stuart666

But it takes them so long to release any development. I was on the beta team and they were planning Challenger2 back in 2002. Took them 10 years to release a crewable one. Im not holding my breath for any major developments over the new few years.There still isnt any night combat, and there is still a pretty narrow base of vehicles. Im impressed by what they have done with it, and credit where its due. However its not a highly dynamic development process to be charitable to them. As I say, I would like a DCS tanksim. A broader market isnt going to do anyone any harm I think.

Tanks work en mass, so its not like we are simulating one tank vs A10 wings. Its more a case of maybe 4 A10s going up against a tank regiment with a company of Tunguskas. Looked at like that, a tank isnt quite as vulnerable as it first appears. Even a company of T80s with a platoon of Tunguskas and a squad of dismountable manpads, whilst vulnerable on the move, would actually be much harder to attack if it was prepared. Also, the British Army has Starstreak, a laser guided AA missile. Unjammable in other words. So even relatively small tactical formations can prove deadly to aircrew if they arent prepared.

Steelbeasts is a good sim, but as said the graphics engine is over 10 years old. It can be bettered in a number of areas I think, not least in modelling close air and artillery support which is abstracted. That and their Challenger2 is something of a bad joke. Something LIKE steelbeasts in DCS would get my money though, but as said, what lets DCS down in this regard is the lack of terrain. Trees can be driven through, and whilst from 5000 feet the world looks great, what lets it down is the lack of hull down features or other terrain. It may well we would have to put up with the latter just to make sure the flight sim component would have decent frame rates. If so, well fair enough, but it would definately bring combined arms alive. At the moment it feels more an exercise in moving counters around than any real vehicles. If anyone is serious about doing a tank dcs, contact me. Ive a number of manuals of British and Soviet tanks. The latter not surprisingly are in russian, but some of the diagrams will doubtless be useful.

Just thought I would point out that there is some good footage of the UH1 in combat in Vietnam to be found on Archive.org. Seems to be offcuts from a 1st Cavalry Division movie. http://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.31251 Interesting to hear the radio conversations, and how inaccurate the 2.75 rockets were when using the Mk40 rocket motor!

No problem, I just looked G Huey up and am pleased to see it survives in apparently safe hands, if at present unflyable. Im near certain I saw a Huey D last time I was in Weston Helicopter Museum.

Is this the original 'G- Huey' that was flying in the 1980s at airshows? That one got captured from Argentina in the falklands and was flying in those colours for years. Great shots, thanks for that.

Apparently they did use a chinagraph pencil on the windscreen of Huey Gunships in vietnam, just as you see in that Cobra. Maybe it would be an idea to make a texture with one on, though the negative there is you would never be able to turn the flipping thing off.

Has anyone tried getting a Cougar working on Windows 8? Would the windows 7 drivers work perhaps?

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Whilst its a shame, I guess I can see why they have done it like that at the moment. Hopefully they will open this area up a bit in the future.

Can I ask a question, is it feasible to have different optics for different tanks/afvs? Only if someone wants to model one for the Challenger2, Ive a manual for a challenger 1 which at least as far as the standby optics are concerned is reasonably accurate. Ive also a manual for a Fox AC, which should be reasonably accurate for a Warrior. Ive also some Soviet stuff, including a T64a manual. Granted we dont actuall have one in the game, but it should prove close enough for early T72 models. Ultimately the real weakness as its stands is the rather gamey means of fire control. Its early days yet and I dont blame them for doing it like that, but some means of trying to simulate fire control systems in a more sophisticated fashion for the future would be good. Good work here by the way, the mods you are working on clearly look to be the way forward.