Czechnology

USAF to my understanding, so I might be wrong, has generally had an extremely limited anti-ship missile inventory. I do know that today, the USAF (Not the USN) doctrinally uses bombs, preferably guided, to destroy boats but they probably wouldn't shirk from flinging a Maverick, I think that doctrine has held for awhile. Just a general decision of "The navy sinks big boats", because realistically the biggest boat the USAF should ever have to deal with on their own without some sort of carrier sinking catastrophe is probably riverine in nature and small. I'm not sure the Harpoon was ever mated to Phantoms, but if we're going to get an ASM, I'd say the US F-4E isn't going to get them. USN F-4J or N? Maybe?

I can agree with this atleast. My general mood has washed out a bit because even if it drops from the clouds like an eagle after an unattended small dog and releases this very second I'm going to be away from my flying gear and unable to enjoy it, I think we'll atleast get to see some of it as the 2023 and beyond video's star appearance, alongside the F-15E and who knows what else. Don't really keep my ear to the ground, would hope to hear more about those extra Vietnam lovelies like the Hun and the Skyraider, but doubt it on those. Phantom though? I'd bet on it we're gonna get to see it atleast a little bit. Minimum I'd expect is a repeat of the last teaser, but the gunsight is in game.

I'd imagine so, to my understanding F-14 already has a semi competent front seat AI, and Belsimtek under ED taught the AI to fly a chopper. Probably not that hard to give Jester the capability to fly the bird straight and level, probably some gentle turns. I just wouldn't expect him to be able to run T/O and landing for you, or following waypoints, stuff like that.

The only way to say it is that it's just different. The viggen noises aren't (to my understanding) raw feedback of the radar sounds converted, if they are color me stupid, but the noises would still be different. The F-4G's antenna does just that, so instead of the beeps, squeaks, and squeals of the viggen's rwr, we get very individual sounds and patterns for almost every single radar. Referencing the "Starbaby Interview" from youtube, who was an F-4G backseater, some radars had a specific growl, others sounded like a bongo drum, etc. Everything from the big search radars to the smallest ones mounted on speed boats, we in theory should be able to hear the individual sound of and they should be distinct enough that we can tell the difference between them. Meanwhile, listen to these http://www.viggentools.se/. I can barely tell the difference between any of them. There's IS a pattern to them that a deeper noise is usually a gun AAA radar, and a long tone is a search radar and short tones are track radars... But past the tone differences it's hard to pick up on anything else. Best example I can give is alternate between the Shilka, Vulcan, and Gepard radars. If you can reliably tell the difference between them you're a sharper ear than me.

I would imagine not, but i'm sure someone will bring up like... "well everything except the AX/NPG-897 which does [insert something e-war]"

I'm sure to an extent it's because of all the cross compatibility they'll have to deal with. The late F-4 is still going to have a lot of the unique systems, flight characteristics, and unique weapons available to it that the early will have. With all that in mind, building it from the ground up with all that uniqueness to it means that doing the later one will be an easier part swap rather than having to go back and make even more unique pieces. Though at the same time it could be argued that it works the same way in inverse. I think ultimately both would of suffered from the issues we're getting right now, and that the difference in development time wouldn't have differed that much, so it was probably a decision based on wanting to put out a plane from a rarely explored (on the BLUFOR side, anyways) time period. This isn't confirmation persay, but it doesn't paint a pretty picture to be certain. Bringing up they are having issues with one of the systems, their """time limit""" is up in (at this time) 12 days.

I mean honestly I'm a lot more interested in the early variant, I'll probably be sticking to it near exclusively, save for at least trying the new variant when it drops.

Not 100% certain, but to my understanding it includes an audio element to the system that isn't really included in any other DCS modules. Only other aircraft I can think of in the game that uses "audio feeds" (or whatever the correct terminology is) of the radar isn't even really in the game, A-4E Skyhawk mod using the aforementioned AN/APR-25 Of course I've not played every module, but to my experience that's been the case. As well, not 100% certain on the elements included in the F-4E's system, so I might be entirely wrong.

Sparking this thread up a bit again, found this in their most recent post.

Shame it's not happening this year, but like I'd said when I saw the Viggen/F-14 update announcement, just kinda thought that was the hammer in the 2022 coffin. Cheers to next year.

Correct

Black Shark 3 release

Also going to be gone starting around the 19th-20th until after new years. Taking my PC with me but probably not my flight gear. Truly it will be so.

Ngl with the F-15E making as much rumbling as it is, unless they've brokered a deal of some kind I wouldn't be surprised if ED has just given the release time slot to RAZBAM.

As much as I think the "sudden release, just going to appear on the store unannounced" thing is pure hopium, I have to admit is that the shock factor and I guess "Good vibes" they'd get for dropping this year, even if it was literally a "OK we finished it on the 29th, give ED a day to receive and upload the module then drop the 31st" would be Earth shattering. Just something we don't really see in the DCS community. Sort of happened with the MB-339 but the hype for that plane isn't near the same level as for the Phantom. Like comparing opening a soda can to popping the lid off a pressure cooker. Not as crazy as if some modern jet like the Mig29 were to drop because there's always the chunk of the community who are just "here to sling AMRAAMs on Hoggit, if you don't have fox-3s you're a joke lol lmao, they need to adjust the flight models for game balance", but it's such an iconic plane that even people who only play modern would be tempted in.

Tbh I think that them announcing an update for the viggen in December with no news for the Phantom is a soft "Probably not this year". Of course the hopium answer is that they're not answering anything for the Phantom to increase shock value when it's release date announcement drops but idk.

I don't see why people get to a level of pessimism where they unironically think it won't come out next year. Pessimistic view earlier this year was that it was going to come out at the very end of December or maybe as late as Feb. Then they announce "Some delays but we're still gunning for 2022." and now it's "Late next year, if not two or three more." I know some, if not most of the comments like that are jokes, but for it to take that long to come out Heatblur would have to be lying through their teeth. And I get it "Where are the pictures???????", I get it, but the policy was laid out clearly from the start. We get the pictures and serious big boy updates when it's about to release - which I'm making the gamble on being no later than Q2 next year, but that's my pessimistic view where I'd be kind of ticked at HB. Q1 I think is more realistic, absolute latest first month of Q2. Anything past Q2 color me genuinely surprised, and wondering if HB had been all that truthful and if they're deserving of my cash without a VERY indepth explanation of what's gone wrong.

We can certainly dream

The big problem I always heard about the AIM-4 was very strange switchology that just didn't really work for a dog fight. I'm sure much like any missile, in the specific circumstance it's designed for it probably works phenomenally, but the problem is that limits it to almost entirely defense intercept style missions against bombers and such. It's obviously possible to use it against fighter sized targets, but it had a (speaking very relatively, compared to the AIM-9's "Just shoot the damn thing" switchology) complex series of steps to cool the seeker, that cooling only lasted so long, and then once you passed out of that timeframe of the missile seeker being cooled enough you were SOL and had a useless missile on the rack. Same for the Sparrow, they knew the Sparrow was a damn fine missile if it was shooting in picture perfect parameters, was given all the TLC it needed on the ground, etc, and while it lacked the switchology issue, it did have issues when you tried to use it against a target that's at short range and maneuvering. The base E sparrow's seeker head will take over a whole second to actually start tracking towards a target after launch for example, one of the big advantages the E-2 brought to the table was the drastic shortening of this post-launch "Dead time" and faster tracking. Not to mention that in the realities of combat, it didn't get that perfect TLC, and it would suffer a lot shocks it just wasn't resistant to in landings, so if the missile went up on a mission, wasn't fired, repeat a few times, then when it's finally fired it's just not up to the task anymore.

Place for questions and general discussion. Namely had some questions about which sidewinders we'll be compatible with, aswell wondering about that silly AIM-4, was it phased out by the time of the E models we're getting, or can we reasonably expect that we're going to be carrying them on pylons for some missions? Aswell, Sparrow discussion. Know the missiles themselves aren't something to write home about, but really wondering the effectiveness we can expect in game. Know in reality that the Sparrow in this time period had an atrocious hit rate, but reading memoirs a lot of that is atleast partially chalked up to a couple things. Namely two I hear a lot is pilots not really knowing launch envelopes, rougher than designed for weather conditions, and rough/improper ground handling damaging missiles. Obviously don't know if this is objective fact, but there's definitely a lot of mention of Sparrows failing to come off the rail or just dropping off and not lighting, not to mention claims of them simply going ballistic and not tracking properly, though that last comment is very easy to discredit due to that first point of pilots not being totally aware of launch envelopes. Really culmination of the second question is what performance can we expect in game? Failure rate is something thats not a real factor in most DCS missions, and we have the benefit of hindsight to study launch envelopes and have them readily available for study. Reminder to make the distinction between the flat E Sparrow and the E-2, E-2 is very naturally going to have a better hit rate with the improved tracking and maneuverability. We've not really got a good simulacra in DCS as it stands, best I know everything capable of firing a Sparrow fires high letter models with Pulse Doppler radars, so it's something I'm wondering at.

Sadly would need changes on the model and in the cockpit. Bare minimum of addition of catapult bridle and the in cockpit controls, and in reality the gun takes up the space that the bridle uses. We've just got to wait for the naval phantom to drop, friend.

Think we all know about HB's Trello, but posting here incase you don't https://trello.com/b/HsMiJggJ/heatblur-public-roadmap Hoggit user made notice the 2022 tag on the F-4 got a green flair. Might of been there before aswell, but I'm not really sure. I'd actually seen that it was green before noticing the reddit post, just thought it was green before I noticed rather than thinking they'd done that recently. Cobra responded with the attached image, referencing his comment that was the focus of the stormbirds article I made a post about earlier. Not drawing any conclusions, just making the information more readily available.null

Might be what he's talking about, but they made a clarification between manually guiding/spotlighting the radar and STT. I've done a good bit of reading on the F-4 but haven't seen any good details on the radar other than the cliff notes, pulse radar with poor low alt performance, 30-40 miles reliable range. Also, to open a second line of discussion, the RWR. What info do we have on the RWR we'll be getting for the different versions?

Have any resources to read on this info? Interested in the "spotlight" thing especially.

Read the title. I know we're getting the AN APQ-120, what do we know about the radar system? I've not found much good documentation on it. Any good range figures? Was it as terrible about ground clutter as I keep hearing? We have any good radars in DCS that can be used as a vague simulacra? TISEO, are we getting that? Just one or both of the Phantoms we're getting, if we're getting it at all?