WobblyFlops

I doubt this will get modelled. Rockeyes and Zunis are available for the Tomcat and the F-18 is from a different timeframe so there's very little overlap. But even then the Tomcat has better range, significant kinematic advantage and of course, a completely different type of gameplay. The naval F-4's niche is represented by the Tomcat perfectly. I wouldn't care if we got the E as well because there's nothing wrong with getting a J or S but if we only get those, it will be very disappointing for a lot of people. The F-4 has a pulse doppler system, which illustrates my point, it's the AWG-9 from Walmart, which is why it provides the exact same type of gameplay with a kind of finnicky, man in the loop PD radar set, having a strictly pulse radar would be a vastly different experience. That is the best option but I doubt it will happen. A big issue with DCS is the lack of cohesive units for a given time frame. A land based E Phantom would fill in a lot of gaps. The other things that could do it are a FF F-15A/C or an F-16A. None of that is going to ever happen so the Phantom would be the only way to provide the 1980s USAF with an actual fighter and strike aircraft. As a cherry on top, it could be used for other nations as well.

As far as I'm aware, both the USAF and the USN used it exclusively as an agressor after Vietnam.

Exactly this. There's no land based fighter for the Cold War era at all, an F-4E would give a land based early multirole fighter with for its time fairly advanced strike capabilities and a full fidelity fighter for the Air Force side. As it stands, the USAF has nothing from the 80s, which is the era that Cold War modules focus on. A naval F-4 from the 80s would be redundant (it's a worse Tomcat in every regard), it wouldn't have its matching carriers or if it's not from the 80s it won't have a matching Air Wing and it would be anachronistic. An F-4E from the 80s is a great addition, a naval F-4 is just a waste.

You can do the same thing in the C-101 while being a much better trainer that can also teach you IFR operations without long standing bugs and very questionable systems.

The A2G radar in the DCS Hornet is a vital primary sensor for a vast array of missions. Now, based on pilot input that isn't how it works in real life but the in game radar is incredibly useful, especially the GMT and the SEA modes. The mapping modes have some core limitations and bugs at the moment but if it gets fixed, at the current level of fidelity it will be vital in a lot of situations. As for the Viper, the biggest things are the HSD cursor, DTOS mode, fully finished HMD, markpoints, proper bullseye support and the CRUS page.

I think it's easy to understand how complex and time consuming it is to create a thorough documentation and it makes perfect sense that it takes time to finish it. The continous updates and the constantly increasing realism and high standards comfortably pushed the Mirage to become one of the best modules in DCS and me and my friends are very excited to see the upcoming radar update. The dedication you show to the module and to the costumers is admirable and it's safe to say that the AdA contract helped completely transform the reputation of the Mirage in the community. The fact that we have to relearn and rely on less than ideal documentation for the time being is a small price to pay for getting such a high quality and realistic rendition of the aircraft.

You do realize that devs aren't doing us a favour, right? It's also in their best interest to develop the module and sell it, there's certainly a sizeable audience for it.

Unfortunately this isn't on the roadmap and Nineline or BN never answered questions regarding this feature on Hoggit. So I wouldn't expect it to come.

Unfortunately we (and most other squadrons I'm aware) use internal calculators that are based on experimentally derived flight data and the planners aren't for public release. I agree with you partially, having a proper JMPS like mission planner with extensive performance charts would be incredibly useful but I doubt ED and the other devs have enough resources to properly gather and publish even the raw data, let alone implement them into a mission/flight planner. So all we can do is get the data through extensive testing and have people with more technical knowledge than me program that into a fuel and TOLD planning software. With that being said, your point is invalid since I'm not arguing that other people should play the game in a realistic manner. After all, it's a sandbox sim, you can play it any way you want. The issue is that ED have a design goal where their ultimate desire is to simulate the aircraft and the systems as realistically as possible. Chiming in with an attitude that's trying to make a technical debate stop or making it seem irrelevant generally tend to have some kind of metagaming motive behind it. It seems like this isn't the case here but usually that's how it goes. A vast number of people play DCS and have fun with beating other people with their favourite/national aircraft and anything that makes this more difficult is a change they oppose. My high standards for realism are standards for the game and the developers, not ordinary players. So even if all I did in DCS was to organize drag races in Dubai with tanks using CA the technical points I made cannot be invalidated because the way I or anyone uses the game has no bearing on the stated design goal of the developers; make it as accurate as possible. We have to differentiate between the accuracy and realism of the modules themselves and the way people use them. Even if you use them in an inaccurate, ahistorical or otherwise non conventional way you can still argue for realistic modules because one of the biggest plus sides of a simulation is that you can use realistic equipment in scenarios that aren't possible or too dangerous in real life. However, if someone is arguing against realistic systems then calling it out I feel is warranted because as I've stated numerous times, DCS is aimed to be realistic.

Fair enough. What is your evidence for this? When the Hornet initally released the 73 heavily overperformed. Same thing happened with the 68. There were threads like more than a year ago both here and on Hoggit (I can find them if needed) where people argued that the performance of the two radars aren't in line with real life specs. Now, ED adjusted both. The issue is that a lot of people believe (and can demonstrate that with evidence that's likely good enough for our purposes) that some further adjustments are needed. What makes you think that ED was allowed to change them once but not anymore? If, let's say the Hornet got 10 extra nm against the same target would that mean the DDTC and Saint Walker himself would storm the ED headquarters? If that's the case, they wouldn't have been able to adjust them in the first place. There's nothing fundamentally different between making the Hornet detect a 5sm target at 48 nm and 58, the only issue is that we have to ensure that the data we use is publically available and there's quite a bit of that. Same thing goes for the Viper. If they have detailed data on the implementation of these radar modes and the symbology of the FCR display what makes you think that removing the interleaved HPRF would be over the line? Why would the DDTC (remember, none of this is classified because it's from the -34 which is unclass, so it can only be either an ITAR issue or perhaps a licencing/IP related issue and since ED products are licensed it can only be an export control issue theoretically) care about ensuring that the PRFs match with the radar modes if the radar modes themselves can be added? As for not going to change, this is also demonstrably untrue. Based on feedback from the forums they had investigated the performance of the 63 and the 68 and concluded that they needed to be adjusted. What makes you think changing the 73 would be fundamentally different? That has more to do with the incredibly simplified sensor simulation in the core engine because even if sufficient data is available for a highly realistic implementation the core engine doesn't allow sufficient control for the developers and they have to simplify it. Also, the difference between 'hyperreal' and acceptable fidelity is huge and DCS has much more serious issues with the radar simulation as a whole that doesn't require them access to classified data. (To drop a few things, the proper effect of PRF ambiguities, RCS changing with loadout and aspect, proper affect of chaff on radar tracking, channelization and interference, limitations of TWS and so on.) Do you work for ED? What is your evidence for this? Both the Hornet and the Viper has received very serious adjustments in this area. Both the 73 and the Hornet as a module itself is highly simplified and wrong even when you compare it to publically available data and SME feedback. I can imagine how much it has to do with the real thing. This is the reason why feedback threads are essential. And even if they don't fix it, we at least have the evidence in case they ever were to revisit this implementation.

Because this is a simulator that is supposed to replicate real life performance as closely as possible? Of course it does. The sole purpose of a simulator is to make it possible to replicate the real aircraft as closely as possible. If they don't care, they can just make stuff up as we go. Which is perfectly valid and it would be fun for a lot of people but that's not the goal of DCS. Maybe if you prefer that kind of gameplay you should start a development studio where you model the cockpit and make up the systems. The plus side of this is that this allows you to model virtually any aircraft in the world, after all, if you don't care about actual performance and systems, you can just make it seem realistic based on public perception. F-22 vs Su-57 here we come. You can't classify physics, you can classify specific systems. While the exact empirically derived performance numbers of these radars are classified, radar theory isn't. It's taught all around the world in universities and there are dozens of highly detailed, mathematically exact and very useful textbooks that describe the scientific background of airborne radar systems in a quantitative and qualitative way. If certain parameters are known and assumed to be correct, such as waveform, antenna size and aperture, peak power and other various values, you can approximately decide the performance of a certain system compared to another. If one is objectively inferior by these metrics, it will perform worse by a given margin. To make matters worse for you, these radars have enough related data, whitepapers, SME statements to make a well educated guess on their approximate performance. And if you have data on a previous system and you know how much the new one improved performance you can guess the new system's performance as well. To make matters worse what people are talking about here can be empirically verified very easily to be wrongly implemented by ED, such as the Viper interleaving HPRF in RWS mode. While this process certainly won't result in good enough approximation for real life intel gathering purposes, it will be much more in line with real specs, and it's a better researched and epistemologically correct way of approximating the performance of these systems. If you're a casual player and don't care about realism you also wouldn't care enough to approach the topic with such a highly anti intellectual attitude, so it's safe to assume that your concerns have to do with pewpew airquaking metagaming balance and performance, don't they?

I do think this is what it ultimately boils down to. Even on sale, the F-5 isn't that cheap. Buying the Mirage, the Viggen or similar aircraft for the same price makes a lot more sense because simply they give you more thing to do, more stuff to learn. If we're talking about a new player, buying the Jeff, the Hornet, the Viper or similar modules on sale would also make a lot more sense, they get the most for their money and these modules are in active development more or less. Severe bugs do happen but they get fixed as well. The F-5 doesn't even do its niche correctly because the L-39 or the C-101 are much better modules if you want a trainer or light attack aircraft. And I agree, spending money on trainers as a stepping block doesn't really make a lot of sense in the realm of DCS. In reality, trainers are used because operational aircraft are expensive and can be more dangerous to operate. In DCS none of those apply so unless someone is specifically looking for a realistic flight school like experience, trainers serve little purpose. And even if you do want to replicate some real life pilot training syllabus or want to get instruction from the back seat, the L-39 and especially the C-101 make a lot more sense. The F-5 as it stands today is a terrible representation of what DCS can do. If the long standing, serious bugs are fixed, then maybe but as it stands today unless someone's favourite aircraft is the F-5 (or the T-38), they should buy something else.

The F-5 has incredibly serious bugs that make operating it properly much more difficult than it needed. The RWR 'implementation' is highly questionable, the gyro instruments accrue error and make the jet only suitable for VFR operations only and the engine nozzle scheduling is bugged, which means you'll have to adopt a highly unnatural throttle control, which makes no sense whatsoever. It is used as a 'trainer' in DCS, but that's not because it's easier to use than a flying computer like the Hornet or the Viper, quite the contrary in fact. Systems are easier to use but learning systems is the easiest thing in DCS anyway. Literally everybody can watch a video and learn which button to press to make the aircraft do this or that. The difficulty comes from remembering all the different systems in those advanced modules. Once you actually want to tactically operate the aircraft, the F-5 is much more challenging in every interpretation of the word. This is why it's used as a trainer. It's much more difficult to do anything in the F-5 compared to the Hornet, Viper, A-10 or even stuff like the Viggen or the Mirage. Flying requires constant attention, manual trimming and very good throttle control to work around the bug, you have no HUD so landing and even just flying around will be based on analog instruments and you'll use several different guages to build a mental picture of what the aircraft is doing instead of having a HUD telling you that at a glance. Bombing is done with old school depression tables, which require you to have very precise control over the aircraft. If you're 25 knots fast at the time of release your pass will be invalid. If you learn how to do this properly you will have a significantly easier time in any modern jet but using the F-5 in this manner is much more difficult. For air to air, it has no fly by wire system to help you, no HMD, no way of helping you with situational awareness and the performance is much more limited compared to a modern fighter, which makes it much more difficult to operate. As a new player, your best bets are the Hornet or the JF-17 if you want easy to learn and well made modules. If you want an actual trainer for whatever reason that can also be used as a light attack aircraft, try the C-101. System wise it's one of the best simulations of a military jet in any commercial sim. With that being said, all the caveats apply, it's much more difficult to operate and because it's such a high fidelity module, knowledge about the systems will be mandatory. However, it has no major bugs and the developer constantly updates it, unlike the BST abandonwares that are stuck with critical bugs for years. If you care about realistic training, it's going to serve you well because it has TACAN, VOR and ILS capabilities as well as a flight director.

He flew Block 25s, Block 30s and Block 42s and he left the Air Force in 2012 so he must have had experience with not only the V5 but also the V9 version of the 68. As for the Hornet, most of his videos have an A+ adversary aircraft. According to the USMC Hornet pilot AMA on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/5nzex5/usmc_fa18a_c_pilot_here_ama/) the A+ and the C are very similar to one another, aside from minor differences. (The old fuel display instead of the digital IFEI for example.) Nothing indicates that the radar was substantially different between the C and the A+. Some switchology was definitely different but that's just the result of having different OFPs. (Newer ones have easier ways of switching between RWS and TWS for example, that came in with 21X https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/266773-main-a-a-rws-to-tws-mode-change-missing/) The DCS Hornet is 13C, which I believe is also somewhat of a Frankenstein module and the plethora of simplified and unimplemented systems make it even weirder in the Hornet. Well, it definitely refutes some of your claims it just doesn't help the topic at hand without additional info. If you consider the relative detection range increase from the 66 and the 65, it can be used to approximate the performance of the radars. Without that, you still have basic physics to contend with like how can a radar from the same generation with a smaller antenna, wider beamwidth and MPRF waveform only outperform a radar with a larger antenna and more narrow beamwidth that is also capable of HPRF and is selectable? The 68 V5 only has HPRF in certain modes that aren't implemented in DCS therefore we can't specifically talk about them nor are they relevant in RWS.

The Viper we have is a frankenviper with mixing and matching between the 2007-2008 software tape versions. ED probably didn't have enough data on the V9 so they went for the V5, so it doesn't matter if a 2007 F-16 should have the V9, we ended up with the V5. What an aircraft was designed for in the 80s and what sort of capabilities it ended up with in the 2000s has nothing to do with each other. The original A model Viper was a fighter bomber with the main focus being on BFM performance, daylight WWR fighting under VFR condition with guns and Winders. How is that relevant? Do you think that because of this, the Viper is worse for IFR operations in the game than the Hornet? Quite the contrary, the Viper has actual ILS integrated for one. The original design goal has virtually nothing to do if you're comparing two heavily upgraded variants. Not quite. The original Hornet had two goals; replace the A-7 as a bomber and replace the F-4 on the Midways for the FAD role. This meant that it could self escort and function as a multi role fighter. But this also isn't relevant. Already? That's only true from Block 2, the original Block 1 Rhinos initially all used the APG-73, same radar as the Hornets. What happened in 2010 with the Rhinos again has absolutely no releveance to the topic at hand. The radar of a Legacy Hornet in the Navy and in the USMC was the same; the 73. Maybe tell that to Mover, who flew them. "The F-16’s APG-68 is not a terrible radar by any means, but it is technology that desperately needs upgrading." https://sofrep.com/fightersweep/hornet-vs-viper-part-four/ How does this even make logical sense? If the Chair Force has a car that can go at 50 km/h and the Navy has one that can go at 150 km/h which is better? The Navy's car, right? Let's say that the Navy upgrades the car and now it can do 300 km/h. The upgrade program is over in a year, and all the cars are upgraded to the same spec. If the Air Force in return upgrades their car every year and make it do 5 km/h more after every upgrade, in 10 years it got 10 times as many upgrades. Does that also mean that it 10 times faster than the Navy's? This is also completely irrelevant because we're not comparing the two platforms throughout their entire service history but at two very specific points in time. Therefore the upgrade frequency or initial design requirement in the 80s or whatever else you brought up has absolutely no relevance to the topic. The only relevant thing here is the performance of the modelled version of the APG-73 in the timeframe that they are making and the performance of the APG-68 in the timeframe that they are making. Upgrades have nothing to do with it because we're examining a specific point in time. Good lord, no. If that happens, I'll uninstall DCS for good and submerge my SSD in salt to purify it. Also, what's up with this? Both can't be true at the same time so one of these messages must have been untrue.

Why would adverse yaw cause skidding?

I don't want to throw shades on anyone but I'd take Ed Macy's book highly sceptically. He was the one who made people believe that Apache pilots can move their eyes independently like lizards. A self perpetuating myth that Casmo constantly has to address. Ed Macy also stated that the Apache has well over 1500 MPD pages. Now, I'm obviously not a real Apache pilot but I did check the manual and I don't understand how he got that number.

It's very capable on air to air even when going up against Fox 3 carriers, and it has a finnicky but highly useful radar. For air to ground, it has PGM capability with a ton of dumb ordenance. It can even be utilized as a supersonic strike fighter in modern scenarios if needed. The vast majority of the playerbase plays on ahistorical pewpew servers plinking stationary units or doing chaotic airquake, the F-14 fits in perfectly for that while the F-4 really doesn't. That's fair, but it would most likely be a waste of development efforts. Most casual people (who aren't even that involved with the community and the simcade crowd is the biggest in DCS) would see a worse Tomcat, with the same exact type of gameplay but significantly worse at everything it does. If we get an early version, it'd have a pulse radar that 90% of people wouldn't even know how to use properly. It would make it much more difficult to make an AI RIO in that case as well, because building a picture would have to be through communication, no TID repeater. It really wouldn't, aside from a few odd examples of training and PR events the F-14 and the F-4 never deployed on the Forrestal class carriers at the same time. If we approach this from a historical perspective and we want representative and realistic scenarios, a naval Phantom would bring literally nothing to DCS. If we get an early J or even earlier Vietnam era model it barely has any contemporary assets in the air wing and there aren't that many Vietnam era opponents either. The modern S Phantom operated from the Midway class carriers that we won't have. But even if we ignore this and focus on period accurate capabilities, the issue is that in 80s scenarios the S Phantom gives literally nothing while an E would fill in the most glaring gap in the lineup, it would give you a land based fighter for European allies and the USAF while also giving them PGMs and a full fidelity figher. Otherwise only the Navy would have PGMs with the TRAM. We would need a Mig-21 F-13 or PFM for that. The Bis is a terrible substitute for the vast majority of the historically representative Vietnam era Fishbeds. If we get a 70s J model that would have the same issues. If we take realistic air wings and pay attention to the structure of our forces in that time period, it would have no matching air wing with the 80s upgraded A-7 and A-6. If we ignore that and we're fine with slightly inaccurate scenarios, we have the same issue; why would anyone use a worse Tomcat? This is where it ultimately boils down to anyway in my opinion. An F-4E is the most iconic version of the Phantom that could give missing capabilities to everyone and it would fit in perfectly to the established lineup. If we get a naval F-4 that barely fits in realistically and it provides virtually nothing that a Tomcat couldn't. The gameplay of a highly role specific naval interceptor wouldn't really appeal to the vast majority of the playerbase. It would be a fun novelty but the F-4E is sorely needed, the F-4B/J/S/N are niches within a niche that some people would mess around in unrealistic scenarios.

Why would it be?

The answer like always is that it depends. ITAR doesn't have a FOIA equivalent and it's much harder to get something removed from the USML than to get it declassified, assuming enough time has passed and there's no derivative tech. However, ITAR is also not black and white, even non US persons and companies can undergo a certification process that allows them to use ITAR controlled material. Whether or not such an arrangement is possible with the F-14D in the future is something that can't be decided easily without actually approaching the DDTC. The issue is that the amount of regulatory nightmare involved with such a project makes it financially unfeasible to any sane company. There's also a high level of risk that this naturally carries with itself. ITAR/EAR are famous for having an extremely serious punitive/investigative program associated with them and the regulations with such a project would be incredibly complex. One mistake when you're handling ITAR restricted material that a Blue Lantern check uncovers and the results could vary from 'the company goes bankrupt and the project is terminated immediately' or 'everyone involved goes to prison for years'. You're dealing with the sharp teeth of the OFAC enforcment and a notoriously hostile investigative program that exists to make people's lives miserable in any country with a US embassy. You mess up, you get on the OFAC SDN list and your career in any professional capacity is over. So the issue isn't a blanket ban but the fact that doing anything regarding this issue as a company working on a commercial product is incredibly risky. There have been issues with this with other sim products where the developers had to remove it entirely and that was not even a tactically relevant platform in any capacity. As for the manufacturer, as far as I'm aware (based on comments by HB) the F-14 module had absolutely nothing to do with Grumman, they weren't involved at all. But like always, that also depends. Razbam (at least originally) made the Mirage 2000 without involving the manufacturer (which is why it's called M2000 in game), on the other hand, the Kiowa isn't just licenced but Polychop has to submit the finished product for a review by a Bell where they check if the quality is acceptable for them.

In real life it's very clear to assume that aircraft definitely know if they are being interrogated and they can't transmit a valid reply. (Which won't necessarily mean that you were interrogated by a hostile aircraft to begin with, it can be a friendly with a broken IFF, or the crypto codes dumped, got inadvertantly zeroized or were improperly loaded.) However, how would a Russian interrogation show up for American fighter? I don't know. If you remember that the purpose of IFF is that it's yet another tool in the toolbox to detect friendly contact and to avoid blue on blue, this whole consideration loses most of its tactical relevancy. This should be a feature of the DCS Hornet for example controlled by the Mode 4 switch, but it isn't implemented at the moment. In the Hornet the IFF can be controlled in azimuth and range and you can use it independently of the radar scope from the Az/El page and you can even have it run automatically within a specified volume and it can even allow you to interrogate targets that are outside the range of your own sensors. So even if the indicators for this IFF exchange (M4 OK or IFF caution) get implemented eventually, you won't get any tactically relevant information out of it since someone can set up an auto IFF at to 80 miles, 140 degrees and they can interrogate any aircraft that are detected by them or they get from datalink. You can't really use this information to determine where they are looking and what they actually intend to engage. It's not going to tell you anything more than seeing a nails on the RWR.

This is a true problem. But piling in even more aircraft from vastly different eras and trying to do even more time periods at the same time would just exacerbate this issue. The true point is that you seemingly want ED to focus on the 50s to late 60s timeframe, which just isn't what the current DCS ecosystem is focusing on. You're asking for them to cater to your interests, which is perfectly fine but you're presenting it in a misleading way. If they did what you asked for, this issue of lack of coherent focus and the lack of properly fleshed out eras would become worse. It would be yet another time frame with anachronistic assets cobbled together, held back by technical problems. It's a tossup. Newer aircraft are more classified in general but if the data is unclassified and non export controlled, it's easier to get. Older aircraft have old SMEs who may not even be alive or may not remember well enough to actually help. And old documentation can be lost very easily. So this can be discussed on a case by case basis. For example as far as I know the F-105 doesn't have any -34 available and most documentation got destroyed in a warehouse fire (may be urban legend, but i do know it's virtually impossible to get detailed data on this jet). The F-106 has a lot of data available and Bruce Gordon would most definitely be able to help but that didn't see combat in Vietnam. He even talks about ECM, radar and air to air tactics on his channel, all of that is unclassified. There are some aircraft in DCS where this is an issue but those require Korea instead of Vietnam. The F-86 and Mig-15 are Korean era aircraft and specifically need a Korea map with appropriate assets. The Mig-15 has very little to do with Vietnam, the F-86 was never even in Vietnam in any capacity, the only one we can sort of count here are the Mig-19 and the upcoming Mig-17. If you want a fitting scenario for all of this, Vietnam alone isn't going to be enough. The Mig-17's export variants were in service in a some African and Asian countries and it would be relevant in different scenarios all the way up to the 70s, not just Vietnam. (But this is not that important for DCS.) Mig-19 export variants absolutely can fit into a 70s and even 80s Middle Eastern or Asian scenarios and the J-6A would be really close, the F-6A would be reasonably close as far as I know. I didn't say that. I said that Cold War era and 90s era aircraft are both available and a lot of Cold War era aircraft are under development. Two different set of aircraft.

Barely any. The only upcoming aircraft where this is true are the Mig-17 (which isn't even officially confirmed by ED afaik) and the F-8. The A-6 and the A-7 will have nothing to do with Vietnam, with vastly different and much more sophisticated avionics and systems. Not really. Most of them have either different engines or highly different flight performance characteristics. It's probably good enough in an unofficial campaign but it absolutely would be incredibly jarring in an official setting. We will have dozens of Cold War (mid 70s to late 80s to be exact) era modules, with appropriate AI assets. Why not focus the attention on even more 80s assets and appropriate fictional and historical maps that are perfectly doable with the existing tech instead of shoe horning highly anachronistic aircraft into yet another barebones setting? Not to mention the amount of technical challenges it would bring, as Lurker detailed them. What are you talking about? The vast majority of announced and upcoming modules are going to be Cold War era. Even today, there are tons of Cold War era modules and quite a few of them are from the 90s. To sum it up, ED could spend God knows how many man hours and fundamentally rework parts of the engin and AI to suit an era that barely has any appropriate modules and assets to further increase the constant talking point about DCS not having a cohesive theme. Vietnam would be the absolute worst direction they can go. Oh and don't forget, you'd need to buy asset pack DLCs to even start playing if (and that's a big if) anyone makes one in the first place. Or they could just continue to work on the time frames that DCS focuses on; 80s Cold War, and 2000/2010s GWOT, where the only issue is the lack of full fidelity redfor in the modern era (nothing they can do about that) but for an 80s scenario there are barely problems when it comes to this. Vast assortment of full fidelity iconic modules, lot of assets, a plethora of historic and fictional (but still reasonably realistic) scenarios to choose from, much better balance between the two sides. The only issues is that it's very USN focused and the redfor won't have a full fidelity strike aircraft until we get an Su-22, which isn't impossible. After that, we just need maps and perhaps full fidelity land based bluefor aircraft, which can be paid "downgrades" based on the Viper or the A-10.

According to the guy who submitted the FOIA request, the IRST is the only piece of equipment that is still classified. So all those parts would have been redacted from the manual. The issue is that it's an item on the USML, which means that they won't release it to the public. The same thing goes for the A-6E manuals, those don't have any game changing tech (especially considering that those are mids 80s docs) and they still got it denied with similar reasoning.

Nineline mentioned it on Hoggit. Ah, yes, I remember this tune all too well. I remember when people used this to justify the inaccurate Gau-8 dispersion. Or the inaccurate flight model. Or the missing JDAM options. It was never true. Is it possible that ED can't model all the functions of the datalink? Certainly. Is it likely that the same symbology can only be shown on one display and not on another due to some kind of ITAR issue? Not particularly likely.