Avimimus

Apparently The ability to use iron bombs, or even the gun, isn't cleared on a lot of production models (yet anyway). Hence my "What if the Soviet Union still existed in 1999?" question... "Is it fair to say that CRV-7 and BL-755 integration would've taken place as a stopgap?"

I still kindof think that it'd be nice to have an option for unguided weapons (based on the alternate history scenario where the Cold War doesn't end and the Typhoon enters large scale production around 2000)... I'd love to have a few CRV-7 like in the good old Eurofighter 2000 sim... Some will disagree though. It does seem plausible though - in a world where a Soviet Su-27 and a Ef-2000 enter combat, that some Ef-2000 might be equipped so they could use unguided weapons in an emergency... are there any late 1990s documents to support this?

Well that is quite the Christmas present! Just to know it is still something we can dare to dream about as a possibility! Thank you sir!

Try getting into space exploration... I always check the launch date, travel time, and analysis time for space exploration probes against my life expectancy. I think the big hope is that someone will do an FC level simulation (with realistic times for radar acquisition, realistic weapons and flight model)... but without the detailed systems modelling/switchology... then they might be able to make Russian aircraft from after 1980 and aircraft like the the Panavia Tornado... P.S. It is interesting that the Eurofighter is being added but the Tornado isn't... I wonder if this just has to do with them being managed by different consortiums? Or is it because the Eurofighter isn't currently used for ground attack and countries are more sensitive about their strike aircraft and bombers (e.g. Tu-22M can't be modelled).

The Su-34 is still in production (and still in service). It is the major tactical strike aircraft of Russia... there is no way that it could be modelled without a major reversal in policy by Russia regarding how sensitive technology is handled. It makes for a good camera shot - so that is probably it. P.S. Maybe MAC will be sufficiently lower fidelity that they'll be able to add some newer models... so there is a slight hope there - but then that mean that it wouldn't have detailed systems... and it sounds like they'll also be aiming for something much less realistic than Flaming Cliffs 3...

Now that we have confirmation that no one will be allowed to build it (at least, unless the armed forces of Italy or Germany intervene or some other incredibly unlikely scenario)... I thought it would be good to focus our mourning in one place. Celebrate the plane... and get over not getting it.

Flanker 2.0 at a computer store that I didn't normal go to... I was pretty shocked to find it actually! That would've been about 17 years ago?

Well... some people wanted it to do that... and maybe during an emergency in the European theatre it would have... but there have been good points made about how it lacked the power to carry armament, fuel, and people at the same time to truly fit the name.

I think... the Yak-B really wasn't a reliable weapon and had limited effectiveness... a lack of firepower combined with a tendency to jam... and this meant that the advice received from actual Mi-24 pilots was apparently to go with the Mi-24P... I do kindof hope that there might be an Mi-24D with phalanga missiles and Yak-B someday for earlier scenarios... but I definitely see why they wouldn't model that version first.

Exactly why I gave up! I guess we'll wait for an expert? I do kindof hope that there will be some kind of hybrid rocket/bomb pod or rocket/fuel pod... Mirages tended to be a bit unusual in that respect! Unusual is interesting.

Sure... in overload all helicopters can take off more easily with a rolling start (standard for the Mi-8 too)... but it isn't like the Mi-24 can't hover. Another way of looking at it... hover performance will feel a bit anaemic compared to the lift produced with the help of the wings when flying at speed which should feel more 'floaty'... throw in the anhedral of the wings making for smooth sweeping turns... it'll be like flying two different aircraft in one package...

Thank you!

I think you might be over estimating the ability of a few millimetres of aluminium panelling to resist a 3kg fragmentation warhead... in fact, the panelling probably increases the amount of shrapnel the crew would face. As for the Mi-24 - I think if you look closely at the helicopter in this footage, you'll notice a distinct lack of a front part of the helicopter after impact:

Yeah... it is really interesting. I agree with your point about using expensive technology primarily where it would have the biggest impact... given how small Russia's GDP was it is amazing what they were able to accomplish. In the 1930s and 1960s there seems to have been a real emphasis on radical new technologies in an attempt to compensate for the lack of industrialisation (i.e. having elite forces with innovative solutions defeat an enemy that can better equip large numbers of troops... by countering it with remote controlled tanks using recoilless rifles etc.) During the Second World War we see a shift towards concentrating artillery and armour... and came to have a lot more heavy equipment than the Germans did (and in some cases technologically competitive or superior equipment too). Soviet units in Germany also tended to have more heavy equipment than NATO units did throughout most of the Cold War (although this was partly because they were to advance on large static NATO defenses - By the way, I always wondered if that might be because they figured NATO would be less indiscriminate in its use of tactical nuclear weapons once the battlefield had moved into West Germany??? I have no evidence of this though!) Anyway, it is certainly a lot more complex than the stereotypes!

The Soviets weren't that loss-aware, and they often had to make do with less electronic (etc.) but - are you sure the opinion you gave isn't actually coming from a post-war account by Wehrmacht officers trying to rationalise their defeat by people they considered subhuman? A lot of American analysis of what a war would look like with the Soviet Union was based on interviewing Germans (as they had experience)... but they were hardly reliable sources - something that has become increasingly true as more data has been analysed after the end of the Cold War.

Yes... that was the impression I got too - spotting the enemy first and engaging it with ATGMs seems to be the biggest factor (beyond the aircraft themselves)!

Some accounts can be found here: http://www.airvectors.net/avhind_2.html It might have been something I read over at ACIG. You might also try: Yakubovich, Nikolay. Boevye vertolety Rossii. Ot "Omegi" do "Alligatora"

Thanks. Updated.

Ah... but it is a bit more complicated than that? For instance, according to the thread linked earlier, the 9.12 cannot carry bombs or rockets on the middle hardpoints and carry air-to-air missiles on the outermost hard-points at the same time? So carrying four rocket pods or four bombs means carrying no air-to-air missiles... because of WCS limitations.

Just for clarity - I was referring to the maximum armament spread across all four hardpoints.

Regarding rocket dispersion... Unlike bullets, rockets accelerate in flight... it takes a second or two for them to get up to full speed... Rockets fired from helicopters are usually fired at much lower air speeds (e.g. 500 km/h lower) than those fired from a fixed wing aircraft. Any rocket which relies on aerodynamic stabilisation will have less air flowing over it during its first few moments of flight and less stabilisation. Rockets fired from helicopters are also initially flying through turbulent rotor-wash. So one initially has an under-stabilised rocket, flying through turbulent air, while it is accelerating itself... and any small deviation at the beginning of the trajectory matters a lot more than it does near the end of the rocket's flight. This all adds up to the fact that rockets fired from helicopters often have much higher dispersion than the same rocket would have fired from a fixed wing aircraft - something like up to two and a half times more dispersion if I recall correctly (although someone should really look up the numbers).

So six FAB-250 might be plausible?

Very impressed by how your skills are growing. I wish you the best of luck in your talks with Sukhoi. One small idea... if you are talking to Sukhoi you might also look into permissions for modelling some concept aircraft that never saw hardware. I would pay for a T-12, S-37 delta, or T4MS... even if they were just AI aircraft to fight against. Add a few vehicles (e.g. T-95, Wegmann Panther giraffe tank destroyer) and you have an alternative history pack where the cold war lasted until the year 2000. The reference material isn't as detailed (except possibly for some T-12 variants), requiring some guesswork - but the avionics would be less classified than those of the Pak-FA or Su-35. They are also very relevant to aircraft like the Eurofighter... which was designed on the assumption that the cold war wasn't coming to an end and that the Soviet Union would field 4.5 gen aircraft in large numbers. With BS3 ED has already shown a willingness to consider what would happen if a 1980s test-bed (Ka-50) had been developed during the 1990s (and actually received air-to-air missiles and lengthened wings). So I wouldn't see it as entirely out of the question that ED would allow a license. Anyway, it is one more thing you could possibly ask about if you are looking for possible ways forward.

I do sincerely hope that this model inspires someone to write an improved FM (better AOA modelling)... so that we can have a flyable mod at least! One of the three planes I'd like the most in the sim. It is a beautiful model in any case!

Ah, okay. It is an interesting design. P.S. I should've said the A-10's gun has "1.09 times the kinetic energy". The A-10 itself could probably have about 436,273,768 joules (rough calculation using max takeoff weight at VMax).