DD_Fenrir

"OMG!!! The Air Force, after decades of experience, research and testing has decided to prioritise the survivability of it's it's aircrews over something that looks cool?!?" Seriously... some of you need to get out more.

Meme away mate; the issues that trash most otherwise legit Phoenix shots are partly to do with guidance (EDs responsibility), partly to do with the AI's superhuman ability to know exactly where an attacking missile is and defend perfectly (again, EDs responsibility) and partly with a whole lot of users not understanding that Phoenix performs best where the air is thin (cos it's one thicc momma) and expecting it to still be a 100nm shot missile whilst launching it against manoeuvring targets at medium to low altitude (disappointment due to own over-expectations/ignorance).

It's used exclusively for getting bearings to specific Radio Navigation Beacons; unless you (a) have one set for a specific purpose in mission or (b) know an airfield you wish to navigate to that has a beacon and tune accordingly, it's next to useless for any other navigation. In reality you'd reset the P8 compass (below and in front of the throttle quadrant) after a turn point and use that to correct your Direction Indicator (centre of your instrument panel) and fly off that, updating the DI every 15 minutes in case of drift.

This Is Why Clouds Are Often Turbulent – Airplane Academy However: Ergo, cloud = turbulence is not a truism. It's far more nuanced. Nuanced = more complicated = more coding time required = more expense Also = greater demand on your hardware. Would it be great to have? Sure. But it is likely well down the priority list, after the Vulkan integration, Dynamic Campaign and more dynamic weather manipulation by users.

I'd say that about covers it.

Black Widow = White Elephant Currently there is no night fighting environment or assets/technology to support it or any other WW2 era dedicated night fighter. Let’s get the WW2 day ops environment better completed before looking into night fighter operations.

The sheer amount of people who apparently lack the physics nous to understand the vast effect that changes in air pressure (and by direct proportion, density) play in missile performance leaves me somewhat incredulous. Let's start with a truism: peak Aim-54 performance requires a supersonic launch from 30,0000 ft+ against a hot, high flying, non-manoeuvering target At 30,000ft air pressure is going to be in the region of 25-30KPa. At 6,000ft it's going to be closer to 80kPa. That's more than 3 times the air pressure - ergo there are 3 times as many air molecules (density remember) that the missile body has to push against, 3 times as much air resistance; this slows the rate of acceleration of the missile whilst it is under power, limiting it's max achievable top speed plus it makes the missile slow down faster when it's in its glide phase. That's already brought your theoretical range down to 35nm. BUT THERE'S MORE! Don't forget that the AIM-54 in those high-altitude, long-range shots lofts to >80,000ft in order to benefit from even less air resistance, in the region of only 2-3kPa! That's 1/10th of the air resistance it would have had at 30,000ft and ~1/20th of the air resistance down at 6,000ft! But the 6,000ft shot would loft, right? Not necessarily - given the max range the WCS may not calculate a loft profile; even if it does, it cannot possibly loft the additional 40-50,000ft that the high alt launch loft profile gives you because the motor performance suffers due to the increased low altitude air density. Ergo the loft will likely be in the 33% of that figure, and give you ~15,000ft additional loft, which would take the missile to the ~20,000ft region. That equates to roughly 40kPa. That's still 13 times more than the air resistance at 80,000ft. Then, have your target make even a moderate missile defence and of course it's going to be scuppered. So, if you are: Below 30,000ft Under Mach 1 Targeting anything other than a bomber/transport that has limited evasive manoeuvring potential Don't expect your Phoenixes to connect at anything close to 100nm. Even maintaining those launch parameters, against fighters you need to compress that timeline to 40-50nm. Get slower/lower and those ranges compress further. What's so difficult to comprehend?

An "AIM-54" did reach Mach 5... sort of. The Mach 5 figure comes from here: NASA's plan to use an F-15 to launch hypersonic Phoenix missiles - Sandboxx But when you read just how many modifications NASA made to the missile to get it to reach Mach 5 you start to understand just how little this test missile has in common with a US Navy fleet missile. All of the internal components related to the missile’s guidance system and explosive payload were completely removed, including its guidance computer and radar tracker, leaving just its propulsion and control sections at the rear of the missile intact a new nose with slightly more sloping angles was added to what would now be primary and secondary payload sections with the same 15″ diameter as the original components. The primary payload section measured about 57 inches long and, based on the weight of the guidance section it replaced, could carry approximately 184 pounds worth of testing equipment. It's an AIM-54 in name only. Then there's the flight profile - the fact that the launch was committed at Mach 2 and that the missile was not required to make any steering corrections as it had no target widens the gap between it and a fleet Phoenix; there's so little in common here with an operational launch of an AIM-54 that it might as well be a completely different missile.

Got an odd one - trying the new Stennis super carrier functionality with Reforger but on mission 1, after trapping a second time none of the catapult crews accept you even after requesting launch via the comms menu. I was obliged to cowboy launch in full burner from the back of the deck! Wierd thing was after the final successful third trap I rolled towards a catapult to see if they would still would not take me and lo and behold, the director asked me to spread my wings! Peculiar!

Self-fragging with bombs is definitely a thing in DCS as I have unintentionally done it more times than I would like to admit. However, I agree that damage received from aircraft target debris should also be a thing, be good to see for the future.

Still occurring for me, now on Mission 1; seems to be trigger related to the success of the mission as I have been obliged to fly the mission many times. The times I was allowed to approach the carrier and land I only got a 50% success rate. Not sure why, as many backfires were downed and I received no message saying the carrier had suffered damage. On the others, following with a recall message after the Backfires and Vampires had been splashed, and a [Mission Success] subtitle appears, I get to within ~30nm of the carrier and DCS locks up. I am obliged to go to Task Manager to end the program.

Agreed. Plus a much more appropriate playground for the Bf 109K-4 and age 190D-9.

Hey, Scoobs, I just wanna say, no pressure, take your time, make sure you're satisfied to put your name to it before you release it into the wild. Looking forward to it!

The highest honour that can be bestowed:

So many variables! Let’s start with what you’re targeting; are you taking on fighters or bomber/transport types?

*Facepalm*

Whilst the D-25 sub variant of the P-51 is correctly too late for the Normandy invasion period it has negligible difference in terms of performance to the P-51D-5/10 that were entering service during that period. The primary unprototypicality it allows is the use of HVARs. That said a P-51B would be awesome! +1,000,000,000 for Bf 109G-6/14

Because it is NOT a 1942 Spitfire IX. The F Mk.IXc introduced in 1942 had a Merlin 61 rated at +12lb max boost The LF Lk.IXc with a Merlin 66 rated at +18lb was introduced in 1943 and was still in frontline service - at that boost rating - in January of 1945.

Ugra are not ED. Ugra have no control over the AI route finding code. Ugra want to make improvements to their Normandy map; what are their coders supposed to do? Sit on their hands and watch the company go bust around them as they wait for ED to fix AI route finding? I have no doubt that London or Paris will affect frame rates but nothing dictates that you have to play your missions over them; there’s the whole of Normandy and a swathe of Southern England for that!

Mostly agreed. The P-47D-30 (early) was available from late May 1944 however. Incorrect. They were introduced in early/mid 1943 and represent types still in the frontline in 1944 and reflect the performance of the models from that era. The I-16 is an outlier provided by a 3rd party and represents a separate theatre. Thus has no real impact on the conversation. Incorrect. It's an amalgamation. The format of the UK airfields available puts it squarely in April 1944. French airfields are more of a mish-mash, some Battle of Britain era, some even reflecting their post war layouts. Agreed in detail but the sentiment remains that currently, the majority of our WW2 assets are focused on a period in the ETO from 1943 till 1945. Are there gaps? Sure. Do I wish to these filled? Absolutely. But does it not make sense to spend development effort fleshing out that specific time period? Fill the gaps in the current chronology - not supply random assets from irrelevant theatres or campaigns that are not useful in recreating prototypical operations.

DCS: WW2, as it stands, is currently simulating a 1. late war, 2. daylight, 3. tactical operations environment. The He-111 and Wellington are chronologically and operationally irrelevant in this scenario. B-26 and B-25 for the Allies make sense. They were slated for the Asset Pack and hopefully we will see them included in the near future. The Luftwaffe bomber issue is more knotty. There are a few chronologically relevant types, the He 177, Do 217 & Ju 88S, for example. The issue is these were almost exclusively used nocturnally. The days of massed daylight Luftwaffe muti-engines bombers in the ETO ended in 1943. Don't let the search lights fool, you, DCS: WW2 cannot simulate an accurate air-to-air night-fighting environment currently - no GCI for either side and no radar equipped night-fighters. Sounds like you chaps want to re-create the Battle of Britain.... Not a thing in DCS right now.

Whilst I agree with the overall sentiment, I don't belive that there's sufficient performance head-room available in DCS to allow a mpa of that size scope and detail in the near future; personally. I foresee the Netherlands/Belgium/West German Frontier more likely being where the Channel map will eventually expand to.

Regarding RAF Thorney Island: This shows the hangar locations: And one of the few pictures I can find of the hangars: These are C type hangars; the hangar type generally measured 300 feet (91 m) in length, with a width of 152 feet 5 inches (46.46 m), and a clear height of 35 feet 4 inches (10.77 m). They came in a few variants but the ones at Thorney Island seem to be a 1938 arrangement. Similar models can be seen at Scampton and Northolt:

What would be better going forward for ED is to make every asset in a map, be it texture, tree, or building model contain a metadata field of what dates it should appear (i.e. from= 25/06/1944, till=29/09/1944) and tie that to the mission date as selected by the user in the ME. You wouldn't even need to supply that data for every asset; if left blank it could be programmed for the system to understand that this means the asset will always appear, no matter what date is set; thus you'd only have to concern yourself with applying the correct data to those assets that should change. That way depending on date a user could see some field textures and surrounding trees... or an Allied ALG. Or is that too simple...?