LetMePickThat

This was fixed in Beta 1.5 or 1.6 I think.

About that, why was that exhaust change not reported in the changelog? Also, why use that kind of exhaust, more commonly found on liquid-fuel engines, on most missiles, including some which use a solid fuel rocket engine? Solid fuel rockets usually have almost invisible shock diamonds, higher smoke density and less well "defined" exhaust. This new exhaust seems to be a downgrade from the old one for those missiles.

Check here: Yes, but it hasn't been released yet. In the meantime: Yes, the TEL is from the 51P6 series, with 3x48N6E2 and 4x9M96E2.

We don't have the right map for that (those would be deployed in Ru only), and I'm not a huge fan of building missions and making mods based on the tragedy we're currently going through; I think this would be a lack of respect for the soldiers of both sides.

Yeah, but you don't really get to chose how they are used by other people. I too would engage them from very high/far, but some others would try to strafe them and wonder why they're not moving.

1.9 is out, just some minor bugfixes.

I think we have a twin-barelled 14,5mm in there. I'd need to check though.

I can help you with that, I've already done that job on my side. PM me and I'll send you my current code. Defining new radars is part of the trick, but you also need a few designators to handle the actual engagement, then to slave the weapon systems themselves to said designators. Have you tried editing the gains and the feedback loop on the WS? I'm on my phone, so I can't check your code... ^^'

Hey ! PM me and we'll see what we can do for those pesky CIWS not engaging missiles...

That's far from a given. The S-125 used was modified specifically to enhance its capabilities versus the F-117, and the plane was a relatively slow mover compared to a missile. The fact that the flight path of the F-117 was known in advance also considerably helped, and the crew had quite some time (minutes, vs. seconds in the case of a missile) to initiate a track and manually fine-tune the radar on the fly. On the SA-1/2/3, it is up to the operators to choose the level of de-noising and clutter suppression filters they want. You could perfectly display raw data with zero clutter suppression if you were trying to track/lock a low RCS target flying high above the ground clutter. Partially. You can get a very strong signal from an object yet discard it because it doesn't meet other requirements like relative speed (measured by doppler shift), range, or azimuth resolution. I agree. This is precisely why counter-PGM systems like the SA-15/19/22 rely heavily on automation, and why such systems became practical only when phased arrays and solid state electronics had matured enough.

The SA-3 you mentionned has a similar range vs. maneuverable targets, and the SA-6/11/17 are medium-range SAMs, not the same category as the SA-10/20 and SA-12/23. Now that I think about it, the SA-12/S-300V (1983) was also designed to intercept low-RCS PGWs, a byproduct of its intended triple role (conventional anti-air defense, counter-CM missions and SRBM defense). Anyway, the original topic was about fighter radar.

This is not true. The SA-15 was designed specifically for counter-PGM operations, incuding weapons like the Maverick, the HARM and the Alarm, and was introduced in 1983. The M1-2 reached IOC in 1998. The SA-19, introduced in 1982, also had some limited capabilities against subsonic air-to-ground weapons like the Mav'. True, but RCS is only part of the equation. A doppler radar will likely work better on a small RCS object moving at really high speed than on a free-falling object of relatively large size and low speed. Discrimination would also play in the missile's favor, since it would not be part of a cloud of debris and would be the only object in the radar's field of vision. Completely true, if a missile lock is possible, it can only be achieved at short range. In DCS, both the F-14 and the Mirage 2000C can achieve radar locks on incoming missiles. This screwed me a few time since my radar would rather auto-lock on the missile coming at me rather than on the bogey behind it.

Mostly exact, yes. http://www.ausairpower.net/PVO-S/SNR-75M3-AV-UV-Vans-MiroslavGyurosi-1S.jpg Yes. See the two links I provided above. They are not always colocated with the radars, the cables allow them to be installed as far as 200m away from the antenna itself. Correct. You would need an aweful lot of them. The fire control radar alone requires three plus ba ckup. Then, you'd need to power on the rails, the UV/AV modules, the search radars, etc. How many exactly would depend on the configuration of the site, same for the question of which equipements they would be connected to. In practice, the operators usually "make do" with what they have and the topography of the site, which results in vastly different patters from one battery to the other.

Cheers.

They're just static units meant to complement ED's SAMs. In real life, the SNR-75 radar used on the SA-2/S-75 requires the UV and AV stations to work ("SNR-75 trailer"), but ED did not make those so we did. The 5S99 is the command vehicle associated with the SA-3/S-125 SAM system. Again, ED did not include it with its own SA-3 so we added our own. The so-called "SA-2 trailer" is a diesel electric generator that was used for SA-2/3 sites not connected to the local power grid. The SNR-75 trailers are usually colocated with the SNR-75 radar itself, while the 5S99 is usually at the center (or near the radars) of the SA-3 site. The diesel generator can be put anywhere as long as the cables are long enough to reach the vehicles it is supposed to supply. See the following: http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-SNR-75-Fan-Song.html http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-SAM-Site-Configs-A.html

Skynet allows you to work around that by having dedicated EW radars that cue SAM systems to turn on only when a threat is in range. Skynet, again. That's indeed a real bummer. Some units are declared as statics (S-300PS), meaning that they can't move even if they wanted to. Other units are vehicles (SA-11), but won't move unless under fire. That being said, the accuracy of HARM missiles on INS stored target guidance only is pretty bad, which is one of the reasons why so many ARMs were expanded in Iraq and in the Balkans. Even if the INS itself is really precise, the coordinates obtained by the passive radar seeker until the SAM turns off aren't, which results in large miss distances. That's also why the latest HARM variants like the AARGM(-ER) have multi-mode seekers where passive radar homing is supplemented by another technological approach Again, Skynet can do that, even if that requires some scripting knowledge and a lot of time to figure things out. It's actually worse than that. If you add two 30N6s to an S-300PS site, the system will just launch twice as much missiles per target without using the added FCRs to cover more space. The FCR in DCS is the unit responsible for engagement, but two FCRs in the same site won't be linked together and thus will both engage each target. I concur.

The 2000-5 doesn't have that capability indeed. All the rear-sector shots were done using a pair of Rafale sharing targeting information over L16. The addition of the Scorpion HMD from Thales on the Rafale F4 will allow single-ship, autonomous rear-sector engagements using the MICA IR in LOAL shots.

I can down (and do so regularly) an S-300PS with a single A-10C or Harrier. This isn't realistic. So yeah, people who want to DCS to be a simulator should indeed be concerned about the current lack of capabilities of air defense systems.

I disagree with that. Look at the Mirage 2000C for instance, it has by far the best radar of DCS modelling-wise, and using it has no impact on performance thanks to clever code implementation and tricks. Furthermore, it is a bad excuse to rely on basic radar simplification just because your core sim has some technological debt. DCS is meant to be a simulator, you don't get to pick what should be modelled and to what extent. If we have air defenses, they have to be modelled to match as best as possible their real-life counterpart. Real life pilots loose sleep over the capabilities of the S-300PS? Well, so should you in DCS. The fact that a two-ship Hornet flight can at the moment take down a full S-300PS battery isn't realistic, and should not be a possibility in the sim in the first place. The limits under which the air defenses are forced to operate in DCS are a huge problem for realistic mission makers and serious flyers. Case in point: the the FCRs on modern air defense systems are perfectly able to guide a missile right to the endgame without a hard lock on the target, and unless your RWR happens to detect the radar-missile uplink there is no reason for you to get a launch warning. The fact that DCS gives you such a warning as soon as a 5V55R leaves its canister isn't realistic. The opposite is also true, an S-300PS should be able to lock you and trigger an RWR alert without having to launch a missile, just to make you feel threatened and force you to go to the deck. At the moment, I can mount a successful DEAD mission on a 300PS with my Harrier and two Sidearms. Again, DCS is meant to be a simulator, aiming at replicating the real world. If it is hard to defend against an S-300 or a Patriot in real life, and it is, then DCS should strive to do the same instead of going the gamification way to avoid hurting player's feelings. Dumbing down the sim so that players can enjoy a threat-less environement isn't what air combat sim are about. ^^ EDIT: It's worth noting that adding the ability to fire with only a lock warning, and no launch warning, was one of the major hassles associated with the HDSM. Auranis, the original developer, found a clever way to do that and it clearly enhanced the realism of SEAD/DEAD missions in complex environnements. Coupled with Skynet to create a more credible IADS means that players can now undertake serious anti-air defenses business in a more realistic setting.

Thanks ! All 3D work was done by @Strigoi_dk.

I think the difference here lies in the definition of "feature complete". To me, the A-10C delivered 100% of what was originally promised given the restricted systems that are/were on the plane at the time the module was made. The missing bits on the OG A-10C were never meant to be added, the plane was "feature-complete" as defined by ED. Whether there are differences between the real deal and the DCS A-10C is imho irrelevant. The A-10C II was released because the A-10C could do with a 3D and system upgrade, given the new information that got out between 2011 and 2020, much like in the case of the Kamov (although BS 3 is still not available).

Have you ever took a look at how air defenses are modelled in DCS? All it takes is a basic radar, missile and vehicles setup in .lua. Even the old systems we have now are working completely different than real life counterparts, not because of the lack of data but because their implementation in DCS is approximate at best. For instance, the climb angle of all SAMs is fixed at 20° and cannot be changed. Guidance laws are the same for all missiles and systems except if you specify custom PNav parameters for your system (but don't think of any other guidance algorithm, they aren't any, so any kind of advanced guidance logics is a no-go). Just another example: the SA-19 operates in SACLOS mode via its optical sight, the real deal uses ACLOS via either the radar or the optical sight. This is a significant limitation in DCS. The ways of operating aren't here either, the S-300PS is for instance incapable of shoot-and-scoot techniques, the very reason they moved to wheeled chassis from the trailer-based S-300PT. ECCM isn't modelled at all (ccmk being a single value), there is no HOJ modes for SAM systems (something that has been available on the Patriot since, well, forever), etc. As for modern systems, it is perfectly possible to get a reasonably good idea of the performance of, say, an S-300PMU (an early-1990s-vintage system) since it is basically a technology upgrade of the S-300PS. All the relevant sensors are nothing more than incremental upgrades of their equivalent on the PS. The PMU was intented as an export variant of said PS, and most of the components were kept as it (hence the choice to keep the SA-10 designation, the PMU being the SA-10C while the PS was the SA-10B). The PM/PMU1 introduced the 48N6, a missile for which a ton of documentation is available, as well as more incremental upgrades to the radars that translate in nothing more than more range and more engagement channels (there is no fundamental difference between, say, a 30N6 and a 30N6E1). As a sidenote, the 5N64E/64N6(E) Big Bird was introduced with the PM/PMU1 to replace the 36D6/ST-68. Having the 64N6 as the base search radar for the S-300PS as we do in DCS is incorrect, though the BB can be retrofitted to the system if the customer wants it. Based on this, I think that it is definitely possible to add to DCS an SA-12, an SA-10C/D or even an SA-20A with at the very least the same level of fidelity as other current LR SAM systems. There are numerous books and documents describing these systems online, some written in the 1990s/2000s by people from Almaz-Antey. The field manuals for the SA-12 have also been made available. If one day ED decides to model all the MR/LR SAMs in depth, with correct guidance laws, EW implementation and the like, then yeah, anything more recent than the SA-10 family will be a big no. As long as the SA-5 and the SA-10 rely on the same (tweaked) pieces of code, there's no reason not to fiddle with more modern systems. As it stands now, it's hypocritical to call out on the SA-10D or SA-20 as being "too modern and classified" while our sim features both a 2008 Viper and Hornet, and has a Typhoon in development. I would be much more concerned about the fidelity of the Typhoon module than that of an AI-only SAM system that would be already severely limited by both the AI itself and the way SAMs are modelled in DCS.

Fun fact, we rely on some old LOMAC code for some bits of our own implementation of the SA-12/S-300V. We've ran tests for more than a year now with quite a few players on both the S-300V/SA-12 and the S-300PMU2. I'm fairly confident in those. I have less faith for the S-400/VM because they're more complex, and I have (obviously) less info about them. Most short-range systems should also be in the right ballpark performance-wise. The SAMP/T is a weird case, the system works as intended save for the PIF-PAF system, which I haven't been able to implement (I still need to experiment with a few ideas). At any rate, everyone need to have the mod installed to see the systems, this is a prerequisite. If using a dedicated server, the server must also have the mod. It was designed not to break IC though, so you can perfectly run the mod yet still be able to join IC-enabled public servers. Absolutely not. This is something we've done on the side for our own use, as well as for the people interested in making SAM/IADS hunting more interesting. We're lucky enough to have Waldair maintaining Skynet support for our SAMs, so there's that.

If you're interested in the SAMP/T, I have something for you to test... As for the availability of info, the depth (or lack thereof) of modelling for surface-to-air systems in DCS make that a non-issue, since approximations are already used all over the place (which is fine given the scope of the game). On top of the SAMP/T, we've been working on some other systems like the S-300PMU1/2, the S-300V/VM, the Pantsir-SM, Tor-M2, PAC-2 GEM, PAC-3 MSE, etc. In general, I agree that DCS is quite lacking in the air defense department. The best SAM we have (not taking into account the S-300F on the Kirov) is the 1980s-vintage S-300PS, whereas the planes most flown are the updated Viper and Hornet. An official implementation of a PMU1/2/VM would bring a lot, not to mention more advanced SAM options for CA users. There were talks of an IADS module a few months ago, I wonder where that will go as well.

In real life, the Tunguska and Pantsir are using ACLOS, with SACLOS being a backup mode. The ACLOS mode can be slaved to either the optics or the FCR, meaning that the system should be able to lock onto a target and fire at it regardless of weather and cloud cover, using only the radar if the operators want to do so. It's disappointing that ACLOS isn't available, given that optical CLOS doesn't require much than what's already available for lead compensation when using the guns. That plus the single-target limitation (a glaring issue for the SA-15 for instance) make CA pretty much useless for any serious air defense. I'm working on a Pantsir-SM, I might use a TVM guidance mode with tweaked guidance laws to work around that problem, given that the practical range of the missiles is much greater than what you could conceivably achieve with SACLOS.