The radar and weapons of the F1 are something that has been keeping me busy for the past six months. This post isn’t necessarily to prove any capabilities of the plane, I mostly want to get some other people's opinion and maybe a response from the devs themselves on this. I will post links to the sources where I got my information from and add translations to English if needed at the end of the post.
Part 1 - The Radar
I love the Mirage F1 and I think that Aerges has done an amazing job so far. I very much enjoy the way the Mirage planes have been designed internally; thus, I also enjoy flying the Mirage 2000.
Both Mirages we have in DCS have been concepted as interceptors/fighters and both excel when used accordingly. Still, they are not limited to only carrying air to air weaponry. For Example: Low drag bombs, high drag bombs, rockets, runway bombs and laser guided bombs with no self lasing capabilities. Whilst it is more of an art dropping bombs in the F1, the Mirage 2000 is quite a modern plane with the ability of dropping bombs via the radar in CCIP and CCRP modes. From what I could gather the F1M with the upgraded HUD and radar should also be able to drop bombs in CCIP and CCRP mode as well.
Now, this pretty much brings me to my first point of discussion. I have been reading into all the different versions of the Cyrano IV radar to get an idea about what to expect from the F1M once we get our hands on it and tried to compile it into an infographic describing the different versions.
The functions we currently have with the F1EE are pretty much equal to the Cyrano IV-3 with limited look down ability and ground mapping. It probably comes down to the radar not being finished yet. The manual by Aerges shows all the settings on the function indicator (Page 104) with an inoperable blind penetration mode and air-ground telemetry mode. This makes it seems more like the Cyrano IVM. The description on the Steam page says the module comes with the Cyrano IVM as well. On a Spanish forum I found this description of the different versions of the Cyrano IV and it says this about the Cyrano IVM (translated):
This would correlate to the description of the manual except for the air to sea mode. Air to ground telemetry seems to be a different name for air to ground ranging, which should be what is used for CCIP and CCRP (Taken from Chucks guide for the Mirage 2000, chapter 4.1 explaining “Télémétrie Air-Sol” translated as “Air-to-Ground Ranging Mode”). I don’t know weather an air to ground ranging mode automatically enables CCIP/CCRP capabilities though or if some sort of designation ability is needed. Also the F1CE seems to have the same radar in-game.
Maybe someone can clear this up for me, also which version exactly we have or are getting. I sadly couldn’t find any information specifically on the Spanish versions of the F1. I could imagine that the F1M would either include all the abilities of all previous versions since it pretty much was the last time the Cyrano IV was used in an upgrade, or a combination of the Cyrano IVM and IVMR which also was used by France in the Mirage F1CT upgrades.
Part 2 - The Weapons
Now before I get into all the information I’ve gathered about armament the Mirage F1 could carry, I want to say the following:
I know that some of the weapons I will talk about have not been used by the versions of the F1 we are getting for DCS. Now, except Aerges decides to do more playable versions of the F1 in the future, this definitely will be the only time we get a thoroughly simulated Mirage F1 in an environment that also simulates usable weaponry in the next years, maybe even for the next decade. There simply will not be a second developer developing a Mirage F1 for DCS.
This probably is a whole other discussion about how far you can go into adding weapons not carried by the real plane. Whilst I fully agree that one should not add a targeting pod if there wasn’t one in real life, because you would have to make up a whole page for the MFD, I think that if the capability of a weapon is based on hardpoint wiring (not talking about being a smart hardpoint or not) it simply is so far under the hood that it should not matter for DCS. Obviously, one should not argue about adding weapons that weren’t used by any version of the airplane. But if it isn’t too farfetched technically, I don’t see why one should not add a weapon.
I personally would be somewhat disappointed in not being able to enjoy some of the weapons that were used by other F1 versions because of absolute “realism”. For the people interested in absolute realism the DCS mission editor allows to disable certain weapons from use. At the end of the day this is also about me being interested in having a capable, non-American, true multirole aircraft (besides the JF-17) in DCS. I already love the F1 though, this is not about having it as capable as possible.
Now I would like to state some information I’ve found online about a few weapons. Again, I don’t necessarily try to prove certain capability for those weapons. I know Wikipedia is not the most reliable source for these kind of things, but I used it anyway to underline a claim if there is another source claiming similar/the same facts.
Martel / ARMAT
I want to start off with the MARTEL and ARMAT anti-radiation missiles. It is somewhat complicated to find something about which air forces used these weapons on which plane. The Iraqis have definitely used them on their F1EQs. A small Danish website about plane facts claims that the Kuwaiti have used the ARMAT on their F1CKs. A stat page about the Mirage F1CK-2 on CMANO-DB also lists the ARMAT as a used weapon. Wikipedia also suggests that the ARMAT was in use with the Kuwaiti air force. The German Wikipedia article of the MARTEL claims that 25 ARMAT were delivered to Kuwait. The Kuwaiti F1CK-1 are equal to the general F1C model, and the later F1CK-2 are equal to the F1E. This would suggest that the version the F1 we already have in game probably are capable to launch the MARTEL/ARMAT ARM. If I find more information on this, I will add it here later.
AS-30
Next, I want to talk about the AS-30 and AS-30L missile. F1EQs of the Iraqi air force used AS-30L during the Iran-Iraq war. The Wikipedia page of the AS-30 links to an external image of a French F1 firing an AS-30L. The F1 in the picture is one of the later F1CR or F1CT as it has a laser spot tracker below the cockpit. I would think that the AS-30L does not have any special launch constraints and will simply track a laser after launch with a pre-set code as most laser guided weapons. From what I could gather, only the South African F1AZ/CZ used the regular AS-30 with MCLOS guidance. I don’t know how farfetched (probably a lot) this one would be, as especially the F1AZ were specifically made for ground attack with heavy modifications to the ground attack suite compared to all other F1 versions. The laser guided version seems to be technically possible though.
AM39 Exocet
This last one has been discussed a lot. The AM39 Exocet. I found this to be a rather complex one. Only the Iraqi F1EQ have fired Exocets and these have a version of the Cyrano IV with a special designation, namely the Cyrano IVM3.
On a Spanish forum there was a post made by someone about the Cyrano radar in the Venezuelan Mirage 5 and he said the following about the Iraqi F1EQs and the Cyrano IVM3 (translated):
Interestingly the late upgrade of the Mirage 5 of Venezuela, the Mirage 50EV, was upgraded with the Cyrano IVM3 radar as well and was fully capable of launching Exocets as stated on Wikipedia. Though, not only did the radar get replaced, but the inertial navigation system (INS) as well. It was replaced by one made by SAGEM. Coincidentally SAGEM is the company producing the Uliss INS. This makes it likely that in the case of the Mirage 50EV there also was a link between the INS and radar.
Coming to the F1M upgrade made for Spain. The Wikipedia page mentions that part of the upgrade was “…added anti shipping capability with a modernised Cyrano IVM radar…” suggesting again that this last version of the Cyrano IV does incorporate all functions of previous versions (Cyrano IVM, IVMR, IVM3). Besides, right afterwards Exocet compatibility gets mentioned. Here the full paragraph:
To double down on this, I found an article from 2011 in the “Archivo Mirage” about the Cyrano IV radars history and it states the radar of the F1M being “…digitised, as its readings can be displayed on a colour multifunction display … replacing the old monochrome display”. Further the following is said:
This should basically be it. The “digitised” Cyrano IVM can communicate with other systems and thus probably also with the INS. This possibly brings it down to being a wiring issue first and foremost. Because of all this I don’t think it would be that farfetched to add the Exocet to the F1M. Again, this could be disabled in the mission editor by the people that don’t like it.
Also, this probably is out of the scope for the DCS Mirage F1, but another article on “Archivo Mirage” about the Mirage F1 MF2000 by ASTRAC mentions Exocet capability. Yes, it has a different radar and a "GPS-upgraded SIGMA 95 laser gyro intertial navigator" but also uses the 1553 data bus for the systems. This also somewhat reinforces the claim that Exocet capability is dependent on a link between radar and INS.
Again, I am first and foremost interested in opinions on all this and maybe a response from the devs. I may or may not have missed something as I am finishing this with a headache.
Source as links and translations as PDF files:
Archivo Mirage Cyrano Article: https://archivomirage.blogspot.com/2011/01/radar-thomson-csf-cyrano-iv.html
Archivo Mirage on MF2000: https://archivomirage.blogspot.com/2009/07/le-bourget-2009-astrac-presenta-el.html
Zona Militare about Cyrano IV: https://www.zona-militar.com/foros/threads/caracteristicas-tecnicas-del-cyrano-iv.3313/
ARMAT Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARMAT
MARTEL German Wikipedia page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS.37_Martel
Mirage F1 Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_F1
Mirage 5 Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_5
Kampfly.dk on Kuwait F1: http://www.kampfly.dk/Flysiden/Fly/Dassault/MirageF1KW.htm
GermanMARTELWikipage.pdf
ArchivoMirageCyranoArticle.pdf
ArchivoMirageMirageF1ASTRACArticle.pdf
ZonaMilitareCyranoPost.pdf
Kampflydk.pdf
