, tasked to protect the ethnic Russian population (which was now leaving in droves) and provide assistance for the Tajik government. They helped the GNR briefly during the defence of Dushanbe against the Popular Front, and then gave aid to Rahmonov’s forces during the ‘mop-up’ operations which followed the overthrow of the coalition government.

The event which helped focus and cohere Russian foreign policy in Tajikistan was the raid by opposition forces on the Moskovskii District Border Post No. 12 in July 1993. Twenty-five Russian troops died in an outrage that is alleged to have been part-engineered by right-wing elements in the Russian military in order to provoke a response from Moscow. Whatever happened to cause the massacre, President Yeltsin’s government did respond, by reinforcing the 201st MR Division with a further 10,000 troops and ‘peacekeepers’, and ordering reprisal raids and pursuit against UTO forces and bases across the Afghan border.

The Russians appeared to view the incident as the thin end of the wedge. They were keen to avoid the spread of Islam any further into the Commonwealth of Independant States (CIS), and despite the Afghan setback in the ‘80s, they were prepared to draw a line in the sand at the Tajik border. The Russian agenda went even further than this; a military presence in Tajikistan gave them influence in Central Asia and provided a brake to the ambitions of other regional powers, such as Uzbekistan. Creating a stable Tajik government and securing the border against arms and narcotics shipments were Russian priorities; the protection of ethnic Russians in Tajikistan a convenient excuse. In addition to military assistance, by 1994 Moscow was underwriting 70% of Tajik expenditure, as compared with 40% under the old Soviet government.

By now, the country was largely polarised into those who supported the Rahmonov regime – largely Uzbeks, ethnic Russians and secular Tajiks – and the opposition, which had gravitated toward the Islamic militants. Banditry was rife in the region (often perpetrated by still-armed remnants of the Popular Front), as was arms and drugs trafficking (aided by the Russian military), and there was a threat of a breakdown to a state of anarchy and warlordism. Attacks on opposition strongholds in the interior of Tajikistan, around Garm and Kurgan-Tyube, brutally reinforced the view that Rahmonov’s was determined to secure his faction’s power by force.

Moscow’s support for the Rahmonov’s Kulabi regime was a rebuff for the Uzbeks, who were aligned primarily with the Khujandi faction. In order to reestablish leverage over Tajikistan’s internal affairs, President Karimov of Uzbekistan initiated a peace process, with the aid of Iran and the United Nations. Rounds of talks in 1995 failed, and fighting along the border continued, but the process was kick-started again in late 1996.

The catalyst for the new talks was the victory of the Pakistan-backed Afghan Taleban in Kabul. The militant-fundamentalist Taleban’s success shifted the regional balance. Russia and the Central Asian leaders regarded it as being as big a threat as the Tajik Islamist opposition. President Karimov in particular was concerned that the Taleban might target Uzbekistan next, and all the leaders were concerned that fighting might spill over their borders.

Iran too had reasons to oppose the Taleban; this ‘moderate’ Shi’a state opposed the ‘regressive’ orthodox Sunni doctrines of the Taleban and disapproved of the links the Taleban extremists were forging with Saudi Arabia and the United States. Furthermore, Iran has historical and linguistic ties with the Tajiks (whose moslems were also largely Shi’a).

Both Russia and Iran wanted to save the Tajik and Uzbek-dominated north and north-western part of Afghanistan from capture by the Taleban. The first step to reinforcing the northern warlords was a negotiated settlement between the Tajik government and the UTO. Russia leaned on Rahmonov, whilst Iran led the Tajik Islamists to the table. At the end of 1996 a cease-fire agreement was signed and a National Reconciliation Commission set up under the auspices of the UN Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT). Almost immediately, covert Russian, Tajik and Uzbek aid (often under the guise of ‘humanitarian aid’) began to flow to the northern warlords to aid them in their fight against the Taleban.

The peace was to hold for the next couple of years, giving the Russian border forces the opportunity to brace themselves for the Taleban’s advance to Afghanistan’s northern border.

Recent Events

The Taleban offensives of 1998 brought them into the ethnic Uzbek and Tajik north of the country. Those forces of the Afghan opposition that didn’t collapse or go over to the enemy were driven into the hills of eastern Baghlan and Badakhsan provinces, where opposition commander Ahmadshah Massoud was able to keep fighting into the bitter Afghan winter. Alarm in the Central Asian countries resulted in the reinforcement of the Afghan border defences, while on the western Afghan border, the Iranians and the Taleban played a dangerous game of brinksmanship.

Despite the threat from across the border, which should have focussed the Rahmonov regime on maintaining an internal peace, events in Tajikistan began to deteriorate. Government concessions to the Reconciliation Commission simply never appeared, while key figures in the opposition parties were shut out of dialogue altogether. Seeing the way the wind was beginning to blow, the militant tendency in the UTO began to prepare for another conflict.

But the UTO’s former Afghan allies were now under seige in the hills, and unlikely to offer aid to the enemies of the Dushanbe government that was supplying them. It was only a matter of time before the Islamist opposition turned to the Taleban for help.

The Taleban were eager to help. Weakening the Tajik regime would kick out one of the main props supporting Ahmadshah Massoud. Furthermore, the Pakistan-backed Taleban had an agenda that went beyond the spread of radical Islam. The stakes they were playing for were nothing less than their oft-stated aim of regional domination of Central Asia. To do this, they had to gain direct influence of the Central Asian states through client factions, and they also had to make the southern CIS border untenable for that other great regional power: the Russians.

The plan put into action would involve the supply and training of the Islamist opposition. It would also involve the direct intervention and support of the Afghan army.

The Plan

The joint plan submitted in Kabul was for a guerrilla offensive in the south of Tajikistan, supported directly by Afghan armour. Kulyab and the Kurgan-Tyube regions were to kick off the offensive by striking at Tajik government forces, besieging the Russian garrisons and securing the road north to Dushanbe. Afghan mechanised columns would strike across the Amu and Pyandzh rivers and drive up the Kafirnigan and Vakhsh valleys. Linking up with the UTO forces, the armoured units would continue to drive north through the passes to Dushanbe, with the intention of capturing the capital and dominating the communications route for the remainder of the country. Short of this, the Taleban would settle for Islamist control of the southwest and east; isolating the Dushanbe regime from the southern border of their country.

Gameplay Notes

We don’t want to give out too many tips and hints on how to play Team Alligator. Much of what you need to know is common-sense, or will be learned through experience. However, a few obvious things stand out:

• Keep low in the target zone and make maximum use of terrain cover.
• Use Hover mode where possible to pop up from behind cover and fire.
• Do not close unnecessarily on the enemy. You will have to go close-in to attack infantry (you can’t see them until you’re close-by) but against heavier opposition keep your distance and engage from maximum range.
• Don’t underestimate the firepower of your enemies. Even an infantryman with a rifle can get lucky.
• Tanks should be engaged from the side or rear. Their armour may be strong enough to defeat attacks from the front.
• Use surprise, or the enemy will be able to employ countermeasures, against your attacks. The smoke you see from a tank might not be as a result of it exploding, but instead may be a barrier of smoke that will render laser-guided weapons almost useless.
• Use the R and U keys to select or retain targets.
• If you get a missile call, start pumping chaff and flares for all you’re worth.
• Don’t order your team to engage all targets unless the opposition is light ¾ otherwise they might waste all their ammo on an unimportant target.
• If things get hairy, remember the motto "when in doubt, BUG OUT!" Use the Disengage or Goto Rally Point orders to take your team out of danger before you take casualties.

Designer’s Notes

A year and a half on from our previous helicopter title, Team Apache, we are pleased to introduce Ka-52 Team Alligator. An enormous number of advances and improvements have been made on the old game, some graphical and many more in the underlying modelling.

As before, the design has been driven by simulation concerns. The recent discussions in the sim gaming community over ‘light’ versus ‘hard core’ flight sims seem to ignore something that wargame designers have known for years: the fact that sim developers may focus their simulation effort in different ways to achieve different effects, and may do so without sacrificing one iota of simulation value. Flight sims need not be, as some maintain, emulations, reproducing every finicky detail of flight and systems management. That is the province of military and civil training simulators, whose interfaces and hardware are better suited than a PC to such a reductionist approach. Given the inherent limitations of a personal computer the designers of PC sims can (indeed must) pick and choose what they detail.

It is all a matter of focus. In Ka-52 Team Alligator we have again focussed a sim away from the intricacies of systems management to what we feel is far more relevant to a combat helicopter simulation.

Firstly, we have concentrated on the creation of a credible low-level environment, with subtle, highly resolved terrain, thousands upon thousands of terrain objects which form obstacles and cover.

Secondly, we have paid a great deal of attention to the battlefield modelling: to the enemy artificial intelligence; to the modelling of weapons and the warhead/armour battle; to the function and role of sensors; to countermeasures old (such as vehicle smoke) and new (such as the Shtora and Arena anti-missile systems). We believe our modelling in these vital areas is second to none.

Finally, we have created a game with the emphasis on command – on team management rather than systems management. We have a fundamental belief that ‘human factors’ are as important on the modern battlefield as systems, and that leadership and command make all the difference between victory and defeat. So we have provided you, the player, with the tools to test this.

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Time to take a bite.

- Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, England, 7th September 1999

Appendix 1 ¾ Recognition Manual

This appendix lists many of the units encountered in Team Alligator.

Heavy Armour

Personnel Carriers

Armoured Vehicles

Artillery Systems

Air Defence Units

Appendix 2 ¾ Ka-52 Ordnance Notes

Appendix 3 ¾ NATO Symbology Key

Appendix 4 ¾ Glossary

Appendix 5 ¾ Key Summary