primus_TR

This is from the first post in this thread. It's a very useful guide and it'll answer all shrike-related questions if you take the time to read it

Fingers crossed

Except, our dear Jester cannot gain experience, learn from mistakes, and get better over time. It'd be amazing if Jester was capable of 'learning. '

Well I'd read about it on the wikipedia page for S-75, so I'll take your word for it.

From what I've read, combat tree is only for sending a fake friend response to soviet interrogation, and could locate some soviet transponders without having to find them on radar, like how you can see friends on your radar screen without having to point the beam at them. And also soviets fixed the exploit very quickly. In other words, combat tree was not a game changer by any degree, from what I've read.

I agree with most of what you said, except this part. On the contrary, he lowers gain too much too often to pick up any targets, which I believe is one of the reasons why he often cannot detect targets until too close (<5 miles), whereas I can detect the same target far out (>20 miles) by increasing the gain, especially when feet wet.

I had read that the North Vietnamese pointed radar beam to the side, and then turned it off to confuse early shrike seeker heads. Not sure if this is modeled in DCS. In my experience, I can get a SA2 search radar (flat face) without fail ever time with the correct seeker head for it, but the fan song I can get only when it is guiding a missile at me, that is, when both the shrike and the sam are in the air. Very ineffective and risky but that is the only way I can score a hit with a fan song (sa2 taking radar)

I haven't watched the track but shrikes will guide to a tracking radar only when it's actively guiding a missile (at you or someone else). Try it against the sa2 search radar and see if it works.

Wrong subforum?

Yes, looks like there are many placeholder sounds.

You could try binding a key for closing the manual, if not already assigned. There are three controls: open, close, toggle.

Although not very often, I experience this also. Master arm on, gun selector on, pinky switch to left position to gun, and ARM showing in both places. But the guns don't fire. Usually during strafing runs.

Every radar has a different pitch. For example, a Mig23 radar has a lower pitch than a Mig19 radar, but a higher pitch than a Mig21 radar. F4 has a lower pitch than Mig21, but higher than Mirage1. And be sure that the handoff button is not pushed in; it makes the radar which is the primary threat sound continuously.

I noticed this also. This is one of the reasons, in my opinion, why he usually detects targets when they're already very close, if at all.

Be sure to keep the reticle on the target throughout the attack and remember that the target aspect/closure rate may change from the moment you press the trigger until the missile leaves the rail, which takes about 2 seconds in total. In my experience, BST shots track correctly 60% of the time.

Manual tracking is only relevant for jamming targets. Otherwise there's no point to using it. But I agree that in DCS, the boresight mode is more effective for employing AIM7s than regular search and acquisition, partly due to Jester being not very efficient in his role.

Some times he does call false locks a good lock, too. I always check target altitude (aspect switch on nose setting) to verify a good lock. False locks usually show 0000 altitude.

Anything from the 60s and 70s would be a first-day prepurchase for me.

This.

For the direct mode, the bombing calculator report mils about 20 more than it should. Could be non linear, so take that with a pinch of salt. If the calc says 120, I set it to 100. Usually works. But why not use dive toss instead? If you can keep the reticle steady on the target until radar lock is achieved, and not pull up and maintain the dive angle and wings level when pickling, 99% of the time you'll score a hit.

At the bottom of the controls page for F4E (pilot).

That's actually a very good tip. Last night I tried doing some manual gain and elevation fiddling from the pilot seat, and found that if you can find a target that way, Jester picks it up immediately. So, very useful tip. Thank you

I think he's referring to F4 Jester.

To help me understand, how can you be in the WSO seat and let Jester find the target at the same time? Do you mean, you find the target and then switch back to pilot seat? Or do you adjust gain and elevation from the pilot seat?

@Zabuzard I have a question about Jester's detection algorithm. Can you take a look at the following screenshot: In this case, there is a co-altitude bogey, left 5 degrees at 25 miles. This is a head-on Mig 21 with full Air to Air loadout. I can clearly see it. Should Jester be able to detect this? In this scenario, Jester could detect this target at 6 miles in one occasion, and in others (most of the time) he cannot even detect it. I am trying to understand the algorithm that Jester uses for detecting targets when the antenna is aimed at a target at the correct elevation. How does background noise factor in on how Jester can tell a target return from background noise? Thank you.