KlarSnow

Yeah my SA is just the -1, which doesn't have any info on where the panel is located, and that all the connectors and such are on the left. When I have sat in the front of a sim or PCATD or whatever, I haven't really been looking for all the lighting panels. Its not specifically stated where it is in the -1. Not something in the backseat you are looking for when you climb in every day.

The pie selection is a good idea, another idea is using arrow keys or a 4 way hat to scroll up/down and forward/back thru the menus they currently have, instead of having to take your hand off throttle and stick to go hit the mouse or an F-key. Would allow for much quicker and more precise interaction.

Phoenix battery life is well over 90 Seconds, its somewhere north of two minutes, otherwise you wouldn't see 100+ second time of flights on the TID when you are looking to shoot things. If you look around you can find data on prox fuses, long story short most missiles do have them, but they afuze in game based on distance from the pilots head, not the aircraft body. This can result in prox fuses not going off when missiles fly very close to a wingtip or the tails, because they aren't close enough to the pilots head. Its a core engine issue in DCS that affects everything, not something AFAIK that heatblur can do anything about as of right now. This gets even stranger in multiplayer due to desync, when what the shooter is seeing vs what the target is seeing can be rather different, based on lag and known DCS desync issues. Long story short, the shooter's instance is what is "truth data" for all missile guidance and effects. Thus the target can see a missile fly past him, but then explode a half second later because of desync. This plays out on tacviews as well.

Attached are two tracks from multiplayer where both players saw the aforementioned TWS strangeness, Tacview from the server is also included, so you can see the "trueish" position of everything. Aircraft were both pilot only, with Jester as RIO, have seen this same thing happen with RIO's as well. Don't have a track of it currently though. All enemies were AI. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ay5BqIJAUW0U3rIRlIjtV_M93bjlwB4D/view?usp=sharing https://www.dropbox.com/s/3z89fb085c09gum/PracticeMission_PG2-20200416-202851.trk?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/7irqss5xs3jll5m/Tacview-20200416-214531-DCS-PracticeMission_PG2.zip.acmi?dl=0 You can see the fake high velocity tracks getting created and TWS-A freaking out and trying to hold them.

About half and half. ~2600A’s which ended production in 1980, and around 2500 C’s, of which 1000 were delivered by mid 1989. Some of the A’s got cannibalized and rebuilt into C’s

There is nothing “grey zone” about any of the modules in DCS, they are all made with open source/unclassified stuff. There is no open source stuff on specifics regarding EW of the f-18C or the 16 or the 15 or the flanker or even lotsa stuff going back to Vietnam. There are general theories and ideas, but not specifics. The whole probabilistic thing, while it could lead to moderately realistic results when you look at say 200 engagements statistically, will lead to unrealistic and exploitable gameplay. Just look at how chaff and flares simplified mechanics in DCS are completely divorced from how they work in the real world, leading to both over and under effectiveness on many systems and radars. The other problem is unless it affects the radar screen and player decisions what’s the gameplay purpose? other than just reducing missile pk just like chaff does right now.

The big problem with even putting an old technique like those in is how well does it work against the radars we have in game. That will be a mystery and completely open to interpretation. It’s completely possible to run a technique of any sort, and it have no effect at all on a threat or target radar. The radar getting jammed may simply overpower the technique, or it might be able to recognize it and counter it somehow, or it may just be super resistant to the jamming to begin with just due to radar design. This is the kinda stuff that it will be almost impossible to find hard data on, and is reeaaaaally significant to gameplay. Thus its almost impossible to put in game. It would be inherently unrealistic to put in an old 60’s jammer with old techniques and have it utterly trash radars that can handle it because you have no data on how effective the technique is or how the radar can possibly counter it. That detail of stuff is all classified for a reason. Now adding in probabilistic and generational stuff could be done (60’s good jammer has a .5 chance of breaking lock or spoofing a missile from the 60’s, but a system from the 70’s it only has a .2 chance against etc...), but it would all be at about the same level as say CM rejection in DCS right now, just a dice roll, and honestly would probly be just more frustrating than anything else, cause there’s just nothing the shooter or the defender can do to counter it. Or we can just get a reworked noise jamming system like what’s in FC3, but that also has a lot of issues inherent to it beyond what we have right now (noise jammers are limited in how many things they can jam and on what azimuth, and on what frequencies, cant just jam everything at once 360 degrees around the jet at all times)

they are both used, either way you would still have to lase the target or get coordinates, cause your system still has to figure out how far away the target is in order to compute the release for the bomb. About the only thing you wouldnt do that with is if you are visually acquiring and dropping.

The LST doesnt know how far away the laser spot is, all it knows is theres a spot "over there" and points at it.

There is very little consistency between aircraft in regards to this kinda stuff, even in what you call the radios In brevity varies from platform to platform. Radio 1. Is “prime” in one aircraft “main” in another. The way one switch or setting or hotas especially is completely different and the functionality is completely different from one aircraft to another. Even if you have the same f “Features” the way they are laid out or implemented are usually completely different. That’s just the name of the game with full fidelity stuff... Now consistency in labeling on one aircraft as to what is and isn’t abbreviated or what is labeled exactly as it is in the jet vs some generic thing, is always good. Tho what really helps me out to be honest, is the search function... hover your mouse over a switch you want to bind, see what the tooltip pop up says it’s called, and then search that in the controls menu.

PDI (pulse doppler interleaved) just means its alternating between MPRF and HPRF during search bars, once you are STT it will then use either MPRF or HPRF as required to maintain the target track, unless you tell it to use one or the other, it can guide a sparrow in either HPRF or MPRF no problem. From an employment perspective on anything that can shoot a sparrow STT is STT, and will support the sparrow to the target regardless of what PRF the radar is in. When you select sidewinder the default setting for the radar should default to MPRF, since it should be bringing up a short range search by default, Im sure you can change that to whatever you want and hit "set" on the radar display.

For fixed wing western CAS, Type 2 Bomb on Coordinate with a JDAM is probly the 90-95% solution over the last...5-10 years or more. You can do CAS of that variety without ever getting a sensor (eyeball or TPOD) on the target if needed (although its definitely preferred). Hell even if you find the target in the TPOD, normally you read the coordinates off the TPOD to the JTAC, he then reads back the exact same coordinates to you so you can do it type 2 Bomb on Coordinate...

In the past at RAF Lakenheath there were incidents of people lasing jets on final from Brandon or mildenhall village. It would usually immediately get called on the radio to tower, and tower would dispatch the local authorities to go and find (and usually arrest) the perpetrator. It can cause permanent eye damage, not to mention the risk of damage to the aircraft/surrounding area if a crash or a landing were porked. USAF/RAF MoD treats that stuff super seriously. I don’t think any USAF (At least in my squadron) aircrew would be hesitant about calling out suspected lasing, its something you cant control that can end your flying career or kill you... The canopy can act like a giant combining glass and amplify the effects of the laser, it also is not a single point, it can turn into a glow as it refracts and reflects around the canopy, glaring out a significant part of your vision.

Even for ASuW, hornets nowadays don't really use the A/G radar too much, something else like a growler/P-3/P-8/E-2 is much more likely to pass of the coordinates of the target for the strike after locating the targets. Again, not saying its not useful and shouldn't be added, just its not a super "core" feature to realistically employing these aircraft in the mission sets that are most common in DCS and should be on the front of the burner, and its better IMHO if it cooks long enough to be done really well, rather than half done, like everything else in the hornet and F-16 feels right now.

Not saying at all it shouldn't be implemented, just I don't think its really a huge priority, would rather have the systems that are currently half implemented working 100% first rather than a half-implemented A/G radar system along with a half implemented TGP, no SLAM, no working HARM/HTS, A/A radar that is buggy, more functionality added to the datalink etc...

Preplanned precision strikes done by things like the f-111, f-15e, a-6, etc... are what did this stuff all weather up until the f-111/a-6 were retired. The f-16/18, were daylight visual bombers primarily until the advent of JDAM. While they had a/g mapping and targeting it has never been their role for that kind of targeting until GPS/JDAM arrived. Their systems do not provide the fidelity, nor is it easy for a single seat aircraft to effectively do this. This is part of why the f-15E exists, its really the only thing that does this anymore. Keep in mind per the earlier post, it’s not like you just roll around with the a/g radar and find bridges or weapons depots. There is targeting, planning, and intel that goes in before you go use this stuff. IE you already have a target specifically and have studied the target area and know what you are looking for. If you have precision coordinates to something like a bridge, and JDAM, ( and GPS is working) why do you need A/G radar. If GPS. Is denied, bring the specialists (F-15E) in and they will hit the target. F-16’s and f-18’s will have other jobs that they are the specialists at (SEAD, boat/naval things).

Much like any kind of targeting, you will probly have to know to look there or have an idea of where the target is. Things that are stationary do not get highlighted in any mapping mode, they are just returns on the display. So if you don’t know what or where you are looking for something, a/g radar is just as useful or useless as looking around with your eyeballs or slewing the TGP around randomly. We always say interpreting SAR maps is as much an art as it is a skill. There’s a reason the only fighter platform in the US that still uses it as a significant part of its mission set has two crew members. Most use of the a/g radar for targeting is for preplanned specific targets. Not CAS, not vehicles, not random targeting. You usually have a specific target (weapons warehouse, bunker, storage, building of some sort) that you know generally where it is, and have imagery of it already. You then use the A/G radar to locate it and target it, but you are cueing the radar in the area of the target to begin with. Where this comes in is when you consider INS drift, if your system was perfect (EGI) then your radar would cue up on the exact spot in the real world where you had coordinates to every time. But if there is INS drift of some sort, it will be off in some random direction by a random amount relative to your drift. Say a mile or so away from the target. You then use your target study to find the target area, and make your designation. Again, you have been cued into the target area. You aren’t going to do any better or worse than just running around with the TGP and slewing it to each cluster of trees to see if there is something in it with A/G radar. In fact you might do worse through the weather because you have no visual of the target and IDing it is going to be nebulous at best without some other cueing or intel that that particular blob is actually a tank/bad guy thing instead of just somebody’s hunting shed.

Yes in the strike eagle you do practice finding locating and killing targets using the A/G radar or in a GPS denied environment. Every platform practices denied ops and how to continue to operate effectively when all our cool toys are gone. You still aren't going to be dropping on movers without getting a TGP and an LGB on the target so yes, weather is going to significantly hinder the ability to hit moving targets. I can't talk to specifics for the F-16 or 18, but from talking with their operators (confirmed on this forum if you look enough because this topic comesup over and over again) They see the A/G radar usually once or twice when they are learning the jet, and then never use it or even look at its capabilities again. It's just not in the missions or useful enough for what those jets do. If you are talking big air war this is why the "precision all weather strike" is still a mission set that the strike eagle does and trains to. With GPS and precise coordinates anythign that can carry a JDAM can then perform it but not in the old school sense. Any brochure or video you have seen out there about A/G radar is either exaggerated for the "cools" or is trying to sell the feature and capability so usually supremely optimistic. There is exactly 1 video I've found on youtube that is of actual use of A/G radar in a combat scenario, not something that the manufacturer or the documentary , or the brochure is trying to use to show you how "cool" it is Watch that from 3:39 onwards and you will see a pretty typical use of a really Good A/G radar in a strike eagle. Finding a SAM site in a pretty benign environment (the desert). That is what it actually looks like in practice most of the time.

Nap of the earth autopilot is a different radar functionality (and usually a different radar entirely) than the ground mapping radars. Nothing in DCS has this capability (even the viggens is not, its just a mode of ground mapping not linked to an autopilot and not doing predictive flight). The F-16 variant we have doesn’t do TFR, Nor does the Harrier, the hornet may be capable of it with the Navflir pod, but its not something the navy does or trains to hardly at all anymore. The only platform in the USAF/USN that does any of this kind of stuff on a regular basis is the strike eagle. SAR or synthetic aperture radar while more useful than RBM modes for targeting again is a very user intensive process that requires interpretation of the display, it does not just highlight targets, it just makes a higher resolution image that then requires you to find the targets on the scope. it will be a good tool when it arrives but its only useful against stationary things and things that you have a plan to find. I wouldn’t count on being able to pick a tank out of a city using it. You may be able to find moving targets with the GMTI modes of the radar, but you won’t be able to accurately drop anything on them. To kill movers you will still need to get a TGP and a LGB on the target in order to have any hope of accuracy. In most of the current use cases for the current aircraft in DCS A/G radar is just not a particularly useful or high priority function. The only aircraft currently planned or being worked on for DCS where it would be astonishing if it wasn’t included at an early state would be the strike eagle. Everything else its kinda just extra.

When talking to the boat for landing and admin purposes (in the pattern) the navy uses side number. I'm not 100% sure "why" the navy uses a different tactical and administrative callsign as well. For example your squadron will usually have 1 or 2 administrative callsigns when talking to ATC, IE squadron X admin callsign is Hornet. Every flight that takes off from that squadron would be Hornet 11 flight, Hornet 21 flight etc... This admin callsign is assigned/approved through the FAA/ whoever's airspace they are operating in and follows the phonetic and limited letter/syllable requirements of that (Phoenix is spelled FENIX for example) Once they get out to the airspace and check in with AIC (AWACS/GCI/Whoever is controlling the flight) and are thus no longer talking to an administrative entity the navy then checks in with a tactical callsign, which can be whatever they want it to be. There are usually standard ones for each aircraft type in a package, but its on the aircrew/planners for any specifics. So for example the Hornet 11 flight checks in with AIC with a tactical callsign of Lightning 11, and Hornet 21 flight checks in as Sniper 21 flight tactically. When they leave the AIC they then revert to the admin callsign. On discrete they talk to eachother with tactical callsigns. When talking to their Ops/ the carrier you then disregard all callsigns and talk with your side number. USAF goes the much simpler route and usually each base has a whole roster of FAA approved callsigns, that then get parcelled out to the squadrons. IE squadron X has callsigns of Hornet, Sniper, and Lightning. Each flight then has one callsign and you never change your callsign or talk to any entity as anything but your callsign. At a big place like nellis during a red flag usually there are standard callsigns owned by the base that get parcelled out to the units they are hosting IE all F-15C's during this red flag will fly under callsign CONAN or CYLON, etc... IE from engine start to landing a USAF flight would be Hornet 11 flight to all agencies, the next flight would be Sniper 21 to all agencies, and the third flight would be Lightning 31 to all agencies. Tail numbers would only be used if there was some confusion about which tail you were in (usually in relation to a jet breaking and having to hop to the spare)

Before you can even get started with this stuff you have to emulate the fact that RF as radars and these systems work are in discrete elements and have limited bandwidth. IE a “Jammer” even the most modern and best one can’t effectively jam every radar at once equally. It will have a limited RF range, and a limited power output, you jam 1 frequency you have much better effectiveness than if you jam 10. Then you have to get into which radars can operate or hop between multiple frequencies, what happens if the radar operator manually changes the frequency. Can missiles hop frequencies with their seekers, how fast, the jammer can’t listen very well while its jamming, so how often does it try and listen to what is out there to change its jamming frequency, how quickly can it hop. If two radars are operating on the same frequency in close proximity (or pointed at each other) then jamming or reduced sensitivity can occur. This is all just for a really simple noise jammer. And while we can talk about all of this from a platform agnostic standpoint, as soon as you say “what can a specific radar or jammer do and how effective is it” you will rapidly find zero usable data on anything past the Vietnam conflict. There are countermeasures and techniques for all of this stuff both offensive and defensively out there that there will be zero data on. And if you see that there is a name, there will be zero data on how effective any of these techniques or systems are on a particular threat. For example you can find pretty easily the Range gate pull off is a technique thats been around since the Vietnam war, but you will never find how effective, or ineffective it is as a technique against an AMRAAM, or an R-77, or a slot back 2, or an APG-73. Just saying, platform or side X has great jammers and we should have that capability in game isn’t enough, you have to know how effective it is, how it shows up on the various systems displays, and whether or not it actually has any effect, and all of that data is gonna be classified (for good reason).

It really doesnt behoove either combatant to hold back an this scenario (or really any scenario) just think, if those 16 missiles from the kirov are strung out 2 at a time, then the Tico is only dealing with 2 at a time sequentially, with plenty of time between each pair. However if all 16 cross its max engagement range at the same time, if it can only shoot a limited number at a time, the survivors will keep getting closer. As for the tico unleashing everything at once, it really behooves it to for the same reason. 1-1 is a bad rate when you really cant let a single one of those missiles through, so much better to double or triple up and increase your odds of killing each missile. Even if this runs the tico out of weapons, it stopped the attack, which is its job.

After taking a hit like that the Tico would be retiring off the field, the Kirov won that fight and the Tico would be ineffective at that point. You had an entire Ticonderoga's battery focused on a single attack axis. This should demonstrate to you that single vector and limited attacks against the kind of defenses that are present are going to have a hell of a time getting through. You have to overwhelm it with multiple attack axes, and sheer numbers of missiles. 16 is not remotely enough. To put it another way, you just played rock paper scissors, the kirov played rock, the tico played paper, and the kirov won. Thats a win against a hard counter, either bring more rocks and overwhelm it, or... go get some scissors (submarine) and kill it that way. Also the Kirovs deck guns will make mincemeat of a surface combatant, soviet surface guns are murderously good in that kind of scenario. The Ticonderoga isn't really an equivalent surface combatant to the Kirov either, this is not a peer v peer engagement even though both are cruisers. The Ticonderoga is a defensive asset, not a surface engagement offensive asset. The Kirov is 100% a surface engagement combatant. If you want equivalencies or balance of fire, the proper opponent would be a forrestal and its air wing... not the Ticonderoga. the Kirov for reference is why the Iowa's got reactivated in the 80's... If you want to get into doctrine and what a soviet captain in that situation should be doing now that his big punch is gone... He should be steaming at flank to close the distance and get his incredibly lethal deck gun capability to bear. The Tico should be running like hell because she is severely hurt and will not last long in that kind of engagement. The other question is why the Kirov would unleash his best ship killing capability at a purely defensive opponent, again this is like shooting your longbows directly at the opponents castle wall (and still winning) as opposed to at their troops on the wall, or in front of the wall, or really anything else... The Ticonderoga at this point is probably effectively out of the war for multiple months, and now requires resources to protect and repair, all of which is probly a bigger effect than actually sinking it would be.

inverse square law applies to all radiation. radars included, its a universal rule, and no fancy antenna lets you get away from it, AESA or otherwise. For those specific focusing antennas, all they do is up the gain and focus the power in the beam, IE make less of its energy spill out, it still loses power at the same rate due to the inverse square law. Best way to think of it is if I put 1 unit of power through an omnidirectional (non focused) antenna, then if I measure the power 1 unit of distance away in each cardinal direction I would get 1/360th of the power output over each degree (since its spreading all that power over 360 degrees) If I put 1 unit of power through a 1 degree focused antenna I then should get 1 unit of power 1 unit of distance away (all the power is in 1 degree now) the inverse square law still applies (2 units of distance away I will get 1/4th power, 3 units of distance 1/8th, etc...) This is beamwidth in a nutshell (which also isnt perfect, beamwidth is just an arbitrary definition, there will always be spill over, sidelobes, and backlobes, no perfect antennas) Radars also dont lose power to the inverse square of the range, they actually lose it to the inverse 4th power of the range, this is because the radar energy doesn't just have to get to the target, it also has to get back. Just google radar range equation here https://copradar.com/rdrrange/ Look down at the bottom of the page, lays it all out, and this 100% applies to every radar in existence, no fancy antenna lets you get away from this. if you want to derive it https://www.radartutorial.eu/01.basics/The%20Radar%20Range%20Equation.en.html

Right now the MIDS page does nothing. If they implement it fully it will be a necessary stop for getting Link 16 working. What you would do here is Set up the time sync for getting into the network. If there was no NTR (Net Time Reference, think who is “hosting” the network, its not accurate but it helps to think of it that way) you could set your self as the NTR, usually NTR is handled by an AWACS or the carrier. Also you would have to set the network terminal’s clock, either by manually entering a time, or grabbing a GPS time, and then using that to sync with the network. If there were any problems with the network, this is also where you would go to start troubleshooting it with a master reset or a couple of other steps you can take. You can also set your aircraft terminal to silent or receive only, thus you would still get data from other net players, but would not transmit anything.