Dragon1-1

With the Durendal, a high speed, low alt pass with CCIP can be an option. You can also try a high angle popup attack with CCIP. One nice thing about this technique is that you don't have to worry about interval, just figure out how many pairs you want to drop (unless you have very few bombs, it's more reliable to drop in pairs for this), then place each pair "by hand" during the pass. By dragging the pipper across the runway you can hit multiple points in one pass and poke a nice pattern of holes in it.

One small bit of feedback: could you change the wording of the F-10 option for advancing the mission, based on whether it'll move to the next task or RTB? I've had this problem with 2vUnk, the messages got me thinking selecting "move on" would activate another variation on the problem, but it went to RTB instead. If this was indicated in the radio menu, it'd be an easier call.

That is not how it works. The people you're talking about are greedy. There's no such thing as "don't need to collect another dollar anymore" for them. If one of them got all the money in the universe, he'd still want more. That's the sort of people we're talking about. There's no secret, malevolent cabal running the world, just a bunch of shysters who got lucky with the stock market lottery, and with ruthlessly exploiting people more intellectually capable (but more scrupulous and introverted) than them. They're also the ones they have power over in first place. They're the ones who make their money have value (we're on fiat currencies, remember?). With no people, power and money cease to exist. Fun fact: many of those ultra-rich are actually pronatalists (more people, bigger labor supply, labor gets cheaper, more money). Your conclusion makes no sense. You probably arrived at it because your sources are poorly chosen. The media, particularly news stories, are designed to make you read them and keep reading others, because it makes them money. If you are not trained to separate the real information from attempts to manipulate you, your conclusions will be wrong. So maybe stop doing your own research, if you don't have the training, scientific rigor and access to journals required to do this properly. In truth, the super-rich are hostages to poor masses, and they pour incredible amount of resources into convincing them that it isn't so. The only ones pushing for rapid reduction of humanity are the bleeding hearts who had humanized Earth so much they think it's "suffering" because of humanity's exploitation of it. While such eco-extremists are gaining traction in some circles, they're actually opposed to the elites (although to be fair, they're opposed to most people).

ED mentioned they want to improve on that at some point, but I guess just having different visuals for the older pods would be fine for now. All the pods I mentioned were used in Vietnam, except the newer variants of ALQ-101, so it'd be great if you could get them all modeled at least visually. It'll be good to have for later, especially when ED decides to improve jamming. The way jammers worked in Vietnam is pretty well documented, since it was mostly simple noise jamming, either to disrupt radar or missile guidance signals specifically for the SA-2. Of course, there's also the problem that we don't have the right SA-2 (or an appropriate Fan Song to go with it).

Honestly, I doubt it's true for people actually at the top. There are movements which advocate for drastic population reductions (mostly on account of "Earth can't support that many" theory), but as far as people in power go, Hanlon's Razor is in effect. Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. Conscription was floated in the UK because the old farts have noticed young people had enough of their idiocy and figured the best way to fix it was to indoctrinate them to be "patriotic" (as opposed to, you know, not acting like idiots). People in power mostly care about two things: staying in power and getting rich. Russia didn't have to "agree" to anything for MAD to work. It's simple as that, they'd nuke US cities in retaliation for US nuking anything on Russian soil, or attempting to degrade their nuclear capabilities. That's why we can assume they would do a countervalue strike. Also, before you start putting too much into things not working due to Russian corruption, check the map of Ukraine. However decrepit is their kit, clearly enough of it is functional. That's ultimately what MAD is about. It doesn't matter if you get hit by 4500 nukes or 45000, you'll be just as dead. Sure, the US vastly exceeds Russia in nuclear capabilities... but it doesn't matter. Again, your argument boils down to "my pile of rubble is slightly less radioactive than yours, so I won". Name them? Aegis Ashore, maybe (a grand total of two batteries, in Poland and Romania, at that)? I was talking strategic ABMs, as defined by the ABM treaty. Right now, this capability has only been shown by the SM-3 on the US side, and that missile is mounted on ships, most of which are not in position to use it against ICBMs flying over the Arctic. Russia's sole example is the A-235 protecting Moscow, and even if it works perfectly, it's unlikely to be enough. For the purposes of Russia/US nuclear exchange, the US side has no ABM protection, and for Russia-Europe, Poland's sole battery (Romanian one is too far south) wouldn't help a whole lot. No, tactical ABMs don't count. You're never going to take out enough individual MIRVs with THAAD batteries, or the S-400 for that matter. So better just forget about them, they're not in the same class. That's how Russia said they interpreted it. As you said, it's propaganda, and everyone knows that. Russia is raving about "The West" acting as Ukraine's puppetmaster, but what it really wants is for Western countries to normalize relations with it. Putin is hoping that the war will be over, he'll keep his gains, and it'll be back to business as usual. Sadly, he's quite probably right as far as the likes of Germany or Slovakia are concerned, no matter how much Poland and Ukraine will ring the alarm bell. We've been through this before. Yeah, because Poland was so successfully defended against unprepared German forces. As for the Brits, they were stuck on their island after Dunkirk, getting the crap bombed out of them, their army was out of its good gear, and in no position to strike back for the foreseeable future. Had the US not become involved in Europe, they would have stayed there a lot longer. Germany was doomed by its decision to take on the Soviets, and by its complete ineptitude at actually doing so before they got their act together (see: getting bogged down at Stalingrad and Leningrad just because of who they were named after). And no, while the formal text of the Tripartite Pact was indeed a defensive alliance, in practice, Japan (and to some extent Italy) pretty much roped Hitler into declaring war on the US. He was actually reasonably sympathetic to both Americans (in fact, he loved Winnetou books so much he declared Apaches to be Aryans, which seriously ticked them off) and Brits. Before WWII, the sympathy was quite mutual in some circles, too. Raising the bar is still kind of a big deal. Also, it's worth noting that besides Russia (with caveats I already mentioned), of the nuclear powers only Israel has been seriously attacked, and then, mostly by irregular forces which can't be effectively targeted by nukes, anyway. Of actual countries, only Iran has hit it, and that strike was intended as a political statement, not to inflict damage. Also worth mentioning that Israel's threshold for nuclear deterrence is a lot higher due to them pretending to pretend to be a non-nuclear country (it's also essentially a dependent US territory). So clearly, having nukes works better than not having them.

Well, then the course is clear: we need those other pods. AFAIK, the early ALQs were simple noise jammers, there were also "special" variants that used all four antennas specifically to jam SA-2 guidance signals. As far as I could find, the -71 was 90W, the -72 upped that to 100W, and the -87 was 160W. Also, they had to be used in pairs (either on a single aircraft or on two in one flight): one with "even" antennas, and the other with "odd" antennas. From what I gathered, the bands would be separated into even and odd ones so that the pod doesn't essentially jam itself. The ALQ-101 was a deception jammer, and it had a lot of versions. The very late one with long body and a gondola is an "all-band" version, presumably equivalent to a long body ALQ-119. Earlier versions without a gondola would be more limited, and the first version with the short body was probably limited to jamming high band radars.

Do they work with our F-5? Using real tables in DCS should be possible, but isn't always (though it's not like you need to be very accurate with LGBs).

Look up counterforce and countervalue strikes. What you're describing is a counterforce strike. MAD is based on the idea of mutual countervalue strikes. In fact, lack of reliability of Russia's arsenal would be an incentive to focus on countervalue strikes. Because of the threat of counterforce strikes, nuclear weapons would be fired all at once. With 30 minutes between US and Russia, you're not going to take out very many of their nukes before they clear their silos. Subs are another matter, but their primary role is second strike capability, meaning if one side can somehow get a drop on the other, the other can still hit it from beyond the grave. As for effective self-defense systems, in the West, they don't exist. In Russia, they're deployed around Moscow, and it's questionable just how good they are. ABMs are tightly regulated because they are capable of shifting the balance that underpins MAD. There's been progress in that area, mostly due to smaller ballistic missiles being around and in heavy use, but intercepting an ICBM RV with a Patriot is not going to happen (and even then, I doubt the Moscow system can prevent every single hit). You're confusing two different things. Openness was to ensure that both sides are adhering to the treaty (notice that Japan was able to think it could win because it worked its way around Washington Naval Treaty, which filled a similar role) and that they know, roughly, where they stand. At the same time, actual details are heavily classified, and actual launch policy is kept a closely guarded secret. Nukes are meant to create a war that definitely can't be won. Even with a nuclear force that's superior in every possible aspect, if the enemy has the minimum number of nukes needed to flatten your major cities, you simply can't win. "My pile of rubble is slightly less radioactive than yours" is not much of a victory. The nice thing about MAD is diminishing returns, because every nuke past that minimum number is effectively redundant. 4300 warheads is easily in "more than enough" territory. You're also wrong about Germany. Them losing WWII has nothing to do with them underestimating their enemies and everything to do with their internal politics and ideology basically crippling their own war strategy. Even then, had they disregarded the treaty with Japan instead of declaring war on the US, WWII could have turned out very differently (doesn't mean they'd have won, that'd require them not to make a bunch of other bad decisions). Ukrainians invaded Russian land, not "The West". They called Russia's bluff in this case, not us. We didn't do anything (admittedly, this includes not bullying Ukraine into abandoning the plan). It was their call to make, of course, and consequences would've been theirs to bear. Despite Russian propaganda, they're not a puppet state. It's also important that a largely inconsequential, rural piece of land had been taken, one that Russia seems to be convinced they'll be able to take back. Was there, say, an ICBM silo on that piece of land, we'd be looking at a very different conversation. Ukraine is not an existential threat to Russia, and their incursion can only ever hurt their pride. If it was a purely conventional war, Polish troops would've been having a victory parade on the Red Square by now (or having a standoff with the Chinese from across the Urals). And yes, sometimes, when fighting a nuclear state, the only option is to either be conquered or destroyed. All allies that could help you can send you weapons, but won't intervene on your behalf, because nukes. At most, you can hope to keep fighting on your own ground long enough for the aggressor to give up (Vietnam lasted a decade, Ukraine barely three years so far). For weaker countries, the answer is, get nukes of your own, or get in bed with someone who has them. North Korea understands it. Iran doesn't like this, but they also understand. So do both India and Pakistan. NATO countries understand this, and Ukraine does now, too (which is why it's trying so hard to get into NATO). Some are already starting to see nonproliferation efforts as a cynical attempt to keep countries off the "don't bomb, ever" list. It's getting kind of hard to argue against that view.

Was the runway paved, or just the taxiways? Soviets were no strangers to rough field operations. Most Soviet aircraft, especially civilian ones, could use dirt runways, because that's all you get in most "airports" in Russian Far East. Whatever the case, the locals probably stole the plates as soon as the Soviets moved out.

Have you looked at how many nukes Russia actually has? Even less than 10% would suffice to reduce both US and Europe to a wasteland. Also, while the vast majority of nukes are Teller-Ullam designs (not boosted fission), this does not mean they have no pure implosion type weapons in service. Lack of tritium would likely knock out all devices over 100kT in modern arsenal, so most ICBM warheads, but it would not actually eliminate all nukes, particularly the smaller devices. Of course, all this is moot, because strategically, their arsenal has to be treated as perfectly functional. Nobody is dumb enough to risk calling their bluff and finding out the hard way they're wrong. You can't argue for making any other assumption without evidence much better than "that's how it usually works in Russia". In fact, this is why extremely tight secrecy and policy ambiguity is an important part of any nuclear strategy. If the enemy discovers a flaw, the value of the deterrent is much reduced. What car plants? What other factories? US cars are mostly made in Canada and Mexico, and base components they use are made in China. A factory is useless without its supply chain... most of which had been offshored. Whatever manufacturing remains in the US is mostly high tech final assembly type stuff, not the components that you assemble the product from. Not to mention, you can't just convert car factories to tank factories. At most, you can get them to make militarized trucks, most US factories are heavily automated, and this means they are straight-up incapable of producing anything that doesn't fit within their design constraints. Oh, and lest we forget, there are only three actual car companies in the US, only two of which (Ford and GM) are actually based there. If the US actually getting them to go into "war mode" would not be easy nor cheap. Russia has been focusing on resilience of their supply chain, they're trying to build their equipment with domestic components only, when possible. Their factories are more primitive due to lower labor costs and less skilled workforce (and therefore less specialized), which could make them more flexible. And of course, they have a land border with China, which doesn't seem to mind increased demand for their dual use components. Lastly, the power structure means it's easier for Russian government to make arbitrary decisions about what the factories make. With China, of course, there's no contest. Not only have they been taking resilience seriously, that's where most of the manufacturing actually went to. There's a lot of them, they have a very large military, and a lot of population to support it. The only advantages the US could muster against them are nukes and the tech gap, which is closing rapidly.

Yes, Russian stock is mostly part kits, but those are mighty handy to have when your working tanks get damaged. Russian stuff might be poorly maintained, and they're not very good at upgrading it, but they have it, which is more than Ukraine can say. As such, Russian armor doesn't need to be "competitive" with the US, it has to be good enough, and easy to make in large numbers. As long as it runs, a T-55 with a tablet and NVGs for the commander is extremely dangerous to anything that isn't a tank, and can have modern navigation and comms. With proper support, it can go quite far. Also, I have my doubts about the US being able to outproduce Russia on superior equipment (or even on stuff that's just as crappy). US weapon manufacturing operations are run on commercial principles, and have, like much other US manufacturing, been gutted in the name of increasing corporate margins. They do not seem to have much excess capacity. Rebuilding that capacity takes time. Europe has just realized they need it, and promptly set out to do it. I haven't seen much movement to that end in the US, indeed, if anything they'll be running even leaner in short term, especially as tariffs start to bite. BTW, you actually don't need tritium to make a nuclear warhead. You need it only for thermonuclear ones. I don't know what proportions of warheads Russians have, but given the vastness of their arsenal, I wouldn't be surprised if they had enough simple fission devices to ruin everyone's day. Besides, nukes are a grand strategic deterrent first of all. If you actually get to try out if they work, they've already failed in their job. So by that measure, Russian nukes are working perfectly well. Even if it's a bluff, nobody is going to call it because the price for being wrong is being wiped off the face of the Earth. This is also why there's such vocal displeasure with Iran trying to make a nuke, and to a lesser extent with India for actually making them (while not making any fuss about Israel doing the same). It's not that anyone is worried about them actually launching any nukes, it's that they're afraid of not being able to bully those countries without repercussions. In their intended role, nukes are both frequently used and very effective. As for Kuznetsov, it was only built because the Soviets saw the US having a lot of carriers and decided they wanted one, too. Russia doesn't need it, nor does it need a ship like it. The Soviets, quite sensibly, expected their large submarine force and their land-based cruise missile aircraft to fight US CVBGs. Their own Moskva-class was an ASW boat with helos, and they should have stuck to that. Anything the Kuznetsov can do, Russia's considerable force of long range land based aircraft can do better. They would be better off mooring the thing besides the Aurora and charging tourists for entry.

I think this is a bit too much to ask. It'd be seriously complex to implement, with little benefit.

The thing is, if you look at the US, how much of the post-Cold War new and shiny tech was an actual advancement? For a while, the US developed stuff like the F-22, but then, they started cutting costs. Soviets had things like Drozd APS during Cold War, and the tech to make a remotely controlled tank turret was there, but the US was comfortable with incremental upgrades to their old Abramses. They weren't advancing quite as fast as they probably could have, and the rest of the world caught up. Instead of peer combat, the US focused on bullying smaller countries and fighting insurgents in a cost-efficient manner. Something that wasn't going too well for them despite the tech advantage, BTW. It seems that a winning strategy is both quality and quantity (note that it is not a new observation, a "high-low mix" is a well attested strategy). Specifically, a few "tip of the spear" high tech units backed up by a large number of older equipment that's been upgraded with enough new tech to support the spiffy ones. Basically, high tech gear would be used to breach the enemy's defenses, then cheap stuff would pour in and wreak havoc, while the high tech gear switches to preventing the enemy's high tech force from getting to the cheap stuff and wrecking it. The big advantage large numbers have is the ability to be in more places at once. As for China, restricting tech flow to them is closing the stall long after the horse has bolted.

A lookup table can be perfectly fine, as long as the values are reasonably dense and derived from a realistic aerodynamic model (or the real charts). This is obviously not the case here. Until we get GFM, we should at least get the lookup tables fixed up.

The F-4 is fun, too, you just have to use it right. Jester will probably get better if he can tweak gain and such, but the other period radars are too good, in that you can use them to search airspace reasonably well, without many of the issues that affected them IRL. In fact, you generally don't have to mess with gain and only drop lock from notching. Realistically, you should not be getting BVR locks on fighter-sized targets from any of those platforms. The primary method of acquiring targets in fighters of the time was visual and GCI/AWACS calls. Much of the time, they would not even turn on their radars until they had a good tally. This is why SPO-10 was a perfectly sufficient RWR for its era. If you were being painted by something that caused SPO-10 to beep, that usually meant it was preparing to shoot you. The MiG-25 was probably the first fighter with a search radar that was worth a damn, followed by F-14 and F-15. Before that, the radar was primarily for guiding missiles and getting range for the gunsight.

If you hear what the crews and the infantry thought of their IFVs, it was pretty clear not all the criticisms were addressed, either. Also, it helped that the worst flaws were discovered and somewhat patched over before they were deployed in ODS. The M2A2 version was quite significantly uparmored compared to the original. And yeah, military procurement is often more politics than capability, with occasional strategy. There are many examples of the latter, for instance the Blackhawk was chosen over a Huey variant as the Army's main helo because Bell was making Cobras and they were worried they'd decrease their output. At other times, it's just a company playing dirty, like with F-16 and F-20. In the end, the problem is that everyone is playing dirty at this point. Both the military itself and the MIC have become too politicized, and they seem to rely on vast reserves of money to maintain effectiveness... and they can't even explain where half of this money actually goes. Adversaries like Russia and China have to do more with less, so they're forced to innovate, though Russia has enough other problems that it ended up with several otherwise good designs that it can't actually afford to produce. China can produce theirs, though, and they seem to keep a tight lid on the politics.

Flip the switch on the throttle, you need to bind it to the HOTAS.

I don't mind enable/disable exists, just as long as only one shows up in the wheel at any given time, and that they're accessible without a submenu. A more generic solution is fine, as long as it doesn't require any additional clicks or holding down a button. These things are done on each startup, so they should be as streamlined as they can be.

Bummer, I thought you might've collected enough material when making Horrido. I guess I'll try to look on my own. Good thing it's not all that hard to get it to fly in first place, compared to, say, the 109.

Not true. AFAIK people did manage to get it refunded through Steam. You just have to get through to a human, as opposed to the bot which handles normal refund requests. Given that there's language on the product page which constitutes false advertising, it's a pretty good reason to grant a refund despite the usual rules around it.

Could we get a toggle instead of separate "enable" and "disable" options for chocks and external power? This would save a click in the Jester/ground crew menu. There's no reason to order chocks to be placed when they're already in place, so the button that opens the sub-menu with only two options (place/remove) could be made into a toggle instead. Current status could be indicated on the button.

I know the 190 probably isn't a priority right now, and Horrido is pretty old, but how about a startup/TO/landing tutorial video? You've got excellent tutorials for all warbirds you made a campaign for, except this one. While it's easy to start and get flying, it'd be nice to have a video showcasing the real procedure. BTW, if you ever make a Huey video in the same mold, I'm sure Paradise Lost players will appreciate that, too.

Always love your campaigns. I'm flying jets for now, but I'll get back to WWII later on. Still got to finish the first Wolfpack, though.

For what it's worth, it'd be a Standalone issue. I use Steam and never had this bug.

I suppose because it's the starting point for both a more kitted out version and the variant our E was upgraded from. Remember, there are more Phantoms in the pipeline.