Kalasnkova74

I’ve gotten ‘er up to 1.8 with the pylons in a dive to 25k ft. She’ll probably do 2.0, but I backed off after seeing the intake duct temp light come on.

I agree with the others. The flight model changes are a welcome upgrade. Before ,on landing an alert hand on the throttles was needed -or you’d just plop on the ground. Now the Phantom II is much smoother, more predictable and less likely to fall like an anvil over the fence. The trim feels much better, the aircraft is easier to control on bomb passes, and overall the flight model feels much more refined and forgiving. Well done HB!

Further, when attacking /suppressing ground based air defenses, the Israelis used loft as a standoff method. Not terribly accurate, but it did well at making AAA gunners run for their bunkers during an airfield or other attack run. By the time the gunners got back to their posts, the strike was over and the Kurnass flights were egressing.

Not in the F-4s case. Combat Tree enabled reliable passive ID of hostile targets beyond the APQ-120s detection range. Knowing who is or isn’t a bandit is a bonus.

Possible? Sure. Likely? Not in the near future. The F-4E spawned multiple “boutique” variants , and each one has its own quirks and capabilities. The F-4F ICE, the F-4E AUP, the F-4E 2020 Terminator, the F-4E Kurnass 2000….each is just different enough to merit its own dedicated module. It would take a development studio years to knock out one of them. HB is in the best position to make a Gucci Phantom, but their plate is full for the foreseeable future.

The flip side is the OPFOR behavior. Current IADS behavior is too simplistic to make an F-4G (or any SEAD specific aircraft) worth the effort, public info availability on the -G notwithstanding. This is of course in EDs court and not HBs. Real world IADS operators did tricky stuff like launch from one site while guiding from another, spoofing RWRs with fake lock on signals only to switch to another target or frequency, launching blind and activating the guidance radar only in the last phases of SAM flight, and so on.

Also worth noting here, the F-4s angular engine placement means power changes also change nose angle. This was of course an intentional design decision going back to its naval roots. No big deal (at least to me) in casual flight, but it’s perceptible in formation and AAR.

Logistically? Nope. Looking at the task, HB would first need to build a “Starbaby” AI EWO who could track, sort, and engage threat radars using the APR-47 sensor and engagement suite. Even if we assume detailed documentation on this system is freely available - which, far as I know, it’s not- that would be a MASSIVE development effort. Assuming that box is checked, the F-4s flight model would need to be changed to accommodate the black boxes which replaced the gun, and - most important - the DCS game needs to be updated to feature more realistic and threatening IADS. Real life air defense battalions didn’t just constantly radiate , and would play tricks like launching from one site and timing radar guidance from a different site to delay RWR detection. ED would have to update the whole game to feature more potent IADS. Finally, developers would need to code new EW aircraft to take advantage of these changes. Best of luck here- even the long-decommissioned F-4G doesn’t have easily obtainable documentation, and many other EW systems players would want to fly remain classified to this day.

Stats can be misleading without context. USAF strike crews of the time were based in Thailand, which was approximately a 700 mile flight one way. When the round trip from base to target and back is 2,240 kilometers fuel and payload become primary metrics. One of the lesser known reasons USAF Phantom II crews couldn’t match their Navy equivalents in MiG kills was fuel range. Naval fighters were based near the coast, and could surprise North Vietnamese air defense teams with unpredictable arrival vectors. USAF crews had an exponentially longer trip and were identified hours before entering North Vietnam. A consistent refrain you see in the Red Baron reports on MiG engagements that didn’t end in a kill was fuel concerns, which makes sense given the distances. The F-104 was not designed for that kind of long-range aerial campaign. It was built on the lessons of Korea, which was a much smaller battlespace. Further its refueling system - probe/drogue- was incompatible with the boom system established by SAC to refuel their bombers. The final nail in the F-104s air to air career in Vietnam was the North Vietnamese. They had radar and ELINT SA on US aircraft movements and knew to steer well clear of the Starfighters. While this was to the advantage of the EC-121s , Operation Bolo F-4Cs and EB-66s those Starfighters escorted, it meant their odds of fighting a MiG were very low no matter how competent the aircraft and crew. The one engagement on record between an F-104 flight and a single MiG-21 ended with the Fishbed-D pilot punching tanks and running away. A wise decision by the MiG pilot , but hardly the stuff of MiG killer books and movies.

Did you guys have centerline fuel tanks or stores during these flights? Because if you do, the back two Sparrows will not launch due to a built in safety interlock. It is to avoid hitting the centerline store with rocket exhaust.

Fair ‘nuff, thanks!

Does anyone have a list of effective “off the cuff” direct dive bombing parameters for the F-4E? Of course the best method is to plan a strike using the map and attack a pre-set target with established parameters using the bombing computer. But in a dynamic “troops in contact” situation, you won’t know the target altitude & run in details will be whatever direction gets you to the target without hitting a mountain or getting shot by ground fire. Clearly F-4 users developed profiles crews could use in case Dive Toss was inop - in fact that caused a scandal in the USAF TAC when crews dive bombed manually and pencil whipped a “Dive Toss” sortie to meet statistics. Otherwise, disregard if an existing resource is available or classification is a concern.

Your question contains one assumption- that a stealth aircraft would need to use its radar to find targets in the first place. Even in Southeast Asia, radar was not the only - or even the best - tool in the USAF’s box to sniff out enemy aircraft.

The Rafale’s biggest advantage is that it’s not an F-35. One of the dangers of standardization is you also standardize the enemy’s ability to stop you. If a flaw is exploited in the F-35 fleet- or its crippled by a cyberattack- the Rafale will have to carry the load until the problem is solved.

No. The Shrike doesn’t easily fit DCS MP scenarios. IRL, the Shrike was employed as a suppression weapon to keep SA-2s from transmitting during the critical minutes a strike package(s) needed to hit a target. Weasels and Iron Hand flights planned positions of known SAMs and the strike times, so the Shrikes would be lofted at emitting radars right as the bombers started their runs. Whether the missiles hit or not wasn’t the point, although wasting a site’s control van was an appreciated outcome. That happened about 15% of the time based on the books I’ve read. So, if you’re flying in a multiplayer session & acting as a Weasel for your buddies strike, the Shrike will work well enough. But if you want to delete a SAM site solo , it ain’t the tool to use.

For a challenge, try to achieve a “Jester-positive” ILS landing. Managing on-speed AoA and glide slope alignment gets interesting!

“….(silence)…..”

AIM-9J was employed starting July 1972, and was carried during Operation Linebacker II later that year. Given the scope of other things needed for an accurate SEA map- like an actual map, and a period accurate MiG-17 & MiG-21 - this is a nothingburger.

If those features are desired in an SEA setting, the AIM-9J would be appropriate then. Inclusion of the -E variant should not be prioritized over other, far more important development priorities for the F-4E.

As I understand, the AIM-9E was just an AIM-9B with a different seeker and wider field of view. So for Southeast Asia scenarios, one need only substitute the AIM-9B.

I imagine they’ll post the revised sound files once the bugs are sorted. Hopefully, they’ll also add showing the J-79 engine sound fading when the plane goes beyond Mach 1 and fading back into the background when the jet slows down (as demonstrated when this F-104 decelerated from Mach).

In addition to Zabuzard’s post, I recommend doing some personal scholarship on the AIM-7. The AIM-7 is a rocket powered mini-aircraft designed in the 1950s , and must be treated as such to be launched effectively. Unlike modern missiles which tell you their kill parameters on the HUD and other computer systems, the pilot and WSO must mentally understand the Sparrows hit capability , dynamically apply that in the air, and know when to shoot and not shoot. First, nose/tail settings must be applied so the missile knows it’s engaging a tail-chase vs a head on target. You can still get a hit if you don’t do this, but it’ll be much lower probability. Next, relative size of the target must be considered. If you’re engaging a TU-95 or B-52, you can launch further away than engaging a MiG-21 or MiG-15. The smaller the target, the lower your realistic engagement range and thus the lower probability of a successful Sparrow kill. Consider the time to launch as well. Five miles goes by QUICK at combat speeds. You may not have enough time to set the borseight mode, lock the target , wait four seconds to ensure the missile guidance data is downloaded and the antenna cued, then wait another 1.5 seconds from trigger pull to missile clearance and launch. Note the AIM-7 has to roll when launched from the F-4E before it can maneuver, so it won’t behave like an AIM-120 that maneuvers nearly off the rail. When using the Sparrow, I mentally budget six seconds for the launch cycle. If it looks like I can’t complete a firing cycle within that time, I pinky switch to a different weapon.

In line with the change log entry about the engine sounds being reverted- I noticed in the above video that as the F-104 slows to subsonic (approximately 30 seconds in), the J-79 howl/engine noise fades back into the cockpit. Which makes sense, seeing as the engine’s behind the pilot and thus you’d be outrunning the engine’s noise. Given the F-4Es similar engine placement- as in far behind the pilot/WSO/RIO seats - shouldn’t the J-79 engine sound fade down above the Mach also for the Phantom II? Figured since the sounds were being reviewed anyway I’d point this out. OFC, if the SMEs say it never did this in real life please disregard.

AI bias or not, it is worth pointing out that the MiG-21 in game is very different from the ones the U.S. faced in Southeast Asia. US forces initially faced the MiG-17 and MiG-21F-13, neither of which could fight the F-4 Phantom II in the vertical unless the Soviet fighters engaged with an energy advantage. Thus, the tactical advice to engage using “the egg” & leveraging the F-4s climb performance advantage. Unlike those earlier MiGs, the BiS in game has the T/W to compete with the F-4E in the vertical(as does the MiG-19).

Truth is , the tanker implementation in DCS (boom or probe/drogue) needs an overhaul irrespective of the F-4E & Jester’s vocabulary. Of course the fella’s behind the aircraft - can’t help it when the KC-135s dancing like John Travolta after connection.