Biggus

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.

Yeah, I'm wanting to hear this story, because it doesn't align with my understanding. The EC-121 and WV-2 definitely used IFF systems, they were equipped with the QRC-248 which was able to interrogate Warsaw Pact transponders. This was in use a few years before Combat Tree was installed in Phantoms.

I stumbled upon this from the 1F-4E-1. I'm not sure how this would translate into the DCS startup options. I'd assume a check box in the mission editor for a pre-scramble alignment.

Not a noob question at all, I've had a hard time finding it out too. I'm inclined to believe it's the AN/ARC-159. It was used on the F-4J and S, and it's description is quite similar. 20 preset channels (225.0-399.95), an aux receiver with 18 channels (265.0-284.9). Here's part of the F-4G manual from 1979, which should be the same as the E. Sorry I'm not actually able to give you a definitive answer, but I'm sure someone will be able to tell us.

One thing that I consider more important than improvements to the ATC interaction is a revision and expansion of the AWACS interaction system. AWACS should be providing picture information as it currently does (but should be provided simultaneously on VHF and UHF) to everyone on it's advisory frequency. This is working reasonably well for the most part. But this is quite rudimentary and doesn't provide adequate situational awareness for pilots in platforms lacking modern datalinks. Players intending to perform air-to-air roles should be able to check in with the AWACS similar to a JTAC check in, and then be passed onto another frequency for specific tasking by an AI controller in the E-3/E-2/A-50/etc. Players should then receive more detailed information relating to their tasking, with greater frequency. If there are multiple tasks that may be available, perhaps the controller can prioritise threats or even leave it up to the player choose the tasking they wish to commit to. Unfulfilled tasks might prompt the AWACS to request the assistance of other players on the main AWACS frequency (and possibly on a designated common frequency, or on guard if the threat is serious enough). GCI stations should be able to provide similar tasking. But this only addresses airborne threats. So I propose something akin to the Hillsboro Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Centre EC-130s in Vietnam. An entity where strike/recon/logistics pilots can check in and request taskings. Where do these taskings come from? You could keep it very simple and have it do the ground equivalent of the current airborne early warning system where this entity just provides bullseye references for known ground targets Better though would be if you could have ground forces report to the ABCCC when they are in contact with the enemy. If the unit in contact lacks a JTAC/TACP capability, the ABCCC creates an AFAC task to support the ground unit and assigns a radio frequency to the AFAC. This AFAC could be human or AI. Ideally, the AFAC would be in a plaform that is able to talk to the ground unit for greater detail about where the enemy is, but that might not always be possible due to radio incompatibility. Given that we have some great AFAC platforms coming to the sim, I think some investment in the AFAC experience is warranted. Strike pilots could now check in with the ABCCC, be tasked with providing CAS and be referred to a frequency and location where they can be briefed and directed by the JTAC/AFAC. If a CAS tasking isn't being taken by anyone currently checked in, the ABCCC could ask over a common frequency for any available strikers to come to the rescue. Logistics pilots may also be tasked to perform dustoffs, resupply missions, etc. Then you could tie it all together. Have the AWACS and ABCCC communicate with each other. AWACS detects a SAM launch from somewhere it hasn't seen them before, so it tells the ABCCC and ABCCC creates a recon/SEAD/DEAD tasking. A JTAC sees previously undetected aircraft and relays this to ABCCC, who in turn tells AWACS, and AWACS creates a new tasking in response. A friendly CAP flight dies, AWACS asks ABCCC to create an SAR tasking, which in turn creates a new AFAC task. There would need to be a way to handle cases where players disconnect mid-task or accept a task and then don't attempt to fulfill it, cases where tasks are generated but there are not enough assets available to perform the task, or cases where current tasks are suddenly made lesser priority by the appearance of a new threat or situation, but I'm sure these would be surmountable. This is all pretty huge. It would certainly add a bit of dynamism to missions, and it leaves players with the option to either ignore it outright or continue using AWACS much the same as it is today if they were conducting their own self-directed missions. There are probably huge holes in this, but it was something I've been thinking about for a few weeks now.

I recall something similar to a stored heading alignment being available. It will still likely take a few minutes to warm up though.