ASAP

Like Razor said, it looks like an elevation error. Try lasing the target and taking a mark. Then you can update that mark to a steerpoint and it should be accurate. Or you can lase the thing where your steerpoint should be, read the elevation off the TGP screen and manually punch that into the waypoint page. The most obvious indicator of an elevation error when looking at your targeting pod is the will look like the pod is wondering around the general area of the target when it's slaved to a steerpoint (or may wondering nowhere near it depending on how big the elevation error is)

Also in the real world checklists that panel is switched to standbye and ignored because all the actual functionality is on the comm page.

During the day lights are not used. If they are left on you wouldn't see them because of the ambient lighting. Those lights are designed to be bright enough for a pitch black night, not bright enough to be seen during the day.

The benefit of the engines is that unlike other jets they are not under the pilot or directly next to fuel tanks. If an A-10 engine is burning the pilot can use whatever thrust they are getting to GTF away from the area before they have to worry about shutting it down. In other airplanes a burning engine has a high likelyhood of exploding or melting through control lines/hydraulics, electronics. Most other jet aircraft's bold face have something that say "If your engine is confirmed to be on fire - Eject". Also the placement of the engine above the tail gives it some protection from things like old IR missiles or small arms fire from the surface. The engine itself is still fairly sensitive to things hitting it. There's just a lower chance of it getting hit and its not an immediate ejection scenario if it does.

This is a realistic problem. Sunlight on the hud at the right angle will make it unreadable.

The A-10s reputation for being so survivable is because of built in redundancy and engine placement which makes it less susceptible to fire and loss of control which is the primary killers of aircraft historically. That doesn’t mean it’s invincible. Just that you don’t necessarily have to eject when your engine catches fire. none of that means you can have bad tactics and make it home alive.

From talking to the pilots I know the bombs reverting back to ALN RDY is not real world behavior. I was told they never "fall asleep" from flying straight and level like the game simulates. Unless something is wrong with the bomb or the GPS on the jet it should just be RDY in flight. I'm curious what EDs A-10 SMEs say about this issue.

Glad you resolved your problem! Something I wanted to clear up based on what you said in the OP. I only bring this up because it is commonly misunderstood with this jet. For the record, you never “created a SPI”. The jet had a SPI the whole time, presumably your steerpoint. You switched the SPI from one sensors point, your steerpoint, to a different sensor point, the TGPs line of sight. I’m not sure what you mean by saying you visually verified the SPI location, it’s whatever is the center of your crosshairs in the TGP screen. If you slew your pod the SPI location shifts as well. Unless the target is moving there is no reason you’d need to put the pod in point track. And I highly recommend that if you are dropping a bomb with TGP SPI that you have the laser on when you hit the pickle. That gives the bomb the most accurate coordinates. After the bombs released you can turn the laser off of course. The bomb doesn't care about the laser

But as a pilot You should never see them on your jet. The crew chiefs job is to have all that stuff gone by the time you get to the plane… maybe cool for other jets parked on the ramp though.

IRL the trim functionality does not reverse. At least the pilot gets the same effect for trimming the aircraft. I’d heard somewhere that the trim tabs move in the opposite direction they normally would but that it’s transparent to the pilot and normal control inputs get normal response. Talking to the pilots I know, they said that wobbling is purely DCS and doesn’t happen in real life. Aerodynamic forces push the ailerons to a neutral position and holds it there with so much force that they are immovable by normal means. The manual reversion system is actually letting you fly the trim tabs to push the aileron around. The comparison I’ve heard is that flying in manual reversion feels like trying to fly a boat because the control responses are really sluggish and delayed. Large power inputs will also cause dramatic pitch changes.

Outside of operational testing, real A-10s don’t have it yet. I doubt we will get it any time soon

D/G is an IR sensor which is no where near as clear as an H/K model maverick so that’s not really surprising. BUT the crosshairs shouldn’t be gray that part is weird. They are black or white. also when you’re using a D put your TGP in WHOT that’s what your maverick is seeing so you’ll get a better comparison.

These videos from old IR mavericks that are not looking in the same IR range as the targeting pod. Not a great comparison point

I always use latch on and never use the auto laser function. I want direct control over when it turns on and off but I don’t want to hold the button down forever if I’m lasing something from high altitude or if I’m moving the jet. downside is DCS has a silly notion that the laser burns itself out and becomes inoperative after even a short time of continuous lasing and so you have to be disciplined about turning your laser off.

That looks like a bug. There is a limit to what the hud can project it’s a circular projection with something like 310 mils across. If the solution is below the bottom of the hud though you should get a dashed PBIL and the entire pipper should be projected onto the HUD (you might not be able to see it depending on seating height though, unless you are sitting as high as possible like you are there).

That does sound strange. As a workaround, Unless you are trying to hit a moving target there is no reason you need to leave the laser in LST after you find the target. the LSS/LST is a tool to get your sensors correlated onto the target after you have the target in the pod you can take it out of LST and put your pod in area track, take a mark, or put it into a steerpoint

It sounds like you may not have been in TGP line of sight SPI. When doing this look at the bottom left of your HUD where it says what your steerpoint is. If you have the steerpoint as SPI china hat forward and aft long will both slave your TGP to the steerpoint. It sounds like that is what happened. If you had TGP line of sight SPI selected already it should have slewed your maverick to the TGP LOS.

This is something I really wish DCS would do better rather than a health bar. When the Air Force talks about killing something there’s different categories of kills. Mobility kill, functional kill, firepower kill, catastrophic kill. I’d guess a single AGR 20 could get one of those on a BMP but there’s a much lower probability of a catastrophic kill than the other types.

It would be more realistic to set it in the mission editor and then you’re stuck with it… but since you can’t actually do a walk around of your jet and set the code yourself they gotta give the pilot some way to set the code you want. I believe the real jet actually lets you put the laser code of the bomb in the DSMS inventory the way DCS does. It doesn’t change anything on the bomb but it shows the laser code to the pilot and if you have two LGBs with different laser codes it would step through them separately when cycling profiles. So what we have is pretty realistic with the one compromise of it actually changing the code set in the CCG.

From my understanding it’s not an often used feature. They just select EO power on when they FENCE in. Most pilots I’ve talked to said they much rather make positive switch changes rather than relying on a system to do it passively, because that way they know for sure it is done. Or alternatively they leave EO power off until they start thinking they might want to use it (i.e they get passed a line 5 of “Armor”). I believe for the health of the seeker they don’t like to leave them running unnecessarily all mission. As far as which one you use t’s an either or. pilots can either choose the system to auto select EO power on when I cross a certain steerpoint, or I can tell it to turn on 10 minutes after my scheduled takeoff (for instance). I can’t tell my jet to turn it on 10 minutes after takeoff and turn it on at a certain steerpoint because those are mutually exclusive commands. To your actual question though, I suspect in the real jet though if you input a time it would override the steerpoint option and the other way around. Cant speak to how the real jet handles that but it would be consistent with the general way the systems seem to work.

Yes. Mash the pickle down and hold it and hope you are still in a LAR. If you are still in a LAR the weapon will release like normal. After the initial aborted launch attempt you only have a few seconds before the bomb basically safes itself up and you are either taking it home or selectivce jettesoning it. Also when dropping the bomb, just hold the pickle button until it comes off the wing. It takes longer than you expect. Its not a set time that the button needs to be held its literally just that if the pickle is released before the bomb drops it will abort the launch.

That might also depend on airframe. I know A-10 pilots will fly around with a hot gun all day. Where as the viper guys I’ve talked to won’t do that. That also may have something to do with the fact that the viper uses the trigger to fire the laser. Different Airframes are wired different and may have different cultures I guess

Talking to real life pilots, both in combat and on the range they fence in with the master switch set to arm. There are some ranges I’ve heard of in Europe that have a range regulation that the switch must be safe until just prior to roll in but that is the exception from everything I’ve heard. the protection measure to avoid dropping a bomb inadvertently is to keep your finger away from the pickle. I have heard from viper guys specifically that they will not go to guns mode until just prior to shooting the gun and they switch out of it ASAP like you said though

Thanks for setting the record straight

Not sure if it’s possible in DCS but it is also very possible to overspeed the aircraft in a dive. I’ve heard stories of an F-16 pilot that died while severely supersonic in a high speed dive and his canopy melted into his face.