Warthogger

You can always task a couple (or more) of F16 CJs with the mission editor, loading them out with up to 4x HARM each. Have your CJ flight hit the target area before your A-10 flight ingresses to clear out the active SAMs. I made a SA-11 battery (Snow Drift Radar, two missile launcher vehicles, one command vehicle) guarding a tank company and had a flight of two CJs tasked to take out the SA-11. The SA-11 site took out both F-16s, but not before one of the Falcons got off a HARM and took out a SAM launcher. The SA-11 site fired all 8 of their missiles at the F-16 flight, so by the time my A-10s arrived on scene they (and the tank company) were basically defenseless. Four CBU-97s and 1150 rounds of 30mm later everything on the ground was dead or dying, hehe. The moral of the story is to sacrifice AI so that you may live. :megalol:

Cross referencing official USAF documents, there are no reported A-10 losses during the 1999 Balkans war. The only official USAF fixed wing losses during that time period (according to USAF) were a F-117 and a F-16 CJ, both attributed to SA-3 SAM attacks. The USAF documents may not account for aircraft losses that successfully RTB'd but were taken out of active service afterwards due to battle damage. (Source: USAF article, reference Table I): http://www.afhra.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070912-043.pdf

Interesting real world statistics - a total of seven A-10s have been shot down in combat or lost as a result of combat inflicted damage: Operation Desert Storm ------------------------------- OA-10A 76-0543 Shot down by Infra Red SAM (SA-9) 19 Feb 1991 62 nm North West of Kuwait city. 23rd TASS/602nd TACW (NF). The 23 US combat lost aircraft. Pilot Lt Col Jeffery Fox (40 from Fall River, Mass) call sign "NAIL53" was injured as he ejected and captured as POW and released 03/05/91. OA-10A 77-0197 Crashed on landing. 23rd TASS/602nd TACW. Aircraft had been hit by small arms and was attempting a landing at KKMC FOL while in Manual Reversion after loosing all its hydraulics and in extreme weather conditions. On landing the aircraft cat wheeled wingtip over wingtip flipped over on to its back killing the pilot Lt Patrick Olson. There was nothing left of the aircraft. The remains of the aircraft were buried at the FOL. A-10A 78-0722 Shot down in combat 15 Feb 1991. 353rd TFS/354th TFW hit by ground fire 60 miles north west of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. Thought to have been engaged by SA-13 'Gopher' SAM. Pilot Lt James Sweet ejected and made Prisoner of War. A-10A 79-0130 Shot down in combat 15 Feb 1991. 353th TFS/354th TFW hit by ground fire approx 60 miles north west of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. Thought to have been engaged by SA-13 'Gopher' SAM. Pilot Capt Steven Phyllis killed in action. Capt. Steve Phyllis died while protecting his downed wingman, 1st Lt. Robert James Sweet. A-10A 79-0181 Crashed on landing, wheels up, hard stick landing by pilot Capt Rich Biley on 22 Feb 1991. A-10A 80-0248 Shot down in combat by 'optical AAA' fire 2 Feb 1991 shot down by ground fire or SAM 20 NM SW of Kuwait City, Kuwait. Pilot Capt Richard Dale Storr ejected and captured as POW Released 03/05/91. From 23rd TFW. Operation Iraqi Freedom ------------------------------- A-10A (Serial Number : 78-0691) of 124th Wing/190th FS shot down by enemy fire, probably by an Iraqi Roland SAM; pilot survived and was recovered by friendly forces. (Source: Wikipedia article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_combat_losses_of_United_States_military_aircraft_since_the_Vietnam_War

The CBU's and TGP - only good things about 1.1.1.0, very true! Everything else is buggy, including the messed up cockpit reflections. It's too late for any 'hotfix' now, ED would essentially need to release a 1.1.1.1 patch instead. We're not going to see 1.1.1.1 until well into next year, trust me. This is so much screwed up in 1.1.1.0 that there can not be a quick and easy 'hotfix'.

Haha, yep. :smilewink: Yanking Paul's chain there a little. I'd better watch out though because he's active duty AF stationed out there in between the Crackers and the Gators (not sure which of the two is worse). Makes a man mean living under those kind of conditions. How did that old Charley Pride song go about "the meanest man in Waycross, Georgia...." They'll find me with the bats and the bears in Miller's Cave! :( But yah, if DCS were to hotfix the canopy reflection mess that would be uber-cool considering all of the new stuff in 1.1.1.0. I guess I'm just too addicted to the immersion factor with the feeling of having the glass around me and stuff, but to each his own. 1.09 still has it, so I can hang with it. :pilotfly:

It should have never been broken in the first place. 1.09 had really nice and realistic canopy reflection effects, and in fact this detail was a touted feature of the 1.09 patch. 1.1.1.0 essentially breaks the reflection feature, or at least messes up the effect so completely that it's more annoying than anything else. One must assume that DCS will take months to fix this now, that is assuming another patch will even be produced in the future. I won't beat the issue to death on here, but I certainly have no interest in investing in another DCS product like BS2 until they get their act together.

Hi Paul, I'm not too worried about the tankers causing CTDs (known issue). Refueling is pretty boring and I hardly miss it.

1.1.1.0 patch = almost no canopy reflections now due to a bug that wasn't fixed before the patch was released. I rather dislike flying around with an 'open canopy effect; therefore, I personally am going to go back to 1.09 and I have to now reinstall everything to do so. :joystick: It sucks to be me in other words, lol. Also, Nate politely thanked me for my disgruntled sarcasm, lol. Any more questions?

Well howdy shoot! You boys can keep your 1.1.1.0 patch and it's new bug(s). :cry: A long time ago in a land, far, far away, software developers actually beta tested their software before release so that things like this wouldn't happen when the end-user installed on their computer. I mean, the idea of patching software is to generally improve it, not render it something less useful. Oh well, thanks DCS for wasting my time downloading and installing the patch, along with having to reinstall 1.09 now. Yippee. :pilotfly:

Nate, could you please elaborate? Are you saying that my installation is buggy or that the 1.10 patch introduced a new bug? Thanks -

Canopy reflections almost all gone with 1.10 Wow, just wow. I thought DCS had finally gotten canopy reflections right with 1.09, but now they've reversed course and almost completely done away with glass reflection with 1.10. Sorry, this sucks big time. Completely gone are front windscreen reflections, and in place of such are now the tinted side front screens. Sucks. The total immersion feeling I had in the 1.09 cockpit with the tuned windscreen reflections is gone. 1.10 looks more like an 1980's sim now in this regard. No HUD glass effect like in BC2, just a projection through clear "air". When I first loaded up 1.10, I thought I'd left the canopy open and had to double check it was closed. The loss of effect is that bad. 1.10 is taking two steps forward and one step back visually. I'll be going back to 1.09 now in short order. :mad:

I've never managed to get a ground-based JTAC to use an IR pointer on any of my night missions - not sure why. What I have found that works consistently is to use an airborne helo like the Kiowa as a AFAC instead. The Kiowas will happily sparkle a target any time for whatever reason.

How to use Steam key with DCS installer.... I wonder how exactly one goes about this process of using a Steam issued key with the DCS 1.1.0.9 full installer? Do I have to first deactivate a Steam installation before doing a full DCS install? Thanks for any info!

If you have Google Earth installed on your computer (free download from Google), you can go to the following website and download a MGRS grid overlay app for GE that will let you zoom in on any spot in the world and get the MGRS coordinates down to a 1 meter resolution I believe. Kind of fun to go to the Georgia region in GE and zoom in on the real Batumi airport, etc. :) App for MGRS grid overlay is here: http://www.earthpoint.us/Grids.aspx

Excellent video tutorial!!!! Sir, Yours is one of the single-most lucid, informative, and "digestible" video tutorials on CCIP/CCRP bombing for the DCS A-10 that I've ever come across, wow. :thumbup: I think the mods here need to sticky this post ASAP. I've never fully understood 3/9 and 5 mil bombing modes until having viewed your video on the subject. Please make more of these!!!!! You really have a flair for effectively communicating a great deal of readily consumable knowledge on a complex subject matter. :smartass:

Here is a takeoff speed reference chart for the A-10: http://www.dcswiki.com/index.php?title=Rotation_and_takeoff_speed_chart_(A-10)

In the real A-10, and also in the DCS Sim, you will always fly indexed AOA (angle of attack) speeds on final approach instead of calculating a Vref. The AOA indexer lights are situated on the left frame of the front windscreen and will automatically illuminate when the aircraft in configurated to land (gear, flaps down). The orange 'upwards' pointing chevron light illuminates when the aircraft is configured to land and you are well over the optimum approach AOA airspeed (read, you need to slow down). When both the yellow upwards pointing chevron AND the green circle (doughnut) light are illuminated at the same time, you are slightly faster than optimum approach AOA. Finally, when you are at the correct approach AOA, only the green doughnut light is illuminated. The reverse sequence is true if you are too slow on approach - when both the green doughnut light and the 'downwards' pointing orange chevron are illuminated, you are slight slow on approach. When only the downwards pointing orange chevron is illuminated, you are too slow on your approach speed. So in short, slow down or speed up on final approach until only the green doughnut AOA light is lit, and then hold that airspeed until flaring to land. :smilewink:

Thanks, I'll make super sure I have only a 65D loadout and give it a shot again.

Good info, thank you.

Dang, you programmer people is smart. :smartass: Thanks for clearing this up.

I promise that I'm both equipping and selecting IR Mavs. :pilotfly: In fact, that's the very first thing I checked. Are you saying that you are getting correct imagery behavior with your setup?

You DO have the ignition key properly inserted before attempting engine start I assume? A lot of new pilots overlook this....

Hi, I've noticed that whether employing either a CCD (visual image) type Maverick, or a IR (infrared imaging type) Mav, that the display on the MFCD is apparently always a visual CCD type, regardless of the selected Maverick. In other words, the IR Mavericks in the DCS Sim don't seem to actually simulate infrared imagery correctly and instead simply always display CCD images. The Boat switch with IR Mavericks also seems to only change the tracking gate and pointing cross symbols instead of making the IR Mav display image BHOT or WHOT. Is this correct? The targeting pod IR imagery by contrast works exactly as I would expect in this regard.

Although this procedure works great with the DCS Sim, I wonder if pilots would actually do this in real-world combat? With the sim you can acquire targets with the tracking pod that the slaved Maverick's camera barely even registers (even though it will still lock on to, however.) In a sense, you're almost firing blind because the slaved Maverick is tracking a target you can barely make out on the Maverick's camera display in the MFCD. In real life you wouldn't be able to make absolutely sure the locked target in the tracking pod and the Maverick's camera are both looking at the same thing - even though they SHOULD be. Does this make any sense? :cry:

Yah, I am wondering the same thing about ground stabilizing Mavs with the A-10?