SFJackBauer

I'd like to see something like this: http://home1.stofanet.dk/baskat/mainpage.html

The MiG-21 superiority relies on its vacuum tubes being EMP resistant.

Yes. It would be more appealing to me if they modeled the airframe in several configurations. Tanker-only is maybe, but if its a tanker+cargo plane, it would be good. And if it was a tanker+cargo+early warning radar (like the IL-76 or the B-767) that would be an insta-buy.

Ill give you my assessment of the titles I own (and even of those I don't): Ka-50 - the true gunship in the DCS stable of aircraft. Can take anything - tanks, AA, SAMs, even ships with the Kh-25ML. Only struggle when fighting at night. Has a moving map display, datalink and a good autopilot - which you can turn off if you dare! UH-1H and Mi-8 - I regret a bit having bought those since they do not take much of my limited flying time. I only don't fully regret because I am commited to support the devs of this sim. They are very cool and well modeled but their primary purpose is transport troops and engage soft targets, which is highly dependable on the mission you're playing. Also documentation is on the lacking side. A-10C - You already have it, but for those who doesn't, this is the modern A2G killing machine. Stand-off weapons leave no one safe, cluster bombs which are deadly even to MBTs, full moving-map display, datalink, night-and-day capable, and that cannon - oh that cannon! P-51D - A classic warbird. Back to basics in terms of flying. Handful to fly effectively, but the joy of flying only needing to look outside - except to check once in a while for your engine temps. I don't have the FW-190 and BF-109 yet, as it would be a bit redundant for me, but I suspect they all deliver similar experiences, excluding of course the nuances of each airframe. F-86 - MiG Alley anyone? If you spent countless hours on that game, or has any kind of historic interest in the Korean War era, you can't leave this one out. But be prepared, as this is the real deal - which may be much less romantic than the movies may tell. It is crude - and rudimentary - but it goes fast and looks great! Nothing like getting into the tail of an unsuspecting Su-27, and ripple-fire two GAR-8 on his tailpipe, while roleplaying being a retired Korean War veteran who decided to dust off his Sabre hidden in his garage and take the fight to the Caucasus! Combined Arms - who forgot this one? Well, since Flanker 1.0 I'm sure everyone contemplated driving the vehicles. Well, here it is. Hopefully ED still has some plans for this, since it has huge potential. The combat is still not very refined (T-55 can kill Abrams - 3km away...) but the ability to drive a Tor and send deadly rocket-powered hammers through the skies, even if with a generic HUD, is not to be underestimated. MiG-21 - I dont have this one, as it hasnt been released on Steam yet. I may buy it once it does, just because I can and again want to support the devs, but if you are on a budget, you may consider reading its manual before (which is available online) and see if you are up to the challenge. Remember - its basically a jet engine with small wings - which means little fuel, delicate handling at low speed, therefore requiring skill to fly it effectively. It has its appeal, and its A2A combat effectiveness sits well above the F-86 (at least it has a radar), but far below even the MiG-29A. The A2G radar guided missiles look hard to employ, as you have to keep pointing your nose at the target until splash, and have short range. Well, they are the real weapons used on MiG-21, so no complaining here, but be sure of what you are buying. Sorry if I made you even more undecided, but those are my opinions :) Also I play almost exclusively multiplayer, so I can't comment on the quality of the single-player campaigns.

They are not different in its basic mechanism, its always a pencil-like beam scanning left and right, its just you don't see in the russian aircraft the little arrow going left and right like you see in the F-15C B-scope. One important thing people may be missing here is that between you, the pilot, and the physical radar apparatus in the nose, there is a digital computer that decides what to display as a contact in the HUD or the radar scope. So you may be even painting the target correctly and its just not appearing in the display because its being rejected by the computer, either as clutter (doppler rejection, aka notch), or because its return is below the noise threshold (beyond maximum useful radar range, small RCS). In this aspect the digital processor of the F-15C is more advanced than the digital processor present at the time in the Su-27 variant depicted in the game, and thus allowing either a faster or more accurate resolution of targets in high-noise and difficult situations, but I think that DCS does not make such distinctions, apart from the TWS mode which is much better in the F-15C.

You are kind of preaching the Old Testament to Moses :) I did not contradicted anything of what you said. In fact, I emphasized that the HDR in this case works opposite of its intended effect. However arguing that a monitor doesnt work like your eye is a moot point. What, the monitor is also flat and we are "seeing" a 3D scene with volume, depth... Computer graphics by itself is fakery, the problem is people just overdo all these bloom and lighting effects without taking in consideration how to "realistically fake" the real world. I do think its possible to apply HDR in computer graphics to simulate real-world effects, but not at the expense of clarity. This all boils down to the choices done by the developers.

And the Su-33 is being replaced by the MiG-29K. Nothing that a huge pair of flaps couldn't solve. http://aviationintel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/12_MiG-29KUB_main.jpg

I think its a false assumption to consider the game looks worse with HDR off. It seems based on the (also false) assumption that you are obliged to tick all the boxes in the graphics options. You're not. I remember when HDR came off with the A-10C it was horrendously exaggerated, like someone had smeared butter in your eyes. Never turned it back on since then. I also found that HDR generated unrealistic situations where you would had, in real life, a greater clarity of vision, which is ironic, since HDR is supposed to increase the dynamic range, and not reduce it.

Turn HDR off?

Geez, a normal map talking about normal maps. And I thought I was crazy when the rocks talked to me.

Impressive! I think it deserved its own thread due to the quality of the work. If only you guys could re-run the simulation using a 0-0 launch parameter, so we could compare with the NASAMS/SL-AMRAAM performance (although I suspect the ground launched variant is the C-7).

Perhaps you meant BFM? You are going through that huge initial lump of information that seems to overwhelms you completely. It's like learning how to drive a car, you don't learn it all in one day. You may imitate someone else's movements at the first moment and even get away with it, but its a while before you actually understand what you are doing, and then begin to take advantage of it. After my best flying, it seems during the combat portion of it that time slows down and you know exactly what to do and the consequences of everything. But in my bad days, it seems like I am going with the motions, and even though sometimes I survive and even get kills, I know I did badly and survived by sheer luck. So to get better I think sometimes you have to slow down and roll a movie in your mind of what you are going to do (a bit like the Formula One pilots, before going for a hotlap, they sit in the car, close the eyes and imagine all the lap, braking points, turns and visual references). That's interesting, a friend of mine is born in Ukraine but moved here to Brazil early on age. He was mentioning the cities on the Black Sea coast he used to visit as a kid, and as I listed all the cities from memory by flying in DCS, he said "how the hell you know all that?" When I told him "I know it by flying over there" he didn't believed :)

Hah, that must be pretty rare. A missile fired does not arm itself before it reaches a certain speed, so his missile detonated due to the proximity fuse but yours didnt. Still should have destroyed your missile (and, depending on distance, knocked out your radar as flying through shrapnel must not be that safe...) While tracking someone in EOS, if needed, use your radar to identify friend or foe (IFF). But the effective use is just that, tracking aircraft that is afterburning, or searching an area for close bandits without giving you away with your radar. 1 = notching, its a valid maneuver. 2 = bullcr*p I'd say. Being in the notch does not preclude you from receiving his radar emissions. He doesn't see you on his radar, but your RWR can see him. The bold part is another bullcr*p. Being in the notch has nothing to do with your radar. The remainder is fairly true, check link above on notching.

Check the light green cone on the russian planes MFD. It indicates the radar coverage. See that when you slew left and right, the light green cone moves. Therefore the scan volume does not increase or decrease. Aspect refers to the aspect of the bandit when seen from your point of view - is his nose pointing at you? Then its "high" aspect. Is it pointing away? "Low" aspect. Another way of saying it is "hot" when its incoming or "cold" when its pointing away, and "notching" when its perpendicular. Interleaved mode limitation is that the radar scans its volume half the time with one PRF, and half the time with other. That's why it is called "interleaved". This incur in a slight range penalty for far targets, which you would otherwise detect using HI. From this you should interpret when you should use which mode. Another way of saying "low aspect target" or "cold bandit". Note it is a "receding" target, he is moving away from you. In this situation a HI PRF radar has the hardest time picking it. The answer is in the paragraph itself that you quoted from the manual. Read it again. You seem to be looking for ready-to-use answers. Not trying to sound like Yoda, but its better in the long run to understand the principles. You will then know by default when to apply them.

The number indicates the angle between the bandit nose and your nose. Ex. bandit perfectly perpendicular to you: OBA = 90 Larger number means his nose is pointed away. Lower number, his nose is pointed towards you. It has nothing to do with the antenna coverage, but it assumes that the bandit is inside the radar cone, otherwise no matter what, you wouldn't detect it anyway. About acquisition time - its the wrong way to think about it. PRF management lets you tailor the radar emissions depending on the bandits aspect. So while in situation A you may acquire someone inside 40km with HI, in situation B you won't, purely because of different bandit aspects. The factor that influences the acquisition time is the size of the radar volume - a larger volume takes more time to scan, but obviously it is a tradeoff. You can adjust the azimuth (horizontal volume) and, if in the smallest volume, slew it left and right. Also consider that in these airplanes the radar steering is mechanical, so the antenna takes a fixed minimum amount of time it takes to survey the smallest possible radar volume. Therefore if you are wildly slewing the radar around, or turning it on and off quickly, the chances of finding something goes down the drain. I try to wait at least two seconds in a given radar configuration (azimuth/elevation/PRF) before changing it. If we had electronic steering radars (PESA/AESA) this time would be much smaller.

I end up "roleplaying" and assuming that missile had a hardware fault or something... Just like the ARMs that explode in mid-air.

Check this page: http://home1.stofanet.dk/baskat/mainpage.html Even though its the Hornet radar, it applies to all fighters in and outside the game.

Perhaps he is talking about Operation Allied Force, the air campaign on Yugoslavia? Or maybe he is referring to this book: http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil/digital/pdf/book/b_0090_haave_haun_a10s_over_kosovo.pdf To the OP: You have no idea what are you talking about (based on the first post alone).

The "snaking" is a characteristic of the SA-3 guidance and control. The high speed and large warhead makes it up for the inefficiency in guidance. US/NATO pilots loathed it. Here is another video - full engagement sequence begins at 2:00 The early Sidewinders had a snake-like path too, which supposedly gave its nickname. But it has been fixed on AIM-9D onwards.

BTW one thing that not even Falcon/BMS have is towed decoys... Such an essential piece of equipment for Wild Weasels. I think VRS SuperHornet has it, but not sure if only for aesthetics.

Problem is, you have to do an accurate simulation otherwise its gonna be fantasy world. We know that Ravens / Prowlers / Growlers are very effective due to pilots accounts and the single fact they actually get used and maintained (no Air Force / Navy would maintain useless aircraft on its inventory). However they are also not the mythical invincible creatures in warfare. But how far do you go once simulating it? For example, how many surface-to-air radars should a Raven disrupt simultaneously? 2? 5? 10? And what is the minimum range? 10 miles? 5? What if those radars are distributed around the Raven, does it has more effectiveness towards the front azimuth? Or side? Or rear? You need these data to put into the simulator, even if as simple lookup tables (e.g. a simpler form of simulating), but to have these data you need either a concrete knowledge of the actuals, or be able to infer it from the physical data and the various open sources you have available.

Ahhh, 4chan. The internet dumpster.

The western RWR is superior to the russian ones here. On a Su-27, where your RWR can be easily overloaded with airborne and ground radar sources, not that easy to do. You have to be more aggressive on your radar use to clear airspaces and sort friendlies and hostiles alike, especially without datalink and without cooperating friendlies. But even on a Su-27, you can still gamble on being unseen and getting kills. However I'd imagine a real Su-27 pilot, put in the same situation as our virtual pilots, with no AWACS/GCI support, and with poor coordination between friendly units, would be much more conservative about its positioning and detection than we ever see happening in some servers out there. @Ace of Harts I see some Eagle drivers sometimes making the mistake of being at high altitude, firing at a lower alt target, and then maintaining the same high altitude and course thus making itself easier to catch by an incoming AAM. Meanwhile his missile have to look down (harming its guidance) and in the denser air (depleting its speed). Sometimes you need to go down to the weeds and beat the guy at his own terms. DISCLAIMER - Of course this is all dependent on several other variables.

This. Useful in multiplayer. Been using TARGET for the last 4 months or so and had zero problems, amazing piece of software, but of course I read the manual first.

ED is slowly covering all eras of military aviation with at least two antagonist aircraft - doing the MiG-15bis would be a nice thing to do. Next, Vietnam! MiG-21 is coming, so where is the Thunderchief, Phantom (hmm dual seat, no-no) or Tiger... (Particularly, I would love to have a SEPECAT Jaguar, always been fond of the aircraft... but that's another topic)