Fromthedeep

Still classified, not going to happen for a long time.

The F-16 is without question the best product by ED and it's not even a comparison really.

Taking a facetious song from a band that's built around humorous lyrics and trying to use it to prove what real pilots think about the modern combat environment is hilariously short sighted. What you guys don't realise is that not 1% of the actual complexity and decision making is recreated in DCS when it comes to JDAMs. Neither the planning, nor the weaponeering and certainly not the limitations. A GWOT era CAS sortie is a fluid, complex environment that requires fast decision making, multitasking ability, on the fly adjustments and very ensuring that you're adhereing to the rigorous legal limitations. Even during OIR not every CAS tasking will be a BOC, and the legal, SA draining swamp of working around the different factions, complex ROE limitations and political boundaries while minimizing collateral damage and avoiding frats should be fairly challenging, just in a very different way. But the issue here isn't trying to take a video game's limitations and applying it to real life but rather trying to learn what the inaccuracies are and asking for a fix. COIN's unique challenge lies in the simple fact that identifying enemy combatants is inherently more challenging since they hide among the civilian population. It's also politically problematic since if the ROE is restrictive enough, the enemy can play around it and make it very difficult to successfully achieve any kind of results with the jets. Due to the constantly growing need of minimizing collateral damage and the dynamic flexible set of targets, weaponeering on the fly were the norm. In a preplanned environment, you can find what fuse setting you need in advance depending on the characteristics of the target and you can calculate it with software while you're 1G 0 kts. In a modern environment, you need to tailor the JPF not only to a flexible set of drastically varying targets but also to minimize collateral damage while also achieving desired weapon effects. If you need to designate your own target for whatever reason (remember, JTAC may not always be able to provide Cat 1 coordinates), you're contending with TLE. That also requires a complex set of rules to mitigate. The modern, network centric battlespace also requires you to be able to properly configure, troubleshoot and reliably utilize all these modern systems, whether you're talking about datalink, the aforementioned JDAM or other IAMs, radios and so on. While the required skillset is closer to a systems operator than a conventional pilot, it's undeniable that the level of technical understanding and expertise that's required for a modern jet on a modern battlespace is enormous. Just because everything works in DCS and most of the setup and complexity is abstracted away it doesn't mean they don't exist. And we're only touching the surface, we haven't even talked about any kind of GPS degradation, actual coordinated CAS TTPs or how LGBs (which are still prevalent) are used and those can be incredibly challenging and complex to utilize. The big issue, of course is that none of this stuff can be simulated in the game but that's due to simplification, not because a modern battlespace is inherently simple. It can be boring for people who want to be challenged in the stick and rudder department but there still should be plenty of depth in a modern environment as well and the issue should be revolving around carefully examining which of these missing aspects and nuances can and should be simulated in the game. This also comes with the assumption that you only simulate real life conflicts, which is very limiting because there are very few historical conflicts where we have the required AI assets, player modules and maps. And if you allow theoretical scenarios, the complexity in a modern war goes up even higher. So the conclusion here is that modern era cannot at the moment be faithfully recreated, but saying that it's inherently boring and unchallenging (even if all the missing aspects were simulated) is simply incorrect. It would only offer a very different type of challenge compared to a Korean War scenario that many here actually enjoys.

Absolutely nothing of the sort has been indicated by Razbam. Based on currently available data, they will have one Strike Eagle variant, which will have the ability to reflect different time frames with changing the loadout, but the actual aircraft will be a Suite 4, which is like the earlier half of the 2000s. APKWS and rockets are not a thing on Strike Eagles.

I agree about the INS, those are always fun to operate.

Well, that's a mid 90s modification, so the variant itself will be fairly modern. Currently there aren't many true 90s era FF modules in DCS just the F-14B and the Viggen, so it will be difficult to create a realistic scenario for it.

Software wise it will be a Suite 4, which is like roughly 2002. But Razbam don't timegame it, if a weapon is added to the game and there's enough data for the Strike Eagle's implementation of that weapon, the module will have it. Obviously this only applies to weapons that USAF Strike Eagles carry. That's why it's expected that we'll get Mavericks, AGM-130, Aim-9X, and possibly SDB and LJDAM, but no JHMCS for release. Mavericks were only a thing for a MoHo squadron in the 90s, no one else used them ever since then, AGM-130 was retired and obviously LJDAM, SDB and even the JHMCS were nowhere to be seen in the early 2000s.

Maybe their SME is unwilling or unable to talk about the radar. It would explain a lot of stuff.

They were called WSOs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryzOdLcsWX4

Out of all of this, definitely the Mirage III. Razbam has an incredible amount of projects to complete before anything can materialize from the rumored old Mirages (or even Harriers), so I'd like to see that the most. As far as I'm aware (and I could be wrong about this) but the Mirage III was still in service in the Spanish Air Force alongside the F1s all the way until the 90s.

One thing that can be a huge confounder here is that the Mig-21's radar may still use some kind of hacky laser code that's a remnant of the original LOMAC mod. It can cause laser warnings in the Ka-50, so it may not interact with actual RWRs in the intended way.

The Cold War era lineup really needs a period accurate, full fidelity F-15. The Phantom variants will be excellent "mostly bombers" but to represent the technological advantage that NATO enjoyed after the Eagle entered service.

This has nothing to do with the F-16 by the way, both PW2s and 3s should work like this for all platforms.

Thanks, your info about the 44th TFS is exactly what I was looking for. Do you have any data on how these aircraft were equipped? Would these aircraft have DSCG and Maverick support for example? If not, how different is the display from the one that was utilized by this squadron in that timeframe? Based on your comment, it's safe to include that while our Phantom may technically be part of the last operations of the Vietnam war, it wouldn't really be a from a timeframe that represents the conflict well. This is also an issue with the vast majority of other modules. Very few of those are going to be Vietnam era variants.

Is this even going to be a Vietnam era Phantom?

It's an easy assumption that any trained pilot would be familiar with at least the cockpit labels/warnings. The Hungarian Su-22M3s and the ones in the arabic countries had at least some level of English labeling. So unless everything is simulated to 100% accuracy in the cockpit it stops being a simulation? So for example, the Mig-21 is not a simulation because it has circuit breakers that you can't even click on to interact with them in any way (let alone have the system logic modelled)? The real cockpit had CBs that you could interact with. And again, the pilot that's flying the simulated aircraft in game presumably knows the language. What's wrong with learning (depending on the complexity) several dozen up to several hundred new words in a langauge that you don't know? With those words being niche technical jargon, or abbreviations? Nothing's wrong with that at all, if you want, you can even learn Russian at a high enough level to be able to read the real life manual. But it's unreasonable to expect the vast majority of people spending several dozen hours learning skills that they can easily skip with optional settings. It's up to supply and demand, I bet that if there's enough demand for it, you can certainly find someone who's willing to translate the cockpit to your native language. The reason why this isn't the case is because I assume (and it's a bold assumption) that there are more Russian players who are familiar with the Latin alphabet and English terminology than vice versa. But if we're talking about this, why don't we take it to its logical extension? Did the real Su-22M4 have any English documentation? Is the specific model that's being represented by the module from a country where English documentation would be available? I know that in Hungary, our 22s had Hungarian documentation, I highly assume this is going to be the case in Poland as well. Should we only have a Polish manual and should we expect people sign up for a Polish and a Russian language course?

You're simulating that a Russian speaking pilot is operating the aircraft, you're not simulating yourself operating the aircraft. So, changing the labels to a language that you understand is more realistic than leaving it on Russian unless you learn what everything means of course.

Your entire outrage is based on nothing but assumptions. 1.) You assume that the OctoG Su-17 model is going to be coming for DCS, even though there's no evidence that indicates it. 2.) You assume that OctoG/M3 got the idea from OP even though nothing proves that they were aware of a project like this in the first place. 3.) Even if they were aware, it does not mean anything, because working on a 3D model doesn't give OP any sort of exclusive rights. If you choose to make a model/mod (especially of such a highly coveted and requested aircraft like a Fitter), you're always running the risk that a full fidelity module may render your work obsolete to some degree. There are literal hundreds of mods in various stages of development and the vast majority of them will stop abruptly, lead to nothing but a 3D model (that's unlikely to be up to par to be directly utilized by a licensed developer) or end up being a Su-25T, with a different cockpit. You can count on one hand the amount of mods that this doesn't apply to. Modders choose highly popular, heavily requested and great modules for DCS, it can't be a surprised to anyone that a 3rd party will also become interested. If the modder has the ability and desire, they can also get a license by ED, become a legitimate 3rd party developer and finish the project that way. It's been done by the MB-339 guys, and the C-130 mod is heavily rumored to end up that way. The Fitter would fill the niche of full fidelity redfor strike aircraft, something that we do not have in the game at all. If a modder wants to minimize the risk of a 3rd party ever showing up with a module that replicates the same aircraft, they should choose something incredibly niche that is very unlikely to end up being turned into a module, preferably something from the Korean era so that it can be replicated decently without SDK access.

The last I checked, the Mig-29 is something that they would like to do but they don't have the necessary clearances. Considering how things are today, I woudn't be surprised if it never materialized. The 24 is not a fixed wing platform, and the Mig-23MLA is stuck in development hell, having gone through a cancellation previously due to similar concerns. AFAIK, it's only done through a Cuban loophole. (As in, the data comes from Cuba and it's made by Cuban devs.) If we got a Su-22M4 as operated by Poland, I could see that happening, but actual Soviet one, I'm very skeptical. Same thing goes for the Mig-29 I guess.

Isn't a Su-17M4 under the legal limitiation that affects all fixed wing Soviet platforms?

Yes, the issue is that it looks to me that in certain cases, the GPS won't be able to correct the INS.

This is the million dollar question here. Does the GPS in the Viper give automatical corrections to the INS to combat drift? The way I understand it that if GPS is available, it will calculate a delta value between the GPS position and the INS one and have the Kalman filter apply this value to correct the INS if the delta exceeds 300 feet. The interesting part here is that BN's answer seems to indicate that in certain situations (like long flights) the INS will drift even if the GPS is correcting it. Is that accurate?

It shouldn't. This functionality is for missions where GPS is unavailable due to various reasons. The most common use case for a large percent of DCS playerbase is using newer modules as stand ins for older blocks and variants on servers where the time frame predates GPS integration. Not having a way of fixing your nav drift is a huge PITA in those situations.

At least in Strike Eagle land, they are two different things. Lofts are almost exclusively low level deliveries that start a pull up until 4Gs at a rate of 2G/s at the computed point. Toss deliveries come in two flavours, but generally both start from a dive. Dive toss, is a 10-45 degree diving delivery that culminates in a 3-4G pull at the computed point. It's called dive toss because you're diving down and "tossing" the bomb further than a dive glide delivery would get it. The other toss is low altitude toss, which is essentially the same thing but starting from low level then into a pop up manuver and then the same diving delivery. But of course different communities may have different naming conventions depending on their TTPs. If you google around a bit (using terms like F-4 dive toss sim hq for example), you'll find a thread where someone quotes an unclassified F-4 3-3 that gives further insight to the operation of the system.

Didn't all D and E Phantoms have the ability to use dive toss?