Temetre

Not just that, while I might not fully understand the system, I just found it utterly useless in more busy situations. Like a Liberation mission where theres dozens of radar emitters your RWR is picking up at every time. At that point the SPO-10 is just a mess. If the F4 has even basic functions to seperately show signals and vague directions, that would be a major help.

Good point, its a good addendum that early F14/F15 also had their troubles, while were talking about a highly polished F4 variant. You almost never see the early F-tens in games, let alone hear about them. Even DCS usually goes for later workhorse variants. For that reason Im very curious about the early F14 variants coming, IIRC the early A-GR and iranian Tomcat is still WIP. Gonna be cool to fly among the F-4Es I imagine Of course, everything is a compromise. Im also palying a lot of DCS liberation when trying to get a handle on aircraft. Aight, shame if the Mirage F-1 is just a bit less agile. Certainly wont ruin the module, but might make it a bit more limited in its roles I feel. But thats why the F-4 has priority to me, thatll likely be a plane you can spend a long time on.

Idk, gotta disagree on that one: 1. DCS is a game, so obviously it diverges from reality. Youre not actually flying a real plane in a war, its nothing like the real thing, no matter how amazing of a simulation DCS is. Always important to remember. 2. DCS isnt a vietnam war simulator, it doesnt even got a map for Vietnam. So its illogical to ask for it to strictly replicate Vietnam war aspects. 3. Even if above wasnt true, the problem with the effect of bad maintenance is that its extremely difficult to tell. How would you even know much of the 11% KP rate came from maintenance flaws, tactical situations or pilot error? Any random failure chance would be a guess on the side of ED, and clearly not realistic to the level that you seem to demand. Please dont get me wrong, I kinda get what youre asking for, and Im not trying to tell you that youre wrong for that or so. Its just that its insanely difficult, or maybe impossible to even do in a way thats realistic to that level. These are the things you can spend weeks or months on game/tech design, and in the end come to the conclusion that you cant replicate details like that. And even, in the unlikely case that you managed to do an amazing level of fault-simulation, what you did will likely only work for one specific time, place and strategical environment. Take it to any other place and its unrealistic again. Idk if the USAF even has enough data to give out to make a simulation thats truly realistic to Vietnam standards. And if they had, its probably classified, considering the Aim-7 is still in limited use and they generally dont publicise all data.

Yeh ive found it now, apparently the pylons could just be upgraded to take sidewinders. Its probably not a big deal, but I just like the ability to defend myself. Just a minor threat to make enemies think twice.

Vietnam also was a lot of hit and run attacks, wasnt it? Probably ment a lot of missiles shot from less than optimal positions.

Yeah, I guess the missile can just subtracts its rotation from the sensor movement and whats left is the enemy relative movement. Thats probably enough. That said, i just remembered we were talking about the Aim-9 at the beginning. Im sure that one has some crazy programmable control logic, better sensor etc.

Though Id imagine both dry thrust and afterburner time should be much better in the Phantom than in the Mig-21? Feels like from the numbers it should be closer to the F-16, if a bit less.

Yeh. Maybe what im imagening is overly complicateed, but who knows what kind of classified capabilities the Aim-120 has, especially in more modern fighters. With the two-way datalink it might even be more actively controlled by other aircraft. If you ever looked into wire-guided torpedoes, they are pretty crazy. Those torps are more like mini-submarines with a warhead, even acting like probes to give information to the 'mothership'. Ofc Aim-120s are much more limited in range and maneuvering, but it shows how far you can take active weapons. I somehow thought the DCS' F-18 could do that as well. But I might misremember that^^

Yeah the reliability aspect is always very difficult to handle. Eg the 11% of the Aim-7, thres always so many questoins: which variant was it, how did the situation happen, how was the training, etc. Even before you reach maintenance concerns, it seems very difficult to judge weapons effectiveness. Kinda gotta think of the Aim-4, where I heard wildly contradicting stuff. Apparently the F4 had abysmal results with it, but reading into it, that was partially because the Phantom was missing the necessary avionics to fully use it. Probably also lack of training, and it being used against things that arent slow big bombers. Or how everyone said the Aim-54 Phoenix was bad, but then you read about Iran (which tbf is hard to get good data on), and it looks actually really effective, even if used by a less experienced air-force. I certainly dont envy the devs for having to make heavy decisions like this, though ED/3rd parties seem usually pretty good at balancing things. On then the maintenance aspect... tbh, Im a casual that would prefer if ED at lest assumes good maintenance standards. Playing limited time and training would be frustrating with failures beyond flaws of normal operation. It also seems inapprioriate to assume eg overstretched Vietnam logistics, when you might fly a bunch of well maintained fresh Israeli F4s in your setting. I dont want to dismiss the idea though, but If we want a failure/low maintenance system, it would be much better to spin it off into an optional system. Could even be interesting to consider emergency plans and actually look into failure-checklists. Or make decisions eg between high tech and less reliable strike weapons, or more reliable dumb bombs. Or what I would be curious about, a scenario where BVR is available, but the reliability of BVR is questionable due to maintenance, paralleling IRL scenarios where dogfighting made a surprising comback. That could create so much interesting strategy, risk-assessment and decisions making, which probably was a big thing in IRL conflicts. But its of course also a very big thing to ask for, a feature like this would be extremely difficult to implement over so many planes and developers. I dont think we can even set a server/mission date limit for loadouts currently? (but now im just rambling on i feel xD ) Yeh im really looking forward to that stuff. Learning planes in DCS is like a history lesson to me. The two F4-E variants are probably going to be a great show of an early cold war plane, and how upgrades in 70s and 80s changed it, with some of the primitive predecessors to the "magical" tech Ive got in my F-16/18. Or the ability to limit myself to lower tech weapon systems for an earlier cold war experience. Same reason im gonna get the Mirage F1 at some point. Spans a big timespan from early CE to the M variant with MFD.

Wasnt the "surprising" agility mostly compared to other interceptor aircraft like pre-slats F-4 phantoms? The Mig-21 was quite agile for an early cold war interceptor design, and that seems to be mirrored in the DCS Mig-21. Turns better than a Mirage-F1 in DCS (if that didnt change), or the later Mig-23. Its still not a dogfighter and cant turn like an F-5, which IIRC soviets even commented on as an aircraft that would be very difficult to fight for them. Tbh, maybe im just too casual, but when I recently tried the Mig-21, I didnt see a dealbreaker. Sure, the gunsight is too powerful, the radar is too reliable, maybe some systems arent exactly like they should. The RWR seemed fine, but its hard to tell, since its not very useful anyway. In general though the Mig-21 delivered a great flying experience, it had a lot of interesting if primitive systems built in, and is one of the things that made me excited for more early to mid cold war planes like the F-4E.

@QuiGon Yeh, it really sounds like the plane is ahead of the time, even in a 1970 variant. But im sure there some "buts" ive missed. Its always more complicated than that with fighter planes, there are no easy answers. @addman Im so looking forward to flying Phantomes against Mig 15/19/21/23. Probably all enemies requiring different tactics, which should be interesting with the powerful yet jank cold war gear of an F-4! @Biggus Thx, thats a good point of perspective. I know its really hard to put an aircraft like this into its context. Im definitely noticing that a lot of the advanced upgrades are more a mid 70s to 80s thing, when stuff like the F-Tens and later Mig29/Su27 arrive. I knew about some stuff, but specifically the Slat-upgrade only arriving in 1972 is news to me. I thought that was equipped from the get go with the F-4E in 65 or so, but its actually just two years before the F-14 hits. And the Mig-23 radar, despite limitations, being more powerful and easier to use is interesting as well. Doubly so together with the missile being better than same era Aim-7s. I imagine the earlier Aim-7 was quite good against Mig-21s before that tbf. I wonder about the bombing computer; in the A4-Skyhawk mod, the LABS computer was pretty amazing in how easy to use and accurate it was, especially with MK-20s. But IRL pilots probably got a lot more training with bomb tables and stuff. @WinterH Also thanks for the big writeup! Yup, theres always more to planes, they are always big compromises. So I assumed Im just ignorant towards the flaws. Sometimes asking naive questions helps getting good answers^^ Interesting to hear that a Mig-21 is easier to fly, even if its maybe limited in other ways. The Mig-21 was so fun to fly in quick interception followed by short early heatseeker dogfights, so that it made me really excited for other CW planes like the F-4. But its also why the Mirage F-1 seemed a bit less appealing to me, with the worse turning; but Id happy to hear if thats just an artifact of the early flight model. Wanna try that plane sometime in the future after the F-4, it looks pretty high quality and the different variants are really cool. The BVR stuff is interesting. I wasnt aware the Mirage F-1 and Mig-23 actually got better missiles and radars for the time period (tho Super-530 is a bit later). So here we got a clear downside. Its also clearer to me now that the F-4E gets slats and higher end equipment later than I thought. But hey, that means just more reason to consider how to limit myself and the enemies.

Tho Id note its pretty normal to shoot an Aim-120 without the missile having a lock yet, so "off seeker/boresight capabilities" are probably core to the missile anyway. Thats why it sounds believebal to me if you could cue more modern Aim-120s with the JHMCS. Maybe just a shot to the right or back over the shoulder to disrupt pursuers? Tbf it probably needs some really smart datalink and navigation to make stuff like that possible, but the Aim-120 already has some amazing capabilities. Like, arcade video game rockets are often dumber than IRL Aim-120s, because that would be too overpowered. Btw since the original topic is answered for now, can you shoot Aim-120s at pure datalink targets and maybe even mark/navpoints? I remember something like that, but never really looked into it.

Random question, as someone thats excited in the F4 for some cold war liberation campaigns, but doesnt know much about the aircraft: Whats the F-4Es weakness, compared to contemporaries, ignoring F14/15? To elaborate: Just reading up about the thing sounds like its some fantasy-plane. Its an interceptor that can fly very fast, got good range, great AA and AG loadouts, the slat-variant can even outturn a lot of interceptors of the day. Biggest issue seems to be "its a bit difficult to fly/control", which is alleviated by being a two seater. Thats not even talking about Avionics and weapons, with solid BVR weapons, early LGBs, Mavericks and various computers. So is the IRL F-4E just completely "overpowered", for a gamey term, to most other aircraft of the day until the F-Tens drop? Or is there some nuance im missing?

... nvm may bad xD

I think this is more of a language issue. When players say "this feature is broken", they usually mean "it feels broken". The feature might not be broken and work just like its programmed to do, but creates an experience so poor for some player they couldnt even tell if its broken or not. Or that it breaks aspects of their gameplay experience, rather than anything technical. Players cant now the technical base or how its supposed to work, but they can get give pretty good impression of how a system "feels". And the label system is soemtimes needed, but feels rather rough a lot of the time. Considering how big of a response this topic always creates, its clearly a big issue to the playerbase, that they would even prefer a simple bandaid to the current system. To then say this needs to be checked for integrity... sure, you got a reason for saying that, since it could be modified for cheating, and unsatisfactory dev priorities arent your fault, but clearly that will feel tone-deaf and frustrating to players who dislike the current spotting system. 100% agreed on that one, thats another major issue. In VR you get a much better impression of where the enemy aircraft is moving in relation to your aircraft. Also way easier to understand the orientation of everything; I could do things intuitively on my first flight in VR, which I needed to train for a long time with flat screens. And thats with VR suffering from bad resolution (because ultra-high FoV).

I could imagine that they use some INS logic to keep flying at the target, be it just for the chance to reacquire the sensor or hit in the vague area. But mind that INS is inaccurate, and the missile doesnt actually know the exact location of the enemy transmitter. Shrikes and even HARMs use passive radar sensors, which are extremely inaccurate and cant tell range; kinda like really bad heatseeking missiles. I think the HTS pod of the F-16 is probably a good example for a passive radar sensor. Even with triangulation, a "great" solution is if you got 1x1 mile accuracy. And PB is not for shooting at the exact location of the enemy radar, but at the vague position inside of which it will seek for the radar. If you got the exact position, thats when you drop stuff like JSOWs at it.

Thats a good question, im not exactly sure myself. But I guess the missile would know that just by seeing how the enemy target moves relative to the missile sensor. Like, if the sensor sees the target move left, then it knows it has to lead the target towards the left. But it would be tricky to see the difference between just having to make an adjustment to keep the correct angle, and the enemy aircraft turning. Will likely cause a delayed reactoin to enemy turns.

Were there Sidewinders without proportional navigation? Feels like it would be incredibly difficult to hit anything without it. Even bombers. Maybe I should just try the oldest sidewinder I can find in DCS, must be easy to see. Heat seakers just "see" the radiated heat from targets, its like vision. So no range, and they cant make assumptions about range or speed. They only know the angle of the enemy to the missile, and his vague flight direction. What they can do is proportional navigation. In the most basic form it can mean "always aim 5 degrees ahead of the point (heat source) youre aiming at". The magic happens how these static degrees scale with range. On long range, the missile will fly almost straight at the enemy, but the closer it comes, the more it will aim ahead of the enemy. Just by keeping the angle to the target the same, the missile flies a highly effective interception maneuver. And then you just need a fuse for when the missile passes the enemy. Its kinda crazy how simple yet effective this works. edit: Also this just lead me to the revelation that semi active missiles probably dont know distance to enemy targets either (except programming at launch). I wonder if they put laser range finders into missiles, that could help?

Idk, ive heard a lot of people be disappointed with the detail and progress on the map. Apparently its still got poor performance and very low detail if you go below 15k feet? It obviously got the potential to be an amazing map, and Id love to see it reach a good state, but what Ive heard doesnt make me optimistic currently.

Idk about night, but flying at day and getting sniped by BMPs flying at 2000 feet and mach 0.8 makes it hard to see where exactly the AI inaccuracy is. Always. Its also a massive problem at day. Hence why in DCS, the BMP is primary soviet CIWS systems. US should get some of them and put them on their carriers.

I think the older S-24 missiles in the Mig-21 even got some splash damage implemented. That alone is a big part of what makes the mig fun with bombing. A primitive system that works is better than something not working because someone is trying to make a great system. Even a placeholder would be nice.

The map is apparently very unfinished? This was a progress map from 10 months ago:

What seems peculiar is that I would expect that summer would have tanks sticking out a lot, considering how much they heat up in sunlight. And speaking about light: One factor that also seems to hurt FLIR-performance a lot is the lack of shadows, idk if its just a graphics setting thing. Ive read that in Desert Storm, enemy tanks where often discovered by their shadow in satellite pictures. Honestly, Im just trying to make sense of IR-footage currently. In IRL footage, thermal images seems as clear or more clear than TV footage (regardless of resolution). In DCS, its the opposite, IR images are way more washed out than TV, and everything that isnt seperated by temperature difference is harder to see. Like, in real life IR has less contrast, but the contrast existing is way more pronounced and seperated. DCS also has stuff like ground textures adding a lot of visual noise in IR, which I dont think is as visible in in real life.

Dang, I was just preparing to figure out how to make a track and do the report. But thats actually way better than what I wouldve delivered!

Yup, looks like the Wikipedia specificatoins are a bit off. Apparently theres even 1983 references about shoulder-attachments to the pylons for sidewinders. I can definitely see allure of an F-111 now.