Dragon1-1

Definitely past. We do like flying the "state of the art" airframe in a given period, and it's unlikely we'd get ones for modern day. Besides, most conflicts these days are asymmetrical in some way, if they involve a significant air force at all. Mid-2000s already has that problem, with no viable peer opponents for Western airframes. So... 80s all the way.

Also note, modern phased array radars will give you no lock or launch warning (recall how the SA-10 works, if you see the FCR on RWR at all, assume you've been launched at). Being tracked by a friendly ship is not a cause for concern, and if you're not looking at it, you're not going to spot a launch. So this likely came out of the blue for the pilots. I assume the CG crew had been high strung due to cruise missile threat, which doesn't give you a whole lot of time to react. It's no excuse for messing up, but it does make it more likely. Either way, I don't envy the guy who fired that shot, or the captain.

That shouldn't matter, the flares are ejected upwards and much brighter than a plane would be from the front. If they're not physically obscured by the fuselage, they should be able to decoy the missile pretty well.

The question is, to what? I'm still on Windows 10 2H22, because I don't want to brick my G2. A VR headset is an expensive piece of kit either way, and nobody offers the combo of price and features that Pimax does. I plan to keep using the G2 for now, but at some point, I'll have to update the OS. It doesn't seem that there's anything but Oculus and Pimax doing anything in the low end of the market.

Now that's interesting, it'd be nice to see it on the Iranian version. Makes sense, too. Iran got its Tomcats before US crews started disabling the vanes. I guess they never figured out they weren't worth the trouble (then again, operating them ashore might have changed this equation a bit).

FYI, it's very much possible to get eye fatigue (which manifests as "sore eyes") from looking at a virtual sun, particularly in VR, but also with a screen. Generally, when things are hard to see, the brain makes an effort to make things out regardless. Doing that for long enough can cause various symptoms, such as sore eyes or a headache. I could go on as to why it's like this, but I think most people will understand that the easier it is to make out details in the image (which a visor would help with), the less exhausting it is to look at. And yes, I have a master's in biophysics, just in case anyone wonders. EDIT: Since the jerk seems to have had his post removed, I amended this post to make it clear I wasn't being mean to the person now above me for no reason.

The X3D series is unique. They do not have the raw single core clock speed of other CPUs, it's good, but not amazing on those chips. What they do have is copious amount of cache, which allows cutting down the time the CPU spends talking to the RAM. This has an outsized impact on VR because much of what CPU does in graphics heavy applications, such as rendering for a 4K headset, is slinging texture data back and forth. I don't know how those specific CPUs compare in actual in-sim performance, but I do know that tests focused on clock speeds only may give a skewed impression. Pushing for highest possible clock rates and core numbers makes sense if you do something that requires raw speed (such as heavy duty maths), but if the most demanding thing you do on that rig is DCS, then the X3D Ryzens might be the better choice.

This is not exactly a major functionality change, it should easily be possible to built on top of the existing system. As far as I understand, the hard part wasn't defining the paths, but getting the system to work in first place. Extra paths and a manual switcher should be quite simpler.

It doesn't need to be dynamic, they would just need to add alternate paths for those spots, that would be enabled if the bow cats are blocked, or rather, if the proper flag is set in the editor. Going with fixed routes doesn't mean you can't have multiple routes for multiple use cases, just add a "blocked bow mode" which would make the aircraft be directed to 3 and 4 instead. This is not an exotic use case either IRL or in the sim.

I noticed that it's explicitly advised not to place statics in a way that would block cats 1 and 2. However, it is not uncommon IRL for aircraft to be parked there, and for only 3 and 4 to be in use. Will that option come at some point?

I feel like that's true of just about any high end base. Desk mount is a must for Winwing, too, otherwise it's awkwardly tall. From what I've seen of the others, the same is true of them as well, except maybe the Thrustmaster. A cam-based gimbal inherently takes a lot of vertical space, and you need fairly stiff springs for a proper feel, anyway, meaning that you'd need to either stick it to the desk somehow (Winwing's misbegotten suction cups) or have a ridiculously heavy mounting plate (TM's solution). You need a desk mount, which is easy enough to build yourself, if you're the tinkering kind (a 3D printer is nice for this, but not a must), while if you're not, Monstertech has a selection of mounts. For what it's worth, for my stick and throttle. I used a bunch of 20x60 v-slot profiles, two cheap steel plates from a hardware store, two toggle clamps from Aliexpress (cheap ones often used in woodworking), and 3D printed mounting brackets originally designed for TM hardware. Monstertech has a fancy coating for the plates, I used felt pads of the sort you stick on the bottom of chair legs. Had to cut threads into the ends of aluminum profiles, but otherwise, assembly was uncomplicated.

I suspect this is art-only update because they only had the artists working on it full time, and not the coders. So anything that required coding, besides bugs, was left as is. The scope of the update is rather narrow, but from the development POV, it fits with a particular skillset. Remember that the skills required to make a module are quite diverse, and some team members might have a higher workload than others.

Sale is finished, but I'm still not seeing the F-5E upgrade. The three campaigns show up OK, but not the F-5.

Well, they did the F-5 recently, which makes me hope that they're now (slowly) going through the old modules and updating the visuals (along with fixing bugs, hopefully) for a reasonable fee. While the Huey really needs is a Heatblur-style customizable cockpit system, but I'll be happy with removable doors as a start.

That's exactly what is difference between a premium stick and a cheap one. You have a deadzone in your stick, it's as simple as that. Probably a center detent, as well. I don't (but with the CH kit, I used to), and most people telling you it's not a problem with the module don't have it, either, because most forum regulars are on the expensive hardware. In the real aircraft, you would barely be able to see a small stick deflection on camera, you probably don't even realize how many small adjustment are there in that Growler video that you just aren't seeing, because they're so subtle. My Winwing Orion 1 can do a similar thing (once configured properly), only the movements are more obvious visually due to being mounted directly on the gimbal. It's a dual cam, all metal design with a soft center and no breakout force, and the jet responds to the slightest touch. Indeed, in the F-16, the longstanding advice is to hold the stick with your fingers and rest your hands on the base. Works with the real jet, the TM Warthog and probably with my Orion (I developed a different technique by now, so I haven't tried that), but it very much did not with the CH. It's this deadzone that makes AAR far harder than it should be, induces PIO and makes you tear your hair out. I've been there, so I know. Buying an Orion 1 won't make you an AAR pro on its own, but it'll make learning it less painful. It's not impossible to AAR with a deadzone (been there, as well), but it's very tiring and requires you to sling the stick across the deadzone with both great speed and precision, as well as anticipating the aircraft.

I'm pretty sure this is a Sniper feature. LANTIRN is a rather early TGP, with focus being on night attack and low level flying, not air to air. Any options for the latter are going to be rudimentary.

Get a better stick. I don't know what you're flying with, but it's probably not a 1:1 replica of the Hornet stick. I started out on CH Fighterstick before moving onto Winwing Orion 1, and the difference is enormous. That is what you're missing. The real pilot has a stick that acts completely different to anything you can mount on the desk. Don't have room for a floor-mounted gimbal with a long extension and uptuned springs, then try, at least, to get a high end side mounted HOTAS. This will suddenly make those precision adjustments possible. You probably won't believe me that it's all due to your stick. I didn't think it'd make such a difference, either, but it does. Don't forget that the Cooper-Harper scale evaluates the aircraft as a whole, which includes the flight controls. If your flight controls suck, there's not much ED can do, though you do have options for adding some curves to your stick. Oh, and don't discount practice. Real pilots don't get anywhere near the tanker until they've had a lot of formation training first.

For what it's worth, it was the fireball itself. The blast shattered windows as far as Finland, and would have completely flattened about a quarter of a typical DCS map. It wouldn't even be a mission-ender, depending on where it blew. Anyone remembers the old F-35 sim from Novalogic? That one had nukes, and you could even use them yourself. That is, quite rightly, unlikely to ever be seen in DCS due to classification issues. However, that doesn't mean we can't have AI deploy those weapons, either as an event-triggered ICBM strike, a ground-launched SRBM/MRBM, or an ALCM or ALBM launched by an AI plane.

I think it's fair to say we'll probably never get to use them, but this is less of a factor for AI-deployed weapons. Those do not need extensive modeling of classified systems, and the physics behind a nuclear weapon are well known. Performance is a real issue, though, but perhaps it just means it requires a custom solution. The standard system for destroying buildings is inadequate for WMDs, and I suspect we'll see some of those issues crop up for MOAB or the Daisy Cutter, as well. Dropping them in an built-up area could trigger server crashes by itself. They would also require the ability to render a mushroom cloud (though a small, dusty one), seeing as both weapons produce one.

Well, for one, I'd like to see people at least knock off the "simulate nukes by deleting DCS" meme. I would like the discussion to focus on actual issues that stand in the way of implementing nuclear weapons (of which there are plenty), as opposed to ignorant fearmongering. There's surprisingly little practical and basically no moral distinction between dropping a 100kT nuke and 100 000 Mk84s on a city, the energy delivered will be quite similar (yes, the Mk84's payload is only 0.5T, but only half of the nuke's energy is emitted towards the ground). Indeed, if you use an airburst nuke, cleaning up the ruins will be simpler than with conventional bombs, since the nuke won't leave any UXO. If you look at the actual figures, more civilians were killed by UXOs than by anything radioactive, including both nukes and Chernobyl taken together. For what it's worth, including WMDs would be a thing not to be taken lightly, but at the same time, far from uninteresting, particularly since a Cold War Germany map, probably near Fulda Gap, is coming, and that's where the planners on NATO side expected the "nuclear battlefield" to be (for what it's worth, actual Soviet plans would have thrown them a major curveball there). Also, WMDs are still relevant, especially on the subject of regional conflicts, such as modern on Middle East maps that we already have.

One word: Gaza. Second word: Ukraine. Turns out, when the chips are down, "unacceptable" is a much more malleable word than you'd like to think. Even the existence of precision munitions doesn't stop indiscriminate destruction of urban areas, and the world agreeing it's a mean thing to do doesn't seem to faze the people doing it. International law, if not enforced, is just a bunch of pompous sounding words on a piece of paper. How do you know? Against Japan, two were sufficient. Mostly because Japan didn't have nukes itself. We saw how "escalating the conflict" looks like when one side doesn't have its heart in it. It's a nice thing to tell ourselves it's "too risky" and "out of the question", but the current state of the world suggests that a more practical way of looking at it is to ask how much damage will a nuke actually do, and what are the options if one side drops one. For instance, the latest word on what would happen if a tactical nuke was used in Ukraine would be a massive conventional strike by NATO, including sinking what's left of Black Sea Fleet. It's not a given that this would lead to further nuclear escalation.

...which is more or less exactly what I was saying, in case you haven't noticed. The biggest thing to fear from a nuclear war, particularly major superpowers, is not the bombs or the fallout - it's losing the world's superpowers. Of course, this only applies to a scenario of a full exchange, when US/NATO and USSR/Russia (again, the only pairings which could cause things to go this bad) launch everything they have at each other and essentially cease to exist as functional entities. This is not the only possible scenario. Also note that nuclear winter is not a universally accepted concept, either. It is based on our experience with volcanic eruptions, which throw up a large amount of particulates into the air. A nuke set to airburst, which would be most of them, does not do that - the mushroom cloud is actually mostly water vapor, and it doesn't linger for especially long. So a nuclear winter doesn't have to happen, either, averting crop failures and a good part of trade collapse that the worst scenarios rely on. The world doesn't end at neither US nor Russia, and it's hard to believe other countries wouldn't at least try to pick up the pieces. In the end, the damage caused by the conflict depends on the specifics, such as weapons used, exact targets, and how the other countries responded. All I was saying is that "one nuke explodes=world ends" view of the matter is a myth. It's a widespread myth, no doubt reinforced by most people (especially click-hungry video creators) focusing on the biggest possible nuclear exchange, while assuming the most catastrophic consequences. It does go against the prevailing orthodoxy a bit to point out there are other possible scenarios. Quite a few sentences in the article confirm that. Notice that the incidence of cancer increased in bomb victims, as in, people who were directly affected by the blast, not ones who walked around and lived in the area afterwards. In small nukes, most of radiation actually comes directly from the nuclear reaction that produces the fireball. Larger warheads produce a fireball too large for this to be a concern (which is another reason you don't get much fallout), but tactical nukes can definitely kill by direct gamma irradiation, as well, sometimes quite a bit after the explosion itself. This is actually a disadvantage of tactical nukes (especially neutron bombs) - radiation can produce "walking dead", soldiers with terminal leukemia whose only remaining mission in life is to kill as many of their enemies as they can before they keel over. Fans of Sabaton will recall poison gas being known to sometimes produce a similar effect. Also worth noting, the early designs were very dirty bombs by today standards, modern nukes, especially thermonuclear devices are much more efficient, and spread much less of themselves out on the wind. Being directly hit by most types of radiation actually doesn't cause the thing that was hit to become radioactive - the only radiation that does that is alphas and neutrons, but the former are ridiculously short ranged and the latter are used up in a nuke to make the explosion (unless it's a neutron bomb, where emitting neutrons is the whole point). Irradiating the countryside with other kinds of radiation doesn't actually hurt it very much, or make it dangerous. Fallout is actually created when soil, bulk water (vapor in the air is too thin) and other solid materials get close enough to the explosion that they receive significant doses of alphas and neutrons, then spread out by the explosion. The lingering radiation comes from those radioactive particulates. The weapon's casing not only doesn't have much mass, but it typically gets turned into vapor anyway, so if it's the only source of heavy elements for the neutrons to activate, the fallout will be spread too thin to be much of a concern.

No, it would not. I only said "minimal" because to claim "no fallout" would ignore a slight residue you'll get from particulates in air and bomb material itself, and hence inaccurate. Honestly, if you're close enough to detect it, then slightly elevated levels of background radiation will be the least of your problems (the biggest would be either being flattened by the blast wave or incinerated by the fireball). You're welcome to either show your sources or your calculations as to why it would be otherwise. My sources is extensive university education in how radiation actually works, including working with actual radiation sources. However, since linking all that would be cumbersome, have a look at this handy utility: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=1000&lat=55.754626&lng=37.617939&hob_psi=5&hob_ft=10245&fallout=1&ff=50&psi=20,5,1&zm=10 It's accurate, as far as I can tell. You can flip between air and ground burst to see the stark difference in effectiveness. Even if you don't deliberately set the nuke off high to minimize fallout, aiming for maximum immediate destruction will not result in a major contamination. To create fallout, you either have to deliberately set out to do so, or use an older model of nuke that can't do airburst. Worth noting that aircraft dropped strategic nukes will typically not use airburst, as they tended to use laydown delivery in order to minimize the risk to the bomber. Cruise missiles don't have this particular problem, and tactical nukes are small enough that escaping is not a problem. Once again, "obliterating the world" doesn't happen in most actual nuclear war scenarios, only in a handful that would play out between the world's two nuclear superpowers. Again, play around with the calculator. Effects from a single nuke going off are catastrophic, to be sure, especially if you happen to live within the blast radius, but it's not the end of the world. In fact, I suspect that even in the event of a US-Russia nuclear exchange, the rest of the world would continue on, sans those countries, and probably much diminished by the resulting economic chaos. Far more like modern day poor countries than post-apocalyptic fiction (admittedly, there's significant overlap depending on the country and the piece of fiction). In fact, unless China and/or India got hit, I'd expect the economic fallout to claim more lives than nuclear one, or even direct effects of the bombs. It's still not a war worth fighting, as it is true that it can't be won. Such wars are nothing new, even Sun Tzu already knew there are fights that you can only lose, even if the other guy loses it more. Wars like that must not be fought, because it's not in anyone's interests to do so. Your panicky attitude is less helpful than realizing the actual capabilities and limitations of nuclear weapons. People operating those things would be keenly aware of those parameters.

Iodine won't help you in case of nuclear warfare, either. That's another myth that refuses do die. Drinking iodine can only help against one, very specific radioactive product of a nuclear reactor operation, which was among products released from Chernobyl disaster, which is how the story got started. It won't protect you against actual radiation, it won't protect you against other products, and it won't protect you from secondary effects of radiation poisoning. There's no RadX in reality, and iodine certainly isn't it. Its only use is if you have to drink water or eat plants that were exposed to fallout and hence contain radioactive iodine. Even in case of Chernobyl, it was used mostly as a precaution and likely did more harm than good. Hellfire and Javelin (and before that, TOW and Dragon) were developed because conventional conflicts, such as Korea and Vietnam, started to become a concern, and also because you couldn't be sure you'll get all the tanks with nukes. Armor is particularly resistant to all effects of a nuclear blast. This is also why neutron bombs were developed, to counter depleted uranium tank armor. As powerful as they are, on the battlefield nukes are not perfect weapons. As a final note, post-battle cleanup after modern nukes wouldn't be any harder than after any particularly fierce campaign of urban destruction (in fact, it'll be easier, no UXO to deal with). They typically use airburst detonation, which not only produces minimal fallout, but also utilize the blast wave far more efficiently. Unless someone starts deploying nuclear depth charges or bunker busters (both were a thing during Cold War, for what it's worth), or someone deliberately uses a cobalt bomb to contaminate the landscape, fallout would not be a major concern. The materials from which the nuke itself is made do not contribute much to the fallout, you need to irradiate and disperse some other material, like soil or water, to contaminate anything. Airburst won't do that.

Yes, but again, it's not the end of the world. You're still thinking of the US/USSR exchange, there are plenty of other nuclear powers in the world which, if they got in a fight and deployed their nukes, could do a lot of damage, but it would be localized. Yes, if India and Pakistan, for instance, started slinging nukes at each other, they world would feel it, and we'd see the global economy take a major hit, but it wouldn't result in US or Europe turning into Fallout-like dystopia (though it wouldn't help the Earth's climate, either). The countries involved would undoubtedly be devastated, but in a limited exchange, they could even survive as viable states. US and Russian arsenals are enormous, but other nuclear powers have vastly fewer warheads at their disposal. At this point, even China doesn't quite have peer level nuclear arsenal compared to US and Russia, though they certainly have enough to make direct warfare against them a non-starter, which is the real purpose of nukes. Not even strategy but grand strategy. However, that doesn't mean it's not possible to come up with a scenario where conventional forces fight on a nuclear battlefield. In fact, there's plenty of plans for those from various phases of Cold War. In fact, modern thermonuclear weapons are not the gigantic "city killer" bombs we usually associate with ICBMs. While still absurdly powerful, nowadays the number of warheads is more important than packing as much boom as possible into a single physics package. Modern nukes can even have features such as variable yield, so that they can be tailored to a target. Given the anticipated size of Soviet tank armies, dropping nukes on them was actually considered a legitimate tactic.