Biggus

Thank you, @Temetre and @draconus for pointing that out to me. I noticed something interesting @IronMike and I'm not sure if you'd like me to file a bug report relating to this that might explain why some people still get the body showing when the 'show pilot body' box is unchecked. I had the box unchecked but was still having the body appear each time I loaded in. I was able to fix this behavior by checking the box so that 'show pilot body' was enabled. I then loaded into an instant action mission and immediately quit. I then unchecked the 'show pilot body' box, loaded an instant action mission and there was no pilot body. I think that if you never interact with that option, the ["show_pilot_body"] = false line is never written to options.lua. So when I enabled it, it added the 'show pilot body' line and then disabling it set it to false.

I can't see it listed.

Is there a way to permanently hide the body. I'm one of those weirdos that hates seeing a body in the cockpit and finding the right key combo in VR can be a bit of a pain.

I disagree that the Navy had "very little concept" about the purpose of datalinks. SAGE was already quite successful for the USAF, I suspect the Navy knew exactly what they were doing when they began developing their own systems. Technology-wise, I'm not sure what you're expecting. You're focusing on one campaign with severe operational, geographic and meteorological constraints, discussing one platform that is not going to be usefully relevant to control of shipboard fighters, criticizing a different system for not being able to detect and identify contacts and then concluding that the datalink isn't useful. Vietnam is an interesting conflict to study when it comes to air warfare, but it's not the whole picture. The AN/ASW-25A was a one-way datalink. By definition, data was only transmitted one way. Either a ship or an E-1 or E-2 transmitted data to the fighter. The fighter could not transmit data. The fighter could be maneuvered by the datalink, or it could be maneuvered by the crew according to directions transmitted to the fighter by the controller in the Tracer/Tracker/ship. It was battle-tested and was found to be useful enough to be incorporated in future USN Phantom production, and retrofitted to existing USN Phantoms. The tactical manual I referenced was written after Topgun was established and it devotes an entire chapter to it's usage. The purpose was to make fighter control more efficient. You mentioned detection and IFF: Getting human eyeballs into a position to visually identify contacts is your IFF. That's just one element.

US Navy Phantoms did. A squadron's worth of F-4Bs were modified with a two way pre-Link 4 system in the early 60s. These were eventually redesignated F-4G and served in the Vietnam war. Eventually these aircraft were returned to standard F-4B configuration (and as we all know, the G designation was later used again for the USAF Wild Weasels). The F-4J used Link 4A with their AN/ASW-25A receivers. These were retrofitted into F-4Bs and were therefore present in both F-4Ns and F-4Ss. These were coupled with the AFCS so that the aircraft could be remotely steered by a controller. If the crew was maintaining control themselves, there would be a steering dot for a single contact inserted in alternating video frames with the radar. There was also a unit in the cockpit that displayed a limited number of possible commands to the crew. This datalink also provided for ACLS when coupled with the approach power compensator. However this was the only mode where throttle control was not directly controlled by the crew. There was no offboard throttle control in that regard. It was a very controller-centered capability. The Phantom could not send information to other aircraft via Link 4. It's a very limited boost to situational awareness overall. Very reliant on a controller to provide both data and voice command. The Tomcat had a slightly different datalink system using Link 4C, which was two-way. That and the TID are real situational awareness enhancements that the Phantom didn't ever have. There's a great section about Link 4 in the F-4J/N/S Tactical Manual from 1972, it's well worth a read. USAF variants, I don't believe they used any form of datalink.

The only high end thing about the Warthog is the price for what you get. The throttle is a pretty decent product. The stick is of reasonable quality. The gimbal is not good. If you truly want something that is representative of something from a fourth generation US fighter, Winwing is the answer. I've got an original Orion and it has been excellent. My main stick right now is the Warthog on a WarBRD only because I use the Viper more often, but the Orion stick is truly great quality. Anyone buying TM products today should be aware of how poor their support is. My last experience was two weeks between emails. That's two weeks to get an initial response, then another two weeks for their next response. All told, it was around six weeks before the replacement switch was finally posted. If my issue had been less straightforward, I shudder to think about how long it might have taken.

I don't think I would use the Viper nearly as much without your DTC mod, @SFJackBauer. I'm neutral on a Discord, I can see pluses and minuses, but if you were to set it up, I'd certainly join.

Thank you for putting up a roadmap and being so good at engaging with the community - not just in this thread but in the forums in general. It's great to see so many questions answered so quickly, and it really is one of my favourite modules in the sim. Is there a rough time-frame for being able to configure the laser codes for the LGBs? I absolutely love lofting them at great distance thanks to the Mirage's great low altitude performance and I'd love to be able to do it more online.

Is there any news on how far off the tool is for OpenXR? I can barely use my G2 at the moment with the cross-eye effect.

Bumping this, because it's becoming more important with the modules available now and in the near future lacking datalink. I'd be enormously grateful if bogey dope calls were more informative purely because we don't have an AI controller. "Hot/cold/flanking" is fine for general awareness and seems to be fairly correct to real life, but without having a controller to talk to, I often find that it isn't informative enough to run an intercept with my radar on standby unless I'm in something with a situational awareness display and a datalink. Adding a "track" callout with direction would be a massive upgrade with what I believe would be a fairly small amount of effort. Something like "Bandit, 230 for 50, angels 18, track north-east". But even better would be the ability to tell the AWACS that you are committing to a group called out via the F10 menu, and then to get greater detail. If more than one possible group exists to target, then select it via F10.

The A-4 is certainly pretty good to get an idea of the sort of environment you'd be employing it in. It's a very narrow azimuth window, certainly. Doubly so if you're trying to kill a rotating search radar. How it behaves will come down to the way the ground AI uses the radar in large part. If you're enjoying success with it now, I'd imagine that you'll be a little bit better with it in the Phantom. I lowkey hope that someone does an F-4G mod, and some AGM-78s.

Shrike was available on the E, four could be carried. There is a mode dedicated to AGM-45 employment in the weapons system, for lofting or direct delivery. An aural tone is transmitted to the crew over the ICS when the seeker detects an emission, and steering information is presented on the ADI. I'm under the impression that setting up a loft delivery requires prior knowledge of the emitter location. I vaguely recall something about a ten degree nose-down attitude required for direct delivery, too. It's definitely an interesting missile with a somewhat poor reputation, again for reasons that aren't entirely within the scope of DCS.

35 is the barest minimum I'd consider launching at. The missile is largely fine, within the limitations of the current DCS implementation. The all-knowing AI, not so much.

Not sure that 'override' is the right word, but as a front seater with HCU thumbwheel control, I can certainly confuse and/or annoy a human backseater if I move the control without warning them.

I've stumbled upon something I haven't yet seen shared here. The Cockpit360 Project, who I believe were the ones to create the 3D scans of the F-4C, G and RF-4C at the National Museum of the USAF have also managed to scan an F-4E at the Wings Over the Rockies museum. Unfortunately I've only found it on Facebook, but I'll take what I can get. I'm not an expert on the USAF variants at all but it looks like a DSCG bird to me.

Many years ago, the 104 was going to be the first third party module. There was a subforum for it. But for now, I'm glad it was posted as it's quite interesting to see the evolution of avionics that was the state of the art during the development of the Phantom. It gives a bit of context for just how revolutionary the Phantom really was.

Confirming this works.

On Tuesday, I posted that I was going to play with it a bit more, but at first glance it was an improvement. After spending a few more hours, I'm going to say that as a 3440x1440 user, "improvement" is an understatement. I'm now no longer spotting tiny black specks at 30nm against the sky. But I'm not losing track of things I'm merged with quite as easily. There's enough definition to draw my eye to the movement of a plane against the background when I'm in close. It's still not easy to keep track of things if I take my eye off them, but I feel as though I've got a chance now of finding them again if I lose them. I don't doubt there's still some tweaking to be done. But this is a massive step forward.

@Kalasnkova74, that was an excellent example of what I was trying to get across. Anybody interested in this sort of thing would probably find the Ault report and the Red Baron reports quite fascinating.

Here's a few that I've had saved on my system for awhile now. VF-92 VF-96 VF-31 VF-33 VF-114 VF-301 VF-151 VF-161 VMFA-235 And an interesting what-if I came across in my travels...

You're quoting a reply without considering the context, which was a reply where I was taken out of context. I literally said this immediately following the part you've quoted: I'm not pretending to have all the answers for this. I'd like to see some maintenance and reliability things implemented at a campaign designer level optionally when the dynamic campaign rolls out and leave it up to the designer to decide how to scale it all. I consider it somewhat important for immersion. That's all. My entire point has been that we can expect some weapons to function better in DCS than reality, because the real-life hardware was subject to damage that we do not need to worry about in a simulator.

With all due respect, you've selectively quoted me without the context and missed my point entirely. Does DCS model the effect of dragging a cart of Sparrows across half a mile of perforated steel plate to the revetment, often destroying the circuitry? Does DCS model ground crew testing the missiles before uploading them? This stuff mattered. If you don't model this, then DCS has to diverge from reality and the missile will perform better than it did historically. And let me say that I do not expect DCS to model this. But reliability of systems is something that I do hope ED spends some time on when the dynamic campaign is out beyond early access. Absolutely. Firing out of their envelope was a significant factor.

Well to be honest, the AIM-7E was abysmal in combat in reality. This is where DCS will probably diverge from reality. The weapon worked well in testing, but due to the fragile nature of the analog technology, poor handling by ground crew and logistics personnel and less-than-optimal pilot training, it had a less than stellar reputation. I would be surprised if DCS were to model any of this, and to be fair I think it's a can of worms that will need to be addressed at some point when we have dynamic campaigns with a decent logistics simulation. Credit where it is due though, it was the weapon the USAF used to gain most of their kills in Vietnam. But they spent a lot of missiles per kill, I vaguely recall the pk was around 11%. The comparison to the Skyhawk for bombing is an excellent one. The system was quite similar in operation. Radar boresighted at 35 mils on the gunsight, place gunsight on target and I believe the pilot originally had to request the WSO to lock. However, if the system was not maintained, the antenna would wander a bit. I recall one documentary where a pilot was commenting that after locking, he could see it moving. But later when he went to another squadron, the system worked well. There were also quite a few other bombing modes and there's going to be plenty of options when it comes to delivering iron on target with the DSCG bird. Later, ARN-101 came along and could basically fly the plane from the chocks to the pickle point and then back to the chocks. The USAF F-4 squadrons must have felt like they were living in Star Wars.

I read your question and it's surprised me how difficult it is to answer this question. You're missing the time aspect. Which then influences the technology aspect. So it comes down to how historically accurate your campaigns are going to be. The F-4E will be relatively dominant in air to air until the very late 1970s when the late Floggers come into service. Those are extremely capable opponents, and if you're trying to remain historically accurate, you aren't going to have anything better than an AIM-7E2 until the second half of the 1980s. You won't have an all-aspect heater until just before Desert Storm. At any point past around 1984, you'll want to be very careful about picking your fights. And by the time you do have -9Ls and -7Fs, you'll be facing R-27s in greater numbers. Even the R-23Rs are a threat - on paper they should have slightly longer reach than your Sparrows. But the Flogger should be more susceptible to problems with clutter in look-down situations than the AI one seems to currently be. The side with the best tactics will win the day, as always. On the strike side, you'll have precision strike capability from the factory in 1974 with the Pave Spike pod, but depending again on how historically accurate you're going to be, they only made 156 of them and it took a bit of time for them all to be made, so perhaps not every squadron had a pod for every bird at that point in time. Then around 1978, you get the DMAS birds arriving, and they're like proto-mudhens. And if DCS had LORAN, they'd have been even better. So for moving mud, the F-4E was an absolute monster at any point from 1974 onwards. Even without a pod, squadrons that valued the AN/AJB-7 would put in the maintenance time and found the system worked with respectable accuracy with iron bombs, though this wasn't true of every squadron apparently. Historically, it should be a very capable aircraft in general for the late Cold War. Had the USAF elected to send better variants of Sparrow and Sidewinder to the Phantom squadrons, it'd have been a bit more dominant until the very late 1980s. But yes, a 1974 F-4E with weapons it didn't get until the sunset of it's service in an environment where there are no reliability issues will be a very formidable module.

Definite improvement. It's hard to quantify. I'm going to spend a few more days playing with it, but so far I'm quite impressed. Well done @Why485, it's a great little mod.