PiedDroit

The way I think I'll use them is from medium altitude, just like you would do with an A-10C. The different is the Mirage is much faster, allowing to engage a target with a longer reach than with an A-10C (go fast, drop and turn away). So it will be useful to engage *some* targets the A-10C can't reach, but not all... Again this is not a do-it-all wonder-SEAD aircraft.

Rockets are not a precision weapon, it's more an area weapon relying on number and fragmentation effect to create damage. It makes sense not to harmonize them, this way you can launch them form any distance. With harmonization, range would be limited to 2x the convergence distance, pretty useless with rockets. (I can't think of a single example of harmonized rockets in history)

That makes sense :thumbup:

Did you try that recently? Track replay corrupted very easily. The longer the track, the worse. I had issues even with 1 minute track, so I let you imagine the probability of getting a good replay on an hours long track ;) On a side note, I don't know if this will change any soon. Storing absolute values instead of deltas have some major drawbacks: bandwidth and cheating...

That's strange, I never noticed it with other aircraft, however I only flew MiG-21 and M-2000 in 1.5...

A primitive radar would do that yes, but a more modern one would probably use different frequencies (one for each ship) to allow a flight to do multiple shots on distinct targets.

Yep, in network.cfg

I'm quite sure everyone noticed it already, I'm leaving this here for the record as I didn't see a bug report for it.

Nice story :thumbup: makes me want to retry MP.

Little extract from the manual, it seems that we're able (at least for the Air-Ground mode) to select or the quantity limiter for cannon and rockets: Tir limité (limited) ou Tir continu (continuous). TOT = Total, PAR = Partiel. Edit: It appears that this button also controls the number of 530D's to shoot, 2 or 1.

What I posted is a selection of the best stuff, you don't see all the bloopers :D (but this is also by trial and error that we progress). There was another topic opened about snake and piper specifically, here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=158366 I continued posting there because gunnery is only a small part of tactics, so better not posting too much of it here. I guess it's worse than it should due to video resizing.

The most difficult part is to be able to it (1) quickly, not lose time on tracking and (2) not wasting ammo. (1) because the AI will not maneuver too much (which is good for basic training), but a human will try to shake you off.

I made another track, this one is much shorter than the other I posted so it should be easier to replay (you also don't need to restart DCS to replay, it will lock even if the mode is boresight). I also captured it on video (first time ever I do that, it's pretty neat), I'll see if it's not too hard to upload it on youtube (later). It demonstrates a burst against a Su-27 that is moving slightly out of plane, a long distance shot. Here are a couple of screenshots ("shooting starts", "almost there" and "Ka-boom"): It's definitely not easy, especially with a target that tries to evade you, the best way to master it is to create a simple mission, start in the 6 of your target, and try shoot it down, rinse and repeat (I think I tried like 6 times before getting a decent shot on first turn to make this track). What is quite difficult to see on screenshots is that the piper must meet the target at the right time (along with the bullets), that's one thing, but the snake also is moving, like a downward motion, which makes your piper shake, too, that's why it's better to have a steady trajectory at the moment of the shooting, to make things a little bit easier ;) M-2000C gun Su-27.trk

Very good points! I agree to all of them :thumbup: I find it more difficult to use than the F-15's or Su-27's but once you understand the differences, it is quite useable and accurate too. Check my post here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2638463&postcount=42 I'll try make a video since tracks are not working well.

Please guys, use PMs or Chit-Chat forum for this.

reading all the reports I am under the impression that the radar is working only using Doppler difference. It's expected to lose a lock for a target beaming, close to the ground. But a radar is also a distance-measuring device, when a contact is far from ground (and not in bad weather), it is not into the clutter, even if it is beaming (making its doppler return 0, relatively to the ground), it's still a shiny, lonely flash of reflected energy, so the radar shouldn't lose it except if it becomes very close to the ground, still beaming. I don't know if it makes sense or if I'm completely wrong (I never worked on radars, I worked on sonars and even the most basic one is able to do that).

I never had this problem so far, I suggest you post a track if you're able to reproduce consistently, it will make this easier. Track don't work all the time but they usually are fine if there is no AI, weapon employment of hard maneuvering involved, so that should be fine for an ILS approach. Also a screenshot showing the runway disappearing, with a good view on the instrument panel would be a plus.

Yep, probably if you could have several simulatenous Sabre sights set at different distances it will look like a snake. Yes, I'm trying to "walk" the piper on the target at a fixed rate to be able to estimate the moment of firing. However the purpose of firing early isn't to walk the target into a stream of bullets, the purpose is to time the shots so the piper ends up on the target at the time the bullet have traveled the distance. If I'm unsure of the time of flight, which can be difficult to estimate at long range or if the target is traversing at high rate, I might fire a little earlier with a little longer burst, which actually would end up in walking the target into a stream of bullets (but this is not the initial intent). I find this method easier than trying to do a pure tracking shot (no apparent target motion), because I can fire almost immediately, rather than wait to be stabilized. Also this tracking shot opportunity may never appear because if the target is maneuvering or changing speed, you'll have to constantly adjust, not getting that tracking position. Or worse, if you think you are tracking (piper on target, no apparent motion) and the target maneuvers - which is more likely if it was stable for a while - your shot will miss and be wasted. This is why I suggested not to try firing with target exactly on the piper, because it requires more time to settle and is more likely to miss. Those "mini-snapshots" are far more effective IMO. P.S.: I put the track at half speed to take those pictures ;)

Sure no problem :thumbup:

Thanks! I had a lot of fun with those guns :joystick:, my first sims where WWII, this is where I feel most at home. I wish I was half as good with missiles :cry:.

The replay worked one out of three/four times actually (if the MiG-29 is hit two passes and RTB it means it's replaying OK)... Here are a couple of screenshots from the latest kill (against Su-27), the one that you're more likely to not see, first image is taken when shooting starts, second image after the shells hit. On first pass the target is above the piper and is sliding downwards as I'm pulling some Gs, so I fire early and the target is hit right after. On second pass, the Su-27 was not destroyed, it is now below the piper and I'm letting it slide upwards, I fire a bit before he crossed the shell path, on left wing. The point I want to make is that you shouldn't try to use the sight as you would for an F-15 or Su-27 sight, because those are also taking the target motion into account where this one is not. If you try to keep your target inside the piper while firing you'll have a lot of miss. Instead, use the snake and the piper to predict where your shells will be and try to make them meet your target.

Actually, the snake represent the history of your gunshot if you were shooting continuously it takes maneuvering in account. When you have radar lock the piper will represent where the rounds would have been after travelling the same distance that separate you from your target. To use it accurately you must be in stable flight, however it is not necessary to put the piper exactly on the target. What you need to do is to make sure the target meets the piper after you shoot. What I usually do is place my piper in a position I anticipate the target will be on, and I time my shot so the target passes on the piper just when the bullets arrive there. I have attached a track, replay worked for me, I hope it will for you, don't use time acceleration and make sure to run the track from a fresh run of DCS (to avoid radar bugs) (typo in the track name, just noticed :D). M-2000C dogflight.trk

edit, quick note: TAS/RS selects the method of ranging for A-G gun and rockets, TAS is with radar, RS with radio altimeter Also, CCLT mean Calcul Continu de la Ligne de Traceur, which is Continuously Computed Tracer Line, which is, I think, the A-A gun snake. I think there's an error in the tooltip (that says Gun AG reticle selector), this is most likely for A-A. In the real M-2000C manual all CCLT references are under Air-Air use.

Nope, is the other way around. TAS and RS are specifically for AG. I don't know what is the effect of PRED - PREDefined (not "predicted"), probably a reticle at a fixed distance.

It also says, with a slighly different punctuation: Which explains why I think the engine has same size (although this quote can have several different readings, I just took the most obvious to me). Anyway I'm just curious here, it doesn't matter much to me, so I'll leave this in the blurry "no enough information" zone :D