Coole28

...which itself was developed from the F-15SA. Quite a few variants with FBW now.

The AV-8 (another RAZBAM module) has overspeed modeled IIRC. The plane gets very unstable as you approach the sound barrier, and if you surpass it the airframe just falls apart after awhile. Semi-related, the JF-17 also has over-G modeled on stores. You can jam your weapons or even rip them off with a hard enough pull-up. Would be interesting to see if this is implemented on the E model.

Never trust Wikipedia when it comes to aircraft armament. It’s about as accurate as the ground unit damage modeling in DCS. No, operational USAF F-15Es do not and can not employ AGM-88s or -84s. Only select export F-15s based on the F-15E can (e.g. F-15K)

The original GBU-39 was GPS/INS only, not laser guided. There was a whole lawsuit against the USAF for removing the moving target capability from the program requirements. The laser guidance wasn’t added until over a decade after entering service as an interim solution to hit moving targets as the GBU-53 program was running into budget constraints.

If you are running the same missions/tasks with the same tactics as you would in an F-16 or F/A-18, solo flight should be about the same. We’ve already seen a demonstration of this by Notso on one of the tutorials (I think it’s the NAVFLIR video, could be mistaken) doing a successful night time laser guided bombing run from take-off to landing essentially all from the front seat. The difficulty and amount of user input seemed to be roughly on par with other single seat jets in DCS.

On this we can agree.

Don’t think anyone is denying the C model upgrades were needed to maintain relevance in the modern CAS role. And I’m not going to debate whether the plane is good at it either, not in an F-15E thread anyway. But stating “The plane wasn’t intended for CAS” when that was quite literally what it was designed for based on what the CAS mission entailed at the time (late ‘60s), and “It wasn’t self PGM capable prior to the C model” when it launched thousands of them in the ‘90s, it’s just blatantly wrong information. Thats all I’m pointing out.

Depends on how personally attached you are to the F-15E. I know people who worked on the bird IRL that have developed a personal connection with it. To them it’s not about the act of flying in DCS that interests them, but rather what they are flying. With the E model so close, their drive to fly anything else in DCS has all but gone away. I’ve only worked with transport planes myself, so as far DCS modules go I just fly whatever is fun. And carrier ops are a lot of fun. I’m not on the edge of my seat waiting for the E model or anything, but I am looking forward to its release bringing my buddies back to DCS so I’m not flying alone anymore.

So the plane that came from the A-X program, a program aimed filling the gaps in the USAF’s CAS capability, wasn’t designed for CAS? Someone should tell the Air Force, cause according to them on their website “[the A-10A] was designed specifically for the close air support mission”. They might want to get their money back from Fairchild for false advertising. We just going to ignore the fact that more AGM-65s were expended (5,296) than any other PGM in the Gulf War? And that the A-10 was responsible for the bulk of AGM-65 employments during the war, which was also coincidentally the first time it ever saw combat? Whack. The A-10 was designed in the late ‘60s when the primary sensor for identifying friendly positions was still the Mk. 1 eyeball. Doing this required flying low and slow, and lessons learned in Vietnam demonstrated how vulnerable aircraft were to ground fire while doing these missions. The need for a higher survivability plane to perform these low and slow CAS missions gave birth to the A-X program, which would ultimately give us the A-10. You keep mentioning how the A-10 didn’t have sensors to aid in target identification prior the C model as some indicator that it was poor at CAS, but back in the ‘60s and ‘70s none of the other planes running CAS missions had this either.

Most recent FAQs says everything from the first CTU will be available during EA, either immediately at launch or added down the road prior to exiting EA. JDAMs are part of this. FAQ_ver_3_-_1_Apr_2023.pdf JDAMs are listed as “not planned for initial release at time of making this document”, so it’s unlikely JDAMs will be there on release but not outside the realm of possibility depending on how much work is done on the plane prior to release. The only things confirmed to NOT be at release are the future CTU stuff (litening, sniper, AIM-9X, JHMCS, SDB, digital UFC). Fortunately CBU-97 is part of the “planned for initial release” list. Don’t really need JDAMs with their fancy GPS guidance when you can just destroy everything in a 2nm radius.

There’s nothing in DCS you need a GBU-28 for that a GBU-10 or -24 can’t handle. The GBU-28 has the same (possibly less) explosive filling as a Mk-84. The extra 3,000 lbs is just casing to increase penetration. Unless something gets added or reworked such that a GBU-10 can’t penetrate it, I don’t foresee the GBU-28 adding any utility to the plane (won’t deny the cool factor though). SDB on the other hand would be very useful for the E model. You’d take the max GPS weapon payload from 9 to 22. GPS weapons are incredibly useful in DCS; being able to carry this many would be a game changer.

“Finally”? We are getting close to the 2-decade anniversary of when the SDB entered service. It’s probably older than some of the folk playing this game.

This is the sole reason I turn pilot bodies off. Having a “body” that doesn’t match any of my real world movements kinda doinks my immersion. As counterintuitive as it sounds, it feels more immersive in VR to not have a pilot body. Without the pilot model i’m not making any mental connection between a “body” with my own movements, so it doesn’t distract me as much when I am moving around. At least it does for me; I play a lot of dedicated VR games so I’ve become accustomed to my player model matching my movements.

Thats what the CFTs are for

The wording of the statement was poor. One possible interpretation of the statement is that the module will release on the 15th. This interpretation is grammatically correct, but is factually incorrect. Thats it. There really isn’t anything more to this. Ya’ll are arguing for the sake of arguing.