Fromthedeep

There's a lot of confusion regarding the GBU-24. When dropped above the break (so above 15000), it bumps up then follows a ballistic trajectory until acquisition then it trajectory shapes using a g-bias guidance scheme, which is essentially going to put the path slightly above a pure ballistic profile and result in steeper impact angles. The publically documentation very clearly differentiates between the midcourse and the post acquisition guidance phases, which clearly indicates that there is no absolute need for the laser to be acquired prior to release. On top of that, there are different scan patterns that the seeker will utilize depending on the flight profile. If the seeker were to acquire the laser spot prior to release, why would it need to scan for it using either conscan or bar scan patterns? Keep in mind that delay lase vs continuous lase is a relatively simple decision matrix for PW2, for PW3, it depends on the particular attack as each target and each attack will have different specifics. Continuous lase also doesn't necessarily mean that the seeker will acquire the laser prior to release, it could simply mean that you can turn on auto lase prior to pickle and let the bomb pick it up as soon as possible once it gets in range because delay lase is not necessary. On the other hand, it's possible that you're doing a specific attack where delay lasing is necessary because you have very stringent impact velocity and impact angle requirements against a hardened target. In that situation, lasing too early could lead to a shallow profile and decreased penetration while lasing too late could lead to the bomb never acquiring the laser spot in the first place and flying off to God knows where. The point here is that delay lase vs continuous lase is a consideration when employing against hardened targets. If you have no stringent parameters to follow, the bomb will fly around in the appropriate profile and if everything works out fine, acquire the laser.

I've looked into the group you have mentioned and according to the administrator of the A-6 Intruder Archive, even the post 1978 NATOPS is flat out impossible for non US persons to acquire, and the TACMANs, performance charts, MTX manuals, FCF manuals, weapons checklists and all the data that would basically be required for a proper product is impossible to be exported. The same administrator also said that even non export controlled manuals should not be released because the data in them is close to the ones that are controlled. Based on this, I have very little faith that even an early A-6E is possible to be developed at a high enough standard while also complying with the regulations without acquiring an actual license by the appropriate regulatory agency. And according to Cobra, so far that hasn't happened. The F-14 is completely irrelevant, the time frame when the docs for that were acquired was essentially the period of a free for all, wild west scenario where anyone could easily buy what they wanted on EBay. On top of that, when initially asked, the HB devs said that all data needed for the Tomcat was available including plenty about the most sensitive areas. Considering that Cobra said the A-6 cannot even be started at this stage (due to the core DCS engine not supporting what they want to simulate) it's certainly possible that regulations regarding this data becomes more lax because even the most optimistic estimates shouldn't expect the A-6 in the next 5 years.

Based on this it seems like choosing an Intruder as a module may not have been a good idea in the first place.

Its also entirely possible that these nuances aren't implemented in DCS and they simply hardcoded a given CEP and the bomb will sometimes randomly miss.

INS drift doesn't make the attitude data invalid, so I don't understand why you'd have the DIL compensating for a phantom wind if it's using AGR for height above target calculations.

Only the devs can answer this, speculating on the intended behaviour is not going to give you an accurate answer because JDAMs are very complicated and the integration will change from jet to jet. Since JDAMs are so complicated beasts, copy pasting a CEP value from a public source will leave you with a very incomplete picture. Remember that CEP is basically a statistical value, not the exact dispersion that your bombs will necessarily have in practice. It's a very long and complex discussion, but just to illustrate the point, let's get into the weeds of JDAM a little bit. What factors contribute to JDAMs missing their targets? The potential inaccuracies are the GPS solution, imperfect control inputs by the autopilot (guidance error) and target location error. Obviously the error due to the autopilot is something that's inherent to the weapon itself and you cannot do anything about it as an aircrew. GPS related errors are multifaceted issues, it can be due to reduced accuracy in the navigation solution (improper geometric alignment of the satellites, terrain masking, increased solar activity etc.) or it can be the result of the User Equivalent Range Error, which is essentially due to inaccuries tied to the GPS receiver itself. [This topic in general has plenty of fully open source literature so if someone is interested they can really dig into GPS as a whole.] TLE is the result of inaccuracies when deriving coordinates for an arbitrary point in 3D space. Simply put, you cannot be sure that using your on board sensors, the coordinates that they will generate will be the actual coordinates of what you want to target partially due to the small statistical uncertainty of the GPS solution. This uncertainty is understood by asking where the center of the GPS solution is on the aircraft. The center of the jet itself? The cockpit? The bomb? The GPS antenna? The targeting pod? All of these are a small, but measurable distance away from one another. This issue is exacerbated if the GPS solution is reduced in accuracy due to any of the previously established factors. The other part that can contribute to TLEs are essentially errors. These errors are mainly influenced by slant range. Pointing the targeting pod at something from far away may not actually point at what you want it to point at, parts of the picture can be foreshortened if the graze angle is too shallow, the visual fidelity may not be good enough to accurately ascertain what it really points at and using passive ranging it can give erroneous values. Using the laser rangefinder in a situation like this to figure out slant range (and therefore height above target using trig) can make the problem worse, because you can end up getting into the first-last return problem due to the increased spot size (spot size increases with increased slant range and decreased graze angle) and having the slant range being calculated from a point that's not the intended target. This is why in reality, the aircrew is given a set of parameters where the designation is considered valid and that is established through testing. These errors regarding the sensors themselves can be mitigated by using the proper sensors for the specific aircraft (some can use SAR mapping to generate valid coordinates while other may not, some can use passive TGT pod ranging accurately, some need the laser, some are not allowed to use DTED derived elevation and some may be etc.) at the appropriate range and altitude to drop the designation. This is not a separate issue but having accurate altitude of the target is incredibly important, it must be emphasized. Remember that the bomb is seeking a 3D point in space, so even if the 2D position is correct, if the altitude is not, it will likely land long or short. This is sometimes called "6-12 error" (imagine a clockface, target in the middle and the bomb either lands towards the 12 o' clock position or the 6 o' clock position) and it can be heavily mitigated by using steeper impact angles and having very accurate elevation for the target. This is the reason why using on board DTEDs is likely not going to be good enough because their accuracy can be limited. But remember, not just the pointing errors can contribute to TLE but the aircraft's own position error itself. The absolute position of the target can be expressed in Earth based coordinates. These Earth based coordinates in a preplanned strike can be mensurated and uploaded to the bomb. If dropped, the bomb will directly guide to the these coordinates on its own. In this instance you mitigate all the potential issues, because even though the bomb's INS is aligned based on where the aircraft thinks it is through the transfer alignment (so the aircraft can hand off an erroneous position), it will acquire the satellites after release and have the ability to correct both for handoff error and the drift of its own INS. The coordinates are absolute (Earth centered) and accurate and with the satellite data it will also have an accurate position and at this point, the main contributing factors that can cause a miss are the autopilot guidance errors and a potentially degraded GPS signal. The issue here, of course is that you want the JDAMs to be flexible and the ability to employ on non preplanned targets. But the aircraft's own position may not be perfectly accurate in relation to the Earth even using the most modern EGI and if that's the case, it may generate erroneous coordinates. There may be a small discrepancy between where the aircraft thinks it is (and the coordinates in the TGT pod will be derived based on its present position and where the pod is looking) and where it actually is. In this instance the coordinate is generated based on where the aircraft thinks it is, the position of the target is determined relative to the aircraft. To mitigate this issue, there's a special logic that the bomb can utilize called relative targeting. After acquiring the satellites, it can compare its own GPS accuracy to the value it was handed off by the aircraft. And in relative targeting logic if there's discrepancy between the two it can quantify it and give it a vector and using this vector, it can offset the target coordinates themselves. This is also called bomb on target (BOT) vs bomb on coordinate (BOC), with BOT being relative targeting and BOC being absolute targeting. To put it in simple terms, in absolute targeting, the bomb knows where it needs to go and during guidance it can correct its position compared to the position it was given by the aircraft. In relative targeting, the destination itself will also get corrected if needed. The exact mechanics of this are very complex and arcane and knowing that it can do it is more than enough for a general understanding of JDAM. (Hell, even real aircrew don't typically get into the weeds of this outside of like Weapons School.) The last point that we have to understand is that the the bomb's internal coordinate system may not be the same as the aircraft's. The altitude used by the aircraft for targeting is in MSL and the bomb requires height above ellipsoid or HAE. Converting to HAE is done automatically but errors can happen which is why its normal TTP or "read back from the bomb" or to look at the appropriate JDAM page and see the elevation that is fed into the bomb, not the elevation of the designation that the aircraft is using. So, knowing all this, how is the F-16's JDAM integration? It's not a particularly sophisticated or well integrated system. It cannot directly address the individual bombs nor can it display what's being uploaded in the bomb. It's a simple hack, at pickle the bomb without introducing any slew, the bomb will get the coordinates from the steerpoint/markpoint and invoke BOC logic, if designating through the pod, it invokes BOT logic. It cannot do proper multi targeting where you store different self designated targets while still utilizing BOT logic nor can you read back from the bomb. So IRL the employment method is lasing and then pickle for a self designated target or dropping on the steer/markpoint and incrementing if needed. The reason why this whole wall of text was necessary because this stuff is complex, depends on how the individual jet is integrated (like remember that the reason why the University of Teneessee whitepaper exists is because the Harrier back in the day didn't properly invoke BOT logic when using the TGT pod to self designate) and how much of these confounding factors are implemented by ED. Most of these aspects are not random errors, the expected accuracy can be better or worse depending on the conditions and aircrew actions. It's also a possibility for one jet being a more realistic implementation of a specific concept than an older jet in DCS, so only the devs can say what the intention here is.

Mode 1 above 15000 feet follows a ballistic midcourse. PW2s today at least are almost always dropped at the ballistic release point. If for whatever reason, an optimal release point is desired, you can add an along track modifier based on mission planning data. There's no point in having a LAR bucket like you'd see with a weapon that can actually glide a significant way.

You haven't linked any evidence that anyone in the fighter/TACAIR world uses this regularly. What you linked cannot be considered evidence for virtually anything at all.

I certainly don't expect all, or even most features, I do expect however the ones outlined in the roadmap. I also would expect the modules to be on par with one another, so if a certain function is available for one and there's sufficient data to model, it should be available for all.

I guess you don't like the "study" part of study sim. Common occurance in the DCS community.

Political problemnulls, but it wasn't clarified.

No offense, but you simply failed to understand what people said and your answer makes very little sense in the context of the previous messages. The original comment that you replied to was throwing shade at the Romanian Air Force's performane with their Lancers, particularly how often they seem to crash in bad weather. You didn't get it. You also didn't get my subtle reference that implied you had missed the joke in the first place. You also don't understand what "no brainer" means in this context. It refers to an obvious decision, something that you don't have to think about (so, no need to use your brain=no brainer) and my point was that adding an F-13 in DCS is such a great idea that you don't even have to think about it, so no brainer. It doesn't mean it takes no brains to operate. The rest of the comment is simply incorrect, integrated weaponry, flight characteristics, avionics, visibility are all substantially different between the F-13 or PF/PFM and the Bis. Fulda Gap was also not something that actually happened, because you know, the Cold War never got hot, but everyone should be be very well aware of the fact that the Fulda Gap was expected to be one of the most important theaters of operation for Cold War era aircraft. If you want to limit DCS to actual historical conflicts that happened, you do you but the vast majority of the playerbase does in fact want a Fulda Gap map.

I wonder how the problems with the Mig-29 affect the Su-22.

Are these capabilities simply more weapons that are integrated or did it have a more capable nav/attack suite or sensors?

It could be a real picture or a screenshot/WIP rendering about the upcoming module that Aerges have released in the past.

DCS is already full of aircraft that have plenty of missing systems and capabilities due to the sensitive nature of the information. Why would anyone want to actively make the situation worse by demanding yet another aircraft that cannot be recreated properly? And it's a big assumption that HB can acquire any of the documents.

Considering the amount of push towards Vietnam by the community, an F-13 or PF/PFM is pretty much a no brainer. With that being said, with the Bis being in its current state, the focus should be on actually making a proper rendition of this variant in the first place. The Heatblur F-4 will also just barely fit Vietnam (even the early variant), therefore focusing on a Fulda Gap NATO vs Warsaw Pact matchup with a properly made Bis and the upcoming F-4s is a lot more reasonable in my opinion. I would be very interested in an early F-4 vs F-13 matchup for the Rolling Thunder era but that's unlikely to happen.

What about the ground attack capabilities? Do you know if the first 2000Cs with RDI that entered service in the late 80s/early 90s would have the same ground attack capabilities as our variant?

That's cancelled due to political reasons.

Literally everything is different, from the cockpit, to the FLCS, to the PVI, radar, engine, navigation and so on.

Regardless of anyone's personal perference, the current situation is that the only modules that are possible to make in the future are all Cold War era modules. So what you like or dislikes matters very, very little, if there are no suitable modern era modules to make developers will either have to stop making aircraft all together or they can choose new prospective modules from earlier timeframes. Unless you'd prefer to not have any more DCS modules after the upcoming few modern aircraft are done, your preference really doesn't matter, older modules are the only option going forward. Now we've established that Cold War and earlier periods are objectively the era that DCS devs can and will focus on. The purpose of the thread is to discuss which variants or aircraft people want to see. Therefore, your argument does nothing but tries to derail the thread with issues that are not only off topic but beyond anyone's control.

The Mig-23 is the newest we'll get, the Mig-29 is cancelled.

Any update on this?

Do you think that the current instability needs to be fixed in both pitch and yaw as well? I'm worried that the fix is limited to the yaw damping while there are issues with the behaviour in the pitch axis as well.

I'm also incredibly curious to know if the current stability and autopilot modelling is intended. It would be greatly appreciated to have Aerges or one of the F1 SMEs chime in.