Beldin

Not sure why the link is not working. I didn't mean to imply you were incorrect, the link just had a nice list of what ships got exactly what updates. This link seems to be the same info and should work https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/usnshtp/cv/scb27cl.htm https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/usnshtp/cv/cv9cl.htm https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/usnshtp/cv/scb125cl.htm

Here's a good breakdown on the Essex class refits. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/usnshtp/cv/scb27cl.htm and http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/usnshtp/cv/scb125cl.htm

Not sure about that? The thing is freaking huge, lol. Increasing the size would almost certainly affect the number of F-8s the flight deck on CVA-31 can handle. I could not find any pictures of the French F-8 with missiles on wing pylons. The French Fox 1s were mounted on a pylon on the lower fuselage. 1 on each side. If you can provide a picture I can add them to the wings. I had done a version with them mounted on the lower sidewinder pylon but that's as close as I could get without changes to the model. Also I don't believe the USN F-8 ever carried sparrows. But while I've never seen that mentioned in any reference material or pictures I did recurrently see what appeared to be a F-8 with 2 sparrows mounted underneath the fuselage in a documentary about carriers. But unfortunately there are no connectors on the model in that location so it's not a quick thing to add.

Sadly it seems that you can't make a helicopter fly 10 feet above the water/ground . But I was a bit surprised how close I got to making it actually work. There is a LHD Essex mod out there with the well deck open. And I was able to "land" dock a LCAC in the well deck. Unfortunately it did this by lowering itself through the deck of the ship.. A real genius with the helicopter code might be able to pull it off. But it might be faster to just wait for ED to add it as a feature.

Crazy idea. I was thinking if you added "runway spot(s)" to well deck maybe we could code a LCAC as a helicopter..... A very low flying one and then launch and recover it. As crazy as it sounds I think the recovery thing might work, but the take off dynamics of the different helicopters make me think the launching thing could never work. Although the Apache (I think) tend to drift backward quite a bit during take off.....

You can embark troops from a ship now. The setup in ME is a little convoluted as they must be placed on land in ME but if you use the load at start option they will be in the helicopter on the ship's deck at mission start and will disembark..

In ME when planes are assigned to runway start you should see a number (I think it's called parking spot). DCS seems to treat all carriers like Nimitz as the take off assignment for runway starts is 1,3,2,4. based on the Nimitz's catapults. But on other carriers like Tarawa and Invincible (and mods) this causes problems. Plane "1" takes off fine but then plane "2" is stuck behind plane 3. The only carriers that don't have this issues are the ones that only have 2 "runway" spots . In that case DCS will default to 1 and 2. But that only works with 2 planes groups. I can't remember what happens if you assign a 4 plane group to a carrier with only 2 catapults/runway spots. I do have an updated runway lua for the stock Invincible with 12 spots total (4 runway/8parked) . I should be able to port that over to T-Pap's Illustrious. I hope to post updated runway luas for most of the mod and stock carriers by this weekend in a new thread so keep your eyes on the forum.

Updated runway lua for Hermes. Using both runway and spawn points she can launch up to 24 Harriers. Smaller groups of 4, 8, 12 and 20 should work as well. Known Issues. Only tested with AI units When using runway spots you must reset the aircraft's take off order. The default 1,3,2,4 does not work. Note you can reverse the take off order for runway start planes to make them "static" for pictures/videos A few minor unnatural taxi movements as the plane sometimes "slides" into final take off position. "Dangerous" aircraft spacing at times. There should be no collisions but at one point a plane rear ended another, lost it's nose cone, yet both planes still took off. I wish I saved that one. Take off order and starting point for some planes is a bit strange. I wanted to give each plane the rear most runway point for take off but DCS did not like that. What should be a simple change in starting position will sometime change the taxi order of other planes. If anyone knows why this is please PM me. Helicopter and landing/parking need to be rechecked. I had them working at one point but that was a few updates ago. NOTE, I have no idea where I left off with on the landing/parking side of things. But there should be spots for a few aircraft. I do recall Joey had the elevator working but I don't think I did much with the landing because I was in a state shock and amazement at Joey's skill in getting the elevator and lower deck parking to work I will continue to refine this and post any progress. Updated runway luas will soon be available for most carriers , I think. Focusing on the Cold War era for use with the new Kola map at the moment. Please PM me with any issues CentaurClass_1981RunwaysAndRoutes.lua

Looks good. Hopefully DCS will add ASW and AEW to helicopters soon.

Ok here are the new liveries for the Bowen Mod. This update is for the version current posted on page 1 of the thread. It includes liveries for USS Knox, USS Roark and USS Trippe and a updated lua file. The only change to the lua file is I added the line "mount_vfs_liveries_path (current_mod_path .. "/Liveries")" to load the liveries. For install back up your USS Bowen FF-1079.lua file then copy the livery folder to your mod folder and overwrite the old ship lua with the new ship lua file. PM me is you have any issues. If you would like to help test my "Knox Class" update for the Bowen mod please PM. The update includes radar and weapons updates, the "F" icon for the F10 map and includes 4-6 ships. The 4 1975-94 fit Knox Class frigates and the optional "DE" designation for the Knox and the Roark before they were reclassified in 1975. I picked these 3 ship because of their early commission dates and long service lives. This allows historically possible missions from the late Vietnam War era up through the mid 1990s. Note: These are some of the few liveries I've tried to make as I learn the process and are not meant to be AAA, but I hope you find them useful until the Admiral is done with rework of the Bowen. Also I will do a USS Pharris after the new version is done . I can't believe I forgot about that ship. "Red Storm Rising" is one of my favorite books https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArIUQEKgEWp8gfdplW7Pq_F1--GkLg?e=0cI60i

I'll post the liveries for the "old" Bowen tonight. I still need to remove the name "Kidd" from the stern of the other ships. Since the Admiral is reworking the texture for the Bowen I'm not going to add the ship's name to the new liveries, so it will only be the Hull number for now until the rework is finished.

It might be possible with a custom weapon. But I think the reload time is part of the weapon lua and since it's the stock ED Harpoon I didn't want to mess with that file. I do want to look into a bit more through because a 10-15 min pause between anti-ship volleys could make for interesting mission stuff but I guess you could use triggers for that kind of thing

That depends if I have to change 1 number or 2 on the hull . But yes that'd be a good one to have

Weapons update and new liveries in testing now for the USS Bowen Here's USS Knox and USS Trippe launching Harpoons from modified ASROC launcher. This update apparently happened during the 1980s and could hold 2 Harpoons and 2 reloads. Since reloads can't be done at sea in DCS I went ahead and added all 4 Harpoons

Weapons update and new liveries in testing now for the USS Sacramento

No problem. I'll send you a link for the USS Sacramento update. It seems to be working well but..... I disable a line of code that should have disabled the SAM launcher but .... It still works, so I'm not sure why it works which is a little concerning . I also have some liveries for the Bowen that the Admiral said are ok to share. I'll send it later tonight or tomorrow.

Doh, I meant RIM-7H, Thanks

Sure that's great because I just finished doing a custom radar and SAM for the USS Sacramento. I replaced the original mods Rim-116a SAMs with the NATO 1973 version of the sea sparrow (RIM-162H) that the ship used.

No problem. I can see how the three spots could be confusing because of the way some helicopters work. So two spots might be best even through technically the ship could operate 3. I think she normally only carried 1 or 2. But I had trouble finding a picture with even one one the deck. One thing I was not able to sort out with the Albion was the V-22. It will take off and land from LHA-6 ok but on the L-14 it lands fine but falls through the deck at the start of take off. Might be how the ship is classified maybe? Because if the collision works for helos and landing the V-22, I don't see why it's not working for the V-22. But I want to take another look at the 2 ship luas and see if there's something I'm missing that might cause that Yeah that might be my bad, lol. I'd done some runway stuff for Joey's ships but I have no idea what he has included or what's made it into the wild. But PM me later as I'm currently looking at all the runway scripts I've done for the mod carriers

Yes the helicopters do land painfully slow but not "20 mins" slow. Hopefully the updated landing points will work for. I think the "landing on the wrong side thing" was from an older version that had 3 spawn points. And because helicopters can be strange about landing spots it's possible when using just one helo it could take off from spot 1 and then land in spot 3 on the other side of the deck.

Note sure what version I had but when I was using this this mod for testing the landing gear spawn height was off. I only updated one of the two versions but I can check the other one and post the update later in case anyone else needs it.

Works perfectly here. I need to correct the landing spots if I can work out how to do it - it's landing on the wrong side of the flight deck. !! Give these spawn/landing points for Albion It was hard to find many pictures with helicopters on the deck. And while I initially matched one of the pictures I had to adjust the spacing for the larger helicopters because the the way they take off and land. I tested with the stock/ED CH-47 and one of the Merlin mods. Spawn/landing height looked good with the CH-47 but I had to adjust the gear height of the Merlin to make it spawn correctly. So there maybe issues depending on the mod(s) you try. Landing spot seems to depend on the mod as well. The CH-47s landed in the same spots they took off from but the Merlin's swapped take off and landing spots Back up your ship lua and then replace these lines of code GT.RunWays = { -- landing strip definition (first in table) -- VppStartPoint; azimuth (degree} Length_Vpp; Width_Vpp; {{-40.0, deck_level_f, -11.25}, 0.0, 5.0, 14.0, -- alsArgument, lowGlidePath, slightlyLowGlidePath, onLowerGlidePath, onUpperGlidePath, slightlyHighGlidePath, highGlidePath 0, 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 3.0, 3.2, 3.5 }, -- runways {{-40.0, deck_level_f, -11.25}, 0.0, 5.0, 14.0, 0, 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 3.0, 3.2, 3.5}, {{-74.75, deck_level_r, -11.25}, 0.0, 5.0, 14.0, 0, 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 3.0, 3.2, 3.5}, --{{-74.75, deck_level_r, 11.25}, 0.0, 5.0, 14.0, 0, 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 3.0, 3.2, 3.5}, }; GT.RunWays.RunwaysNumber = #GT.RunWays GT.TaxiRoutes = { -- taxi routes and parking spots -- {x, y, z}, direction } GT.TaxiRoutes.RoutesNumber = #GT.TaxiRoutes GT.HelicopterSpawnTerminal = { -- taxi routes and parking spots in LCS -- {x, y, z}, direction { TerminalIdx = 1, Points = { -- 1 spawn spot {{-42.5, deck_level_f, -7.00}, 0.0}, } }, { TerminalIdx = 2, Points = { -- 2 spawn spot {{-75.5, deck_level_r, -7.00}, 0.0}, } }, } GT.HelicopterSpawnTerminal.TerminalNumber = #GT.HelicopterSpawnTerminal

I can take a look at the landing spot(s) tonight when I get home

I was doing some testing with the US ships and their anti-ship missiles. One thing I noticed was while the Constellation will fire all 8 NSM at a target when setup to fire "ALL" in ME. But the CMP Tico and Burke FLIII seemed to only fire 1 missile when set the same way. I thought maybe this had something to do with the missiles launching from the VLS tubes but then I tested the harpoons on the older Tico it it fired only 1 missiles as well. Also the the anti-ship ship missiles on the Burke FL III only seemed to fire at a range that matched the red "threat circle" (350ish NM I think) and not at the 800+ miles listed as the range on the website. I only ran a few tests but curious if anyone else has seen the same thing?

For a bit of a laugh be sure to check out the ejection procedures when looking at the older flight manuals. While not really a "funny" topic the bluntness of the language in the F-14 manual made me laugh.