PFunk1606688187

Yes and no. As far as I know you can substitute the Litening's model for the Sniper but the animations don't work properly. Also, even if the model swap did work properly it would function no differently so it would simply be a Litening II in disguise.

TL: DR - Terrain masking works.* * Within the understood limitations of DCS

These two things better demonstrate the moment to moment actions of realistic interactions between lead and wingman than just reading air force docs. The docs mostly just show the effects or results of tactics whereas these will demonstrate more the "how to" of squadron SOP which is generally not something you find officially published for general consumption. http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_092a.html This is video shows basically 1:1 what I do on a regular basis. Sadly about 50% of the story is missing because you can't hear Eddie's audio easily without having Stuka yelling into your ear due to audio imbalance. Note the emphasis on realistic. This is not most people's cup of tea by my estimation.

If there were a crisis sufficient for them to need to enlist dedicated Aggressor airframes to fight a conflict then I'd assume paint jobs are low on the order of priorities.

^ Indeed. Some people seem to think that 4K will magically solve this problem. I don't think they truly understand how remarkably poorly we can see in sims when not zooming to max.

People who have flown real airplanes that I've heard speak on the matter say its significantly better in real life, not a little. Whats more any person who's ever lived near an airport can attest to how easy it is to see an airplane thats quite far away.

Oh of course. Its better to read the manual in detail than to learn disparate elements of the systems as taught in a fragmented practical ad hoc environment. Its really just a shame that with all the detail in the manuals we're left wanting for how to apply it. Even without the tactics the CCIP element itself is demonstrative of the limitations of the available information. While we have an interface explanation we have no indication of even a training context application. Without even taking into account the very relevant tactical context, the basic application of general dive bombing is basically bread and butter Air to Ground knowledge yet is generally a discipline thats absent from most people's thinking even if they make ham fisted attempts at doing it. Its like being told to solve a math problem but being given none of the basics of the math necessary to do so. So I believe fully consuming the manual provided excellently for me learning better when I encountered the right tactics from others, but without being lead in the right direction the manual alone left me wanting and hardly able to progress further than being another TGP4LIFE dilettante.

Most of the value of an airbust Mk82 would be lost without a fragmentation model. It would be nice though to have it also create lots of smoke so it could be used for marking targets ala Kosovo.

There's no reason there couldn't be a supplementary tactics guide that exists alone. The problem with normal simmers is that those who have no exposure to military thinking or persons with military experience or persons with tactics based on influence from military people are often totally oblivious to how those systems are meant to be used and so they end up developing peculiar ways of flying. Its fine, they can fly how they want, but in the end the vast majority of people who fly in DCS have a pretty opaque understanding of how the aircraft would actually be used, and honestly given the density of the sensor capabilities in the modern jet you end up with people being overly focused on sensors and less on actually flying the airplane or understanding that achieving a given effect is not limited to using a given combinations of sensors and systems. Its really remarkable the rather fundamental military concepts that elude people, even when you take into account the full spectrum of videos and resources available. A perfect example is CCIP bombing. Barring two threads done by the same core people on these forums I can't think of any in community resource that adequately describes how to actually properly use the system as designed and in its correct context. What else there is is very simplistic and often incorrect because when people teach themselves how to do things, and then pass it on, they often internalize lots of incorrect lessons and bad habits, which isn't their fault because again the requisite materials are missing to adequately put that in perspective. Military manuals that are clearly delineated into categories of information are created not with the intent of being read in isolation but are instead meant to be incorporated into a wider body of available literature. The tactics can't be taught without the systems being understood first, but without the tactics the systems might as well not be there in many cases. A good chunk of the A-10C's systems are under utilized by your typical simmer because there simply is little to no available information on how to use them to their full potential.

People of course need to understand that the manual isn't a tactics manual. It doesn't really tell you how to fly the airplane tactically, it just tells you how to use the systems without that context. A lot of what the systems can be told to do aren't relevant until you understand the tactical contexts they were designed for. This is of course the greatest limitation of the DCS manual.

I think you can change whatever you want in the real airplane, but its a question of whether you would normally. The thing is you have to understand that this isn't just about a single sortie drop and go home, the systems are designed with hot loading in mind for multiple sorties per engine start in a hot conflict. In that case I'm not sure the A-10 jocks would be hopping out of their still running jets to plug their MDCs into laptops so that they can load everything correctly for the next sortie. If the hot loading involves adding different weapons to the last sortie they would need I assume a method for loading different fuzing types and such in order for all of those delivery calculations to work out. The symbology displayed during dive bombs takes into account fuzing in order to ensure it tells the pilot if he's going to fly through his own frag pattern. There's also the fact that you can drop Mk82AIRs without the ballute so live adjustments do seem like a factor in this too. But I don't know anything as a fact thats all conjecture. Someone who understands real operations could verify if any of that is correct.

THAT SONG? REALLY? Wtf is wrong with gearbox.

I think I remember reading something about French aircraft manufacturers having to use American facilities to test their carrier borne prototypes. Apparently its a thing, but its also a rare thing.

When I wrote lists of things I wanted for Christmas it was understood that my daddy (and mommy, progressive family right?) couldn't afford the man hours to pay for them all. However, by making the list known maybe my mommy (or Grimes in this case) might find something else that'd at least somewhat gimme close to what I wanted. Thanks mommy, err... Grimes.

Its a pretty useful tool in and of itself for just practicing recognition of launch and following into the correct pilot response in relation to the aspect of the threat. If all you wanted to practice was two pilots flying in tactical formation doing X, Y, Z normal ops in addition to keeping eyes out for MANPAD launches and committing to the correct course of action as well as communicating it then it'd be a great tool. Lethality is not always beneficial in training if it fractures the on going process. Not all practice works well in the context of immortality and just flying into a single purpose mission area with no goal except to practice a single thing in isolation. Thats useful for its own purposes but its also not terribly realistic on the whole. Practicing elements in context has great value. For instance if we had fragmentation effects actually modeled then BDU-33s have great value since you can screw up, fly through your own frag pattern, still make several more passes, get told how you messed up later on, and in the process of the flight still practice and learn other things instead of taking damage and having to respawn. Certainly there are some real life limitations that the sim could take to another level. With scripting you could have all SAMs with versions that have inert warheads and self destruction before getting too close to the target aircraft to preserve the non lethal element while offering something they don't get in real life which is practicing actual evasion against a seeking missile, however to me that seems like it would take more work than just a Smokey Sam that fires in a given direction for a given time to a given alt when within a given range. I imagine it would most logically be doable with a rewrite of the MANPAD scripts with perhaps tweakable variables to emulate different things. I like the suggestion. Its got great value to people who fly the sim more realistically. (everyone should have the chance to fly the sim their way, right?)

I know it could do something, but I think it would be extremely fragile and basically incapable of defending itself except via wholesale avoidance of threats. Its hard enough for an A-10 to out fly threats that engage them, nevermind a prop plane thats basically going to be flying at least 1/3 slower. If you look at the history of that type of aircraft in the Vietnam war you'll notice that the Misty Fast FACs flying F-100Ds were created specifically because those slow flying prop planes were getting shot down in droves. The Misty FACs would fly at 400-450 knots over the target in order to survive, and this was really before MANPADS became a factor even. Misty FACs also suffered a 25% casualty rate with that capability. The prop planes suffered far worse. The real advantage helos have in that situation is being able to hide behind hills and kite the enemy. Fixed wing really needs to play a totally different game and so an armed recon/FAC type prop plane, even with modern goodies, is pretty much a sitting duck in most situations that aren't basically flying over Columbia fighting the drug war or something like the post war phases of Iraq and Afghanistan. The only real advantage that aircraft would have over an A-10 is cost and loiter time, but a loiter time thats only really beneficial to a mission longer than anyone is going to be playing.

So what you're saying is that the key to success in the Mig-21 versus 4th gen fighters face off is capitalizing on the complacency and incompetence of your opponents.

^ Thats not a cynical strategy at all.

Proceeds to make an argument for the AT-802U Any limitations involving the A-10 apply equally to the AT in the online context but the AT suffers more detractors and is far less survivable. Any methods one could use to survive in the AT apply equally to the A-10. That extra endurance is a wash in any multiplayer scenario anyway barring a marathon. The real difference in Ka-50 versus A-10 performance is how its flown in my opinion. But its all a joke anyway. DCS Crop Duster would inflame the forums too much. :P

Highly effective at being a significantly less effective A-10? With a service ceiling of 10000 and a speed that makes an A-10 look sporty this thing is a sitting duck anywhere that isn't Columbia. Its filling a niche that doesn't need filling, and filling it less effectively than something we already have. In the mean time DCS is dying for a high fidelity 4th gen fighter aircraft. Which one is going to sell like a hotcake?

More likely the datalink would be used to have some SEAD aircraft do the hard work of tracking these targets with the result appearing on the TAD for the A-10. This kind of tracking would be largely useless since if we're dealing with a static SAM system then its not moving easily and SEAD would be spending most of its time worrying about it, not the A-10. If it were a mobile system like the SA-8 then you'd see it on the RWR at an azimuth for a few seconds then if you ever had the same system paint you again it would be in a totally different position because people aren't stupid and snipers aren't the only ones who move after revealing themselves. Real life SAMs don't sit there making easy targets of themselves by staying turned on. Real life is far more complicated than this. Real life aircraft systems don't have their software set up to solve these kinds of problems because real life doesn't make this a relevant tactic. You can't get much more unrealistic than the way DCS players interact with DCS SAMs and their DCS SAM behavior. The capabilities of many systems are decently modeled but the behavior is not.

Whether the target is maneuvering or not is also hugely important. Since countermeasures don't have an effect against the missile then maneuvering is hugely important for defeating an SA-19. A non maneuvering target can be hit much further away than one that is forcing the missile to bleed most of its energy to maintain pursuit.

The SA-19 still uses the tracking radar to transmit guidance signals to the missile. I would assume a modern RWR would be able to detect this and differentiate that from standard pre-launch emissions.

I guess calling it triangulation was silly then. :huh:

Using the TAD to transmit coordinates requires a compatible datalink. Also, datalinks function on a radio frequency. In a real war with a near parity opponent you would see jamming of many types of radio.