Kalasnkova74

In some parts of the world, “winter” doesn’t end -climate wise- until May.

Thats the point. Systemically it’s “simple” - but simple isn’t the same as easy. Taking off, landing, and flying Vipers/M2000/ Hornets /Fulcrums/Flankers is relatively simple thanks to computers. Not so straightforward with the F-4E where AoA and rudder use matter. It also plays a part when bombing: no more punching buttons into a MFD to laze a target. While the F-4E will have Maverick and Pave Spike, you’re also dealing with manual bomb delivery with tables and mil depression in the sight. Air to air visual fights will also require analogue knowledge alien to the “yank and bank” crowd accustomed to 9G sustained turns and 1/1 thrust. Do the DCS yank and bank with an F-4E and you’ll be strafe bait.(cue Growling Sidewinder vid declaring the F-4E hopeless in a dogfight….) Even shooting the Sparrow effectively changes, because you don’t have helpful cuing and range indicators in the HUD (a gunsight ranging circle ain’t the same thing). It’s all dials, gauges and lights. Older tech does not automatically equal easier.

It is not- for two reasons. First, in American service the F-4E was used from Day 1 in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses role. In “Palace Cobra” pilot Ed Rasimus wrote of his time flying the SEAD mission, back when Vietnam was two countries and The Bee Gees were a group of talented & anonymous British musicians. Back when the F-4G was only a document on a Pentagon planners desk, the F-4E would fly alongside F-105 Wild Weasels to drop CBU on whatever hostile sites the Bears called out. The USAF never funded enough dedicated Wild Weasel aircraft to cover its global force needs , and thus augmented the Wild Weasel units with F-4Es. The practice continued with the adoption of the F-4G to replace war-worn Thuds. This is one big reason why the standard USAF F-4E was wired for AGM-45 ; it was understood even at the planning stages that the F-4E would operate with the F-4G to prosecute the SEAD mission. Lacking the APR-38/47 suite the F-4E couldn't cut, track and locate signals. But it didn’t have to. The F-4G EWO would call out which way to turn and when to shoot, and the F-4E(s) would launch their Shrikes/ Mavericks/ etc as needed. When the F-4E was phased out of the active Air Force inventory for the F-16, the “helper” job transferred to the Viper - and is how it got the SEAD mission today. If that’s not enough Weasel credibility, consider the Israelis. In October 1973 onward, they used the F-4E as a SEAD platform. The AGM-78 Standard ARM was integrated & fired on their versions of the F-4E, and SEAD missions- executed not much differently from the trailer- was the type’s bread and butter during the Yom Kippur war. Many Kurnasses were lost in this job, including the disastrous “Model 5” strike against SA-6 batteries they couldn’t detect. Now, you’re technically correct that advanced signal processing , sorting, analysis and ARM handoff was only done one the F-4G variant with a dedicated EWO: but the F-4E was historically heavily used in the SEAD mission, and thus the trailer’s intent doesn’t remotely represent fraud. It’s splitting hairs to suggest a EWO-pilot pair represents a Wild Weasel SEAD mission, but the F-4Es flying with them - or Israeli Kurnasses working a SAM site - isn’t.

A noble sentiment, but the F-4 Phantom II did more than saber rattle in the Cold War. As thousands of paramilitary Laotians, Vietnamese, and Arab militaries discovered the hard way. Like it or not these airplanes did not deliver flowers, and killed many people in the air to air and air to ground mission regimes.

“In practice, not all combinations might be possible, as there are a lot of technical factors resulting in restrictions.” For example: AIM-9s cannot be mounted on the inboard wing pylons with certain bombs due to clearance issues.

I quote directly from Shlomo Aloni’s book, “Israeli F-4 Phantom II Aces” : ”Among Israeli fighters, the F-4 is ranked second only to the Dassault Mirage III and Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) Nesher family of deltas for the number of air to air kills it achieved. Yet it must be stressed that most of the operational sorties flown by IDF/AF delta fighters were pure air to air missions, while the versatile F-4 usually earned its living attacking ground targets, rather than chasing hostile fighters across the sky. Therefore, the achievement of IDF/AF Phantom II aircrews, officially credited with 116.5 aerial kills between September 1969 and June 1982, is all the more outstanding.” Aloni’s follow-on book “Ghosts of Atonement” also lists Kurnass sorties in the Yom Kippur war by aircraft number (where available) call sign, and mission type. Very few Kurnass missions in that war were air to air orders: the majority were SEAD , airfield or interdiction operations. The F-4E was the safest of all the IDF/AF inventory for these missions, being equipped with then-latest U.S. ECM and radar altimeters for low altitude ingress and egress. During these missions the Kurnass flights often encountered Arab coalition MiGs vectored to intercept (or flying CAP above the targets). Usually, the F-4’s won these one-on-one duels- thus the high MiG kills. A similar dynamic is why USAF F-105s shot down 27 MiGs in Southeast Asia despite flying only strike and SEAD missions. If there’s a source stating the F-4E was primarily an air to air asset for the IDF/AF, I’d be curious to see you share that info.

If you’re referring to the Yom Kippur war, Israeli Kurnass units mostly flew air to ground strike missions against Arab Coalition air bases , DEAD (the hard way) & regional interdiction targets. They shot down a lot of MiGs as a consequence of being routinely intercepted (and turning the tables) coming off target by MiG-17s and MiG-21s, but that wasn’t their primary role. At one juncture , the IDF brass threatened Kurnass pilots to bomb or face court martial because MiGs would intercept them on target run in. Naturally the Kurnass pilots jettisoned and went to fight….theyd get their kills, but their targets would live another day. To a limited extent Kurnass crews flew cargo escort for Operation Nickel Grass USAF transports & night combat air patrols due to their radar. For the most part, IAI Neshers & Mirages were the IDF/AFs primary air to air aircraft.

With thousands of F-4s flown by many nations, there’s no shortage of “legit” theaters. In addition to the forthcoming Iraq map (both Iran and Coalition/US), there’s Sinai (IDF/AF and Egypt in the 1980s, Syria (Turkish F-4s have flown sorties) , Persian Gulf (also Iran), and of course Nevada (Red Flag for U.S. and allied F-4 operators, plus Weapons School and so on).

Well done. Dont let the naysayers and deadline pushers get yall down. When you build it, we will come.

With DCS free of the nasty technical constraints of the Real World, the AIM-7 may prove useful in your units MiG-smashing

I’m alright with being an armchair general, but I’ll need an armchair lobbyist to go with the job. Just sayin, these DCS modules and PC upgrades ain’t cheap …

The F-4E project is a complex release involving a brand new module, new Jester AI, backfilled updates to HeatBlur’s existing modules, and addition of new weapons to the game. The honest release date is “when it’s done”. That won’t be two weeks. It may be two more years. Either way, I’m ready when they are.

Thing is, the F-4E is not simply the module. HB is delivering core logic and capability improvements to DCS that extend beyond this specific module- including overhauling Jester for the F-14. If any of that stuff isn’t up to snuff, HB has to step back and fix it. I suspect if it were “just” the F-4E we’d have it already, but the whole package - including general updates to other modules and packages - has to be dialed in before release. Given the expanded scope of the F-4E module vs your “typical” release, I don’t expect any release date given to be met. Thats not a knock against HB, i’m just recognizing that testing complex software upgrades = high probability of missed deadlines. When the F-4E is ready, it will come. That may be tomorrow…or next winter.

Rule #1 of establishing air superiority is to bomb the enemy’s air bases. If the bad guys can’t take off, you win by default. This lesson was disregarded in Rolling Thunder (and much later with Putin’s escalation of the Ukraine war in February 2022), forcing the U.S. to kill MiGs “the hard way” over Vietnam via aerial action. In Linebacker, the airfields were bombed consistently (as they should have been from day 1), and the North Vietnamese were forced to operate from hidden bases and across the Chinese border. The same dynamic happened in Desert Storm. With his IADS wrecked and airfields under constant Coalition bombardment, Saddam had no realistic hope of establishing air superiority and punted his Air Force to Iran accordingly. Folks look at the F-22 and F-15A/C as air superiority systems. But those are last resort options- the primary air superiority weapon of a well run air plan is the bombers & surface to surface missiles wrecking your opponents runways.

Hanoi managed just fine without air supremacy. But don’t take my word for it. Consider then-Colonel Robin Olds, who stated : ”you can’t shoot down enough MiGs to win wars”. For a more recent voice: “The Ukrainians have already shown in Kharkiv and Kherson, and previously the battle of Kyiv, you can win battles and indeed wars without air superiority,” said Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow and military aviation expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

To put some color on the topic, the F-16 was approved to solve two problems. Problem #1: the Warsaw Pact drastically outnumbered NATO air, and the US budget wouldn’t allow the F-15 to replace the USAF F-4E and A-7 1-for-1. Originally, the USAF Air Staff planned to just buy F-15s and park the LWF demonstrators at a museum once the trials concluded. Problem #2 : NATO needed a new, simple , multirole aircraft to replace the aging F-104 (which embodied many of the things the “reformers” wanted in a fighter aircraft). Selling Belgium, Norway , and other NATO countries the F-15 wasn’t financially viable. Plus McAir wasn’t going to approve license production of its most expensive and valuable design anyway. The F-16 neatly addressed these important concerns. The air to air mission didn’t come into the picture. Which is honestly as it should be. Thanks to Hollywood , the importance of the air to air mission is DRAMATICALLY overstated - because nobody’s paying $25 to watch Tom Cruise bomb a steel plant. “In March 1969, US Navy…Best Fighter Pilots…etc”. Well, put away the Kenny Loggins cassette. Because the statistical reality is that most Southeast Asian Navy (and USAF/Marine) pilots never saw a MiG. They’d rotate in, fly their line period, and leave. USAF pilots literally had better odds playing the lottery than meeting a VPAF MiG. Even during the Korean War - “No Guts no Glory” and all that - USAF Colonel “Boots” Blesse begged his CO to extend his tour so after 100 missions he wouldn’t rotate home with four MiG kills on his tally. He ended with 9 kills after 125 missions. Thats not even 10%, and he’s flying F-86s in an exclusively guns only air to air mission with no missiles, aircraft radar, or SAMs. With the use of dedicated air to air units & reliance on SAMs to defend airspace, the dynamic is even more lopsided. In Desert Storm the 58th TFS nailed 16 Iraqi jets with their F-15s. All well and good, but those kills happened across 1,500 sorties the 58th flew in the theatre. When a dedicated air to air unit might have a 2% chance of taking down a fighter jet on any one sortie, you start to understand why “people in the know” roll their eyes at all the ink, pixels and media devoted to airplane jiu-jitsu. A very small number of US pilots relative to the total engaged and shot down MiGs in Southeast Asia. ALL of them dropped bombs in some combat capacity. Make of that what you will. This background (and much more) is why the USAF Systems Command Configuration Committee - perhaps wisely - transitioned the YF-16 design into the air to ground focused F-16 we know and have today.

They were. But for quicker response times and better access to administration (7th AF based at South Vietnam coordinated overall air activity administration in the SEA theatre) USMC Marines were land-based.

Not trying to be snarky, but why not ? Air forces routinely use entirely different aircraft as “stand-ins” for other aircraft. Among other cases, the USN NAWDC flies F-16s as substitutes for anything from MiG-29s to Su-27s. Small potatoes by comparison to fly a later block F-14 as a substitute for an early Iranian iteration. Coming back to topic, I think the threads run its course and clearly proves that more core work on IADS logic & options is needed before an F-4G - or any other EW aircraft- makes sense in DCS.

Heres a video Link from players engaging a SAM site. It illustrates why this effort is a much bigger task than many realize. Would a competent SAM operator continue to transmit knowing there’s ARM- equipped aircraft in the vicinity? Nope! They’d shut down , and use alternative engagement techniques which don’t rely on radar. None of that real world tactical logic is modeled in game, and it would need to be for the EW framework to be complete.

…but, will there be a Naval F-4?

The key difference is the model. The clean F-16A - which is where most public domain energy charts show- can outturn basically everything. The F-16C is oriented to the air to ground role with reduced maneuverability relative to the -A model. Further, in USAF service the -C mode is not flown clean. Typically they’re carrying two tanks , a targeting pod and a centerline store or ECM pod. Im sure there are regimes where an F-4E could out-turn a missionized F-16C (pods, tanks etc) depending on fuel weight and so forth.

Another point of complexity are tactical choices by SAM operators. Example- Syrians in the Bekaa Valley anchored their sites and stuck to the manual. They paid the price for that. Serbians (and the Vietnamese) didn’t, and not only moved their sites relatively quickly (Colonel Zoltan Dani even drilled his missile company to pack up faster than the Russian manuals claimed) but used “Maverick-style” moves like getting non-electronic airborne target cues from spotters, launching their missiles first, timing the flight manually, then activating their acquisition radar where they expected the target to be. This tactic bagged future USAF Chief of Staff David Goldfien & two hits on F-117s during Allied Force. Thats just two case studies of people doing “unexpected” things with these weapons systems to thwart very competent EW assets. Modeling these RW capabilities would be difficult to impossible, plus a more realistic IADS implementation also would make the game a difficult experience for new and inexperienced players (much like real life, ironically).

Here’s a SAM simulator video from YT showing an S75 Dvina. Coding all the radars, SAM systems and sensors, connections and modes alone is a HUGE task. Hell, just coding the S75 throughly enough to be relevant would be equal effort as HB’s F-4E project. Even if we handwave the massive logistical task of building player-useable RedFor SAM modules, the other side of the equation has to be built also. IRL, making an F-4G meant taking apart an F-4E at Ogden logistics center and rebuilding it with the APR sensor suite. The meat puppets up front needed a dedicated transition course just to learn the basics of using the F-4G. All that means HB would have to start from scratch modeling the F-4G (flight model is different from the F-4E because of the APR-47’s avionics in the nose, reducing nose authority vs the standard F-4E) , and intellectually the same goes for the people paying money to participate. Think learning to fly the jet is hard? Try doing that effectively AND understanding the Electromagnetic Spectrum so in a turn with the RWR going off you know which threat to prioritize or ignore. It’s a lot more brainpower than pointing the radar at a blip & launching an AIM-120 in the bozosphere. Bottom line- making an F-4G (or any EW aircraft) needs a solid groundwork of full fidelity, player controllable SAMs+ long range radars AND common behavior logic in DCS so all the other modules experience the same realistic threats. It’s a lot of work, and I can easily see how this project just isn’t gonna pay the bills vs the cost.

That’s putting it mildly. Electronic Warfare Officer training was a dedicated months long course in the USAF, starting with memorizing every threat and tactical radar system sound signature. Quick, anyone here know off the top of their head what a “Teamwork” I-band tracking radar sounds like vs a “Low Blow”? Then came tactics, which is going to be the real obstacle to playing a hypothetical F-4G model well. What frequencies to focus on, when to manipulate them, which threat emitters to prioritize or ignore, and how to suppress them are all “inside baseball” tips that are A) still used today in some ways by multiple nations and B) probably classified. So a viable F-4G model at minimum would require a VERY involved AI EWO (not WSO!) and a total overhaul of RedFor threat systems to provide a realistic challenge. That task too will encounter classification obstacles (unless Russia /China decides to Ok release of double digit SAM data). I’ve little doubt there’s people out there like Mike “Starbaby” Pietrucha who’d love playing an EWO in a realistic F-4G (to say nothing of an ECR Tornado/ F-16 CJ/ E/A-18) , but that’s a very niche market and would be capital intensive to create.

The grim truth is there just isn’t enough money and time to develop every F-4 variant. You’ve got the Navy B, the USAF/Spanish Air Force C, USAF/Iranian/South Korean D, Navy -N, Navy -J, Navy -S, UK variants….honestly it would be a major resource commitment just making all the -E model subvariants like the Kurnass , Luftwaffe & JASDF /TuAF/Hellenic models. DCS would have to be redesigned with a red air human IADS component for the USAF -G version to make sense. Each subvariant has fans, but HB doesn’t have an infinite development budget. Fortunately, VSN has the beginnings of a great F-4B/F-4C mod. It’s got its flaws, but over time if they polish it to the level of the A-4C mod it’ll scratch the early version itch for most folks. Cant beat the price either.