jubuttib

Last I heard the IR jammer was out.

Would anyone be able to give me a list of requirements for getting the datalink to work on the L16, if I were to make my own mission for testing? I would like to get this thing sorted out.

Here's a new track and I edited the mission to take out the A-4, for whatever reason (I can't think of why) the A-4 had taken the place of an IL-78 as a refueling platform... Yeah, don't get it at all. =/ JF-17 and F-16C datalink testing 2.zip

Oki, I'll make a version without it later.

I have tried following some of the instructions mentioned here but I haven't been able to get datalink to work reliably outside of the specific training mission (the second AMRAAM employment mission). I have a specific training mission I use to learn new modules, which has all kinds of targets, and so far it has worked great (modified version of a user created Caucasus Free Fly type mission). It has an E-3 hanging around in the sky, supposedly providing datalink. This tends to work fine the vast majority of the time in the JF-17 (though sometimes I have issues with that), but I haven't been able to make it work for the F-16C whether I start from the ground cold, hot or already in the air. This includes waiting for the alignment to finish without doing anything to the starting co-ordinates on NORM start, as well as hitting ENT on each of them, and also inputting them myself. No difference. I have included an archive with a track file from my recent attempt (just now), switching between the JF-17 (Aerial-1) and the F-16C (Aerial-5) starting in the air in the same area of the map. The Jeff has no issues getting plenty of enemy contacts on datalink with the normal procedure (2nd radio to channel 199, mode to MASTER and turn it on to NES), while the F-16C gets nothing. The only things I do in the mission: 1. Turn on autopilot, altitude and heading hold for the JF-17, altitude and steering point for the F-16C 2. Make sure there's enough throttle input 3. Turn on datalink Jeff: 2nd radio to channel 199 -> MAST -> NES F-16C: Check that MIDS LVT is on -> XMT to L16 on right MFD's HSD screen (4. Sometimes turn off the radar emissions for the F-16C so that the TWS tracks don't clutter up my HSD) I also tested turning MIDS LVT to OFF and then back on again before turning XMT to L16, and tested the other XMT mode as well on another flight that's not on this track, and nothing. JF-17 and F-16C datalink testing.zip

True, some games artificially limit themselves to 32, but plenty of games work with it: DCS, MSFS, X-Plane, Project CARS series, AMS2, AC, ACC, iRacing... Personally really like using them, and if a game doesn't support the buttons I'd personally map the offshoot to Vjoy devices. But I can see your point, do it however you wish.

Windows does support up to 128 buttons without drivers. Easiest way to build might be using something like the Bodnar BBI-64? Thought I'd ask you, since you seem to know a lot about the Apache controls: Of the 2 and 3 position switches on the TEDAC, would you happen to know which of them are momentary and which are stable positions?

Just that the footage from the teaser (with black trees and white peeps) could have been an earlier or later version of the new tech than that still image where the trees and roads look hot. There could have been big changes between applying the IR parameters to everything between the shots.

That is just a goddamn work of art. Amazing job!

And it wouldn't be out of the question for both of them to use different versions of the tech, leading to different results, since it's presumably rapidly changing at the moment.

Looking at the teaser video, where we saw actual troops there, the trees were black while troops were white, so maybe since the trees are white in that shot that's actually a black hot image?

Quick question if someone here knows about this: I know that trees etc. shouldn't really be that hot or cold compared to the surrounding area in most cases, but what about reflectivity? On a sunny day, could leaves of trees reflect more IR from the sun than for example the ground would (ground vegetation often is more vertically oriented and could reflect less up to the sky where our planes are, while leaves could be more prone to doing that), making them appear relatively hot? Emissivity and reflectivity are always big issues with trying to figure out the actual temperatures of things in IR footage. Just a thought, probably wrong.

So... Is the question somewhat non-sensical? If range/distance isn't defined anywhere, can you put the system as a whole on the scale? Specific footage, sure.

"NIIRS Level 7 NIIRS 7 Criteria Detect individual steps on a stairway. Detect stumps and rocks in forest clearings and meadows." Sounds a bit low? And to what distance is this supposed to apply to? Am I misunderstanding NIIRS completely? To me it seems like it's more about rating final images rather than an imaging system, since nothing in the scales relates to at what distance you're taking images. Pretty sure the Apache cameras can do a 9 from like less than 100 meters away? "NIIRS Level 9 NIIRS 9 Criteria Identify individual grain heads on small grain (e.g., wheat, oats, barley). Identify individual barbs on a barbed wire fence. Detect individual spikes in railroad ties."

Hmm, is this also why I never reached "6 RDY" state for my alignment, and got stuck at 10 even when using normal?

Not sure I'd want to do it myself manually, but it could be an interesting setting for servers to have a realistic refueling and rearm time...

FWIW, the 30x165mm round used the by the Russians on the Mi-24P, Ka-50, Su-25T, Mi-28 etc. is ballistically closer to the 30x173mm GAU-8 round than to the 30x113mm M230 round on the Apache. Projectile masses are very close to equal (about 390-400 grams for both) and muzzle velocities are about 1 010 m/s for the GAU-8 and 980 m/s for the 2A42 on the Black Shark. The Russian rounds though as far as I know don't feature depleted uranium penetrators, so aren't quite as effective, and I don't know what specific round is modeled for the Ka-50 AP round. The figures I've seen for PGU-14/B (GAU-8), M789 (M230) and two Russian AP rounds, 3UBR6 and 3UBR8, were as follows: PGU-14/B (depleted uranium penetrator): ~58 mm RHA 60° 1000 meters (not exact because I was looking at a graph, which also showed close to 71mm at 500 meters) M789 (shaped charge + shrapnel): 25.4 mm RHA 50˚NATO 500 Meters (theoretically, since it's a shaped charge, distance shouldn't affect the penetration that much) 3UBR6 (35KhGS structural steel penetrator): 18 mm RHA 60° 1000 meters (22mm at 500 meters) 3UBR8 (tungsten alloy penetrator): 35 mm RHA 60° 1000 meters (not sure how much at 500 meters, but should be several mm more) EDIT: But yeah, just because the diameter of a round is 30 mm doesn't mean they're comparable. The .22 rimfire and 5.56x45mm NATO rounds both have a 5.7mm diameter bullet (the 5.56 refers to the land diameter in the rifling), but one of them has more than 10x the muzzle energy and over twice the muzzle velocity... EDIT2: Size comparison of the rounds in question (slight editing artifacts, because I removed a bunch of rounds not relevant, scale is correct):

Just out of interest I went through your posts, and probably missed something (in which case I'd be very grateful if you could point the posts out for me!), but I only saw evidence for a one-off test of NVGs in a Russian exercise, and some Hungarian footage, done relatively recently. Was there any additional evidence? Personally I'd put the limit of inclusion a bit higher than "it was tested a couple of times on this variant". That said I do understand where you're coming from. On the controversial BS3 issue I'm of the opinion that "it's kinda OK". The specific reasons why I think that: 1. Like the A-10C II/2.0 update, it's not expected to be replacing the existing BS2 Ka-50, but adding another version. This makes it supremely easy to not include on a server, should you wish to not have it, much easier than going through adding a heli and configuring its settings to reflect the specific variant you're after. Under this clause, I'd be kinda fine with it if they ever released a Mi-24P Hind 2.0, which added all kinds of rare and experimental stuff, like a generic consumer GPS unit for navigation. The base Mi-24P I'd like to stay true to the common version of the variant, with not many exotic tweaks or late in life experimental additions. 2. Specifically to the BS3, they wanted to make it properly, but were basically prohibited from doing that by the government. Lots of work that had already done would be wasted, which is never fun, and even the fantasy addons they are planning feature realistic capabilities of the helicopter variant they wanted to make, even if they're not realistic implementations. The version they wanted to make was to have Iglas, MWS, RWR and potentially IR jamming of some kind (don't quote me on the last one), they're adding Iglas and MWS which are realistic capabilities, but doing them in a not fully realistic way due to being prohibited from doing it properly. Under this clause, if for example NVGs on the Mi-24P was a commonly utilized thing, but the government prohibited them from doing a specific simulation of the real life NVG goggles, I'd be more likely to accept it if they did a more generic NVG implementation. This is all different from e.g. the HARMgate for the F-16C, where the issue was that the US specifically chose to take out the necessary wiring for HARMs on two of the pylons, but it was a configuration that was extensively tested, validated, included in manuals, and used by other customer countries. Just not the US. In a similar vein to that, the GPU-5 pod (basically a 4-barrel GAU-8 in pod form) was only ever used in action by the US for one day during the 1st Gulf War (so before our Block 50), after which it was heaved out of the system, but apparently Thai F-5Es use them. So, not a fitting addition to the F-16C we have, but an addition for the F-5E, assuming that in real life it didn't require much in the way of rewiring (the system purportedly fits into standard mounts and the F-16Cs during GW didn't even have it hooked up to the sights, so seems pretty easy to plonk on there and have it work)? Yes please. I'd love to see many other alternative weapons used by the air forces of countries other than the US and Russia, if they are fitted on the same variant of the plane without also needing massive changes to the systems onboard. I like the idea of simulating foreign customer models overall. But often those use significantly different systems overall, making them different variants themselves, so it wouldn't really be appropriate to do that. You could probably approximate this in DCS by assigning AI wingmen using the AI only Mi-24? Looking at it in-game it doesn't specify the model, but the things at the ends of the wings look very much like what's seen on the Macedonian Mi-24V and the Polish Mi-24W (which supposedly is just their designation for the V), so is probably at least a close approximation? Fly the P yourself (you'd be the leader anyway, so that fits), and have the AI back you up. Would of course be fantastic to get the V variant too, even if it has a wimpy gun.

I would argue it matters at least a bit. With the nubmers Sobakopes listed, putting them in a chart and finding a best fit polynomial curve for them I'd guesstimate the 20x20m box at 1000 meters have about ~17% hit rate. So you shoot enough dakka, you will hit something in there, but if the hit rate is around lets says 15-20% at 1000 meters, I wouldn't even call the gun "accurate" for hitting a 20x20m box at 1000 meters, much less "accurate within a 20x20m box out to 1.5-2 km". I guess my definition of accuracy could well just be a bit different, I'd at least want over half of my rounds impacting the area I'm targeting to call the weapon "accurate" at those specs. This of course doesn't mean that it's USELESS at that distance, that would be a totally different thing.

That'd be proving a negative, which isn't usually the best way to go about these things. You could potentially find any number of original documents that don't mention NVGs because they weren't used and as such weren't an issue, but since nothing in there says "they were not used", is it "proof against NVGs"? Note that I'm not really on either side of the discussion, I'm more interested in the discussion itself, the reasoning used, the claims made, the evidence provided.

That wiki article is in real bad need of citations.

Based on the document from 1995 on the first page, wasn't it more like 75% hitting in a 50x50m box at 1 000 meters, based on real life testing?

I have been interested in and pretty dubious about the accuracy of the Mi-28 implementation to be honest. The gun at high rate of fire has the equivalent of somewhere around 1 000 lbs of thrust, and it's mounted fully below the helicopter on a turret (which does look pretty hefty at least). I'd imagine it wouldn't be that horrible shooting straight ahead, but slew it sideways at all and you'd probably be dealing with a lot of movement in the heli. EDIT: Are you talking about the one titled "Mi-28 helicopter attacks ISIS / Daesh terrorists"? At some points in the video the dispersion looks pretty tight actually (the lines they're "drawing" are neat, rounds hitting at steady intervals and not veering off of the line), but they're slewing the damn thing all over the shop. =/

To be fair to Polychop, as I understand it the exact reason it's such a mess is that they got fed up with ED faffing around with different multicrew solutions and having to do hacky stuff to get it to work at all, so they decided to wait until ED establishes a proper method of doing multicrew. Which they have been doing recently, with the Hind etc. Then of course they got busy with the Kiowa. The current hope seems to be that once the Kiowa is out they're gonna start working on the Gazelle too (lack of manpower to work on both at the same time, and switching between projects constantly isn't easy, so focusing on one at a time), and with ED's new multicrew system in place we might finally get functional multicrew on the Gazelle as well. That's the hopeful way of looking at the situation, at any rate.

The Gazelle is a bit of a special case anyway. I tried multicrewing the Gazelle with a friend recently, and while we did in fact both get in the choppah, none of the button mappings for the second seat did anything. IIRC I could click on the cockpit buttons, but none of the bindings actually did anything. Couldn't slew the camera, nothing. Weirdly some multicrew aircraft have separate control profiles for the different seats (like the Mi-24 and the F-14) while others don't (Gazelle and Huey). At first I thought the Gazelle didn't work exactly because all the controls are lumped under the same profile, but then remembered the Huey does it as well. It seems like going forward ED is going to be favoring the "separate control profiles for each station" method, based on the Hind at least. Should probably try with using like Parsec or something. Even when I was sitting at the co-pilot seat in the Gazelle, HIS slew controls etc. were working just fine. So I guess if I wanted to play the co-pilot, we could try the following: 1. Map an Xbox gamepad to the second seat controls on his (the pilot's) end 2. Connect via Parsec or Steam "remote play together", but don't watch the actual video stream, just send over the button presses and stick movements 3. Launch DCS on both our ends, get into a chopper together 4. Use my Xbox gamepad here to send inputs to his game there, and watch the results in my DCS As far as DCS is concerned only the pilot's computer is sending control inputs, but I can sit in the other seat. Sounds like exactly the kind of kludge that I find amusing, I must try this out soon.